This story is a follow up to a user submitted story from 2025, about what happened when the family finally said the quiet parts out loud at the family’s 2025 CNY reunion dinner. Things changed and the family now has two different normals.
“Why you cannot be more like Vivien?”
Vivien has always been the model daughter. Straight As from primary school all the way through uni. Marketing job in KL. Polite. Put-together. The kind of girl aunties use as comparison material and say, “Why you cannot be more like Vivien?”
In public, they praised her and she handled it with a smile and a nod. Help in the kitchen. Top up everyone’s drinks. But inside the family, her perfection was not admired. It was viewed as irritation.
In private, they dissected her with insights and commentary about being “Too” something: ambitious. Showy. Independent. That her Instagram was fake. “Confirm she cannot sustain one.” “Confirm she marry and divorce.”
The comments were small. But they were constant. Kaypoh. Snide. Delivered with that half-joking tone that Malaysians use when we want to insult but still keep face. Vivien heard more than they realized.
2025: A Year of Reckoning
She did not explode out of nowhere. She spent at least a few years collecting screenshots, notes, and recorded conversations into an archive of gossip and grudges of what everyone said about everyone. Not just her.
The 2025 Chinese New Year reunion dinner was at Ah Ma’s house in Penang. The house looked festive. Red lanterns. Pineapple tarts and snacks stacked high. The table was overflowing. Lap mei fan for prosperity. Steamed fish for abundance. Long noodles for longevity. Prawns for laughter. Yee Sang waited to be tossed as we shouted “huat ah” like we meant it.
Vivien showed me her phone, and with an influencer wink-kiss-head tilt said, “Revenge this year is served with lap mei fan.”
One Toast, and the Fuse is Lit
Halfway through dinner, she stood up with her glass of Chinese tea. “To family,” she said smiling brightly, “To the people who always have your back—or at least a comment about it.”
Nervous laughter. Then she started naming names. Uncle Lim for saying she tries too hard. Auntie Dorothy for calling her Instagram fake. Her own mum who predicted she would end up divorced by 30 because she is “too independent.”
A funeral would have been noisier. What had always been whispered in kitchens and WhatsApp chats was now placed in the centre of the table, between the steam fish and the roast duck.
The Firecrackers Explode
Then Wei Xuan opened his mouth. Big mistake. Or maybe perfect timing. “Since we’re being honest,” he said, “Who wants to talk about Auntie Linda’s jade bracelet?”
All eyes turned. Inheritance. Borrowed items that never returned. Antique teapots. Promises about who was supposed to get what. It turned into a courtroom as voices sharpened and faces reddened. Old grievances resurfaced.
Explosions Louder than a Fireworks Factory
It was not just about jewellery. It was about money never repaid. Favours never acknowledged. Childhood comparisons. Resentment over who sacrificed more. Who visited who more. Who cared more. The shouting overlapped.
You could not even follow one argument before another started at the other end of the table. Years of tension, finally colliding. Vivien sat there, calm, sipping her tea. I asked her later, “Why?”
She did not look angry. She looked finished. Satisfied. “Years of snide remarks and backbiting gossip. They want to talk? Let’s talk properly.”
A Year Would Pass
Vivien never apologised or tried to smooth things over with anyone. I didn’t understand until now that her goal was not peace. It was to expose the rot and make sure everyone smelt it, saw it, and even tasted it, instead of smiling at reunion dinners and pretending everything was fine.
Doing something about the rot in their generation was their problem. Keeping it out of the her generation of the family, and not letting it spread. That was her goal.
The Generational Break
Something else happened quietly after that 2025 Reunion Dinner. Vivian began rallying the younger generation. Our generation. Coffee and cake. Dinners. We meet up separately now or in groups. The cousins, the younger ones. Dinners without tension. Birthdays without gossip. No scorekeeping.
It was only last month that Vivien threw what she jokingly called, “early CNY open house” and it was only the cousins there.
The 2026 Reunion Dinner
The same house in Penang. The same lanterns, decorations and snacks. The table is still piled high with the same symbolic dishes for the new year. I don’t know how Vivien convinced Ah Ma, but we “youngsters” had our own table once we had the lou’d the Lou Sang.
At one table, there were civil smiling snide remarks and sarcasm. Every sentence is careful. Every compliment is slightly too sharp. It’s verbal fencing with blades dressed in courtesy.
At the other table, the cousins sit together. We laugh. We share food. We top up each other’s drinks. We plan trips. We talk nonsense. We actually listen.
Two generations. Two futures. One still circling its own rot. One freed of it.
The New Normal
We don’t truly understand our parents’ generation, just as they do not understand ours. But we do understand their pride, grudges and inability to let go. Vivien broke everything to prevent us from inheriting the feuding bitterness and one-ups-manship.
One generation of the family is healing. Relationships have changed. Some are ignoring things, others fixed their issues. Some are distant but polite because it’s easier than confronting decades of bad behavior.
I asked her whether this was her plan all along, to prevent us from becoming like our elders. She laughed, “We have our own table at Ah Ma’s, did you really think this was my idea?”
Submit your story to ym.efillaerni@olleh and you may be featured on In Real Life Malaysia.
Read also: ‘I gave up my family to pursue my dreams’ Shares 34 YO M’sian woman – In Real Life
‘I gave up my family to pursue my dreams’ Shares 34 YO M’sian woman
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