My Grandmother And Her Secret Plan
Posted: Friday, September 23, 2011
by Hilda Cang
When I was about 7 or 8 years old, my grandmother said to me, out of the blue, " Mei Mei (rhymed with May May) or simply means Girl Girl, tomorrow Po Po bring you and your sisters (3 of them) to the gold shop downtown . I want to see some gold. " Jewellery she meant ? I nodded my head in obedience and off I ran to find my sisters who were in their study room, writing homework.
So the next morning after breakfast, grandmother was already dressed in her usual set of clothes, waiting for us girls to get ready to go downtown.
"Remember to hold each other's hand when we cross the road. The cars are dangerous". Repeated grandmother for the fifth times. We did exactly what she told us to do. Unlike the kids today, they never listen to their parents' kind advice.
Back then, due to the limited development of the city with scarcely few rows or blocks of shops, people knew one another just by sight if not closely. My grandmother was a regular figure downtown for her typical hair style (her hair was forever combed back over her head and clipped with hair pins of some pattern, left and right) She was friendly with the shop owners as well.
When we walked in the goldsmith shop, she was greeted by the man in a white singlet and a pair of rimless spectacles. They talked and we listened and listened some more and we were shocked because grandmother asked the goldsmith to have all our ears pierced. So, one by one, we obedient innocent girls were going through the unexpected process of this lifetime experience and thank God it wasn't some sort of skin tattoo.
I must clarify that we were happy our grandmother made this first move to beautify us with golden earrings. She spent much money on four pairs of real gold earrings after the piercing and no side effect thereafter. Why because she made sure we didn't eat prawn, crab,beef and dark sauce right after the piercing.
Years that followed, grandmother had become older and but she lived life to the fullest until she was called home at age of 95.
This Article has been viewed 245 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Enjoyed your little story, Hilda. I tried getting my ears prieced at sixteen. Didn`t go good for me. I was allergic, to the metals used in the sleeper rings, or my first pair of gold earrings, not sure which. I got badly infected. I can just image all you little girls lined-up, I can image the face expression knowing your going to get poked.Jessie, you know exactly how we 4 silly little girls reacted to our granny's own plan but all went well for us.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.