We have received many stories of mixed marriages, and besides the story by Nigel Skelchy, we have also received another story, this time from Juana Jaafar.
It is a very intimate story, and we are honoured that Juana has submitted the story for us to publish it, and for our readers to enjoy.
Meanwhile, read up on this vivid tale, and let us know what you think about it in the comments.
It was a time when pictures were in black and white. It was a nation colonised. It was a faraway place I know only by name: Sabak Bernam.
He was a man whose personality I know little of, but whose name will follow me for the rest of my life. From the tiny pieces of jigsaw I have accumulated over the years, I unfold this introduction:
A clerk. They said he was a quiet man, a very simple man. I would tell you about his youth if I had any knowledge of it. But I do know a little story about him.
He married and lived in that faraway place I could only imagine as rural. His wife, she was from the wrong family. Their marriage did not fit the time and place they belonged to.
She was Chinese. I knew this woman. She was remarkably independent and to the best of my memory, extremely stubborn. She was strict, but loving. She loved her cigarettes and kept to herself.
I wonder if anyone really knew her at all.
I will always wonder what it was like for her to be married to the Mandailing clerk and living in that distant, rural town.
How did society treat them? And I cannot begin to imagine what it was like for her to discover she could not conceive.
Or could she? Her past remains a mystery.
A tragedy. Nearby there was an Indian family I can only assume was poor. Poorer than the others in that distant, rural town. Were they a family of labourers? National history suggests so. Was it poverty? Or the death of a mother?
No one knows what tragedy had befallen the family that their little baby should suddenly find himself orphaned.
I believe in predestination and that God works in mysterious ways. I believe there is a blessing behind every misfortune.
Like all good stories, there is a lesson to learn from this one.
There was a Mandailing-Chinese couple who could not have children. And here was an Indian baby who needed parents.
It was a match made in heaven. When the heart and mind opens, and the soul is filled with compassion, there could be no place in a person’s life for prejudice.
This baby turned a barren marriage into a family. This baby made it a truly Malayan family.
This baby was my father.
- Juana Jaafar
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