I visited an ancient village in Wuyuan, near Shanghai not long ago and was very impressed by the camphor craftsmen and their workshops.
As I visited them, chatted with some of them, I was thinking of my maternal grandmother who valued her camphor comb. She had brought one from Minqing when she left China as a young child bride (she was bought when she was five and she came to Sarawak when she was about 10). She had carried with her one of the small things she was given, a camphor wood hair comb which she kept for more than half a century. She never wanted to share it with anyone because it was her personal belonging and she would take the comb to our house when she visited us.
It really lasted a long time and it never broke. Later it disappeared and we felt that no comb would ever replace that camphor comb in her heart!!
By then she had very little hair left and she used to exclaim, "My long hair, twisted and turn cannot fill up the hair cap. My gui yang is too sparse now. Gui yang is sanggol or bun."
Later in her life my second uncle gave her a cow horn corn which she kept for a long time too but it was not dear to her heart.
My grandmother was a typical old fashioned Foochow from China. Things were of value and they were life long possessions. She did not have much, but she would look at all those little things every day, reminding her of her childhood, her youth and her adulthood. We were also reminded by her never to lose even a needle. She also possessed a pair of scissors for cutting her finger nails. She never lost it and she never used a nail cutter in her life. She was truly an inspiring personality.
Today we are such a "throw away, disposable kind of generation" and we dont really value many things, not even gifts from relatives or loved ones.
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