Gang Jui : Orange Juice for Aerated Water

We were close to our uncle who owned Ta Fong Aerated Water. Each Chinese New Year my father,being very frugal would buy only HALF a case of the aerated water for our festival. That means that we only had 36 bottles for both guests and the CNY and Chap Goh Meh (Sek Ngu) dinners.

It was interesting how we called aerated water in Foochow, just Gang Jui or Orange water.

My father would tell the worker to send half a crate of Gang Jui to our house. And soon, we would all be very excited to see the delivery of the bottled drinks at our house. The drinks would be delivered by a Three Wheeler.

In those days, most people had no cars and most businesses would deliver their goods , at no charge at all, with their ever faithful three wheeler.

We would request our father to have different flavours, orange, banana, cream soda and cherry. Some how we did not like the Sarsi flavour. Just a few bottles of the drinks meant that we had a good New Year. And we tried to reserve some for our favourite aunts by not finishing the 36 bottles because one crate had 72 bottles.


At the end of  the Chinese New Year, we would return the wooden crate and the empty bottles, and had some cash back.

So recycling and cash back are not new. We were already practising it in the 50's and 60's. The Frugal Foochows.