Foochow women after the age of 40 in the early days of the Foochow Settlement in Sibu would start wearing a bun, instead of letting the hair loose or in plaits. This was to indicate that they were of grandmother's rank and "old" already. Probably it was a sign that they would no longer want to bear any more children.
However I remember my grandmother's little knot of a hair bun in a very different way.
One of the most memorable features we remember about our Ngie ma (maternal grandmother) was how sweet she smelled.
Her secret? It was a simple natural fragrance. Down at the riverside house of the Lau family was a huge michela alba (magnolia) tree which gave her many white chempaca or michela alba or Bai Yu Lan flowers. She would ask the kids to pluck them. She wore two on her hair, slipped between the bun and her hair, on the right side . Wherever she walked, she smelled really nice.
She also kept a few flowers in her clothes basket (today we carry a backpack) whenever she travelled to Sibu or Sarikei.
My father also liked the bai yu lan and he planted one tree outside our house in Brooke Drive(Kung Ping Road) when we moved over from Pulau Kerto to Sibu. We collected many of the buds and preserved them in glass bottles of water. The caps of the bottles were sealed with candle wax. These bottles of preserved yu lan looked very pretty on our shelves.
When the tree bloomed, we enjoyed the fragrance, especially in the evening. The petals from the old flowers on our pavement made us feel that time had passed, things grew old and wither away. We felt a sense of "pitifulness" looking that the petals which had turned brown from a lovely white.
My grandmother would always put two bai yu lan on her bun. I am sure she felt like a queen.
The bai yu lan tree can grow from a small tree to a giant. Many people have told me that in many places if you find a Bai Yu Lan tree, you would most probably tell that it was grown by a Foochow.
Perhaps it is true that the first Chinese who grew a Yu Lan tree in Sarawak was a Foochow in Sibu. Many Foochows do grow this tree in their gardens in Sibu, Miri, Kuching and Sarikei.
Bai yu lan , the Foochow name of this flower, is scientifically called Magnolia (Michelia) champaca var. champaca. It belongs to the magnolia family. The tree is evergreen and is native to South Asia( Southern China) and South East Asia. It is smaller than the cup shaped magnolia most people know of (Australian tree)
In Indonesia, the pleasantly fragrant flower is used and arranged together with Jasminum sambac as flower garland, especially wore by brides during traditional wedding ceremony.
An essential oil is extracted from the flowers. In China, where it is known as bai lan (白蘭), the flowers are used to prepare yulan tea.[In traditional Chinese medicine, the flowers are used to move qi and relieve cough.
One can also buy fragrant michelia alba tea (Chinese herbal tea) . It is helpful to relax the body and the mind.
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