Grandpa's Homemade Sympathy Wreaths

When we were children we often were taken to attend funerals in Sing Ang Tong and the Masland Church.

Grandfather Tiong Kung Ping's house in Sungei Merah was surrounded by clumps of yellow alamandas and purple bouganvilleas. I remember Grandmother Siew and the several aunties then still living at home making wreaths out of bamboo and the fern available on the hillside at grandfather's instruction. We did not have florists like Lian Tee or Mrs. Ho Kah Moh then. What made him use alamandas for the wreaths he created? ?What made him choose yellow as the colour? Today Chinese usually use chrysanthemums to indicate sympathies but then there was no chrysanthemum for sale . Where did he learn about colours and their meanings?

I would always remember his rattan basket of tools which he would hang very neatly on the wall below the staircase. His tools were always clean and neat.

I remember Grandfather as a man who was very good with his hands even at the age of 70+. He was definitely not arthritic at that age. He could make anything with a plier. Early in the afternoon he would "order" Ah Hiong Koo to cut some small bamboo which he would fashion into a circular base for his wreath and then he would tie the bamboos together with small pliable wires. Once ready he would ask every one to stick the ferns into the wreath to make a nice round and plump base for the flowers. Early the next morning he would stick the freshly plucked alamandas and the bouganvilleas. Most of the time he made two wreaths: one to have his own name and the family's name written in brush ink on a piece of white cloth and another piece of white cloth for the name of the deceased. And the other wreath would be for the church to give to the deceased's family. He had a great friendship with Rev. Ho Siew Liong I remember.

Now I know that yellow is for rememberance and purple is for loyalty. Grandpa would always send a wreath whenever someone he knew pass away. And we did not have to spend anything at all. He was always very respectful of his friends and make the correct gestures. I suppose he must have learnt all these from Rev James Hoover who was like a brother and confidant to him. And later when he travelled to Singapore to visit his married daughters I am sure he acquired a great deal of knowledge. He was a man who never stopped learning because he never had a chance to be in a school for long in his poverty stricken Fuzhou China at the end of the 1800's. He only had three years of proper school education.


A beautiful yellow wreath.

Alamanda - a flower I would always associate with my grandfather.

Mossy fern we would gather for him from the hillsides.

This is the shade of purple which my grandfather loved . He had a huge bush growing next to huge belian stump just as the hill levelled off to the house.




I like to remember my grandfather as a very grand man with a love for flowers and beauty.

Today florists do a brisk business in Sibu. Floral arrangements and other decorative ideas have come a long long way since the 1900 when the Hoovers and the first Foochows lived in Sibu.