June 12, 2005

I’m glad you told me about your parting from your husband. I had thought something was not right for a long time – you know, we never saw him here. I always wondered what kind of relationship you had, husband and wife separated by two oceans, two careers and two lives.

I know I don’t have to worry about you. I’ve never worried about you, you were the only one among all the grandchildren that I knew could take care of yourself. Never relied on anyone, not even on your family, eh. How much longer do you think you can work this job? Aren’t you tired? All that flying. Never on the ground.

How much dreaming are you going to do? Don’t argue, you know you’re a dreamer. I’ve known you since you were born. You dream of the great achievement, the grand romance, the great success. You dream you can do all of this. You dream you can push yourself beyond all odds – and you know, most of your dreams do come true. But at a cost, my dear. How much of your soul do you have left?

There’s a saying we have in the village. 99 years working for someone isn’t worth 1 day of being your own man. (heh heh I am 99 years old) If you are going to be putting yourself through this grueling schedule, might as well do it for yourself, and not for some boss somewhere else. You know that the Lows are meant to be their own boss. We’re too bossy for your own good. You, of all of the grandchildren, are the bossiest.

That’s what I did, you know. Took my life in my hands, owned my fate. Destiny be damned, I would either make it, or nothing. Such was our life, you know, as immigrants. It was to take a chance, to have guts, to dare. If we didn’t dare, we would have been nothing. And not everyone could do it – of the thousands, only a handful had that pluck to pick themselves out from the safe job and take a chance with their own wits.

There were those that didn’t realize the type of work, and grit, it took to be your own man. Sometimes even more than working for someone, because you had to make sacrifices, think for the future. Save every penny, take every advantage, look out for each little chance and each little loophole. Those coolies, they’d work for a godown, and make $10-20 a month. How much of that goes into cigarettes? Tea? Half their pay goes away to the newsagent or the coffee shop. Every penny, I tell you – I saved every penny. Some of them couldn’t even save up enough to buy the return ticket back to the old country, even after working for years – not to mention building a life of their own.

I had to, you see. There was no choice. I was apperenticing then, making $100 or $200 a month – half of that went to rent alone. How was I going to support a wife and two kids? It was impossble. The only way was to be my own boss. It wasn’t easy, I had to take serious risks, you know. When I think back on the chances I took – I never thought I would have such guts. It just wasn’t possible to let my wife and children go hungry. There would be no point it all then, would there.

So I went hunting around. You know the Chinese medical shop in Toa Payoh Lorong 4? That one that used to sell the really good sour plums, Returning Spring? Yes, there are several of them. The founder’s sons run them now, there are several in Singapore. You know, he had guts. He was the one that took the most chances among all of us, the riskiest, and look how he did! And he started out with furniture from a bankrupt store, herbs that were purchased by the ounce, scrounging everywhere. Haha when I think back to what we did in those days – young punks, nothing in our pockets but sheer guts…

You see, we were a hotchpotch of people that knew how to different things, but none of us knew the whole business. Some knew the pill-making business, some knew the herbs, some understood treatment and others understood the distribution and wholesale. So we had to look around and find people to work together, make the business function, you know? So however much they could contribute, that’s how much they would get out of it. Sort of a cooperative startup.

So this guy, he didn’t know much about herbs but he knew all about pill-making. Me, I knew about healing, medicine, treatment methods. There was another guy who knew all about the supply of herbs, and where to get them. And one more, I don’t remember what background he came from but he was tops in getting us what we needed – whether it was furniture, clothes, brooms for the store, anything. We never knew where he got things - sometimes it was better not to ask.

So there we were – a mix of people with a mix of goods. Our store countertops were taken from another shop that went bankrupt. We didn’t have the luxury to worry about good or bad luck back then – we needed countertops, or we couldn’t open the shop. I had to get supplies one little bit at a time – we didn’t have enough capital, so any bit of money we could scrimp together, I’d go out to the suppliers, and buy them one cent at a time. Each cent’s worth of goods, we’d then try and sell off for two cents. Like this, one bit at a time, we tried to make a living.

Cost! Oh dear that was the biggest concern everywhere. We scrimped at everything. Cheapest supplies, second-hand everything. We ate the cheapest foods, barely used any employees if we could do it ourselves. The biggest expense during that time was Tea Money.

No, not money for us to have tea. This was what it took to bid for the location. The lease at the time was only $50 a month – not a lot by today’s standards, but mind you it was a lot of money then. Especially when an average coolie’s salary was $80 - $100 a month. How were we, individually, to have that money? So we put together $50.. then we had to think about the official in the government office who needed to have “tea”. So we had to prepare Tea Money – it went hand-in-hand, no one ever thought about leasing expenses on its own. Without Tea Money as part of the calculations, it was a pipedream. During that time, leasing costs were $50 but the going rate for Tea Money was about $2,000. So you see, as much as Grandpa was able to work hard and save up, it was impossible for one person to put all that together. Partners were important. Each put in their fair share, to make up $2,000 – and each benefited from it.

The money that was made in the business, we split among us. A while later, we’d evaluate – if one person’s contributions were costing us more than what we were splitting out to him, we’d have a chat and then he’d leave. Very straightforward, you know – everyone understood what had to be done. Everyone knows how to calculate – the person that left would understand that he’d better off somewhere else too.

Thinking back we were quite brash. There were many examples of this – people that came from nothing, risked everything and having nothing with them but sheer guts, making a success of themselves. And it was a commitment! There was nothing frivolous about it – there was another herbalist, he was in partnership with a friend, now THAT was a story.

They were also scrabbling from the beginning. Like me, they managed to set up a business. Families were sent over from China, everyone had enough to fill their bellies. Then during the time of the Japanese Skies, both families abandoned their shops because they were worried about bombs dropping in the middle of the city. They moved into the mountains, set up shop in the mountains in these simple attap huts and managed to eke a living. Who knew, the Japanese bombers dropped one right on top of the huts that they had set up! Their city shops were fine, but that bomb in the mountains killed one of the partners. After the war, when they moved back into the city, one partner took care of the other partner’s family for the rest of their lives. There was no backing out – there was no way he was going to take on another partner, when there was another family to be taken care of.

The trials and tribulations of a person went into the business as well – there was no such thing as separating professional and person lives – that’s a modern invention. In the old days, everyone was in the fight together. The family of the deceased partner would take care of his family, two families lived together under the same roof, cooking each other’s meals and washing each other’s laundries.

Haha I’d like to see that in those fancy banks you work in these days! There’s no such thing, I bet – who would help each other out like that these days. You may all be making more money, buying bigger houses and faster cars, but there would be no one that you can count on. There’d be less daring, less risk-taking – everyone lives in a safe society where you take care of your own and your life has nothing to do with your neighbours.

Somehow there’s less flavor in that kind of life, don’t you think? The passion, the guts, they’re all gone. Something is lost from the spirit when that goes away.

June 6, 2005

So I hear that the wedding dinner(1) last night was joyous? A good occasion?

That’s good. Your other aunties told me the food was not so good. I suppose the hotel ballroom was very nice? Very elegant? And your aunty must have been in very good spirits! Even without sleep for nights preparing for this wedding.

You know your aunty has very good fortune in life. She was always very hearty and never fell ill seriously – she won’t get sore throats from eating heaty things, or stomachache from eating cold things. Like you, you see? Also like me.

It’s a lucky thing to have a sturdy and hearty health. People in the Old Village were all like this – they had to be, because there was so much work to be done around the house. You couldn’t take a day off because you were sick – a day off meant nothing to eat! So having many children was a good thing – with more children to help around the house, you could have a chance to rest.

But frankly, there were few that had the ability to feed more than one child. You know in the Old Village, everytime someone had a son, they hung lanterns out in front of their doors, and they’d hire cooks to cater a banquet for everyone in the village! EVERYBODY is invited, whether closely or distantly related, friends and neighbors and farmers and labourers. The quality of the food and the number of tables told people how welcome this new child is in the home, and how much the family is prepared to spend on his upbringing. So when it comes “hanging-lantern-dinner”, some families would spare no expense! Sometimes you had to refill the tables with more food, because people were so happy celebrating they’d forget to go home. Then the family would have to pay extra for more cooks, or send them running into the village market for more groceries

Sometimes family would go into debt, that’s how much they would be spending on these celebratory dinners. They forget how much they’d have to spend to raise a child, and just spent their time and money on that one dinner… some families would save money over a few years, and wait until the child was older before they’d have the hanging-lantern-dinner. Remember that they’d have one dinner per son that was born to the house! So some villagers were in so much debt, that the poorer folks in the village had a running half-joke… “Bear the second son, sell the elder son”. Supposedly to pay for the hanging-lantern-dinner for the second son!

The villagers were like that – very strange way of thinking. Certain things to them were indisputable – had to be done, no two ways about it. But of course such things were not to be done for the daughters – daughters were going to marry other people eventually, so the villagers don’t celebrate the birth of a child who eventually leaves.

But they’d spend money on them getting married! Oh how they would spend. Just like the hanging-lantern-dinner, they’d beg, borrow and pawn to put on a splashy and prosperous celebration for the matrimony of their children. Not just the wedding, mind you – but the whole process, from beginning to end, including the matchmaker to the fortune teller to the dowry gifts. Families were known to be driven to ruin from trying to celebrate the matrimony in grand style.

People get worried when the young folks weren’t married by the time they were in their mid-20s. But these young people who were still kids themselves had no idea what they were doing, I never understood why there was such pressure for them to get married when they were not ready. Parents were concerned that if their children don’t get married quickly, no one would want them – perhaps they were ugly? Poor? Deformed? All kinds of inane doubts would push them to spend all the money they can get their hands on to form a successful match before the child was too told.

You know, Grandpa only got married quite late in his 20s – and there was no end of talk about how long it took me! But you see how I am now – I raised my family of nine children, with none of having to go hungry, even during the difficult days of war. If I had married younger, I wouldn’t have been able to do this. And where would that have left my family then?!

I am happy your cousin took his time to get married – and it’s good that he can afford to celebrate his wedding in style. Greece is a nice place for a honeymoon – your aunt can relax now, her son is off to a good life!
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(1) My cousin (father’s sister’s son) was getting married that day. Grandpa decided not to go to the wedding banquet because it would have been very late at night.

May 20, 2005

It’s going to be hard to remember everything. 70, 80 years! There are things that I remember when told to me in childhood, things I will remember forever.. but you could have told me something yesterday and it would have disappeared completely from my memory.

That’s usually how stories live in people’s minds anyway, isn’t it. When your dad was younger, when he would go to night school to study Chinese, he would basically spend the 1-2 hours of class time, listening to stories. Olden stories like how the fishmonger would catch boatloads of fish with only one net, or how the sly fox ran away with the chicken, stories that kids like to listen to. I don’t know how much he remembered from then…

I remember stories I heard when I was young. When I first came to Singapore, and I was apperenticing in the medical shop, there were these rich gentlemen that came into the medical shop. Not to get medicine or get treatment, but they were rich enough and read medical books, so they’d come it to talk to the old masters. Just to chat, really. They’d talk about different methods of treatment they’d study, compare notes, shoot the breeze. As a young man, you’d have your hands busy but your ears open to listen to what to what they were talking about. Good ears, then, you see… not like now – no need for a hearing aid back then. And I’d remember things that they’d talk about, good treatments that worked, useful methods of curing people, effective medical herbs. I’d forget about the ones that didn’t work, and I’d remember the ones that did. Many years, I did that – that’s how I learned.

That’s how people learned in the old days. There were no classes – no lessons, just listening, remembering, thinking. That’s how people remember the old China – not the dramatic playground version that is on TV today, but the real China.

The real China is very different. I think it’s probably so progressive today – people have money, they have built tall towers and drive nice cars and have learned how to be arrogant. But the country folks, are still country folks, even with these beautiful clothes and wads of cash. They don’t know that flagstone courtyards are better than mosaic tiles because the floors don’t become slippery in the rain, but they spend money on placing these little tiles all over because it looks nice – but when it gets wet, they walk all around it in a big detour. It’s an insult to the old house in the village – your uncle(1) has turned the house into such a place.

When Grandma(2) was in the village during the Japanese Skies(3), that house saw all kinds of hardship. Those Japanese soldiers, they were bad – they would run all over the mountains and villages into our lands. Took all the crops. There were these grass stalks that people would sell to the landowners to feed their herds – the longer the grass was, the more money it was worth. Where there were big trees, with lots of shade, the grass would grow tall – sometimes as tall as a human being! The villagers would trek from the bottom of the hills, which is where the village was, into mid-hills to gather the grass, bundle them, and sell them for money. During good times, the hills would be covered in green, everyone was fat and happy, the herds were plump and everyone was smiling.

During the Japanese Skies, the hills were barren. Everywhere you looked, there was brown earth – the grass were short little weeds, barely worth a copper penny – stepped all over my Japanese soldiers, poor villagers having scraped up the last pieces. Your grandmother had trek up to 10-20 miles, leaving the house in the morning, to go to the top of the hills to get the last of the grass, so there’s money to feed your uncle. The bits of grass would take her all day to gather, then she’d bundle them back down the hills in the afternoon, sell them for a few coins. That means that day there would be salted vegetables and sweet potatoes to go with the porridge for the house – it was so sad, to think that everywhere you’d look, all you could see was the naked tall trees and the barren earth, stripped bare, the grass was dead, the country was dying, the people were crying.

But the villagers survived – that was how life carried on then, somehow people would make it through. Teochew people are tough, you know – the villagers are even tougher.

I don’t think the people in the China can survive the tough times we had then. The people today have it good – they have the good life. The gifts I used to bring back to China, the towels, sweets, money, they laugh at that now – they have condominiums, stocks, race cars – even in Swatow, where it was fortune back then to have more than one bicycle! To hear them talk today – it’s all hot air, a lot of empty words with no reality.

That’s why people have to live within their means. Be content with what you have. Discontent will only breed greed and emptiness. Be committed to the family, give them a good life, enough to fill your belly and theirs, and life can be very good.
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(1) Grandpa adopted Ang Now when he was young, Ang Now lives in the old house that Grandpa built in the village Cheok Bee Kee in Teo Yeo, Guangzhou Province, Chaozhou District.

(2) Grandpa had two wives – first wife, Tan Boon Kim, was married in China, she lived in the village when Grandpa first went to Singapore, with Uncle Teck Tshim.

(3) A term that refers to the Second World War during the Japanese occupation