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Sunlight streamed through our balcony railings in Bonham Strand, casting a mosaic of shadows on the large, round rattan trays propped up between stools in the living room. Layers of taro and sweet potato, shredded and sliced the night before, were strewn in delicate disorder, drying out in the warmth of the late January sun. Marmalade, our cat, having had a lucky escape a few days earlier when she had disappeared down a hole in the floorboards, groomed herself in their cool shade. Nonchalantly she stretched and arched, not bothering to peer up at the unusual sagging roof above her head. She had been to investigate much earlier, in fact when they had first appeared, and must have thought better of it after all the scolding she received from my grandmother. After all, they could hardly be as tantalising as the isolated salty fish my grandmother bought from the market from time to time. Marmalade extended her feline body into a long relaxing stretch, and prepared for another lazy afternoon.
Having just returned from school, my sister and I happily chatted with our grandmother about our day, exchanging details of how the hours had passed and wondering what she had bought for dinner. School offered not only physical space and a degree of freedom but exposure to Western ideology and culture, and interactions and friendships with expatriate children. It was so divorced from the realities of home. I remember one morning, in school assembly, we were told in no uncertain terms not to ask a young boy anything about a film he had just completed. It had not yet been released, but there would be quite a stir when it was. We were told not to treat him differently from any other child at school. His name was Mark Lester, and he had just finished filming the musical ‘Oliver’. He was a year or two above me, and I don’t think he was at my school for long but I do remember walking behind him up the main stairs into the school building, and he was indeed just another kid in the playground.
The world we shared with our grandmother was seeped in Chinese traditions, myths and practices; spirits and ancestral worship, festivals rich in symbolism and rituals affirming the delicate harmony between Heaven and Earth and the continuity of life after death. I don’t remember much physical contact, apart from when I was very young and carried on my grandmother’s back. There were no warm hugs or cuddles, that wasn’t the way – but she constantly showed us love by her constant and unquestioning care, the food she cooked and the giving of herself. Using the Cantonese dialect with my grandmother reinforced that special relationship, and kept it separate from the bubbled Western world I inhabited whilst at school.
Being the family elder, my grandmother always made it her duty to see that we had new outfits for the ‘coming of the year’, for it would bring us luck and good health. Amongst the other preparations, she took time out to sew us a pair of trousers, for the Cantonese word for trousers (fu) is a pun on the word meaning ‘good luck’. In later years, when as teenagers we abandoned home -tailored cotton pants for more fashionable attire, she gave us the money to buy a pair of Texwood denim jeans. They were all the rage then. She also took time to create for us young girls the most luxurious padded jacket (meen lap) from the finest silk brocade she could afford. I couldn’t wait for the Lunar New Year’s Day. I had helped choose the material myself, a delicate motif of pretty blossoms upon a sea of green, and I had watched my grandmother create the jacket out of almost nothing, a tailor’s triangular chalk to one side, her large dressmaking scissors at the ready, bits of newspaper cut out as a pattern and pinned together, and a small saucer of gluey flour to hold smaller fragments in place. After the body of the jacket had been put together, every detail and finishing touch would be hand sewn with expert precision. This particular year, I was going to have a traditional maiden’s jacket, which fastened in a gentle curve down the right side. No child’s design for me that year. I had tried it on for size a few nights before, and swooned in its cool soft luxury. I felt held by love. It was so light and warm and comfortable. It was very special and when not in use my treasure was stored in a wooden chest under my grandmother’s bed.
‘Have you finished eating now?’ my grandmother asked as my sister and I shoved the last crumbs of wafer into our mouths. ‘I need to go out, to buy things for the New Year sweet box. Are you two coming with me?’
I volunteered instantly. ‘Have we got lots to buy?’ I asked eagerly.
‘Well, probably not that much really. All this we’ll be frying tonight,’ my grandmother answered, waving her arms in the general direction of the baskets by the balcony. ‘The usual. Candied fruits, lotus seeds, coconut triangles, that sort of thing. Oh, and red melon seeds, white pumpkin seeds. So, are you coming?’
That evening, after dinner, the main preparations for the New Year began. Earlier in the afternoon, my grandmother had kneaded a large quantity of soft smooth dough, from two catties of glutinous rice flour and slabs of jaggery sugar. It was now time for the whole family to work together, cooking traditional sweetmeats for the festival. There was no way we would complete the task in one evening, but spread out over three, it was just about manageable, especially if the adults were prepared to work well into the night. Having consulted her Chinese almanac, my grandmother had chosen the most auspicious day to start the serious preparations, as well as the appropriate days to close the old year, and later, open the new. They would be a day or two apart, sometimes three, but everyone would be there. Even the cousin who had moved out into a bedsit of his own near the harbour would return to take his place at the dinner table.
With flour-covered fingertips, my sister and I sat in the living room, wrapping dumplings filled with mashed sweet red bean, carefully pinching our thumbs and fingers together to seal the seam in a delicate pattern. We never quite got it right, but it was great fun trying. Our father stayed out of the kitchen with us, but declined to get involved in the fiddly details. Instead, his main task was to knead a hard mixture of popcorn and peanuts into solid balls, wrap each in a coat of thinly rolled out dough, finished with a sprinkling of sesame seeds in readiness for a deep fry.
In the kitchen, my grandmother, mother and older female cousin were already standing over a deep wok, dipping long-handled wire scoops into the fiercely-bubbling oil. Each scoop had been individually filled with a generous portion of shredded taro, mixed with sesame seeds and coriander. When cooked, they popped out of their caged confines with ease, filling the kitchen and soon the rest of the flat with the most delicious aroma. Seeing the speckled golden clusters floating in abundance on the surface of the large wok was enough to send the taste buds crazy. Happy chatter ascended the rafters as the hot oil spluttered and popped, each successful batch of taro clusters fuelling the growing excitement. In spite of all the noise, and the apparent chaos, everyone seemed to know what to do and when to do it. No one took any notice of the time, and the minutes ticked away into the early hours of the morning until each individual’s ascribed task had been completed.
By day, we went about our routines as usual. My parents were at work and my sister and I at school, while a cousin already on her Chinese New Year holidays was able to help at home with the extra domestic chores and festival preparations. After the evening meal though, our little flat would be transformed into a workshop of bustling activity. It was exhausting work, but when we woke the next morning, it was as if the elves had come in to lend a helping hand. Every cupboard would be filled with large jars of taro crisps, sweet potato flakes and freshly-roasted peanuts, all mixed together and ready to eat with a little salt and oil. Steel cauldrons were piled high with clusters of golden shredded taro, which crumbled in a delicious heap at the slightest pressure, and pans full of fat dumplings stood on stools in the already overcrowded passageway. A covered steamer balanced rather precariously on a small surface between the kitchen cupboard and a stack of newspapers, filled with dainty crispy puffs, their shapes carefully moulded to resemble moneyboxes and gold nuggets.
No sooner had the cooking finished than the cleaning started. Two days before the New Year, it was time to clean the flat from top to bottom, cleansing it of all bad, in readiness to welcome in only good fortune. After all, there would be no housework on New Year’s Day itself, in case good luck was swept away too. All brooms, brushes, dustpans and other cleaning equipment would be put safely out of harm’s way, as well as any sharp implement. And there was a knack to sweeping the floor too, for sweeping dirt over the threshold meant sweeping one’s family away. To sweep dirt out of the front door is to sweep away the family’s good fortune. Dust and rubbish had to be collected inwards and then carried out, by the back door if possible, so no harm would follow.
Grandmother still had a few other special foods to prepare, and busied herself with a large turnip cake she was steaming in her wok.
On New Year’s Eve, my sister and I returned from school, one of the few in the colony not to have two weeks off for the festive season. But then, I suppose, we did have the two-week Christmas break and now the three public holiday days in which to celebrate, feast and greet our many Chinese visitors.
‘Shall I prepare the laisee packets for you?’ I volunteered as my grandmother was scrubbing the stove, most of the special dinner now either prepared or already cooked.
‘Have you the time?’ she asked me, peering up from behind her thin rimmed spectacles.
‘Oh, yes. I can easily do it for you. There’s no homework set for today. I’ll get the stapler and begin if you tell me what you want done.’
My grandmother washed her hands and went to her room. She brought out bagsful of dollar coins, and a bundle of five-dollar bills.
‘Here,’ she said, placing a box of empty red envelopes on her bed. ‘Just do as many as you can. And fill some with two dollars too’.
Sitting cross-legged on the mat upon my grandmother’s bed, I prepared myself for one of my favourite tasks. I fingered the red envelopes in front of me, studying their designs and debating with myself whether to choose the envelopes with the large Chinese characters or the ones with the pictures of the two children in padded jackets and Chinese hats greeting one another. Or perhaps I could use the old man of longevity, with his characteristic staff in one hand and the peach in the other. Pondering for a while, I wondered which design my grandmother would choose for me when she gave me her special laisee on New Year’s Day. I knew that she paid scant attention to the motif on the packet itself, but I humoured myself, fantasising the choices she might make and reasons why things might be so. These red packets were the only ones my grandmother prepared herself.
‘Come on! Come and offer prayers to your grandfather!’ grandmother shouted out to us as she placed three bowls of steaming rice on a tray in front of the ancestral altar. The smell of burning incense sticks wafted through the air, as if guiding the spiritual essence of the offerings to the world beyond. Two plates of oranges stood guard on either side of a brass incense burner, all three under the mantle of the red tablet, bearing in bold black calligraphy, the family lineage:
You have toiled and laboured in the fields;
May your family reap its harvest.
I watched keenly as the three incense sticks smouldered, hoping Grandfather would enjoy the feast before him. Spread out on a tray were dishes of roast suckling pig and a whole steamed chicken freshly slaughtered in our kitchen that day (the creature had been running amok in there for the past few days, scaring the cat no end and making it even more inconvenient to have our daily bath). There was also grandmother’s special jai, a vegetarian dish made of root and fibrous vegetables, each ingredient chosen for its symbolic meaning. ‘Buddha’s Delight’ it is sometimes called. It included lotus seeds to symbolise many male offspring, ginkgo nuts to represent silver, black moss seaweed as a homonym for exceeding in wealth, bamboo shoots which sounds similar to ‘wishing everyone well’ and my favourite ingredient of all, dried bean curd for fulfilment of wealth and happiness. Fresh bean curd is never used on special occasions, for white is an unlucky colour and signifies death and misfortune.
Towards the front of the tray, facing the altar, were three sets of chopsticks, three dainty cups filled with Chinese wine bought specially for the occasion and three bowls of rice. A selection of fresh Chinese greens, still uncooked and tied together in a length of red ribbon, lay across the tray. Pressing my palms together in front of me, I offered my prayers in silence – a mixture of English and Cantonese thoughts and whispers. I kowtowed three times and poured a little wine from each cup; a rather awkward business when done with both hands on such a small vessel, but to use one hand for such an offering would have been the most inconceivable sign of disrespect.
When the last of the household had worshipped before the ancestral altar, my grandmother knelt down and hit her forehead on the wooden floorboards, kowtowing to the living spirit of her husband, in continual obedience and respect. She uttered verses with each bow, calling upon his vital energy not to waste away in the grave but to continue to protect his descendants; that though his body had returned to the earth, that his spirit lives on in his home and continues to share in the lives of his posterity. On behalf of the family, she renewed and strengthened all the sentiments of kinship, and called upon him to join in the Closing of the Year feast. I stood to one side, watching my grandmother’s every movement. She was in another dimension and I sensed her inner spirit was far away.
By nine o’clock that evening the special feast had been consumed, and every dish had been washed and put away. Soon it would be time to go to the nearby flower market, open all night on this most special of occasions. Hung up on our walls and doors were posters of the important deities: the God of Wealth, the God of Happiness, the two Door Gods each in full military regalia, keeping out evil spirits, and the Kitchen God whose job it was to report back to Heaven on the family’s deeds throughout the past year. On the dining table, a round black sweet box stood in readiness, each section filled with a selection of candied fruits, lotus nuts, coconut and melon seeds. To complete it, the only thing left to do was for my grandmother to bless it with a lucky red laisee first thing on New Year’s Day.
It was such a shame we only had three days of holiday for this festival, for there were more social gatherings and visits than any of the Christian festivals we observed. And it was far more exciting and colourful. Living in the same household as the family elder meant we received many visitors, but rarely made visits ourselves. Apart from an overnight stay at Seventh Aunt’s little farm miles away in the New Territories, I only recall one other visit as a young child. This was to call on my grandmother’s friend and her adult daughter, the one who took great delight in pinching my cheeks hard and exclaiming how much I had grown every time she saw me. At least she didn’t say ‘waah, yum fai ya!’ which was often a welcome Chinese comment meaning ‘wow, so fat,’ meant to indicate that the household was well off and the family well-fed. I suppose it must have grown from the real experiences of famine and poverty. I do remember my grandmother saying ‘but don’t be too fat!’ These friends lived in a tin shack in a shanty town on the hillside near Shaukeiwan. Our flat was palatial by comparison. These dwellings were often destroyed by mudslides in heavy rain, or by fires, often due to illegal electricity supplies. I remember the shack, but apart from taking tea there, my most vivid memory is of climbing up the hillside with this daughter, my mother and sister, picking Chinese mountain blueberries and gorging ourselves along the way. I have never come across fruits so delicious. There was a slight grittiness to them which is always triggered in my mind when I eat fresh figs, but they were also juicy and sweet.
I looked forward to the constant round of guests who would be coming through our doors throughout the fifteen days of the New Year, each arriving in order of kinship hierarchy to pay respects to my dear grandmother as the family elder. Unusually for Hong Kong, all the shops would be closed, yet the streets would be full of families, all with their children, carrying bags full of gifts and pockets full of laisee packets. I enjoyed pouring out tea for our guests, and offering the sweet box only to replenish it once they had left. Some would take a single piece of fruit, others would take sweets, but every adult was obliged to dip into the small red compartment in the middle filled with red melon seeds, and they would leave a small laisee in the box to bring luck to the household. Even more than at Christmas, our tiny flat would soon be bursting with noise and people and every gesture of goodwill and affection. As children, we also knew one thing for certain – we had to take care not to use ‘bad’ or ‘unlucky’ words in conversation. Particularly the Cantonese word for four could never be mentioned, for it sounds like the word for death and therefore was taboo during the festival. Children’s bad behaviour was more tolerated and not admonished or punished, for crying on New Year’s Day would bring to the family a year of crying. All debts had to be settled by the close of the year and references to the past year are also avoided. Everything turned towards a new year and a new beginning.
On the day itself we would not be allowed to wash our hair, in case we inadvertently washed away good luck. Bright happy colours were worn to bring a bright and sunny future and to set the tone for the rest of the year. I had my new trousers and padded silk jacket and I couldn’t wait to put them on. And then I would offer tea to my grandmother, reaffirming my obedience and devotion.
Out on the balcony, I could see the crowds making their way to the all-night flower market, the cries of young children almost lost in the noisy background hum. Soon we would be amongst them, jostling and pushing, going from stall to stall in search of our New Year blossoms. It was too dark to see much of the market from where I stood, but I could make out the speckles of light coming from the naked lightbulbs which lit the market streets. All the familiar daytime shops and stores were closed, and in their place were pavements littered with flower sellers, displaying a host of colourful blooms upon beds of green. Once out in the streets I could hardly see past the backs of people pressed close up to my nose. I dodged this way and that, trying to keep up with my grandmother and mother as they disappeared in the crowds, feeling completely safe in my home territory despite the excitement and confusion and apparent disarray. Leafy bamboo stalks stood as tall as my head in tubs of water, only to be dwarfed by row upon row of peach tree blossoms, towering above.
The night was filled with the noise of adults haggling, trying to get the best bargain for their purchases. Intermittently, a whole family would push by, the man carrying their prized tree, wrapped in crimson paper, high above the head of the crowds. Legend tells of the God of Longevity emerging from the fruit of the peach blossom, and everyone had a tree displayed proudly in their homes and businesses. It would be a sign of good luck and fortune, should the tree flower on New Year’s Day and bear fruit during the festive season.
Pots of kumquats, a Cantonese pun for gold, added even more colour to the splendour of the night, their yellowish orange fruits symbolising wealth and good fortune. Swaying in the breeze beside them was a host of chrysanthemums as far as the eye could see, a variety of shapes and colours: powder pink to remind one of peaches, round heads to symbolise happiness, golden shades representing the phoenix or the tassels of a lion’s mane, and a spectrum of reds for luck. I didn’t know the names of everything, but I loved the electrifying atmosphere of it all. It was a carnival of colour and noise, excitement and tradition. It was just amazing to me, how my little home streets could be transformed into such a magnetic place to which the whole world seemed to be drawn.
An hour later, with our flowers and peach tree blossom set up in our tall antique Chinese vases brought down to Hong Kong by my grandfather, my grandmother announced she was going to the temple. She made the journey once a year, when she offered prayers to Kuan Yin (Kwoon Yum in Cantonese), the Goddess of Mercy. Originally a male deity, she took on a female form when ‘canonised’ and is found in both Buddhist and Taoist temples. It was this deity, my grandmother believed, who had heard her desperate pleas many years ago when my mother, her only daughter, was taken seriously ill. I do not know the detail, and certainly none of the clinical facts, but as with all good stories, it changed a little with each telling. My mother had apparently been ill for many days, and was deteriorating rapidly. Grandmother described it as seeing her only daughter dissolving away in a pool of water. She had already lost a son in childhood a few years before, and she could not bear to lose her only daughter as well. No medicines or Chinese physicians could help. Out of desperation and despair, she went to this temple close to her shop, and prayed to Kuan Yin to help her. Her cries must have reached the Goddess of Mercy, whom it is believed has the power to heal all human suffering and pain. When grandmother returned from the temple that afternoon, my mother began to recover. Ever since that day, my grandmother has made a pilgrimage to the same temple each year, no matter where we were living, to offer her thanks and worship.
As a child I never went with her, and I remember many years when she went alone. One year in my teens, I accompanied her to the temple. It was a cool night. No stars could be seen in the eastern sky. After the uproar of the night flower market, a peaceful silence filled the air as we climbed the steep hill as if towards the heavens. Hidden away in a narrow street, and now tucked behind a residential block of flats, were the gentle green slopes of a temple roof. Gazing down onto the quiet empty street, a ceramic carp stood guard, its tail fanned out and poised towards the sky. It was as if it were swimming against the current; a symbol of perseverance. Lanterns, with long tassels, hung outside the red brick walls like isolated sentinels, pointing the way as we ascended the short flight of steps to reach the main worshipping hall. Huge coils of incense hung down from hooks overhead, completely covering the ceiling with spiralling circles of smoldering incense. Bright red slips of paper dangled in the centre of each, bearing the name of its donor. Groups of women, deep in prayer, were offering incense to effigies of the female deity placed around the temple. The humming of whispered prayers echoed in the small scented hall, adding to the hallowed ambience. In this most sacred, gentle place no one could fail to be moved by its spiritual essence.
An old Buddhist monk noticed us slipping in, and came to greet my grandmother by name. She stayed only a few minutes, lit a handful of incense sticks and made arrangements with the monk to light an incense coil to honour her husband’s ancestral spirit. And then we slipped quietly back into the night.