swine

They regurgitate what they’ve read from the newspapers about the race car driver’s death. They’ve absorbed all the reports on his accident, and have taken keen interest over the details of his insurance coverage and the government’s arrangements for transporting his body back to Hong Kong. They’re especially amused by the detail about a roasted pig being dropped to the floor before it was offered to the spirits…

The day before, race car driver Philip Yau of the Chevrolet team succumbed to his injuries after his car slammed into the wall during the touring cars qualifying race at the Macau Grand Prix. The day before yesterday, motorcyclist Luis Carreira lost his life in a race on the same circuit. (In the world of news, stories older than a day are dropped, no matter the gravity.)

I was in a dim-sum restaurant inside a casino-hotel in Macao. An extended family occupied the two big round tables next to me. There were aunties and subdued uncles and teenage-to-twenty-something cousins and a grandfather in the corner next to the Philipino helper. They looked to be on vacation from Hong Kong.

“I was so shocked I dropped my pork chop,” the woman was saying how the revving engines scared her at last year’s races. The cousins laughed and spoofed the act of a car zooming by and dropping a piece of pork. I looked across the extended family and saw they all had round pudgy faces. Then the headline of the day’s news became the topic of bantering. The women were quick to show their knowledge.

“No sane person would drive two hundred miles into a bend.”

“You just need to put on the breaks.”

“He modified his car. That’s why.”

“He modified his car too much.”

“They said he’s not that great a driver to begin with.”

“He was always just lucky.”

Their comments shot with food in their mouths. Faint giggles followed the ends of their utterances and the room was beginning to smell.

“He was over-confident.”

“He finished last the previous time and now he thought he could win.”

“Well, these people all have insurance.”

“Who would take him on?” This comment came from a young man amongst the clan.

“They’re all insured,” a woman was quick to provide, “by the company and they’ve signed all the waivers and everything…”

“Not true,” another auntie intercepted. “The Far East Daily said his insurance only covered some parts like his funeral.”

She cited the newspaper to strengthen her argument.

I never expect more than the basic from those eager to play expert based on information from newspapers. They are of a different world and will stay there. I was, instead, thinking about the moment he first wanted to be a race car driver or if he was somehow forced into the situation. I wondered if he had any distinct moments of joy from being victorious, and if he had to swallow cold words in times of not winning. I wondered if he had fear. I wanted to know how he met his wife and what they said to each other the last time they dined. I thought about the minutes from the collision to the hospital and if amidst the intensity of the physical pain, he saw his childhood replayed and was able to say he had been true to himself and that would be enough.

They were finishing their dishes.

I tried to think of constructive things that a herd of relatives can do on a vacation together and how apples ripen and drop from such a family tree, and whether they can roll away from the raunchy shades that engage them in nasal-heavy gossips.

Who would take him on?

Who would take him on?

Who would take him on?

To be able to open their mouths and eat what was good and make utterances of general interest that bounce back from relatives who also make sounds while putting food into their mouths is perhaps, to them, what it means to be truly alive, and it made no sense whatsoever that anyone should do anything outside of this and get himself into such a shame as death. And then there are those who truly live and live on.