ABC Letter H, Husband and wife

When my parents were married, it was during the war. Mum lived up the Rejang River in Durin. Dad lived in Lanang Road in Sibu. Dad paddled a canoe with a wedding dress he borrowed from his very good friend Chew Chiong Tack's wife. 

We used to joke that she was Pochohunta paddling the canoe down and singing the Land of the Belian tree. We teased that she ran away with her man John because she didn't have a wedding photo. 

Today, a friend IDed the husband and bride of this photo. In my "From China to Borneo to Beyond" book, I mentioned back in the home land of China, in the Hakka village of my mum, the Kongs, the Kongs always married the Lai/Leas and vice versa. In deed my informant told me this was a Kong/Lea match. The husband could very likely be Mum's cousin, because he comes from the same lineage of Mum's ancestry.

This photo created a lot of interests. A certain doctor googled and read his dad's name, and he sent me a photo of his parents' wedding photo. His mum wearing her wedding dress which she very kindly loaned to many Sibu girls.

This photo raised a flurry of comments in blogger land. It was Chang Yi who first posted the photo. A Kai Chung School friend and a classmate who IDed the photographer who was my Dad's very good friend in Singapore.

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ABC Letter G for geese

Not sure why some of my comments to your blogs have been blocked and returned.



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M J Coyle, Point Chevalier, Auckland

Mr M J Coyle, a prominent person has the park named after him. This fountain is a memorial to him.

I have lived and work in this suburban and walked past this fountain many times without paying much attention. Today, I decided to find out more .

This is what I googled when I came back.

https://www.facebook.com/OldAuckCity/photos/a.445278715524990.114635.445220315530830/970774452975411/?type=1&theater

Old Auckland

April 14, 2015 · 

"Showing Mr M J Coyle (2nd from left) outside his coach building premises in New North Road, later 1911-14 he became Mt Albert's first mayor and 1907-11 he served as the last Road Board Chairman."

'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A11268'

No date provided.

 if you need info on M J Coyle, leader of the Brighton committee, here’s his obituary as published in the Evening Post, 25 March 1941:

The death has occurred at Auckland of Mr M J Coyle, who had a notable record of public service on many local bodies for a period of over 40 years. Mr Coyle was born at Mount Eden 76 years ago, and spent all his life in Auckland. After passing through the Grafton School he learned the trade of coachbuilding, and set up a business of his own in Eden Terrace. Mr Coyle became one of the best-known men in public life in Auckland. His first experience was gained as chairman of the Mount Albert Road Board for seven years, and when Mount Albert was constituted a borough he became its first Mayor, and was twice reelected to that office. To the Auckland Hospital Board Mr Coyle gave 23 years' service, including 4½ years as chairman during the war period. Mr Coyle was one of the first members of the Auckland Drainage Board, and was chairman of the Point Chevalier Road Board, when that district joined up with the city. He served on the Auckland City Council for 10 years, on the Metropolitan Fire Board for seven, and on the Transport Board for three.

Sarawak Mulu Caves

http://ourworldtuesdaymeme.blogspot.co.nz/

When I went to Mulu, I was treated like royalty. They danced for us.

abc letter G for ginseng

Ginseng Jawa (Talinum paniculatum gaertn.) surprised to see this in my friends garden in Auckland. Growing wild. They grew wild in my Singapore garden. I picked the flowers as cut flowers, but they drop off in a day. My aunty told me that it can be used as ginseng and the leaves are edible.
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abc Letter G for Grandma's flower power

 




 







When ever I watch on television or print copies of advertisements of ladies soaking in a tub of water with orchids floating on top of it in a spa, I remember my grand mother’s flower power treatment.

The year was 1975, my sister had her first baby, and my nephew wasn’t sucking well. She was suffering from a breast abscess. Grand Ma sent me around the neighborhood to scour for nine different kinds of flowers. They had to be of different hues as well.

It wasn’t easy looking for nine types of flowers and besides I thought she was old fashion and I felt rather stupid going up to people’s house asking for some of their flowers. We were also new to the neighbourhood.

“I need a handful of your mauve colored flowers.”

“Why do you want my flowers?”

“Because my sister has………. breast infection.”

As a teenager, it was rather embarrassing explaining that part of the anatomy. Fortunately, the neighbors were very kind and helpful, and some even helped me pluck the flowers.

After I filled my basketful of flowers of nine different hues I came home. Grand Ma put them in the long bath tub and ran hot water into the tub. Then she and my sister locked themselves in the bathroom. I stood outside the bathroom listening to:

“OW!!!! HOT!!!HOT!!!”

“It’s got to be hot, otherwise it won’t work.”

After that hot flower treatment, my sister got better. But I was skeptical about Grand Ma’s treatment.

I said,” May be she would have gone better, with or without the flowers.”

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great grand parents Chans

Great Grand Father Chan Kwong Kuok and Great Grand Mother Lee Ngin Kiew. Great Grand Father came to Sarawak a few times from aged 33. He left Great Grand Mother at home for a few years at a time. She had to take care of the family home and the ancestor tablets. Great Grand Mother was a grass widow, a woman whose husband had gone else where for work. At that time, the women did not travel with the men.

My mother was a grass widow twice. each time when Dad went to Singapore and London for education.
Such amicable women.


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ABC Letter F for floods.

Borrowing my aunty Francisca Leong's photo. I have often written about the annual floods in Sibu. The flood water usually comes at night, and Mum and Dad would get us all up to push the car to a higher place. We would wade in the water back to the house.

The next few days, the flood water would come to our knees. That's a fun time for us, swimming and paddling in a man made raft that Dad made for us.

When the water recedes, it is not nice, vegetables, papaya trees die, and worst still, dead animals float away

Did I ever tell you I have a phobia of rats and mice? During the flood, the rodents come up to the raised edges of the vegetable beds. I associate the rats with the plague of London.



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Chinese surname Chen.

陳 Chén   (Traditional) 陈 Chén  (Simplified)

Chan Cantonese, Ting/Ding Foochow, Tan Hokkien Chin Hakka

Chen ([ʈʂʰə̌n]) (simplified Chinese: 陈; traditional Chinese: 陳; pinyin: Chén; Wade–Giles: Ch'en) is one of the most common East Asian surnames of Chinese origin. It ranks as the 5th most common surname in China as of 2007 and the most common surname in Singapore (2000) and Taiwan (2010).

This is me holding a book written by a Chen's group in New Zealand. I had to borrow this. China is very big with over 1.4 billion people and people speaking different dialects. The writing however is the same. I grew up where there are different dialects, and my Quang Ning Chen is written as Chan. There are others, Ting/Ding Foochow, Tan Hokkien Chin Hakka.

Recently, some one thought I was a Chang/Zhang which is another 张?

To make it more complicated, I married a Hakka whose Chen is Chin, hence my professional name is Chin-Chan.

Conflicting Beliefs

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/buddhist-ceremonial-release-captive-birds-may-harm-wildlife/

A young Vietnamese woman’s husband fell ill. Desperate for a cure, she later recounted, she visited the local Buddhist temple. A monk there instructed her to “release 40 birds, one for every year of your husband’s life.” So she did, purchasing and releasing 40 birds at the temple grounds. The woman soon rejoiced; her husband made a full recovery.

I grew up in a Christian family in Sibu where many people were Christians. I did not know about Fong San, "release a life" until I went to Singapore. An Indian friend's husband, a colleague of my husband, Prof in NTU found a tortoise with red paint written on the underbelly of the tortoise. She did not know what it meant. A friend explained Fong San. She said this is a bad custom, Fong San in this case meant getting the tortoise to carry away the bad luck/sickness to the person who picks it up.
I have found out since other reasons, and in my latest book, I wrote about it.
Thanks Ritchie for writing about it. He uses the term 放生 (Fàngshēng) which is in Mandarin.
Religion aside, some people during weddings and funerals, release doves etc. Environmentally this is frown on.
 A reader commented:

The truth meaning of fangsheng is not releasing bad luck or sickness. It's releasing of a capture animal's life to harvest good karma.

 May be some people in Singapore have other thoughts.

that's their own interpretation. That's loads of bullshit.

There is another bullshit thing they practise. If for no reasons they treat/chia you for a free meal/makan, it is usually a person in that family is very sick. By treating people to dinner/makan, the makan people who help spread the bad luck away. Conversely, a rich properous person has a birthday, people come to eat and even DAPAU/takeaway. The idea is to take the good luck home.

As a writer of both fiction and non fiction,  For fiction, I write for entertainment. Recently, a man bought a tortoise for his pet. His wife asked him if he had checked for any paint. He retorted, of course I had, you think I am stupid.

Buddhists across Asia release wildlife as a show of compassion, but conservationists find that the practice tortures the animals and may impact threatened species.

 

New Zealand Chinese in Historical images by Phoebe Li

 Helen Wong, NZ Historian and researcher with Phoebe Li.

Recollections of a Distant Shore: New Zealand Chinese in Historical Images 域外拾珍： 历史影像中的新西兰华人 By Phoebe Li and John Turner.

Had the privilege to meet Phoebe Li , Post Doc of Tsinghua University during the Auckland Family Expo. The New Zealand Chinese Association was promoting the above book.

She is currently working on the history of the Chinese in Australia through a media studies approach.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201831464/the-chinese-who-made-nz-home

 http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201831464/the-chinese-who-made-nz-home\

The Chan family came to NZ, we have two lawyers, a forester, 2 PhDs and a writer married to a PhD.

ABC Letter F for Huckleberry Finn

https://www.facebook.com/ruth.sibat/videos/vb.1449381876/10213318728469926/?type=2&theater&notif_t=comment_mention&notif_id=1502433077018786

Do you believe in Vibes? My friend from Methodist school talked about Mark Twain. I thought of Tom Sawyer painting the fence. I was 13 wheen I studied Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

My Friend Ruth posts a video of a raft. Ruth's bro Joseph was my classmate. The raft reminds me of Huckleberry Finn. I had to borrow the video.

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Mary Anne Vaz, her story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoHpX0-2jo0

http://www.thestar.com.my/story/?file=%2F2010%2F12%2F13%2Fsarawak%2F7562153&sec=sarawak
 http://www.thestar.com.my/story/Mary Annee Vaz%2Fsarawak%2F7562153&sec=sarawak
http://www.pustaka-sarawak.com/sarawakiana_gallery/authors.php?id=63
 http://www.pustaka-sarawak.com/sarawakiana_gallery/authors.php?id=63
I got to know Mary Anne Vaz recently through chatting  and googling. I did a couple of blogs and facebook postings because her philosophy is similar to mine. We both love doing charity and use our hands to help others. It is her art to bring awareness to the Penan people that single her out.

Please watch her youtube and the link. I let them tell her story.

Mary with her husband Marcus Raja. He is a Kelabit from the Bario highlands. It so happens my brother in law and sister in law are his people.

I asked Mary why she came from Penang. "I met Marcus in the University of Malaya, I felt comfortable with my Sarawakian friends. I love Sarawak."

She has her own blog: https://www.blogger.com/profile/16632369001328455773

 https://www.blogger.com/profile/16632369001328455773

Nanyang Technological university

Nanyang Technological university was constantly building. This is a  new building after we left NTU in 2006.

Happy Birthday, Singapore 2017

These Chinese structures are icons in Singapore. For a long time, Malaysians were not allowed to visit China. Coming to these Yunnan Garden served to kill two birds with one stone. They were in the university they funded, and they got a feel of China. I felt the same too, as I am 4th generations removed from China, and this is the closest I been to China.

NTU, Nanyang Technological University was originally privately raised by the Chinese people of South East Asia, including my grand parents. When I was growing up in Borneo, my grand parents and parents donated to build the Chinese University outside China. I was told that many of our Chinese ancestors owned a brick. We teased our grand dad if they gave him a number and the coordinates of his brick.

The Nanyang university of Singapore transitioned from a Chinese University to an ultra modern one funded by the Government.

When the Water Engineer went to teach in the University in 1990, it became NTI and then NTU, a fully fledged university and he became an associate professor. To date, of all the children in the Chan clan, only my daughter D attended the university.

In 1990, just before the birthday, I arrived in Singapore to live. I am thankful that I was able to live in comfort as a faculty wife. I spent sixteen of my adult years here, and the best thing is I made many friends from all over the world.

ABC Letter E for Elephants.

This is Singapore Zoo. I like the humane way they treat the elephants.


















A moat separated us from the performing elephants in the Singapore Zoo. Every now and then, the elephants used their nose and sprayed water at the unexpected spectators.

Some one wanted photos of elephants, I forgot who. She is welcomed to use these. Just acknowledge my source.


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