Tidbits
Sleepover at Ikea - Maybe this is the only way to get to the $1 early enough…
A ramen bath - Japanese spa with special baths resembling instant noodles. I wanna play!
Old age homes for dogs - 1) Old dogs don’t like to be abandoned at strange places. 2) Playing with young puppies will probably cause the older dogs to die faster due to exhaustion.
A remote-controlled pigeon - Oh the poor thing…
An article on a brilliant method of teaching grade schoolers about bats and rabies. I smell a lawsuit.
Will trade beer for Crumpler bags. Tempted by the beanbag and messenger bags…
Photos
Off-balanced and Unsettled
March 09, 2008, 2:28 am
Too much stuff happened in the first two months of the year, and I’m finding it rather hard to concentrate on anything right now. Not on work-work, side-work, hobbies, cooking. TV’s still dead, no good movies. I picked up the DS again, finished Professor Layton and now starting on Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Except I can’t play it right now as I’ve left it in Brampton with my brother.
All my regular routines have been disrupted. It started with the week in Vancouver, then a few weeks later Mike went off to Oregon, and then suddenly after that, I found myself in Hong Kong. In two more months, I’ll be in China, and I’ve been missing too many Chinese classes for my own good, but they are all due to circumstances beyond my control.
Like Hong Kong.
So back during Chinese New Years, I learned of the news about Jerry’s poor grandpa and that my own grandma in Hong Kong (Dad’s side) suffered a stroke. She was having mobility problems for a few months now, but seemed to be doing okay, fighting with everyone to be kept out of a nursing home. We were told she was slightly paralyzed, but doctors said she is recovering. My parents had already booked flights to fly back a few weeks after CNY (almost impossible to book direct flights then) to check up on her, and it seemed it wasn’t urgent enough to rush back. We were still in the “let’s access the long-term situation here and see how it goes”. Maybe I can swing by Hong Kong in May when I’m in China to visit her, etc.
The weekend before my parents’ flight, we got the phone call. Then it was a mad rush to contact work and book flights for me and Gary to fly back around the same time as my parents. Left Saturday morning, got there Sunday. Visitation on Monday, cremation ceremony on Tuesday. All quickly executed and hassle-free. Why? Cause my grandma had made all the arrangements herself beforehand and paid for everything. Not because of some morbid foresight of her own death, but because she was fiercely independent and capable. She just does everything that needs to be done, all by herself.
Doing everything herself is what she does best. It’s her nature, in order to be a single mom raising four kids in Hong Kong back then. (My dad’s dad died when he was young, like 6) Though her story made me feel it’s not a good thing to always insist on your own independence, living by yourself, always doing things yourself, and not needing anybody. Cause then you die alone, because you don’t need anybody to be there and did not want to be a bother. Four children, eight grandchildren, but in the end, there was no one around.
The funeral itself was actually sort of interesting. She was Taoist, and their funeral rites involved those white robes and barley sack vest costumes you see all the time in Chinese movies. So we got to dress up in them, and spent the whole visitation time folding money and stuff out of paper to burn for her. And every time a visitor come, they need to bow three times at her shrine, and the immediate family have to bow back. They would then join in the paper folding, which we kept burning at the same time. The amount of paper money and stuff we burned was ridiculous. Poor trees. And I swear the fumes couldn’t be good. There were more rituals, chanting/singing priest, circling a water bucket (?!?), all rather distracting stuff. It’s a dying tradition really. Even now, everything is condensed and a weak shadow of how it was done in the old days. And nobody else in my family followed Taoism. I don’t think I’ll ever participate in another funeral like it again.
So I have only one grandparent left now. The other two lived to their mid-80’s. The remaining grandma’s mom lived till 100+, so we have high hopes for her.
Since flights were still booked solid around that time, I stayed in Hong Kong for a week more, and flew back the following Tuesday (arriving right before the snow). Did a bunch of touristy things the rest of the week. Lots of eating. Which turned against us at the end. Our flight had one transfer in Vancouver. That flight was rather unpleasant, as I think we caught whatever stomach bug my mom had. I was very thankful that the flight was fairly empty (pretty much everyone have a free seat beside them, or had three seats to themselves), because I had to run to the bathroom a lot to throw up; So it was nice to have an aisle seat and empty bathrooms. It’s probably a good thing we were on a domestic flight by then. If they had known we connected from Hong Kong, they might want to quarantine us or something. Got back to Toronto, still feeling crappy, Mike drove us back to Waterloo. Went to work bright and early the next day because I had training, made it to lunch, and had to leave. I had flu-like symptoms, achy joints and muscles, possible fever. No interest in food at all. Went home and slept the rest of the day. Woke up symptom-free. Completely. Could eat again the next day! Must have been the sushi…
So now I’m back, in full health. But still feeling blah. Motivation? Zero. Sigh. Hungry again…
Comments (2)
You probably only saw the tip of the iceberg of true traditional Tao funeral, especially in the modern age and in a city. My grandpa’s experience was eyeopening, full-blown since it’s in the countryland with lots of space, and just WOW
Canadian winter is glad to have you back, it’s like you never left because snow is still there and more
We should really go to temple and bai-bai to rinse off the bad and wish for the good.
2008 CNY will no longer be a good memory, and future CNYs will be anniversaries instead :(
Sorry to hear about your grandma. I’m so out of touch with everything, just heard about this from Jerry.
© Maggie Tam 2007-2009 www.onechopstick.ca
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