Closeness

Over the years, as I feel myself distancing from my origins and its culture, I no longer pray to my deceased grandparents like what we customarily do on every festival. It was once an extended family affair, with cousins and uncles and aunts all in full numbers meeting up and catching up while spending time at the temples, giving time for the 'spirits' to 'consume' the offerings. Now it has dwindled to nothing... with just remembrance of them in our hearts as time goes by.

No doubt, many Chinese would inadvertently give us some side looks for disrespecting the Chinese culture and its traditions. Nonetheless, I still feel much grounded to my dialect and its associated things. A Cantonese through and through, the older generation always label Cantonese girls as "qia zhar bo" - fierce and hot-tempered. It's not always true, especially not in my case.

Whatever it is, I feel most at home when there's older people conversing in Canto, serving up Canto dishes, and playing Canto songs. The saddest thing is everything is just music to my ears, I appreciate it but I can only understand and speak it minimally. The essence is left there waiting for someone to savour every bit of it. But in today's context, who will that someone be?(other than my mother of hongsters)