Sibu Tales : Eat a bit before the Banquet

 Today I am taking some time to write about the past social scenario when we first moved to Sibu Town.

My mum Lau Hung Chuo, daughter of Lau Kah Chui and Tiong Lien Tie, was born in 1926 in the Rajang River Valley in a place called Chien Nang Chong, a few "houses away from the Chung Cheng Primary School". This was the kind of address the Foochows had in those long ago days.

She was not born in the big house in Ensurai, built by my grandfather's older brother Lau Kah Tii. My grandfather at that time was tasked by his brother to clear more land in Chien Nang Chong (Front South Village). My mother was the 4th daughter and was the 6th child of the family.

Oldest was Lau Pang Ping

2nd was Lau Pang Kui

3rd was Lau Hung Hee

4th was Lau Hung Ding

5th was Lau Hung Toh

6th was Lau Hung Chuo

7th was Lau Hung Yung

8th was Lau pang Sing

9th was Lau Pang Teck.

According to my grandmother she had carried more children (like 14) but some were miscarried and one was still born. In those days in Sibu, it was hard to be pregnant, and work at the same time, although my grandmother never tapped rubber because of her small feet (she had her feet unbound at the age of 5 so that she could be sold to a wealthy family as a slave).

Mum had lived in wooden houses most of her life, in Chien Nang Chong, in Ensurai, in Nang Chong, in Pulau Kerto (Hua Hong) and in Brooke Drive. It was only in 1970's that we moved to a shop house for a temporary stay of 2 years. Later she built the Takang Building in Brooke Drive. She spent the last decades of her life in Airport Road, Sibu and in Kasuma Resort in Kuching.

Mum was brought up in a big family and she knew what it was like to share food, or the little food they had. Food to her was a language of love.

One of my favourite restaurant dishes in those days, Foochow Fried Bread Sandwiches.

Mum and her sisters, two boys and my Ngie Mah. Photo taken at Embang Road, Hii Residence.

When she had her own family, she continued to practise her gracious styles, teaching us to be careful with our food, to share what we had and to be gracious to others. Mum always told us that we must always let others have more. A bit of hunger was OK. Very OK. And I too believed that she was often hungry when she was young and especially during the Japanese Occupation.

She used to tell us "We girls worked hard but we did not get much food." 

Thinking about her statement reminds me of slaves who worked hard and were not fed at all.

Unlike children of today, our generation did not often enjoy restaurant food in those days in Sibu. Eating out was not the social practice. We were brought to wedding feasts to "represent" a parent or when we were asked specifically by a gracious host, to come as "extras". Chinese banquets were always calculated for sitting capacity and hosts did not want to be embarrassed by too few tables for under estimating the number of invitees.

The Foochows call this situation Bok Doh or "Explosion of Tables". Restaurant operators always tried their best to calculate well with the hosts.

My mum would always tell us to eat a little before we went for dinners. My sister and I for example would have some slices of bread before we left the house for the restaurant.

The two of us would represent our parents and take two seats at the dinner table. 

We would not think of bringing a third sibling, because it would mean he might have to stand somewhere to wait for an empty seat after the first course was started. A kind host would come along and showed him a place to seat and he might have to seat with people he did not know. It was not easy to eat with strangers at the table. So it was never in our family practice to overstretch the invitation.