What the photograph doesn’t “tell”

This family photograph was taken in the year 1950, one year before I was born. In the photograph my dad was holding my adopted second brother and my mum was holding my sister. My eldest brother was standing at the right whereas my adopted sister was standing at the left.

That very year of 1950 my mum gave birth to my sister. Due to the fear that my mum might not be able to conceive another baby boy as her age was catching up, my parents decided to adopt a baby boy from Kuala Ketil, Kedah as my second elder brother.

The fear of my mum was not unfounded. According to the fung- shui [风水] in our family, as was told by my eldest brother, for the past two generations, male offspring was scarce. My grandfather was the only son in the family and my dad was also the only son adopted from a Liao family. Although back in China before my mum came to Malaya, she was assured by her personal consultant, Tai Chi Oi Oi(大姊娘娘，the eldest sister of the seven deities), operated through a medium, that she would give birth to some more boys when she came to Nanyang. She did not believe that prophecy could become a reality. Indeed, it was. My younger brother and I were born later.

To look after the two babies at the same time was not an easy task. My parents thought it would be much cheaper to adopt another daughter than to employ a baby sitter. The daughter adopted was Ah Yung [阿蓉]. She was supposed to help my mum to look after the younger brother and sister.

An unexpected event happened years later. Ah Yung was made pregnant by a shop assistant my father employed. As her stomach was getting bigger day by day, my parents had to let her married to the shop assistant. The personal assistant of my mum had finally become the “permanent personal assistant” of our shop assistant.

This is what the photograph does not “tell”.