Sunday morning...qing ming?

Sunday morning, a pleasant dream I had, had to be disrupted by a sudden intrusion of a manly voice.

"Ah boy ah"
"HUHHH" I grunted insensibly, eyelids remained clamp by the weight of previous night insomnia, my conscious still hovering between the thin line of a dream and reality.

"Later hor, First Aunty will come and fetch you hor, we are going to pay our respect to ah gong today. Hor"

WHAT? No, It is not happening. I want to sleep.

"Hah!, Don't want can? I want to sleep....."

"No no, you can't, you have to go. I've told you yesterday, come on boy."
YESTERDAY?

I don't remember talking to him yesterday; he came home late after a night of fishing. At this point, I could have insisted not to go and go back into my deep slumber, trying to dream back my dream but he had to say this.

"This is not the way boy, you are turning 21, how can you still be so insensible? Later ah gong money all don't want to give you."

I don't know about any secret stash the chng family had tucked away for anyone, I guess it's just bait thrown at my moral compass. Not bad, he applied his fishing concept onto me.

You know how irritating it can be when someone is whispering at your ear when you are trying to sleep, try experiencing nagging. Go back 5 years in time, I would have ignored him and go back to sleep but I know better now.

There are a few stages in which he will act. First stage, the sincere plead. Second stage, the reasoning stage and lastly, the rage stage.

With me, he stopped at the reasoning stage and I continued feigning sleep but I was actually wide awake, listening to him repeating what he said to my sister, the rebellious one.

If I am a tough nut for him to crack, my sister would be a metal nut. Rebellious by nature, Insensible by nurture. She yelled at my dad for waking her up. That would be a possible impetus for him to go into his rage stage, yelling vs. yelling.

Sensing that this is something I can control, I peel myself away from my comforter and let out a loud fake yawn and stretch myself, hoping to catch his attention. And then I said,

"All right, all right, what time is Aunty picking me up?"

The Chng extended family came in a bus, a tour bus to be exact. My third uncle is a tour bus driver and so, by chance we managed to get a really large tour bus, dwarfing even the TIBS bus I’ve seen on the way. Such majesty transportation is truly a sight to behold in the middle of Chao Chu Kang Cemetery. The morning light made it easier for me to see those envious faces walking in the hot morning sun. But with big, come clumsiness. It was hard to maneuver the bus to the columbarium and so, we had to drop a good distance away.

My eldest cousin, the righteous one immediately bombarded me on why is my sister absence and the aunties and uncles rubbed in by saying how un-filial she is. What to do but to keep my silence. ( Dad and Mum went church and so, wasn’t in the bus)

“People mountain people sea” was the phrase to describe the scene. I didn’t know that there would be such a big turn out for an event for the dead. How many I wonder, were being dragged out of bed in situation similar to mine.

The columbarium felt like the prison in prison break season 1!, Blocks and blocks, minus the auto gate. They like to call it ah gong’s apartment and the numbers of apartments occupied were more than I remembered from my last visit. Many new occupants. Being there, we were subjected to the divine power of a pair of crescent shaped wooden block. Some combination means yes, some combination means no. So we were waiting for our sixth auntie and fifth uncle along with ah ma to arrive but they got stuck in the traffic jam for 2 hours.

And two hours later, the combination for the wooden block says “Yes, I am full.”

2 hours I stood there.

I hate small talk. Cousins that I never talk to, look at me and I look at her. Who will open his or her mouth first? I’m sorry, you are not the cousins from my mother’s side in which I have no problem crapping to but you, you are just a complete stranger which my mum gave ang pow to. But I do socialize with the two elder cousins; I’m much more comfortable in talking to them. First thing he asked me was “Hey still playing DOTA?”

No I don’t play that game. It is boring, repetitive and unbalance and it is only a custom map of warcraft 3. K if you don’t understand what this mean, let me simplify it. It is like you can have lots of flavors of ice cream but someone kept asking you, hey still eating chocolate ice cream? Chocolate, is only a flavor out of many. So is DOTA.

Ah gongs apartment has a good view, a clear view of the front compound. I see many happy faces, smiling which I think is weird.

Come to think of it, most of the people that are here today, cried at some point in their life to be here.

And yet today, they are happy to be here. Hah, Acceptance comes with time.