Got into an expensive cab today that was a 6-seater minivan thing. Cost me S$3.90 just to board excluding the peak hour surcharge of 25% because it was 11pm.
That driver was totally sad.
He was happy enough to talk and he kept talking about his issues with unreasonable passengers.
After taking cabs for so many years, I know my share of those stories.
So eventually we came to this topic of sleeping drivers after encountering one on our way to my home. We were at a red light and when it turned green, the car in front of the car ahead of us didn't move even after both of us horned. So the car in front of us turned to the left lane while we took the right lane.
Good thing we did, because we got a good view of the driver as we passed the yellow cab.
He was sleeping so soundly. Mmmmm sweeet dreeeeeeeaaaaams.
So I told my driver of the other time when I took the cab of a driver who fell asleep in broad daylight while also waiting at a red light.
His head was down and he wasn't holding anything.
He couldn't possibly have been staring so hard at his dick.
Red lights do not usually give anyone boners.
Slightly shocked, I told him loudly that we can go now. His head sprang up and we continued our way, except from that point on I was totally alert throughout the trip.
It's scary to be in the car of a sleepy driver.
And before I continue, I just want to clarify that I didn't actually mention the part about boners.
So the driver I was talking about at first in the expensive cab told me another story on the same topic.
He was on a highway towards Mandai during peak hour and there was this taxi ahead that was speeding ahead of him.
But suddenly he just stopped.
It technically wasn't stopped - it was only going very, very slowly.
The funny thing was, the taxi then swerved left from the third lane on the right to the second lane and finally to the first... very, very slowly.
Curious, my driver then went passed him to take a look and sure enough, he was sleeping. Better still, his entire upper body was tilting left while still holding the wheel, which explains why the taxi moved towards that direction.
The passenger behind had a "look of pure agony" according to him.
It was pure luck they were both alive. Absolute pure luck.
No wonder I keep hearing about accidents and traffic jams on PIE during peak hours, like the other day when a driver told me about this triple-accident jam on that highway during the morning peak hour period that caused a massive jam for the whole morning.
And taxi drivers who don't know the way, we talked about those too after I mentioned how the driver of the cab I took this morning had to use the GPS to find his way to my destination.
I'm actually totally ok with GPS except sometimes it just lags and occasionally, it's just outdated.
For example, I once saw this GPS used by one driver that didn't have the new underpass near PIE and Kallang Way that's been around for about half a year already.
Half a year! Fortunately I didn't want him to take the way described in the GPS so it was all fine.
And the driver also told that I should keep talking to keep sleepy drivers awake. Even piss them off if that's what it takes. I don't mind because when it's a matter of life and death, I'd rather be a live asshole than a dead gentleman.
He also suggested that I ask them how they became taxi drivers because apparently, they would love to talk about their stories.
So I immediately asked him that question and he initally wanted to shrug it off by saying that he wasn't sleepy so there's no need to ask him.
Then for some reason he just went on to answer it anyway.
I guess what he said really does apply... at least on himself.
He was in a senior management position in the banking and finance industry but left it in 2009. Initially this was supposed to be a part time job but after 2 years (perhaps 3 soon) it might as well be a permanent job.
He still had his contacts and was still playing golf regularly, so he considered this as a break.
I just find this denial sad.
Even if what he said was true, which probably was because he turned on the lights to show me his tan lines and the set of clubs at the back of the cab, it is still not a good thing.
It certainly isn't something I'd be proud of if I were in his shoes, yet he sounded like he needed to convince me the story was true.
The fact that he needed to find respect and recognition from total strangers gave me the impression that he was very desperate to get back some resemblance of his former life.
Either that or he was just desperate for respect and went all the way to create this elaborate lie.
27th February
When you mix
with
you get
A lot of people came over today. Or rather, a lot more than the first day.
Had an epic lecture from a buyer. I never thought I could learn so much during an event like this.
The transporter also came later at night when I didn't expect anymore to come. In fact I was just going to finally have my dinner (half the plain chicken breast with whatever veg foot-long from Subway) when he arrived.
Fortunately I wasn't really hungry and was only eating for the sake of it. A bit light-headed but nothing some sugary drink like that packet of guava juice drink wouldn't solve.
We talked a bit. He was tired and really didn't want to talk much but the silence and awkward. Moreover, I have to learn to make conversation if I am to become a good businessman.
So we talked about his job, his workers and his kid.
I don't envy him. He's having a terrible worker problem.
For some reason, he'd been changing his driver almost every single day for the past month.
Nobody wanted to work for anything less than S$1800 even though it was just a simple physical job as a transporter. The jobscope is just loading the full boxes to the pickup, drive over to the destination and unload, maybe even unpack.
One of them even quit by just leaving the truck somewhere and vanished. He only found out about this when he received complaints near the evening and checked his GPS that showed that the vehicle had been parked there since the morning.
Awesome way to quit, asshole.
He was puzzled as to why this was happening, so right now he's doing everything on his own again... except his age is starting to catch up and he's got a back problem.
To make things worse, he has a 4-year-old kid and a wife, and no insurance company would sell him any medical-related insurance (obviously). If he can't get a new dependable worker, I'd say he's going to be handicapped eventually.
No choice. He tried to sell his business to get a less physically-demanding job, but nobody was interested.
He then wanted to solve this by expanding the business but the worker problem was stopping him from even taking the first step.
To him, it's ridiculous to give a new driver a starting pay of S$2000. He thought it was reasonable only after a couple of years, but not immediately.
So now he's trying to apply for permit or something to hire foreign workers. He had had experience with them before in the past when he dabbled in other trades and he had good impression of them.
The Bangladeshi workers he hired for another business in the past were perfectly happy with a very low wage. To them, it is so fantastic to be a labourer in this country because if they save up what they make here for a few years, they could buy a piece of land back home, build a house and even get a wife.
Better still, they would still have enough left over to feed themselves a year or two if they stopped working.
I heard the same from another foreign worker in the past. Described this before in a rant long ago. Worked for a number of years here as an air-conditioner technician, got tired of the company's stinginess towards him, so he went home with enough money to set up his own shop.
So anyway, if that doesn't work out for the transporter, I could probably help. After all these are over.
He was so tired the night he came, he was starting to see things. He thought one of the cars in the carpark was moving perhaps because the handbrake wasn't locked. I stared for a long time but it remained stationary to me.
I just told him to go home and rest. Kinda worried about his driving at that point actually.
Personally I've never got that tired even after staying up for 24 hours, so I only have a vague idea of how tired he was.
1 March
Not really in the mood to do anything. Heard that blogging about one's troubles can be therapeutic, so I'm going to do it.
As usual, just don't expect the full story. The full story will be out someday but not today.
I'll start on Saturday, 25th March.
I know I typed something on that date but that was before I went to bed the previous night, when it was past 12am.
Before I got out of bed in the morning, I received a call from the doctor regarding my mum. She was not doing well and she was no longer responding to the steroids at all, unlike the partial responses she gave recently.
He said that "it could lead to demise" but I did not get the hint perhaps I didn't want to.
Whatever it was, I wasn't in the mood for anything for the rest of the day. Played a bit of Fallen Earth, mainly some mind-numbing material collection to raise my crafting skills, but went back to some web-browsing from the afternoon onwards.
At 2.46pm a nurse called to ask me if I wanted to shift her to a private room so that her family could stay with her overnight. I thought about it for a few seconds and said yes.
I did consider visiting her but it has been so depressing for me everytime I do that I thought I'd just go the next day. I had said everything I needed to say, and the last time I went I didn't think she understood what I was saying. Even if she did, she most likely had forgotten already. Visiting her just meant staring at her trying to stay conscious.
Better to leave her alone. Maybe she could also forget about me if she didn't see me.
My brother had visited her in the afternoon, and she was mostly unconscious. No longer eating and only opened her eyes for a while, but that didn't mean she was in danger of leaving any time soon.
At 7.55pm I received another call from the hospice, this time from a nurse.
Her heavy accent made it hard for me to understand a lot of her words, but "can go anytime" was easy to catch. Not to mention she repeated herself at least 3 times.
Still not expecting it to happen that night since she appeared better a few days ago and was able to breathe without the oxygen machine, I took half an hour to take a shower, put on some clothes and pack a towel and a bottle of water in my bag for an overnight stay.
Not sure when I arrived. Maybe 8.45pm or so.
She was already gasping for air and appeared unconscious.
No, I'm not satisfied with this description. It's exactly because of vague sugar-coated crap like this that led me to expect something entirely different. For the benefit of anyone who reads this, I'll let you see, to the best of my ability, what death really is.
She was lying on her side at about 45 degrees because they placed a pillow under her left side to ease the pain from her bedsores. The oxygen pump was the only machine in the room that was switched on, with the tubes going to her nostrils pumping damp air into her nose, but clearly it wasn't enough.
She turned her head up and her mouth gaped open every time she took a breath. The pace was calm, like she was sleeping.
There have been times when I woke up halfway through a snore and I have tried to reenact a snore. It takes a lot of motivation to breathe without trying to open up the windpipe. Yet even snoring doesn't involve stretching my jaws that hard.
To have to open the mouth wide, it must have been so hard to breathe. Furthermore, she was already so weak she could barely squeeze my hand since the week before.
Why did they take her off the oxygen if the windpipe blockage wasn't gone?
No decent person deserves to suffer like that, but here was proof that it was the norm.
I couldn't stop tears from welling in my eyes at that point, which was actually almost immediately after I entered the room.
Her eyes were a little wet so I thought she was crying in her dreams. I held her right hand to see if she was conscious, but there was no response.
I really hope she was crying in her dreams and not because she noticed my heavy footsteps, but I'll never know for sure.
So I took a chair to sit at the side she was facing and held her right hand.
It was good that that she never responded to any of the noises I made because it meant she was most likely unconscious.
Also dabbed the tissue paper on her eye to dry it, and the eye stayed dry. Evidence that it was not in response to my entry.
After some time, her gasps became more violent. I guessed it was because it was getting even harder to breathe, and I jerked up in case it was because she was dying.
She continued the more exaggerated gasping instead of gradually increasing the force, so I thought it was simply an elevation of her symptoms.
It was hard to hold back my tears as I watched her suffer so, but suddenly her eyes opened. I thought maybe it was because I had woken her up, but her eyes didn't seem to be looking at anything. I put my head right in front of her eyes then moved away, but her eyes never shifted as she continued to gasp hard.
Then her left hand moved a bit. I was confused then: was she conscious or not?
Yet she wasn't squeezing my hand with her right one.
Before I could figure out the answer, she stopped gasping and her body, including her legs that she couldn't move since two months ago and her right hand, twitched. Her eyelids slowly closed.
Did I wake her up and that the gasps were her snores?
No, I realized, the more sensible conclusion was that she had just died.
I have never been able to feel pulses with my finger on anyone for some reason, so I stared at her chest instead.
It wasn't moving, and her face was becoming pale. What really drove the fact into my mind was that she was drooling.
That was death and I didn't even recognize it.
Despite my tears I snatched a towel from the drawers next to me and placed it under her mouth.
I stared for a few moments longer, perhaps hoping for her to resume her breathing. I don't remember.
I didn't kowtow thrice to her like I did for my father since she had told me not to.
I do remember crying harder, then drying my face, before I pressed the button to call for the nurses.
They arrived within 10s as I was cleaning my nose. I had already stopped crying but I knew my red eyes were obvious.
The first thing the nurse asked was, "It just happened?"
I nodded, and a person in normal clothing and another nurse followed her in.
One of them used a stethoscope to check for signs of life as I got out of the room to call my brother and calm myself.
After a few minutes, a nurse and the civilian then told me the time of death before asking about the undertaker.
I recognized this nurse as the one who called me earlier in the evening, and again it was hard to comprehend her words. It took some time but I managed to understand that she was asking two things:
1) Did I have an undertaker ready?
2) Did I want her body to be brought to the parlour that night or the following morning?
To the first, I didn't actually book any undertaker although I had Fairprice Casket in mind.
As for the second, I was confused. Why not take her away to preserve the body immediately?
She then explained that she was asking that because there was no doctor around to certify the death in the hospice that night, which was on a Saturday. If I wanted to her body to be taken away that night, she would have to call a doctor.
Seeing no reason to keep her here any longer, I told her to call the doctor.
Now I think she was asking because some families may want to see the deceased in the hospice immediately and there would be members who would take longer to arrive. Moreover, once the body was taken away, nobody would be allowed to see it until it was placed in the coffin.
Who knows? Some people may have relatives who are living in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, and still want to come.
So they told me they would also clean the body before the undertaker arrived.
I went back into the room immediately to get my bag. Despite the screen they put around her, I was tall enough to see that her mouth was still open. Dead people in reality don't close their jaws like they do on TV and in the movies.
Is that really considered to be dying with dignity?
I got out of the room, called my brother again to tell him to bring the set of clothes she told me she wanted to wear at her funeral. Fortunately he wasn't rushing quickly enough to have left home by then, so he went back to get it.
Next, I called Fairprice Casket. The man on the phone, a Mr Sim, was very polite and patient for someone who was getting a business call on a Saturday night, but I guess that's his job.
He asked me for the basic details like where the body was, who she was, what kind of funeral I wanted, how long the funeral was going to be and where it should be held.
After that he told me what I needed to do and bring, like her clothes and documents, and his handphone number, the address of the funeral parlour, what the "package" contained and the price.
I had already read something on what happens at this point, like what I was going to have to do, and it really helped make things less confusing.
My brother called me after that, while I was sitting in the dark at their garden (?) outside the room to think. Apparently one of the gates was locked and he had gone to that one. I told him to walk over to the other gate I had used.
I then talked to the civilian who was probably a doctor. I didn't know why she couldn't do whatever they needed a doctor for, but later when I read the documents they handed me I saw that they needed a coroner. Perhaps she wasn't qualified for the job.
She had came to me to ask a few questions but I interrupted her to ask if she could unlock the gate for my brother. She then directed me to the security guard.
As I walked to him, I called my brother to stay there but he had already gone halfway to the other gate.
So I went back to talk to the doctor who had returned to the nurse counter for some paperwork. I asked her what she wanted to talk to me about. She replied by asking if I was alright. I said I was, and it was true.
She told me she was going to give me some documents to bring to the police.
I then asked her if the police posts were open that late.
It was extremely embarassing to admit this so I forced a quick laugh. We both laughed but I thought it was highly inappropriate.
She checked with the nurse who had called me and she said police posts were opened 24/7.
Relieved, I went back to the garden to wait. Within minutes, my brother called to ask where I was.
I handed the clothes he brought to the nurses preparing my mother's body and brought him to where I was sitting.
I noticed the conspicuous absence of his girlfriend who was usually more emotional than either of us even though that was our mother in there, and according to him she was too upset to come.
The undertaker called me soon after to tell me he was going to wait at the "holding room". I got back to the nurse counter to ask where that was, just in time to get a document and my mother's IC in an envelope. As the two ladies explained again what I was to do and handed me a document to sign, the undertaker came over.
We shook hands, and he explained the process on his side to me. The Buddhist funeral was going to last 3 days as she wanted it to be, with that very night being the first day. I wasn't content with that because I had half a mind to call my relatives against her wishes and I could not expect everyone to come by Monday afternoon.
So he relented and let the Sunday be the first day.
The issue on the obituary, a Non-Contract Insertion for Lianhe Zaobao on the 27th, was also settled. I did ask for the English paper too but that was harder for him to settle for me due to the time. In the end, we didn't post on the Straits Times but my mother had only asked for the Chinese paper anyway.
Next he went through things I needed to do that night or in the morning before I go to his office:
1) go to the police for the death certificate and cremation/burial permit
2) get a passport-sized photo of her
3) her clothes, but the nurses were already handling that
The first was already explained by the hospice staff but the second was a little more difficult.
I vaguely remember her telling me she had prepared one in her cupboard, but I never got around to finding it.
As he talked, he brought me and my brother (who came over with my bag while I was at the counter) to the holding room.
When he was done talking, I suddenly remembered the staff telling me at the counter that I was to collect anything I wanted from the drawers in my mother's room.
So I told the undertaker to wait while my brother and I rushed back to the room.
The nurse who first entered the room when I pressed the button was still inside tidying up the area, and she told us that they would clear up everything we left behind the following morning.
We took her old clothes, the boxes of tissue papers and the organic foodstuff given by a friend. Left all the diapers for the hospice.
Went to the holding room to see our mother one last time. Apparently it's a small room near the backdoor (the liquid oxygen tank was right outside) where they keep their deceased patients. I noticed they had placed a neatly folded towel under her chin to keep her mouth closed.
We looked and left through the door we entered while she was carried out through the other door. Meanwhile the nurse I last mentioned was there with a large screen to block the view of anyone else in the corridor.
After she was carried to the van on a stretcher, the undertaker explained again to the both of us what we needed to do before we agreed to meeting at his office at 9.30am the next day. He probably knew our minds were no longer functional because he was the one who suggested the time.
So we signed out and took a cab home.
The driver asked if we just got off work, to which I replied with a negative. Good thing he had the sense to stop talking completely.
When we alighted, I told my brother to search for the photo and get her passport just in case, while I went to the police.
The police post was closed and a sign outside stated that the neighbhood police post only opens between 12pm and 10pm.
That's even better than normal office jobs.
Luckily for me it also redirected non-urgent matters to the nearest police centre, so I quickly got onto a cab again.
After that, I wasn't so lucky.
The driver went to the old police centre that was no longer opened, and he didn't know where the new one was.
So we went to the one at Clementi.
I don't have an actual data plan for my phone and I CBA to disable the 3G-blocker app to use the pay-as-you-surf plan unless I'm in a real emergency.
The moronic driver stopped in the yellow box across the road from the police centre where 4-5 police officers were guarding the gate. FYI yellow boxes are areas on the road where no vehicle is allowed to stop.
And Singaporeans whine about foreigners taking their jobs. The injustice!
I didn't noticed that at first when we stopped, but one of the officers waved at us to move away. The driver signalled to them that I was going to go to their station but the officer just kept waving us away.
So he stopped further down the road laughing about how they can't let us stop there even though I was going to them. I wonder if people also jay-walk to them. Probably.
The guards asked me why I was there, so I told them. They let me in, got my IC to record my details and handed me a visitors' pass.
When I got in, the two officers asked me why I was there. Again, things moved quickly when I replied.
Also noticed a Malay (or Indonesian or Pinay) girl waiting. Sucked to be there on a Saturday night, but at least the place was air-conditioned and there was a TV.
I handed the envelope to the sergeant before sitting down. Signed a form or two and he printed an A4-sized document which included a detachable burial/cremation permit.
A "Certificate of Registration of Death", it was called.
Managed to get a cab and got home before 12am. Probably around 11.45pm. I was slightly worried about getting the 50% midnight surcharge, although overall my mind was just... dead.
Eyes teared a few times in the cabs but I managed to keep my mind blank almost all the time.
At home, my brother had placed the passport and a photo on my desk. Nice photo, probably 10 years old. Even if it wasn't the one she had prepared, she would have been happy with that.
Why do Singaporean netizens behave like this? It makes it so hard for me to read news online.
On the rise of divorce cases in Singapore:
On British tourist who was forced to pay RM450 for a 10km taxi trip in Malaysia:
On the replacement of the Budget Terminal:
On Singapore being the third richest country in the world:
(In case Terry's comment sounds right to you, keep in mind Luxembourg is known for being a tax haven with strict banking secrey laws.)
On the sexual harassment case in NTU:
I don't know why I should be proud to be a Singaporean anymore.
The next morning the both of us and his girlfriend arrived at the parlour close to the time we agreed upon. He quickly explained everything that were provided by the package in the room, brought me to check my mother's appearance and told me to call him if I needed anything.
His employee then asked me if I wanted to place anything inside to be cremated with her. I said no, so he closed the coffin and locked it.
It was only after that that I realized her left eye wasn't completely closed but it was too late. I told Mr Sim but apparently the coffin couldn't be opened anymore. Moreover, we could ruin her makeup even if we could somehow stick a hand inside.
The food offerings provided were vegetarian food - various mock meats and rice.
Mr Sim told me that I could bring her favourite food for dinner and the following breakfast, but after that when the monks come over at 4pm and I would need to remove all non-vegetarian food before their arrival.
A monk and the SPH media representative arrived soon after. The SPH guy arrived first and got me to write down the Chinese names of our whole direct family, and gave me a folder to select the size of the insertion.
Each size had a price stated next to it and I didn't actually know what to choose. Since we aren't wealthy and she didn't have a lot of friends, we went quickly to the last page where the smallest sizes were.
He saw our hesitation and recommended the largest in that page. Large enough to be noticed and to avoid being disrespectful, yet small enough to be affordable at S$804.43, GST included.
Next was the monk who was writing an announcement to be pasted next to the door of the parlour.
He needed our Chinese names too and also asked how our names were pronounced.
After that he asked if we wanted more monks to chant additional sutras the next day. Apparently the package only included a single monk for a single sutra, and he could ask for two more monks and two more sutras.
Obviously there was a fee, and in this case it was an additional S$1000.
I just agreed immediately. It wasn't even necessary to tell me that it was better because she had told me she wanted "a few" monks. One is no few.
The rest of the day was quiet. I'd already asked my brother the previous night if we should notify her siblings and friends. She was completely against it, but if we didn't believe in spirits, then she wasn't around anymore. If so, we should put the wishes of the living as our top priority.
I thought it was cruel to deny her siblings a chance to talk to her before she left, but she was adamant about not informing them. In addition, they never called even during the Chinese New Year so I couldn't use that excuse to tell them.
It felt just as cruel to prevent them from seeing their sister one last time before her cremation, and this was how I explained my stance to him.
He agreed that morning when I asked him again, so I began to type a simple SMS to her friends in Singapore, or at least people whom I knew to be her friends, including the buyers, our employees and a few others. I'm pretty sure I missed some but I didn't actually care.
For one, I haven't inform all the Chinese-speaking friends who had called me before when I re-directed the office phone to my mobile. If they didn't see the insert in the obituary, she didn't want me to inform anyone anyway.
Next I called my relatives with her phone. First I tried her second sister, the one who visited us the most. Nobody answered. Next was her youngest sister. Nope. Finally I called her fourth sister and a guy answered.
I thought it was my uncle-in-law, but it turned out to be my cousin. First I asked if he was able to contact his mother immediately. When he replied with a positive, I told him to pass the message that my mother had passed away the previous night and I needed her to spread that message to her other siblings.
I had visited the nearby canteen before the parlour was ready to get breakfast with my brother and his girlfriend, and only the noodle stall was opened.
My brother had to leave in the afternoon to revise for his mid-term exam the following morning, so before he left he bought lunch for me.
My mum wouldn't have wanted to interrupt his studies like that. Moreover, it was just that day and the morning.
A few of her siblings called soon after that. First was the fourth sister, who also informed me that their mother, my grandmother, had also passed away in the morning of the same day. She seemed upset but was still able to talk with a trembling voice.
Next was the eldest son of her family, and her younger brother. He was much less upset when he informed me about the same thing, except he also explained to me that they haven't even received the death certificate and couldn't organise a funeral yet.
Also told me they would discuss among themselves and perhaps send a representative over to Singapore.
I guess it's very different when your parents pass away in their 80s compared to what it would be like if they had gone in their 50s.
Finally the husband of her fourth sister called to tell me they were both coming over.
I stayed there the entire day till 11pm with absolutely nothing to do. It didn't really matter because I wasn't in the mood for anything anyway. Spoke to her at length with an honesty that I've never shown her since my kindergarten days because it didn't matter what I said to her anymore.
I was used to having monologues back when she was too ill to talk. I'd just talk to her like I was blogging here, although almost everything that came out of my mouth was related to our business. Hard to think about anything else in her presence.
That day, however, I talked about everything, although I can't remember what now.
That night a worker she used to hire and her family came over. I didn't know they were all related even though I'd met most of them.
The worker brought her sister whom I was supposed to know but didn't. This sister's husband was a general contractor whom my mum had hired for a number of jobs, most of which I didn't even know about. Their daughter was our accountant and the niece of the senior employee I'm currently hiring.
That makes that employee their sister, and almost their entire family had been working with us for over a decade without me knowing it.
02 March
Can't believe it's already the 7th day. Not planning to publish anything until I finish this, and not planning to consider this finished till I've edited my language. This is, after all, the most significant event in my life so far.
I predict this will be published in the end of March.
The second day was slightly more interesting. I was worried the night before about an accidental fire because of all the candles and the 12-hour incense stick I left burning inside. Switched off the lights and locked the door before leaving, but left the air-conditioner running because for one, I don't want to suffocate the incense and the other reason being I had no idea where the remote was.
I arrived at about 9am to find the parlour still there and the incense was barely consumed.
My uncle-in-law called soon after I arrived to ask for the address, although later he got me to tell the driver via his phone where to go.
They got here soon after, things turned a little depressing and I got a little worried when my aunt told me she couldn't cry.
I felt it was worse for the female relatives because
- females tend to be more emotional
- they lost both a mother and a sister on the same day.
- some of them only knew about my grandmother's condition some time before Chinese New Year
- they only knew that my mother was ill until the day before when they learnt of her death
No doubt my uncles are all fine. A few of them are probably already looking forward to the inheritance, and I'm pretty sure she's got quite a fortune in her bank account(s) and a lot of gold in her jewellery box(es).
The former is because she collected a lot of money over the years and she rarely gave much to anyone; the latter is because IIRC she demanded small fortunes for bride prices from all the husbands of her daughters.
In fact the only uncle-in-law who isn't/wasn't a successful businessman (to some degree at least) is the husband of my mother's youngest sister who is a policeman. Spec ops or whatever the HK equivalent is called, IIRC.
Call it whatever you want, but all their marriages turned out very well. Not a single divorce and the eldest two are already retired with very successful children.
In fact TBH I'm the least successful compared to all the children born to my mother's sisters, based on the fact that my highest qualification at the age of 27 is a pre-U diploma. This won't be true in the future but that's only because her youngest sister was unfortunate enough to have mildly retarded kids. C'est la vie.
Comparing myself to the kids of my mother's brothers would be pointless since her brothers were all spoilt by my grandmother. One aims to be a model but lacks the height, another is mildly retarded and the third is just a little spoilt brat.
Even if I remain better than any of them in the future it won't be something I can be proud of.
So anyway I talked with them on a wide range of topics including my own understanding of my mother's mind, my father and how to run a business.
I just cannot resist asking about my father whenever I meet someone who used to know him. I'm curious about his life and my mother rarely discusses him. Moreover, nobody other than herself seems to know about his life before he arrived at Hong Kong.
Unfortunate.
Even this uncle-in-law, who had known him since the time he started a factory in HK and was introduced to my aunt by my mother, knew nothing about his past.
I did learn a bit more about his early career from him.
He started out by borrowing a room from a factory owner in exchange for his own silk printing service. It was kinda like a partnership until he made enough to get his own place.
This uncle back then was an entrepreneur who had no contacts and no network. In such a situation, a businessman must become a door-to-door salesman pretty much like my mother did after my father passed away.
One day he knocked on my father's door and was invited in for a drink. Apparently my father was a very social guy and they became friends quickly. According to my mother he used to eat with his employees, so this fits.
TBH it's like a jigsaw puzzle to me.
Eventually my mother met him, somehow noticed that he was good with kids and was a nice person overall, and hence introduced him to her sister.
My mother was introduced to my father by the husband of her eldest sister, but I learnt during the conversation that their relationship had never gone beyond that of business partners, so there wasn't any point in asking that uncle.
Back to the main story, I invited the couple to my father's place in the columbarium just next to the parlour. Though my aunt didn't really care, her husband had only visited him at the altar at my home. Therefore he agreed to go with me later that day.
Meanwhile I SMSed my brother to come over with at least one baguette, one of my mother's favourite food. He called later to ask if I wanted lunch, and I asked for a foot-long with grilled chicken breast, all vegetables and nothing else from Subway.
He and his girlfriend arrived in the early afternoon and during my conversation with my relatives, I couldn't resist my hunger and ate half of it in front of them. Not very polite but hunger is hunger.
Later, after the awkward wait as I ate, they went to the canteen later for their own lunch. It was only after they left that I realized that that was a good time to start changing, so I went after them and offered to treat them drinks.
To my embarassment I had left my wallet in the parlour, so he treated me instead.
There we talked about my cousins. Their son is now studying law over in Canada and my aunt wants him to become a small-time lawyer so that he doesn't have to sacrifice his conscience for money. His love life is a mess like another cousin of mine, except he's only 22 and his newly pregnant girlfriend is 29. She refused an abortion the last they talked about it, just before my aunt left for HK.
He's alright with this now, but the chances of a happy ending are slim IMO. Meanwhile their daughter has become some sort of emo kid (the US definition) studying in an arts college.
The three monks were supposed to come at 4pm but arrived slightly late. Chanted three sutras and performed some rituals with us that mostly involved me and my brother holding a joss stick each, some walking, some kneeling and a lot of waiting.
Ten minutes per sutra with a ten-minute break between of them, totalling fifty minutes.
I was impressed by the monk's geographical knowledge when he correctly stated my ancestral hometown immediately after I told him my specific ethnic group (as compared to the general ethnic group I usually identify myself with). Apparently there is only one county in China where the people identify themselves as such.
My impression of these monks dropped to abysmal levels after the whole ceremony. Their chanting was just crap! There were a number of times when they weren't chanting in unison (although they were quick to recover) and on one occasion all three of them stopped at the same time for a breather. A few times I think one of them was really mumbling nonsense because he got lost but I wasn't sure.
They take short five-second breaks to wet their throats regularly, at higher frequencies as they approached the end of each sutra.
Paid them with a cash cheque nevertheless, but now I have a very bad impression of Buddhist monks in Singapore.
I did want to ask them if monks have to serve National Service but forgot about it at the end because of my annoyance.
In the evening, all the rest of her friends started arriving.
First were my current employees. We talked a bit about her, they wet their eyes, and then the next visitor arrived.
This lady was an old friend of hers whom I didn't really know. She was the ex-wife of the adopted son of my great-grandaunt and somehow she got on really well with my mother. An ex-banker, she now runs a store selling imported organic foodstuff and is trying to get her products into supermarket chains.
Gave me a lot of advice I already knew but she confirmed something I had been kinda hoping wasn't true - that once you walk the path of entrepreneurship, you won't want to turn back. Unless you really like/need the job security (eg if you're the sole breadwinner of your family), the freedom just overwhelms everything you get from being an employee.
It really isn't about not having someone telling you what to do because my buyers are my bosses, and that's a fact. One of my buyers even feels like a second mother to me.
No, I think it's got to do with the flexible working hours and the ability to do anything I want as long as I can meet the demands of my buyers.
Anything. I can set up my own store, I can set up a stall in some flea market or pasar malam, I can diversify and I can even set up a second firm. The choices available to me are only limited by them and the laws of Singapore.
Of course, this doesn't apply if your idea of entrepreneurship involves inflexible working hours, like running the damned store yourself. Don't be stupid. When you're a boss, part of your job is to come up with more work and then delegating them to someone else.
So anyways the chat with her was also short because the "second mother" arrived with one of her staffs. I had a very long and honest conversation with her that I had already described above.
I really don't know how to handle such a situation where there are multiple groups of guests and only one of myself. Hence I only chatted with this last group and, although it felt kinda wrong, I never tried to stop the conversation.
The other guests, other than my relatives, left eventually. After that I asked my brother to bring our uncle to our father but for some reason he rejected his offer.
This clearly means something but I'm not sure what. My brother never actually did anything that day except talk to his girlfriend exactly like I would if I weren't determined to become the person I'm going to have to be.
Maybe it's because my uncle considered him to be almost a stranger?
That's my best guess at the moment.
Anyways we chatted till after 10pm. I was actually intermittently light-headed by then from starvation but I was learning so much from her I didn't want to stop.
I didn't even know about this GST registration thing!
Not really worth it for me though.
Finally they made up an excuse, something about the staff not having dinner before coming, and left. Since I was planning to leave at 11pm again, I thought I had some time to have dinner.
Just before I bit into the second half of the foot-long, I thought I should clean my hands in case I wanted to pick up any vegetables that dropped.
As I exited the washroom, my transporter was already walking towards the pile of joss sticks.
After the usual ritual, we talked, but not before I took a few packets of the Pokka guava drinks from the stack of packet drinks. He told me he couldn't drink that because of diabetes, so I offered him mineral water from the pile instead.
I drank a packet immediately after that. Didn't want to risk anything if I could help it.
After he drove off (but not before he told me that visitors weren't supposed to say goodbye in this situation, which made me understand why a number of guests just got up and left before that), we left at about 11.20pm.
Taxis were somehow very plentiful in that area of Singapore at that hour.
The third day was the final day. Bought more non-meat food for her and drank lots of coffee. I couldn't sleep the previous night because I kept thinking about what I learnt from the buyer and how I could help the transporter. I really pity him, mainly because of his 4-year-old child.
Took one packet of coffee right after I set up everything, half a packet a few hours after, one cup with my relatives when they went to the canteen for lunch and the rest of the packet after.
Three cups of coffee. Not that fantastic but two is the usual upper limit for me.
My hands didn't shake for the rest of the day, so all was fine.
Brought my two relatives to my father via the shortcut between the parlour and the columbarium. There were signs warning us about sightings of a python but we encountered nothing. Also saw the statues and the Buddhist academy or whatever it's called during our walk.
We found my father's slot easily but noticed that his photo was very faded now. We also didn't know which was bought by my mother although it was likely to be the one next to him on his left (our right). We asked the guy who was watching the room but he directed us to the information counter at the crematorium instead.
At the crematorium we were told that he could have just lifted the red card to see the name underneath, but I guess that guy was stricter about his beliefs for that. It's not right to display someone's name on his slot before he passes.
But they had their records on their computers so they could check for us just like the guy said when he directed us here.
No receipts but mentioning their names worked too, probably partly because of my circumstances. My uncle then asked about what happens later and kept telling me after that to go ahead and ask questions if I'm not sure about anything.
Personally I felt confused at first, then insulted.
I simply didn't care, and I knew the parlour guy would have guided me along later anyway. Moreover, my long-term memory loses most of its function when I have only two hours of sleep the previous night.
Anyways we also asked about how we could change my father's photo and were told to bring a new one the next day.
The most junior monk came alone for the final rites at 1pm. More joss sticks, more walking and more staring at him chant.
Finally the undertaker arrived with the pall-bearers to carry the coffin into the hearse. My brother and I then had to place our palm on the back it as it moved slowly to the main road. After that, as the most senior male member of my family, I sat with the driver holding the urn of joss sticks, a piece of yellow cloth covered with Buddhist symbols and the wooden tablet, all placed neatly in a small cardboard box.
Upon arriving at the crematorium, we went through more of the same Buddhist rituals, except I forgot to bring the red packets I was supposed to offer the monks and the worker who guided us in matters at the crematorium and columbarium.
The perk about being in such a tragic situation is that everybody forgives your every mistake, so I was informed that I could just bring them the next day because I had to return then anyway.
The crematorium was closed at 4pm and the cremation only started at somewhere between 2.30pm and 3pm.
Returned home and slept. Got up at 10pm and slept at 4am again.
The fourth day. Went to the crematorium at about 7.30am. This time, things were a lot less elaborate than how it went for my father's funeral. My brother and I were guided to the ash collection room where my brother placed 8 coins (1-dollar coins were not allowed though) in the urn before the both of us placed one piece of her leg bones each inside with a pair of chopstick.
He did the rest for us.
Somehow there was much less wood compared to my father's pile. Probably because it's a cheaper coffin. My father's funeral cost S$10k while this only cost S$5k.
Then more rituals and finally we placed the urn in the slot which was then closed and locked.
My father's photo was also handed over to the people who told us that it would be a month before they use it. Doesn't matter.
It was, however, the best passport-sized photo we have of him. The other photo we could find was stained. We did scan the first photo but I needed to think about the future. I'm going to be alive for several more decades, and if I have to change it every decade, I'll need a lot more copies of that photo.
Maybe we'll print it with a photo printer, or maybe I could bring the last photo to the nearby photo shop and see if they could clean and copy that.
We were also told to make a reservation on the seventh day if we wanted to burn anything on the forty-ninth day but I don't think I'll do that.
Today's actually the seventh day already and I didn't do anything about it, so why would I do anything on the forty-ninth day?
Maybe I'll burn something on Qingming.
As for the seventh day, let's test that theory. It's already 2.43am on what is technically the 8th day and nothing has happened so far. I even went over to her room at about 1am to take her phone's charger.
Went to the kitchen to deal with the leftovers. Nope, nothing.
So I wonder why people don't "check in" in Facebook when they attend a funeral.
"Senor Hybrido just checked in @Singapore Casket Parlour 2."
Facebook is for the masturbation of the epeen.
04 Mar
It doesn't actually go away, does it?
The fact that she died doesn't affect as much as how she died. At least it wasn't painful like the other cancer patients I've seen and heard about, the kind who contantly need morphine shots and get really sad to look at when the dose is insufficient.
Like the woman across the ward from my mum when she arrived at the hospice at first. She kept whining about the pain despite getting the max dosage the doctor prescribed until the day when she no longer had the strength to do so.
I guess being unconscious is a far better way to go, but suffocation is still one of the worst ways to die naturally IMO.
Euthanasia should be legalised for patients who no longer respond to any medical treatment other than painkillers.
Of course, anyone who hasn't suffered constant pain/suffering for at least 24 hours wouldn't really understand why.
And I just found the photos in her phone that she took accidentally while in the hospice. They were just pictures of the ceiling but they showed me what her world looked like for 4 months.
Didn't go to work for an entire week. I'm just avoiding anything to do with her. I haven't even called the insurance companies yet. Worried that Prudential might use the excuse that the last premiums weren't paid to get out of paying us.
They weren't paid because her bank account was empty and I didn't want to transfer more money there.
Not that we are in dire need of that cash but it's a matter of principle. I don't care if they deduct the premiums from it with interest as long as they give us what was promised.
Also her will. I have yet to do anything about anything for the entire week other than handle the funeral.
Mostly I just focused on what I consider "escapist activities" like games (mainly Tropico 3) and watching video game streams.
Now it's Sunday and I haven't even checked the new shipment that just arrived.
I trust my workers to handle them without my presence but at some point I'm going to have to do some quality control work and discuss this with the factory.
At some point I'm going to have to take care of the things she left behind. So many things everywhere.
For one, I wonder what I'm going to do with her bed and her room.
I have to get rid or at least pack away her stuff. No way am I allowing myself to hold on to all that like she did for my father.
It's ironic. It's exactly because she couldn't let go that caused her to let go sooner.
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