Indelible Hakka phrases

The only time I was warded in hospital for a major illness was in 2001. I had my womb removed for uterine fibroids that have grown to the size of an apple in my uterus. The evening after the operation, my husband brought the kids to visit me. In a feeble and almost inaudible whisper; I asked my girls, " Have you washed your hair?" Imagine the reaction...

During most of my childhood and young adulthood, my pa used to remind us, without fail every evening: "Have you bathe? Da Tonn Goon!" Da Tonn Goon literally means "Beat till the stick breaks" and it was used by pa to mean someone stubborn. The following are some unforgettable Hakka phrases that I grew up hearing:

Poi Tiok: A phrase uttered to express disgust. (Cheh! or Cis!)
Tai Fan Su: Literally " Big Sweet Potato" meaning a clumsy or useless person.
Bot tai larng or Bot larng gui: A 'sick' person suffering from extreme cold ; used to indicate disapproval of someone you dislike or loathe.
Ham Gah Can: A curse meaning demise of an entire family; (really evil, don't ever use this!)
Tziga Ngin: Our own people; use to indicate you are also a hakka. (Very useful phrase in a foreign land. You will get special treatment from your hakka counterparts--I got belacan Chilli when I was in a chinese restaurant in Finland because the proprietor was "Tziga Ngin")
Gan Du: Bedroom (only grandma's generation used that phrase)
Zao Tiu: the stove
Zao chu: the larder
Fa miao ma chut fa miao zai: A striped cat will produce striped kittens; same meaning as: " like father like son"; or the young offspring will always inherit the attitude and habits of the mother/father.
(To be continued...)

Ah Tai

Ah Tai, the typical Hakka woman

When I gave birth to my first child, I was lucky to have an easy labour. Between the time, I got into intense labour pain and the time Yi Wen was born, it was a mere half-hour affair. My gynaecologist was amazed. When the hospital informed her that I was in labour, she thought she could still manage a good 5-6 hour sleep but when they called her again in 30 minutes to say that baby's on the way, she jumped two traffic lights to rush to hospital, just in time for the delivery...

My husband attributed this to my Hakka woman trait. Hakka women are known to have strong personalities: hardworking and tough. Ma is no exception, so was grandma ( Ah Po) and great-grandmother (Ah Tai).

For my younger cousins who never had the opportunity to get to know Ah Tai, I would like to share this experience today. Ah Tai, was a typical village woman with no education. Second wife to great-grandfather who abandoned her to marry a third wife in China, she confronted her adversity and ran quite a successful 'tofu' business in Pusing.

Ah Tai was barren. She adopted grandfather (Ah Gong) and grand-aunt (Jin Tai Gu Po). Ma worked for Ah Tai and also kept her company. Ah Tai's blue-eyed child was Tzong Ying. Our first TV set was bought with contribution from Ah Tai. Though living a frugal lifestyle and not willing to spend on herself, she parted with her money easily for the sake of Tzong Ying...

I do not have a photograph of Ah Tai so I'll attempt to describe her. In her sixties, Ah Tai was pudgy with a chubby face and a hunched back (due to hours of bending over to make 'tofu'). Her face told of a hard life with lines of wrinkles running from the corners of her small, beady eyes. With a broad round face and prominent cheeks, light brown complexion blemished with speckles of pigmentation, Ah Tai wore her hair in a sort of permanent bun. I used to wonder if she ever washed or cut her hair. She owned only a few pieces of clothing. She wore the same pair of black samfu trousers and a dark blue samfu top for as long as I can remember.

Tzong Ying used to spend hours wandering around her house catching spiders and jumping on her bed while accompanying Ma at her work. During weekends, one of us would accompany Tzong Ying and we dread having to spend a solid 9 hours cooped up in what I considered as Ah Tai's den.

Ah Tai's bedroom was small, dank, dark with a heavy whiff of medicated oil ('foong yow' or minyak kapak) pervading the air. Her living room was also dim and dusty, furnished with only two or more chairs made from cane or rotan. And there was, of course, a grandfather's clock. (All houses seem to have a grandfather's clock those days.)

We used to lie on her bed and toyed with her bamboo fan and back-scratching device ( a wooden device shaped like a long hand). When Tzong Ying got bored, he'd run around the cinema (just beside Ah Tai's house) to collect strips of cut films.

For tea in the afternoon, we always had "tofu fa"; but some days (when Ah Tai felt generous), we got to eat a selection of Pusing's famous nonya cakes: kueh lapis, dumplings stuffed with shredded mengkuang and dried prawns (the chilli sauce that goes with it was really yummy), pink 'hee paan' and the most unusual black 'Chuh Yap Paan' (made of glutinous rice and some sort of leaves which somehow turned black when steamed).

At 5 O'clock, ma wrapped up her work and took us home in a bus. Ah Tai always gave us with 10 sen as pocket money, and to us it was a well-earned reward.

Ma's story (part 2)

Today, when I pass by any snack shops selling 'You Tiao' (Crispy Chinese Crullers or better known as You Zha Gui, literally means deep fried devils), I always remember the time when ma used to make them to sell in the morning. Maybe, my brothers had no recollection of this, being too young at the time. So, I must reminisce this chapter of ma's life.

Ma had a hard time managing the family's finances. Pa's monthly salary was not really enough to feed, clothe and put us through school. So she came out with this idea of selling 'You Tiao' and sweet cakes to village workers who always passed by our house on their way to work in the morning. She woke up as early as 3 a.m. in the morning to get the cakes ready for the workers who would come to patronise her 'stall' as early as 5...

Ma figured the recipe out herself which was quite clever I must say. Having little education means ma never read and therefore had no recipe book to guide her. Ma's 'stall' was just a makeshift table that she put outside the house, lit by a candle. Lai Fun and I used to help man the stall as ma would be busy in the kitchen. (Lai Fun must be about 11 and me about 9, I think.) Ma had a lot of customers...

Usually, it was Lai Fun who handled the money but I was eager to be in charge. Once, I mistook a $5 note for $1 and gave that out as change to a customer. It was dark and I was sleepy. The man probably noticed the mistake but kept quiet and pocketed the change.

When we discovered the mistake, I felt really miserable but was at a loss of what to do to remedy my oversight. Lai Fun was very observant. She could identify the man who took the change and described his facial features to a neighbour.

The camaraderie among neighbours was really incredible those days. Based on Lai Fun's description, my neighbour ( whom we called "Seh Moi Jia") paid the man a visit and reprimanded him for being so dishonest... The next day, the man returned the money.

To supplement pa's income, ma did not stop at selling "You Tiao". She worked for my great grandmother ('Ah Tai') for $60 a month. She went to great-grandma's house in Pusing ( a small town about 8 KM away) at 8 every morning to help with the making of 'Tofu'; and returned home at 5 in the evening...

Ah Tai's 'tofu' was reputed to be the best in Pusing. In fact, there was an offer to Ah Tai to 'franchise' her tofu at a fee of $50,000 -- a lot of money at the time. But Ah Tai refused to share her recipe...

We always enjoy eating "tofu fa" when we visit Ah Tai. It was really delicious...the nectareous taste, nice aroma, distinctive soft and silky texture... It was really mouthwatering. When ma cooked "Yong Tow Foo" (stuffed tofu) with it, it would be crispy on the outside but soft on the inside--it sort of just melts in your mouth. I could eat so much that I found myself unable to sit down after that due to a really, really full stomach...

Ma's story

Pa & Ma taking a holiday

A nice shot here of Pa and Ma taking a holiday (in Penang). This is a very rare event. Ma is 70 this year, and she still hates travelling. She claims it's more a torture than pleasure for she can't bear to sleep anywhere else except on her own bed. I think she has conditioned herself to think so out of the need to be prudent for many years.

We were living just above the poverty line when we were kids. Ma was managing the family funds and she had to scrap every single 'sen' she could find to feed and clothe the family. She was wonderful at that.

Those days, I dread ma's incessant nagging. I could still feel it drumming in my ears. Today, I can empathise with her. The poor woman had to toil from day to night, coping with household chores, looking after and cooking for six growing kids, with no extra help. Only when we were older, we helped with the household chores. And money was really hard to come by... To ma, the day ends at about 9 P.M. The next day, she would up at 5 A.M. and the cycle repeats itself. What a humdrum existence! Poor Ma.

Ma hails from Raub, a small hillside town in the state of Pahang. She married Pa at the age of 20 and was immediately plunged into a very different world from where she came.

Ma was youngest in her family and had lived quite a carefree childhood. Being the youngest, her parents (especially her father) doted on her. She gave up schooling after grade 5 because she was not interested in her studies and her father let her. As a kid, she was quite a pranskter. Ma used to recount her childhood pranks to us when we were young. We found them quite entertaining and used to laugh till our bellies ached. I could still see the glint of happiness in her eyes as she talked about her past.

After dropping out from school, ma stayed home. Like girls her age do at the time, ma cooked for her family and did a bit of household chores. She loved watching movies and hung around the cinemas literally every afternoon--even if it meant watching the same movie several times over. I guess she did not have any other hobbies and that was how she while the hours away.

Her evenings were spent chatting with friends and watching the sun set at the park. I remember seeing a photograph of ma sitting pretty with her long skirt sprawled against the lawn. (I would very much want to see that photograph again..it's ma at the happiest time of her life.)

After the wedding, ma lived with her in-laws (there was grandpa, grandma, and 5 of pa's younger siblings). My grandparents made and sold 'tofu' or beancurd for a living and that I was told involved a great deal of labour.

In the Chinese society where filial piety was much practised and glorified: the old were expected to be treated with respect. At times, things went overboard. It was not unusual to hear stories of new mothers-in-law (whose status in society had just moved a notch higher for them) bullying or even tormenting their young daughters-in-law. And that was considered acceptable in those days.

When ma married into the family, she found herself being 'nudged' out of bed in the early hours of the morning (before 5 A.M.). The 'tofu' must reach the market early and work on it starts much earlier. If ma got up late, grandma would be incensed and threw a tantrum. She (grandma) would be ranting away: hurling pails and basins against the walls and floors; berating grandpa and blaming him for her miseries; cursing her mother-in-law and her ancestors before her; condemning the gods in the heavens and such...

The uproar and din was to send this signal to ma; "Wake up sleepy head, we don't have all day!" As Chinese, we do not believe in being explicit. We often show our displeasure, disguised as anger directed at unrelated issues. You just use your common sense to figure it out.

In addition to helping out with the making of the 'tofu', ma was also expected to do all the household chores: to cook and wash for everyone in the household. My aunts and uncles were still of school-going age and probably too young to intervene.

Ma tolerated grandma's taunting for years and it dragged on till after we were born. One day, when she could not take it anymore, she blew up and a big quarrel ensued. The acrimonious dispute was finally settled when ma insisted that we moved out to live on our own at the Teachers' Quarters. Pa relented. I know he would have done so reluctantly as he was a very filial son.

Ma has a strong character, stubborn at times but very determined and I must say, more entrepreneurial than pa. She is also quite clever. In spite of having little education, she learns things very fast if she puts her heart to it.

While we need not pay rent to live at the Teachers' quarters, we had to pay for electricity and water. Because the four houses in the row share only one water meter, the bill was shared by the four families. As we have the most number of people in the 4 households, we always pay more than the others.

At some point, we found that it was getting too costly and ma decided that we would stop using the tap water supplied to the quarters. Instead, we got a free supply by obtaining them from the public taps located just opposite the house. But it means having to collect and carry them home everyday. Ma was very determined.

Every morning, for at least an hour, she would fetch pails of water, balancing 2 large pails (must be at least 10-20 litres each) on a shoulder pole. It was a heavy load--I tried to lift it once but it wouldn't even budge.

In the afternoons, when we finished school, it was our turn to do so. Lai Fun, though just two years older than me, had a bigger built. She was the one who did most of the work. She was strong enough to carry the large pails of water the way ma did.

But I remember the first time when she tried it out. The pails swung dangerously across the two ends of the shoulder pole as sis Lai Fun tried to balance them and to carry the heavy load across the road. The load was actually too heavy for her size and age. She spilled most of the water she collected before she reached home with them. But she did not complain...

Lee Mee and I helped out too. Pa made a mini version of the pails from tins used for storing cooking oil. We balanced four of them: two on each side of the pole. It was manageable for us. But we would never have managed without sis Lai Fun. Ma did one more round of collecting water in the evenings. Tough life...