House of Forde

Excerpta

  • Independent Shunde Women

    The glowing orb later dipped blow the horizon, which painted smooth satin streaks across the Malaya evening expanse. Sam stays perched in the centre of the grass and quietly watched the sky change every minute. 

    A fading coral-coloured cloud drifting in the sky morphed into a face of.. determination, he assumed. The cloud had eyebrows of its own, scrunched up with a frown. It was a reminder that had Sam vividly remember his two older sisters and dominant mother— resilient and unwavering Shunde women, who sent him and his uncle off to Malaya to find the grave buried six feet under.

    He raised his chin to the rosy vapour splitting in half. In contrast, reminders of that day instead came together like a puzzle being solved. He was sent by his thriving mother and his two self-reliant sisters to find the grave of his deceased father along with his bulky uncle, three-thousand and two hundred miles away from his home in China. He recalled the remains being nowhere in sight and feeling his blood being drained from his body.All he expected was finding the marked stick, digging up the grave, and returning back to China where he knew he belonged. Nevertheless, fate had other plans.

    He wanted to go back, desperately, but how could he face his mother’s wrath when she finds out? At that moment, he knew that he and his uncle had identical thoughts.

    “It should be here. Sam! The darn stick. It must be here… somewhere!”

    “…Shunde blood flows into you all.” A voice echoes from the abyss. Oychan, Sam’s daughter, says like she’s telling a forbidden tale. “As women, we’re all supposed to be independent and strong as we’re of Shunde blood, so we don’t rely on men.” Oychan says. However, she had been married and had four kids. As she said the phrase don’t rely on men, she mentions her granddaughter of Shunde blood who vowed to be celibate, who always wore her hair in a bun.

    “Historically, Chinese women get married quickly by their families to ‘get rid’ of them. Shunde women, on the other hand, don’t have to rely on men. “Oychan continues, pausing at the right times. “Like Sam’s family who is maternal run. His mother is dominant, his two older sisters who undergone the sor-hei ceremony will remain unmarried, and little is known about his father.” 

    Afterwards, she indicates to Kai’s sister, who is still unmarried at 54 years old. “Shunde women are always on their own,” she groaned. 

  • Desolate Graves

    Sam tilts his head to the sky as the punishing midday sun scorches his skin unmercifully. Guangdong sun is never this hot, he recalls. Only six weeks prior, he was happily pushing rice seedlings in the paddies barefoot at the back of the Fok ancestral house tucked in a cul-de-sac at the edge of Makao Village. He’s now standing on foreign soil, an island with an alien name that barely registers in the carefree but jaded mind of a nineteen year old Shunde boy.  

    As he cast his eyes across a barren field of makeshift graves, he shudders at the thought of what he has been summoned to do by his mother and her two sisters–an all-powerful, all-female politburo helmed by her exalted majesty Ama the matriach, no less. His mission–no matter if he chose to accept it–is to find the dirthole where his father was buried, to dig up the cadaver, put it in a box and haul it home. And home is but three thousand and two hundred miles away, or some fearsome thirty three days on choppy, nauseating waters of the South China Sea.

    I didn’t sign up for this.

    Uncle Seven frowns as he gestures at Sam. “Get to work, kid,” he rasps in his trademark gravelly voice as he slings a rusty shovel to the back of his broad, tired shoulders. “Being the only man in the family has its privileges,” he gruffs. “I hope you’re having a blast.”

    Whoosh! A gush of icy wind washes over Sam’s sweat-drenched face, interrupting him from replying to Uncle Seven’s remark. The evening begins to darken, with gray clouds swarming over its skies. Uncle Seven glances up and lets out a scowl. “We’d better go find it before it gets pitch black.”

    He leaves no room for comments and darts in the direction where he staked a stick, the stick that marks the grave where the body–Sam’s dad’s–was buried. Sam wipes his sweat with the back of his hand and flicks off the dust on his rusty shirt as he trails over Uncle Seven’s outsized footprints.

    He couldn’t recall how long he paddled behind until his uncle abruptly stills in front of him. The expression on the old man’s face isn’t of surprise nor exhilaration; instead, it’s one of pure horror. Sam peers over Uncle Seven’s broad shoulders across the barren land that seem to stretch out for eternity.

    “No, no, no. NO!” Uncle Seven repeats for what seems like a million times. His usually fierce eyes turn cloudy with desperate exasperation. “It should be here. Sam! The darn stick. It must here… somewhere!” Just as Sam’s breathing halts to a stop, ka-boom! The darkened sky cracks with a thunderous bolt of lightning. The world disappears around them, slowly swallowed by an endless, pitch-black void. The harsh wind plummets Sam’s face mercilessly; the tempest growls, seemingly trying to tell them something. And at this moment, the same thought hit both of them. The stick has been blown away for who knows how long, which made one point clear…

    …they are never going to find the grave.