As a child I saw many of my elders setting good examples as upright, frugal, campassionate, and kind mothers. My mother is no different. She has always been very frugal and never spends much on herself. She has always been unselfish, giving to others and sacrificing a lot.
And we could easily see how much she denied herself during her confinement. My siblings and I remember her just eating plain rice with some chicken soup in her bedroom at our Brooke Drive house. While most new mothers put on a lot of weight during their confinement my mother never did put on weight during hers. Her pregnancy made her lose a lot of weight and she did not gain back any weight during the confinement.
Four of my siblings were born in Sibu, not that close together. My mother's cousin, 6th Sister, (劉 六 姐）came to help. Confinement ladies had to be booked early to secure their services in those days and sometimes even a deposit had to be paid. I rememember how some mothers were in tears when they could not secure the confinement lady of their choice.
A confinement lady played a support role to the new mother. She was the confidante, the helper, the surrogate mother to the other children, the cook and the general housekeeper. And when well wishers and relatives came, Sixth Aunt must represent the family to receive them. And she must got out to the back yard, slaughter a chicken or two to prepare bowls and bowls of mee sua and chicken soup. If half a dozen relatives arrived she had to boil more than a dozen eggs.
Very often the confinement lady was also the purchasing officer of the family, as she had to tell the father of the family what groceries and household items needed to be bought. I liked how Sixth Aunt would carefully dry the mee sua in the sun whenever a new batch was bought. The smell of the sun in the mee sua was so heavenly. She was always lucky in choosing the days to dry the noodles.
How could a small sized woman, born in Fujian, be so capable? She would wake up before anyone else in the morning and sleep long after we had gone to sleep.
I am sure my mother and Sixth Aunt shared a lot of secrets. When she sent a tray of food to my mother, they would speak in whispers, and my mother only ate the soup and the rice. The chicken pieces would be sent back to the kitchen for the children's lunch. A confinement carer, according to an unwritten rule, must never eat the chicken meant for the new mother. She prepared food for the family and herself.
A confinement women would slaughter a chicken every day to prepare 3 main meals and 2 snacks. The first dish would be for breakfast, when the liver and the innards were still warm from the slaughter, she must quickly make a soup with them and pour one cup of red wine into the cooking. Mind you, no water was used at all to cook this dish.
A bit of mee sua and more chicken soup would be served at 10 oclock to the new mother.
Lunch at noon would be more rice and more chicken soup.
The three o'clock snack could be two poached eggs in a bowl of chicken soup. Mum would be happy to have only one poached egg. Breast feeding made the new mother hungry very quickly, and also tired.
Then there was dinner, with more chicken and soup and rice. Again, my mother would only have a bit of soup and rice. Some new mothers could eat up to six hard boiled eggs per meal!!
My mother never asked for more, although when relatives came to see her and had mee sua, chicken and hard boiled eggs as part of the Foochow customs of Sending Peace (Serng Ann), to greet the new baby and to wish the new mother good health and peace.
Traditionally, when a Foochow woman has a baby boy, more relatives would visit and therefore there are more gifts of chickens, eggs and mee sua.
My maternal grandmother had always prepared gifts of home reared chickens ahead of my siblings' birth. Mum on the other hand did not receive these gifts entirely for she would always reciprocate with a large ang pow for her mother.
My mother believes in returning more to the giver. She tells us never to "take" everything. We have to return as much as we can, and if possible, more than we receive.
(P/s . It was a pity no one took a photo of Sixth Aunt when she was around. I miss her and I think my mother misses her even more.)
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