by Ufrieda Ho
The Chinese have adapted and changed, too, here in this golden
mountain. No culture stands still and survives. We keep what is useful, we
discard the rest. You were never big on the fussy bits of traditions, even
though you demanded that we show respect and personal discipline. Some
things we hang on to a little longer and some things we know we have to
let go of. The five-cent lei see , the lucky coin wrapped up in red paper at a
funeral that is meant to restore the luck after the sadness of final respects,
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has been replaced by a bowl of sweets. It is still a reminder of the mercy of
healing after loss but no one has time to wrap up all those five-cent pieces
today. They even sell watermelons all cut up and packaged into chunks; they
call it ‘convenience’.
Remember when we would dunk a watermelon in a tub of ice-cold water,
waiting for you to come home on a Saturday afternoon? You would bring
out the big Chinese chopper, run it quickly along that sharpener from Ah
Goung’s butcher days, and we would all head to the backyard for the big
watermelon slaughter. Mom said it was better to do it outside; ‘too much mess
for the kitchen’. You would cut it up into those big wedges and our chins and
cheeks would get cold and wet as we ate. We spat the pips into the garden and
laughed at each other because as hard as we tried, the juices slid down our
elbows and the fronts of our shirts.
There are still dragon boat festivals and kung fu demonstrations but they
are not reserved for only Chinese people any more. Dressed up in traditional
outfits, beating drums and straining muscles as oars plough through the water,
are all those who want to take part, regardless of their skin colour. There is
even a monastery these days and monks from across Africa greet you with a
bow and a nee how , in the Mandarin that all novices are taught.
We do not nod our heads in greeting to all the Chinese people we see in
shops and on the streets any more. It is not like we are being rude or we have
forgotten our manners. These Chinese do not even look twice at us; we are not
part of a community, we simply have the same skin colour. Some come from
as far as the Siberian border, some are tanned so dark or have facial features
that mark them clearly as being from some far-away geographical origin. If
they do speak to me it is in dialects I do not understand and accents that my
ears do not register.
But there are the Ah Buks and Ah Mous, the uncles and aunties, that look
familiar. I greet them as you and mom taught us: ‘ Jou saan, Ah Buk, jou saan,
Ah Mou ’. They greet me back with ‘good morning’ in Cantonese and then
they ask whose child I am and I say I am your daughter, I am Ah Kee’s child.
The Chinese foods are different, too, now and there are two Chinatowns.
Your beloved Ma Lay Gum survives barely but you hear Cantonese here still,
the kind we spoke with our bastardised words, the Chinese that mellowed into
its South African distillation. And locals still make the journey downtown to
bring donations in lieu of flowers for someone’s family in mourning.
On our dinner tables are more than the speciality of the crab you used to
cook up in the wok with your alchemy of garlic, spring onion and a splash
of oyster sauce. Now there are spices so hot they numb your tongue before
they land on your taste buds. We eat beans and vegetables that no one ever
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bothered to plant here in South Africa before the new waves of Chinese
brought the seeds from afar. I wish you could taste these, although maybe
you would still prefer a bowl of fried rice.
Pinky is still here. She has lost an eye now and mom had her bow
replaced with a green spotted one. Mom holds on to you in so many ways.
Pinky’s head is a little floppier. She has been through more washes than
an old bear can handle maybe. She is not the giant of my childhood any
more, but I remember bringing her home that day with you. She sits on
mom’s bed sometimes, like she has done so many days since you have been
gone.
We have grown up, too, dad – Kaatch, Kaa Heng, Ah Saan and me. We
grow into our lives like you would have hoped for us – making mistakes,
choosing more wisely a second time around, learning, loving and living
each moment, whatever it brings. You have two beautiful granddaughters,
Kaa Heng and Jo-Anne’s girls Alexandra and Jordan; Ah Yee and Ah Jaan
are their Chinese names. They test their tongues around calling mom
‘Ah Mah’ and the Chinese rhymes we used to sing: dum dum jun, gok
fa yun . . . ‘spinning around and around the rose gardens’. They stand to
attention for our national anthem with its meld of languages proving that
we can mix and match, we can compromise and make room for more; it
still creates a song. Alex and Jordie hold our hope; maybe yours, too.
They are the branches and new leaves you left behind when you put
your roots down here on this southern tip of the world, when you and
mom built our lives for us. And me, I can only know my roots and breathe
in the wide potential of the open sky, one breath at a time.
I love you dad,
Ah Ngaan
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Document Outline
Acknowledgements
Pinky
Here be Dragons
A Long Way from Here
A Strange New Home
Another Journey across the Indian Ocean
In the City of Gold
Of Phoenixes and Dragons
Growing up with Mr and Mrs Ho
Johnny Depp, Segregation and Sequins
My Father, the Fahfee Man
Weekend Dad
Another Day, Another Dollar
Mah Jong and Ponies
The Outside Toilet
The Hand that History Deals
The Dark Night
A New Day
The Under-catered Party
