In Memories of My Grandfather 1928-2006

Well for those who didn't know, my grandfather Ho Koon Hong passed away last monday on the 21st August. due to old man illness, human organs start to fail and stop working all these.. For the past one month he have been staying in the hospital for further observations because the medicines that the doctors gave are not working.. the day before his death, he was already on oxygen mask.. which means that actually the doctors were extending his life span le.. On Monday afternoon I recieved a call from my uncle and well the news was broken to us. Its sad because I know my grandfather had not been able to see and hear properly and not to mention remember who me and the rest of the family members were.. so these few years other then chinese new years, my grandparents' birthday and other mahjong sessions, there isn't really much seeing of him. Well the only good thing that came out from this is the rekindle of brothership. Previously there were some arguements between the elders and 1 of the uncle actually had not been visiting my grandfather for the past 5-6 years. This time round because of my grandfather being bedridden, he actually took the effort to visit him.. hope all things went well for him...
The wake was for 5 days.. before the death of my grand father, he told my grandma that he wanted a grand wake.. so we had one.. 5 day traditional Hainanese ritual.. its was tiring and I did fall sick.. ate too much peanuts I guess.. well I didn't considered ours is grand until my friend came by and he was shock by the number of tables set up (more than 20 tables i think.. full house) and he said something interesting.. he said that when my family members was there doing the rituals, we look like yakuza, japanese triad because there are simply too many people doing the ritual together, wearing the same colour clothes.. about 20 plus people i think.. haha.. the most grand wake that he visted before.. well partly must be due to the contributions of my uncle who was chairman of 4 engineering companies in Singapore and thus had business friends sending many blankets, flower wreath all these things..
Well at day 5, which was the last day, that's the day all tears start flowing like river... will to say that I'm my grandpa grandson, its totally true because we are connected telepathic. When my grandpa' body is move to a level below us, we can feel it straight away and everyone just started crying.... but as a guy, I cannot cry too loud.. must "REN".... Upon collecting the bones, the priest inspected the bones of my grandpa and said that my grandpa while he was alive was a great man because on his bones he had something call "se li zi".. which I only heard the term before in buddhism scripts.. he say that only one in every 1000 people, will have "se li zi" found in their remains. Anyone out there care to tell me what is a "se li zi"? Well at least my glad my grandpa has a good reputation ... well, life goes on..

Hmmm one thing which I find it very funny.. while me, my 2 cousins and one of their gf were playing mahjong during the last night of the wake, how come my cousin's gf win the most money while i win only a few dollars and my cousins lost? How Come my grandpa never give luck to my cousins and instead my cousin's gf? hai sad.. well.. for the record, I still haven't lost a single cent yet playing mahjong haha...

Think I should write down my formula here and lets have a discussion..
my methods are:
1. See my tiles first and decide the easiest method to win.
a: if alot of pair , go for pong pong hu.
b: if messy but no flower, go for peng hu.
c: if one kind has alot, go for ban se(half colour) or if greedy abit, qing yi se (full colour)
d: do not waste time doing shi san yao.
e: if there are not much flowers on the table, try not to attempt peng hu.
2. In mahjong, winning matters but losing also matters alot.. must be able to know how to win more lose less. must be able to see who need what tiles to win and try not to hit those cards if ur tiles are small compared to his.
3. concentrate on ur own tiles more then other people tiles.. they can block u by not hitting the tiles u want but end of day, they will throw because they want to win also mah..
4.Always remember"Pai ping bu hao, jiu shi ren ping bu hao".. meaning, always play fair and just.. dun anyhow play play.. haha..
For now these are the things to take note.. As I always say.. Mahjong is just a game of strategy and probability..