Chia - Frog under the coconut shell

2002 Josephine Chia

Designer: Lock Hong Liang
Front cover: Models Peranakan kebaya courtesy of Peter Wee (Katong Antique House)

This edition published 2010 by
Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196

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National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data

Chia, Josephine.

Frog under a coconut shell / Josephine Chia. Singapore :

Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2009.

p. cm.
eISBN-13 : 978-981-4398-97-8

1. Mothers Singapore Biography. 2. Mothers and daughters Singapore.
3. Peranakan (Asian people) Singapore Social life and customs. 4. Chia,
Josephine. I. Title.

HQ759
306.8743 dc22 OCN463528854

Printed in Singapore by Craft Print International Ltd

Y our mother is beautiful, people say when they see her photograph on the dedication page of my cookbook. Each remark squeezes my heart. Can they see what I see, beyond Maks old skin, her body shrinking from her sarong kebaya, her eyes opaque with cataract, her hips rudely angled from arthritis and having borne several children. Why do I feel that when people are praising her, they are praising me? Have we both swayed to the cosmic dance together, sometimes child, sometimes mother, sometimes brother or sister, spouse to each other in different incarnations?

What I do know is that I am not just my mothers daughter. I am her hope and dreams. When I separated from her at birth, she passed her baton for me to complete her race. The handing over of the baton didnt happen in one quick changeover, it has taken years, years of subtle learning through which she feeds me her desires, her hopes, her dreams, her life which has not been. I can re-capture her the way she was, tall and slender in her sarong kebaya, her face a delicate shape, her full head of hair, the way she moved, fluid and elegant, everything about her so fine. As though I have the Beasts magic mirror, I can conjure up her face in every chosen moment to see the way she tilts her head or the way her lips form crescents of smiles. It is, therefore, ironic that of all her children, it is I who wrought the distance between us, going to a place where she cannot follow.

Hows Mak? I ask, over the telephone. Mak is short for emak, the Malay word for mother. Peranakans like us speak more Malay than Chinese.

Shes resting, says my sister, Bernadette.

Five years my junior, Bernadette, who is 45, sometimes feels the burden of having Mother in her home. I do not blame her, she has to put up with a great deal on an everyday basis. I am privileged to be spared the nasty bits. Besides, she was too little to know the quiet heroine I know. The youngest since Robert died, Bernadette mostly gripes about the irascible old woman who refuses to let the Filipino maid do her work, who insists on cooking although she forgets whether she has salted the soup or not. It means that Bernadettes family gets meals that are either over-salted or not salted at all. She sees a stubborn old woman struggling with her rattan basket walking feebly to the wet market, courting danger on the slippery floor when squeaky clean supermarkets are now the norm. She has to tolerate a woman who cant remember the right bus home but is too thrifty to take a taxi, a woman who mixes past events with the present. And worse, she has to deal with the hysteria of a woman who fights phantoms in her waking moments.

Its all right for you, she often says, Youre so far away.

She doesnt know that I cannot be separated from Mak even though we are 10,000 miles apart. She and I share the same soul space.

What did the doctor say?

Heart attack. Dolores found her in the morning, gasping, clutching her chest, whites of eyes showing. Scared the life out of me.

I get the details in brutal graphics in true Singaporean fashion. Unsparing. Bernadette cannot know how much it pains me. Like when I ask her if Mak knows who has written the cookbook for her. Ya, she recognises her photo and knows that you sent it. Then five minutes later, she has forgotten. No use at all, lah!

Shall I come out?

Not at the moment Ill keep you posted.

I had wondered earlier if I should go out there for Christmas, which is in five weeks. It is hard to speculate when it might be Maks last. Shes 85 and definitely on the wane. But when youve got family in two different countries, its not easy to decide how to split yourself; or decide which takes first priority. Its been my dilemma the last 15 years.