80
8 DAYSmy word BY^ WOFFLES WU
Check out Woffles Wu’s instagram account @woffleswu for photos relating to this weekly column.I wondered if we looked
different because we have
lived in Singapore for over 120
years and in that time, our
chromosomes have adapted to the mad
tropical sun and given us a distinctive South
East Asian look.“
Isn’t it odd that none
of the relatives here in
the ancestral hall bear
any resemblance to our
respective grandpas and
great-grandpa Ong?” I whispered to
cousin Boon as our village relatives
led us to the welcome lunch. “I
mean there isn’t the slightest bit
of similarity between them or their
children and us. Isn’t that weird?
It's almost as if they come from a
different genetic lineage.”
I had out of curiosity been
scrutinising the faces of all our
relatives and their offspring since
our arrival at the village, expecting to
see elderly uncles and aunties who
really looked like long-lost relatives
one could recognise immediately
because they had the same facial
features or characteristics as us.
But there were none. I wondered ifwe looked different because we have
lived in Singapore for over 120 years
and in that time, our chromosomes
have adapted to the mad tropical sun
and given us a distinctive South East
Asian look. No, there had to be a
better explanation than that.
For all the descendants from this
village who had migrated to, lived
and grown up in Singapore since
the 1880s, the resemblance to
one another is unmistakeable. You
can instantly tell we all come from
the same family tree. My grandpa,
his three brothers and their sister
all looked alike and so do their
children. Even between second and
third degree cousins of the next
generation, we can see the same
structure of face, body type and even
temperament.
Every one of my granduncles
and their offspring were artistic,
appreciated beauty and loved music.
As a consequence, many of us have
become artists, architects, designers,fashionistas or in my case, a plastic
surgeon. All beauty related. Even
my mum, who is a lawyer, draws
beautifully.
Kelvin, an architect who is my
grandauntie’s grandson, looks very
much and behaves like I did when I
was in my twenties: thin, gangly and
bespectacled in a nerdy, scholastic
way. Anyone can tell we are related.
I could have said he’s my younger
brother and people would have
believed me.
I have an auntie who is the
daughter of my eldest granduncle
(who had 16 children from three
different women). I had probably met
her when I was a child but could not
remember her features. One day
as an adult, when I was brought to
her house to visit her, I took a step
backwards in amazement as she
looked so much like my other auntieLilian who is the daughter of my
second granduncle and whom I see all
the time. The same face, nose, eyes,
lips and hairstyle. Uncanny. Genes are
so powerful.
The only relatives or cousins who
look remotely different take after
their respective parents who married
into the family, indirectly confirming
my observation that some of the
genes we possess, are stronger than
others. These genes are therefore
responsible for the physical and
behavioural similarities that we share.
To me, it is clear that the genes of
my grandpa and his siblings were far
stronger than those of their spouses,
re-expressing themselves again and
again in subsequent generations.
The cycle only stops when a stronger,
more dominant gene from outside
the gene pool is introduced into the
family.
With these observations of genes
and their shared expression, I was
expecting to see relatives from ourhome village looking very much like
us, only to be disappointed. Not only
did they not look like us, they also
did not speak Hokkien either which
seemed strange. All the conversations
were carried out in Mandarin and it
was only we, the visitors, who spoke
to each other in our own brand of
Hokkien which we understood but I’m
sure sounded strange to them.
At the lunch, I got my cousins to
probe a little deeper and discovered
that my hunch had been correct. Our
relatives weren’t really related to us
by blood and chromosomes at all.
What had happened over a hundred
years ago was that all the able-
bodied men (who were related to one
another), had sailed to Singapore to
seek their fortune. That was the first
wave. The second wave came in the
early 1900s when the rest of the
men went to settle in Taiwan. In fact,
since the 17th century, Chinese from
Fujian province have been migrating
to Taiwan which explains why the
people there look and sound more
like us than here in the ancestral
village.
The migration of the men and
later their wives meant that there was
no one left in the village to care for
the ancestral hall and to perform all
the necessary rituals. Children from
other villages or even provinces were
adopted into the Ong family, taking on
the family surname. These youngsters
were groomed to look after the village
in our absence. Eventually they
married, had children and the cycle
of life in the Ong clan continued, only
with a different gene pool. That’s why
they didn’t look like us.
I felt extremely grateful to these
relatives for looking after our ancestral
hall and continuing the legacy of the
Chip Bee village Ong clan for the last
century. We really should have done it
ourselves but we were busy building
new lives in another country, which we
now call home.
There was a tinge of sadness too
for once the Ancestral Hall was pulled
down to make way for the new railway
station and once the relatives were
happily resettled in their brand new
apartments, which the government
had given to them as compensation,
there was no link anymore between
them and us. I am sure our families
will drift apart and this once sacred
connection will be buried in history.