Friday, February 6, 2009

About my father

My father passed away in 1966 at the age of 55 when I was still in Form 3. Studies have shown that children have no memory of what has transpired before the age of 5. Hence what I could recollect was what I could observe after the age of five.

My dad had dark skin, tall and stern-looking. He was a fish-monger who sold fish from house to house. He put the fish, newspaper and weighing scale in a big rattan basket which he tied to the rear carrier of his big bicycle. Then he cycled to several places to sell his fish.

The big basket was the place where dad put my brother and me when he took us to an Indian barber for a hair-cut. We really enjoyed the ride.

My dad knew quite a lot of Chinese words because he was taught by a teacher personally as was the practice long ago. From him too, he learnt of a way of dissolving fish bones stuck to the throat. Neighbours used to come to my house for treatment by my father when fish bones got stuck in their throats. My father would take out a cup, pour some water in it and point his little finger to the sun after which he would start drawing with the same finger in the water. The patient would then drink the 'treated water'. Miraculously their fish bones would disappear after a while.

2 comments:

YAAKUB ISA said...

Hey, Teik Hai! The ability of dissolving fish bone from the throat looked very interesting as its also happened in Malay society. By the way, do you have such ability as perhaps you got it from your learned father?

TH Yeoh said...

Unfortunately my father did not teach me how to do it before he passed away. That is why I do not possess the ability to make the fish bone that gets stuck in the throat disappear.