Debra Ho
EVERY day is a wedding day in mum's life. Her voice soft, she sings happily: "Love is not made of yellow gold. Carried on a red sedan chair, with drums booming."
Where did this second verse to the immortal Hainanese classic opera entitled The Butterfly Lovers, come from? The heroine was actually a beautiful young woman who disguised herself as a man to study at an academy.
Yearly, in Hainan Island, China, like most children there, my mother, Lee Fong Yoong, would watch a series of opera that were performed during the last few months of the year, sometimes from September onwards, for as long as a week.
She'd scoot out of her house just after dusk. Seated on the soft moist ground, her eyes would be glued to the garish painted faces and extravagant costumes of actors on the simple and bare stage.
The crescendo of their voices would create waves of excitement in the crowd. The older ones in the audience would sing along almost inconspicuously. Hours later, at 3am, mum — all giddy and excited — would skip along the embankments of her beloved rice fields, humming all the way home, having experienced the magic of the opera.
LIFE IMITATING ART
Mum's teenage years in Hainan Island was akin to a miniature opera itself. As a 14-year-old, mum lived with her beloved mother-in-law, whom she used to fondly call "grandma". Mum was the apple of her eye.
Grandma had a big collection of priceless heirloom dinner plates. One day, mum, who was more used to eating from coconut shell implements back in her own house, accidentally let slip one of grandma's plates as she was doing the washing up.
Shocked, she ran to the nearby pond — intending to do the worst. Just like the mysterious "Lady of the Lake" in King Arthur's tales, a beautiful lady suddenly appeared and held mum back.
"Don't be silly. Go home at once," she said solemnly to the quivering youngster. One plate fewer didn't matter. Grandma happened to be a gifted porcelain maker.
HARDY AND HANDY
Every bride's dream is to be "carried on a red sedan chair, with drums booming". There was a strange longing, a sense of unrequited yearning when mum sings it. As it turned out, it wasn't mum sitting in her red sedan wedding chair. She was actually running alongside it!
My late father, Ho Chee Kam, who was a government labourer, had puny feet, which were unfit to tread the banks of the muddy rice fields. He'd fall and ruin their perfect wedding day. These rice fields were initially pawned by dad's gambling father. They were single-handedly redeemed, plot by plot, by mum. She knew all her rice fields by heart.
Like the real heroine in The Butterfly Lovers, mum's talents also extended to animal husbandry. From cows in China to pigs in Malaysia, the country she returned to when my elder sister turned 5, her agricultural skills thrived.
Mum didn't own any pig farms, but she had about five pigsties for her different types of pigs, ranging from sows, piglets to those ready for the slaughterhouse. She built her own pigsties on a corner of the 2 ½-acre plot in Kuantan, then known as Tanah Puteh, which belonged to our grand-uncle's family.
The land was free for mum to use until it could be gazetted for housing construction (which happened about 30 years later). She'd feed the pigs with homegrown sweet potatoes and tapioca leaves, and they yielded the tenderest meat.
When the 40 pigs in Mum's record-breaking breeding effort perished due to swine fever, my eldest sister's ambitions of nursing overseas shifted towards a career in the Malaysian civil service, embodying the Bersih, Cekap, Amanah ethos.
Mum's eldest, Ho Wah Nam, who went on to work at the Royal Malaysia Police headquarters in Kuantan, eventually clinched the "Police Clerk of the Year" award. Mum easily broke through traditional male-dominated barriers, but the question remained: who would escort her to her rightful place in the red sedan wedding chair?
A GENEROUS SPIRIT
My youngest sister recently exclaimed just how kind mum has been throughout her life. Kindness is a trait instilled in her by her grandma. I remember the days when, upon selling her pigs, she'd chop up a whole roasted hog and distribute it to our Chinese neighbours.
During the monsoon, the village folk living around us in Tanah Puteh would help themselves to mum's "open house" of garden produce, comprising sweet potatoes, tapioca, papayas, long beans and more.
The kampung houses were built along both sides of a small lane near our house. This lane diverged into a few Chinese-owned houses. There were about eight Malay houses, seven Chinese houses and one big Indian house entrenched at the furthest end of the road, with cows in their various pens.
It was truly a muhibbah community. I remember how we'd all be invited to attend Malay weddings and eat rice with curry from their shiny coconut shells. The Malay men, in turn, would descend on our house and smoke cigarettes, shell peanuts and drink canned drinks every Chinese New Year. The women, meanwhile, would deliver delicious kuih-muih to our doorstep during Hari Raya.
OF SACRIFICE AND GRATITUDE
"You entered university via what?" asked a friend of mine. Yes, it was via mum's friend's 4D lottery ticket winnings. I had quietly applied to enter university without mum's knowledge. When I told her that I'd been accepted into the university, she answered sadly: "No child, you can't go to university. We have no money."
The very next day, while cycling to town, mum met her bachelor friend, who'd worked in the same restaurant with her as a cook. He had noticed mum because after the heirloom dish incident back in her grandma's house in Hainan, mum went on to become the best dishwashing lady in the restaurant!
As the story goes, this cook enquired about me and when he learnt of my plight, he immediately offered to give mum the money. Little did mum know that this cook had won big-time in the 4D draw. He was not in the least bit concerned about the fact that mum might not be able to pay him back the RM3,000 that he gave her. He knew my dad's salary as a government servant, cleaning drains, was mere pittance.
A few days later, walking past a 4D shop, on a hunch, mum sadly retraced her steps, took her only 50 sen ikan kuning budget allocation and exchanged it for a 4D ticket. And guess what? Loan settled. And mum also bought our first TV set! Imagine, having majored in broadcasting, I would go on to work in the television industry for more than 30 years. But that's another story!
Mum was the one who sacrificed the most for me in my family. She once hauled me on her shoulders and walked all the way to the General Hospital, located about 25 to 30 minutes away, after midnight when I was 12. I'd been suddenly struck with debilitating fears and had become hysterical. I'm sure the entire kampung heard my screams.
A CELEBRATION OF LIFE
Ever since I became mum's part-time caregiver a few years ago, I've heard her singing different stanzas from her own composed songs almost daily: "I have rice, I have money. I have grandchildren who studies and studies (scholars). Together our strength is mightier than the skies."
Mum also gave herself a new name: "Show Mi Mi". In the Hainanese classic opera language, show mi mi means smiling from ear to ear.
Mum was all smiles when I celebrated her 101st birthday last month and sang her own heavenly song, "Jesus sayang Show Mi Mi, first and not second. Thousand decades and billion years, Jesus sayang Show Mi Mi".
She's said excitedly, "God implanted these lyrics into my heart". Rest assured that every day is her wedding day now. Finally well-ensconced and fully seated in her heavenly red sedan wedding chair, mum knows her greatest inheritance is to be loved. Sayang. Yes, mum says it in Bahasa.
I'm all smiles too when my heart reminds me that the one whom mum sacrificed the most for will be the one to take care of her in her old age. Without fail, mum would kiss me, the chief executive officer of Pee & Poo, daily, biting my hands playfully, kissing the whole length of it, slobbering and saying "Thank you," in three different languages at times — Hainanese, Cantonese and Bahasa.
Mum's favourite birthday cake costed just RM5.60. Celebrate love, celebrate life, mum. Together we will sing "Jesus loves me first, not second, thousand decades, billion years…"