Rant 552 / ...And He Lived Happily Ever After.

I wonder if he really turned out to be that way.















I keep having this desire to play Metro 2033 again but at the same time I remember how it was such an emotional experience every time I play it.












Let me record this story of my ancestors before it is forgotten.Where should I begin. Hmm... from the earliest one that I know of then, even though he has been mentioned before in my blog. This time I have all my male ancestors from my mother's side of the family arranged in chronological order.

My great-great-grandfather was a minor official during the Qing Dynasty. He did not gain this position legitimately by going for the national exam, but instead bought it with money. Because of his job, he was able to foresee the chaos that was about to erupt when his government collapses, so he moved to the rural countryside. Somehow before that he was able to marry a daughter of a rich Shanghainese merchant, who probably gave him her hand because he could see the same thing that's about to happen, or maybe because she was just one of his daughters.

Anyway my great-great-grandfather set up a small business in his village as the writer and reader of letters because he was the only literate person around. Together with his farm the couple made enough to get by.

Eventually they had 3 sons. I don't know if he had daughters. When the eldest son was old enough he sold himself to Nanyang, the name Southeast Asia was known as back then. This practice was known as "卖猪仔" (mai4 zhu1 zi3). He was never heard from again. This was not surprising given it was common knowledge that at least a third of every boatload of immigrants did not survive the voyage. They either die of illness or starve to death and dumped into the sea.

Because the family didn't receive any further income from their eldest brother, my great-grandfather, together with his blind younger brother (I don't know why he was blind), decided to get out of their hometown before they grew old enough to be kidnapped and conscripted into Chiang Kai Shek's army. So with practically nothing but their clothes, an umbrella and some hard rice cakes the young men made their way to Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, they made a living by collecting trash and reselling it. Eventually they saved enough to open a rice shop, which was a lucrative trade. My blind great-granduncle became a salt smuggler and for some personal reasons, took a vow of celibacy. My great-grandfather, on the other hand, married an illiterate woman from some poor family and settled down.

You know, I can't imagine how a blind man can smuggle salt. Sure, I know he did it by buying salt from the warmer Southern China where there were probably salt works and selling them in the black markets of Northern China. The thing is, how did he do it?? This I'll never know.

Now I'll return to my great-grandfather who got wealthy enough to open a second rice shop in one of the busiest area in Hong Kong, Tsim Sha Tsui, iirc. He was wealthy enough that he was one of the first in the area to own a telephone. As a prominent member of the local Teo Chew community, he also helped raise funds to build a hospital but did not appear in the photo of the founders due to... another story.

So here's the other story. Back then when they agreed on taking a formal photo of all the people who helped found the hospital, my great-grandfather did not own a tie, a suit or a changsan. Since it was just one photo, he thought it wasn't worth so much money just for a matter as small as this. Plus there was little chance he would ever wear them again. Hence he arrived to the photo shoot late with a roasted suckling pig and other food and had a feast with everyone.

Back to the original story. Like all other couples, they began to have children soon after marriage. The first two were daughters but the third child was male. When they had their first son, they were so overjoyed that it was a son that my great-grandmother brought the baby to his hometown to show him to their family. Meanwhile my great-grandfather stayed to tend to his shops.

It was then that misfortune struck. Their son contracted an unknown illness and quickly died in their hometown. The couple were devastated but got over it after some time. After they recovered, they decided to adopt 2 boys. I don't know whether they were orphans or sold by families too poor to raise their own kids but both were very likely back in those years. The elder one of the two was my grandfather.

They did try some more after that but their final 3 successful conceptions all resulted in daughters.

My grandaunts mostly went on to marry wealthy men. My eldest grandaunt married an guy who had a Chinese pharmacy. It later expanded to 5 stores. I don't know what state the business is in now.

My second grandaunt married a guy who had a business in cooking utensils. I don't know which brand it was other than the name contained the word "金". His business was large enough to require 36 vans at one point. I think that's pretty big especially when it happened in the post-WWII days.

My third grandaunt married a businessman who opened a mall in Venezuela. Seriously, Venezuela. I have no idea if the business is still in existence today.

My fourth grandaunt married an heir to a large restaurant business. I said "an heir" not "the heir" because he did not inherit much of the business. When the original founder passed away, he had it split between 2 sons. These two sons had more children each, then one of them died. My granduncle-in-law was a son of this dead heir.

His uncle, after the death, took over the other share and gave his dead brother's children lowly positions while saving the upper management jobs for his own six children. Today most of the family has moved to the US, where the business has apparently expanded a lot. Back when it was only a big restaurant in Hong Kong, it was classy enough that local stars had to visit its restaurant often to be regarded as a celebrity. Today, it's everywhere and even has a small restaurant in Singapore. The name is 枫林, most commonly known as 枫林小馆.

My fifth grandaunt had the least wealthy husband who was a prison warden. Everyone of my granduncles-in-law on that side of the family were successful businessmen except him. Pretty sad but understandable because she was slightly brain-damaged as a child. Another short story here.

Back when the Japanese finally surrendered, my great-grandfather and his family celebrated by having a real meal with actual bowls of rice, which they couldn't afford before despite owning a rice shop. My fifth grandaunt, being a child of about ten, couldn't resist showing off her bowl of rice to other people outside, so she took her food and went out to eat.

One of the beggars, upon seeing a good clean bowl filled with cooked rice, succumbed to his hunger and snatched her bowl and ran like hell. A bowl of rice was practically worth a fortune at that point of time, so my frightened grandaunt gave chase to avoid getting punished. The beggar was probably mad with hunger and just ran across the roads. Meanwhile she followed and subsequently got knocked down by a car. She survived but suffered permanent brain damage that made her talk funny for the rest of her life.

Just because my grandaunts all married rich men doesn't mean they were all happy tai tais. They had to frequently pool their jewellery whenever one of them had to attend special events like their mother-in-laws' birthday celebrations. The families were rich but they themselves weren't wealthy enough to afford full sets of cheongsams and jewellery to go with, so they had to share. It's just like how not all British nobles are multi-millionaires or billionaires. Some are poor enough to be willing to sell their titles.

I don't know when many of the above things happened and I have no reason to try to find these people.

Speaking of WWII, my great-grandfather had buried a lot of money underground during that period. People during the wars were very enthusiastic about hiding stuff under the floors and soil. His first attempt was before WWII. Most of his money were rotten and unusable by the time he dug them out. I don't know which war during which this happened.

His second attempt was funnier. During WWII he buried Japanese money in those huge clay jars in which they used to preserve vegetables. The idea was that the bills would be preserved together with the vegetables by the salt and whatever else they used. When the war was over, they would be recovered and used. This was partly to prevent themselves from being robbed clean by Japanese soldiers who would often raid the shops. The official reason was to search for any illegal item, but in reality all they did was steal their money and food.

After WWII, all that remained were several notes which my great-grandmother gave out to the other family members. My mother has one which she has kept really carefully somewhere in her collection. The rest were completely ruined.

My great-grandfather did not live long after the war. After the surrender of the Empire of Japan, he was beaten to death by drunk Japanese soldiers when the family was having dinner in a restaurant. Somehow he was spotted by the men in the bathroom and by the time some random guy who saw it informed the rest of the family outside he was barely alive and the Japanese were gone. He did not survive the trip to the hospital.

This utterly meaningless death made everyone in the family hate the Japanese up to my mother's generation. I think this is called a blood feud. These things don't just appear in fiction.

My grandfather then took over one of the shops while his brother took over the other. He was spoilt, which makes sense given he was the elder son of a wealthy businessman. He went to expensive private schools that only whites and wealthy Chinese people could go to. Never went to university. As a child his allowance from his father was 1HKD per day. That's like a week's wage for labourers back then. In general he turned out to be a good man and his main weakness was his addiction to gambling.

By the time of my great-grandfather's death, he was already married to my grandmother who went to school for a single year because that was one of the conditions stated by my grandfather. She went to primary four directly. Yep, that year of schooling was obviously completely pointless.

Like all marriages in those days, it was an arranged one. Unfortunately, it was to be something my grandmother would be unhappy about even now. It began with his physical height because he was a short man, and the reasons multiplied as the years passed.

Yes he visited brothels and spent time with other women in hotels but that stopped when he finally couldn't afford it. Actually that was understandable given that women unhappy with their husbands are known to "have headaches" at night often. Anyway he couldn't afford it because his gambling habit made him lose his rice shop. Broke, the family moved to Shantou, Guangdong Province in the PRC, where he bought a small farm.

That place was haunted, or so my mother claimed. As a child she had had many encounters with the spirits in the area. Woman crying, spirits moving stuff, etc etc.

Those years were when she learnt a lot about farming that are still quite unchanged today, including battery cages and what is called "intensive chicken farming". To this day, one of my uncles still does not eat chicken absolutely and my aunts dislike eating chicken. Once I accidentally cooked chicken in one of the 4 pots of soup during a steamboat dinner because I didn't know about it. My uncle got kind of pissed at seeing that piece of meat in the pot he was using and demanded to know who it was who put it there. On learning that I didn't know about his attitude towards chicken he cooled down and settled upon using the last pot of soup that never touched any chicken.

That was the same uncle who cut the chicken gullet when he was first learning to slaughter chicken. It panicked and he, in turn, panicked. Then he let it go and it ran everywhere spraying blood all over the place from its severed artery.

Anyway they moved back to Hong Kong some years later to an apartment where my grandmother is still living in today. My aunts and uncles have told her to sell it before it gets too old to be sold but she refused to budge. I think it's already too old now.

It is strange how an unhappy woman can live so long. People often think that longevity and a positive attitude come together. My grandmother was always whining about stuff, according to my mother. When my grandfather returned home smelling of wine and perfume they would have quarrels, sometimes violent. These happened quite often.

When he went broke and moved to China, she often complained about his inability to support the family and needed her help to work. By the way she worked at home by putting plastic flowers together with glue. I'm not sure if that's hard work and I thought couples should support each other in times of hardship. Actually, never mind. Couples these days would just get a divorce if things like this happen.

Even after he died of pneumonia, she would always complain about him during at his grave during Qing Ming and his death anniversaries. It was only after my father had pass away that my mother spoke about this to her sisters, who in turned talked to her about this using my mother as comparison.

My grandfather died a few years before I was born. Guess how many years she whined about him after his death. She wouldn't have stopped at all if my father was still alive today.

She's my prime example of how negativity does not affect longevity. Pessimism does not seem to make people die earlier.

I mean, she's not even poor or anything. My mother estimates that she should still have a lot of money and that doesn't include the value of her home. All that came from her daughters who used to give her all their wages while she returned to them about 10 percent as allowances. If my mother never got married, she would still be giving her 90% of her income today.

So she's rich, her medical expenses are all covered by her children, she has grandchildren who are all growing up well and my aunts and uncles visit her every year. She still whines to them all the time on the phone about all sorts of things.

It is strange how she's still alive today with that attitude towards life. Maybe all that whining vents her frustrations and makes her happy inside. I don't really know.


Well that's the end of the story. I'll leave the rest for another rant.

This biography isn't objective at all. :P



I wonder how my life will be summarized by my bro when he tells the story to his children.

"Your uncle, he was a normal person when he was young. Then when he grew up he locked himself in his hot and stuffy room where he played computer games and surfed the Internet for the rest of his life."

That's like a modernized version of "and he lived happily ever after." I like it.

"And he wrote all kinds of shit about me when he was alive."







Just watched the third episode of the first season of Trick or Treat by Derren Brown. Every episode he would make someone pick two cards with either "Trick" or "Treat" printed on it. It's supposed to be random but where Derren Brown is concerned nothing is random and free will does not exist.

If he can make some random guy drunk just by seeing a word, what else can he not do?

In this particular episode, the participant picked "Treat" and he spent a week training the old lady to win in a world-class poker tournament. She didn't even play poker before that.

She didn't win but she was second. One week under Derren Brown can make an old lady become a world-class poker player. It's insane!!

If techniques that he uses are used in school such as how he made her more observant and confident, what would be the consequences?

I feel that teachers should learn what he does. In fact, it would make learning much less stressful if all the students were put into a trance during class. They wouldn't recall the lesson but they would remember all they learnt. Why not???

Even if we don't do this, we can use his techniques to influence the decisions of the students to make them more interested in studying. Just like how he made some guy think he really wanted a red bicycle, so can all children be made to love to learn.

It's true that it's not free will, but Singapore works.












It's strange how a game company would use pirated softwares to cover up their mistakes.

"Ubisoft ran into such a glitch with the CD-check built into the PC version of Rainbow Six Vegas 2; users who downloaded the game from an official source didn't have a disc to pass the check, causing a new patch to break legally downloaded versions of the game. Ubisoft had a novel—not to mention cheap—way to fix this: a crack that allows the game to play without a disc in the drive. The issue? The crack came from the "warez" group Reloaded, with no attribution or notice that third-party code was used to fix the DRM issue. "

In short, when they found that their then-latest patch had broken the legit copies of the game of all players who used it, they used the pirated copy of the exe file to solve this problem without acknowledging that it was Reloaded's work.

Do 2 wrongs really don't make a right?











That Dr Goh's funeral stuff was really overdone. Seriously, they even brought schoolchildren there. How many of them have even heard of his name a month ago?

Forcing people to go to someone's funeral really misses the point of having one in the first place. How do you pay your final respect if you didn't respect the deceased?