let lemons be angry

The Tan Family

I'm learning that my father's family was quite a legend. My grandfather owned the largest plot of land on Jalan Tuakong, and his house had geese, watchdogs, and hundreds of birds. They also had ma jie, Chinese servants in white who swore off marriage to serve their masters. When there were riots and gang fights, all the neighbours would huddle in his house. My father and his brothers would be given saws and poles to guard the house with. During the Maria Hertogh riot, my grandfather broke the curfew to cycle out and buy food for his British boss. For that he was given a medal, whose whereabouts nobody is sure about.

The cousins of this family were all in awe of my grandfather and his house. Now the cousins are old women, but I can imagine them as little girls, looking up at the Jalan Tuakong house with its many children and beasts.

That is my heritage: how great my grandfather's family once was. But never mind about the past; I've come to see that my family still exerts a very peculiar presence.

For one, my grandfather's house has not been changed since he first built it. So now it is the only house in the neighbourhood that has a huge driveway and front yard, with a cage that held peacocks and eagles not too long ago. The house itself is low, a single storey with an attached garage and metal roof. The walls are painted concrete and the floor is made up of tiny blue tiles. The window grilles are made of large circles. And I know that nobody will ever sell this house or think of rebuilding it. It wouldn't make sense, now that it has acquired so much history.

And then there are the people in the Tan family. I don't know why I had to be born into this family of giants. Most of my cousins are ridiculously good-looking giraffes. I've mentioned my Cleo's Eligible Bachelor cousin before. The result of having so many tall cousins, however, is seeing all their shorter boyfriends.

But the key distinguishing feature of my family is its number. My clan is so big that we line up to get food without necessarily talking to everyone in the queue. We sit in three areas of the house, and some spill over to the verandah. There have been so many family expansions that new boyfriends and girlfriends are just given token nods and hellos. And of late, one more sign that the Tan family is very big indeed: we play group games.

You see, at every family function, after all stomachs have been settled and the extra tables have been rolled away, there will be a Program. If it's Christmas, the Program will consist of carols (with songsheets), Christmas games, and some kind of message. All games require us to break into groups of ten or twelve. And then there's a whole lot of chaos as uncles cheat, large nephews swear in excitement, and nieces shout above the raucour to make everyone follow the rules. Everyone is highly competitive.

These are the stories that I'll get to tell kids when I'm old and dubious and they come to visit me during chinese new year. The Tan family is still a legend, even in my time.