Cyrix’s Codex

During dinner last night, my family had a very interesting conversation on my family’s history while munching down my mum’s delicious sambal prawns. *Yum….* :)

Anyway, it’s pretty cool learning about your roots and all. So basically, since my dad’s family’s Cantonese, he said that my ancestors were probably some half-starved peasants from Canton, in Southern China. After realising that his potatoes aren’t gonna grow no matter how much cow dung he chucked on them, I’m guessing he started thinking what the hell was he gonna do now to avoid starving his family and himself. Then one day, he saw this ad in the papers telling about a funky far-away land called Malaya, where there’s heaps of gold and potatoes. He promptly packed his bags, gave the middle finger to the crappy Chiang Kai-Shek’s government, and took the first boat to Malaya.

Upon arriving there, he started working in the rich tin (close enough to gold laa) mines there. While there, he and his wife gave birth to my grandfather and his siblings. Not all of them survived. During that time, the Chinese people like my great-grandfather viewed Malaya only as a place to get some moolah, so that he could go back to Canton and build a cool wooden house, to show off to his neighbours. Unfortunately, during his stay there, the Communists came into power, thanks to that round-faced, molely Mao Zedong. So that was that. He couldn’t go back anymore.

Anyway, my grandfather then grew up in Kepala Batas, Penang and called Malaysia his home. I guess it was a pretty cool life there, running around paddy fields, playing marbles to impress the chicks, etc. His idillyc life was interrupted when those cruel bastard Japanese soldiers started invading Malaya. My great-grandpa must have hidden in the paddy fields frequently to avoid meeting God too soon. Thankfully, the cool British came in and finally kicked the Japs out. My great-grandpa then got married. He became a blacksmith, and I guess he earned enough to be able to have my grandfather.

My grandfather first tried continuing his dad’s trade, but he didn’t have the work ethics for it. He quit that and decided to set up a Wanton Mee stall instead. Luckily, it was a success. People loved his home-made (they still have the noodle-making machine) noodles and wanton. Unfortunately, he loved drinking, and spent a lot of money on it. My dad once counted how much he earned, and how much was used to buy wine, and concluded that his father would have been a very rich man if he had kicked that habit. He passed away early, and the business was passed on to my grandmother. My granny, it was soon apparent, was a much better businesswoman, and together with not having many expensive habits, was soon earning quite an impressive sum for the whole family. Oh yeah, and my dad was then born some years after my grandpa started his noodles stall. My dad have always said that if my grandpa’s noodles stall didn’t take off, he and I wouldn’t be here right now. It was that crucial then, during those poor times.

My dad, I guess, was the smartest among his siblings. His brother took over the noodles stall. My dad took the ’school’ route and went to Technical Institute in Penang Island, where he meet my mum. After that, he went to teaching college, and finally graduated as a Maths teacher. His first compulsory posting, together with my mum, was in a God-forsaken tiny indigenous village near Miri in Sarawak. There, he wrote a dirtbike (my dad’s so cool ) to school, lived in a longhouse, and taught half-naked kids with spears. I was born there, incidentally. After 5 years, my dad then transferred to Penang, where he attended USM for a teaching degree. After about another 5 years, we moved to Johor Bahru down south.

We lived there for 7 years, until I was in the Lower 6th Form, where he saw an ad that Australia needed Maths teachers. He applied for it, and got it.

And that where we all are now, in Sydney, NSW