Flowers

Is there anyone who doesn't like or love flowers?

Or love the different shades of green foliage,

how they make a house look cool and inviting?

The sight of flowers whether in a garden or in a florist's is enough to lighten a heavy heart, so pretty are they to behold. Their colours are amazing. Only the Almighty could have fashioned them in such an amazing variety. There are flowers for all climes.

We in Malaysia have flowers that differ from those found in temperate countries.

No flower is ugly. There are only flowers with differing degrees of fragrance, except for the Rafflesia which is said to have a putrid odour. I've not seen one so I wouldn't know but I can believe those who have seen it and found it so.

Girls are often compared to flowers. Young girls are compared to buds that will come to full bloom in time. Love is also symbolised by the red rose. Other flowers also have meanings attached to them. Chrysanthemums, I believe, in some cultures, are associated with death. Carnations are given on Mother's Day, red roses on Valentine's Day. Jasmines are significant to the Indian community.

Roses and Jasmines have strong fragrance. The fragrance of roses differ according to their species. There are also roses that have hardly any fragrance. The pink rose in my garden has a very sweet fragrance, different from that of the red rose. I noticed that there are many more bees that buzz around the pink roses than the red ones.

I guess this is equally true of people. Some girls have more admirers than others. Whether it is the personality that is attractive or whether it is the overall physical beauty that draws people to them is only known to those that cluster around these girls. However there is the saying that "Beauty is but skin deep".

It is the inner beauty of a person that is more important and this becomes more apparent with age. As the outer beauty fades, the inner beauty surfaces. The eyes of a person are the windows of the soul. This is a general guide if one wants to assess the type of person standing before you. Shifty-eyed people will never look one in the face and this could mean that they have something to hide. However there are those who can tell a lie without batting an eyelid and there are also those who have eyes that reveal nothing. In such cases it would be extremely difficult to know what they are really like. Then again, it has been proven that "Familiarity breeds contempt" and this most regrettably is true when relationships, over a period of time, are taken for granted.

Just as a plant has to be nurtured into maturity and coaxed to flower, youngsters too require nurture and love in order for their personalities to develop and bloom. Their latent potential must be brought out. Just as every flower has its own beauty, a person, male or female, has his/her own beauty. We should never pre-judge anyone as it is said," Never judge a book by its cover" and "All that glitters is not gold".

Accept the person as he/she is and look for the good in them. Not all roses bloom beautifully. Some are deformed while still buds because of some pest attack but the fragrance is still there. Just as there are many types of plants and flowers, there are also different types of people and personalities. Enjoy the flowers, appreciate their beauty, take time to smell the roses and watch out for caterpillars that can destroy a beautiful green plant. My big pot of beautiful money plant was eaten bald completely within a short time. Thank goodness new leaves have sprouted again but it will be a while before it can grow to what it used to be.

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Gone on

Just now my cousin informed me through Facebook that our aunt passed on early this morning. She was ninety years old, a ripe old age. I remember her from about 10 years ago when I met her at my uncle's house during the Chinese New Year. She was a great cook and her dishes were a gourmet's delight. I remember her being rather adventurous too. She told me that I should go to Pulau Ketam and try out the food there.

I've never been there although I've heard about it since my childhood as there were relatives living there. Maybe I should try to make a trip there one of these days when I'm down in KL.
My brothers will be paying their respects to our late aunt later this evening. She resides in KL but I live in Kota Kinabalu so I won't be able to join them.

It is a custom that night visits are paid to the home of the deceased, where one's presence and a donation of "white gold" is duly registered. ( This white gold is to help the bereaved family to defray funeral expenses. ) If the deceased is a Buddhist, the visitor pays his respects by lighting 3 joss sticks before approaching the coffin.

Then he offers his condolences to the bereaved family after which he sits among the other guests and they talk about the deceased or other subjects. At this time there would be on display the wreaths and floral tributes sent by friends and relatives. From time to time there would be chanting of prayers by priests.

Usually 3 days would elapse between the time of death and the funeral. This is also a custom that is observed. Nowadays dying is big business too. There are companies that arrange and organise everything, from preparing the body for burial, setting up tents for guests and refreshments, to the burial plot and providing transportation for those who would accompany the deceased on her last journey. This takes the onus off the bereaved family so that they can grieve without having to worry about the nitty gritty. All this comes at a price of course. There are different packages to suit various budgets.

Those who attended the funeral would then be given a small white towel and a red packet containing a small sum of money, usually coins. This money has to be spent and not kept. It is customary to buy sweets using that money.

I remember my late grandmother's funeral which was a very costly affair. It cost us our home.
I was in primary school and I remembered she had a huge lump growing at her throat. A doctor came to attend to her and gave her an injection. Later that day, she died. She was bathed and dressed in seven layers of special garments before she was put into her coffin.

In those days, the coffin was a huge solid one made from a tree trunk and I used to be frightened out of my daylights whenever I saw one. My grandmother's coffin was placed outside the house and the mourners had to cry and shriek throughout the night. The priests, male and female, chanted prayers throughout the night walking round and round the coffin. We youngsters were told to make sure that no cats were closeby. It was believed that if a cat jumped over the deceased, the body would get up!! Believe me I was frightened out of my wits.

The funeral was a very elaborate one as my grandfather had high standing in the Chinese community. He was Capitan China. I remember there were stilt walkers, 2 brass bands, a long line of trishaws bearing long pieces of cloth with Chinese words stuck on them, plus lorries carrying more of the same. My parents and immediate siblings were dressed in sack cloth and black while we grandchildren were dressed in blue. All mourners were provided with mourning clothes, towels and shoes. Buses carried relatives and friends and my grandmother's funeral procession made its way through the streets in Klang town amid great fanfare before proceeding to the hill cemetery where she would be buried.

I remember that after the funeral, all the relatives were in the main hall of my grandfather's house and all the pieces of cloth were folded and piled up on the large long table. Every relative was given pieces of these cloths. When the final tally for the funeral expenses was added up, my father found that he had no choice but to sell our home in order to pay for what had been incurred for my grandmother's grand sending off.

Our home was shared by us, and my father's brother & wife, and grandma. When the double-storey shoplot along the main street was sold, we moved to stay with my maternal grandmother while my uncle moved to the countryside to stay in his smallholding where grandfather had grown rubber trees & coconut trees.

Grandfather had miles of rubber and coconut estates along the road to Morib, but then he also had five wives and many, many children for in those days, a man's standing in society was judged by the number of wives and children he had, not just the property he owned. The funeral had to be a grand affair as it was expected and there was "face" to be considered. So my grandmother had a funeral befitting a Capitan China's wife. "Face" there certainly was but we had to give up our home.

Fortunately, funerals aren't so elaborate these days. Being practical is more important. My late father was cremated according to his wishes and remains were scattered in the sea barring a small container of ashes which now repose in a niche in a temple where prayers are said for him come festival days. He was a practical man. Bless him and may he rest in peace. And my aunt too. I feel regretful that I won't be in KL this evening as we only get to meet long-lost relatives during funerals.

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Tribute to my mother

My mother was a primary school teacher who taught in mission schools, the Anglo Chinese School in Klang and the Methodist Boys' Primary School in Kuala Lumpur.

I used to see her prepare many visual aids at home and I remember the piles of exercise books which she had to mark everyday. My father used to ask her why she had so much work to do outside of school. When we were bigger, we used to help her out in preparing the teaching aids, which had a lot of colorful drawings.

These days, teachers are very fortunate. They have ready-made charts to help them in their teaching. Rarely do you see teachers making their own visual aids. With the technology available these days, it is even easier to source for materials to use if the teacher is so inclined.

There has been much discussion in the newspapers about the teaching of Maths and Science using the English Language to do so. Opinions are divided. Some people want the two subjects to be taught in English while others want the mother tongue to be used. Among the reasons given is the lack of English proficiency among the teachers who have to teach these two subjects in English. Teachers slated to teach these two subjects have been sent for English proficiency courses but they are still found lacking.

The saying goes something like this: " English cannot be taught, it has to be caught."

In this context, I would like to share my experience. My siblings and I were very lucky to have our mother who insisted on speaking to us in English only so we grew up with English as our first language. We were under colonial rule then and it was a must to know English. Schools used English as the medium of instruction except for the vernacular schools which used the mother tongue.

Not only did we speak in English, but it also had to be proper English; no pidgin English was permitted. Then there were the weekly trips to the library to borrow books to read. After reading we had to summarise what we had read and what we thought of the stories. We also had a special exercise book to write down the new words and their meanings which we then had to use when we wrote compositions for our mother. She also encouraged us to write down the sentences that we found interesting and to be conscious of the style of writing.

During the weekends, our father would drive us to the beach at Morib or venture further where we could see padi (rice) fields or tin mines. At the end of each trip we had to write down what we saw, how we felt, what we did in the form of a simple composition.

This was how our mother trained us to use the language and to use it well. We did not learn any grammatical rules per se but if we made an error, she would correct us on the spot. She placed great emphasis on reading. This was how we caught the language, through reading, as by reading we got to internalise the structures and accumulated a wealth of vocabulary. Although she was very busy with her school work, she never failed to see that we did our homework plus the extra work that she set us. This was her greatest legacy to us, a good command of the English Language. In those days there was no television to distract us. There was only a small radio which was turned on only when our father got home in the evenings.

Sometimes my friends would ask me, " How do you know this is wrong? Why is it wrong?" when they made a grammatical error. I could only answer," I don't know. I only know it is wrong." Because I had internalised the structures of the language, somehow I automatically knew which was right and which was wrong.

It was only in secondary school that our teachers made us work through text books which had the grammar rules written out that I realised the language had rules and exceptions.

I can empathise with the teachers who go for week-long courses and are then expected to teach in the language. No way can they master a language within a week or even a couple of months.

However, I would like to share this with you. There was a Chinese national whom I met and I was impressed by his use of the English language. So I asked him how he managed to communicate so well when his compatriots fared badly. He said he came to Malaysia to work and he wanted to improve in using English so he would listen to the English news, read English newspapers, watch English tv programmes and speak with people in English. By regularly doing this, he improved in the language within a few months.

Thus I hope that our teachers will not be discouraged by their low English proficiency but take steps to improve by emulating this Chinese national. Do not be afraid or shy. Just use the language. By listening to others speak, you will improve as you realise your mistakes. Take steps to further your knowledge by getting a simple grammar book which can help you understand the sentence structures and how they are used

Because there is a need for teachers who look to improve their grasp of the English language, and who find the grammar books on the market difficult to understand, I have authored a guide to English grammar. The first one, inspired by my late mother, is "English Grammar, a Malaysian Student Guide" published by Sasbadi Sdn Bhd. It is a handbook for easy reference, with lots of examples which can be used by both students and teachers.

I was later asked to write a series of English grammar books with exercises for students and these are the "Casey & Penny's Guide to English", published by Pelangi. There are four books in this series, also very easy to use.

I was nudged into the teaching profession by my mother as she said that teaching is the best profession for a girl. So I followed in her footsteps and became an English teacher trained in the UK and later on headed a co-ed high school in Kota Kinabalu. Teaching had its moments of hilarity and frustrations but it is certainly a very rewarding profession when you see your students graduate and doing very well in life and they still remember you were their teacher.

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Coincidence?

Alamak! Where is it? My hand had been touching my sticky neck. It was late afternoon and it had been a very hot day. I was reading the newspapers then. Suddenly I realised that my treasured jade & diamond pendant on its white gold chain was no longer round my neck .

Perhaps it had dropped off when I dashed into the garden to bring in the mop when the big raindrops fell.

I rushed into the falling rain to look for my precious pendant but no..... it wasn't there. "Perhaps it fell off in your car," offered my daughter. I rushed out to my car, looked under the seats and even in the boot as I had put my bag of fruits there after my early Sunday morning marketing. No.... it wasn't there. " Could it have fallen off in church this morning?" was another suggestion.

I sent an sms to my church pastor asking him if anyone had found my pendant. He promised to get in touch with me if he had any information.

What if it had dropped off while I was doing my marketing this morning?

Then a memory surfaced. Ten years ago, when I attended prayers at a temple for my father on his death anniversary, I had also mysteriously lost a treasured gold bangle. This was a unique bangle not only in its design but also in its composition. There were 3 types of gold, yellow gold, white gold and rose gold in that bangle. It was my favourite piece of jewellery. I was wearing it when I went for the prayers but after the prayers, it was no longer on me, despite the safety clasp. My sisters and I searched the temple grounds but to no avail.

Today is my mother's death anniversary. My beautiful jade pendant is missing. This pendant is very special to me because my mother had selected the jade and she designed the diamond setting for it. The chain is a white gold chain of Italian design. I had this pendant for more than 40 years and now it is gone. I mourn its loss for it is irreplaceable. It is a precious link to my mum as we had gone to the goldsmith's together, an outing that we both enjoyed whenever I went home from the Land below the Wind.

Perhaps it has gone to join the gold bangle. It is a very strange coincidence that two pieces of my favoured jewellery disappeared on the death anniversaries of my parents.

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