Hanging onto our tradition

My mother worked herself silly in the lead of to the Year of the Dragon. Over the last 50 years, as far as I can remember, mom has put on a splendid feast for our family. On Chinese New Year Day, if there is nothing else in the shops to eat, chances are if you came to our house in Klang, you can get a very decent meal of mushrooms and chicken, cooked-to-perfection curry, sea cucumber braised with pork leg, fish maw stewed with meat balls and bamboo shoot.


Mom doesn’t do things in bits and pieces. She is not into modest spreads. Besides feasting on her amazing food, what I treasure most is the tradition she has left me. I know as we evolve, our culture and tradition take on their own shape-shifting. Just as Christmas is not complete with Christmas pudding, for me, Chinese New Year is not complete without pineapple tarts! I miss mom’s cooking and her disproportionately ambitious spreads.

I don't have the time to recreate all the dishes mom showed me how to make. What I try to do is recreate some of the things I love. I make pineapple tarts once a year, just to remind myself there is great torture in the labour-intensive process but there is also wondrous satisfaction that comes having extended a bit of an old knowledge that relied mostly on tacit know-how. You can can't tell a person who has never made pineapple jam how to spot a jam that's about to cook. Over the last two years, I have made love letters (kuih kapit), an ultra wafer-like crisp made from rice flour, eggs and coconut milk. I burnt my fingers making these slim biscuits, rang mom a few times to chat about the results. I am please with my effort to keep mom’s knowledge alive.


Over the last 5 years a group of us Malaysian and NZ-Chinese have gotten together to celebrate Chinese New Year. We give the kids a $2-token sum of Ang Pow (red packet) to remind them of the Chinese tradition of wishing your elders longevity and happiness and health. My kid, like all kids, is more interested in the money and how much she can stash up. I am sure over time, when she gets older, the tradition will sink in – she will realise wishing someone longevity is akin to spreading hope and positive potential. She will realise what she has experienced is something uniquely hers, it might be buried and hidden but can be nurtured and extended far into the future.


We don’t stop often enough to celebrate our culture and its nourishing effect on our soul. Traditions not only give us a distinctive flavour. Traditions bind us to a past which has become increasingly hard to define in a world whose dominant culture is globalisation of brands and consumer offerings. Without the anchor of our tradition, we are set up to be driftwoods in a global world that’s increasingly amorphous yet ambitious in its zest for same-ness and hegemony.

While our children sit in front of their computers, ipods hooked onto their ears, fingers fast flying over their face booking activity, it is good to know we can give them what it means to be who we are by the simple act of getting once a year to feast on familiar homemade food our moms used to make and to enjoy the happiness brought by friends and the good fortune of health and happiness.

I have a mom who read me stories

Mother’s Day came and went. I rang mom to wish her “Happy Mother’s Day”…she was happy that I rang, happy that I remembered. I hadn’t organised any presents although on her birthday, which was just a few days ago, I organised some chocolates and cake online for arrival on her birthday.

Mom loves cakes, in fact, she loves anything sweet. When she gets angry, she often takes out her biscuit tins or chocolate bars, if any, and munches. It must be for the sugar rush, and the high it provides.

Mom spent a lot of time on the call telling me what the domestic helper is doing wrong. For Mom, I am the boxer’s punch bag…I listen to her as she vents her frustrations.

There is much to say about Mom’s threshold levels – she has a very high tresh hold, for pain and suffering, and hard work. I hope I can develop such high tresh holds.

On this particular Mother’s Day, I am reminded of one of Mom's golden rules, one which I use on Princess as well. Never default on the time you should get home from school.

I remember once, after Chinese school, I was playing in the rain, oblivious to the rule that I was to head home right after school. Some friends of mine were playing in the courtyard, and I lingered to watch, then got tempted to stay, a bit longer. Then I got attracted to the game they were playing in the school courtyard, so I too stayed, to participate in the game. It was nearly dusk, and the sky was turning somewhat grey and dull. There was a surreal feeling to the school yard, all empty except for a bunch of school kids having a good time. I forgot the golden rule.

Mom came looking for me. I froze the minute I saw her. It was almost like death had come to visit. I knew for sure I would get a good walloping when I got home. No words were spoken as I trailed behind her on our way home. Me the errant sheep returned to the fold. My skin burned with shame, as I trudge behind her, in hurried steps. I could see fury written all over her face. I learnt my lesson that day.

I remember this incident because this is one of mom’s many golden rules that Princess has taken to heart. If there are changes to the time she needs to get home, she has to inform me, where ever she may be. I love this golden rule.

Once, I broke a set of tea cups when my skipping rope dragged an entire tray of cups onto the floor. My friends and I were livid with fear, watching the family cups crash into tiny pieces. My great grandmother was furious and cursing us in a language not suited for kids. I thought I would die from a good hiding. But mom didn’t even seem that bothered. She told me to pick up the pieces. No fuss over the shattered cups. I think the cups were not important for her. She knew how to distinguish between what is really important, and what is not. Breaking tea cups was a small matter in her scheme of things. Not keeping time was a major sin.

I have a mom who loves a good yarn. How many nights have I spent listening eagerly to her interpreting for us, her readings from a Chinese newspaper serial of the story of a mute and how unwanted and unloved he was. How many nights have I wished I was the maiden traipsing across the bridge of birds as she went to meet her love, the cowherd. How many nights have I wondered about how lucky I was to be born in an era where girls were allowed education, not like the Butterfly Lovers (Liang San Bao, Zhu Ying Tai) where the heroin had to disguise herself as a man to get an education. How many times have I heard stories of the bizarre, of a maiden whose tummy grew full of scorpions due to evil magic, of crickets who grew so large, they terrorised me in my dreams.
(image:sourced from ebeijing.gov.cn)

If there is one thing I grew up with, it is mom’s love for romance, adventures, tragedies, or tales of sword and sorcery found in novels and movies. Once I woke up at 3am in our apartment, then in Singapore, to see the lights on in her room (her sister was visiting as well). I turned the knob of the door to see a sea of tissues on the floor, and two red-eye women, sniffling their hearts out to a tragic Cantonese serial! They burst out laughing when they saw me. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or despair!

Here’s a poem I love that depicts in part my mom’s love for adventures and her love for newspaper serials and wuxia (sword and sorcery) serials. Thanks mom for all the stories you gave me as a child. Happy Mother’s Day!


The Reading Mom

I had a Mother who read to me
Saga of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath.

I had a mother who read to me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings-
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!

I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be-
I had a Mother who read to me.

I had a mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness blent with his final breath.

By Gillian, Strickland, "The Reading Mother."

On mothers and parenting skills

Asians tend to “mother” their children to death. I shan’t argue with that. Mum brought me up to be somewhat of a clone of herself. She used to tell me what to do, how to dress and much more. She loves her perms. So she thinks I should have perms. But I hate perms. Always have. I remember how she used to insist I need to perm my fringe. Why I hate perms I do not know. But I think ever since I had hair, mum wanted them permed!

Every school holiday, mum used to march me to 3rd Aunt’s home-based hair saloon. I was too compliant to resist. I was also too polite to tell 3rd Aunt how I hated perms. So, after every school holiday, I end up looking like one of the Three Stooges. And every time 3rd Aunt finished my perm, I would politely pretend how nice my perm looked and Aunty would look at me as her masterpiece.

But ever since I found freedom as a “young adult”, I never had another perm. And I never allowed any hairdresser to tell me I need a perm to lift my limb hair. I like my hair the way it is, straight, unpermed – thank you.

Turning into mum
One would think that I would have learnt. But why do I insist Princess of the House ties her hair this or that way when she goes to school? Or why do I insist Princess puts on a proper pair of pants or tights when we go for our hospital visits or to the movies? Perhaps I am turning into a mum who "over mothers".

I read once that you can’t raise spiritual children unless you and your husband/partner have the same spiritual qualities you seek in your children. How true. You can’t teach your child to be truthful when you constantly lie. You can’t make a child hardworking if you display an excessive liking for slothfulness. I am mindful I am a living example for my child.

Mum is my living example. We never used to have much money growing up. But mum fed not only our family but kids who came to play with us. Mum made cookies for Chinese New Year, not only for us, but for the entire clan. I haven’t had a single friend of mine who has met mum who doesn’t fall in love with her immediately.

Storehouse of strength
I have been looking at my mum closely lately, mostly as a storehouse of strength and wisdom. A kind of person whose qualities I would like to assimilate. And whose qualities I hope someday, Princess will come to appreciate too.

Today, when I spoke to her on the phone, she tells me she had a spectacular failure making one of our favourite Chinese New Year cookies – Kuih Bangkit. It is a cookie made out of tapioca starch, coconut and eggs. Made properly, it crumbles in your mouth – a perfect blend of coconut sweetness with the scent of the pandan leaf lingering in your mouth, perking your senses. Made badly, it is cookie whose taste you want to easily and quickly forget. Mum tasted my version when she was here last May. She pronounced me fit to make the cookie – an image in her own likeness, I think, I was. She laughed -- about how she, the mother wave has turned into a ripple, and I have become the next wave in the ocean.

Mum potty trained all of us from the time we were born – by potty train, I mean she held up our legs as babies and trained us to do our ablutions early in the morning so our bowels recognised it was time to move. My brothers and I never had problems in that department.

Mum didn’t smack us willy-nilly. She smacked us when she wanted us to learn a real lesson. Mum didn’t compare herself to those who had a better life than hers. She used to tell me in Hokkien “lang bi lang, kah toh pi yian tang” which loosely translated means you can never ever compare yourself, nor a part of your leg to the smoke pipes.” I take it to mean, don’t ever be foolish enough to make unnecessary or non-useful comparisons.

Never hurry a person at a meal
Mum doesn't like to rush people when they are in the middle of a meal. “You can hurry a person when he gets born, or when he is about to leave the word. But never, ever hurry a person when he eats,” she used to tell me.

Mum is extravagant in how she treats everyone but stingy in how she treats herself. She is a maniac when it comes to cleanliness. In this department, I am such an inferior sub-specie compared to her. I like randomness, she likes order. She loves and worships beautiful clothes, I treat them like pieces of material to wrap around myself.

So, today, when we chatted, I am reminded again, of how generous mum has been, and always will be. We said our goodbyes on the telephone when I had to rush off to pick Princess from school. She said “thank you” for my time, and my call, and tells me to take care of myself. And I couldn’t help laugh at the irony. Shouldn't I be the one thanking her, and telling her to take care?