Khau kung

As usual during CNY, family stories are exchanged. My mother was re-telling the story about my granduncle who is actually adopted. He was sort of neglected when he was small. When she said that fat ahyee cried when she heard the story, I was like ‘Nah, she’s useless’. But I found myself teary-eyed too and my mother’s face was red too when she retold it.

So khau kung was adopted by my great-grandmother since she already had 2 daughters. When his birth mother was pregnant with him, she told great-grandmother that if it was another boy (they had 2 already), she would give him up for adoption. It was during the Japanese occupation and my great-grandmother didn’t want the baby actually but it was my grandaunt who wanted him. She was 11 then and I guess, she wanted a little baby as a toy.

So since great-grandmother didn’t really want the baby, I think that was why he was neglected. It was grandaunt who took care of him and brought him everywhere. There was no milk during that Jap occupation. Maybe if it wasn’t the Jap occupation, there might not have been any as well, people were poor at that time. So grandaunt at around 11 years of age, carried khau kung on her back and went house to house looking if there is any breast-feeding mother to ask for milk. “Can you feed my sai lou (little brother)?”

And due to neglect again, khau kung seems to have a series of mishaps. When he was just a few month old baby, he slipped from great-grandmother’s hands to the floor and blanked out. At 3 years old, he had this habit of going around the house pants-less. One day, he was eating and rice dropped all over his body, including his ‘thingy’. Since there was rice on it, a dog came to snap it. Gosh, sounds funny but imagine a dog biting that, especially of a small boy’s. Then at 5, grandaunt brought him to watch a football match. Apparently some mat sallehs were playing and the ball came right into khau kung’s face and he blanked out. The mat salleh rushed over panicked and carried the little fella to the clinic. The mat salleh said that thank goodness he had used his left leg, else the impact would have been harder if he had used his right.

The part that made me and the others tear was when khau kung, aged 3, wandered out alone downstairs from the house. I don't know what kinda house that was but it sounded like he had gone a few storeys down. No one realised he was gone from the house and being just 3, he couldn’t find his way up. So he sat there and sobbed ‘Tai ka che’ (he called grandaunt - his sister, this) and with each sob, he picked up 1 stone and placed it near him. The ‘tai ka che’ sob re-enacted was so sad. By the time grandaunt found him, there was a big pile of stones, indicating that he had been sitting there for quite some time already. Ahyee said that he must have been so bored that he had to amuse himself with picking up stones.

I don't know khau kung personally. I mean I’ve met him only once recently but I feel so sad especially hearing the ‘tai ka che’ sobs and the part of a little girl going house to house looking for breast milk to feed her little brother. It’s no wonder that khau kung loves this sister so much for what she has done for him, just a little girl of about 11.