QUOTABLE QUOTE

To all young parents, with young children, make it your top priority to 'spend time' with them. It is 'time' they want, especially from you.

To all of us with aging parents, the same applies. It is also 'time' they want from us, be mindful of the difference in this case though, there is not much time left.

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'To the world you may be just one person, to one person you just might be the world'.

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CHRISTMAS 2010

Christmas and Chinese New Year are always family biased occasions but for 2010 it is highlighted by the arrival of the twins, Jamie & Sonya Fung who are a few days shy of their second month on Planet Earth this Christmas Day. Parents will always be parents, regardless of misgivings we sometimes have about the unbecoming behavior of our offsprings. We forget, we even forgive, a parental trait that transcends the ages on this special day.

Many have said that when your children start having children of their own, attitudes change as they begin to realize the hardships and challenges ahead. As I said in my annual family report, I get a certain 'evil satisfaction' from telling my daughter & son-in-law ' ... if you think managing the twins now is hard, wait till they grow up'.

3 things, simple things, touched my heart this Christmas. I could not hold back my tears in each of the occasions.

* Watching my 89 year old mother at our Christmas Eve gathering last night ... enjoying her turkey, ham & cakes; mingling with her grandchildren; the smile on her face when she opened her presents. Tearing quietly, I want to lock that away in the sacred recess of my memory where they cannot be erased.

* An email from a childhood friend came today, one that reminds us how we might have missed the growing up of our children when they needed us the most, when we were preoccupeid with business and less important things. This is the story : a father opened a page of his son's diary in the attic that read, "Dad took me fishing and that was the best day of my life". The son is a grown up now, with his own kids. He hurried to his study, found his own dusty diary, and on that same day his entry was "I wasted a whole day fishing with John". It brought immediate tears to my eyes, shamed by all those evenings I chose to stay in the office rather than coming home for dinner, many many unforgivable years ago.

* Andrea stayed at home last night, something she hardly does anymore. Comfortably tugged into a warm blanket next to our virtual fireplace in the living room, she slept through the night. When she woke I made her favorite breakfast, a cheddar cheese omelette on rye toast, which she consumed at hurricane speed. "That was very good Dad, thanks". Well, another tear jerker alright, on Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas to you all ....

GUANGZHOU EATERY : A MUST TRY!

I have no idea how to get there, aside from the fact that it is on the other side of town from Tienhe where the action is these days in Guangzhou. Still catching her breath from the 'high' of the Asian Games, the city is resplendent as the taxi took us through mesmerizing streets and boulevards, all dazzled with lights. All of a sudden we stopped in front of this gigantic, 4-storey restaurant on Jiang Nan Si Lu. Front and centre is a large Chinese character 'eel', a dead give-away of the specialty la maison. At the entrance is the obligatory live fish tank but what catches everyone's attention is a long tank of eels after eels that hardly wriggle because they are packed so tightly.

The menu is a delight to navigate, and the photographs are among the best shots of food I have seen yet, a truly professional job. We over ordered, deliberately, so we can get a feel as to why it is so popular. It was a wonderful meal, not only on the eel front, but across the board. The notables were ; blanched eel in crushed ice with wasabi soy, sauteed crabs, fish jaws, even char-sui in their famous house sauce, and lastly, the special eel rice .... delish!

My Dad used to tell us the story of my great-grand-mother's favorite : 'eel rice' prepared at the table. The drill involves boiling, almost ready rice in a fish stock that her cook will let a few live baby eels in. The idea is to let them meander through the half congee/half rice concoction until they, too, are cooked. Supposedly this will yield maximum flavors, as well as medicinal effects for chronic coughing, if I remember correctly. I really doubt if it would sell today. While our rice was made in heaven, we certainly did not see any wriggly objects in it, thank God!

SAM SHUI BOUILLABAISE

It was a tradition started by Dad at his first homecoming visit to Sam Shui, 40 years after he fled Guangzhou in March 1949 right after I was born, when the 'writing was on the wall' ..... He invited all the Tangs to a clan dinner at the one and only local banquet hall. We had little option but to carry his flag last week.

This is the Guangdong version of what is served in Marseille, the definitive Bouillabaise a la Cantonese. Dora and I walked all over Marseille last Spring looking for what made the city famous, only to be disappointed by a pot of 'sea food tasting thick soup' and nothing more, at E45 per head. This Sam Shui creation is infinitely better which the Michelin Guide might disagree. Does it matter, no it does not, nor do I care. I believe fishermen on the southern coast of China were of like minds as their counterparts in the south of France and voila, out comes more or less the same recipe, sans tomatoes, hence the darker color. As for the taste, it is so similar it is uncanny.

ANCESTRAL VILLAGE VISIT

At 89, Grandma has things on her mind that she needs to check off, it is her list of 'outstanding business'. A key item is to visit our ancestral shrine in the small township of Sam Shui, in Guangdong Province. What used to take 2.5 hours via dusty, unpaved roads is only an hour away from the centre of Guangzhou. The lovely tree lined roads with minimum traffic are replaced by super highways, with hazy, polluted air as backdrop. Welcome to the modernization of China.

The shrine is not really a shrine per se, but a large courtyard with plain, interconnecting buildings that sit on 2 acres of idyllic landscape including willow trees and a lotus pond. It was purposedly built almost 150 years ago when a Great-Great-Grand-Father of the Tang clan earned what is equivalent to '1st class honors' which brought much glory to our village. It was a super big deal then. He later commissioned a study cum library in his own name, a place where he could be left alone to think, and to write. Though run down, it miraculously survived the early years of the Communist regime, including the Cultural Revolution. My late Father, in his position as the eldest son and eldest grandson of the clan, took up the challenge of restoring this unique heritage structure 25 years ago on his retirement and, as the saying goes, the rest is history. After much fund raising and endless refurbishment it is now in excellent condition, a landmark that made the clan proud. The 4 procelain pictures at the front were of our forefathers, in Qing Dynasty garb, those on top were deceased descendents from the family tree, including Dad.

Together with elders from the Grandma ranks, plus cousins, we had a wonderful visit, catching up with all the Tangs who still live and work in the village and nearby. It is them who look after the place, which has become our 'virtual' ancestral shrine. I have been 'promoted' to Dad's position as the 1st son of the 1st born grandson, hence my candle-lighting and wine-pouring ceremonial role. I cannot help but feeling philosophical everytime I visit, the transient nature of life is evident everytime I make eye contact with my ancestors. One day I will be back in the fold, joining Dad and the others, right here at this shrine.