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| Brigid, Rose and Alice |
In 1998, I went back for holidays in Malaysia; I went looking for my other aunt’s daughter, Brigid Voo. She was not doing well. She was very pretty and she had many suitors when she was still in school; but she chose to marry Loke King San, the most handsome but, career wise, the least successful of all her suitors. I liked Ah San-ko because in my opinion he only reacted to all her attempts to leave him! She opened a stall at the trade fair and had an affair with the organizer. Later eloping with him to KK! During this period when Bridget was in Sabah, Ah San-ko retired from Shell and was living alone in the terrace house in Krokop. He was vulnerable and lonely. He fell victim to a massage girl’s gold digging tactics. He took her on an extended holiday to Disney land and Hawaii, came back, spend more money on renovating the little house, getting ready for her to move in with her two little children!
When the family heard about these developments, they ganged up on this cunning woman! A plan was made by one of the children. I suspected it was Annie![1] All the children united together to invite their mother home from KK [2] to live in Krokop again. Even Johnny came home with his Indonesian wife and baby! Shirley was living alone in Bintulu. Her own marriage has failed and she came home. All of them took up residence in the renovated old terrace house to give their mother moral support! Their father knew that he has lost the battle even before it even started. His girl friend never had a chance! I heard that the old couple has patched up their differences and are together again in their twilight years.[3] I am glad to hear this bit of good news and I am really happy for them. Unfortunately, both of Bridget's brothers Paul and Martin suffered broken marriages also. Martin’s whereabouts is still unknown. Paul married a Foochow woman in Bintulu and seemed to be doing well selling ngao chap min.
I am beginning to understand why life is full of conflicts and frictions. It is sad that it usually happens during the later stages of married life. Reading widely has helped me to understand why it happens; but it is not the same as preventing it happening. Everyone has to find their own way to navigate through life the best way they can. There is certainly a great deal of reinventing of the wheel involved because some things just had to be learned the hard way so that we can remember them as mistakes made first hand in our journey through life and be able to avoid making them again in the future!
After finishing primary four at the Chinese primary school in Pujut, I went to St Joseph’s school in 1952 to start primary one. My father was told by Fr. Dekker that it was time. His children must learn catechism and received Holy Communion and be confirmed in the Catholic faith. Although my father was an Anglican, when he married a Catholic girl from the convent, he became bound by the marriage contract to bring up all his children as Catholics. I remembered that he used to drop us all at St Joseph’s church on Sundays and attended St Columba’s Anglican Church in Brighton! Any way, attending an English medium school helped me to become bi-lingual in mandarin and English. My only regret was not having a stronger foundation in the
Chinese language. I cannot read Chinese very well.
My primary one teacher was Nellie Ho and I promptly fell in love with her! She has many brothers. Michael, Matthew[5], Mark, Martin and Maurice Ho. Maurice was my elder sister’s class mate in primary 3 (standard one), then my classmate and then Cecilia’s class mate! He had a speech defect and was a terrible student because of his handicap. He was stuck in standard one for many years. Finally, one day, Fr. Dekker said to him: “Maurice, no matter what happens, next year you are going on to primary four!”
Automatic promotion came in and Maurice was saved! He finally had to leave school when he failed the selection exams at the end of primary 6. Matthew Ho has a son Jeffrey Ho. He was a trainee material supervisor and my colleague in Materials dept. in SSB. When I first discovered email and the internet in NZ, he was my very first guinea pig. Those emails are now a rich source for most of my early New Zealand impressions in my book!
I heard later that in spite of his apparent low I. Q, Maurice Ho was very successful in life. He got married, raised a family and also became quite rich!
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| the Thiens |
When the family heard about these developments, they ganged up on this cunning woman! A plan was made by one of the children. I suspected it was Annie![1] All the children united together to invite their mother home from KK [2] to live in Krokop again. Even Johnny came home with his Indonesian wife and baby! Shirley was living alone in Bintulu. Her own marriage has failed and she came home. All of them took up residence in the renovated old terrace house to give their mother moral support! Their father knew that he has lost the battle even before it even started. His girl friend never had a chance! I heard that the old couple has patched up their differences and are together again in their twilight years.[3] I am glad to hear this bit of good news and I am really happy for them. Unfortunately, both of Bridget's brothers Paul and Martin suffered broken marriages also. Martin’s whereabouts is still unknown. Paul married a Foochow woman in Bintulu and seemed to be doing well selling ngao chap min.
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| mum |
After finishing primary four at the Chinese primary school in Pujut, I went to St Joseph’s school in 1952 to start primary one. My father was told by Fr. Dekker that it was time. His children must learn catechism and received Holy Communion and be confirmed in the Catholic faith. Although my father was an Anglican, when he married a Catholic girl from the convent, he became bound by the marriage contract to bring up all his children as Catholics. I remembered that he used to drop us all at St Joseph’s church on Sundays and attended St Columba’s Anglican Church in Brighton! Any way, attending an English medium school helped me to become bi-lingual in mandarin and English. My only regret was not having a stronger foundation in the
My primary one teacher was Nellie Ho and I promptly fell in love with her! She has many brothers. Michael, Matthew[5], Mark, Martin and Maurice Ho. Maurice was my elder sister’s class mate in primary 3 (standard one), then my classmate and then Cecilia’s class mate! He had a speech defect and was a terrible student because of his handicap. He was stuck in standard one for many years. Finally, one day, Fr. Dekker said to him: “Maurice, no matter what happens, next year you are going on to primary four!”
Automatic promotion came in and Maurice was saved! He finally had to leave school when he failed the selection exams at the end of primary 6. Matthew Ho has a son Jeffrey Ho. He was a trainee material supervisor and my colleague in Materials dept. in SSB. When I first discovered email and the internet in NZ, he was my very first guinea pig. Those emails are now a rich source for most of my early New Zealand impressions in my book!
I heard later that in spite of his apparent low I. Q, Maurice Ho was very successful in life. He got married, raised a family and also became quite rich!
Marcus also became very rich; but he masok Islam and abandoned his Catholic faith in order to gain more favours with Abdul Rahman Yakub, our Sarawak chief minister, who was his brother in law, (they married two sisters). By turning his back on God and his catholic faith he lost the respect of many people and that of his own family, especially Mark Ho who refused to talk to him for a very long time. Perhaps Jamil should have helped his brother also to become rich! Mark was my neighbour in Lutong in 1974 when I was staying in the semi-D Shell quarters opposite the Lutong cinema. It was a semi-detached two bedroom single storey wooden bungalow. My house was 896A and Mark Ho’s was 895B.
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