48 - To Agnes
“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…” - Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
My grandmother, Agnes, passed away June 16th, 2020. She lived for 93 years, and had an incredible life.
I spoke at her eulogy two weeks ago. All in Cantonese (rough). I had written a speech in English, and got it translated to Chinese by Mum, and then dumbed it down to language I could actually naturally use…finally all those years of Chinese school paid off!
I wanted to share a few memories with you all, a bit of a selfish gesture, to help keep her alive in my memories.
My childhood at Grandma’s house
Grandma was a creature of habit - she had rituals every day to help structure her day, and they were all those healthy things you get told to do but never do. When I went over for school holidays, she would be up at 6:30am to do an hour or so of walking in the morning. I’d be up to watch Cheez TV at like 7am, and see her walking and walking and walking. It’s very healthy, but I don’t think I could ever do that!
At lunch and dinner, right on the dot, she would turn on the radio and pull out her big book of stock prices - she meticulously tracked all the changes in prices, twice daily. There was one time me and Steph were roughhousing for whatever reason and accidentally turned the radio off. Oh the tongue-lashing we got!
We could only speak Cantonese when we were at her house over the holidays. This helped us solidify our speaking, and grandma could be real mean about it - ignoring us if we used English to try to talk to her. Tough love, y’know? She taught us mahjong - a classic Chinese game - though I’m not sure if that was because she wanted us to learn the language, or just needed more people to play with…
She watched Chinese cooking shows incessantly - around 3pm every day it would come on, and she would be ready for it. We watched them with her (in addition to a bunch of Chinese shows), and she recorded every single episode to watch later (?). I don’t know if she actually did much of the cooking though - she told me that when she got married, she said to my grandpa ‘Look, I don’t know how to cook, and I’m not planning to, so if you want to eat, you better learn’. And he did! Lucky Grandma :D
Then again, she did seem to learn some cooking as she got older. One of my favourite memories was any time she made us jaffles, using a marinated beef and onion filling (I guess you’d call that fusion cooking?). It was SO DELICIOUS. She introduced us to crumpets (with cheese or honey), as well as the Whitaker’s Peanut Slabs. Yummmmmmmmm.
She loved her fruit trees. She had figs, and lemons…she had these fruits called pei pa kuo (or loquats) - which the birds absolutely loved to dig into - they were really sweet fruits, and are good for coughs (classic Chinese remedies). I remember a lot of time being around helping shoo birds away from her fruit trees, putting up nets, CDs, waving sticks around - on a memorable occasion, grandma made a slingshot out of a tree branch to shoo a goose away from her property. A SLINGSHOT. Freaking hilarious when I look back on it.
A superlative woman
Grandma had a very sharp mind. She didn’t wait around for things to happen - whatever she wanted to learn or do, she would just go do it. She learned about investing by herself, tracking stocks, her dividends, and making sure her finances were always in order, even well into her 90s. She was the first woman hired into the HK education department, she migrated to Australia to live (and had to adapt to a new society!), and then thrived, helping to raise two wonderful grandchildren ;)
Her taste and fashion sense was impeccable. Her favourite colour was purple, and she owned a lot of really nice clothes, making sure that she was fashionable any time she went out to church or to dinner. She was also extremely proud that even near the end, she was able to look after herself, had all her teeth, had beautiful skin, and was constantly complimented by others about how young she looked! It was a product of all the decisions she’d made for her life. (Also, Vitamin B, and E supplements, as well as red wine with onions soaked into them (?) I mean, it worked!)
She travelled the world, seeing as much of it as she could. She went to Europe, America, Canada, New Zealand, China - exploring, eating, and experiencing. She was so adventurous. Even into her 80s she was still scheduling trips around Australia - Tasmania, South Australia - wherever she could, to experience life to the fullest. I loved that about her - she wanted to try everything she could (as long as it was good :D).
An inner iron, forged in flame
Grandma talked a lot about the unfairness of living as a girl in a Chinese household back in the day. She had 4 younger brothers, and had to serve as a second mother figure - helping them do homework, and being a babysitter, but getting the blame whenever her mother found anything wrong. Her brothers were always doted on (thanks Chinese patriarchy), and so she always had to swallow down that anger. I guess that was a theme for her - she really liked to hold grudges.
She had to do a lot as the eldest sister - she slept on a hard bed, next to the window with a draught, and was constantly pulled out of bed at 1am to finish the supper that her dad couldn’t (this was really random - I couldn’t get to the bottom of it other than the fact that her dad was a Chinese medicine dealer and got home late, and her mum would have supper ready, but they’d never finish it). She always told us about how when she got her first job, half her salary had to be given to her mum, and the rest into ‘savings’ - which meant she had to buy all this gold jewellery as a store of value for no reason. Though it helped her learn how to save, she hated being told what to do.
The war was a defining period of time for her. During the war, she had to be very careful out in public. If you didn’t bow to the Japanese when you saw them in the street, you’d get beat up. Her father got ‘taken in for questioning’ at a Japanese checkpoint, and she had to beg to get him back, seeing him getting beat up at the time. One of her aunts was put under surveillance as her ex-husband had been a spy, and my grandma had to stay with her because no-one else would. The soldiers guarding the house would be incredibly controlling and not let anyone out of their sight for much time - it was an effort to even go get groceries every day.
Unfairness was antithetical to her, and she was indignant any time she saw it. This meant she would be annoyed on our behalf a lot of the time as well (not just at us!). If we went to a restaurant where they didn’t serve us the right thing, she would make a fuss. I hated it when I was young - but as I grew older I kind of admired it.
She didn’t give a fuck about what people thought, so she just told people what she wanted. I guess that’s a perk of being an old person. Or maybe just incredibly confident?
And if anyone wasn’t nice to her, well, she had a glare like NO-ONE ELSE. It was this…look-over-the-top-of-her-glasses stare that she would turn on with the pent-up rage of a lifetime’s worth of anger. It was kind of like the McGonagall stare, but Asian. The pass-ag was more ag than pass, you know what I mean?
A grandma’s love
She was also really caring in her own way. By that, I mean she showed love in the normal Asian way - tough love, with acts of service and thinking of the little things. I can’t recall the number of times that she would ask us ‘Have you practiced your violin for the full hour? Have you actually?’ with an iron tone. (I got good, so it worked?)
But she also doted on us. She loved playing with us, and teaching us things. She made little games of things - like teaching me how to chew, or making sure I ate every grain of rice in my bowl (we would ‘compete’ to finish our bowls first. Somehow I always won…). She taught us mahjong, and she LOVED to play mahjong. We played that game all the time - especially when we had more time during the COVID lockdown.
She made us our favourite foods when we were at her place, and took us out to really nice places to eat. She spent a lot of time with us from young, teaching us about gardening, and fruits, and stocks and finances - it was always a great time. Her laugh was one of my favourite sounds in the world - she could radiate the same intensity of joy as in the intensity of her anger. It was like a laugh personified, and in her final days, I loved trying to make it happen as much as possible.
She was incredible lady, and I hope I don’t just have her beautiful skin and loud, pure and happy laugh…I hope I can keep her adventurous spirit alive as well.
Her name was Agnes Ho, and she was my grandma.
Thank you for making it all the way :)
Regularly scheduled programming recommences next week!