This happened way before my last posts, during the time when I had nothing to do after graduation from high school, waiting for enrollment, and lazying in my comfortable home doing nothing but sleep, eat and sleep again.
Actually, it happened around one month before I came to Limkokwing, and I was glad that it happened around that time. My grandfather was planning to go back to China, back to where he belonged in Taipu, a Hakka village many years ago, but now a developing town. When I heard about the news, I joked that I want to go too, thinking that it was impossible to happen. But my father said, "Go lah, go back to your grandfather and my hometown ma, better than staying here doing nothing."
So the decision was made less than a day, I was to go with my mum, my eldest sister, my grandfather, my uncle, auntie and my cousins to China! I was very excited at that time because, frankly speaking, apart from the idea of going back to my hometown, which I didn't find that exciting at that time, we planned to go to Hong Kong Disneyland too!
The journey started when I board the airplane from Malaysia to Hong Kong. I'm not gonna make myself sound stupid by saying,"Oh! How interesting when the airplane started moving! Oh, look! The plane is flying upwards!"
We landed safely in Hong Kong airport(and I can tell you KLIA is better ;P) and we were greeted by my father's uncle, which is also my grandmother's step-brother, his second wife and his eldest grandson(I think). This is where I started to have the relationship confusion(note: there's more coming).
After meeting my granduncle, we went to the border between China and Hong Kong. After a few hours, we managed to cross it, and I was one of the unfortunate ones chosen to cross without a car. We reached downtown Shenzhen in the evening and we had to take a taxi to go to our hotel. This is the first time I saw a traffic which was much more crazy than the traffic in KL. they have four lanes in one direction, and the cars, buses and lorries were honking and changing lanes whenever they want and, trust me, you will turn crazy simply by looking at it. There's a saying that you can earn a lot if you open a car accessories shop because you'll sell a lot of honks. This explains why everywhere you go, you will hear the cars honking.
It's nearly night when we reached the hotel after two hours of trapping in the traffic. It was a bad hotel, only two star. After resting, We went down to a nearby Hakka restaurant to eat Hakka food and I met more relatives there which made my mental family tree more confusing. I had a hard time figuring out who was who, which was like solving a puzzle and it helped me pass my time as I couldn't finish my food(there's eel! Eewww!)
After the dinner, we went back to the hotel to rest. One of my granduncle's son came and talk to my mum. And I was an amusing sight watching them talking. My mum, who came from a Cantonese speaking family and had little knowledge of the Hakka language, tried to converse with him in Hakka as my granduncle's son insisted on speaking Hakka. My mum told me that they are very proud of their own identity, and no matter what, they'll insist on speaking their own language. The embarrassing truth is, I don't know Hakka, and since I couldn't understand what they were trying to say, the only way is for me to smile and nod. This experience made me understand the importance of knowing your own language. I know mandarin, but I would be better if I can speak with them in our own dialect.
The next day...to be continued...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment