multi

My female owner celebrated the first day of the Lunar New Year by visiting her maternal grandmother’s house. Ever since her grandmother passed away in 2002, the extended family stopped celebrating CNY together. It is such a tragic outcome, that when the matriarch/ patriarch of the family passes on, the younger generation tends not to gather during CNY.

Anyway, for probably the third time since 2002, my female owner stepped into the house that forms a large part of her childhood. Weekly visits to grandma’s house where two unmarried aunties also reside, celebrating birthdays with grandma, not being able to speak grandma’s language but still able to feel her love, buying ice-cream for her oldest auntie who is slightly brain-damaged due to yellow fever during her teenage years, interacting with her younger cousins etc.

Eating steamboat with a couple of her relatives today, she realised that her humble family is quite a rojak mix. There are nine siblings in all. Her mother is the third youngest. There is an auntie who is a Muslim and thus, eats only halal food while an older auntie who is a devout Buddhist does not eat beef. Her eldest uncle is a health freak who advocates plant foods and another uncle married a Muslim twenty years younger than him. His children (forgive my female owner for not knowing their names! She probably can’t recognise them on the streets as well.) are of course, mixed and more Malay than Chinese. So many potential disputes over food preferences!

Happily, when CNY comes, the family shares the Chinese part of their lives together. When Vesak Day comes, the Buddhist auntie would cook lotsa food to bring to the temple and distribute her food afterwards. Come Hari Raya, the Muslim uncle would deliver home-cooked yummy food to their home. Ah, the family just needs an ang-moh and an Indian to make it truly multi-racial/ multi-cultural.