Patience is certainly a virtue my son, Josh, sadly lacks.
Growing up, Josh had quite a temper and his raging outbursts when things didn't go his way used to cause me great alarm.
I recall a funny (not so funny then) incident that happened when he was little.
Josh was attempting to fly his kite together with his younger brother and cousin when all three kites became entangled.
The boys tried to unravel their strings. While the other two patiently worked on the tangled mess, Josh gave up and threw a hissy fit. He started to shout and stamp about, impatient to get his kite flying again.
We were in my uncle's village and there were chickens running around.
Suddenly, a cockerel that was perching on a fence near Josh started to crow loudly.
"You! Shut up!" Josh yelled angrily at the cockerel!
Several villagers who witnessed the whole incident burst out laughing!
*"Ayam pun kena marah!" One of the villagers remarked amusedly in Malay.
*Loosely translates as "even the chicken gets scolded"
I was more angry at his bad behavior than amused but looking back, it was pretty hilarious!
You should have seen the look on the cockerel's face!
After the chicken episode, I stuck this wall decal in Josh's room as a daily reminder of his short fuse.
I am happy to say that over the years, he has learnt to tame his temper.
I love the puzzled look on my city friends' faces whenever I offer to treat them to a bowl of Haw Hee when they visit my hometown. Donkey is the first thing that comes to their minds!
Nope, no donkey is involved! Haw Hee is merely the name of a noodle dish though I am not certain why it was so named —probably a translation fail from Chinese to English. But it does have a nice ring to it, don't you agree?
I think it is uniquely Malaysian.
So far, save for one coffee shop in my neck of the woods, I have never seen any Haw Hee vendors in other parts of Malaysia besides my hometown.
Haw Hee always brings back fond memories of a certain noodle dish from my childhood in the 60s where I grew up. I can't really recall what exactly it was but it tasted very HawHee-ish!
Folks back then called it the "tok-tok" noodle because the hawker would announce his presence by knocking on a bamboo slab with a stick. Tok, tok, tok...
Interestingly, you could tell the different types of noodles sold by the hawkers by their distinct tok-tok rhythms — wanton noodle, fishball noodle, prawn noodle, fried noodle, etc.
Back in those days, people rarely ate out and itinerant hawkers pedaled tricycle food carts and roved in neighborhoods, usually around dinner time.
BYOB
I still recall the sense of anticipation while my sisters and I waited impatiently at dusk for the hawker to make his rounds. We would strain our ears to listen for the tok-tok sound. And as soon as he approached our street, we would dash out of the house with our empty bowls, lying in wait for him!
And yes, you were required to bring your own bowl!
To order, you would hand your bowl over to the tok-tok man and state your choice of noodle (glass vermicelli, rice vermicelli, egg noodle, flat-rice noodle, etc)
He would then drop the noodle in a wire-mesh basket and blanch it in a pot of boiling water.
Next, the cooked noodle would be placed into your bowl and topped with a fish dumpling, slices of fishcake and several types of fishballs. The tok-tok man would snip the larger fishballs into bite-size pieces with a pair of scissors.
Lastly, he would fill up the bowl with steaming fish broth, a sprinkling of scallion slices and a dash of pepper.
And we would gingerly carry our piping hot bowls of tok-tok noodle back into the house!
Not an easy feat for a child, mind you!
And usually, by the time we reached the dining table, much of the broth would have been spilled!
I was ecstatic when I stumbled upon the following video on YouTube!
The hubs and I were passing a parking lot when we spotted this friendly chow chow in a pickup truck.
The owner was nowhere to be seen.
We hopped into a pharmacy nearby to pick up some meds and according to the pharmacist who was attending to us, the dog in the truck is a familiar sight in this part of the neighbourhood.
Apparently, the owner stops by regularly to run an errand while the dog waits patiently in the truck!
Turns out, many of us were channelizing our inner master chefs during the lockdown and I must say my recipe repertoire has certainly expanded, thanks to the myriad Youtube videos that kept popping up in my feed.
It took a pandemic to help me rediscover the joys of home cooking!
I found my zen garden in the kitchen.
Taiwanese Braised Pork Belly
A recipe to share
There you go — an amazing rice bowl that is topped with aromatic, toothsome, caramelized, melt-in-your-mouth pork morsels and a braised hard-boiled egg!
Last night, I was over the moon when I had the amazing opportunity to witness a moonbow for the first time in my 58 years of life!
There are some things you just can't capture in a photo. This shot on my phone couldn't possibly do justice to what I had witnessed.
I was bewitched by the spectral sighting.
Never had I ever seen a rainbow haloing a moon!
Ghostly and alluring, it was like gazing at a portal into another realm!
Several conditions have to be just right for a moonbow to occur
Upon googling, I learned that a moonbow also known as a lunar halo or lunar rainbow, is a rare natural atmospheric phenomenon that occurs when the moon's light is reflected and refracted off water droplets in the air.
In other words, it is a rainbow produced by moonlight rather than sunlight.
It is believed that a moonbow brings good luck to the localized area it is viewed in.
In these strange and uncertain times, I have been looking up at the heavens a lot lately for signs of good things to come.
Perhaps this is a harbinger of something great on its way?
Pre Covid-19, we would be practising the tradition of dumpling exchange with our neighbours, friends and relatives. All the cousins would gather at my elderly aunt's house for a dumpling feast to savour the different versions of our fruits of labour.
For the first time this year, we decided to give the custom a miss. Instead, we stayed home to enjoy our store-bought dumplings.
The tradition of making these dumplings dates back more than 2000 years!
I can never get used to the element of surprise in uncovering these bamboo leaf-wrapped treats. You never know what 'gems' are buried in each parcel as the fillings vary from cook to cook.
Sweet, savoury, spicy, pillow-shaped or triangular, cream-colored and yes, blue(!), the dumplings are made of glutinous rice and packed with an assortment of fillings, from oysters to abalones to durians!
The *Peranakan blue ones are tinted with a natural dye that comes from the butterfly pea flower.
*Peranakan - A sub-ethnic community of Malay-Chinese ancestry.
Finally, after being holed up in my own house for 90 days, I stepped outside and into our car for the first time!
At last, we were able to make that long awaited road trip back to my hometown to visit my parents whom I hadn't seen since lockdown.
Thankfully, my parents are fine. Angels had been looking out for them during the curfew. Strangers left food and essentials on their doorstep. A neighbour who fell out with them years ago even sent food over!
I guess you can say it took a pandemic to mend their feud of more than 10 years and over some silly tree if my memory serves me correctly!
The pandemic is not only healing the earth but it is also patching up broken relationships.
It has brought out the worst and best in people.
Navigating this new normal was initially awkward but I am adapting.
Masking in public is the law.
A masked society is somewhat freaky.
It's like living in a world without smiles.
Dining out and shopping are no longer what they used to be. At the entrance of every business premise, temperatures are taken and customers are required to leave their names, contact numbers and temperature readings either by scanning the QR code on their phones or by filling up a log book. Those who don't abide by the rules are denied entry.
I accept that these procedures are necessary for contact tracing but I am not at ease with the privacy trade-off. I dread the thought of a security breach.
Dining out and indulging in the foods we had been craving since lockdown
Hubby's favourite meal of Ayam Goreng Berempah
Sambal Stuffed Fish
Hakka Noodles
Celebrating Father's Day in our favourite restaurant that has just reopened for dine-ins
X marks the spot where you can't sit
Yes, it was a bit strange walking into my favourite noodle shop — half of the tables in the shop had disappeared!
And it felt odd and absurd sitting with my family with empty chairs between us at a table marked with red Xs. When a fellow diner glanced in our direction, I flashed a smile at her. It was kinda sad that she couldn't read my facial expressions behind the mask 'cos a smile always makes two. And I'm accustomed to smiling at folks most of the time.
Our MCO (Movement Control Order) that was implemented on the 18th of March became the CMCO (Conditional Movement Control Order) when certain restrictions were lifted and now we have the RMCO (Relaxed Movement Control Order).
We are on the road to recovery!
I don't want to jinx it but I think we might have flattened the curve.
Our borders are still not open for travel but meanwhile, I'd like to share with you this award-winning video and let you take a peek into my corner of the world.
My feet sank and squished into the warm, wet sand at the edge of the waves.
I never felt more serene and peaceful...
But alas, I woke up from that vivid dream and sadly realized that we're still under the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO). The ban on interstate travel has not been lifted.
We have been under partial lockdown since March 18th.
My nearest weekend beach is just an hour's drive away but it is in another state.
It will be some time before I can hear the soothing sound of waves again.
From the archives
Port Dickson 2011
I miss the beach..
"A day at the beach restores the soul." - author unknown
