Tai Po Eight Goddesses 

I stayed up all night last night to "keep vigil" for grandma.  In reality I just couldn't sleep.  I thought I would go crazy if I sat in my room any longer so I took the first bus out of Disco Bay to the Airport, then took the Tai Po Bus from the Airport.

The ride was amazing.  I was surprised to find myself intrigued.  I've paddled under the Tsing-Ma Bridge many times but that was the first time I actually used the bridge.  It was still dark out and everything was still so quiet.

I tried to fall asleep on the bus; the rocking of the bus and the train helps me sleep sometimes... but not today.  The scenery was interesting enough; but I had other things on my mind.

From Tai Po Market, I took a bus to Tai Mei Tuk.  There, I laid down on a stone bench just in front of the sea; and stared into the 9-goddesses mountain bathing under the rising sun, across from this small, calm stretch of water.  

The goddesses ... it's silly, but I wondered if Chinese believe dead women with good confucian values become faeries or goddesses the way good Catholics become saints.  I didn't spend a lot of time watching grandma yesterday.  Her body was covered; but her face was so bony and waxy, I could hardly recognize her.  She used to be such a strong, plump, vivacious woman; but now, she is just this pink, waxy, decorated figure.

But that waxy figure isn't death.  I think that's what bothers me.  I still don't know what her death means to me; I still can't put my finger on it.  

I lost my uncle a few years ago, and only now do I start to really appreciate what I have lost.   His death wasn't what laid in his coffin either.  His death was the undoing of our family unity.  Aunt is no longer the subservient housewife, she lashes out in angry outbursts.  My cousins no longer feel the need to be respectful to elders, they become cold and aggressive and harsh to the woman who loved and nurtured them since their birth.   Where there used to be respects and maybe love and joy, now it's just filled with so much resentments.   Where there used to be kinship and friendship and love, now it's just a bottomless abyss.

At uncle's funeral, I tried really hard to cry to be polite; but I just couldn't generate the tears.  Somehow, there on the stone bench of Tai Mei Tuk, I called out "popo," [grandmother] and my voice broke, and I cried violently like a lost and desperate baby.

I still don't think I understand what her death means to me, but what I failed to do in the funeral home, I managed in a cradle made of stones and sea and mountains.  I said my farewell, I shed my honest tears, and I found out in the end, I did love her after all.

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.