A tribute to my Chinese grandfather
Digging up the old Yahoo! Photos, which has been forgotten for a few years, I found these...
Just in case I haven't disclosed my ethnic affinity, I am a quarter Chinese in relations to my mother's side. However, due to multiple displacements from the original lineage, I hereby admit the lack of knowledge in things related to my Chinese heritage, particularly the language itself. Two scattered semesters of Mandarin in college didn't carry much weight to adequately reclaim my roots that could be traced back to the long line of blood-related relatives in China.
My maternal grandfather was born and raised in southern China. During the 1930s political turmoil and while he was in his late teens, the great-grandparents decided to send him and two male cousins across the borders to Vietnam, perhaps to avoid military draft. The emigration details are very blurred because my grandmother and mother have never fully disclosed the historical backgrounds of his life. Apparently, he ended up working as a blacksmith in Rạch Giá (very southern of Vietnam) where he was arranged to marry my grandmother whose family also emigrated to Vietnam from China decades ago in the late 1800s. Many years later, after the separation from my grandmother and his children, he moved to Sài Gòn and supported his living with the sole expertise in blacksmiths.
Okay, that would make me 1/2 Chinese, not a quarter.
Mom grew up speaking a Chinese dialect known as Tiều Châu (siew chaw?) but only to my Chinese grandmother. It was their secret code for serious discussion of serious matters that would more likely affect the livelihood of the entire family. Hence, my Chinese grandfather had always been at a distance to his grandchildren due to the language barriers. He had never managed to learn proper Vietnamese throughout his life in Vietnam. I remember when he moved to our house a year or so before his death, we often found him standing tall looking down at us younglings and smiling very warmly, but hardly communicate anything. We giggled whenever he said something in Vietnamese and I guess it eventually made him self-conscious of his ability. We were kids, and ignorant, we didn't know better.
I still don't know much about my grandfather but there were a few memorable stories I still keep about him. First, he was an opium addict throughout his entire life, prompting from his youth in China perhaps during the Opium War (my educated guess). During the seldom occasions of his visits, he would retreat to his own corner and burned little black pearls of opium sap on a teaspoon and hastily sniffed the black liquid through a glass straw he always carried with him. It was very bizarre, but as a child, I was fixated of his addiction-feeding act and found it intriguing.
The second memory I had of him was the vivid moment of his death. It was the summer of 1987, and my grandfather had lived with us for almost a year after selling his property in Sài Gòn, then moved to Vũng Tàu for my family to take care of him. He had been gotten ill and my parents anticipated his passing but never expected the way he died. I was 10 at the time but very responsible for all the chores at home, including the assignment of checking on my grandfather. Basically, I was his personal attendant. One bright morning when my younger brother and I performed our chore of transporting water from the well to the house, as usual, we kept it quiet while grandfather was in bed. After the first or second trip from the well, we both discovered my grandfather's lankly body hanging lifelessly on a rope that was tied to the top of a wooden staircases.
He hung himself and ended his life with a single loop of rope.
My brother and I stood there for a few minutes, both were shock at the horrible sight. My brother was 8 at the time, and I bet he didn't know much. I remembered he turned to me and ask "sister, how come grandpa does not stand on a chair?" and that's when I noticed the chair lay horizontally on the floor, skewing away from the the vertical alignment of where his body dangled.
Many years later, on different occasions, I still think of him and particularly about his death. It was unfortunately that I didn't get to know him nor was I given the chance to do so; I was too young to understand the importance of family heritage at the time. My trip to China in 1999 was merely academic, but on a very personal level, it was a tribute to my lost heritage and to my Chinese grandfather. It was certainly emotional.
My mother had tried to find the off-springs of grandfather' cousins in Sài Gòn but to no avail; they were all disbanded during the years of political turmoil in Vietnam. Rumor has it that there were some of them who have immigrated to the U.S and dispersed around the west coast, and the other scattered to nearby countries in Southeast Asia such as Singapore and Hong Kong. There goes another generation of displacement.
So many of you out there with the Chinese last name "Lâm", you are my long lost relatives.
Just in case I haven't disclosed my ethnic affinity, I am a quarter Chinese in relations to my mother's side. However, due to multiple displacements from the original lineage, I hereby admit the lack of knowledge in things related to my Chinese heritage, particularly the language itself. Two scattered semesters of Mandarin in college didn't carry much weight to adequately reclaim my roots that could be traced back to the long line of blood-related relatives in China.
My maternal grandfather was born and raised in southern China. During the 1930s political turmoil and while he was in his late teens, the great-grandparents decided to send him and two male cousins across the borders to Vietnam, perhaps to avoid military draft. The emigration details are very blurred because my grandmother and mother have never fully disclosed the historical backgrounds of his life. Apparently, he ended up working as a blacksmith in Rạch Giá (very southern of Vietnam) where he was arranged to marry my grandmother whose family also emigrated to Vietnam from China decades ago in the late 1800s. Many years later, after the separation from my grandmother and his children, he moved to Sài Gòn and supported his living with the sole expertise in blacksmiths.
Okay, that would make me 1/2 Chinese, not a quarter.
Mom grew up speaking a Chinese dialect known as Tiều Châu (siew chaw?) but only to my Chinese grandmother. It was their secret code for serious discussion of serious matters that would more likely affect the livelihood of the entire family. Hence, my Chinese grandfather had always been at a distance to his grandchildren due to the language barriers. He had never managed to learn proper Vietnamese throughout his life in Vietnam. I remember when he moved to our house a year or so before his death, we often found him standing tall looking down at us younglings and smiling very warmly, but hardly communicate anything. We giggled whenever he said something in Vietnamese and I guess it eventually made him self-conscious of his ability. We were kids, and ignorant, we didn't know better.
I still don't know much about my grandfather but there were a few memorable stories I still keep about him. First, he was an opium addict throughout his entire life, prompting from his youth in China perhaps during the Opium War (my educated guess). During the seldom occasions of his visits, he would retreat to his own corner and burned little black pearls of opium sap on a teaspoon and hastily sniffed the black liquid through a glass straw he always carried with him. It was very bizarre, but as a child, I was fixated of his addiction-feeding act and found it intriguing.
The second memory I had of him was the vivid moment of his death. It was the summer of 1987, and my grandfather had lived with us for almost a year after selling his property in Sài Gòn, then moved to Vũng Tàu for my family to take care of him. He had been gotten ill and my parents anticipated his passing but never expected the way he died. I was 10 at the time but very responsible for all the chores at home, including the assignment of checking on my grandfather. Basically, I was his personal attendant. One bright morning when my younger brother and I performed our chore of transporting water from the well to the house, as usual, we kept it quiet while grandfather was in bed. After the first or second trip from the well, we both discovered my grandfather's lankly body hanging lifelessly on a rope that was tied to the top of a wooden staircases.
He hung himself and ended his life with a single loop of rope.
My brother and I stood there for a few minutes, both were shock at the horrible sight. My brother was 8 at the time, and I bet he didn't know much. I remembered he turned to me and ask "sister, how come grandpa does not stand on a chair?" and that's when I noticed the chair lay horizontally on the floor, skewing away from the the vertical alignment of where his body dangled.
Many years later, on different occasions, I still think of him and particularly about his death. It was unfortunately that I didn't get to know him nor was I given the chance to do so; I was too young to understand the importance of family heritage at the time. My trip to China in 1999 was merely academic, but on a very personal level, it was a tribute to my lost heritage and to my Chinese grandfather. It was certainly emotional.
My mother had tried to find the off-springs of grandfather' cousins in Sài Gòn but to no avail; they were all disbanded during the years of political turmoil in Vietnam. Rumor has it that there were some of them who have immigrated to the U.S and dispersed around the west coast, and the other scattered to nearby countries in Southeast Asia such as Singapore and Hong Kong. There goes another generation of displacement.
So many of you out there with the Chinese last name "Lâm", you are my long lost relatives.