The Ho Clan does Pangkor & Sitiawan, Part 3: A Chance of Tropical Showers and a Tornado
Our expulsion from Eden began early. During breakfast, dark clouds significantly larger than a man’s hand had begun to build on the horizon. By the time we got back to the villa to pack, we were being buffeted by a full-on tropical storm at sea. Palm trees flailed in the gale, rain pelleted the windows with horizontal force. A housekeeping staff was forced by the rain to climb over from the neighbouring villa. She crept across the verandah, waving her hand apologetically.
When the rain had lightened for us to emerge, it was time to get to the jetty. Low-lying clouds shrouded the hills, and the island was eerily deserted. Soft rain blew horizontally as we struggled with umbrellas (porters handled our luggage, unperturbed by the rain). Behind us, mum-in-law’s voice was piercing in the muted silence.
“My hair is ruined!” she shrieked into the rain.
“I’m sure you’ll find a hairdresser in Sitiawan,” pa-in-law offered.
“Ruined!” she echoed like a Greek chorus.
I held mum-in-law’s carry-bag as she struggled into the speedboat. Hers was a glossy PVC bag from Harrod’s. There was a magazine in it - “MAJESTY - The Quality Magazine for Royals”. Prince William smiled toothily from the cover. Did royals read this magazine to see what other royals were up to?
We got into the speedboat and slowly maneuvered out of the bay. Looking back, the dark rows of sea villas were now brooding and lifeless. Only one thing moved - a single staff member, waving rather over-enthusiastically at our departure in the drizzle. She was waving very hard, so I waved back.
Back on the mainland, we were met at the hotel office by Moses Tay, who had married pa-in-law’s elder sister and was the retired principal of Sitiawan’s Anglo-Chinese School. If Yip was the Boy Scout who had jumped ship, Uncle Moses was the one who dutifully returned home and made head prefect. He was past eighty, friendly, sporty and a devout Methodist (as were many Foochows in Sitiawan and Sibu). He wore a polo-T, navel-high khaki shorts, white knee-length socks and schoolboy oxfords.
Our guide for the duration of our stay was Joshua, another Foochow with a biblical name, who was a friend of Uncle Moses. Joshua was round, jovial and earnest; he ran a travel agency in Sitiawan. He was the main gateway for Sitiawanites who wanted to see something of the world. He and Uncle Moses had put together a program for us returning cosmopoles to sample the food and sights of Sitiawan. We trooped onto the bus that would take us to lunch.
The bus interior had been designed by a blind man with a love of textures. The ceiling was felt with a dizzying design in scarlet, royal blue and yellow. The windows were draped with theatre-style curtains in lugubrious shades of blue trimmed with gold tassels. When you looked out the window, it made everything look like a Shakespearean tragedy. The floor was mint-coloured vinyl. It was all quite hideous.
At the restaurant, on the outskirts of Sitiawan, we were joined by Doug’s cousin, King Hee, his wife Joyce and 3 teenaged children. The children were polite, close-knit, and seemed anachronistic among 21st century kids. The youngest, Michelle, brought along a sheaf of printouts of scenes from a hit Korean drama with captions to explain the plot. Other kids would have watched it on an i-Phone. I liked this about her. Her sister Danielle and brother Mark took pictures of the water glasses. They spoke among themselves in playful, hushed tones, as if using a secret language.
The restaurant was simple, warm and clean after the miserable start to the day. A bunch of businessmen sat in a corner, talking loudly in Foochow. It reminded me of Sibu. I felt very much at home.
It was the best food we’d had up to now. Sweet-and-sour pork, crisp and golden with a mellow sauce; fish maw soup; sweet-and-sour fish; a fluffy omelette of sweet local oysters. On Pangkor Laut we’d had sophisticated and uninspired cuisine. This hot lunch, on the other hand, in a simple restaurant in rainy weather felt like a true luxury. I saw mum-in-law beaming beatifically like Sai Baba - she was happy too. Uncle Moses’ wife wandered about offering tissue paper. Like immigrant Chinese everywhere, the Foochow have a manic obsession with tissue paper, and sterilizing restaurant cutlery in boiling water.
After lunch we went to Uncle Moses’ house, a single-storey concrete bungalow near the school where he had once been principal. It was large, white, immaculately clean, and as sparely furnished as a Methodist prayer hall. The lawn was neatly shorn, the few trees were ordered and symmetrical. There was nowhere to hide in or around Principal Moses’ house.
Uncle Moses was something of a local tennis legend, having represented Malaya (as it was then) in the Davis cup in the 1950s. Over crates of coconut jellies - locally produced, he proclaimed - he produced a large photocopied scrapbook. From the pictures, Uncle Moses looked (and dressed) pretty much the same then as now. The ancient photocopying had not the finely-calibrated grayscale of modern copiers - depending on your skin-tone, if you were fair you looked like a geisha, if you were tanned you looked like an African.
Uncle Moses’ three sons were carbon-copies of himself - all easygoing, dependable-looking men with biblical names and a brood of children. The only decorations in his house were pictures of his children, and a cupboard of old books with gilt binding and heavily colonial titles: England in the Reign of Charles II; English Political History: Taswell-Langmead’s Constitutional Histoary. Uncle Moses was a devout, Methodist Anglophile, an educator, unpretentious and avuncular. He was a Foochow par excellence.
In fact, he may have been God’s original prototype, before He went into production.
Like all Foochows, Uncle Moses was a chronic over-feeder. “Eat, eat,” he would enjoin us as we struggled to finish the third platter of crabs. “Young man, young man,” he would chant at us while gesturing at an unfinished dish, meaning that he expected us to eat up. Like at his house, there was nowhere to hide from Uncle Moses at the dinner table.
Dinner was in Kampung Cina, a villagey suburb of Sitiawan, which was in turn a sub-district of the larger Manjung district. The restaurant was a open-sided warehouse-sized shed with corrugated metal roofing and a poured cement floor. Some of the floor was bitumen, where the shed had been extended over the road. Here we met other members of the Ho Clan: pa-in-law’s ailing sister. Her two sons were magisterially named Herbert and Homer.
Before dinner, a robust 7-year old boy came up and leaned very close to me. I tightened my grip on my camera knapsack, which contained all my photographic paraphernalia, in an instinct borne of all regular travelers, while I scrutinised my new admirer.
“Hi,” he offered in a manner I took to be shyness. Yet here he was leaning against me.
“Hello,” I said. “Who’re you?”
“Zahn,” he said. “It’s like French for John.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be Jean?”
He didn’t answer, but said, “Can I sit next to you?”
Zahn was Herbert’s younger son. His parents seemed to generally ignore him. I thought, well maybe he craves affection. He sat very close to me. Suddenly, over a delicious plate of curried prawns, Zahn asked, “Can I see your camera?”
The kid had X-ray eyes - I hadn’t even taken it out yet. I sucked on my curried fingers for a while. Zahn stared at me intently. So this was what it was all about.
“I learned to take pictures without anyone showing me,” he said.
I said: “Maybe in a while. We’re eating right now and I don’t want to dirty it.” And I went back to sucking the prawn shells. There was a brief movement of air, and before I knew it, Zahn was pressing up against Doug’s side. “Can I see your i-phone?” he asked pleadingly, “I learned to play games without anyone showing me.”
Zahn’s parents lately told me that Zahn was nicknamed “the Tornado”. He had boundless energy, a constant smile, was everywhere at once, and was generally a monster. When the steamed crabs came, he seized a claw and a mallet. “My daddy showed me how to open this,” he declared and began reducing the claw to rubble. Bits flew in all directions. Herbert, completely unperturbed, went on eating his crab. I thought, that claw could have been my camera.
Doug’s cousin King Hee, a neurologist from Singapore, had brought his parents on the trip. His father, a rake-thin and severe-looking man, watched the 7-year old tornado with black, beady eyes. He looked like a disciplinarian, and he apparently disapproved of this obnoxious young man with a destructive bent. When Zahn began playing with his food, stabbing his fresh coconut until the table shook, he decided enough was enough. He rose and grabbed Zahn by the shoulder.
“Stop playing with your food.”
Zahn looked at him quizzically, without fear. He did not stop. Slops of coconut water drenched the table. Doug and I watched intently to see what would happen next.
“I’m going to tell your father.”
Zahn looked him square in the face. “You’re not my father,” he said matter-of-factly.
Oh God, I thought, it’s going to snow shit right here in Sitiawan.
The old man’s face was as black as an Easter Island statue. “Well, I’m telling you to stop right now, or I’m going to tell your father!”
Zahn pouted, but he stopped anyway. The old man went back to his seat. Herbert munched his crab thoughtfully with a distant look in his eyes.
I felt a tug on my arm. Zahn was looking at me intently.
“Can I see your camera?”
When the rain had lightened for us to emerge, it was time to get to the jetty. Low-lying clouds shrouded the hills, and the island was eerily deserted. Soft rain blew horizontally as we struggled with umbrellas (porters handled our luggage, unperturbed by the rain). Behind us, mum-in-law’s voice was piercing in the muted silence.
“My hair is ruined!” she shrieked into the rain.
“I’m sure you’ll find a hairdresser in Sitiawan,” pa-in-law offered.
“Ruined!” she echoed like a Greek chorus.
I held mum-in-law’s carry-bag as she struggled into the speedboat. Hers was a glossy PVC bag from Harrod’s. There was a magazine in it - “MAJESTY - The Quality Magazine for Royals”. Prince William smiled toothily from the cover. Did royals read this magazine to see what other royals were up to?
We got into the speedboat and slowly maneuvered out of the bay. Looking back, the dark rows of sea villas were now brooding and lifeless. Only one thing moved - a single staff member, waving rather over-enthusiastically at our departure in the drizzle. She was waving very hard, so I waved back.
Back on the mainland, we were met at the hotel office by Moses Tay, who had married pa-in-law’s elder sister and was the retired principal of Sitiawan’s Anglo-Chinese School. If Yip was the Boy Scout who had jumped ship, Uncle Moses was the one who dutifully returned home and made head prefect. He was past eighty, friendly, sporty and a devout Methodist (as were many Foochows in Sitiawan and Sibu). He wore a polo-T, navel-high khaki shorts, white knee-length socks and schoolboy oxfords.
Our guide for the duration of our stay was Joshua, another Foochow with a biblical name, who was a friend of Uncle Moses. Joshua was round, jovial and earnest; he ran a travel agency in Sitiawan. He was the main gateway for Sitiawanites who wanted to see something of the world. He and Uncle Moses had put together a program for us returning cosmopoles to sample the food and sights of Sitiawan. We trooped onto the bus that would take us to lunch.
The bus interior had been designed by a blind man with a love of textures. The ceiling was felt with a dizzying design in scarlet, royal blue and yellow. The windows were draped with theatre-style curtains in lugubrious shades of blue trimmed with gold tassels. When you looked out the window, it made everything look like a Shakespearean tragedy. The floor was mint-coloured vinyl. It was all quite hideous.
At the restaurant, on the outskirts of Sitiawan, we were joined by Doug’s cousin, King Hee, his wife Joyce and 3 teenaged children. The children were polite, close-knit, and seemed anachronistic among 21st century kids. The youngest, Michelle, brought along a sheaf of printouts of scenes from a hit Korean drama with captions to explain the plot. Other kids would have watched it on an i-Phone. I liked this about her. Her sister Danielle and brother Mark took pictures of the water glasses. They spoke among themselves in playful, hushed tones, as if using a secret language.
The restaurant was simple, warm and clean after the miserable start to the day. A bunch of businessmen sat in a corner, talking loudly in Foochow. It reminded me of Sibu. I felt very much at home.
It was the best food we’d had up to now. Sweet-and-sour pork, crisp and golden with a mellow sauce; fish maw soup; sweet-and-sour fish; a fluffy omelette of sweet local oysters. On Pangkor Laut we’d had sophisticated and uninspired cuisine. This hot lunch, on the other hand, in a simple restaurant in rainy weather felt like a true luxury. I saw mum-in-law beaming beatifically like Sai Baba - she was happy too. Uncle Moses’ wife wandered about offering tissue paper. Like immigrant Chinese everywhere, the Foochow have a manic obsession with tissue paper, and sterilizing restaurant cutlery in boiling water.
After lunch we went to Uncle Moses’ house, a single-storey concrete bungalow near the school where he had once been principal. It was large, white, immaculately clean, and as sparely furnished as a Methodist prayer hall. The lawn was neatly shorn, the few trees were ordered and symmetrical. There was nowhere to hide in or around Principal Moses’ house.
Uncle Moses was something of a local tennis legend, having represented Malaya (as it was then) in the Davis cup in the 1950s. Over crates of coconut jellies - locally produced, he proclaimed - he produced a large photocopied scrapbook. From the pictures, Uncle Moses looked (and dressed) pretty much the same then as now. The ancient photocopying had not the finely-calibrated grayscale of modern copiers - depending on your skin-tone, if you were fair you looked like a geisha, if you were tanned you looked like an African.
Uncle Moses’ three sons were carbon-copies of himself - all easygoing, dependable-looking men with biblical names and a brood of children. The only decorations in his house were pictures of his children, and a cupboard of old books with gilt binding and heavily colonial titles: England in the Reign of Charles II; English Political History: Taswell-Langmead’s Constitutional Histoary. Uncle Moses was a devout, Methodist Anglophile, an educator, unpretentious and avuncular. He was a Foochow par excellence.
In fact, he may have been God’s original prototype, before He went into production.
Like all Foochows, Uncle Moses was a chronic over-feeder. “Eat, eat,” he would enjoin us as we struggled to finish the third platter of crabs. “Young man, young man,” he would chant at us while gesturing at an unfinished dish, meaning that he expected us to eat up. Like at his house, there was nowhere to hide from Uncle Moses at the dinner table.
Dinner was in Kampung Cina, a villagey suburb of Sitiawan, which was in turn a sub-district of the larger Manjung district. The restaurant was a open-sided warehouse-sized shed with corrugated metal roofing and a poured cement floor. Some of the floor was bitumen, where the shed had been extended over the road. Here we met other members of the Ho Clan: pa-in-law’s ailing sister. Her two sons were magisterially named Herbert and Homer.
Before dinner, a robust 7-year old boy came up and leaned very close to me. I tightened my grip on my camera knapsack, which contained all my photographic paraphernalia, in an instinct borne of all regular travelers, while I scrutinised my new admirer.
“Hi,” he offered in a manner I took to be shyness. Yet here he was leaning against me.
“Hello,” I said. “Who’re you?”
“Zahn,” he said. “It’s like French for John.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be Jean?”
He didn’t answer, but said, “Can I sit next to you?”
Zahn was Herbert’s younger son. His parents seemed to generally ignore him. I thought, well maybe he craves affection. He sat very close to me. Suddenly, over a delicious plate of curried prawns, Zahn asked, “Can I see your camera?”
The kid had X-ray eyes - I hadn’t even taken it out yet. I sucked on my curried fingers for a while. Zahn stared at me intently. So this was what it was all about.
“I learned to take pictures without anyone showing me,” he said.
I said: “Maybe in a while. We’re eating right now and I don’t want to dirty it.” And I went back to sucking the prawn shells. There was a brief movement of air, and before I knew it, Zahn was pressing up against Doug’s side. “Can I see your i-phone?” he asked pleadingly, “I learned to play games without anyone showing me.”
Zahn’s parents lately told me that Zahn was nicknamed “the Tornado”. He had boundless energy, a constant smile, was everywhere at once, and was generally a monster. When the steamed crabs came, he seized a claw and a mallet. “My daddy showed me how to open this,” he declared and began reducing the claw to rubble. Bits flew in all directions. Herbert, completely unperturbed, went on eating his crab. I thought, that claw could have been my camera.
Doug’s cousin King Hee, a neurologist from Singapore, had brought his parents on the trip. His father, a rake-thin and severe-looking man, watched the 7-year old tornado with black, beady eyes. He looked like a disciplinarian, and he apparently disapproved of this obnoxious young man with a destructive bent. When Zahn began playing with his food, stabbing his fresh coconut until the table shook, he decided enough was enough. He rose and grabbed Zahn by the shoulder.
“Stop playing with your food.”
Zahn looked at him quizzically, without fear. He did not stop. Slops of coconut water drenched the table. Doug and I watched intently to see what would happen next.
“I’m going to tell your father.”
Zahn looked him square in the face. “You’re not my father,” he said matter-of-factly.
Oh God, I thought, it’s going to snow shit right here in Sitiawan.
The old man’s face was as black as an Easter Island statue. “Well, I’m telling you to stop right now, or I’m going to tell your father!”
Zahn pouted, but he stopped anyway. The old man went back to his seat. Herbert munched his crab thoughtfully with a distant look in his eyes.
I felt a tug on my arm. Zahn was looking at me intently.
“Can I see your camera?”