The World of Tai Tai

Papa has been dead for the third day, and I miss him terribly.   He had a fall, and sustained internal bleeding in the head. Ah Hui called an ambulance and he spent many hours struggling with his life at hospital.  My heart was heavy, so I went outside and prayed.  In the night sky a star seemed to be twinkling at me.  About one am, all of a sudden, there was a power outage at the hospital and it made me wonder if papa had gone.   However, with the help of batteries, papa's life was still supported by machines. Whether or not he lived was hanging by a thread. After a while, power returned.  We continued watching him from outside.  Due to the pandermic, films of plastic had been put up as a divide between the doctors and visitors.  We kept our fingers crossed, but still, there was no response from papa. He was in a coma. Ah Hui and I decided to go home for a rest. We slept for roughly two hours.   At about 8.51am, we received th...

A few years back, we visited the grave of grand aunt. When grand aunt had been alive, she was the apple of great grandpa's eye. He was devastated upon her death from an attempted abortion. Great grandpa buried her in a family-owned hill. A year later, Brunei fell into the hands of the Japanese army. Due to great-Grandpa's wealth, the Japanese forced him into supplying food to their troop. When the Australian air-fighting force got wind of that information, they wanted to level great grandpa's residence and his properties. However, by a twist of fate, Great-grandfather was informed of the planned raid and escaped. Miraculously, the hill was spared the bombing. After the Japanese surrendered, in detention centre, some air-raiders revealed to great grandpa that they had almost dropped bombs on the family-owned hill. The sight of the cross on grand-aunt's grave giving off serenity had made them change their mind.

Fifty Ringgit By Lo Sin Yee     Chinese New Year was in the air again. The more my classmates bragged about what their fathers would give them during the festivities, the more I hated mine. On the first day of every Chinese New Year, papa would give my siblings and I one ringgit worth of red packets, a measly amount compared to those received by our classmates.  On the third day of the celebration, however, he would collect them back from us.                 My papa sold steamed buns for a living  Although our buns were delicious and reasonably cheap, the profit we made was meager and inconsistent.  Every month, much of our earnings was spent on our car repairs. The rickety beater meant a lot to us.  If it broke down, Papa would be unable to sell buns at the night market and we would have less to eat.  Each time our car required repairs,  papa would be on te...