Tribute to my Grandfather: Yeye Yeo

We said goodbye to the oldest Yeo in our family last week. My grandpa, or Yeye, lived to a ripe old age of 103 before he took his final breath. While we are saddened by his passing, I think I can say that we actually felt like we wanted to celebrate his life. After all, my grandpa was surrounded by everything he loved at the end – his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. He died at home, as he had hoped he would, and he went in the most peaceful and dignified way possible.

I thought I should take this time to share more about the man. Much of what I know about him was actually through my own father. My father loved him dearly, and everytime he recalled stories of Grandpa, it was like they were both young again. Grandpa, named Yeo Guan Seng 杨全清, was born in a poor fishing village called Longgunzhen 龙滚镇 in east Hainan Island, and at age 17 he left his home on a small sampan rowboat in search of a better life in “nanyang” – the prosperous south. He arrived in Singapore but was quickly caught by the ‘brown-uniformed men’ and sent back to Hainan. He waited for when the conditions were favourable and tried again the following year. He got sent back again. It took him the third try on the sampan before he ended up in the jungles of Johor where he hid amidst rubber plantations. He remained in hiding and survived three days without any food. He finally found an opening to cross the border with a truck carrying rubber into Singapore. There, he finally reunited with his brothers who made it across before him.

It is almost strange to think that my grandfather’s youth was spent during the time when the world was in flux – the Great Depression, WWI and eventually WWII. He built up his life in Singapore starting out as a coffeeshop boy before the Second World War. While my grandfather’s life remained relatively unscathed during those tumultuous years, he lost his hearing on one side when he was slapped by a Japanese soldier for not understanding orders. The war came and went, and the British took back the control of the island in 1945. My grandfather eventually married the daughter of the coffeeshop owner, my grandmother. He was 31 and she was 16.

The next decade after was focused on one thing – baby-making. My own father, the second son whom they initially named ‘Ah Ji’ (literally Number 2 in Hokkien), was born at the start of the baby-boomer era in 1948. My grandparents had a total of 9 children – 5 boys and 4 girls. They were so fertile that my grandmother tried to abort her babies, two of which she successfully did. My youngest aunt thankfully, made it through. Come to think of it, they should’ve been thankful she did as she bore the responsibility of living with them for the rest of their lives, even now.

My dad, like his brothers, learnt to cook from my grandfather. He ran their own Hainanese food stall in the 1960s on Dickson Road at Jalan Besar, with the three oldest sons. Money was good and they finally broke through the poverty glass ceiling.

Like many others overseas Chinese migrants, my grandfather worked very hard – days and nights. His stall was open every day of the year, the only exception being the first day of Chinese New Year. He was hardly home, and as a result my grandma ran a tight household. Being a mother myself now, I finally appreciate what it means to have a discipline in the house. How else could she have survived bringing up 9 children? So as grandma fortified her reputation as the Iron Fist, my yeye was the softie whom the children loved and respected. He never raised his temper at the children. My father recalled how my grandpa always left a tray of coins for the children in his room so they could buy sweets for themselves. Even when my father – in his roaring 20s all young and wild – crashed the family car, the only thing my grandpa said was to ask him if he had hurt himself. Then he gave my dad some money to take a taxi while he took care of the rest.

If my grandpa had one weak spot, it was his family in Hainan. Every year, he would send a big sum of money back to Hainan. The day he found out his own mother had died, he cried for days in his room. My grandpa only managed to return to Hainan 50 years after. My father accompanied him, and recalled the day he returned – the village waited in anticipation for his arrival. The local school band was in full swing, and they welcomed him with song and cheer. Everyone in the village had benefitted from all the money he had sent over, but sadly they never quite got out of the poverty trap. The ancestral home was never demolished nor improved, and the money disappeared as quickly as it came.

Despite being born poor, my Grandpa was fortunately literate. He read the papers everyday, but as he only spoke Hainanese (and eventually Hokkien), us youngsters could only rely on smatterings of dialect and hand gestures to communicate with him. Sad to say, second-generation Singaporeans like myself are pretty useless in everything but English and Chinese. And so everything we knew about him was through our parents. Yet, he was the happiest, sweetest grandpa who loved to have us around. His favourite task during Chinese New Year was to stock up the house with chocolates and sweets because he knew we loved those treats. His face would brighten up everytime we came to visit, and he would always either slip $50 in the pockets of the grandsons (heirs to the Yeo throne), or give his two thumbs up and a big toothy smile for every little small thing we did for him.

As the years passed, my grandfather eventually saw his friends and family members going, one after the other. When he hit 90, it became pretty clear that he still had a lot of mileage left. His appetite was great, and his mind ever so sharp. It also became clear that that my Yeye was kept alive by two things which he looked forward to everyday – good meats and 4D (lottery). Every morning, he would find reasons to go down to the market, just to satisfy his desire to bring home either red meat, or fresh fish. All the regulars at the 4D Toto shop knew him, and when he arrived in his wheelchair, they would make way for the Godfather of 4D. I say Godfather with intent – my grandfather had such a lucky hand that he would win money almost every weekend. (Then again, he bought so many combinations of numbers, it might have been harder not to strike.)

Each year on the 15th day of CNY, we would celebrate my grandpa’s birthday. In the Chinese calendar, the 15th day of the New Year changes according to the lunar cycles, which left me to question why my yeye’s birth date changed every year. My parents told me that it was because no one actually knew when my grandpa was born in 1914. All they knew was that he was born on a full moon – on the 15th day of the Chinese calendar. And so we carried on the tradition of celebrating his birthday on the 15^th day of Chinese New Year. It was always a lovely occasion, and I foresee us continuing to celebrate the life of Yeye on this day, after his death.

Vincent remarked once that if not for him, none of us – my uncles and aunts, my siblings and cousins and our own children today – would be here. It is true that how quickly we forget to be grateful to the people who made our own lives possible, and in a country we are so blessed to be born into.

I didn’t mention earlier that Yeye was born the third of four sons. While the first three sons managed to successfully cross into nanyang to build their dreams, the youngest son remained in Hainan to care for their mother. He stayed in the village for the rest of his life, and sadly, despite receiving support from Singapore year after year, the family remained in the same dusty old village, oddly sandwiched between a spanking new 6-star luxury golf course and a field of pineapple. When we visited them back in 2014, it dawned upon me that besides sharing a surname, our families live in parallel worlds. Such is the fate of families that are broken apart in times of poverty and war. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would’ve been, if my grandfather decided he didn’t want to brave the South China Seas a third time to be in a foreign land with nothing to his name.

This year (2017) sometime in June, the family became cognisant that my grandpa didn’t have much longer to live. He came home after being admitted twice in a month to hospital for pneumonia. But even as his skin got thinner, and breath got heavier, his appetite never abated. My aunt Lian recounted the time when – given his weak condition – she tried to get him to follow doctor’s orders to consume only liquids. Yet when she went to see him in the hospital, he was found munching on a bun. Like a little boy.

In August, it was increasingly clear that his end was near. He endured the long nights through endless bouts of coughing and heaving, and lost control of his bowel movements frequently. He never liked the hospital, yet even in his weakened state with no hearing, he would struggle to go home. On the day he died, grandpa still had his porridge lunch. As his helper put him down to bed, he hugged her, then he gave his signature two thumbs up to her. He went to sleep, and went away peacefully.

It was bittersweet really. The family knew we couldn’t keep him alive forever, And even when the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) came to his deathbed to try to resuscitate him, my grandma stepped in and told them to let him go.

The wake was one of a peaceful celebration. Everyone who came really felt a sense of joy for my grandpa who lived a good century, and they came to say goodbye to a man who brought nothing but joy and happiness to those around him.

On the last night of the wake, I looked up at the night sky, and it was a full moon too. I said a word of thanks again to my Yeye, and was overcome by a warm sense of gratitude toward the man whom I am so privileged to call my grandfather.

My grandfather in his 20s.

 

 

 

My daD with his Hainan cousins, in front of the birthplace of my grandpa. Today, only two of the nine siblings speak Hainanese.