My Paternal Grandfather - A Rubber 'Towkay'

In my last posting, I talked about my father and his motivational talks. Unlike him, his father - my grandfather that is - was quite well-to-do. He was said to have been born in the year 1901. He died in 1990 at the age of 90. My paternal grandfather owned many rubber smallholdings. He had many people - including my father and an uncle - tapping rubber for him. I have fond memories of him.

Once a month back then, a pot-bellied man would arrive at my grandfather's house where he and his workers gathered. The potbellied man would then weighed in the rubber sheets. Once the weighing process was over, he handed over monies to my grandfather and took away the rubber sheets. Now, my 'important' role started immediately after the pot-bellied man left. My grandfather would call me to his seat and asked me to 'calculate' the sales and the amount due to his workers. I would tear off a few sheets from my exercise book and start writing. He would orally mention the amount of rubbers sold and the unit price and I had to tell him the sales amount. For every worker, I had to also calculate the gross amount and the net amount after deductions of advances that my grandfather made to each of them. Only then the workers would get their respective due.

One interesting thing to note is that, I didn't actually produce those figures. My grandfather had actually known the answer beforehand. My role, which I discovered later, was only to confirm his calculations. When I say his calculations I don't mean that my grandfather was literate. His was purely mental mathematics...! Usually when I told him an answer from my calculations, he would say either.."uhh umm yes!" or "would you re-calculate it?" The latter response happened when my answer didn't tally with his (mental) calculation. In all cases, his were proven correct as he would say yes after my second or third time tries.

In olden days, the rubber weight was measured in terms of kati and pikul (catties and piculs). Sixteen tahils made one catty and 100 catties made one picul.

Time, Dinner and Motivational Talk - My Father's Contribution

Time is money or time is golden etc. Those are some wisdom from wise people a.k.a. the consultants. Well, the biggest influence upon me regarding time is my father. My late father was a person who cannot wait for long in any appointment and he was also a person who did not allow people to wait for him. No! he was not a somebody. He was just an ordinary folk who has little formal education. But he was fierce, as far as I am concerned.

In the 1960's, as I have mentioned earlier, we live in a kampung house with no electricity. The arrangement was simple then. My father was the sole provider for the family and my mother managed the home. Dinner was after maghrib. After dinner, my father insists that I sit up for at least five minutes rather than lying down or in any other position. His usual reason for that was to allow for the "nasi" to "jatuh ke perut" meaning to allow for the food to "settle down". One good thing was that my father kept the time by referring to his old wristwatch - a Seiko or a Titoni (I cannot properly remember exactly). And when the five minutes is up, he will utter, "dah" and only then would I be allowed to do other things.

Whenever my father calls for me, he expects me to be in front of him immediately. And he expects me to wait for him rather he me whenever we went out for work, visiting relatives etc. This informal "training" in being speedy, punctual and protocols stick with me to the present day and this habits caused frictions between me and my colleagues most of the time.

When it comes to dinner, we always had it together. We didn't have plenty of food to eat but it was just enough for everyone. During dinner we were not allowed to talk a lot nor aloud, and not to take "big" portions. We were told to take it in small portions but we could do it in many times rather than grab the biggest slices into our plates. We were not allowed to burp loudly until the last person had finished his/her meal. Most of the times, we were encouraged to finish our dinner at the same time.

Sometimes, father would say during dinner: "makan cepat sikit, ayah nak membaca" . We knew that there was some issues he wanted to 'share' with us or to put it bluntly he wanted to give us a tongue-lashing. And I would be thinking during the meals what wrongs did I commit for the past few days.

Now, the "membaca" part was not nice but was orderly in a sense. My father would mention the incidence that makes him angry and he would gave us his analysis of the incidence and warn us not to do such wrongs. Usually we sat down silently during the "membaca" time. Don't get it wrong, my father did not "baca" (read) any text. "Membaca" was the euphemism for telling-off session. One good thing from my father's "membaca" session is he never put us down, rather he would gave reasons and justifications for his "larangans" (the don'ts). But "membaca" sessions are not our favourite part of our life.

Come to think of it, the "membaca" sessions, our imposed-by-father dinner etiquette and time-protocols that shaped my life are the best things that contribute to my success later in my life. My father never mix scoldings with meal-times. I consider his "membaca" sessions as the present-day motivational talks except that his was more of a sermon as we rarely question his exhortations.

Time, Dinner and Motivational Talks - three things that shape my life! courtesy of my beloved father. He did it without formal training in parenting.