“As my mother would say, take off the layers that you are hiding under…”
“Cho Cho sounds like a spiritual soul…”
“She was,” says Pansy. “She always reminded me that the true purpose of life is to discover who we really are and what we are meant to do here. Don’t take on board labels that people slap on you. The way to cope with other people’s name calling is to unstick the labels from yourself. Don’t play into their script…”
“I guess I’ve always felt that my mother wanted a boy instead of me. Maybe I was unconsciously trying to get her love by dressing in a boyish way,” says Goldie. “But she never notices me anyway. It’s always Winona or Andie who gets her attention. They’re so pretty that I decided not to compete. And now it has become a habit, I never think of buying dresses or making myself look pretty…”
“Well, you are pretty!” Pansy says. “If you like, we will go out on a shopping spree together and buy some dresses. Or maybe a sarong kebaya? We can go to Katong.”
“Actually,” admits Goldie. “I wouldn’t mind that at all. Let’s keep it a secret. My mother might flip to see me in a sarong kebaya…”
“Right now, I must admit to a slight sense of trepidation. Going back to one’s past is never easy. But it must be done, to lay my ghosts. I’m really glad you’re with me, though. It would be harder to face it alone. And perhaps your generation might like to understand the past too, so that you can forge the future with greater compassion.”
Pansy tells Goldie more about the bunga rampay, how Peranakans and Malays love to perfume their homes with it, how her mother used to put it on the altar in front of Hock Chye’s spirit-tablet. Unlike the monologue type of conversation they had at Flintstones, their conversation in the car is freer, inquisitive but in a refreshing, interested way.
“How did Kong Cho die?”
The question still wrenches Pansy’s gut. But this is what today’s journey is all about, passing her memories on to the next generation. One generation’s memory is like a baton that needs to be passed to the next generation so that the race of life continues with awareness and knowledge of their history. History is the foundation that anchors people to their roots. Without this firm grounding, a people can easily flounder and topple.
“My father was a fisherman…”
Pansy worries in the silence that follows this pronouncement. Would Goldie feel ashamed of this side of the family?
“I can’t tell you what this knowledge means to me. Now I know I’m not weird,” Goldie says, as if she too had to pause in order to recover her normal voice. “I’ve always felt like I was a changeling in our household, and often wondered whether mum and dad took the wrong baby home from the hospital when I was born…”
Pansy reaches across and pats her granddaughter’s arm.
“You mustn’t think that,” she says. “We’re family. Look how brown we both are. I know your parents love you just as much as they do the other girls. I certainly love you as you are. Maybe you take after my family more than the Chans…”
“You see, that’s the trouble. Dad hardly talks about his grandparents, your parents I mean, so I don’t know if I take after them…”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Don’t say I told you… but mum is a bit of a snob. She wants people to believe we’re from a pedigreed heritage, what with grandpa being a doctor, and great-grandpa and great-grandma who had lived on posh Nassim Road. She didn’t want to talk about our ancestors from the kampong…”
“Oh, I see…”
“To be honest, I was selfish too. I was uninterested. I suppose that’s what being a child is all about. But I’ve grown more mature, I hope. I’ve become like many young people these days, questioning the meaning of identity, of being Singaporean. I think to know who we are, we need to know who our ancestors are. Lately, there’s so much talk in the country about heritage, kampong days and the Peranakan culture. I began to realise that I have not valued the richness of my heritage. The trouble is that mum is not Peranakan, so she’s not interested, and so she didn’t encourage us. She never lets dad talk about his childhood in the village, only about the part of his childhood in England.”
Pansy tries to digest this bit of information.
“Would you be…? I mean are you ashamed of my having come from the kampong?”
“Grandma, no!” This time it is Goldie’s turn to place her hand on Pansy’s arm. “I’m not like my mother. I don’t buy into her way of thinking… That’s why sometimes I don’t think that I’m her child… Now, to know that my great-grandfather, my Kong Cho, was a fisherman, makes sense about my deep love for the sea.”
“You would have loved him! He was so handsome,” Pansy says, proud, at long last, to pass him on as an inheritance to his great-granddaughter. “You would have thought he was a mer-man, the way he could swim and lark about in the water…”
“Now I know I’m not a freak.”
“But eventually the sea claimed him,” Pansy says with sadness. “In his job it had always been a threat but it was still horrible when it happened. Especially since we never recovered his body.”
A pregnant silence descends, temporarily clouding the outing.
“But with hindsight,” Pansy continues. “His body has gone to where he was most happy, so I guess I should let go of the grief. Especially since I believe in an afterlife.”
“I imagine that the not-knowing for certain must have been quite challenging…” Goldie says. “But I personally wouldn’t mind dying whilst scuba diving! More exciting than dying in bed!”
“Eh, jangan chakap suay!” Pansy breaks into Peranakan-speak automatically to
