1963 Chinese New Year in Sg. Merah

 1963 was the last Chinese New Year we had with our grandfather, Tiong Kung Ping.

In the previous years my father and his good friend Wong Cheng Ang, whose house was below "the hill" would often meet up. Wong left Sg Merah to go underground sometime in 1962 and we were told never to mention his name.

Wong Cheng Ang was my father's childhood friend who actually came from a very landed family. His mother Ping Chuan Moo was a very smart business woman who had many sons whom she educated overseas. They were the proud sons of Sungei Merah.

However Uncle Wong was very special as he had a mind of his own. He graduated with a chemistry degree from the Yenching University of Beijing in 1937 together with my father. He named all his children after precious chemicals or metals.

Interestingly he loved to come up the hill to chat with my grandfather and my father. They would have long conversations.

Often times my grandmother Siew would invite him for lunch, knowing how much he loved good food. My grandmother was a good cook. so my father, my grandfather and Uncle Wong would ,for example, have a good Pig Stomach soup together and talked until they finished the soup. Uncle Wong would then go home happily.

My father loved my grandmother's pork leg dish which was very special. Sometimes my grandmother would cook pig tails for Grandfather and my father and Uncle Wong would be very lucky if they came in the late afternoon to enjoy the special soup.

My grandparents did not often have a whole range of buffet for Chinese New Year. We would visit, receive our Dah Bui Chieng, have tea and pong biang. Ah, if we came early in the morning we would have noodles.

According to family stories, our third aunt Pearl never liked to eat the wings of chicken and if Grandmother Siew gave her that particular cut, she would cry.

My sister Sing often said that she was an unlucky child because she would get just a piece of ginger. With so many descendants around, we all received poorer cuts of the chicken. But I did not mind because to me, if we had a bowl of mee sua, KOSONG, it was good enough.

A piece of ginger in a chicken soup was often referred to as Tiger Meat, or Lao Hoo Niik. We siblings always laughed about it. We often thought that the person scooping the chicken pieces and noodles into the bowls would definitely know the difference between ginger and chicken. How come some guests would just get a piece of ginger?

To be polite, we never asked for a substitute piece of chicken, or a piece of chicken of our choice. 

In retrospect, today, we have KFC and we can buy whatever cut of chicken we like. No big deal to me. We are lucky to be salaried female descendants of my grandfather.

My mum would always volunteer for the chicken butt.