My Moon My Man

It's been awhile, I know.

My Dad gave me tickets to watch him in his Hainanese play on Sunday at the Drama Centre. Well, it wasn't Henrik Ibsen, and it does attempt to up the feel-good factor with hilarious lines that were supposedly laugh-out-loud funny in the native tongue. Which was strange because they sounded so familiar, just like the exact Hainanese phrases that he used at home lecturing my grandmother; and while I found it utterly annoying sometimes, vulgar even, the audience seemed to acknowledge the hiliarity. Thank goodness for subtitles or I will never live to understand the literal meanings of these words.

Most of the audience were made up of senior citizens who have yet to cultivate proper modern technology etiquette. No longer was it annoying to hear a mobile phone ring every five minutes by the time we reached intermission , nor was it weird to have some random member of the audience lash his five-cent view out loud in Hainanese, prompting laughters from everyone. Except me, because there were no subtitles for these.

The sub-plot of the story was a typical tale in a Hainanese household; this female character's boyfriend faced rejection from her father because he wasn't Hainanese and didn't speak the dialect.

It felt strange. The words sounded so familiar, yet they are still seemingly foreign to me. Me and my sisters do not speak the dialect, even though we can understand a little, and it'd have been a surprise to our paternal relatives and friends if we do.

It felt strangely comforting to see my Dad speak his lines on stage, because I know this is something he has always wanted to do but never had the opportunity to. We didn't even know he was acting (this play was like, what, into its fifth run.) until I came across a recorded performance. Now he keep insisting we go see it once. Well, I am glad I did, and I am proud of him.