A Frugal Mother

Coming from a frugal Foochow family I know all about stretching the dollar to feed the family. There are people who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. There are folks who are fated to be poor and down trodden. A life is always valuable, and respect is due. No one should be lesser than another in our human race.

If you can empathise with the down and out, the down trodden and those who have sad fates, here is a story for you. This is a post about a very frugal Foochow friend who passed away about 10 years ago. I still think about her and remember some of her gimmicks, wise cracks, and joy of life.

Her frugality was legendary. Hence she made a name for herself and garnered a lot of respect. However she did not have a long life as she passed away when she was not yet even 60. When I was told the news of her sudden passing I was very sad. Many good people do not have long lives.

How do I remember her?

When I peel off the outer leaves of my Chinese cabbage I would remember her. She used to go around the vegetable market and asked for the cast offs. The vegetable sellers were kind and gave her as much as they could. She took them home, made pickles, cooked them for lunch and the worst ones would be given to her ducks. She never owned a car, and she would always take the bus, until there was no bus service in the city.

When I go to the fish market, I would think of her too as she never would buy the best of fish. She liked the small fish to make salted fish, to sell them to neighbours. Her yard would always have two or three rattan trays of fish drying in the sun. The fish looked like jewels in the sun. Whenever I visited, she would give me a small plastic bag and said, "I cannot give you too much. Don't want to raise your blood pressure." Since I knew this would always take place, the giving of whatever she had in hand  as a parting gift, I would never visit her empty handed. I always brought a good bag of indigenous rice for her, saying,"This is for your mother in law's porridge."

And one day she called me to give her a lift. I saw her running out of the house even before I reached the gate. She quickly got into the car and said, "Don't have to drive to my house, you have to make so many turns, waste your petrol. I will come out to the main road." She was barefooted. She had called me from her neighbour's house phone. After that I would call her neighbour to say that I was almost near her house. The neigbhour was a good woman.

That was a very special mission for me: to buy a pair of Japanese slippers in the market. She was not embarrassed to go around town barefooted.

"I have seen TV shows. The Americans in Miami go around barefooted."

That day we bought a lot of Ikan Kepala or Mak Git. We cooked together, asam ikan pedas, and we had enough for the next day. I took back one container for my evening meal.

And again the fish monger gave her extra Mak Git..."these extras are for your cats..." The fishmonger was the kindest I have ever met. He would give her free mak git equivalent to more than 25 % of her purchase. In those days mak git was only about RM3 per kg.

And I smiled because her children and I were her cats.