Broken Rice : Flashbacks

Sometimes catching sight of words, or a picture, or an item can bring a lot of pain through one's body.

When I saw this signage : Broken Rice or Half Rice at RM2.40/kg I was reminded of how poor some of my relatives were in the 1950's in the villages outside of Sibu.

One of my mother's brother in law, uncle Hii never ate good rice throughout his life. Even though later he was a personal assistant to a timber tycoon, he would not eat good fragrant rice, the best he could have, from Thailand. He could only eat broken rice.

His favourite meal, which must be cooked by my aunt was broken rice porridge with condiments of small salted fish, salted vegetable and half a salted egg.

He was frugal all his life and towards the end, he made his son agree to a will he wrote, to give a large portion to my aunt, and the rest for the son and daughters to shaare, He was a very fair man, with a real sense of justice and honour. He wanted to make sure that his beloved wife was comfortable for the rest of her life when he was not around.

Besides Uncle Hii was also very filial his not only his parents but his father's only brother whom we called Bang Nga Chiik Gung (hearing and speech impaired grand uncle). He treated all his siblings fairly and helped them as much as he could,

My mother and my grandmother bought broken rice to make porridge fairly often.

Some aunts however tried to hide their laughter when they saw my mother buying broken rice from Chai Hong grocery shop. Mum was not afraid of people laughing at her. If her brother in law could eat broken rice, so could she and her family.

As a kid, I was just quite a rice eater. And to me, broken rice or full grain rice tasted the same. I was to learn more about rice later.

Indeed, later on in life, I started to understand that broken rice is not bad rice. It is actually the broken parts of good rice which the milling machine rejects and fall to the side. The bigger parts of the grain will enter the rice sack during the milling. The miller would collect the broken rice and fill up another sack to sell at a cheaper rate. Thus scientifically broken rice is still good rice.

I believe that all along my uncle knew about this. No he did not eat bad rice.

Broken rice is not bad rice.

Nowadays whenever I see broken rice being sold I would buy some. For old time's sake....and to remember my Uncle Hii, my mother and my grandmother. As I eat the porridge I would feel good...and my heart would warm up.  What is given by God is to be appreciated.