Knots of Kinship

Wow, it feels like I haven't blogged in a kajillion years, but I've been so busy, busy, busy these past few weeks. I'll have more details on that in a later post. I apologize for not making my usual Xanga-rounds, but thanks for the comments, guys... and don't worry, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth or into a post-finals coma.


~*~

Lately, some horrible misfortunes have been hitting RIS, where my bro currently goes to school and where I used to attend school from 6th-12th grade. In the past month alone, two kids have tragically passed away. The first kid, Koji, was only in 3rd grade. Apparently, he slipped in the bathroom and was electrocuted... how exactly, I have no idea. The other kid, Kris, is the younger brother of one of my high school classmates, Sunny. What happened was so tragic... It's so unfair - God, he had his whole future ahead of him and didn't even have the chance to step out there and explore life and the rest of the world. I never knew Kris personally, but I hope that he can rest in peace now. He was about 18 when it happened, but somehow I'll always remember him as a kid. I still recall how he used to sit on the bench by my locker with his feet dangling in midair, his basketball rolling, and his young eyes quietly observing as he waited for his older brother after class. I'd come out of Mrs. Walker's Anatomy class and there he'd be, waiting for Sunny. God bless you, Kris. I doubt Sunny will ever read this, but if any of his friends from our RIS days ever happen to stumble upon this, please tell Sunny that his brother and family are in my prayers.

~*~

Anyways, moving onto some lighter things: Because my cousin P'Jim just finished moving into her new house a month ago, she finally held her Ngan Peud Bahn the other weekend (Ngan Peud Bahn literally means "house-opening ceremony"). The whole family came to join the party too, thus turning the house-opening ceremony into a sort of family reunion get-together shinding.


Oh, and when I say the whole family came, I mean THE WHOLE FRIGGING FAMILY CAME.


I've lived in Thailand for nearly a decade now, but it seems like there's always some lone and obscure relative I have yet to meet. I already have more relatives than I can keep track of: a county's worth of them all over Thailand, another Mandarin/Cantonese/Teo Chew-speaking bunch sprawled across China, a dozen or so of them over in Europe, and another big lot of them sprinkled across the US. This never ceases to amaze me, and it's kind of cool if you think about it - kind of like having a big network of kin scattered all over the globe.


Anyway, because most Thais of Chinese heritage (and as I'm sure you will agree, all Asian nationalities in general) are a somewhat materialistic and boastful bunch, there was an awful lot of subtle and not-so-subtle bragging and flaunting going on that day. Some of the boasting came in the form of casual yet blatant waves of carat-laden hands, random mentions of connections and "friendships" with famous Thai politicians and members of Bangkok's social elite, and let's not forget the excessive and attenuated rummaging around for non-existent objects in one's brand spankin' new Mercedes Benz/Porche/Rolls Royce. However, the most popular sort of bravado that emerged that day came in the form of the many random but oh so obvious inserts about children who are either studying abroad (especially if they happen to be studying in the general vicinity of the US, UK, Europe, Canada, or Australia), at celebrated institutions (Harvard, Oxford, Stanford... you get the idea), or in traditionally highly-esteemed fields (Law, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy - basically anything healthcare-related). Anyone who had children that fell into any one of the aforementioned categories was lauded with praise, and the ones with kiddies who managed to fall into more than one of the above categories, was commended ad nauseum.


Please excuse the rather acerbic commentary, but it's true... I'm not proud of it, but some of my relatives are money-grubbing, Benz-boasting, Rolex-flashing idiots who think that they're kings of the world because of the size of their multiple bank accounts. Thankfully, only a few of them fall into that category and not all of them are like that. I also have just as many relatives who are humble, unpretentious folk and remember that it wasn't so long ago when our ancestors came rowing on in from China in rickety wooden boats with nothing more than a straw mat, a few coins, and the fierce will to make something out of themselves. Despite their many differences, outlooks and values, it was rather interesting to see all of my relatives mixing and melding together. From the most humble to the most lavish of folk, they all mingled, laughed, and had a grand old time reminiscing about days long past.


Anyway, since P'Jim lives about five minutes away from us, we arrived there in no time. We were early, but there were already a few small crowds forming in various corners of the house. I'd seen the house twice before, but it hadn't been furnished then. P'Mike took us around and gave us the grand tour again, and now that the house is furnished with personal items and flourishes, I think that it feels more like a home. However, with all the marble busts, elephant tusks, and fragile crystal cases, I still don't think that it's the sort of home that I'd like to live in. (Klutz that I am, I'd probably knock everything over within seconds.) However, despite all of its blatant extravagance, I still think that it's one heck of a house.




The area under the front porch is a glass-filled aquarium filled with Amazonian fish and other odd-looking, exotic fish. Apparently it's good Feng-Shui... or something.

No matter how solid it is, walking across a piece of glass on your way into a house can make you feel a little uneasy, especially when the kid standing next to you gets a kick out of jumping like a steroid-induced kangaroo atop said piece of glass.


The view of the main living room from upstairs.



My two nephews, Nong Man and Nong Ben, and my niece, Nong Golf.
Check out the family's famous dimples that Nong Man inherited!
He's about nine now, but I still like to give his cheeks a little squeeze now and then.
(He hates it when I do that, but as his aunt, I'm entitled to annoy him, hehe.)



The main corridor upstairs.



I wasn't the only one who thought that having a Jacuzzi tub in the middle of your bedroom was a wee bit kinky, hehehe.



P'Jim's perfume collection.

Upon seeing this, my jaw dropped to the ground and nearly missed crashing into my quivering toes. Wowww, how many spritzes is it going to take to finish up all of those bottles of perfume?



P'Jim's, uh, closet.

It's every girl's dream come true: fur coats, Versace, over two-hundred pairs of shoes, a massaging bed, Donna Karan, evening gowns, Armani, Valentino, Ralph Lauren - and did I mention Versace?? - were everywhere.
In fact, this isn't all of it. The "closet" actually extends further to the left, but I couldn't fit all of it into the camera frame.
When I was younger, I used to like playing hide-and-seek with my cousins behind the racks of clothes.



My niece's bathroom.

There's a remote-controlled toilet in there!
(Gee, like flushing a toilet takes a lot of energy...)

What are toilet innovators gonna come up with next? Toilets installed with rotating seats? Automatic butt-wipers that come with toilet paper options? (Will that be scented or extra fluffy, sir?)



Even though they're a little small, the Japanese-inspired "gardens" in each of the kids' rooms are a charming addition.

We later headed back downstairs where I was introduced to some relatives I'd never met before. You can probably imagine the amount of wai-ing and repetitive introductions that went on.



The lady with the shades on the left is one of my dad's many obscure cousins.
She refused to speak any other language besides Teo-Chew Chinese and had a tendency to spout Chinese Zodiac-related information with the proficiency of an ancient Chinese fortune teller.

I've never met her before, but the first thing she said to me was that one of my aunties - Yee Koh, or Second Aunt - is a moo (pig).
Upon seeing my somewhat baffled expression (after all, she was calling my aunt a swine), she further elaborated by saying that Yee Koh is born in the year of the pig, and therefore she's a very jing jai (honest) and seu throng (straight-forward) sort of person, since pigs are apparently very honest and straight-forward animals. Gee, who would've thought...

As if she hadn't rated high enough on Lynn's personal weirdo-meter, she suddenly plucked my very bewildered auntie out of the crowd and exclaimed to her, "Ah Ju-ah! You should be proud to be a pig!".

BTW, check out the elephant tusks. There were three pairs of these tusks scattered throughout the house.
(Animal rights activists would have a cow if they ever set foot in this place.)



Apparently, Jason thought that the marble busts were of much more interest than the many eccentric, elderly, Chinese relatives.



See the third crystal platter from the left on the bottom row? Many years ago, when we were visiting Thailand on vacation, my bro nearly knocked it over and smashed it to smithereens.
Luckily, gravity was on his side that day, and so instead of tipping over, it simply teetered precariously at the edge before righting itself back to its original position.

In order to prevent history from repeating itself, we wisely kept our distance and steered clear of the many crystal displays.



Some of the elderly folk congregating in the kitchen.

My favorite great grand-aunt is sitting in the middle - she's the sweetest person in the world, and since learning about my great love affair with chocolate, she now gives me something chocolate-related every time she sees me. This time it was chocolate mousse topped with jelly chunks and whipped cream. See why she's my favorite great grand-aunt? :-D

The lady sitting with her back turned to the camera is another one of my dad's many cousins; she had a particular fondness for the art of karaoke-ing.
The first thing she demanded when she stepped through the front door was whether there was a karaoke machine and whether there was going to be any karaoke singing going on because she'd been up all night practicing all of her favorite Chinese Opera songs.


There weren't any karaoke machines present - THANK GOD.
Either that or P'Jim was clever enough to conceal them in some dark, isolated corner. I think she also knows that old Chinese ladies in our family and karaoke machines don't make a very pretty combination.



Enough of the old farts, here's my favorite niece in the world, Nong Nina! (And her pretty mommy, P'Pook.)
Nong Nina is the sweetest, most charming kid ever. What a cutie-patootie! One toothless smile from her and you're a goner.
Oh, she's pretty ambitious, too. She said that she wants to be Prime Minister someday, but if that doesn't work out, then she can always settle with architecture, hehe.

I later sauntered into the family room where the kiddies were having a blast with WWE Smackdown, as evidenced by the great amounts of cheering, jeering, and shouting that was going on.


Here are more obscure, unknown cousins watching Nong Man in avid fascination as his opponent tramples the living daylights out of him. I only hung around there for a short while, but even I have to admit that WWE Smackdown is a little intriguing.

(Gee, and to think I used to get a kick out of playing old-fashioned Tetris on my spinach-green-screened Gameboy.)

Thinking that Nong Man's wrestler was a goner, everyone ditched his WWE Smackdown game and headed outside for some good ol' soccer.


Nong Man finally did win, but unfortunately there weren't that many people left to celebrate his victory.

I then ambled along outside where Nong Golf and a bunch of my younger girl cousins were having fun playing Marco Polo in the lap pool.

Then the guys decided to come along and bother them. When the light teasing began to escalate precariously into derisive taunting, I told the fellas to leave them alone and beat it. But it was too late, for the girls were already scrambling out of the pool and running upstairs to seek refuge in Nong Golf's room.

Ah well, boys will be boys.





With no more nautical girls left to annoy, my little guy cousins decided to play an unfair match of soccer; it was the big, older kids against the smaller, younger kids. Shoes went soaring, chunks of grass went gliding, and I pretended not to hear the colorful cuss words that went flying. As the noonday sun blazed away, the older kids swiftly kicked the younger kids asses at soccer.

Such is the injustice of life.



The game quickly ended when one of the older kids kicked the ball over the fence where it landed in the middle of a mosquito-infested swamp with a hearty plunk.
Wafting with Eau de Teenage-Boy-Sweat, the guys then trooped back into the family room where a hearty match of WWE Smackdown again resumed.


The few that weren't interested in watching sweaty men with 3D man-boobs beat the crap out of each other, instead fooled around on the Internet doing God knows what.

Later, one of my aunties poked her head into the room and hollered, "Aiyah! You're not looking at those roop poh (porno) websites, are you???"

There were a lot of red faces after that.

Later, we all headed outside for lunch. With the parents busy milling around and talking, I noticed the kiddies having a field day attacking the dessert bar. With their pudgy cheeks and funny sayings, kids can be cute. However, when they're stuffing their face with blueberry cheesecake and have remnants of chocolate fondue smeared across their faces in a manner that strongly resembles that of tribal warpaint, you'll be surprised to see how swiftly their ratings can plummet on the cute-o-meter.


With over 150 relatives present, lunch had to be held in the ten-car garage. It was amazing to see all these strange faces and know that they were all related to me... somehow.


The caterers did a wonderful job in arranging and keeping everything in order, which was pretty hard to do since there were at least a million and one kids running around all over the place.

Glasses were spilled, food was knocked over, and napkins were tied into blindfolds as the kids played an impromptu game of "pin the tail on the donkey youngest sucker present to see how badly we can harrass him before he starts wailing", but the caterers took everything in stride and swiftly cleared away all the messes and spills.


The view of the house from our table.

Three of my aunts informed me that certain Thai dishes are required at ngan peud bahn ceremonies in order to bring good luck and prosperity to the house. For example, lahb moo is served since the word lahb means luck. Another example would be kanom jeen, which contains long white noodles lathered in curry. According to my aunts, these long noodles would ensure long lives and lengthy periods of prosperity. I doubt P'Jim believes in any of this, but still, it was interesting to learn the customs and traditions behind these particular dishes.



Mmmm.
I doubt kanom krok represents anything lucky or auspicious (except maybe a sweet and calorie-filled life), but it sure as heck tastes good.

Even though it was a dizzying day of introductions, picture-taking, children-flaunting, eccentric elderly cousins, carat-flashing, crazy-kids-running-around-like-mad-barbarians, and wai-ing, I have come to truly appreciate family reunions and what they embody - family, tradition, culture, and heritage. At a risk of sounding overtly sentimental, I have to say that and as long as you sustain a firm grasp of these things, then no matter where you go in this world, home will never be too far away. It doesn't matter if your family is large or small, refined or rowdy, traditional or eccentric, Asian or European... all families have a tradition and a history.


The plethora of relatives present that day was due to the fact that my dad's mom had twelve brothers and sisters (and in turn they each had a hefty number of kids). After you count in all the cousins, second-cousins, third-cousins, in-laws, and even the relatives of said in-laws, that makes for an awfully large family. The bizarre reality of it all is that I could have passed any one of these unknown relatives on the street and not known that we were tied together somehow by the bonds of blood, marriage, history... whatever. Before this, they were virtually strangers to me, another unknown face in this big bustling concrete jungle of a city. The central concept of family is what holds the threads of Thai society together, and the beautiful notion behind it all is that regardless of however distant the relation is, you are still embraced as a member of the family. It's comforting to know that values like this exist in a fast-paced world where people can sometimes get a little too removed and detached from one another.


~*~

Oh yeah, I watched Cold Mountain last week and absolutely LOVED it. I now understand why there have been so many comparisons between it and Homer's The Odyssey. Although some people thought that Cold Mountain was a blah and boring film, the elegant artistry and lush hues of the film completely drew me in. That, and the beautiful love story between Inman and Ada (no gagging now). Okay, well, to be absolutely honest, besides the cinematography and script, I have to admit that Jude-hot-Brit-boy-Law might have had something to do with the whole drawing me in thing, hehe. Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger (two of my fave actresses of all time) were brilliant as well. As always, Nicole exuded old world elegance and Renee was an absolute doll. Oh, and I'm glad Renee finally received the Oscar she so totally deserves!


One last thing: Fellow RISian, Paddy the hip, music-loving, Utada-adoring, all-around-cool-dude Londoner, has finally hopped onto the blogging bandwagon. Head on over to his Xanga site and welcome him!


Hope everyone has a smashing week.




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