Tribute to An Old Man I Once Knew

My grandfather was Hainanese and he worked as a cook for the British in Ipoh up until the 60’s. So yeah, he was an authentic Hainanese chef. But he didn’t pass down any secret recipes for me to open a famous Hainanese kopitiam.

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Here was born in 1899. That was two centuries before this current one, how cool is that? His IC showed his birth year as 1900 because it was registered late. So in 1988, he won a hamper from a local newspaper celebrating those aged 88 in the auspicious year of ’88. Which is weird, coz the hamper contained foodstuff that most 88 year old folks can’t eat. So I ate most of it.

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He came to Malaya in the early 1920’s from China with a handful of friends and NO relatives, leaving them all behind to forge a new life in a strange land. As far as i know, he never met them again until his end of days.

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When he came to Malaya, my grandfather sported a queue (chinese pigtail). You know, that shaven-at-the-top-and-pigtail-at-the-back hairstyle of the Qing dynasty. On day, the when he finally accepted the fall of last emperor of the Middle Kingdom, he cut off his queue and grew out his hair.

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In the last few years with us, he had only one friend left, a former shop owner who lived in Jasin. Once a year this guys would take a 3 buses to come down and see my grandfather, where they would spend a couple of hours talking about old times in thick Hailam. Then when it was evening, he’d take another 3 buses home.

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He is allergic to most clothing material except cotton.

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He passed away in 1991 at the age of 92 (i was away in uni at that time). I never heard the whole story in the last week of his life, but from what i gather, at his deathbed he had a vision/dream of 3 men visiting him in the night. The next morning he told my mother he wanted to be a Christian and my mom fetched my pastor to see him. He died a few days later peacefully as a believer.

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He spoke only Hailam and some Cantonese. Mostly Hailam actually. In all the time he lived with us, I never really caught on to the dialect (coz my mom and him would speak it at the speed of a train). The only two phrases I can remember is ‘siang yap‘ (bathe) and ‘bu jong du bui‘ (no need to cook).

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Other than watch TV with me, he spent most of time cutting grass, cooking and reading the newspapers with a magnifying glass.

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Yep, that was my grandfather. Very cool guy.