A true story, part II

The above photos are 1) my father and I in Bangkok during Chinese New Year, and 2) my mother holding me in front of my adoptive grandfather's house-shop.

Finally meeting my father's birth family was a tremendous thing, especially once you know the whole story. After my grandmother gave her son away, she worked as a street vendor and other odd jobs in Bangkok to support her remaining three children. I don't know the details of the following decades, but my uncle, the oldest, married and had four children but then fell off a roof and hit his head, making him sort of slow-thinking. My first aunt had a high fever when very young, which left her with a hare-lip. Perhaps because of this deformity, she never married but adopted a boy and a girl. My second aunt married and had four girls, but their father died of cancer while they were still young. Through all this, my grandmother never became bitter, but even now is well-known in her neighborhood for her good deeds. I believe the pressures of circumstance only served to stamp her good-heartedness on the characters of her children.

The first time I really got to know my father's birth family was in 1996 during my first trip alone to Thailand. I spent a couple days at my first aunt's house, which is on the same small lane as my other aunt and not far away from my uncle. My first aunt is a very frank, very sweet lady. Perhaps because of her hare-lip, she seems to have lost all the normal concern of what people think of her. This does not mean she is rude, but that you know what she says is not just for show. Sometimes her child-like sincerity is embarassing. During my stay, I was also struck by the love my grandmother had for her offspring. Her grandchildren would come over after school and she would dote on them, or scold them if they were being bad. During meals, she would not want to eat meat, saving it instead for others. Before I left, she took a gold ring from her finger and put it in my hand, refusing to take it back.

The one disquieting thing for me about my family was their devotion to idols, especially the Chinese gods our relatives had brought over from China. One of my great uncles became quite well-to-do and built a temple, which the whole clan of relatives visited every Sunday, like church. You can read about my surreal and scary visit in one of my selected blog entries, "Seeing is believing." Once my father became a Christian, he started telling his family about Jesus. This evoked serious spiritual pushback from "familiar spirits," including one time my grandmother herself started cursing in a man's voice at the mention of Jesus. Even when I brought my wife to visit in February 2004, my aunt asked us not to lay hands to pray for my grandmother (she was sick) because she feared repercussions. Apparently, they had invited spirits into the family in order to prolong my grandmother's life, and believed Christianity would drive those spirits out, and hence kill my grandmother.

In March 2004, my father had to fly to Thailand because my grandmother was in the hospital. This time, God was about to show He was sovereign over any familiar spirits ...

To be continued.