Goodbye GZ Hello Singapore

Saying goodbye to GZ on the 12th of June was one of happiness and of immense grief.

Happy to be home in a few hours and sad to have lost my dad in this foreign place. The past few blogs on GZI, GZII, GZIII and last GZIV; has kinda relief some of the pain felt in the past weeks.

Our flight was scheduled to depart GZ at 1pm, at 9am, we received a call from the GZ funeral parlour transportation service guy that the transport of Dad's coffin has started from the GZ funeral parlour towards the airport for custom clearance. Yes, we were all pretty relief to get that phone call. We hurried our brunch in the hotel and did our last bits of packing (bro had to really SQUEEZE his stuff into his bag....ha ha ha he spent about 2hrs packing in the night, after that he had to take a shower to clean all the sweat from stuffing his bag silly ha ha ha).

Most importantly, we had to ensure that we have Dad's favourite brolly and some incense with us. We had to do some "stuff" you....

During these short 6 days, my world of superstitions, reality and religion was jumbled together, mixed in a blender and came out almost unrecognisable. Eldest bro instill so much fear of wandering spirits in me that it almost knock me out of my senses. The "realities" of hungry spirits, wandering souls, sense of lost in newly deceased felt so so so real. I can almost sense how "blurr" my dad will be in an unknown territory. I can almost appreciate the many cultural gestures carried out by the taoist sect of the chinese beliefs. For example:

1. Always give a red packet (with small token of cash) as a lucky charm to those who have directly helped in arranging matters for the deceased.
reason- as passing of a human being is deamed as unlucky, so give them something red as a sign of lucky start.
scenario- the travel agent who arranged the trip for my sis & bro-in-law accompanied them through the whole episode of goin to the hospital, funeral parlour etc, when it was time for him to bide goodbye, we gave him our last bits of RMB as his tips, he left the room and turmed back 2mins later with a red packet insisting that we put a small note in it as a sign of luck.
Instantly, I was thrown into the realms of mysterious beliefs.....

2. Treat the deceased as a living being
reason- Techanically, we have to physically bring/coax dad's soul/spirit back home with us from GZ
scenario- A living person will know how to clear the customs, get onto the plane, take a seat on the plane etc. But a newly deceased person's soul/spirit may not know their way. Hence, as their closed ones, we are to call out to him, to ask him to travel onto the plane with us. As incentive or perhaps to signal out to him, we even had to burn incense at inconspicious corners of the boarding areas for a short 3secs to quickly say out whatever we want to Dad to signal him to get onto the plane as if he's a living being.
Interestingly, even though this activity was highly "illegal"? but it was highly tolerated by the authorities. In fact, the GZ staff seems to feel the pitch for us as we were quite late as we arrived at the boarding area after clearing through the multi-layers of customs for ourselves.

Although, we tried hard to treat that Dad's soul/spirit was traveling with us, I really cannot feel it at all. Perhaps I was too tired from the many nights of 3-4hrs sleep. We were quite fortunate to have good window seats with lots of space around the 3 of us. We checked-in all of our luggage thinking that we can browse around the terminal freely, but ended up buying local delights utlising most of our "free" hands anyway...

We all slept well on the plane except for the last hr or so, I felt so restless on my seat that I kept shifting around. I usually knockout through most plane rides, but for this one, it felt so different. Feels so unreal.

We could not wait to get out of the plane, empty our bowels and while waiting for the boys, I noticed the unloading cargo area was in our full view. We all waited anxiously for Dad's coffin to be unloaded. I can still remember that quiet moment, from a distance of two glass window, we all could not take our eyes off Dad. Yes, I was overwhelmed by sadness again. How I wish that Dad was standing WITH us physically and not at such a distance.

I am tremendously relieved that I'll have Ad's shoulders to lean on, cry on instead of bearing all these sorrows on my own.

Yes, Hello Singapore, the same country but a different home....

family jen travel