Mum’s Final Test in This Life
母亲生前最后一场考试

As my mum had gone through a tough life with her eldest son and my grandmother back in the homeland of China for many years, she was easily contented with a simple lifestyle in this country and in this town of Nibong Tebal. She always reminded us ‘to be thankful to the Fatherly Sky and the Motherly Earth’ [谢天谢地] for what we had: three meals a day with a shelter to be dwelt in. She did not crave for material needs. She only aspired for spiritual uplifting without her realization.

Her lifestyle was simple. She rarely bought or ate outside food. Whatever money she could save would be kept for praying purposes. Realizing the good intent and purpose of my mother, my eldest brother did not object to my mother’s religious practice. She was given a free hand to get money from the drawer at her whims to purchase items essential for praying.

Her daily practice was the reciting of the sacred name of Kwan Yin[观音圣号] with the rosary as a recorder. When she had reached the number of one hundred and sixty thousand times the recitation of the sacred name of Kwan Yin, she would get my sister and me to help her fill up the one hundred and sixty dots in red ink on a sailing ship commonly known as ‘Buddha Ship’ [佛船] printed on a sheet of yellow paper. We were very obliging to do it for her as we regarded it as a plaything to have fun with. Before the ship was set sail to Western Paradise by means of burning it, she would make a wish as an addendum either for our financial condition to be improved or for the academic performance of her children to be excellent. Rarely would she make a wish for her own well being.

On certain days of every lunar month she would observe strictly a vegetarian diet. Sometimes we would join her just for a change of menu.
Whenever any of her children were to leave home for travel or for study elsewhere, he or she would be reminded by my mum to burn incense to acknowledge the deities and ancestors and at the same time to ask for their blessings.

Though she was an illiterate, she was determined to learn by rote the recitation of the Kwan Yin Sutra [高王观世音经] from me and from my sister when I was in Standard 4 and my sister was in Standard 5. We were too happy and too willing to be her tutors as it was a chance of a life time for us as kids to act as ‘teachers’.

During the last three years of her life, when I got my transfer back to Nibong Tebal, I did observe that every morning she would spend an hour or so kneeling in front of the altar of the Buddha upstairs, reciting the Kwan Yin Sutra she had learnt from us.

Thrice a year her friends would join her in the pilgrimage to the temple of Seong Woon Aum [祥云庵] in Penang during the festive days of the celebration of Kuan Yin. Her friends would assemble at our house and collectively they would hire one or two taxis to Butterworth. From there they took a ferry across the channel to board a bus to the temple at Ayer Itam. This she did without fail for many years ever since we were small. As her children, we were very delighted to wait for her homecoming after each pilgrimage as we anticipated many special things to eat, like various types of fruits, dumplings, vegetarian dishes, and so on.

In the year 1983, she already made arrangements in anticipation of her impending death. After she had opted for cremation, she asked me to go to the Beow Hiang Lim Temple[妙香林寺] at Air Itam in Penang on July 9, 1983 to book an urn niche at the price of RM 2000 with her own money. She bought gold rings from the local pawnshop to be given to her children for their lifetime remembrance. In 1984, when she learnt of my booking of a house at Bukit Mertajam, she gave me one thousand ringgit Malaysia as part of the booking fee. After that she practically left nothing behind.

On September 24,1984, she was diagnosed at the Penang Adventist Hospital to be suffering from leukemia. The doctor advised me to bring her home so that she might spend her last days in peace and dignity. Dr. Khoo Hock Lye of Khoo Clinic at Nibong Tebal was very kind indeed. He attended to my mum immediately on request to give her injections of morphine whenever she had pains. We were very thankful to him for his professional ethics.

During her last days, I was told by my mum that she never had any unpleasant dreams or illusions of any kind or ‘any uninvited visitors’ from the other world. This was a good indication that she was not disturbed by beings from other realms.

Early in the morning of December 13, 1984, my mum enquired from my sister-in-law the time at one particular instant. She was told that the time was approximately 4.00 am. My mum sounded that it was still too early then to telephone my sister and me. It could be that she wanted to inform us to come back to be with her before she departed. But on further query by my sister-in-law as to why she wanted to contact us, she said that there was nothing important to be conveyed.

At around 5.00 am, prior to her demise, my two nieces and a nephew, namely, Phuay Yin, Phuay Sunn and Sip Hin respectively, gathered in front of the altar of Buddha which was about 25 feet away from my mum’s sickbed to recite continuously the sacred name of Amitabha Buddha[阿弥陀佛圣号] to transfer merits to their grandma. All this while my mum was lying on her bed. At around 6.00 am, she sat up on an arm chair by the side of her bed. Her grandchildren, sensing that the time was up for their grandma, instead of crying, continued to recite the sacred name of Amitabha Buddha in front of their grandma, while at the same time trying to conceal the grief of losing their beloved grandma. Minutes before my mum passed away, she asked her grandson, Sip Hin, to burn joss-sticks before the Buddha, the deities and the ancestors to make known to them that she was about to leave this world. It was with such noble grace and dignity that she departed from this world. Hopefully with this nonstop recitation of the sacred name of Amitabha Buddha by my nephew and nieces, my mum would have set sail in a Buddha ship[佛船] to the other shore of Western Paradise. I felt terribly sorry for not be able to be at her bedside at that crucial moment of her departure when she needed me most. I am still deeply indebted to my nephew and nieces for their good karma in their handling and sending off my mum in the most appropriate way. I fervently hope that they would be blessed by their grandma with good fortune and good health always.

How well a person lives is determined not by how comfortable or luxurious he has lived through his life but by the relative ease with which he is leaving this world for the next.

A perfect death which every Buddhist aspires for at the time of death includes the following criteria:

a) able to anticipate when to leave for the next world[预知时至].
b) has no bodily pain or suffering[身无病苦],
c) has no attachment to worldly pleasures[心不贪恋],
d) has a clear and conscious mind before death[意不颠倒],

Death is the final test of every person. Anybody who can die gracefully with all the criteria mentioned above would have a perfect score in the report card of his life’s final test.

In the case of my mum, though she was short of a perfect score for having bodily suffering, I would say she had acquired quite a good grade by what she had done in this life and how she left this world. Practically she had fulfilled most of the criteria mentioned. She had set a good example for all of us to emulate. I am proud to have her as my beloved mother. She was a common mother with uncommon deeds.

Land below the Wind
风下之乡

On February 28th 2009, my wife and I made a trip to Sabah, a place fondly known as the "Land below the Wind".

This trip was made possible at the persisted invitations of my primary school classmate, Mr. Lim Seng Kwang, whom I met last August after a lapse of 40 years since we left the Methodist Secondary School at Nibong Tebal.

Seng Kwang and his daughter Winnie came to receive us at the Kota Kinabalu Airport. He teased me in Teochew dialect, asking me if I had had the feeling of ‘Chu Tanjong’[ 出丹绒]. ( ‘Chu Tanjong’ literally means ‘Exit (to) Georgetown of Penang’’ ,that is , ‘going to Penang Island’.) This reminded me of our younger days when we were still in primary school. At that time ‘Chu Tanjong’’ was hard to come by as most of us were from a poor family background. Rarely would one have the chance to go to Penang Island. Whoever got the chance to do so, he would be very happy and excited that he would have a sleepless night before the day of travel. He would go round the town trumpeting to the ‘whole world’ that he would ‘Chu Tanjong’’ as if he was the only privileged one to be given that opportunity. Seng Kwang would go to the extent of irritating and ridiculing his cousin brother for not be able to ‘Chu Tanjong’’ until a quarrel followed by a fight ensued. In the end, he and his cousin brother were to be thrashed with a few cuts by their grandfather before he could ‘Chu Tanjong’’ the next day.

Like what Seng Kwang said, my trip to Sabah was yet another instance of ‘Chu Tanjong’ [出丹绒]. This time the 'Chu Tanjong' bears another meaning of ‘exiting from Penang’ to come to Sabah[出丹绒去沙巴]. Of course, to visit Sabah was nothing that I could be boastful of. But, because this was my inaugural trip to East Malaysia, certainly some amount of excitement and curiosity about Sabah did prevail in me.

Though it was a 4 Days 3 Nights trip, two days were meant for travelling. The remaining two days were used to visit places in and around the city of Kota Kinabalu. This time around we were unable to go for island-hopping or to visit other interior parts of Sabah. To have a complete tour of Sabah, according to my dear friend, we need another 5 or 6 days.

On this trip we could only visit a few places. Visiting Gaya Street Sunday Market, Kinabalu Park and Poring Hot Spring took us one full day, Sabah Museum and Lok Kawi Wild Life Park took another day.

During our stay at Kota Kinabalu, the visibility of the peak was not possible as the weather was cloudy with intermittent rainfalls. But on the very day after we left the city for home, the sky was bright with the peak clearly visible from all angles in Kota Kinabalu. According to Seng Kuang, it was an indication that we were destined to come again to Sabah for a second visit. Kota Kinabalu features a number of tourist attractions in and around the city itself. It has an international airport with direct flights to no less than 150 destinations. Tourists flock from all corners of the world to climb Mount Kinabalu or to scuba dive in the neighbouring islands. As such, the tourist industry in Sabah is blooming with hotels and lodging houses mushrooming by the hundreds.

In the city one can hardly see motorcycles and bicycles. To see an Indian is even harder. For the few days we stayed at Kota Kinabalu, we only saw once an Indian man selling honey in bottles at the Gaya Street Sunday Market.

The Sabah natives comprise of various ethnic groups and religious groups. The two largest ethnic groups are Kadazandusun and Bajau. Christianity(Roman Catholic) is the major religion of the natives. It is of little wonder that we saw umpteen churches and chapels located along the way from the city to the Kinabalu Park. Intermarriages among the natives and the Malays or the Chinese are not uncommon to form new hybrids that it is hard for a person to tell which ethnic group a person is just by the look of the person.

I was introduced to a few words in the Kandazandusun dialect by Seng Kwang. He said if we wanted to say “how are you” to a native Kandazandusun, we just have to mention to him in Teochew dialect “coffee not the same”, that is “kopivosian”. “Kotohuadan Kior!” is meant for “Thank you!”

People carry weights in the gymnasium. My wife and I 'carried weights' in restaurants at Kota Kinabalu. By the time we came home, the plane had to carry an extra weight of four kilograms; two kilograms from each of us. Seng Kwang was our 'training instructor' guiding us ‘to carry weight’. We were introduced with the best food he could find in Kota Kinabalu. Within three days we had tasted Sabah famous beef noodles soup, variety of seafood, dim sum, fish head curry, drunken chicken, 'Vietnamese' chicken, sour fish curry and so on. Anyway, we really thanked him and his family for the warm reception they have given us. They had made our stay in Sabah a memorable one.