Why strong family bonds will always matter!

0

There is no greater blessing than to have a loving family.

A SAGE once said ‘family life contributes immensely to an individual’s happiness’. Only in a happy home life can complete contentment be found.

Yet at the same time, there is no such thing as a perfect family: behind every door, there are issues, the difference being to accept and encourage each family member as they are and not as we would like them to be.

This is true even in small families of a father, a mother and a child. It is even more challenging if you belong to big families, like I do. But the ultimate test is always placed on those very big families, which today rarely exists, but they did in the years before and right after the Second World War.

I’d certainly be correct to say that local families – be they Malay, Chinese, Iban, Bidayuh, Indian or of other ethnicities – tend to be rather numerous during what is now called the ‘Baby Boomer’ years, just after 1945. By the turn of the century from 1990/2000 onwards, the trend turned around and families became smaller rather drastically.

However, there are still a great many families here with more than a few family members.

I was born a few years after the Japanese War had ended and both my parents had come from very big families. My Chinese Hokkien father was one of 14 sons and daughters; and my Teochew mother, from a family of eight siblings. They had, in turn, after settling down and starting their own families, propagated with more cousins and second cousins than I could ever keep count of. This would have been a rather typical family standing in the 1950s right up to the 1990s.

Obviously by now you won’t be very surprised if I were to tell you that I have never met all my many cousins as many would have migrated or were indeed born overseas between the 1960s and now.

On the Ong family side – my father’s family, we have a very conscientious and capable ‘Family Tree Chronicler’ by the name of Sean Collum working out of Sydney in Australia trying to name, list and connect all the Ongs who are related wherever they may be – he’s been at it for almost two decades and have met with great success!

As for myself, I am the eldest of five siblings – three boys and two girls and we are located here, in Singapore, the United Kingdom and in Switzerland. We share a next generation of seven; a boy and six girls; and four grandkids among us.

One could almost say that this could well represent a ‘textbook’ typical Asian Chinese family.

Me and my siblings (standing, from right) Edric, Edwina and Edmund, together with Edrea sitting next to me – a close knit family.

In today’s fast progressing and ever-changing world, almost every family would have at least a few things in common – they would have family members being educated in one of the three major languages of English, Bahasa Malaysia and Mandarin; either locally or overseas.

They would have seen intermarriages between different dialects, ethnicities and sexual orientations. They would have had furthered their education and gained post-graduate or had distinguished themselves as professionals or holders of public office in their chosen homeland.

One fact would also stand out – they would have had occupied every echelon of the community and be happily entrenched in their work, jobs and professions, from either earning a living in the private or public sector; doing their own businesses or practising in their own field of expertise. Some would have migrated. A few have become widely known for their individual skills, artistry or mastery of some special niche endeavour or had even become infamous for some dastardly act of defiance or have a soiled reputation.

In other words, we have before us a typical Asian family, populated within by geniuses and crooks, sages and stooges, or what is more famously quipped by the popular comic book idiom of that overused phrase: ‘the good, the bad and the ugly.’

After all, most of us could be justifiably described as having some of the qualities of some or all of these three characteristics. It’s the perfect throwaway description.

In our world today, one asks this – why does a strong family bond matter?

I’ve seen and personally witnessed among our local Asian societies that no matter how poor or badly behaved a family member could be, he would never be cast out, be destitute or become homeless and completely abandoned by his own family.

I always remember a rather strange question (at the time) asked of me by an American Hollywood producer in 1987 when we were driving around Kuching on a recce for film locations: “Why are there no homeless people in your town? I haven’t seen a single homeless or even a beggar or scavenger on the streets or back alleys the whole time I’ve been here?”

At the time, I was dumbfounded and it took me a while to answer him.

Eventually I did, and I explained how local communities practised strong family bonds and because there would always be a family member around – nobody no matter how poor, sick or disenfranchised, would ever be abandoned or left to fend for himself. At worse, they would be sent to a home, a temple or be taken care of discreetly by hook or by crook.

In the West and most other societies, you’re left there, wherever you may be – who knows if even their family members even know of their predicament.

But Westerners, in general, behave in that way. I know of people who stand to inherit millions (or billions) in their family trust, or when they are still alive and kicking, who don’t care two hoots about enjoying or benefitting from their family’s wealth or inheritance.

What can one surmise from this behaviour or attitude?

Strong family bonds matter. They have always been practised and for as long as there are family members still around and who are aware of their present state of need, they would always be taken care of.

This is the extreme end of the societal expectations made of us all.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have the ugly side of strong family bonds. It’s called nepotism and there’s also the element of clannishness. Let me briefly describe the good and evil of both.

Family bonds can go awry and can get perverted when those holding power in both the public and private arenas would tend to favour their own blood and family members for positions within their organisations or workplaces. It becomes even more of an abomination if the head honcho further promotes such inclusiveness and exclusive behaviour in the workplace, further aggravating the process of only promoting their own kin and their own kind.

Sure, you can say that we would always try and help our own – when it comes to assistance and helping out, the priority would be on our own family, friends and inner circles. After all, these are the people best known to us, we know them well, they are trustworthy and in need of our assistance. The extension of this philosophy heads towards our own clan, our wider circle of those whom we share a common heritage, our kinsmen, those who speak our own similar language, of our same faith or from our same origin (village, town, ‘kampong’).

There’s nothing wrong with that.

We should always cultivate a strong and lasting relationship with firstly our own family members, then our clansmen, and then with the people who have come from our same regions or backgrounds or even being introduced to us by people whom we know and trust.

In today’s fast-changing world, our basic family unit is no longer just our own personal family: it has grown, it has evolved, and it has changed beyond all recognition.

I am firstly a member of my own Ong family unit; then I am part of the bigger family who has spread their wings all over the world; and alongside and parallel to this phenomenon, I am also a member of the Christian community, Anglican no less; and of course, I am a proud Thomian from the country’s oldest school; and a Malaysian of Chinese origin – proud to stand tall in this world – but all this eventually has to have a foundation and that basic pillar would always have to be the family unit – without your own family and your origins and your birth right, there is nothing.

I leave you with these two quotes from the Bible:

“Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” — Ephesians 4: 2-3.

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.’ — 1 Peter 4:8-11.

Amen.