Turn of the century grandmothers

Those of us who became grandmothers at the turn of the last century are quite a different breed from those of yesteryears.

I remember my own grandma who hailed from China. She had bound feet also known as lotus feet but her feet were not as tiny as those of my other grandmothers. She said that when her feet were bound, it was so painful that she could not stop crying and her mother took pity on her and released the bandages binding them. However the damage was done and they were disfigured and swollen. Having bound feet was de rigeur for girls from families of some standing. It was considered a sign of beauty. Only maid servants did not have their feet bound as they had chores to carry out and they had to serve their masters and mistresses. My grandma's feet caused her much discomfort especially when she had to walk long distances. In the days of the nineteen fifties there were no taxis, only rickshaws or trishaws. Sometimes she used a trishaw after buying vegetables and other food from the wet market. The distance from the market to her home was too far for her to walk.

She was usually dressed in either grey or blue tops with black silk trousers. Her hair was combed into a bun behind her head. She was a housewife responsible for the cooking and washing and other chores, making the house a neat and tidy home for my grandfather and uncles. The only place that she went to, other than the market, was to the temple, to pray and ask for blessings for the family. Looking after grandchildren was also part of her responsibilities.
She looked after five of my siblings as we are a big family.

These days, grandmothers of my generation are a far cry from my grandma's. We are educated, we have brought up our children and discharged our duties as best we could and most of us do not live with our adult off-spring. We are very independent and mobile. We go wherever we want and whenever we want. It is not unusual to see grandmothers in line dancing classes, aerobics, yoga, even jogging in the parks. There are also grandmothers who run their own businesses and there are those who jet set all over the world. Some of us are very fashionably dressed and well accesorised. We do not wear our hair in buns on our napes but our crowning glory are often coloured and high-lighted. We take good care of our skin and our looks oftentimes belie our age.

Many of us however, do tend to drop whatever plans we have when our children send an SOS and we respond immediately. Most times it is to help them with their newborns and to babysit when they need some time off. This is perhaps the only thing we have in common with our sisters of yesteryears. Lending a helping hand when needed.

I remember when my daughter was expecting her first child in the UK. We went there with all the requisite herbs, etc so that when the baby arrived, we were on hand to look after her. Her dad boiled water with the herbs every morning and when the water had cooled to a suitable temperature, he would lug it upstairs to her bathroom so that she could have a nice warm scented herbal bath that would take the "wind" out of her system. He would also walk to the supermart to buy fresh range chicken so that I could double-boil it with herbs to make a nutritious soup for her. Yes, we looked after her during her confinement and helped with the new baby boy.

He was quite colickly and had difficulty sleeping and my late sister, who was just as excited as we were over the new arrival, the first of the new generation, flew to Cardiff where we were, with a "sarung stand", a Malaysian cradle so to speak, where a "sarung" ( piece of cloth with sides sewn together ) was suspended on a spring attached to the stand and the baby was put into the sarung and rocked rhythmically. The sarung held the baby snugly and he soon fell asleep. Should he wake, all we had to do was to gently pull the sarung in an up and down motion and he would drop off to sleep again.

Just as grandchildren brought joy to grandmas of yesteryears, so do they now bring joy to us, the new breed of grandmas. No sacrifice is too great for our grandchildren although one can hear an occasional grumble. Sometimes we hear of grandmas who throw up their hands in horror at the prospect of looking after the new babies and telling their offspring that enough is enough, they've looked after their kids and now that they are adults and parents themselves, it's only right that they should look after their offspring, although a helping hand will be there on occasion.

Whatever it is, we new generation grandmas have a lot to live for, a lot to thank for and we are ready to help when the need arises. Only do not expect us to be on call twenty four seven. We have earned the right to our own lives and R & R. Kudos to us all!!

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Sakura in Hokkaido

Spring is the Sakura season. Cherry blossoms appear wherever their trees grow. This was the reason we joined a tour to Hokkaido. We wanted to see the sakura or cherry blossoms. Our guide told us that Goryokaku is the most beautiful Sakura Park in Hakodate in southern Hokkaido. This place is warmer than most so the sakura blooms come out first before other places.

True to his word, we saw a lovely park but not all the trees were in bloom. However, those that were, took my breath away. The delicate blossoms covered the branches in hues of pink and white. Some blossoms were deeper shades of pink. Many people crowded into the park to take photographs of the flowering trees. This week was the Golden Week in Japan where many Japanese were on holiday. They came out with their families to the parks, to the restaurants, to the shops to enjoy the cool weather and bright sunshine.

These blossoms do not last long either. The guide said that within two weeks they would have dropped and new leaves would emerge on the trees. So we were lucky to see them as their blooming depends on the weather too.

Other places also had sakura in bloom. Many homes had at least one flowering tree in their backyards. City parks too had their own trees, some in bloom while others were still bare, their buds still asleep. It is strange.

Flowers evoke a very happy sensation. I saw the delight on the faces of one of the ladies in our tour group. She kept exclaiming at the beauty of the blossoms. I was spell-bound by the beauty around me and I could not help but take many photos of these lovely flowers, to capture their essence if I could. Indeed, a thing of beauty is a joy forever. It rejuvenates one and entrances.

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Unforgivable

I just received an email forwarded to me which contained an attachment of a video showing a maid's abuse of a young child in the presence of a much younger sibling.

What makes a human being so depraved as to do physically abuse a toddler, one who is totally helpless and remains at the mercy of her caregiver? The maid is a caregiver entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the two young children in the absence of their parents. I'm sure the parents pay her well to look after their children and they depend on her to feed them and to take care of their needs while they are away at work.

If not for the surveillance camera installed in their home, the parents would never have known how their children are abused in their absence, by someone whom they had entrusted to look after them.

Watching the video made me not only angry and sick but it also aroused murderous feelings in me. I wanted to treat the maid just the way she had abused the child. Worse, I wanted to put her behind bars with a whipping sentence and to throw away the key to the jail!

I then realised that such feelings in me put me in her category as well!! But then, how can one not be affected by the sight of a helpless, innocent toddler being abused so violently by someone who is supposed to take care of her? Even if the child had dirtied the floor or wet herself or got into a tantrum ( these are just suppostions as the video doesnt show what the poor child had done ), she doesnt deserve to be abused the way she was.

This must be the reason why my cousin in the UK, when his children were born, arranged for his parents and his parents-in-law to take turns to be there to look after the children while he and his wife were at work. He was very lucky to have both sets of parents agreable to such an arrangement. Each couple stayed there for six months.

Another college mate also did the same for her son when he had his family. She and her husband and the other set of parents also took turns to go to Singapore to look after the baby, even though their son had a maid. After seeing this video, my friend's son was wise in asking his parents and his wife's parents to make the trip and stay there to supervise the maid so that there would not be an opportunity for abuse. Likewise, my daughter stays with me and my husband and I have been looking after her children ever since they returned to the Land below the Wind. This was to prevent any kind of abuse, physical or emotional.

Abuse in any form will deform the child and retard his/her development. It will leave a scar on the child's soul and mind. Fear and insecurity will be constant companions in his/her existence. Yet many parents have no choice but to depend on maids to look after their child when they go to work. Not many have parents who are available to help them out. Perhaps sending their young to creches is an alternative. There will be other staff and this will be a deterrent to abuse. Other children in the creche will also provide companionship in play and this would stimulate the children and the interaction among them will make the creche a more amenable environment than the home where the maid, in the absence of the parents, is lord of the house and the children are at her mercy.

Here is the link.
video[1]_WMV V9.mpg4894K

I'm not sure if you can download it to watch.

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How goes it?

These are days of excitement depending on how you view things.

Politics is a favourite subject in coffee shops, school carpark waiting areas and emails. Umno, the main partner in the coalition of Barisan National has completed its party elections which had been postponed from last year to this year in view of the impending transition of power to the next Umno president. The newsmedia had been reporting pre and post election news. Now that all these are behind us, let us hope that things will change for the better as the outgoing PM has reiterated that there must be change for a better tomorrow. I hope this will take root and that things will really change.

Sabah is pretty laid back compared to the bustling Peninsular states. However the absence of the "rush, rush everywhere" syndrome makes life more tolerable although there has been tremendous traffic jams of late, especially during peak hours, though not to the degree which KLites experience day after day. Nonetheless, what has been affecting the world, the term I believe, is 'global meltdown', has not really hit us squarely between the eyes yet. There have been reports of thousands who have been left jobless due to factory shutdowns and downsizing of organisations. For these people, life is a big question mark. How are they going to survive and put food on the table for their families?

The government is trying to find jobs for them through various means but it will not be able to cater to everyone's needs. Other countries are much worse off. How bad is it going to get? This is anyone's guess.

For those who have retired, life will be more of the same. There is no rush, no need to fight the traffic to get to the office. I get up early to go to the golf course for my morning exercise round of nine holes, then back home for a spot of gardening before starting the preparations for dinner that evening. The weather has been so terribly hot these days that I'm seriously considering cooking lunch so that there's no need to go out. The sun's heat is blistering and there is a tinge of blackness on your cheeks, should your skin be exposed even for just a short while.

A housewife's job is never done. I find myself on my feet most of the day and it is more often than not, that I can go online only after dinner. Having a maid is a luxury, and good ones are hard to come by. From past experience, it is the maid who interviews you and not vice versa. A room, a tv, a fan, telephone facilities, a washing machine, these are pre-requisites. The size of the house and the number of people living in it, whether you work ( better that the boss works so that there is no one to monitor the work ) also matter. Refusal to do things the way you want them to be done, the rude repartees, the banging of pots and pans, these are sufficient to put you off them permanently. I'm not complaining 'cos I'm back to being my own boss in my house. I no longer hear my pots and pans being banged about and I can talk to my plants and flowers without being looked at as if I'm cuckoo. I'm happy as I am, with friends to email to, with smses coming in, and the songs on the radio to keep me company until we go to fetch our grandkids from school. So life for me is good and I'm thankful for God's blessings.

For those who are still looking for jobs, maybe it is time to try out self-employment. Work for oneself even though it is hard work and altogether a different experience from what one has been accustomed to. This is where creativity comes in. It is always prudent to start small and work from there. If you find that what you do is successful, then you can think further of expansion.

Otherwise there are other sectors which still need workers although these may not be what you want. However having a job is still better than none. A smaller wage is better than no wage at all. Money means food on the table. Plantation, construction, services such as waitressing, etc are an honest day's work. Once you have a job, things can only get better, and that's what one needs in these trying times. Or if you are good at cooking, you can start a catering business from home. You cook and you deliver. You can stick to catering for lunch at first. Or you can make local foodstuff such as nasi lemak, kuih-muih ( cakes & pastries ) and sell to friends and friends of friends, office people, neighbours. Such businesses usually take off by word of mouth and recommendations. I've also seen enterprising women and men going round to the hospitals to sell their foodstuff to those waiting to see the doctors. Waiting at hospitals can take a few hours and snacks are very welcome.

Whatever one's situation is, I believe that it is up to us to take action if we want to change it. Nothing comes with nothing done. Lending a hand to those in need is a good starting point. Cheers!

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