Yourself?

Hmmz ...
was walking about NTUC Fairprice today, thinking about a lil' spot of poetry, and my unsociability when I saw this.... minced bean paste with pork (canned)... and for that second, saw little me again, in my grandparents' house, having porridge with that, and steamed fish and omelette, and preserved vegetables.

And remembered Geraldine saying, you must be really Teochew. Cos I said something about being able to survive on salted fish and porridge or banana and porridge.

Thought in my mind... that the first time I'll cook for her would be seaweed omelette (a nod to the japanese), minced beanpaste with pork, salted fish, and maybe a little pork floss. And we could have tieguanyin, and recite chinese poetry.... *ahhh.....*

Haha... I think I'm freaky.

But just as I walked out of the supermarket, my ma decided that we should go look at the chinese decorations... And the whole Chinese New Year thing just struck me in the face. Somehow I felt that it was worth celebrating, that it would be an activity to lift the gloom and doom... and I remembered chasing my siblings with the sparkly things that pop when you throw them and they hit something... and waving around sparklers, and going around reciting new year greetings, and getting angbaos. The sweet taste of nostalgia.

Somehow the attachment facts just came back to mind. The calculations that a family could live on only $1.50 per meal per person. And I was thinking, that's who I am. That's how I was brought up... living on only $1.50 a meal, enjoying the simple pleasures of poverty. And then, gradually, as my family, and slowly I became more affluent, money didn't matter anymore. But my tastebuds slowly became satiated with the taste of capitalism... of McDonalds, and overpriced Marche...

Remember how much it felt like an adventure, when I went to Sarawak, where people didn't wear branded clothes at all, bathed freely at rivers, took toilet breaks at the roadsides. Where people didn't pay for business with neighbours... where if you wanted to borrow a tape from the Video rental, you just borrowed it, and returned it the same day. And you'll invite their children over to your provision shop, and treat them to icecream, or drinks. And there was no traffic, no rush to get to any place. Just time, a place for thoughtful meditation, to have a little coffee with neighbours, and chat.

And the meals! Brown rice from their own fields (tasted a little musky, looked reddish), fresh corn of the wild variety... not the beautiful ears you see in the supermarket. Chicken freshly slaughtered (to welcome us)... the best salted fish... salted eggs... soup (bittergourd)... vegetables with holes in them. And the whole family sat down to dinner. Us from Singapore, an uncle and aunt from Kuching (means cat), and the whole family... 3 kids about our age, 2 more a bit grown, aunts and uncles, and grandfather and grandmother. I don't know what's the point of relating all this... but it was sweet.

Then later, I walked to the hawker centre... and thought about how... its the work of these people I see here that built this nation. How much of my education were paid by these very people, sweating away in front of a flame ( a point overstressed by my teachers in RI though not in ACS)... And how... in the end, for all my education, I'll be one of them. To create my own future with my own two hands. I hope I'll not forget them.

And so it is, so it seems, so strong my fascination with the Chinese culture... I'm determined one day, to get a Chinese wife... because she'll remind me always, of the obligation I have to mine own chinese people. Because she'll speak to me of frugality, prudence, purpose, family, and most of all... tradition.

posted by Downhere. @ 6:07 pm