We are where we place ourselves

Penang

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

♥ Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The phone beeped the arrival of a message. This time, it is from my sister, “Damn good stuff, wanna come, dad will fetch”. The two brothers in the hotel room- one reading, another typing this post- thought for a second and replied “nope don’t want if have nice stuff buy for us” and ended the note with a smiley. That was the tone for the entire trip. Aloof, lazy and sleepy- an attitude befitting for a place that has neither heartbeat nor clean air.

Penang has all the trappings of the simple life. A road side stall could be owned by generations; they are known more for its food than scenery; the roads are filled with cars coated with grime and dirt and the houses are single storied fenceless shelters with no air-conditioning and internet. This is the simple life. As an inside joke, if this is penang, i do so wonder what kuching would have been like.

My dad said the people here are happy. But the visitors aren’t: we view our trip here as a moral obligation and meaning of going for a family trip; yet all of us, in one way or another, wish we could have gone somewhere else- Europe perhaps. So we employ our coping mechanisms. My sister finds her solace in the food and shopping; my brother brings his book and enjoys taking photos. Me, I just look forward to messages and phone calls. And of course, Melbourne. I am the biggest escapist here. So be it.

Yet even the biggest escapist can’t dodge life’s inevitable junctures: relationships, exams, taxes…and death. We were here for another purpose: to visit the old folks. There were three of them.

Dai-kum-po wept when she saw us. She said she always wondered whether she would have been fortunate enough to see us for one last time. We saw her again, and when we were leaving, again that we heard that same sigh of resignation: she was not sure whether she would be around to cook for us congee the next time we came. Her right eyelid dropped over: she was blind in that eye. Yee-Kum-po could barely speak. Neither could she recognize us. Strapped to the wheel chair, after being forcibly brought out of the Old Folks Home as a result of unaffordable lodging fees, I could never tell whether she was happy to have us over with that indiscernible Hokkien. The healthiest of the three elders was Po-Po. We know her simply as Aunty Shirley’s Grandmother. She joked, gossiped, laughed.

These three lives in Penang had perhaps at one point in time or another crossed paths: one day in some market, whilst bargaining for some vegetables or arguing over some parking lot. Three lenses of history across about eighty years. How did their history bring them to their present? Did they have dreams of their own and did they have a say in where they are placed? Given a chance, would they have chosen something else? I would never know. I struggle at the ambiguity of my own ageing seeing them. But maybe, the question at the end of the day would be “were you happy?”

The people here are happy, my dad said. He was saying two things, really: that they experience happiness, and if they don’t, we wish them that.