Insights into a Bimbo's Mind

The View from the Top of the Fence

Monday, November 28, 2005

The last time I wrote, it was about saying goodbye to my grandmother. This time around, I sit here on the same old cream colored couch in my living room, with memories of burying my grandmother last week still fresh in my head.

Officially, my grandmother’s funeral took 3 days long, following the traditional procedures of a Taoist funeral. Yet, it was one strange funeral. That’s right, I must say, strange things have been happening at home over the last days of my grandmother and up till now, I still can’t figure out if those were positive or negative events. Some were so bizarre; they left me speechless for a while.

You see, my father’s family, consisting of 7 other siblings and my grandparents, were brought up as devout Taoists. As Taoists, they pray to several Gods such as the Kuan Yin(Goddess of Mercy), the Kwan Gong(God of war) and the Di Tzu Gong(God of Earth). As a child, I too followed Taoist prayers till my teenage years at least. Then came the religious revelations. Some of my family members started having opinions of their own regarding this thing about religion and eventually became Christians. In my own family, my sister began this wave of religious change, followed by my brother and eventually, my mother. My dad stuck firm to his Taoist roots, and myself, always the one who tries to please everybody, sat still on the fence. Over the years, my family members have tried to persuade me one way or another to budge but I refused to move from my comfortable position on the fence.. Some people say, if I sit too long on the fence, some time in my after life, the fence wires will start to prick my ass. Well, I don’t know about that but we’ll see.

But the story I’m telling today, is about 2 clans formed at my grandmother’s dying bedside. My grandmother herself, has always been a Taoist practitioner all her life, though sometimes I think, I’m unsure if it’s because she was a true believer of the Taoist Gods or because back in those days, there was almost no other acceptable religious choices for a Chinese. If you are a Chinese born in the 1910s, you’ve got to be either a Buddhist or a Taoist. Yet, a few days before my grandmother passed away 2 weeks ago, I received a phone call from my sister telling me that my grandmother was baptized while lying on her hospital bed by a Pastor called in by my uncle. Yes, the Christian kind of baptism. According to my uncle, when they asked her if she accepts Jesus Christ as her new Lord, she indicated a ‘Yes’. I’m not sure how that was possible because when she was in the hospital, she was most of the time unconscious and when she was conscious, she could barely open her eyes, what more speak. But then, these facts are considered non arguments isn’t it, because if the Lord wants to wake my grandmother up at that very point so that she can accept Christ, I guess it can happen. I mean, isn’t this the kind of miracles we hear about all the time?

So there, news suddenly got out that my grandmother is now a baptized Christian. Some family members were overjoyed, while some were furious to the state of tears. My sister says, “It’s like giving grandma a choice. It’s really up to her and God now.”… I told this to Narrrling and Narrrling says, my sister was finding a road in the middle so that everybody could sleep that night. Very smart of her.

Then after a couple of days, came the news of my grandmother passing on. Now, what kind of funeral was appropriate? My dad, being one of the oldest and most influential in the family, made ann executive decision to have a Taoist funeral, which many gladly supported, while I’m sure many were secretly disappointed. So there we were, 8 families with children and grandchildren of their own, gathering in a small village called Chemor, 30 minutes up north of Ipoh for this sad, sad occasion. Yet, not all participated in the funeral… A few mostly sat at the side, watching the whole Taoist funeral proceedings like spectators, though they are direct descendants of my grandmother.. While the rest, followed every detail required of them in a Taoist funeral. Fence sitters like me, followed some and didn’t follow some. Honestly, I don’t know what is worse. The ones who follow the procedures completely, the ones who don’t follow at all or fence sitters like me, who seem to go against one religion at one moment, and then abide by it the next moment. I guess it really depends on where you stand, isn't it?

There was one ritual whereby each and every one of my grandmother’s children had to come out to the center to perform a ritual. So here comes the 1st child, 2nd child, .. skip skip.. 5th child, 6th child..skip skip… I mean, it looks kinda strange, especially in the next moment, the Taoist funeral master chants that my grandma had 8 children…

The Christian side of the family ofcourse doesn’t give up just like that. On the 2nd morning of the funeral, some church members from home turned up at the funeral. The Taoist side of the family felt threatened, though kept very quiet. They were worried that the church members would start singing Christian songs by the coffin. I was sure they didn’t sing any songs because that would be too obvious but I wasn’t sure if they didn’t say a prayer to the Lord by my grandmother’s coffin. Money collected from the church as funeral offerings were also not contributed into the Taoist funeral. Reasons are obvious though I’m not sure what happened to the money in the end, whether returned to the church as a donation or returned to the people who were kind enough to make an offering to my grandmother’s funeral.

It was incidents like these that made my grandmother’s funeral a rather bizarre event. What made it even more bizarre was, during the funeral, there was this white guy (gweilo) who followed the Taoist funeral procedures with his Chinese wife. Thinking about it now, it’s strange to see some direct descendants and family members sitting at the side with arms folded staring at the Taoist rituals while in the center amongst a group of Chinese mourners, there is a blonde hair blue eyed gweilo kneeling on the floor, holding some joss sticks facing the coffin. This gweilo, due to language constraints made some minor blunders here and there, though they did nothing but lifted the moods of the mourners… I mean, it is not a surprise that the Taoist funeral master from that small village was no fluent English speaker. So when he passed Narrrling a basket of fruits and asked him to offer it towards the direction of my grandmother’s coffin, Narrrling thought he had to pick a fruit and gladly took an apple out of the basket… The Taoist master totally caught by suprise, quickly grabbed the apple and returned it back to the basket. An uncle standing nearby quickly walked to Narrling and told him what he was supposed to do.. I was kneeling with the girls. By then, there were irrepressible giggles all around me. Then they gave Narrrling a bowl of rice wine and asked him to pour it on the ground in front of him. Narrrling seeing that it was wine, was more than happy to drink it. Again, the suprised funeral master had to stop him and gestured him to pour it away on the ground.. To this, Narrrling quickly did as gestured…. Another round of giggle fits erupted around me…

Narrrling and I are real time fence sitters. Many I think would condemn us for it but honestly, following some of these funeral proceedings to me is just like a form of respect. Not towards the Gods behind it but towards the rest of my family who believes in it. I truly do not believe that the paper houses and paper cars we burn will go to my grandmother wherever she is resting now whether the Taoist heaven or the Christian heaven, but I do believe that supporting the burning of paper houses, paper servants, paper money, will ease the mind of those who believes in it. I mean, it’s a funeral and we’re all mourners sitting on the same boat. Why make life so difficult for each other? It's just different strokes, isn't it?

posted by Miki-C @ 1:46 PM