Chapter 26: He Chose Sabah as His Home

Continuing from Chapter 25, my grandfather was a man of few words. His story telling to his grandchildren would mostly be about his punishment and beating by his strict father.

He stayed alone in the detached single room unit. As far as I could recall, he had never joined the rest of the family for any meal, be it in normal days or during festivals. We never asked about the reason for such an arrangement but accepted it as the unwritten understanding of the family. From Day 1 as far as I could remember, all meals and snacks were delivered from the house to his room by one of the grandchildren. Before breakfast or dinner, one of the grandchildren had to go to collect the plate, bowl and cup from a makeshift cupboard for filling/topping. Upon finishing his meal, he would proceed to do the cleaning of his utensils.

Every morning at week day after breakfast, he would leave and walk to the town to collect his cylinder of ice cream from the supplier for peddling. Even in days when he was not doing his trade, he would still leave and spend the day out. Unless he had fallen ill, he would have his lunch out in the town. Whenever he went out, he would put on his favourite pith helmet to shield against the sun and drizzle. This look had become a trademark of him in the neighbourhood.

Typical pith helmet.

Occasionally, he would invite and take one or two of his grandchildren out for a treat of a drink or beef noodle. Of course, as common practice in those days, young kids could never expect to enjoy a full cup of drink or a full bowl of noodle. For drink, the kid could only drink that little amount poured from the cup onto the saucer. The bulk of the drink would be reserved for the senior. Likewise, the youngster could only expect to eat a small portion of the noodle transferred to a smaller bowl from the main bowl. Still, we felt super happy to have such privilege of eating out in the shop which was considered a very rare event.

Lat captured the essence of the drinking culture of
 senior with his junior at old time.

My grandfather would be at his best attire came Sunday and major festivals, like Chinese New Year. He was not in the habit of going to Church every Sunday. But when he did, he would put on his white long sleeve shirt with cotton buttons and completed with a pair of white canvass shoes.

His health issue was asthma. Sometimes, his coughing could be heard deep into the night and interspersed with spitting of the phlegm. It may have been this health problem that caused him to refrain from joining the rest of the family for meals. By 1968, his health had significantly deteriorated. In the morning of 22 August 1968, a Thursday and I was getting ready to go to school. I was at my usual routine to collect the plate and cup from his room for breakfast. When I opened the door, I found him lying motionless on the floor, Instinctively, I reached out my fingers to check for any breathing through his nostrils. There was none. He had passed away peacefully. We didn't go to school that few days nor did my dad reported for work.

There was no funeral parlour in those days. That morning of 22 August 1968, my dad wasted no time to seek help from relatives to arrange for the funeral. The key task was to secure the service of pall bearers who were then commonly being referred as the "eight fairies". The service of pall bearers included purchase and delivery of coffin, digging of burial pit, encoffining the remains, transporting the coffin on an open lorry to the cemetery until burial.

I was present to witness my dad acting as the "mortician" in cleaning up the remains and putting on the final attire for the deceased. He performed the tasks like professional and with utmost respect to the deceased. My grandfather's final resting place is the Basel Church Cemetery in Likas.

My grandfather was neither a celebrity, a scholar nor a successful businessman. He was just one of the sojourners through this planet earth liked millions and millions before him. He is just a name in the long list of the family tree. From my conversation with him, he had never uttered a word about going back to China. He chose Sabah as his home and he is entitled to be counted as one of those pioneer Malaysians who tolled and worked hard in some of the earliest agriculture endeavours of the land like rubber and coffee. And the latter still remain as a part of Sabah economic activities.

On a lighter note, this ice cream man of the old town did make many children grinned with happiness after they paid a couple of cents and were handed cones of ice cream!

The trait of adventurism and migration for better pasture typical of the Chinese is still ingrained in the descendants of the patriarch. Some in the 5th generation have already moved and made other countries as their homes.