The Barber

I always frequent this barber near my place, and I have done it for the past 10 years. It was a place where old people go, not young people like me, but since the barbers know me, it's not really weird. So as it had been many times before, this old man was sitting next to me, attended by another barber.

He went on chatting with the barber about him studying in an english school, how he learnt his mandarin, how he worked in HDB for the past 30 years blah blah blah...Which kampung he lived in, which part of China his parents were from, and that he's a true blue homegrown 2nd generation Singaporean.

It's just one of those topics that I need to stretch my brain to think, although I could understand every single word of Hokkien in it, some of those road and kampung names just don't make sense to me.

Then I thought, I know all the bloody history about Singapore, Old man Lee, WWII, but then my grandfathers were all but a mystery....

Paternal grandad: born in late 1910s, I know his name, he was born somewhere in the southern part of China in Hokkien province. He was a fishmonger here, and I never knew how he got to marry my grandmother. He had 8 kids, one of them my dad of course. Most memorable phrase, according to my dad, " Ai tak du tak, mai tak du ga wa buey he" which literally translates to "You want to study then study, don't want then you come sell fish with me." He died of lung cancer, ironically after he quit smoking, but he was already way past 90, so he actually lived a longer life than an average singaporean.

Maternal grandad: sad to say, I don't know a thing. I only know he came from Hainan island, and that he died when I was a toddler.

So after getting brainswashed of the magnificent history of the Lee family, I suggest that you get to know more of your own family history, and it would be interesting, i think. Go up to your grandad and literally ask for a "grandfather story"