I remember discussing relationships with my students a long time ago during one of our English Literature lessons. With the advent of computers, emails and texting on mobile phones, I wonder if relationships today can match with those of past years.
Take friendship for example. Those forged in schools either survive into our adulthood or die a natural death over time. Friendships need to be nurtured so that they mature into a different level, where you can count on a friend when you are in need. Such close true friends, as Laertes in "Hamlet" said, " grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel..".
Family relationships are different as these are ties of blood. Nevertheless, there are different shades of closeness among family members, especially if one is from a big family.
I remember my mother, with ten children, each a year apart, would task each of us to look after a younger sibling.
I also remember that during the school holidays, we were sent to our grandparents. My brother and I were packed off to the countryside to stay with our paternal grandmother while four other siblings were sent to our maternal grandmother. One remained with her. At that time there were only weven of us. So naturally,the four would be closer to each other than to my brother and I, who are very close.
Life in the countryside with my grandmother was very different. During the day, my brother and I had to be outside the house to frighten away the hawks that threatened to swoop down on the chickens and ducks that she reared. We would jump and shout when we saw a hawk. We also had to go chilli-picking in the small-holding where she lived. She had coconut trees, some coffee plants, banana trees, mangosteen and rambutan trees, chilli plants and she also reared pigs.
We had to help our uncle clean out the pigsty in the morning and then help him to chop up the banana stems, mix it with something and then feed the swill to the pigs.
We also had to mash up the dried coconut residue (they came in round flat slabs) and mix it with water to feed the ducks. It was fun collecting the eggs after hearing the hens cackle. My uncle also taught us how to look at the eggs by candlelight to check whether they could hatch into chicks.
Our drinking water had to be ferried in jerry cans from a relative's house a few miles away.My uncle used to carry two jerry cans on the back of his bicycle and sometimes I got a ride with him sitting on the bicycle bar in front of him. This rich relative had a big brick bungalow with piped water and electricity. We got our drinking water from his taps. A well provided for the rest of our needs.
Nights were not pleasant as there was no electricity and we had to use the hurricane lamp. We slept on raised wooden platforms built on the mud floor. We had to barricade ourselves in because it was the Emergency period when there were communists and we could not have any lights on after dinner so as not to attract any unwelcome attention. I could hear gunshots occasionally and it used to frighten me. I would never dare to go to the toilet which was an outhouse quite far away behind the house and it was just a hole in the ground. Each time it was full, my uncle would dig another hole and move the outhouse. We used the chamber pots at night.
Later we moved in to stay with our maternal grandmother because we had to sell our house to pay for the funeral expenses for our paternal grandmother. From then on, all of us became closer and to this day all of us are very close to one another.
We meet in Kuala Lumpur to celebrate the Chinese New Year annually but of late, not all the family members gather for the occasion.Those whose children are overseas go to visit them and a couple have migrated. It is too far a journey to come back every year but we do keep in touch by phone and email as well as Facebook.
The webcam, Facebook, texting, etc have made a great impact on relationships today. Distance is no barrier now because we can see and talk to one another whereas in the past, when these wonders of technology hadn't existed, the only means of communication was through the mail and very occasionally by telephone as the charges were exorbitant.
Somehow siblings have closer relationships but the significant others are sometimes more distant. Perhaps the integration was not there and besides they come rom different backgrounds and culture. Parents are usually the cement holding everyone together. Painful though it is, the passing of parents often leads to a loosening of family ties. I sometimes feel that the closeness has lessened. Perhaps it has to do with distance, less meeting up or communicating. Somehow it is not the same, speaking through the phone or email. The face-to-face contact is still preferable where we can go out together, talk together and shop together and eat together.
Maybe that's why I'm such a good client of MAS and AirAsia. I feel the need to be closer in person and this need for personal contact has become more urgent these days. A definite sign of growing older by the day! Not sure if there will be a tomorrow, I guess.
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