(1301)Life Bores Dreams Galore

Lately a few minibus drivers caught COVID. As a result, the entire private minibus service to town was halted. Therefore I no longer am able to get new books from the public library in town.

The brain is a marvelous organ. What drama I lacked in real life began to appear as dreams at night. Let me relate a hilarious one from this morning, right before I woke up. I was brought in as a Chinese language examiner taking part in a meet-the-missionary-candidates to China. (Really this could be the worst time to send missionary to China as there was a wave of crackdowns and deportations.)

It was raining cats and dogs during the dinner date. Yet dinner was still served in the garden! It was an interesting sight seeing the wives of leaders and other serving ladies in rain gear and holding umbrellas.If that was not funny enough, the tables began to sink into the swilling mud. That was a frightening sight! Just like in most dreams, there was no logic. Folks rescued the best vase, picked up the most expensive crystal goblets... The person in charged was calmly telling me that the boss had ten tables like that. Well! If you say so, I thought. Three tables disappeared from sight. In the impossible way of dreams, it was like a job done on an ordinary day. Everyone was very matter of fact dealing with the situation.

The usual questions were asked during dinner. The expected answers were given. Meanwhile, we ladies were observing and choosing our own candidates. For example, the number two candidate just won't do as he seemed a most finicky eater who picked at his food. The Chinese as a race places great emphasis on enjoying good food. To fit in as a missionary in China, one should love food. Well, number five should not go as he was visually undressing every shapely lady server. Number seven was just going along with everything for a subsidised trip, anyway.

But of course not a single decision maker was of the fairer sex. Perhaps ten to twenty thousand dollars would be spent sending a test team to some busy, impersonal part of a city in China. No harm was done. After all, there was still a lot more money left in the coffers yet.

(1300)Fried Rice (Three)

During my college years, one of my hostesses taught me how to mass produce Vietnamese egg rolls. Her church ladies sold it every Sunday afternoons in front of different supermarkets to raise funds in aid of new Vietnamese refugees in town.

Armed with the know-how of frying rice and egg-roll making, I had cooked for every host family I visited. Usually I would choose a Friday dinner to take advantage of using leftovers and excess ingredients in the fridge. Most mistresses of the kitchens appreciated this conversion of odds and ends into a delicious main meal.

It was during one of these visits that I used an electrical wok. That enabled me to stirfry, which was normally impossible with frying pans. Minor frying could be done using a heavy base stainless steel soup pot. Till now I could walk into any kitchen and hustle up a simple meal should the need ever arise.

(1299)Fried Rice (Two)

Once I smuggled a bowl of Asian student fried rice to our affable cafeteria manager. I didn't realise he shared it with four other cooks.

Thereafter before an Asian fare was attempted, someone would ask me about things that was not clear. Actually I knew nothing about Japanese and Korean food. They were not commonly available in the seventies in my country. Since I could hardly be called a cook, I rounded up my Chinese counterpart, my fellow Malaysian and a Pakistani senior to answer all of their queries.It was really funny to see professional cooks taking cooking tips from them about ethnic cuisines.

In my senior(4th) year, I had a floor mate who was 67 years old. She rallied a few Starkiens (students housed in a former infirmary) and we produced a special meal out of individual donations of food, money or labour. I remembered the cafeteria manager was invited and he was really impressed. It was a delicious meal, cooked by six students, representing Virginia, New England, Southern and Texas cuisine. It was a meal no single household could offer because of the diversity and authentic recipes used.

I was the vegetable washer and cutter for the 7-layered salad. I must say that it was the best salad I had ever tasted in my entire life because of the secret sauce made from the recipe of Betty's grandma.

Subsequent to that meal, I was asked to demonstrate the Asian way of slicing broccoli and cauliflower into bite-size twigs or florets. I had thought that commercial or mass cooking would not allow such a technique. Imagine that during one of the last meals I had in college, the cooking staff took the trouble to slice their cauliflower the Asian way for a side dish. It was beautiful and it tasted much better. Perhaps that was why a homogenously white college would offer finantial aid and scholarships to attract international students to be represented in its midst.

(1298)Fried Rice (One)

As a teenager at home, I avoided the kitchen. Believe me, kitchens and implements are fraught with perils for a dyslexic. I have had a life-long handicap, when combining sequential actions with time factor built in, would always rattle me and reduce me to accidents and tears.

As a foreign student in North America, I missed rice. It was so bad that I dreamed often about Yong Chow Fried Rice. Every opportunity I had, I would cook a student version of fried rice. My partners in the dormitory kitchens were Choo Lien Li from China and Cookie Lee from a city 200km from my hometown. Cookie was a name given by a Cypriot fellow student. We would pool our resources and walk 2km to buy cheap ingredients. A bag of long grain rice would cost $1.12. Two big onions would cost $0.25. A tray of minced meat could be $2.83. A thin stack of egg roll wrappers could be $1.75. With that, we could have a feast of American college fried rice and deep fried wantons. I would volunteer to walk to Kroger. After one disaster of burning something, I was relegated to only wrapping wantons and dish washing.

We were each really tiny in size. Yet with a few dorm mates sampling our food,there was nothing left of what we cooked, except some uncooked rice. None of us were plump. But how we could eat! We really enjoyed our own cuisine. I forgot to mention that the cooking oil came from our appreciative food tester Marion who lived in Okinawa for two years. Soy cauce came from Katherine the self-professed Chinese-take-out queen. Tabasco sauce came from Lee's room mate who loved Cajun food. For readers who tried to estimate the cost, each partner paid $2.00. There was five cents or a nickle left for the next purchasing trip.

(1297)Early Tutoring

I am the youngest child in my family. However, when my elder cousin was born, her parents were living with us. It was exciting and such a joy to have a newborn in the house.

When my cousin was three, her little family moved a block away with my grandma. Each morning grandma would come visit with her and stay for lunch. One Saturday, they did not turn up. By ten o'clock mom sent me over with some freshly cooked braised pork to check on them. You could blow me over with a feather, I saw my cousin sitting on a 6-inch plastic seat on a normal dinner chair. She was being tutored in Arithmetic. My aunt shrugged and said she did all she could, but my cousin still could not comprehend addition and subtraction. It was time to bring in an experienced teacher to help.

Tutoring a pre-school child was unheard of in the early seventies. Around that time I started tutoring an 11-year-old boy in English. It was a close-to-impossible task, as I taught and retaught simple vocabulary and tenses week after week. I was 13 years old that year. Even at that time I realised a person may be good at some things but quite slow in others. My pupil was slow in picking up English but good in Math and Science taught in Chinese. Perhaps it was a good idea to start early. After all, family yarns credited me with the ability to count up to 100 coconut sweets accurately at age three. It was perfectly reasonable to expect my cousin to be able to add single digits at the age of three.

Half a century has passed. Looking back, my cousin was a most fortunate little girl. Her mum had actually implemented early intervention. Chances were nobody did call her stupid nor laugh at her weakness in arithmetic. Truly she never excelled in maths, but she did not fail. She dropped the subject as soon as she could.

(1296)The Sneer

Sofia, who normally has much to say, confessed that even she was unable to correct Lucas when there was a certain look on his face. Lucas was Ben's playmate and Ben is Sofia's son. Each boy was often found at each other's house during the weekends and holidays.

This was what was said during a ladies' meeting. Quite a few ladies ended what they were saying quite abruptly to hear about this look that would even stop Sofia's ever flowing commentary. According to Sofia, It was a certain curling of Lucas' lips. She attempted to purse her lips in imitation of the 10-year-old's expression.

When I got home, I asked my husband and Keziah (my last school-going child). The former could not catch head nor tail of what I was saying. Keziah, however, had seen that look. She was a few years older than Lucas and was friends with Lucas' sister. Keziah had noticed Lucas sneering at his sister once. Keziah was of the opinion that when Lucas sneered, one should stop talking and save one's breath. Nothing would go into his thick skull just then.

All that happened a good 14 years ago. Interestingly after Lucas graduated, he asked for a year's break. His family gave him six months to rest. At that point of time, no one thought that those particular six months would be of any significanse. Yet as events developed, his sixth month ended on March 2020, the very month that COVID-19 hit Malaysia with the first wave. Most people were forced to work from home unless they were in what the Government termed essential industry. It is now November 2020, Lucas did get his one entire year of break and more. Yet with the economy stagnating and perhaps even shrinking in certain sectors, how was he going to get a job as a fresh graduate with no working experience?

I would not call Lucas stiff-necked, yet he could be rather hard headed sometimes. Perhaps it was not by chance that he was handed a difficult hand in his young life.

(1295)Three Million

Chatting with my fashionable friends in the capital city, it seemed folks were saying it would take three million in investment before a couple could safely retire for life.

Depending on the interest rate, that meant $10,000 to $12,000 a month, an annual income of maybe $144,000. With that amount of disposable cash, one could have a graduate Filipino maid. Living next to a golf course would not be a hiccup. Master and Mistress could run separate cars. Club and gym membership would cause no sweat. Missus could still purchase a branded new handbag every 6 months or so. Yearly vacation overseas would be a given. Eating out a few times a week at premium places would enhance one's lifestyle.

The strange thing is, I have known quite a few millionairesses, who lived quite near the bare bone right above the poverty level. There was Crystal's friend Rea, whom everyone thought Rea was as poor as a church mouse. She died of a massive stroke while watching a black and white TV given by a well-wisher. After the bodies (Rea and her invalid mom) were removed by the authorities, bank books and deposit certificates were found in the master bedroom as well as ten title deeds of shop buildings in Silver City. Mother and daughter jointly owned no less than $10 million cash, apart from receiving rent from pricey real estate.

In 2008, Madam Loi who helped manage Soo Peng's finance said the latter had $3.5 million. Among friends, everyone encouraged her to buy a new condo and hire a maid. There was not much point in hoarding that amount as she was well over 60 years old. All our advice remained useless words. Soo Peng lived in her deceased parents' old house and bickered with her sisters over a few cents. Recently we heard of her passing, she was the very last of her family to depart. We wondered how her wealth would affect her maid, lawyer, her many nieces and nephews; or would the government benefit?

I have a good friend who was known for the congenial parties she threw while we were single. Once she inherited millions from her dad, she somehow became another person. I wonder if she was still counting thirty-five cents in Perth? Her poor Indonesian maid was reprimanded for boiling an extra egg one lunch time.

A final thought: what is going to happen to Soo Peng's sisters' ashes kept in urns behind the coffin shop in Silver City? Did Soo Peng really left instructions in her will to finally put them to rest in a proper place? Money could be used as a good tool. But it could also become Mammon the slave driver, if a person becomes obssessed over it.

(1294)Shanghai

One of my daughters found a part-time job with a Shanghainese woman. My deceased grandma used to say that out of the entire mainland China, Shanghainese women were the hardest nuts to crack. When I met Choo Lien in Virginia, she was the very first Shanghainese I met. After about a year of being friends, one day I asked her if that statement was true in China. She did not deny it but claimed that her mum and her were different because they followed Jesus. I asked what about Beijing or Nanking, why was it that the women in mega cities did not get that reputation? She said that for hundreds of years Shanghai had been a cosmopolitan port. It was very difficult for women to survive there, especially women who worked at selling things on the street. It took ruthlessness, persistence and ingenuity to exist and bringing up offspring there.

The thought of surviving in pre-Communist China brought to mind that it was not easy to survive after the takeover. My uncle, who lived most of his life in Mainland China, said that the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution had killed off virtually all the upright, brave or courageous people in that country. To me, he was upright, honest and principled, at least that was my impression as a 33 year old niece visiting. He replied that he owed his life to his politically savvy wife. There were many instances where she had stopped him from acting out or speaking up during those turbulent and terrible days.

We see China as the economic power house and I was really tickled when I heard that Saudi Arabia has made Chinese the compulsory second language in their schools. With Covid-19 rampaging, it is most unlikely I would visit China in the forseeable future.