破地獄與白菊花 My Grandmother's Funeral

Local playwright and actress Wong Wing-sze wrote and acted a one-person show called 破地獄與白菊花 (My Grandmother's Funeral; the Chinese literally means "breaking through hell and white flowers"). It's currently re-running (if not yet ended) at the HK Rep's Blackbox Theatre.

Wong has a family even bigger than ours, and they run a family business of carrying out traditional Chinese ritual at funerals.

Starting by telling us why she's called Wong Wing-sze, Wong told us secrets and traditions of these might be superstitious rituals. More importantly, however, she shared with us her memories with her grandma, at different stages of life, till her grandma went to another world. I remember she told us her grandma couldn't remember her name all her life cause she had three granddaughters born on the same year. (Sara, Rose and Belinda, you are lucky!) Nonetheless, despite she's old, she could still spot Wong from a distance even when she's supposed to be a snail at a children's play.

It's the kind of show that made you laughed your head off at the beginning, but went downhill afterwards to leave you a little bit sense of sadness at the end. Wong won the best actress award that year for the show.

These days, from time to time, the last scene when Wong singing the song "the Person on the Moon" to remember her grandma simply comes to my mind.

* 破地獄, Breaking through Hell, is a kind of ritual for people who died young (young as in not over 70 or so); 白菊花, a kind of white flower, is really the flower, not any ritual, I think.

Ling...Ling...

I remember when Grandpa's in hospital, I was alarmed every time the phone rang, especially when it rang at odd times.

This round when Grandma's in hospital, not only the phone got me alarmed, but all the emails and beep sounds of chat room put me on guard too.

Usually, it's the "adults" who tell us "kids" what happen in the family. Or, I should say we "overhear" them. This time, since all the "adults" are in Edmonton for Grandma's birthday, this communication channel collapses and we have to rely on our own.

It's Derek who chatted me and told me Grandma's in hospital and gone. Crystal is my "Facebook Watcher" who summarizes things she reads from FB and overhears from her parents and emails me from time to time while I can't really access FB at office. It's Rose who keeps us updated on the latest arrangement via email, and asks us via FB our stories with Grandma so that she can prepare her speech at Grandma's funeral.

Some may say the internet puts people apart, but it sure is the vehicle that holds us together, even during difficult times.

就是差一步 Only one step away

I remember when Grandpa passed away, he's only a few months away from seeing my brother graduated from university. (His first grandson graduated from uni.)

When Grandma's leaving us this evening (or morning, Edmonton time), she's less than a year from seeing my cousin getting married. (Her first grandson getting married.) And all of her children were supposed to meet up for her birthday a week or so away.

There's always so many unfinished business.

I can't tell what I remember Grandma the most, cause there're so many. She's always the young and beautiful Grandma I remember.

P.S. When I first heard this song, I knew I would put it up sooner or later.

25 things you may or may not want to know about me

Rule: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

***** *****

1. I am a real Pisces. Pairs of extreme characteristic co-exist inside me. I have great difficulty understanding myself.

2. I have a friend who can understand me inside out.

3. I have no sense of direction whatsoever. I go everywhere with a map or just follow others.

4. I don't want to use my brain after office hours. Going to a trip is therefore an anxiety for me.

5. I need a timetable so that I know what to do on an hourly basis during weekends or holidays or I will be very disoriented. However, I never follow those timetables.

6. I don't eat vegetables.

7. Cats is my No.1 enemy.

8. Summer without an air conditioner is the end of my life.

9. Night time gives me a depressive feeling, especially Sunday night.

10. I used to think the best date to die is the day before turning 30. Now, I am proudly approaching 40.

11. Please try to stop me from buying any useless expensive or inexpensive toys. I am trying to save for my retirement.

12. I am still using the same alarm clock since Grade 5. I think I saved my pocket money to buy that at Wing On Department Store. (The clock was bought at Wing On for sure and I had looked at it many many times before I bought it. I am not quite sure I used my own money or Mom bought it.) I like it so much that it follows me everywhere. Sadly, the alarm function broke some times ago and it's now only a clock. I have been searching for a decent smart looking new alarm clock for a while but am still not successful.

13. To echo someone's French dictionary since Grade 5, I still have the English-Chinese pocket dictionary Mom bought me when I was in primary school. I think that's my very first dictionary. I now use only on-line ones. (I wanted to throw that dictionary away but my sis said to keep it. If you have gone through her 16 tags, you will know why she had said so.)

14. I spent my happiest and saddest time in Canada.

15. I still feel regret of not completing my master in transportation engineering.

16. I am a railway manic. I believe the entire HK should be networked by railway system. Other public transits should only be supportive.

17. I used to think I would be a writer or a painter. But at least, I am the writer, editor and publisher of the Facts and the Myths of the Tse Family!

18. I THOUGHT I was very gifted in needlework. However, don't imagine I would ever cook.

19. I rarely go to cinema, but theatre very often.

20. I am a good secret keeper that you can trust. Not that I won't tell, but I won't discuss your secrets with people who know you. So your secrets are well kept and I won't be too stressful of keeping your secrets :P

21. I don't use terms like "normal" / "abnormal". I use "average", "majority", etc. Simply being part of the majority doesn't make you "normal".

22. Now, I don't believe in hero. I think everyone has his/her own unique characteristics and strength that deserve our appreciation. While I don't believe in hero, I believe everyone can be a hero.

23. I always think I have dyslexia. Hence, I almost never read things that I wrote. The words just seem jumping on the piece of paper for me.

24. I like to read others' 16 tags or 25 tags. But PLEASEEEEEE, make the words bigger and leave more space. I can't read when so many words crowded together. I feel dizzy.

25. Thanks for reading to the end. You are a true friend!

施比受更為有福

The last parcel was sent to Australia today.

Some times, it's more excited sending out Christmas presents than receiving one.

P.S. There were much more people this afternoon than two weeks ago, mostly non-Chinese. It's time to send your Christmas wishes.

They are here, they are here!

This is the outside.












This is part of the inside.

The bulk print had arrived on Friday, and will arrive your mailbox in another month :)

P.S. I'd showed Dad and Aunt 9 the trial copy. Even my dad is very excited about it.

Typos! Troubles!

See at the Post-its? They are all typos in the trial copy.

So, I corrected them.

It went OK when I changed it off-line. When I double checked the corrections on Sunday morning and went on-line, hoping to upload again when it's done, the Booksmart told me there's a newer version of the software.

So, I downloaded and installed the new version.

BOMB!!!!! The format of the book changed almost on every page under the new version of Booksmart. So, I formatted the book again. However, the new Booksmart doesn't seem to be ready for release yet. Very often, it shutted down every time I clicked on the text box. Even more frequent, I couldn't even boost it up.

So, I uninstalled the new version, and installed the previous version again, and it worked.

I eventually uploaded the book again and sent for a bulk print on Sunday night. However, I have to say I was too tired and too bored for the proofreading. I am sure when I corrected some typos, there should be some new ones after changing to different versions of Booksmart, but I don't care.

So, I am expecting the books by mid-November, and hopefully they will arrive the recipients' mailboxes by New Year, if not Christmas.

It's here, it's here!

After sending an email to Swiss Post to check out the whereabout of the book, the trial print of the Facts and the Myths of the Tse Family has finally arrived today!














I will let you see one of the pages:














The book is much smaller than I expected, although I had taken out a ruler several times trying to figure out how big is 7" x 7". (Don't blame me for that. You guys voted for it!) Quality of the pictures really depends on the quality of the "raw photos". The one of our Cho Uk is real good, but not for the old pictures.

Anyway, I will take a look and send it out for bulk print soon. Make sure you drop me your mailing address!

P.S. In case someone will say I am 自戀狂, the alphabets were there to hold the book or it couldn't open itself.

P.P.S. Quality of the camera of my new phone doesn't seem very good. Very disappointed.

Grandma and Grandpa

So we have been talking about Grandma and Grandpa. Have you ever thought of how they got married?

The Marriage

I think you won't reckon they met each other naturally, dated, married and had kids. This is a version from my mom, who claims that she heard about it from Grandpa when she's just married (or even before she's married).

Grandpa had school in HK. When someone's decided to have Grandma married Grandpa, they sent someone to HK to ask Grandpa to return to Kaiping and get married. However, Grandpa refused. He said he had to finish school first. Hence, Great-Great Grandma (Grandma of Grandpa!) pretended she's sick and sent someone to ask Grandpa back to visit her. When Grandpa's back, everything (including the wedding banquet) was there waiting for him!

So here we are. Grandpa said before they were married, he had secretly gone to Grandma's school to have a peek of her :)

When Grandma was married, I think she's only 17, and she still didn't know how to wash her hair. Hence her grandma told her to find an excuse to return to the maiden home when she wanted to wash her hair, so that Great-great Grandma could wash her hair for her.

The Relocation

Grandpa used to be a truck driver. When the Community Party came into power in 1949, Grandpa was working in HK. Later one day when Grandma received the info that she could join Grandpa in HK, she bought train tickets and left with Goo-ma, Uncles 3, 4 and 5 immediately without bringing any luggage nor telling anyone in the neighbourhood. It's only later that Great Grandma, Dad and Uncle 2 stowed away to HK to join them. Aunts 7, 8, 9 and Uncle 10 were born in HK.

Quiz 8

We haven't had a quiz for a while. This time, again, can you figure out who's who in the two pictures? The first one is pretty easy, but there're some controversies in the second one. May be we will need to ask those MIGHT be in the picture.

***** *****

This should be the last post for the hard copy of the Facts and the Myths of the Tse Family, or I won't be able to send you the books before Christmas. However, the on-line version will continue provided I am not running out of topics.

The Root

Now, the Tse's are (or will be) scattered around different part of Australia, Canada and China. Our hometown, however, is in Kaiping (開平), a county-level city in the Guangdong province of Southern China.

Kaiping

Kaiping has a long tradition of sending their people to work overseas, in particular the North America. At the end of the 19th century to the early part of the 20th century, Kaiping was poor and had a serious problem of banditry. Hence, people went to work overseas and send back money to support the families.

I think this explains why we have been in Canada for so many generations.

In the old days, we were a landlord in the village. Because Great-Great Grandpa and Great Grandpa worked in Canada, and sent money back to support the country, we were able to survive a number of political turmoils at the turn of the 20th century. But of course, we finally fled to HK like many others did in the 1940s-50s when the communist party came in to power.

Diaolou (碉樓)

One special feature of Kaiping is the thousands of Diaolous (see the picture). A Diaolou is a fortified multi-storey tower. Those worked overseas sent money back to build these towers, and also brought back the western architectural style. Apart from being a beautiful house, it also has a defensive purpose. See the balcony in the middle? Mom said there are holes on the floor, so that those standing on it can shoot through the holes thieves or other invaders underneath.

In 2007, Kaiping Diaolou and the village is added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Our Cho Uk

So, are you wondering why my mom knows this little feature of a Diaolou? It's because our real "cho uk" is a Diaolou itself. The picture in this page is not from a tourists website nor from the UNESCO homepage, but our "cho uk". That means, when Goo-ma, Dad and the older uncles were still kids, they actually LIVED IN a world heritage site!

When I was a kid and Sara was still a baby, we were there once. All I can remember now is that the house was dark and full of cats! (Scary!) Mom said the stairs at the time was half broken and my feet then were way too short, and hence I had a hard time climbing the stairs.

Around our "cho uk", there's a gate made of good quality steel. When China was at war, the gate door was taken away to produce weapon. (There're different versions here. Mom said the gate door was taken away by us to support China at the Korean War in the 1950s. But I think I had heard Grandma saying that the door was taken away by the Japanese army during WWII.)

The Dialect

We Kaiping people speak a Taishan dialect (Taishan is another city next to Kaiping). Even today, when the older ones want to discuss something that don't want us to understand, they talk in the Taishan dialect. I don't know if they have ever realized that the Taishan dialect is actually not very different from Cantonese. I at least can understand 99%, if not 100%!

P.S. Sara had suggested right from the beginning to include this post in the series, but I had tried my very best to avoid it, cause I don't know much about our hometown. But since Rose had sent me this picture, I might as well give it a try.

Extended reading:
Kaiping in Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiping
Diaolou in Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaolou
UNESCO World Heritage -- http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1112

The Tse Family "Cho Uk" (祖屋) – Part 5 of 5 -- The Tse Family Treasures

Uncle and Aunt 2's house is a good place for treasure hunt. When I stayed there last December, I found my Autocad (Release 11!) book still on the shelf! That book is 16 years old and I used it at my first year of college!!!!!

The Treasure (1)

Comparing to what Rose had found, my Autocad book is nothing:

Cheque book of Great Grandpa's grocery store!

Great Grandpa had a grocery store in Edmonton. When he's getting old, Uncles 2 and 3 went to Edmonton to take care of him and also to inherit the grocery store. The brothers later on started their own career and therefore the grocery store was shut down at the end. It would be fun, I think, to check out the place where the grocery store had been some times :)


The Treasure (2)

The next item is even more exciting! Drum roll, please......

Pictures of young Grandma and young Grandpa!!!!!

For the top left picture, Rose said it stated at the back that Grandpa was 14 at the time. For the one in top right, it said on the picture that it was 1940 in HK. Mom said Grandpa went to school in HK, so that might be why the picture was taking here.

For Grandma's pictures, they were taken before Grandma and Grandpa were married. Great Grandpa used to put up these pictures, and told everyone that his daughter-in-law was prettier than any calendar girls!

The Tse's in Canada

I always thought Great Grandpa was the first one in Canada, but Grandma and Uncle 2 said it's Great-great Grandpa (i.e. Dad of Great Grandpa, Grandpa of Grandpa, or Great Grandpa of your parents :) who first landed on the Canadian soil.

Great-great Grandpa first settled in Saskatchewan, and opened a cafe. (Rose suspected it was the one in the picture above.) When Great Grandpa was a kid, he somehow got into trouble with another kid so they sent him to Great-great Grandpa as some kind of punishment or an "escape". Great Grandpa first helped in the cafe as well, and then returned to China to get married. Great Grandpa somehow relocated to Edmonton later and started the Jay Grocery.

When I was a kid, I heard a story about how Great Grandpa took a month to travel from China to Vancouver on a ship, and then another week from Vancouver to Edmonton on a carriage. But now with the Saskatchewan cafe kicking in, I am confused whether the week-long trip was to Edmonton or Saskatchewan.

So this wraps up the series on the modern "cho uk". Let's talk about the real "cho uk" next time.

P.S. Special thanks to Rose who digged out all these pictures and "researched" most of the content of this post from Grandma and Uncle 2. More of Rose's findings in the following posts.

The Tse Family "Cho Uk" (祖屋) – Part 4 of 5 -- The 3rd special item of the house is...

... the girls' room!

From one generation to another

I think this is the first time someone called it the "girls' room".

It is the bigger of the two rooms in the basement of Uncle and Aunt 2's house. The first occupants of the room were Aunts 7, 8 and 9. When they started to move out, Rose and Di occupied the room and I also joined in the crowd during college years. It's a room full of silly girlish talks :)

In the past, there were a single bed and a double-decker bed, couple of small desks, a big build-in closet (big enough for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), etc. Most of the furnitures were there since Aunts 7, 8 and 9's time and are still in the room except the beds. Now, instead of two beds for three people, there's one double bed instead, and it also becomes a guest room when Rose and Di moved out.

Starry, starry night

One of the additions Rose and Di made to the room was the glow-in-the dark starts on the ceiling. (I tried to take some pictures but obviously was not very successful.) During the twin's first visit, we showed them the stars, but they were still at the age that would scare of the dark, so they would only stand at the door and held our hands tight with a very amazed smile.

One day, again, when I was reading in the room, Dai Mui came.

"Can you read outside?" The toddler asked.

"No." And so Dai Mui's gone.

After a while, she came and asked again, "Can you read outside?"

"No."

"I want to see the stars."

I can't remember if she succeeded this time, but Dai Mui sure was an assertive baby.

The Most Delicious Dragon Boat Dumplings

The other day a colleague asked if I had eaten any Dragon Boat dumplings this year.

I said no, cause my Grandma made the most delicious Dragon Boat dumplings in the world that I didn't eat anything else.

I am not being exaggerated. I tried one mouthful of dumpling that was made outside the family, and I had never tried another ever since. My mom and aunts learned how to make Dragon Boat dumplings from Grandma, but none was as pretty and as delicious as Grandma's (no offense, just telling the truth :)

It's our tradition to make Dragon Boat dumplings during Dragon Boat Festival (very obvious), and, interestingly, during Chinese New Year (don't ask me why). Grandma only made a small amount of Dragon Boat dumplings before CNY for some traditional ritual. However, making Dragon Boat dumplings before Dragon Boat Festival was a serious matter. It took Grandma weeks of preparation -- to soak the leaves, pick the best ingredients (they were all over the place), boil the dumplings, etc. It took long time to boil the dumplings. The fire in the kitchen heated up the whole house, and the entire apartment smelled like Dragon Boat dumplings :)

Grandma's dumplings were simple in one way, but not that simple in another. They were simple cause there're only salty ones, no sweet dumplings ever. They were not that simple cause there were a lot of ingredients -- salty egg yolk, peanuts, fat pork, dried Chinese mushroom, dried scallop, etc. and the sticky rice was stirred with salty egg white before hand, so even the sticky rice was very delicious. Grandma would make tonnes of dumplings for the Dragon Boat Festival that they easily became my nightmare every year -- dumplings for breakfast and weekend lunch at least for another month :(

However, the most amazing part of Grandma's dumplings is that she tailor-made for our picky stomach. For example, the one I and Ed ate had only lean pork and dried scallop (I didn't eat the other ingredients). Those that Aunts 8 and 9 ate didn't have peanuts. Grandma would tie different knot to identify the dumplings but usually it's only she who could decode the knots.

As Grandma's getting old, she hadn't made any dumplings or other traditional festive food for a number of years. I heard that Aunt 7 is making Dragon Boat dumplings in Grandma's style as well and they taste "almost" the same. May be someday I will try some.

The Cover

I can't make up my mind, so I will let you have a say.

Do you like this one?

(1) Square (7"x7")










Or, this one?

(2) Standard Portrait (8" x 10")












How about these?

(3) Standard Landscape (10" x 8")



























I started with the square, and still like it the most, but the size is too small. Then, I tried portrait, but today I find it too boring. What do you think about landscape? Never mind the colours and the pictures selection now, cause I only roughly made up three covers tonight. (Of course, you can suggest some colour schemes.)

Better cast your vote quick, or I will be so confused with which one to choose.

For family members, I am looking for pictures! I have already exhausted every single picture in my computer. My wish list includes:

* Birthday
* Graduation
* Wedding
* With individual family (including family members outside the human species)
* With "unexpected" family members (e.g. Di with goo-ma)
* First time doing something (e.g. first day to kindergarten)
* Winning a prize
* Those on top of your TV or hang on your wall, etc. (inspired by someone's picture being replaced by Bacon's on top of a TV)

You got the idea.

The Tse Family "Cho Uk" (祖屋) – Part 3 of 5 -- The 2nd special item of the house is...

... the stair!

A bridge

The stair is a bridge between the world of Chinese TV (main floor) and the world of English TV (basement). During my stay in December last year, Aunt 2 told me to keep the light on all the time. If I was in an English literature class, I would say that the light that was always on symbolized the always welcomed communications and exchange between the two generations. (Wow! I really did learn something in my English 30!)

Superpower revealed

During our first stay at Uncle and Aunt 2's house, Sara, Rose and Belinda, who were born on the same year, were aged 3Y1M, 2Y9M and 2Y8M. On of our hobbies in the house was to walk up and down the stair. (It's easy to understand. We don't have a stair in our HK apartments!) One day, we were walking up and down as usual. Suddenly, the rather absent minded little Belinda stepped on her long dress and started rolling down the stair. In a split second, I (already landed on the basement) turned and caught her with my hands to avoid her head hitting on the concrete floor.

Till now, I still can't believe I could react so quickly and hold a two year-old when I myself was only eight. May be during time of emergency, our hidden power will reveal without notice.

Guess who?

The first time when the twins stayed at Uncle and Aunt 2's house, they were around three or four and I was already in college. One day I was reading at the basement and suddenly the stair light went on and off non-stop.

"Dai Mui (大妹, the older twin), don't play with the light." I commended.

There's a second of silence.

"It's not me. It's Sai Mui (細妹, the younger twin)." Dai Mui appealed.

"It's you. I saw you."

"No. You can't see me from where you sit." Dai Mui insisted.

"I can see you from here."

And then the twins were gone and the light didn't go on and off again.

After all these years, I have to confess that Dai Mui was right that I couldn't SEE HER from where I sat. However, I could see Sai Mu, who was one step below Dai Mui and was at least half a foot shorter than Dai Mui at the time. With this "height" difference, Sai Mui couldn't even reach the switch.

It's not that difficult to figure out the "doer" for a fan of detective stores.

First a writer, now a publisher

A colleague sent me this, and I decide to get the Myths and the Facts of the Tse Family published! (RELAX! By "published", it means "to print a hardcopy".)

(Make your own book with) Blurb:
http://www.blurb.com/

I've played around with it, and got the basic layout done. It seems a lot of funs, although the software itself has plenty of room for improvement.

I plan to print some copies as Christmas presents for families. So, if you want a separate copies, drop me an email with mailing address. Deadline for ordering is beginning of November. If you have memorable pictures and interesting stories to share, don't forget to email them to me. I will acknowledge the contributors in the books!

Happy Birthday!

Today is the 7th day of the Lunar New Year. According to Chinese tradition, today's 人日 (People's Day), i.e. everyone's birthday. On this special occasion, let me wish everyone a happy birthday!

As a People's Day Special, let me present to you the following collage of our first year old b-day party pictures:

Quiz 7

For those in the family, can you figure who's who in the collage? (Rule: You can't name yourself nor the one in your immediately family!)

For those not in the family, can you find me in the collage?

Hint 1: There are 19 of us in the generation. Two of us I can't manage to have their photos in time, while some pictures are actually repeating to make the collage a perfect square.

Hint 2: Due to the difficulty to have a hold of all the pictures, some were not exactly one-year old.

Hint 3: You may want to visit my photo album that shows the pictures in bigger size. I also included in the album some other pictures on the same occasions but with more people.

Chinese New Year -- The Tse Family Style -- The Celebration

We had the food, and we had to had a feast (or feasts) to finish them off.

(1) Old days in HK

Since we lived with grandma and grandma and my dad is the oldest brother, everyone came to our house for CNY. (This "everyone" meant Uncles 4 and 5 and their families, while the rest were in Australia and Edmonton. Those days, all that were in Canada were in Edmonton.)

The celebration started on CNY Eve and would last for four days.

On the first day, i.e. CNY Eve, everyone would rush to our house after work for dinner, and my mom would cook for around 13 people (Yiu-lun and the twins were not born yet). Like in Uncle and Aunt 2's house, we couldn't all crowd to the dinning table even though we would "enlarge" the table by adding on a very thin piece of metal plate (as in a Chinese restaurant, but theirs is made of wood. Very common gadget in the house those days when we still had big families.) We would therefore separate into an "adults table" (i.e. the dinning table) and a "kids table" (i.e. the coffee table, still in my house today!). Usually, the kids table would serve fewer, simpler and cheaper dishes than the adults table :(

The Uncles and families would come again on the CNY Day. They would come to our house to greet grandma and grandpa. The Uncles and Aunts and my parents would "pour grandma and grandpa tea" (another Chinese tradition for the young to do to the elderly), I think, and then grandma and grandpa would give them red pockets. Uncles 4 & 5 and their families would stay till after lunch and then off to visit some other friends and relatives. They would come again to have lunch on the 2nd and 3rd days of CNY and then the family CNY celebration was finally over.

One secret I never told anyone before was that I wanted to start my very own "CNY business" during those days. At the time, security of a housing estate was not as tight as now. There would be people knocking your door and said "distributing Choy Son (派財神 distributing "god of fortune")". Basically, it's a small piece of red paper with the words "Choy Son" ugly written on it with a Chinese brush. Usually, since it's CNY, people would receive the "Choy Son", gave the young guy a red pocket and sent him off.

I was less than 10 at the time, but I thought I could use a Chinese brush better than these people, and I had a big pool of "cheap labours" (i.e. Nobel, Sara and Belinda. Simon was too young at the time.), and I should be able to make good money from the same business :P

I thought about the same year after year but couldn't make it real even once :( May be I was too little to propose to my mom this crazy idea :(

(2) Less as old days in Edmonton

Same logic as in HK, everyone goes to Uncle and Aunt 2's house for CNY as they are the oldest in the area and live with grandma and grandpa most of the times. Unlike in HK, the celebration takes part only on CNY Eve (interestingly, on CNY Eve not on CNY day), and hence red pockets are also distributed on CNY Eve rather than Day.

(3) Nowadays in HK

As we are getting old, we have more plans during CNY. The celebration thus only means going to "yum cha" on CNY Day in recent years.

***** *****

The real CNY special of the Fact and the Myths of the Tse Family will come on 13 Feb. Stay tune.

Chinese New Year -- The Tse Family Style -- The Food

On the 2nd day of Chinese New Year, let's talk about some Tse Family tradition on the occasion.

When I was single-digit years old, we lived with grandma and grandpa. During Chinese New Year, grandma would make a lot of festive food for "ancestor worship" as well as the CNY feast. I can't remember all that she made, but here're some highlights.

(1) "Pond with duckies"

I don't know how it's called. Basically, it's made up of different kinds of flour (麵粉、糯米粉、粘米粉, etc.). Grandma would roll the dough into some small balls, short columns and duckies, and then arrange them in a round bamboo container so that it would look like some duckies swimming in a pond. (Grandma would let us play with the dough but all we could make were the balls and may be the columns.) Then, grandma would steam it and put some red colouring as decoration. Grandma would make a few "ponds" each time for "ancestors worship".

When the "ponds" were freshly cooked, we would eat them directly with soya bean sauce. After the first day, grandma would cut them into pieces and stir fry them just like "Stir fried Shanghai nin go (上海炒年糕)".

(2) Salty Chickens

Chickens were the main character of our CNY feast. The Consultant of the Fact and the Myth of the Tse Family said we would consume five to six chickens each CNY for different ancestors that we need to remember. The chickens were usually freshly killed (i.e. no frozen chicken) and boiled. For the first couple of chickens, we again would eat them directly with some oyster sauce. For the rest, grandma would use a lot of salt to sort of season them after the ritual, but the objective was actually for preservation. To salt fresh food is how people preserve food in the old days when there's no refrigerator. Grandma kept the style even though we had had refrigerator for a long time by then.

The salty chickens were usually re-cooked in one of the two ways: (i) steam; (ii) steam it on top of the rice so that the rice would soak up the chicken juice. The rice tasted real good as well as the chicken. Believe me. The salty chickens usually would take us till the middle of Lunar January even though we had it almost every single day! It still tasted good at the end of the period, although I have to say we (or at least me) was bored after eating them for half a month!

(3) Dragon Boat Rice Dumplings

Yes, this is right. This is our hometown's tradition to have "dragon boat rice dumplings" during Chinese New Year, but grandma would only make a few just good enough for "ancestor worship". (I will talk about grandma's "dragon boat rice dumplings" later on, so please don't comment on this for the moment.)

So much for the food. Let's talk about the celebration tomorrow.

The Tse Family "Cho Uk" (祖屋) – Part 2 of 5 -- The 1st special item of the house is...

... the dinning table!












The most celebrated birthday

The dinning table is at least as old as the house, if not older, and many of the Tse Family gatherings, from small to medium to big, take place around the table. While it might look ordinary, the dinning table has witnessed a lot of unforgettable Tse Family moments. Among those, it includes Uncle 2's birthdays, the most celebrated b-days in the Tse Family.

Uncle 2's birthday "usually" falls in August (check out my cousin's blog to see why I use "usually"), which is a prime time for the "once in a few years mega Tse Family gatherings". Except, again, Goo Ma, Uncle 4 and his son, everyone in the family has participated in Uncle 2's birthday party at least once, and has taken similar pictures around the dinning table as the two in this post.

Quiz 6

So, can you tell which years were these two pictures taken, or how many years apart of these two pictures?

Who qualify?

However, not all of us are qualified to sit around the dinning table. When there are around 40 of us in the family, even if only a quarter of us show up at the same time (which is quite a "regular" size for a Tse Family gathering in Edmonton), we can hardly fit to the dinning table all at once. So, usually those "older ones" can actually sit around the table, while those "younger onces", especially those not very good with chopsticks and speak better English than Chinese, will use a plate and folk to take some food before the older generation gathers around the dinning table and go to eat at the basement where English TV is on.

Tse Family catering

Last but not least, thanks to Uncle and Aunt 2, delicious food is always served on the table. It's a pity that they don't open a restaurant :(