It's already halfway through January; since the last time I posted Christmas and New Year have been and gone and there's been an endless stream of envy-inducing summer holiday pics on Facebook. Not that I linger much on Facebook, except for work reasons of course (cough). I have a play to write. Through these long, sweltering dry-heat days I feel like I'm the only one still working. That's not really true, but I sometimes feel the isolation.
As I've been writing I've realised the play is actually about memories and how relationships change when the people you love are far away, geographically and emotionally. Some of this is about migrant families, the rest just about families. I've based quite a lot of it on the stories of my grandmothers - both remarkable in their own way. I've been wallowing in photo albums and thinking how my youth, (which I'd thought had had its rad moments) pales in comparison.
So here's a pic of one of my grandmothers, Grace Wong. I interviewed her about 20 years ago, when the good old cassette tape was still how you did such things, threw it in the top drawer of my student desk which was where I kept all the things I wanted to keep safe, and got on with my life. Luckily a few years ago when we transferred it to digital, it was still in pretty good nick. And amazingly, my Cantonese was OK enough to listen to the tapes and translate a little.
Grandma is still alive - she's 102 now - but you could say that she's not really living in the present any more. She always seems happy though, dancing in the twilight of times past. Before, my parents urged us to go back to Hong Kong whenever we could to see her; for decades now we've braced ourselves that each time might be the last, but Grandma's famous smile is still there each time we go back. It used to be that my arrival (I'm her first grandchild) would trigger something - a word or two, a hug, some particularly enthusiastic eating. But the last time I went back, with a new baby, I dived again and again into her eyes, looking for her, wanting her to know - and I wasn't sure if I managed to find her. Dementia is like that. It draws curtains over the people we love. And for those that we only see every few years, the change is sudden, not gradual.
One of life's unfairnesses is that quite often we only get to know the people we love in one phase of their life. I only remember my grandmother as an old lady. So it's with a mix of nostalgia and longing that I look at the trove of photos of her as a young woman. She was stylish and modern for her time; she was accepted for university and would have gone were it not for the war. There's a naughty spark in her eyes which most probably drew many men to her; she chose my Grandfather, a young doctor. He wasn't particularly good looking but there was an assertive air about him. One of my murky memories as a toddler is of how he commanded the dinner table with a wooden ruler. (Not for me, of course. I was his favourite, and I had inherited his bossiness, which my daughter has also inherited. My parents probably find this hilarious.)
My grandmother was a refugee at least three times in her life, and as a young mother endured the most terrible privations. Nearly everyone of her age whose story I have heard endured hardship, drama and near-death. Yet what's amazing about my Ma-ma's storytelling is that she tells her life with such a carefree air. There are sexy pilots, picnics under fruit trees and gossipy girly sessions in her narrative; she doesn't leave out the sad bits, but she doesn't dwell on them. Perhaps that's why she survived well into her eighties with her mind as sharp as a tack.
As I've been writing I've realised the play is actually about memories and how relationships change when the people you love are far away, geographically and emotionally. Some of this is about migrant families, the rest just about families. I've based quite a lot of it on the stories of my grandmothers - both remarkable in their own way. I've been wallowing in photo albums and thinking how my youth, (which I'd thought had had its rad moments) pales in comparison.
So here's a pic of one of my grandmothers, Grace Wong. I interviewed her about 20 years ago, when the good old cassette tape was still how you did such things, threw it in the top drawer of my student desk which was where I kept all the things I wanted to keep safe, and got on with my life. Luckily a few years ago when we transferred it to digital, it was still in pretty good nick. And amazingly, my Cantonese was OK enough to listen to the tapes and translate a little.
Grandma is still alive - she's 102 now - but you could say that she's not really living in the present any more. She always seems happy though, dancing in the twilight of times past. Before, my parents urged us to go back to Hong Kong whenever we could to see her; for decades now we've braced ourselves that each time might be the last, but Grandma's famous smile is still there each time we go back. It used to be that my arrival (I'm her first grandchild) would trigger something - a word or two, a hug, some particularly enthusiastic eating. But the last time I went back, with a new baby, I dived again and again into her eyes, looking for her, wanting her to know - and I wasn't sure if I managed to find her. Dementia is like that. It draws curtains over the people we love. And for those that we only see every few years, the change is sudden, not gradual.
One of life's unfairnesses is that quite often we only get to know the people we love in one phase of their life. I only remember my grandmother as an old lady. So it's with a mix of nostalgia and longing that I look at the trove of photos of her as a young woman. She was stylish and modern for her time; she was accepted for university and would have gone were it not for the war. There's a naughty spark in her eyes which most probably drew many men to her; she chose my Grandfather, a young doctor. He wasn't particularly good looking but there was an assertive air about him. One of my murky memories as a toddler is of how he commanded the dinner table with a wooden ruler. (Not for me, of course. I was his favourite, and I had inherited his bossiness, which my daughter has also inherited. My parents probably find this hilarious.)
My grandmother was a refugee at least three times in her life, and as a young mother endured the most terrible privations. Nearly everyone of her age whose story I have heard endured hardship, drama and near-death. Yet what's amazing about my Ma-ma's storytelling is that she tells her life with such a carefree air. There are sexy pilots, picnics under fruit trees and gossipy girly sessions in her narrative; she doesn't leave out the sad bits, but she doesn't dwell on them. Perhaps that's why she survived well into her eighties with her mind as sharp as a tack.
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