COFFEE & BISCUITS

Last two nights I have been thinking about my parents and my grandmother.  It all started with my late night online conversation with my high school friend whom I haven’t chatted with forawhile.  But still, how many topics we covered.  Looking backat the topics we discussed only did I realize that indeed with an old friend, you can chat about everything, from relationships, old friends, parents, health, dogs, religion, gossips, house, to jobs.  Last week, for strange reasons, I had extended conversations with a total of 3 middle/high school friends — that is a significant number.  And the conversation covered such large ground.  How many people I see on a day to day basis could I have discussed such wide ground?  None.  The sweetness of old friends.

But chatting with old friends brought back old memories with parents.  At night when I am in the twilight zone, my mind goes back to my pre-teen years, where my older brother and I would always be subjected to punishments due to our transgressions against the rules set by my Mom.  Though both of my parents work, my dad is the primary bread winner and he doesn’t intervene in our education, leaving all the disciplining to mom. 

And mom is one tough lady.  I was about 10 or 11, my older brother a year older, and my younger brother around 4.  We all have our own beating stick.  Oh yes, I mean, a BEATING stick.  Bamboo too.  With a color identification.  Mine had an orange sticker on it, I think.  And on it penciled the dates where it was used upon our body. 

My younger brother was still young, so very rarely was it used on him, except on those occasions when he was wailing on the dinner table and wouldn’t eat his food.  My older brother and I, however, were rule breakers.  Actually, he was, not I.  I just followed along.  We didn’t do our homework on time, we didn’t clearn our room, we ate chips before dinner.  Beating time.  One particular time, my mother was infumed after she came home from work discovering that my brother and I had not completed our home work and didn’t clean our room, as we promised her to do.   She said, “Meet me in the family room at 7pm for a beating.”

However, there are certain power dynamics inside a household that a kid can take advantage of.  There is always the soft-hearted grandmother, who would go about her way to overrule the authority of wife of her only son.  Upon hearing this appointment, my grandmother gathered my brother and I into her room for an emergency meeting, and we agreed on wearing 4 layer of long trousers in preparation of the meeting.  It was in the heat of the summer (no school!  that was precisely why my brother and I decided to slack)

At the meeting, my mother produced my beating stick with the orange sticker.  “Wong Wing Yee, ” she said, “Come here.”

I came forth, knelt down.

“PHI!”  Sounded the beating stick on my trousers.

The force of the blow was dissolved by the padded layers before it reached me.  I almosts wanted to laugh.

Afterwards, my brother and I triumphantly showed off our successful tactic for many years.

All thanks to my grandmother.  But you see, my Dad is quite soft hearted also, and whilst he did not know it, he served as our weapon against our mother.

He might have a booming voice, he might be bigger than mother, and in the second before the beating stick in his hand made contact with our body he might look very fierce,  but the man simply CANNOT bear to lay his hands on us.  If we could have been able to vote for who to spank us, we would all vote for Dad.

Once, my brother and I were playing a game of throwing things down from the balcony inside the houes (it’s a balcony inside the house) and we accidently broke a vase on the wall.  It was an antique.  Dad’s booming voice was immediate:  “COME DOWN HERE IMMEDIATELY YOU TWO!”

We came down meekly and knew we deserved spanking.  Both of us knelt down.

Dad took the closest beating object — a ping-pong racket.

“Ready?”  Looking real fierce he did.

We pushed our buttocks in the air.

We didn’t even know it when the execution was over.   Because the ping-pong racket barely touched our ready buttocks.

Another time when I truly deserved some spanking but again my Dad feel victim to his softiness is when I was being a real drama queen.  That time, a lizard decided to lie, unmovingly, smack in the middle of my room’s door step.  I was screaming for help (I hate lizards, even know).  No one came.  They were all sitting around the dinner table, peeling peanuts and eating melon ( it was after dinner).  Dad said, “you should not be afriad of the.  You should overcome this fear, or try to solve the problem yourself.”

I went back to stare at the lizard.  Again screaming.  In my helplessness, I started crying.  Usually that worked.  But no one came to my rescue.  Feeling unloved, I said, “Oh I want to commit suicide!”  (I was about 8 then).

Hearing this from afar, my Dad immediately sped to my location and screamed, “Don’t you ever say that do you hear!”  Really angry was he.  I deserved some spanking.  He took a hanger.  But again, at the crucial moment when the hanger made contact with my body the force of the blow vanished.  It’s like watching a gigantic asteroid flying toward the earth in outer universe but was reduced to a tiny pebble once it landed on earth.

Oh the sweetness of people who love you.