Wong Jie

 

"Who did you have lunch with today?"

Wong Jie was my grandma's father-in-law's brother's wife. (Basically my great-grandaunt, I think.) They got married in China, but a few years later he wasn't earning enough for the family, so he came to Singapore to make a living while Wong Jie and the two kids stayed behind in China. 

The money came in monthly for a while, but it suddenly stopped, and Wong Jie had no idea why. So Wong Jie came to Singapore with her kids to find out what the matter was. She came to my great-grandfather's house to see how she could find him. She was told that he was working at a coffeeshop at Gay World, and Ma Ma, the only one along with my great-grandfather who had been willing to meet her at the house, offered to take her there. At Gay World, Wong Jie found out that her husband had married his co-worker in Singapore. His Singaporean wife was childless, but determined to keep him. "He's mine now," she said to Wong Jie. "He married me more recently, so you have to give him up. You give me your children also." According to Ma Ma, this lady literally physically snatched Wong Jie's 4-year-old and 2-year-old children out of her hands. (?!!?!) Wong Jie was flustered, but Ma Ma advised, "You see how she treats the children. If she beats them, then you take them back. If she's good to them, then okay lah, you just let it go." 

This lady, being childless, loved these children as her own. She carried them on her back as she did the chores; she followed them to school and back; she (apparently) never laid a hand on them. Wong Jie attempted to peek at her children through the school gates, and when the lady found out, she transferred them to a different school. This went on for a while. Eventually Ma Ma advised Wong Jie to "just let it go lah. This lady took your husband, your children; you better go and work." Ma Ma offered to let Wong Jie stay in her shophouse in Chinatown (at Upper Cross street, where my dad shared a room with his 6 sisters, sleeping on a mat on the floor), and tried to find her work in the meantime. 

One day, Ma Ma approached a Malaysian man selling wares on a small mat in the street. He was from Ipoh, selling what little he could to make a living for himself. "I have a China girl, you want she help you to sell some of the things lah," Ma Ma offered. He couldn't offer any pay, but that was fine; all he had to do was feed her, and return her to Ma Ma at the end of the day. Day by day Wong Jie and this Ipoh man sold wares together, and eventually, their little business expanded, and he could afford a van from which to sell the wares. About a decade had passed by now, and they went around in their new van going about their two-person business. 

At this point, Ipoh man offered, "we've been working together for so long, we're both still unmarried, why not you get married to me lah." Ma Ma was happy with the arrangement, and Wong Jie got married a second time at 38, the Ipoh guy a couple of years older. When Wong Jie was 41, she gave birth to one son - "no more, cannot already". Decades later, this son now works at PSA, and has earned enough to buy a condo near Great World City. Wong Jie stays here with her son, his wife, and their child, who has just graduated from university. (At this point my head started spinning. Only then did I realise that Wong Jie was around my grandmother's age, and this entire story spans about sixty years. How much can happen in a lifetime.) 

Wong Jie often takes Ma Ma out for meals, and her son and grandson treat Ma Ma as their own. "She rescued me," Wong Jie emphasises. Ma Ma won't give them her address, because she fears Wong Jie would come by too often - my grandmother is not comfortable taking too much from people. She tells them she lives too far away, and today after lunch, she insisted that she had other errands to run so that they wouldn't send her home. But she stresses that Wong Jie is extremely kind, and treats her very well. Wong Jie took Ma Ma out to eat dim sum today because it was a public holiday. "Does she know it's your birthday?" I ask. "No lah," Ma Ma replies. "I don't want to tell her. Later every year she bring me go eat."