Old movies

 Watching old movies is fun.been viewing hong kongs director ko chi sums movies the Umbrella story and One of the lucky ones.Both are good,inspiring life story set in the past but tell of challenge of status quo and excellence in pursuing ones dream.a good story that is well crafted.lucky that hong kong nurtures malaysian talent like ho yu hang and his quirky tale like at the end of daybreak and Mrs K.its also the hong kong film industry that nurtured our oscar winning actress Michelle Yeohs early foray into acting as an action heroine.

So our creative industry is down in the dumps with killjoys in the entertainment scene.auteurs like Malaysian Tsai Meng Liang are well known in Taiwan and tbe arthouse movie and independent movie industry as they push the boundary and are thought provoking like the movie  sleepless in kl on foreign migrants.but the over sensitive censorship kills off creativity and kudos for Malaysians making a name for themselves abroad but its no thanks to our local industry.

I like to listen to old grandmothers story as its nostalgic .our family has some skeleton in the closet as a relative from Guangdong used to sail to Sabah to sell his merchandise to the natives like clay jars.he stayed with them in the jungle for months collecting rattan which he brought back to China.After many years,it seemed he became so accustomed to the lifestyle that he could speak the lingo.As he neared retirement age,he told them he wanted to go back to China.they hosted a big feast for him and after many rounds of rice wine or tuak,he got dead drunk and tbey beheaded him as they couldnt bear to see him leave.its a gory tale that grandparents tell .

The other tale they told is how ideology separated two granduncles from Guangzhou.one remained loyal to his motherland,serving his nation by fabricating ships at a marine shipyard but the younger granduncle suffered a lot.his wife,a medical professional was posted to serve in remote regions and he was left alone to take care of his twin babies,a son and a daughter.times were hard and food and medicine scarce in the early years of the communist revolution. My grandparents used to send back clothes and can food and dried food to them as there was food rationing.so when the twin daughter fell sick,the younger granduncle couldnt look after her.he covered his ears as the baby cried the whole nite.eventually she passed away and he made up his mind to run away with his wife and son to Hong Kong.

The Second world war wreak havoc and tore apart many families.My grandmas brother was so disillusioned that he left the worldly life and retreated to a monastery in hong kong and became a taoist monk.one day i will visit  taoist temple green pine monastery cheng chung koon in kowloon and view his calligraphy and chinese ink painting there.the younger sister of grandma or ku po became a buddhist nun in a temple in Serdang.i remembeted visiting the incense filled altar and enjoying her vegetarian buddhas delite.