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Posts tagged ‘Family’

Mar 11

22 Comments

Rest in Love, Auntie Dhani

The first time I met Bama’s mother, she stood smiling in a loose red dress inside the garage of her previous home in Semarang, under the flight path of passenger jets arriving at the city’s airport. It was July 2015, and the second week of a six-month backpacking trip that Bama and I dubbed the “Spice Odyssey.” I called her Auntie Dhani; soon enough she had shortened my name to the more Javanese-sounding “Jem” for convenience. The ensuing crash course in the do’s and don’ts of Idul Fitri (a.k.a. Eid al-Fitr) was softened because she embraced me not only as a guest, but also as an adopted member of her small family. In little more than a week, she had nicknamed me “the funny son.” Read more

Jul 9

33 Comments

An Indonesian homecoming

Lebaran_1

Travelling into town from the airport in Semarang, Indonesia, I was struck by the familiarity of all that I saw. Bama and I peered out the window from the back seat, as the car sped past a slightly decrepit museum we’d entered a year before, then a magnificent Chinese temple painted in vibrant shades of gold and vermilion. Soon we arrived at the family home, fronted by the same green gate that played a musical scale when rolled back, and a slender custard apple tree with unripe fruit hanging from its branches. Read more

Jun 27

25 Comments

The house of memories

My grandparents' old house in Toronto

Darkness had fallen and driving snow whipped against the windshield as my uncle drove down a familiar stretch of Highway 401 from the airport. Less than 10 hours earlier I had stood waiting at a boarding gate in Heathrow, bound not for the warm temperatures of subtropical Hong Kong, but the winter chill of Toronto. It was December 2008 and death had struck the family two weeks before Christmas. Read more