In Chinese, there's something called "cho uk", which is a house that passes from one generation to another, and where significant family events take place.
Where is it?
For the Tse Family, I think we have, or at least used to have, a "cho uk" in our hometown Hoi Ping (開平), China. But for the younger ones in the family, the Tse Family Cho Uk is located in Millwoods, Edmonton instead. That is, Uncle and Aunt 2's house.
Except Goo Ma, Uncle 4 and his son, all of us have stayed, or at least have frequently visited there. I believe that Uncle and Aunt 2 have lived there for almost 30 years, and I heard that neighbours on the same street are still the same ones three decades ago. The house is always warm, in terms of both the caring and the laughers, and also the thermostat that always points to +25C, despite the freezing cold temperature outside! It's also a place full of unforgettable memories of the family. Let's start with mine.
Cho Uk and Ida
The first time I stayed at Uncle and Aunt 2's, I was only eight. That's one of those "once every few years mega Tse Family gatherings" that we, and the #4 and #5 families spent the summer in Edmonton. At the time, the youngest one in the family was my brother (ranked the 9th out of the 19 of us), and I remember that the basement of the house was not yet furnished, nor the plants in the front and backyards there.
The second major period that I stayed at Uncle and Aunt 2's was during college years. I usually spent my weekends and school holidays there unless I was busy. One time during summer, Rose and I had a hard time deciding whether I should be counted as one of the people living in the house when Rose's trying to fill in the census survey form for the Statistics Canada. (Rose had an even harder time to decide whether her mother tongue was Cantonese or English!) When my friend drove me home during weekend, they would ask whether I was going to "Uk K" (屋企) or "Uk K Uk K" (屋企屋企), with "Uk K" being HUB and "Uk K Uk K" being Uncle and Aunt 2's place. Sometimes some very clever friends would drive me to one of those two places without asking and it ended up taking me twice as long to get "home"!
I used to use Uncle and Aunt 2's place as my "permanent address" for quite some years. Even today, I am still very tempted to write down the Millwoods address every time I need to write down a return address under my name!
***** *****
This constitutes the first of the five posts about Uncle and Aunt 2's house. In the next three, I will talk about the three items/places that you simply can't miss in the house. Stay tune!
