The Best Kept Secret
It really feels like I just upped and ran away this time. I’ve just returned from a wonderful week in my mother’s hometown in Malaysia where all my other family members reside. In many ways, I love going to Trengganu so much because it’s a familiar, laid-back place if there ever was one. Nothing much ever changes and the pace of life is slow, relaxed, and almost dreamy in comparison with the mad flurry of the city. I love that there isn’t a cinema and that there are so few big shopping centres in town centre that the main departmental outlet calls itself “The Store”. I love that so many of my family members live there and that I get to see my cousins whenever I go. The best part of this holiday, however, was that M got to come with me this time, owing to an almighty cock-up in the coordination of schedules with my other family members.
Which suited me just fine, of course.
We were a little nervous at first, that it was going to turn out to be a boring visit or that she wouldn’t like my family, but I’ve always wanted to share the bit of my heart that I leave in Trengganu with someone, and there’s no one I’d rather have shared with than her.
Trengganu is a lot like many parts of Malaysia, a lazy small town who’s inhabitants care more about enjoying life’s pleasures than getting ahead in it and for just five days, it was wonderful to have no aims, no pressures and no expectations hanging over our heads. Instead, we spent lazy days lying about the house and reading or playing on the computer while my grandfather dozed on the couch and channel surfed.
Every morning, we ate around the large island in the kitchen, smiling contentedly at each other over buns or nasi dagang. Every afternoon, M spent some time on the computer while I took my grandfather for walks round the garden, each round remembered with an angsana seed in his pocket, and massaged his shoulders in-between.
One morning, we went to town and met my Gee Tiao Kong whom I seldom get to spend time with on busy Chinese New Years. This time, we took a leisurely stroll with him in the sweltering heat, dodging in and out of little shops crammed with antiques, curios and hanging batik. We walked round The Store and then Gee Tiao Kong took us back to the shophouse where he lives and showed us around. I’ve loved the shophouse since I was a little girl. We go there every Chinese New Year and to me, it is a treasure trove of memories and mystery from the dark, cool little antique shop in the front to the unevenly-sloping linoleum-floored rooms on the second floor. The steep wooden staircases and little nooks fitted with shelves always provided wonderful hiding places and little gambling dens for our improvised games of blackjack and bluff.
This time, I looked at the shophouse through an adult’s eyes and saw just how much space and time it held. The smooth concrete floor was worn smooth by years of feet and the eyes of my ancestors peered down at us from the yellowing photographs on the wall. Real, actual people, not stories that I’d heard, or eulogies from another time. It was a little like going backwards in time and I could almost imagine the days when my mother used to stay in the room above the store, shivering in the biting monsoon weather.
Another day, we drove with Tua Ee and Uncle Wru down to the dam in central Trengganu and stood in the hills, marvelling at the sheer size and beauty of the water that stretched and wound its way through the hilltops. Halfway through, the wind blew rainclouds into the valley and we ran, laughing in surprise, as winds laced with skeins of rain beat us back to the car. Waves stirred by the impromptu shower chased each other across the dam and M tried to immortalise the moment on her camera.
Later that afternoon, while walking around the estate, we picked sour berries from the trees and M stole a ripening mango from a neighbour’s tree. My grandmother couldn’t contain her laughter as she rinsed it in the sink and chastised us for our crime.
On the last day that we were there, my grandmother drove us to the beach to buy hotdogs and rootbeer floats and M bought a kite printed with a picture of a bird. I’ll never forget the way the kites looked on their makeshift rack, bright with colour and translucent against the sunlight and the azure sea.
A perfect moment, my happiness crystallised in the hand that held mine.
That night, the bus raced through the night bringing us back home and I looked out of the window while M slept, warm and quiet. The rivers and streams looked white in the night, like deep snowdrifts in a forest.
This trip has made me feel real again, made me look at the little things, the important things, the special things. To me, it will always be our oasis in time, a time when I can remember what it was like to just be, and be happy.
My father asked me last night to remember a moment in time when I was happy about something in my life. I didn’t tell him that it was this moment of five days, stretching like the perfect sea, the real warmth of the sun, the real touch of skin on skin. I want to go back with you once more, to finish the things we didn’t finish and to start the things we didn’t start. For now, the memory of this oasis will sustain me through the faceless pressures and expectations of the mundane.
This oasis, this love, this secret.
Which suited me just fine, of course.
We were a little nervous at first, that it was going to turn out to be a boring visit or that she wouldn’t like my family, but I’ve always wanted to share the bit of my heart that I leave in Trengganu with someone, and there’s no one I’d rather have shared with than her.
Trengganu is a lot like many parts of Malaysia, a lazy small town who’s inhabitants care more about enjoying life’s pleasures than getting ahead in it and for just five days, it was wonderful to have no aims, no pressures and no expectations hanging over our heads. Instead, we spent lazy days lying about the house and reading or playing on the computer while my grandfather dozed on the couch and channel surfed.
Every morning, we ate around the large island in the kitchen, smiling contentedly at each other over buns or nasi dagang. Every afternoon, M spent some time on the computer while I took my grandfather for walks round the garden, each round remembered with an angsana seed in his pocket, and massaged his shoulders in-between.
One morning, we went to town and met my Gee Tiao Kong whom I seldom get to spend time with on busy Chinese New Years. This time, we took a leisurely stroll with him in the sweltering heat, dodging in and out of little shops crammed with antiques, curios and hanging batik. We walked round The Store and then Gee Tiao Kong took us back to the shophouse where he lives and showed us around. I’ve loved the shophouse since I was a little girl. We go there every Chinese New Year and to me, it is a treasure trove of memories and mystery from the dark, cool little antique shop in the front to the unevenly-sloping linoleum-floored rooms on the second floor. The steep wooden staircases and little nooks fitted with shelves always provided wonderful hiding places and little gambling dens for our improvised games of blackjack and bluff.
This time, I looked at the shophouse through an adult’s eyes and saw just how much space and time it held. The smooth concrete floor was worn smooth by years of feet and the eyes of my ancestors peered down at us from the yellowing photographs on the wall. Real, actual people, not stories that I’d heard, or eulogies from another time. It was a little like going backwards in time and I could almost imagine the days when my mother used to stay in the room above the store, shivering in the biting monsoon weather.
Another day, we drove with Tua Ee and Uncle Wru down to the dam in central Trengganu and stood in the hills, marvelling at the sheer size and beauty of the water that stretched and wound its way through the hilltops. Halfway through, the wind blew rainclouds into the valley and we ran, laughing in surprise, as winds laced with skeins of rain beat us back to the car. Waves stirred by the impromptu shower chased each other across the dam and M tried to immortalise the moment on her camera.
Later that afternoon, while walking around the estate, we picked sour berries from the trees and M stole a ripening mango from a neighbour’s tree. My grandmother couldn’t contain her laughter as she rinsed it in the sink and chastised us for our crime.
On the last day that we were there, my grandmother drove us to the beach to buy hotdogs and rootbeer floats and M bought a kite printed with a picture of a bird. I’ll never forget the way the kites looked on their makeshift rack, bright with colour and translucent against the sunlight and the azure sea.
A perfect moment, my happiness crystallised in the hand that held mine.
That night, the bus raced through the night bringing us back home and I looked out of the window while M slept, warm and quiet. The rivers and streams looked white in the night, like deep snowdrifts in a forest.
This trip has made me feel real again, made me look at the little things, the important things, the special things. To me, it will always be our oasis in time, a time when I can remember what it was like to just be, and be happy.
My father asked me last night to remember a moment in time when I was happy about something in my life. I didn’t tell him that it was this moment of five days, stretching like the perfect sea, the real warmth of the sun, the real touch of skin on skin. I want to go back with you once more, to finish the things we didn’t finish and to start the things we didn’t start. For now, the memory of this oasis will sustain me through the faceless pressures and expectations of the mundane.
This oasis, this love, this secret.
She said, she said at 6:12 pm
4 Comments:
I read this and it was so beautiful I wanted to cry! When's my turn? Babe you should really write a book...you capture so perfectly every single moment of bliss
*smiles*
Perfect.
Simply perfect.
I remember a moment in time when I was this happy (even though it was very short-lived)...
but it's moments like these that become our brightest star during our darkest times.
Nicely written.
hey ...
din get yr reply the other day. Did i hit a raw nerve or something? Sorry if i did. =)
it's awesome to go on a trip like this isn't it? Especially when M is there. =)
Cheers!
There is something to be said about the love between a grandfather and his granddaughter. The easy banter outside cannot enter this communion. The stranger sitting by the desk is outside this circle. The little lie, of a night well spent, the strands of music from a little red harmonica, a strand of black hair curled against his white.
Something about this particular old man moves me. Who is he to me? No one. But seeing him, watching him, exchanging words with him, they move me somehow. More than anyone I’ve ever known.
Perhaps it is the simple knowledge that he is on the path that my grandmother took, one of having fallen and risen again. One of sheer determination. Leaving behind a legacy of fear, love-hate, but ultimately respect. Utmost respect for the man/woman.
Even at this age, there is something awe-inspiring about him. I wish I could go up and hug him, tell him how beautiful his music is, how it touches a chord deep inside. Beyond rhythm, beyond beat, beyond language itself. But who is he to me? How would he react to this simple act of human contact – so simple and yet so loaded with meaning.
And as he tells her, you sing, I’ll play along there is a promise beyond the song. There is a promise of commitment, and a promise that he’ll always be there, be it in flesh or in spirit. Just as she sits by him now, and I watch, trying to hold my emotions in check, wondering at them.
There is something to be said about this family. There is something special about them. A special warmth that I’ve long forgotten, one that is somehow missing whenever I return to my father’s roots.
There is something to be said.
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