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My Da Jiu (Big Uncle) is about the same age as Dr Mahathir Mohamad, 82.

He was politically labeled by the British colonial government and banished to Guangzhou, China in 1951. That was the time of Communist insurgence. He was 26 years old back then, and being the eldest in family, he was the sole bread-earner for his six sisters, my mother is the fifth, and the youngest brother. Their father had died young during the war.

So you could imagine how hard my Gua Ma (maternal grandmother) had struggled to keep the family alive, working in a small rubber plantation in Ayer Puteh, Pendang, Kedah so soon after WWII, and years before Merdeka. Her small rubber-holding, which was accessible from Pendang via 4-trips per day minibus service run by Risda (the fore-rider to MARA), was a haven for us as we always had the best and the hardest rubber seeds for our childhood games. I was amazed with her conversational Malay as I could understand all that she spoke to the Malay folks as she walked us through about 2km long of estate paths in and out of her kongsi house. I was a timid small school-kid, then.

Life as a widow, who never remarried, was very tough with Da Jiu banished a thousand hills and a million waters away, her daughters all married off, and the Xiao Jiu (small uncle) packed off for his secondary school in Penang. Gua Ma had her middle finger amputated due to a venomous snake bite, and again had her toes cut-off for stepping on spiteful thorns. She died of cancer, in an illegal wooden house she relocated to after her productive years, in Raja Uda, Butterworth. I was still in lower secondary school then. But before she died, she managed to visit my Da Jiu, I think twice, taking the stormy rides to Swatow (or Shantou) onboard the mid-sized cargo vessel where each trip departing from Penang took at least six days across the South China Sea.

Da Jiu is here again

Over the weekend in Penang, siblings of my Ooi Family, and hundreds of our maternal cousins, hosted him to a reunion dinner over the weekend. Da Jiu kept his feelings behind the steel outlook though, today, only my mom, his youngest sister (Xiao Yi) and the youngest brother (Xiao Jiu) are alive.

This is my Da Jiu's second visit to Malaysia, after the first in 1992. All his siblings were alive then.

My Da Jiu had his first ever reunion with his siblings in 1988 at the Malaysia-Thai border. He had a valid passport to Thailand, while my mother and her siblings had to travel on their Malaysian passports to meet him for several days in Hatyai. It was an expensive affair, but everyone thought it was well worth their tears to make the trip there, if only for some hugs missed over decades of strapped pouches.

This round, when my Da Jiu is in town again, he had two potential Chief Ministers of Penang to greet him.

Da Jiu chuckled uncontrollably when Dr Teng talked of the good old days, offering fill-in for some gaps ... and then his voice choked when sentimental chords resonated and flowed so effortlessly easy

State Exco YB Dr Teng Hock Nan -- he's my uncle, and he cured my mother of thyroid over 20 years ago -- took some 25 minutes to narrate to us, mostly third and fourth generation Malaysians, how precious his father had had a comrade in my Da Jiu during the Japanese Occupation. Being the more educated one, my Da Jiu used to read the newspaper to Teng's father in the little coffee stall in Kilang Kecil, near Bukit Jenun in Kedah. The luxury of the day was a shared cup of coffee. My Da Jiu would drink it from the half-full cup, while Teng's father would empty his off the saucer.

They were both that impoverished financially despite their industrious struggle in life.

My Da Jiu had never met YB Chia Kwang Chye, who dropped in slightly later soon after he touched down, but he played his self-appointed emissary role rather well, and warmly invited our deputy Information Minister to visit Chaozhou (Teochew) City one day.

YB Chia was delighted at the invitation to visit Teochew

When the VIP friends left, we invited Da Jiu to give a speech. He rolled up his pants and said: "Mata sudah kelabu, telinga sudah tak dengaq." We heard pindrop; someone whispered it was Bahasa Malaysia baku.

He then burst into a song in Malay. His diction was so strong, after all these years, that we all understood the lyrics sang of a man stranded in the rolling hills, forbidden to come back even when twilight of dawn struck in.

Da Jiu's struggles before he was banished was my favourite Mom's story of her childhood days

The song ended when his voice choked a second time. We were all enveloped in overpouring emotion, but my No. 2 brother was such a superb MC that he managed to hold the crowd on high spirit.

When it was time for us cousins to sing him a family reunion number, I just couldn't carry on and had to hand it over to my second brother to lead the chorus to the last note.

CAKAP MELAYU. Da Jiu retired as a supervisor at the power generation plant in Chaozhou city in the 1980s. He has a nice apartment overlooking the West Lake. Da Jiu Mu, who followed him to exit from this country over half a century ago, is as healthy as she was when we last met in 1992. They have one daughter and three son, and blessed with four grand daughters, one from each family.

My mom once related to us how, during the days of the Cultural Revolution, he was promoted and given a bicycle as a form of perks but was almost "class-struggled against" due to envy from workmates. But Da Jiu is a survivalist. He triumphed and still stands tall at 180cm, vertebrate upright.

I was there to greet my Da Jiu when he and his entire family landed in KLIA the other night. He later told us how he failed to persuade the Customs officer not to tax him for the cheap porcelain coffee-sets that his sons had brought in for the clans of relatives, whom he left behind in Malaysia, as buah tangan and cenderamata.

He was so exasperated as the swarming Customs officers on the midnight round wouldn't even want to listen to him plead in flawless cakap Melayu, which he had kept after all these years.

This Merdeka is full of pulled heart-strings for many of us.