Sibu Tales : My Maternal Grandmother

O give Thanks to the Lord, for he his good, for his steadfast love endures forever.   Psalm 136:1


Child Bride and Endurance

My maternal grandmother, Tiong Lien Tie, was a child bride. But there are many things about her that we must never forget.

1.      1. Sold for Five Dollars. When she was barely four, her father took her down to Minqing township to sell her off to any one who could pay him 5 silver dollars. In those days one year of a child life was worth one silver dollar and her father decided to make her five years old so that he could get an extra dollar.

2.      2. Bought by Lau Kah Tii. He was lucky to meet Lau Kah Tii, the Foochow headman who had just arrived from Sibu. He saw that the little girl had bright eyes and was not crying. And because he was quite loaded,from Nanyang (Sarawak) he was only to happy to part with 5 silver dollars to buy a lively little child bride for his 18 year old younger brother, already working very hard as a rubber tapper in Sibu.

3.     3. Early Training by Sister in Law . My grandmother was thus bought and taken to live with the Lau family in Lurk Du, Buang Dong where she would live until she was nine before leaving for Sarawak. She was thus brought up by Lau’s eldest brother’s wife , who was actually her sister in law. She taught her many things including Christian beliefs and about Church going. She also memorized some Bible verses and Confucian sayings as they lived next door to a school room.

4.      4. Unbinding of feet. By that time, footbinding was no longer in fashion and my grandmother’s feet, though already bound for more than a year, were allowed to grow normally. The bones of her feet were not yet broken.

5.      5. Learning of Foochow values.  My grandmother was taught endurance from a very young age, as it was part of the female upbringing. She learned to be subservient, to be obedient, and to look sideways when things were not going right. She taught us that when we saw suffering we must bite our teeth and endure everything for in the end, our blessings would come, as God had promised.

6.       6. Marrying an Older Man. When she joined the big family in Sibu and ready to be married to my grandfather who was almost 20 years older than her, she had already accumulated a lot of wisdom regarding endurance, resilience and courage. She was quick to learn, quick to use her skilful hands in sewing, cooking cleaning and growing of vegetables. She was able to accept marriage with an older man without any question. In the village home, her main job was cleaning the kitchen and helping with kitchen work. Cooking was one of her skills. She endured any bullying from any relative older than her.

7.      7. Return to China. She had wanted to bring back some of the money my grandfather earned from rubber. But her dream of building a family mansion was dashed as the Japanese came to China after her arrival. She was stranded for four years and lost every cent she brought back to build the ancestral home. She came returned to Sibu to find that my grandfather had passed away and the family had to start all over again. Undaunted and full of resilience, she endured all the sufferings started a smoke house and got her two sons and daughters in law to continue rubber tapping to regain the loss.

8.      8. In her later life, she enjoyed going to the Masland church every Sunday, coming from the village by motor launch on a Saturday without fail. She had been taught a lot about the Bible by pastors like the late Rev Lau Ngo Kee whom she loved as a son. Grandma often encouraged her grandchildren to read the Bible aloud to her in Foochow and she would, if she could, correct our Foochow expressions. For that we were very grateful. She herself was not able to read and write but she had very good listening ears. We enjoyed our Oral Foochow Lessons very much.

9    Her sense of justice made her an elder many women and even men to approach her for advice. There was one time when she went to see a bank manager to correct a mistake he made. The matter was later settled and everyone was happy. She was then more than 80 years old. She was quite a fighter and activist! She often used her Fujian background and knowledge of banditry as her reference. She was outspoken and very articulate in her arguments.

10. Movies  She enjoyed her movies. Even though going to the movies was frown upon by many of the Church ladies, she was undaunted when it came to going to the movies. She enjoyed buying movie magazines and taking her grandchildren to the cinema. And as a good story teller she would regale us with lots of funny stories based on the movies she had seen.