Archive for the 'East v. West' Category

For many of us over a certain age, the digital revolution has really changed our lives in a dramatic way - especially if you compare how things are now with what we were doing 30 years ago. I’ve written about such stark contrasts in my post about the difficulties and costs of phoning home to Malaysia from the UK in the 1970s and touched on how our working lives have changed because of the computer. So my interest was immediately sparked when I came across a post on music players on Say Lee’s blog A Pleasant Surprise(s), a personal blog from a Malaysian emigre to Florida, USA, talking about his daily life, family and musings on Chinese and Buddhist philosophy.

He wrote about his experiences of listening to music over the decades, starting with vinyl records played on a gramaphone and progressing via the Sony Walkman to today’s MP3 players. It reminded me of fiddling around with a cassette recorder and leads trying to tape vinyl records off my parents hi-fi so we could listen to taped music in the car. And of songs getting stuck on the turn-table if there was a scratch on the record. And the pain of having your favourite tape chewed by the tape machine and trying to unravel the mess of brown tangle from the mechanism - especially if you’d actually bought the cassette and had no other back up of it.

On the other hand, it was fun to sit around with friends passing the record sleeve around, reading the lyrics from the insert and gazing at the big photos of your favourite singer or band. And making mixer tapes of songs for your friends, writing out the titles by hand and decorating the tape box with stickers. Sure, MP3 players and iPods are much more efficient and easy and portable but doing things the old-fashioned way had a fun of its own, too.

Say Lee also writes about Chinese traditions like the Moon Cake Festival and finds opportunities to muse on Buddhist philosophy from everyday moments. I also like the warmth with which he writes about his family and it’s just delightful how he proudly displays his wife’s Chinese watercolours on his blog.

Listening to the BBC World Service the other day, I was reminded how much our perception of beauty is formed by our culture.

The BBC radio programme was about the global obesity crisis and the first episode explored how this major health problem was affecting South Africa. It surprised me that South Africa had this problem - when I switched on the radio at the start of the episode, I was expecting the programme to be talking about fat Americans in Texas or overweight teens in the UK. But the programme reported that not only are South Africans facing early mortality from gun crime, violence, traffic accidents and developing world diseases as well as HIV/ AIDS, they are also now having to deal with the disease of affluent nations: obesity.

What struck me was an experiment that some health experts ran. They showed photographs of a range of people of different shapes and sizes - from the very skinny to the extremely fat - and asked participants to identify which shape represented someone in the bloom of perfect health. The majority pointed to pictures of people who in clinical health terms would be considered obese or overweight. For South Africans, a big, round woman is one who is healthy and prosperous. “The same for men”, one of the interviewees laughed.

And the tragic truth emerges. For them, someone who is slim or skinny is someone who has HIV or AIDS. In today’s world, being thin is associated with the disease that is devastating their country. I imagine that in the past, before AIDS, being thin would have been associated with mal-nourishment, famine and want.

In the West, being beautiful is generally equated with being slim - to the extent that at the extreme end of beautiful in Hollywood movies and TV series, the women are skinny, gaunt and sometimes on the verge of anorexia. Sometimes, when I watch a series like O.C. I find myself wondering how the actresses have the energy to move around as they look like they eat nothing but celery sticks. The most extreme was that period of “heroin chic” when glossy magazines were plastered with pictures of emaciated young women made to look deliberately as if they were ill from drugs.

In other parts of the world, like Africa and Asia, rounder, fleshier women are considered more attractive, with pudginess being associated with health and prosperity. Meeting someone who has gained weight, especially if they have progressed well in their career, it’s quite a compliment to say, “Aah, you’re looking prosperous” - I’ve said that in London to people I haven’t seen for awhile (Westerners): interestingly, they’ve all understood the subtext of that comment but, to my embarrassment, they have been slightly offended by it. I’m switching to “Aah, you’re looking very well”, which has the advantage of being neutral!

The trouble with being bigger than you need to be is that you’re then in the front line for getting diabetes, heart problems and other nasty diseases. It also makes you more prone to side-effects when under medication and it’s more difficult to recover from trauma like operations.

For me, I’m lucky enough to have a reasonably good metabolism so that I’ve never had to struggle to keep my weight within the appropriate parameters for my height. However, as I’m getting a bit older these days, I find that I do have to watch what I eat and be more diligent about exercising. The alarm trigger I use to warn me when I’m getting tubby is the moment when my stomach can feel itself when I sit down - you know, because of the crease that appears when you’ve got more stomachs than you really need… My theory is that if I can keep away from that crease, I’ll be keeping away from the slippery slope of weight gain. So, I’m off for a jog now the moment I finish this post….

Additional resources

Listen to Part 1 of the BBC series “Globesity” or download it as an mp3.

Go to the BBC’s website on Globesity

News item: “South Africans as fat as Americans”

Photo: from the BBC Globesity website

My young nephew started boarding school last week and all of us were excited and anxious for him all at the same time. I remembered my first week at boarding school and all the new experiences to take in, the main one being that this was not home and I had to learn to adapt to living with hundreds of other girls who were all in the same boat as me.

One of the other difficult things I had to get used to was playing sport. We’re not a sporty family and in Chinese tradition, there is a veneration for “scholars” - ie “swots” to the Brits - and much less respect given to sporty types who are considered “all brawn and no brain”. So my siblings and I were never encouraged to play sports when we were in primary school in Malaysia. We all wore glasses at an early age and read lots of books. At P.E. time, my swotty friends and I would stand around on the sidelines while the other girls did star jumps etc and the teacher never tried very hard to make us join in.

So imagine my horror at being thrown out into the autumn afternoons in my first term at school in England to go and play lacrosse. The air to my tropical skin was icy. Sometimes it was grey and drizzling and in such conditions in Malaysia, we would stay indoors
or be sure we had a brolly with us. But while I hesitated on the doorstep, the other girls would pound out into the damp - and the sports mistress would hurry me along with words to the effect of: “A little bit of rain never hurt anyone”.

Lacrosse - or “lax” as the girls called it - was originally a Native-American sport. You can see a game of it in the Daniel Day-Lewis film “The Last of the Mohicans” - and it was pretty brutal, I recall. A History of Native American Lacrosse states rather ominously, “In the past, lacrosse also served to vent aggression, and territorial disputes between tribes were sometimes settled with a game, although not always amicably.” In photos of the modern American version of the game, the players wear body armour, as you can see on the right.

But we’re talking here about a British gals’ boarding school. Mention safety and body armour and you’re likely to get the response: “Stuff and nonsense, don’t be so namby-pamby - like those Americans”.

So there I was, much tinier and scrawnier than many of the solid, broad-shouldered Anglo-Saxon gals who had been brought up all their lives on brisk walks, fresh air and a belief that exercise and sport were good for you - for your health and your character. They all seemed to cradle the lax stick with natural athleticism and be able to run across the huge, enormous, vast, ginormous tracts of land that was the playing field without breaking into a paroxysm of gasping and panting and coughing. The ball is small but very heavy and yet, they could throw and catch it with the lax stick deftly and with control. My ball always just plopped onto the ground a few feet away from me - and I was terrified whenever I had to catch it ungainfully with my outstretched stick in case I missed and it hit me on the head.

But the most horrifying moment was when we were actually playing a game and I had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and the ball landed in my lax stick. The gals from the other team would all come bearing down on me, thundering like a herd of bison, mud kicking up in clumps. My team-mates would be calling to me to pass them the ball or to run into an opening but invariably, I’d scamper about rather ineffectually or just plain freeze.

Now, the thing about lax is that it all happens around the level of your head. You cradle the lax stick upright, the netty bit holding the ball switching back and forth in front of your face as you run. If someone is trying to get the ball off you, they whack your stick with theirs to knock the ball out. You’re supposed to body block them, twisting the stick away from attack.

So imagine a herd of thundering bison storming down at you brandishing lax sticks as if about to swipe your head off.

It just seemed so much easier to give the ball to them - like what you’re supposed to do if you’re ever mugged. Just give them the wallet or the money. Or the ball. So I’d make a pathetic attempt to throw the ball - not a proper pass to one of my team-mates but more a “here, take it, I don’t want it” kind of a gesture.

And off they would thunder, scrumming after the ball, trying to pick it up from the mud or tackling another braver gal, cracking and whacking at each other’s sticks. And I’d be left alone. Relieved and alive.

These days I’m a little bit more robust and a little bit more sporty. I go for runs. I even run in the rain. I’ve turned British, after all. But whenever there’s a team sport - like at various law firms where I’ve worked, some bright spark rustles up a game of football or rounders with another law firm or a client - my heart sinks and my stomach turns itself into knots. OK, it’s not lax or anything terrifying they’re proposing but the trauma and humiliation of team lacross and letting my team-mates down has scarred me for life!

Photos: thanks to devilblink via flickr.com and sportcamp101.com

I never liked Continental breakfasts. To me, a Continental breakfast is a dry bread roll, a dollop of butter and some tasteless jam. Given the choice in most hotels between an English breakfast and a Continental one, I’d go for the bacon, sausage, fried egg, mushrooms, fried bread, grilled tomato and baked beans every time. It’s a no-brainer.

But then, when we were on holiday in Delft a couple of weeks ago, we stayed at the Hotel Emauspoort and they served a Continental breakfast that has changed my life. Well, my eating habits anyway.

Buffet-style, they laid out home-made warm and fluffy croissants and an array of rye bread, fruit bread and other baked goodies. We could help ourselves to cheese, ham, salami, gherkin and boiled eggs. There was a bottomless bowl of fresh fruit salad with strawberries and jugs of fresh orange juice. There was yoghurt and milk and cereal, too.

After the first morning, I found myself day-dreaming about the next day’s breakfast, already feeling the croissant break crisply and yet softly in my hands, tasting it’s fresh, yeasty, buttery flavour in my mouth. I just loved that European mix of cheese and cold meats and gherkin in the morning - excellent for protein and yet light and refreshing. And afterwards, a bowl of fresh fruit salad to cleanse the palate.

The next weekend, I was back in London and we went out for breakfast with a friend. I had an English breakfast and found myself not really enjoying the over-salty, chewy bacon and the over-salty sausage and that oily full feeling you get with fried foods. I longed for the fresh tastes of Delft.

I’d always enjoyed the British morning fry-up - it’s what this country specialises in. Now, it looked like its place in my Breakfast Hall of Fame was about to be eclipsed by the rising star of a Dutch breakfast. Was the breakfast at the Hotel Emauspoort really the best breakfast I’d had to date? It got me thinking about the other great breakfasts I’d ever had.

Alongside the English breakfast, I’ve also loved the so-called American or cowboy breakfast - steak, egg and hash browns. When I was on a road trip across California and Arizona years ago, we’d often walk over to a diner like Denny’s from our motel room and I’d indulge in a fortifying steak and black coffee before setting off in the car.

In Malaysia, breakfast could be anything from deep fried or steamed dumplings to prawn noodle soup, nasi lemak, laksa, curry and fried noodles. The Chinese Dim Sum is a selection of tidbits that in some places is eaten as breakfast. There’s something special about sitting at a table in a Malaysian market next to a steaming vat of curry parked on a three-wheeled motorbike, with the chaos and noise of the stalls and traders around you, eating laksa in the early morning.

If I had to choose my favourite breakfast in the world, which would it be?

Oh dear, I can’t make a choice. I love them all.

English fry-up? Laksa? Steak?

If you forced me to choose, I’ll have to go for the steak, egg and fries - the American breakfast. Perhaps it’s because it reminds me of the open vistas of Arizona. Perhaps its that satisfying feeling of being set for the day, packed with protein and good coffee - and without being as oily or salty as an English breakfast.

At any rate, it looks like the delicate taste of fluffy croissants in a charming European setting is great but just not great enough to be my No. 1 Favourite Breakfast of All Time!

What’s your Favourite Breakfast?

I’m going to tag some bloggers to see what their Favourite Breakfasts are:

1. My cousin Pey Colborne, who is a poet and also a foodie. Her blog has photos of meals she’s about to have and that her husband (what a star!) has made for her. She’s bound to have something (poetic?) to say about great breakfasts.

2. Massage therapist and friend Melanie Crowe, who is South African but based in the UK. She blogs about massage, de-stressing and health. I’m curious to know if she’s fond of fry-up breakfasts or if she eats tasty yet healthy breakfasts.

3. Silvia Cambie, who is my associate and co-author of New Trends in International Public Relations, is Italian and now also lives in the UK. She has lived all over Europe so I’m hoping she can share some breakfast delights from the Continent.

When you’ve been tagged, the rules of this tagging game are:

A. Blog on the theme of My Favourite Breakfast on your blog.

B. Link back to (i) the person who tagged you AND (ii) to this originating post My Favourite Breakfast on Fusion View.

C. Tag three more bloggers to share the fun.

D. Refer back to these rules on your blog.

Even if you haven’t been tagged, you can still share your thoughts (or tastes!) - add a comment or email me. Or write about it on your blog, link back to this post and follow the rules A-D.

Photo: thanks to fremontdock.com

This is the last in my series on the influence of food in my life. Having cried over English school food and introduced my Uni friends to nasi lemak and laksa, it’s time to bring the English over to tropical Malaysia for some real treats…

When I’ve brought my English friends back to Malaysia for a holiday, they are always taken by the hospitality and friendliness of my extended family and my Malaysian friends. Uncles and aunts and cousins always make a point of inviting us all out for a huge slap-up meal, making sure that the UK visitors try the tastiest and most exotic dishes. My local friends take us out to the pasar malam for hawker food that my guests have never experienced before. The challenge seems to be to offer the wildest and most unusual foods to the mat salleh. My great-aunt had the dubious honour of being the Malaysian that gave my first boyfriend fried pig’s fallopian tubes. Some cousins brought a huge pile of the stinkiest durians for a group of my friends from law college. Other family members came up with a plate of chicken’s feet fried in soy sauce. My UK friends have all gamely tried everything, winning the hearts of the Malaysians - and their respect. One French girl I brought to KL was sniffy and picky about what she ate and point blank refused to even taste some dishes. No-one liked her. And eventually, I found, neither did I and she was dropped from my address book.

The food highlight experience for my visiting Western friends used to be a trip to the wet market in Pudu. My mum used to do all her grocery shopping there until traffic and parking made it impossible. When she first got married to my father, my father’s mother took her to the market and introduced her to all the stallholders there, saying, “This is my daughter-in-law, treat her well. If you cheat her, you have me to answer to.” Once every few weeks, my mum would put on her oldest clothes, take off all her jewellry and put on her marketing shoes and head to Pudu market early in the morning. So we would wake our visitors before dawn and all pile in to the back of her car, groggy and half asleep still. At the market, we would follow her to the chicken man and watch as she chose the chickens for him to garotte and throw into a drum of boiling water to loosen the feathers. My friends began to pale. Next, we passed the cute puppy dogs in cages - and no, they are not pets, I would say to our visitors - making our way to the beef butcher, careful not to slip on the blood from the decapitated cow on the slab. Now, my friends were turning green. My mother would then buy vegetables and fruit and spices and head back to pick up the chickens and some chunky roasted pigs trotters for breakfast, the smell of spices and fruit and raw meat mingling in aircon. An hour later, back at home, we would be showered and sitting down to a breakfast of pigs trotter congee while my English friends looked ill, asking weakly for some dry toast. “If you eat meat, you should know where it comes from,” my mother would say. “At the market, you know it’s fresh and just killed for you.” And even as they nodded, I would see my friends pining for the shrink-wrapped sanctuary of a Tescos.

Of course, Malaysia is more than its food and Malaysians abroad and at home have achieved impressive and astonishing things in the 50 years since independence. But for me, food and meals have brought people together for millenia. To sit together around a spread of food, whether at a table or on the floor or on a mat on the bare ground, people and cultures have met each other at the deepest level since civilisation began. At a meal, in past centuries, they left their weapons and differences outside. These days, we don’t carry weapons but most of us try to leave our differences outside at meals with friends and family. We share and eat each other’s foods and also our personal stories and cultures. Even a lunch of baked beans on toast told me in more than words about the UK I had come to back in 1975 in the same way that an abundance of durians told my UK friends something about Malaysians and their sense of humour and pride. In the simple, natural act of sharing our food with others in the countries we travel to, I feel that Malaysians abroad have shared - and continue to share - what is truly valuable about who we are: warmth, generosity of spirit, joy in the good life, graciousness and common humanity.

Photos: scenes from Pudu Market - my photo album c. 1995

lffd

I have no words for this …

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Thanks to drewb for first flagging this to me

Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe won the Man Booker international prize earlier this month and in The Guardian article prompted by this award, the writer refers to him as “a relatively obscure but richly merited choice.” She then pauses and asks the question: “Obscure for whom?” and goes on to say, “I was struck anew by how towering figures in world literature can fall beneath the radar in the west, or slip from memory.”

It reminded me again how West-o-centric our sense of culture, art and literature tends to be. Even our sense of civilization, innovation, invention and discovery. Part of it is to due to the West’s love of the arts and a belief in the arts power to illuminate, uplift and educate - as well as in its use to entertain, communicate and persuade. We see all over the world stories in fiction, film, theatre and art created and disseminated by Western creatives. There is a power in these stories that reaches out across cultures to move the human heart - whether to anger, laughter, compassion or tears. That’s down to the skill of great story-telling. But inevitably those stories place the Westerner and Western values at their core. Why? Because we all like to hear stories about ourselves so of course the West will tell stories about themselves and gravitate towards stories about themselves.

In the same way that Malaysians or Nigerians or Indians and so on like to hear stories about themselves.

So, it was that West-o-centric view that created the great discoverers of olden days. Off Columbus went to “discover” America. Off Raffles went to “discover” Singapore. One might equally ask, “Discover for whom?” Thanks very much but for the Native Americans, they already knew that America was there. As did the Malays and Chinese with Singapore.

I remember an old Punch magazine cartoon which showed Sir Edmund Hillary arriving at the top of Mount Everest full of self-satisfied, over-excited bug-eyed joy at his great achievement for mankind. In the background is a family of Indians, the ladies in saris, having a picnic - all turning to gaze bemused at this mad Englishman. (The cartoon I am sure was drawn by an Englishman!)

I have many questions: is this so-called “cultural imperialism” to do with there not being enough great writers / artists in non-Western cultures? Or is it to do with a bias towards stories about “us” by people like “us”? Is it to do with different levels of education, literacy and appreciation of the value of art in different cultures? Or is it something more banal like the economic power of Western nations to create and distribute more widely their artistic products?

Photo: of Columbus and the people he “discovered” thanks to umich.edu

I just came across the blog Global Culture which is a fascinating read and could keep me up for hours tonight if I don’t consciously pull myself away. It’s “a blog on migration, globalization and their impact on global culture”. It’s categories of posts include topics on Global Culture, Local Culture, Ethnosphere, Multiculturism, Folksonomy alongside Diversity, Migration and Diasporas. A must read for anyone who’s interested in cross-culture - as I am and I expect as most of you are!

The blog’s creator is someone called Juan who says of himself: “When I’m not blogging I create technologies that allow global citizens to tap the true power of the web to express their culture and in the process redefine the mechanisms by which travellers immerse themselves in local cultures, facilitating the spread of cosmopolitanism.” That’s a rather cool job, I have to say.

In the sidebar, Juan has posted this poll:

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Global Culture Poll

What is the most important tool of the Global Citizen?

* Money
* Dictionary
* Travel Guide
* Camera

I was going to vote but then I couldn’t make a choice out of those four items. I hesitated, I think, because the choice I wanted to vote for wasn’t in the list. It took me a few moments of pondering to reach towards the semi-formed thought in my mind. What was it that is - for me - the most important tool of the Global Citizen?

Curiosity.

Okay, technically, that’s not a tool. It’s a quality or a state of mind. But I suppose in my mind, nothing else matters if, as a Global Citizen, you don’t have that: curiosity.

You see how I could stay up all night exploring Global Culture? Just a fun little poll like that gets me thinking and mulling and questioning….

As I said, what a great site.

Photo: from Global Culture

Reuters reports that according to research done by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, most of the 1.3 billion people in China share only 1000 surnames. At least 100,000 people share the name “Wang Tao”, for example. The report states:

“Police in China, where most of the 1.3 billion people share just 100 surnames, are considering rules which would combine both parents’ family names to prevent so much duplication, state media said on Tuesday.

The report gave no details of the Public Security Ministry’s motives for seeking the change, but use of so few names by so many often sows confusion and must presumably hamper police work.”

My surname Ooi is very unusual and strange in the UK. There are probably only a handful of us in the phone books - and three of those would be me, my brother and sister. It’s difficult for Westerners to pronounce and they can never believe it when I spell it for them that it’s all vowels only. I’ve been variously called “Oi”/ “Oy”/ “Doi” and of course, double-oh-one.

But in Malaysia, it’s a fairly common name - and no doubt, it is pretty common in China, too. When my British friends have come to visit in Malaysia, they are always surprised to see Ooi all over the place.

The Chinese pictorial diagram for it is “yellow” so it’s the same surname as Wong or Wang or Whang and they are all pronounced differently because they are different dialects of Chinese.

So over in the West, I have the fantasy of thinking of myself as rather unique but I’m not really, of course!

I have been posting occasional posts by my father about his Memories of Malaya. He celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this year and recently found time to write another piece for the family about our family traditions in the time of British rule over Malaya. He writes his memories as an email to our family, who are spread out all over the world, and I edit and share the ones which have a wider general interest here on Fusion View.

While my mother’s side of the family are staunch Methodist Christians, my father’s side of the family comes from a Buddhist tradition. I grew up going to Sunday School and reading Bible stories so it’s really interesting for me to learn more about the traditions from the other side of the family.

He writes:

British rule

I grew up in Malaysia and until I was in my late teens in 1957 the country was one of the many British colonial possessions. There were roughly two kinds of colonial possessions, one, a colony and the other a British protected possession. The first is ruled directly from Whitehall and the other is one where the local chieftain or sultan had entered into a treaty with the British Government where the former had asked for British protection usually against other local chieftains, sultans or neighbouring states. The British Government then sent a British Adviser to help in the administration of the local chieftain or sultan. He would also set up the administrative institutions and infrastructure not unlike those of a colony and for practical purpose the country was administered like that of a colony. Examples of a colony were Singapore, Penang, Malacca, Hong Kong etc. Malaya is an example of the second type. The empire had not only a vast mix of racial types who spoke their own languages practised their own customs and worshipped their own gods. In all these respects British colonial policy was benign. There was no compulsions of any kind: the natives and immigrants need not go to English language schools, worship the Christian god in the manner of the Anglicans nor eat with knife and forks nor dress in suites. They did interfere to do away with inhuman customs or practices like widow burning or slavery. The policy of generally not interfering with local family laws, customs and cultural practices prevailed. The British must have adopted these policies from the examples of the Romans in their dealings with their empire. There was therefore little serious social or political tension in the possessions they ruled.

Taoists

In our households like most Chinese household who were not Christians, we were actually Taoists although without very clear thinking we regarded and called ourselves Buddhists. We worshipped various gods and goddesses with an altar and little statuettes of each of them. I do not think we were even pure Taoist although to this day I do not know what Taoism is. A Buddhist generally means a person who follows Buddha’s teachings and there is no image or statuettes and no worship other then paying respect to a statuette or painting of Buddha in the usual eastern way of paying respect, by kneeling and the bowing to them. I will continue to refer to ourselves as Buddhists although by this it is really the kind of Taoism I have described above.

Daily rituals

There were certain daily rituals to be performed. In the morning after my Mother or the servant, Ah Hoe Chey (AHC) had done their morning toilet, they would place one joss stick for one deity into a bowl filled with a kind of grey powder which held the joss stick in upright position and would kneel with hands clasped bowed to each deity in turn.

The gods and goddesses were placed in a row on a long altar table and going from left to right they were the following:

1. the “Heavenly Emperor”: there is no image of Him. I think he rules the heaven;
2. the Warrior God (Kuan Kong): He was not a god to help people to fight wars like the Roman god, Mars. In his life on earth he was a warrior in the classical period of Chinese history; after his death, a cult arose in paying respect to him and sometimes people who did so also asked for favours and they were granted and he became deified like some Roman emperors although there is no record of a dead emperor granting any favours. There was a painting of him in his warrior robes famously with tucked up eye brows with a red face with two lieutenants standing beside him.
3. the Goddess of Mercy (Koong Yum): She was a human at one time who did a lot of good deeds and was known for her filial piety. Her life was portrayed in a film version with a famous Chinese star playing her part and there was a scene where she was shown to pluck out her own eyes to use them to cure her mother. Again she was deified after her death because she still performed good deeds in her answers to prayers. There was a small statuette of her made of white porcelain looking serene and benign, like a caring and loving mother.
4. next to her there was the Monkey God. There was a little statuette of him dressed in a yellow robe in the style of the classical Chinese time but with the face of a monkey. I do not know what his position is in the pantheon. I think it arose as follows: there is a Chinese legend that a Chinese monk traveled to India to receive the Buddhist scriptures and his traveling companions included two persons one with feature of a pig and the other a monkey and the legend is full of stories of their adventures in their journey to India. He must be the one with the features of a monkey. Because of this god in our house we would not use the ordinary word of monkey “ma lau” but a more polite word.

There was a small altar at the foot of the altar table. I do not know what god is represented there. There is the god of the kitchen who had a small altar over the kitchen stoves. He reports to the Heavenly Emperor at the end of each Chinese calendar year on the deeds of the household. On most mornings either Mother or AHC would chant prayers from a prayer book and this lasted about fifteen minutes.

First and fifteenth

On the first and fifteenth day of each Chinese calendar month the worship of these deities were a little more elaborate in that the appropriate temples must be visited and worship conducted there. The more religious minded, like Mother and AHC, would not eat meat for the two days. The temples would provide free vegetarian food for these two days for anyone who attended them whether they worshipped or not. In addition to joss sticks, joss papers were burnt.

Feast days

In addition to the daily prayers most Chinese also celebrate other feast days many of which were not religious but involved the cycles of the earth around the sun. The first major festival in the calendar is the Spring Festival or more usually known as Chinese New Year. Like all humanity it is a celebration of the beginning of new life - wearing of new clothes, cleaning house so that it looks new, wishing good fortune for the New Year. In our household we children wanted presents left near where we slept like on Christmas Eve. So we had Mother to give us presents in this manner. In one year Mother gave us a small magnifying glass to complement our stamp collection and packets of stamps and fountain pens. Father did not have relationship with his relatives except his elder brother. Mother was the only child. So we had no relatives to have to visit except Father’s elder brother and two ladies whom, like all Chinese, we call aunts although we were not related but were only Mother’s friends. We therefore received very few red packets and were impressed when some of school friends who related the amount they received. For the first day of the Chinese New Year even we children ate vegetarian and AHC made some delicious vegetarian food. When we grew up in secondary school Father would allow us to see any number of film shows for the two days of holidays. Normally we were allowed to see one film a week. So we packed as many as 3 shows into a day.

There was the mid-summer celebration which occurs on the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar. This is a harvest festival and the moon is supposed to be at its biggest and brightest. Children would stroll around the garden of their houses holding lighted lanterns.

There is the day the winter solstice is celebrated when everyone eats little dough balls cooked in sugared water with ginger. I personally did not like them but Mother did very much.

There is All Souls Day where families go to the graves of parents or grandparents to pay their respects and render filial piety by cutting grass and sweeping away rubbish around the graves. About 14 days are given for this duty. I feel very touched when I see photographs of cemeteries filled with the Chinese doing this. I know of several persons who have travelled from as far as Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to perform this duty and I have just heard a few days ago that a friend traveled from Hong Kong where he worked to do this duty.

Cowherd and the weaver girl

There is one particularly romantic festival and it occurs on the seventh day of the seven month in the Chinese calendar. It is the festival of the “Cowherd and the weaver girl.” A long time ago there was a cowherd who tended the cows and a girl who weaved cloth. They were so enamoured and spent time mooning over each other that they neglected their chores. The gods became angry at this and separated them and permitted them only to meet for that one day in a year on the rainbow bridge and it is this that the earthlings now celebrate. I think this would make a splendid opera. Imagine the last scene where the young couple meets on a rainbow bridge singing duets of love and longing and below on earth the people dance and sing in celebration of the meeting. Opera composers have always included one scene where there is a lot of spirited music and vigorous dancing and this can be it and be a very fine one too.

There are other festivals but regrettably I cannot remember them.

Deity of little children

When we children celebrated our birthdays we had to worship a very old lady deity whose altar was at the end of our bed. She looks after little children. When I use the word “worship,” I mean that one would kneel put our palms together and bow three times to the altar and if Mother or Grandmother is standing beside us she will prompt us to say “make me a good and filial boy and help me to be successful in the examinations.” To celebrate I had a bowl of rice and as a treat I was given the thigh of a roasted duck all of it for myself. I remember eating it by myself holding it by the bone and it was a treat not to have to eat together as usual with the family. Even then the birthday was not celebrated every year - only when Mother, Grandmother or AHC remembered it.

Photo: thanks to limeydog on flickr.com

memmlya