My mother has always been a natural beauty and furthermore never owned a lipstick in her life. Being the daughter of a Foochow pioneer, she was brought up according to strict Foochow values. No foul language, no crazy laughter, no smiles, no running around, no eating with loud noises and no sitting around with guys. No smoking. No drinking. No telling of lies.
And of course no make-up. No red lips.
As a very active school girl I was imaginative and had wanted to write plays to perform.
In fact I took part only in one play and I did use this Sam Fong Begoinia pressed powder to make my face white. Other actors also used it to make their faces white and the young men used lots of the powder to make their hair white. Well it was an American play and we were supposed to be white Americans.
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| Begonia. |
She had not wanted us to be fancy like the White Faced Women of the town (pseudonym for prostitutes), so we girls must never make our face white!!
Today we use this face powder as a silver polish. When my aunts came back from overseas they took my mother shopping , trying their best to buy the Sam Fong pressed powder. They found one shop selling only 5 more boxes and they took all of them. My mother did not believe that the face powder could clean silver ware until my aunts showed her.
And I do have a box in the drawer...well you never know when we may need to powder our nose, or our face.
However I have tried to smell the fragrances of the actual begonia flowers in my friends' gardens. They never seem to give out any perfume.
Is indeed interesting how our mothers teach us good values and how strong these images can still come back to us after more than 40 years.
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