Growing roots

It's a pity that we tend to realise the importance of our roots only when we are older. Here I am, a jiak kantang Chinese with very little knowledge of my cultural heritage, trying to prevent my children from facing a similar fate. Sigh...

I like sharing with the girls my childhood stories and fortunately some of that includes certain cultural practices, such as the celebration of Dong Zhi. I told the girls how I used to make tang yuan when I was little, rolling the dough into marble-sized balls of white and pink, sometimes making a little snowman by joining two balls together. The girls were intrigued and wanted to make tang yuan too.

As with any dish that I prepare, I absolutely have to refer to a recipe. The Husband cried, "You need a recipe for tang yuan?! It's flour and water!" Ok ok.... as I was saying, the recipe, it called for glutinous rice flour, food colouring, and water. We got flour from the mini mart and I almost bought food flavouring instead of colouring but that was not my fault because they pack these things into the same type of little glass bottles, and then we were all ready for tang yuan making!

The girls had fun rolling the dough into balls and cooking them, and unknown to them getting in touch with their roots.

And then there is the other half of my roots - the Peranakan half. That is even more alien to me because I lost my mother when I was young. All I remember is eating spicy food and simple words like "manja", "tidor", "sakit", "kacau", "skali". I never wore Nonya attire and even my mum rarely did. When I first visited the Peranakan Museum shortly after it opened last year, I felt a wistful longing for my Peranakan roots.

This feeling was amplified when my whole family became avid followers of the popular Chinese serial Little Nonya, the most watched show in the past 15 years. I explained to the girls that Mummy is half Peranakan which makes them one quarter Peranakan (a little math lesson thrown in there) and they were very pleased about that. Now they want to dress like Nonyas and learn beading. But I have nothing from my Peranakan past to share with them. So sad.

We did the next best thing and visited the Peranakan Museum last evening. We enjoyed ourselves there ("I want to be a Nonya!" the girls cried) but at the same time, I was filled with a great sense of loss and regret. Sad, so sad...

My great grandma