Great Grandmother's Ginger Tea

When my great grandmother arrived in Sibu around 1908, she must have found Sibu a very small place with just a few people. She had been exposed to life in the bigger Minqing township.

Even though she had bound feet she was very capable of supervising work, and in fact even doing some gardening. According to relatives my great grandfather was very attentive to her wishes. If she had wanted soil for some pots to grow ginger, he would readily get his employees to bring good soil to the garden, burn the soil (it was the done thing in those days). 

As my father and his siblings grew older, they realized how this gentle grandmother could manage the household well with their mother who was burdened with new babies and new engines grandfather was interested in assembling. 

Even in those days, my grandparents were doing a lot of work together outside the home. This was because my grandmother Chong Ching Soon was English educated and she had to assist my grandfather in reading the manuals when he assembled engines.

My father and his siblings grew up drinking a lot of ginger tea (pounded ginger boiled with hot water) for any small ailments like a cough or a stomach ache. My younger aunts used to say how helpful ginger tea was and they frequently had it because Great Grandmother said so!!

My great grandmother was very resourceful and she insisted that every one must grow some ginger in the back yard.

Ginger is "heaty" and it is a natural food which helps dispel wind and coldness in the body.

My great grandfather was a kind of barefoot sin seh as he was able to give treatment to small ailments. He would read the pulse and then write a prescription for the patient to buy the herbs in Sibu.

But my great grandmother would only prescribe GINGER TEA for everything. It did work for my aunts who told us lots of stories about it.

If I make ginger tea for my grandson, it would mean that he would be the sixth generation of my family drinking ginger tea in Malaysia. Ginger is easy to grow and the tea is magical at least to me.

Thanks to great grandmother.