Family Feud 

No, I don't mean the stupid game.  I mean the bitter quarrels between family members.

I came home 12 hours too late to see my grandmother.  So today, I went to her funeral instead.

Since this kettle didn't even make it to her grandma's sick bed; I really shouldn't complain about my black-pot relatives.  But still, it's darn low to call my family in the middle of all these to argue about who should handle our grandpa's ashes.  

When it comes to inheritances, it's "yep, yep, thanks.  We're the sole male line in the family.  We will take all the properties."

When it comes to health care, funeral services and cemetery arrangement, it's, "father said you should handle it before he passes away."

"We already applied but there are long waiting lists for all cemeteries in Hong Kong.  If you don't want to keep it in your apartment we can bring it back to our ancestor's house."

"But our father wanted to remove grandpa's ashes from our ancestor's house before he passed away."

"Well, then keep it in your apartment."

"But our father said he wants you to find a place in the cemetery before he passed away."

Well, I, for one, would like to know, whether uncle wanted them to starve grandma before he passed away.  

Whether he told them to shout at grandma and shake a finger an inch from her nose and scream at her until grandma breaks down and cries on and on, before he passes away.  

Whether uncle instructed them to tell security, "call her other relatives, she is none of our business," when she had a stroke, before he passes away.

They are happy to quote uncle when it's convenient to them; yet manage to disregard everything he said about family value and respects for elders.  In fact, they even managed to disregard our rental contracts.  We paid rents for their apartment as a storage space in HK while we were in Canada.  But when they moved to HK to look for work, they were happy to live in the apartment that my family was paying for; demand us to continue to pay, AND ask us to move the boxes out . 

I just can't believe these are the cousins I grew up with.  We made naughty rhymes together as kids; had secret meetings to outsmart adults in elementary school; spend countless nights talking and crying together until we fall asleep as teenagers, lamenting over chinese parenting, over cultural conflicts between the generations, over boys and betrayals.  When my little cousin left her family for college, I cried for her.  I knew what it's like to leave your family behind, and I never ever want her sad or lonely.  I loved her as though she was my own sister.

Yet now, they are angry, cold, cruel strangers.  A part of me still want to deny the cruelty that I witnessed.  It's easier than to accept that my beloved little cousin is capable of it.  Over and over again, I have to wonder what happened to them.  Didn't we grew up together?  What was it that I missed?  You know, I'm darn poor.  I haven't got any car or house; all I've got is a couple of old, battered kayaks.  But I'm just glad to have my family.  I don't want to be like ... them.  I don't want to be angry at the world.