I had a pet duck named Christina after pop singer Christina Aguilera. My agung 阿公 (grandfather) chopped off her head and cooked her in some sweet beans and noodles for Chinese New Year 恭喜发财. He's cooking now. I can see him through the kitchen window.
My apoh 阿婆 (grandmother) is there too, frantically chopping vegetables while my grandfather prepares and marinates the meat in a cold vinegar sauce. I'm in the garage sorting through the old boxes. It's probably quite dangerous because of the chemicals and paint cans, but there's nothing else to do around here because my grandparents have banned me from playing the newly varnished piano in the rumpus room.
Mum is picking me up later. She works in the city and can't leave me at home during the day, so I stay with my grandparents and my cousins. Sometimes I'll play the piano, usually, until my apoh yells in Cantonese to stop. I don't understand her all that well, but I've disturbed her so many times by playing the bare notes of Every Breath You Take, that I know what she's basically trying to tell me. If I'm not attempting to play the piano, I'll watch a movie, usually from the same stack of VHSs piled up next to the big plasma screen in the living room. I've watched Pocahontas at least 20 times from ages seven to 12. Today, my grandparents want me to go outside and get some fresh air. They've kept everything in their garage; Sony radios, videos of old Kung-Fu stars, batteries and shoes. I found some rollerblades once. They were my mum's from when she was my age. She told me not to use them because she dislocated her knee so badly that she now has flare-ups of arthritis in her forties.
My Uncle Steven, who lives in Hong Kong, keeps his old, orange Holden Torana parked in the garage. It's rusted now. The orange is losing its sheen and the leather has peeled. Steven bought it when he was 16, intending to travel across Australia with his prog-rock band, The Starlights. That never happened though. He ended up marrying a nice Chinese girl and moved to Hong Kong to become a furniture salesman, selling chairs to bored businessmen around the Causeway Bay district.
My apoh and agung. Source: Supplied
Braised meat with vinegar and mushrooms.
My mum always groans that Steven's Torana is a waste of space and should be taken back to the dump where it was bought. She argues with my apoh for hours saying that this "rusted piece of shit" is taking up space in the garage and is an eyesore whenever she comes over. My grandmother is firmly against ever throwing anything away, so she always just shakes her head until mum gives up arguing. I think mum is just jealous. She never had a car when she was younger and didn't have the freedom to even consider travelling up the coast with her suntanned friends who had tattoos and dreadlocks. Instead, mum was shipped off to Delaware in the US at 18 to work at her Uncle Harry's Chinese restaurant in the suburbs. By the time she came back to Australia, she had no money to buy a car and was forced to be a passenger in the Torana whenever she wanted to go out.
Agung is scowling at apoh in the kitchen. They're always arguing. Whether it is about the bills, their children, or the uncooked fish on the countertop, they always have something to shout about. Today it seems like it's something to do with dinner because my grandmother is waving a meat cleaver around her head while my agung is bringing a dish of ginger to his nose to show that it's been properly minced for the chicken steaming on the stove.
CHICKEN GINGER RECIPE
Braised chicken in ginger
When agung owned the restaurant and worked there most nights, my apoh always complained to my mum about how his temper had become worse in his old age. Whenever he came back from the restaurant, agung seemed irritated at every little thing happening around the house. Once I watched Pocahontas one too many times and he came bursting into the lounge room gesticulating like an angry caveman telling me to turn off the TV or he'd set it on fire. Sometimes I'd be really scared of him and the thought of my mum making me stay with my grandparents during the day made me want to hide in the back of her car until she finished work. She'd call me stupid in her Aussie accent and tell me that I was lucky he didn't beat me with a cane like he did to her when she was my age. She said he wouldn't dare do that now because teachers at school were becoming way too observant when it came to signs of abuse in the home.
When he'd tell my mum to stop eating the golden-wrapped hard candies at the top of the pantry, she'd argue with him.
I remember my year three teacher Mrs Hudson noticed a kid in my class was getting abused because he'd always called her mum and would start shaking whenever she would pat him on the shoulder. Because of this, agung would just scowl at me or tell me to stop being so loud whenever he was in a bad mood. But despite this all, he maintains that I am his favourite grandchild because I never answer him back (this is because I can't speak Cantonese). When he'd tell me to quit playing Pocahontas for the seventh time that month, I wouldn't argue and would just turn it off straight away. When he'd tell my mum to stop eating the golden-wrapped hard candies at the top of the pantry, she'd argue with him and call him a misogynistic pig. He'd always tell me and his other grandchildren that I was his favourite whenever they'd disappoint him, which was almost every day it seemed. I remember once when my cousin Sophie came over to stay from China to complete her Masters Degree in electrical engineering. She and agung had just gotten into a massive argument about her wearing dirty shoes in the house. Agung had called her an uneducated pig farmer, and half an hour after this argument, Sophie emerged from the rumpus room, asking him what he would be preparing her for lunch. He then threw a packet of instant noodles at her head and said that she was a lazy whinger who should be sent back to Guangzhou in a shipping container.
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I was hungry too, so I asked him the same question. He prepared me some homemade noodles with crispy chicken, shallots and a fried egg glazed in sesame oil and soy sauce while cousin Sophie jealously slurped her dehydrated noodles out of a styrofoam cup, not daring to look us in the eye. She made her own lunch from then on.
My cousin Jakey rolls up into the long concrete driveway parking next to agung's little Daihatsu. Jakey's driving his fully sick Nissan Skyline. Its subwoofer shakes the ground and Coolio's intense rapping in Gangsta’s Paradise vibrates through my bones. I don't know what Jakey does during the day. I know he doesn't go to uni anymore because they sent him a letter in the mail which mum had to translate for my grandparents after they'd just eaten dinner. My apoh pulled Jakey out of his room by his ear and shouted at him for a good 10 minutes before he broke down into tears. I heard them from the rumpus room. Mum told me that Jakey's laziness had given my apoh diabetes.
A tempting bowl of chicken noodle soup. Source: Alan Benson
Jakey slams the car door and walks over to me, his jeans sagging below his waist, stinking of cigarettes and hair gel. My grandparents stare at him through the kitchen window, both stopping their chopping, marinating, spicing and blending to despair at the prodigal grandson who turned out to be a lazy, whinging Australian. I'm occupied by the old boxes trying to find my old Game Boy Color. So far, I've located a blunt Swiss Army knife, some old Archie comics (probably from when Mum was a kid), a rusted knitting set and a pair of odd shoes: one sneaker and one stiletto. If the museum ever needed any historical artefacts, my grandparents could make a lot of money.
Mum's maroon Toyota Echo pulls up next to Jakey's Skyline. She's wearing her work uniform, her shirt untucked, stockings sagging to her knees. There's no blasting of music from her car, just the sound of her on the phone arguing with my Dad. She hangs up when she sees me, saying that I shouldn't be playing in the garage because I could get bitten by a spider. We walk into the house together because the search for my Game Boy Color has become impossible amongst Jakey's old copies of Zoo Magazine. The kitchen is warm and damp, the fragrant steam sticks to my cheeks, smelling like ginger, bitter and sweet. Agung is carving the chicken carcass while apoh greets my Mum with a dry kiss on her cheek. On the stove, a pan of fried beans, tofu and chilli sizzle in the thick, lumpy magic sauce my agung was famous for at his restaurant. Mum eats a piece of barbecue pork apoh has left cooling on the countertop. Agung slaps her hand, telling her that she must wait till we can all eat dinner together.
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When apoh chops vegetables, she's careful not to make any uneven incisions through the slices of red, green, yellow, brown and orange. She's like a surgeon and each vegetable is a patient, needing quick amputation before they are thrown into the steel boiling pot.
Whenever there's a family dinner, she, agung and I drive down the hill to get supplies from the Central Market. Agung struggles to drive because of his hip replacements and my apoh hates being in the car because she got into an accident with a half-blind Salvation Army volunteer when she first moved to Australia.
Agung always lets me choose what to listen to on the radio. I like Australia's Top Ten Hits, it has The Black-Eyed Peas, Britney Spears, Shakira and all the loud hip-hop Jakey makes me listen to when I help him wash his car. At the markets, we're always greeted by my grandparent's friends from the old country who all congregate around the red plastic tables at Charlie's, the cafe at the entrance of the food hall.
The men sit over their cappuccinos and complain about the price of Australian labour which has gone up to a minimum of $17 per hour. They discuss who's still living and who's dead. There's always at least one funeral to attend back home. My agung wears his flat-top cap to hide the salt and pepper bristles growing at the top of his head. My uncles (those not related to me, but addressed as such as a mark of respect), will pat me on the head and chastise my grandparents for not teaching me Chinese like their grandchildren who can speak it fluently even though they've grown up here in Australia. My agung buys me an ice cream to spare the embarrassment from his chums who constantly pretend not to understand the do not smoke sign which hangs above the cafe. The "rainbow" ice-cream flavour at Wendy's always tastes like bubble gum, silly, like kid's toothpaste. The thick creamy mess of blue, yellow, pink and green always stains my hands and makes them sticky.
The thick creamy mess of blue, yellow, pink and green always stains my hands and makes them sticky.
When I was younger, my apoh would get impatient and wipe my hands with a coffee-stained serviette until the skin was raw from her ferocious scrubbing. Now that I'm older, she orders me to take the long journey to the public toilets and wash my hands under the cold water and gloopy soap that smells like the chemicals in the garage. While agung chats with the "uncles", apoh takes a crisp $50 note from his jacket pocket, preparing to stock her black trolley cart with fresh fruit, crispy baked breads, smelly cheeses and bitter wines sold by the tired shopkeepers wearing dirty aprons.
Apoh says that I have to join her every time she goes shopping to learn more about the food that is prepared for my dinner. She'll place a lemon in my hand, asking me to squeeze it to see if it's ripe or old. The hard, tangy-smelling shell is always cold in my palm and I'm never able to squeeze it without a tiny bit of juice leaking from the bottom. Apoh tells me that it's old in her broken English.
Fresh sourdough, straight from the oven. Source: Alan Benson
"Not good, not good. Hard is better." She'll pick up another one, fondling it carefully like a breast.
"See, better, that one is better," she says, squeezing a bright yellow lemon, like a stress ball.
The old Italian shopkeeper, Dino, bags our lemons, counting each lemon on a scale until it reads $5. Dino is infatuated with my apoh. He'll prepare a plate of figs, feta and pita bread for her to sample whenever she browses his store because his wife Helena has blown up like a balloon and complains about his bad breath.
"It's good with lemon, lady! Good with fresh lemon and bitter olive you can buy from my brother Ferdie at Contstanza's." He points to the opposite stall to a man sweeping the wooden floor. Ferdie is as hairy as his older brother, but his face is much less wrinkled from chain-smoking cigarillos than the other géros who've had stalls in the markets for over 40 years.
Apoh always pretends not to understand Dino and we'll escape with a bite of feta and fig, holding our lemons in a brown paper bag. She'll then buy bread for agung to have with his black coffee in the mornings. She tells the baker she wants it extra crunchy by mimicking breaking bread and dunking it in coffee.
"Like this, like this" The baker gives her a confused look and nods her head at the crazy Chinese lady who looks like she's doing the chicken dance.
We'll escape with a bite of feta and fig, holding our lemons in a brown paper bag.
We'll get a loaf of sourdough which is patted with flour and is perfectly risen. I'm allowed to press my fingers through the wheaten surface of the bread to see if the crunch is crisp and fresh.
Apoh wheels her trolley around the crowds, dropping pieces of fruit and vegetables into the bottomless pit of her heavy cart. Whenever a shopkeeper isn't looking, I'll steal a purple grape or small bite of an apple. Mum says the markets are the best place to get a free lunch as long as you're sneaky about it. She has taught me how to steal whole bananas, slices of cheese and salty salami slices by simply sweet-talking distracted cashiers or pretending that they've been spoiled.
"You should never pay full price for food when you're hungry" she'd say popping a cube of cheddar into her mouth on the drive home. I'd always been taught at school that stealing was bad, that Jesus would punish the sinners who stole through plague of fiery retribution. But my family are self-proclaimed Buddhists. They've never had a problem with taking things for free, so I guess Buddha is more relaxed than Jesus.
Choosing the meat is always the hardest part of shopping with my grandmother. She'll do laps of the markets until she finds meat that isn't too tender, bony, gristly or fatty. She won't cook beef because it's sacred to Buddha, so we'll trawl all the butchers for poultry and pork. Their pink carcasses hang in the window. Behind them, bored men with big knives slice through bones as if they were as hollow as my grandmother's vegetables. Agung likes barbecue pork, mum likes Mongolian-style chicken, and when he lived here, Uncle Steven enjoyed eating crispy duck skin straight off the bone. Lee, a second-generation Chinese Australian owns Wong's Butcher Store. He'll speak to my apoh in fluent Cantonese but keeps his Aussie anecdotes for me after handing out a free slice of smiley fritz.
"How bout those crows, Kiddo? Roo isn't in good form this season." I'll laugh nervously and shove the thick, salty ham in my mouth so I don't have to pretend to know about football.
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Roast duck
Apoh doesn't trust Lee because of how he is with the gwáilóus 鬼佬 (white people). He'll banter with the Aussie mums buying silverside for their kids' lunches, laugh with the moustached blokes picking up sausages for their barbies and sample slices of artisanal turkey for the food-snobs wearing turtle necks and Doc Martens. My grandparents don't think he's an authentic 唐人 (Chinese man), so they gossip with their friends at Charlie's about that Aussie "arse-licker" (roughly translated) who has forgotten that his parents were born with the stinking dogs in the rice paddies.
Mum sits on the uncomfortable pleather couch in the lounge room, turning on the TV. My other cousin, Sammy stomps through the front door wearing her clompy Sketchers and bell-bottomed jeans. Sammy plucks her eyebrows too thin and we all think she got a boob job when she went to Thailand last year. She's complaining on the phone to her gwáilóu boyfriend about how she has to live with her grandparents in a room opposite her brother. She walks straight down the carpeted corridor and slams the door to her room. Like Jakey, she has an affection for Coolio and blasts Gangsta's Paradise from her clock speaker. A muttering of Cantonese floats from the kitchen. Agung and apoh giggle at the cheapness of their granddaughter's new tits. Typically, Chinese women are known for having small breasts, so Sammy's new double-ds are out of place in a family of A-cup regulars. Mine are growing fast though, I don't think I’ll reach a D-cup, but they're definitely bordering on C-cup. Mum says it's because my dad has Indian in him. I'm not sure what she means by that, but evidently, I won't have to get a boob job like my cousin. Apoh complains about Sammy's vanity, saying that when she was young, living with her 10 brothers and sisters (all dead now) in China, she had to worry about dying because of famine and disease.
Choosing the meat is always the hardest part of shopping with my grandmother. She'll do laps of the markets until she finds meat that isn't too tender, bony, gristly or fatty.
She scuttles around the kitchen in her bamboo slippers, mumbling under her breath about the privilege of these Australianised grandchildren. She may think she's a harsh traditionalist, a poster girl for the devastation of the Mao regime, but I remember, it was probably two years ago, when I got my first period. It happened in the communal bathroom only hidden from the rest of the house by a sliding door. When I saw the sticky red stain in the flowery underwear hanging loose around my still undeveloped hips, I howled for my apoh. It was 11am and my mum was sitting behind her computer at her stoic 9-5, so I had no one else. My grandmother, the hard woman she always purports to be, the Mao-starved street urchin, offered me a Crunchie bar she'd been hiding in the pantry behind the cereal boxes. Usually, she'd eat her Crunchie at midnight in front of a Chinese soap opera when she thought no one else was awake. I'd find discarded wrappers in the bin the next morning hidden amongst the teabags and bread crusts. To get me to stop crying that morning, she hurried into the pantry and offered me a Crunchie from her secret stash. Now, my apoh is no doctor, her education only spans to the year five, but in that moment, I felt my pain disappear and become replaced by the sweet taste of honeycomb crumble. After this, she took my hand and told me to call my mum, before going back into the kitchen to prepare for that night's dinner.
"食飯! Sihk-Faahn!(Let's Eat)", apoh calls from the kitchen. We set up the mahjong table in the corner of the living room. Mum spreads today's Epoch Times over the felt so we don't have to waste plates for bones. Agung brings out the metal rice container and puts it in the middle of the table. He then brings out the Hainanese chicken smothered in ginger and vinegar sauce out next. Apoh carries the beans and meat tray in one hand, the egg foo yung in the other.
Jakey and Sammy shamble down the corridor and sit on either side of our agung. Sammy and Jakey have been living with my grandparents since they were twelve and fourteen respectively. Their parents, my Uncle Ken and Rinbow (who chose her English name in 1971 before she could read) decided it was a good idea to pack up and join the circus for the rest of their middle age. So, without any further warning, a young Jakey and Sammy were left on my grandparent's stone stairs faster than you can say foster home. Ken and Rinbow do come back now and again to tell stories of the misbehaving clowns, the promiscuous acrobats and sadistic ringleaders who audition little boys' flexibility in the back of their trailers. They own a catering truck called KenBows and travel around the country serving lukewarm corndogs and salty noodle stir-fry to overweight families wearing matching I HEART AUS t-shirts. Sammy and Jakey don't seem to resent their parent’s laissez-faire attitude as much as they resent the firm authority of our grandparents, so when they return from six months on the road, it's always like those cheesy insurance ads when a big happy family go roller-skating together and can't stop smiling at each other because they’ve bought premium coverage in case one of them conks it.
Making Hainanese chicken. Source: Randy Larcombe Photography
[Agung] then brings out the Hainan chicken smothered in ginger and vinegar sauce out next. Apoh carries the beans and meat-tray in one hand, the egg foo-yung in the other.
Mum and I get the little bowls and chopsticks from the kitchen. We pile the steamed rice into our bowls and take samplings from each of the meat and vegetable dishes. My favourites are the egg foo-yung and cold Hainan chicken. I use my chopsticks to mix the salty flavour of the egg and the bitter taste of vinegar together in my mouth. Everyone is speaking Cantonese and I can only understand little snippets. Mum goes on about how her boss made her do an additional half an hour of inventory out of spite. Sammy chimes in, I think she's also complaining about her boss at the cafe who she suspects is perving on her whenever she bends over to pick up a stray spoon or sugar packet. Jakey laughs, spraying rice everywhere, saying in English that no one would bother to perv on Sammy because she has no ass. Agung tells them both to 安静 (shut up!) and they stop bickering for 10 seconds before Jakey makes a point about mentioning Sammy's boobs. My apoh slaps his arm and notices a tattoo of his new girlfriend's name. There's more shouting than laughing as mum points out that he spelt Jessica with only one S.
"You dickhead, don't you realise that Jessica is spelt with two s?" everyone starts cackling and Jakey's face goes red with humiliation.
Apoh says in broken English that Uncle Steven also got a tattoo at Jakey's age except he was so drunk he couldn't even remember it happening. She and agung made him live with his precious Torana in the garage for two weeks until he actually got bitten by a spider and had to go to the hospital. Agung drove the Torana to the emergency room with Steven riding passenger while my apoh, mum and Auntie Rinbow all sat in the back laughing at the badly drawn tiger puffing up on Steven's swollen ankle.
Our family dinners. Source: Supplied
Jakey burps and Agung pinches the pink flesh of his tattoo wound. All the rice is gone and I'm gnawing on the last chicken bone. Apoh puts away the dishes with Mum, who is complaining about her arthritis flaring up because of her new work shoes. Jakey and I wrap up the soiled Epoch Times with all the bones we spat out during dinner. Agung puts all the leftovers in plastic containers and stacks the already full fridge up to its brim. The dishes are bobbing in the boiling hot water so that the vinegar can soak off the old porcelain. Mum turns on the TV again and I hear the voice of Harold from Neighbours complaining about the smarmy businessman Paul Robinson building a hotel over the local cafe. Jakey helps apoh reach for the ground coffee on the top of the pantry. Agung will want to watch Jade World Chinese News soon with his nightly brew and there will probably be an argument between him and my Mum. Sammy goes back to her room, blasting Mariah Carey and continuing her whiny conversation with her boyfriend.
Apoh brings out the coffee and green pandan cake for all of us to share. We watch the rest of Neighbours and then switch over to Jade World TV at 7pm to listen to a black-haired, black blazer-wearing news anchor talking about the SARs outbreak currently occurring in mainland China. We eat the sweet, spongy cake while concerned villagers cower behind blue paper masks. The phone rings in the middle of a report detailing the quarantine of forty schoolchildren. Agung answers hastily, annoyed that he is missing the second half of the story concerning a rabid bat.
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"喂 (Hello)?" He puts the phone on the loudspeaker so the person on the receiving end can hear that they are disrupting the news. Uncle Steven is asking for just a small loan of seven thousand Australian dollars to buy a new family wagon. Mum rolls her eyes and wrestles her Father for the phone, telling Steven in English that he's a "spoilt, ungrateful shit who doesn't realise that their parents are living on a pension of five hundred dollars a week". Apoh snatches the phone and asks how her grandchildren are. Uncle Steve-n says they'd be happier if they got a new people mover to drive to school in.
"We might not have long because of the SARS outbreak!"
Agung, scowling at his children's petty arguments, the fact that he's missing the news and that there's only one slice of pandan left, hangs up the phone after saying that Uncle Steven can find the money somewhere else because the electricity bills are due this week. Mum makes a snide comment to Apoh about how Steven is an "idiot fuckhead" (rough translation) and should stop asking his parents for money at forty-five. Apoh whacks her on the knee and tells her to shut up because all the shouting has her diabetes flaring up again. My grandfather turns up the volume of the TV to its loudest setting so that the sleepy neighbours in the brick house next door can hear.
The next news story about Chief Executive Donald Tsang plays and we sit in frustrated silence till the ad break. Agung gets up to take his nightly 屙屎 behind the roller door. Apoh pokes at the remnants of tonight's dinner with her toothpick. Jakey is ready to go out again judging by the fresh layer of gel in his hair and generous application of Jay-Z's new cologne, Rocaware all over his body. Apoh asks where he's going and he doesn't respond. I can hear him banging on the roller door asking my agung to hurry up and wipe his old ass because he needs to piss. Agung tells Jakey to piss in the garage where he belongs. They start arguing in loud, agitated Cantonese while my grandmother turns up the volume for the sports segment of the Chinese news broadcast. Hong Kong's basketball team is struggling because the government bulldozed their stadium and turned it into sky-rise luxury apartments overlooking Kowloon harbour.
Sammy emerges from her room in a low-cut singlet top and jeans showing her sparkling pink whale's tail. She's still talking on the phone and puts out her palm, expecting apoh to give her some cash for her night out. My grandmother punches it away and spits her toothpick at Sammy's feet. They start to argue, with Jakey and agung in the background. My mum says it's probably time for us to go home. My dad has called her three times asking when she's going to bring him home leftovers because he's working the night shift. They argue too and I have a burning sensation to slam the piano keys in the rumpus room until everyone shuts up.
Mum gets her car keys from the kitchen without saying goodbye to anyone, Jakey follows her out the door and Sammy isn't too far behind. My grandparents congregate and stare out the kitchen window, their ghostly faces reflected by the dim sensor light. They are laughing and making faces at everyone they had just shouted at less than five minutes ago. Mum lets Jakey reverse out the driveway first. Sammy is in his passenger seat playing with the radio, deciding on a slow Nelly Furtado song to play on the drive down the hill. They roar down the street in the Skyline until it becomes a low growl behind the panelled houses and powerlines. Mum nearly hits the garage door as she backs out of the driveway. Agung and apoh are still looking at us from the kitchen window, my grandmother's arm is wrapped around the thin body of her husband. They are smiling with quiet relief now that the house is finally still, that their loud Australianised spawn has finally left them to live back to their old ways, if only for the rest of the night. I can imagine them playing mahjong in the dark, drinking the tea Steven shipped over from Hong Kong and reminiscing about the friends that they had to leave behind when they crossed the ocean all those years ago.
As we drive out, my agung winks at me and does bunny ears behind my apoh who half-heartedly slaps his hand away. Mum drives through the darkness humming Where Is The Love? and I can feel my eyelids start to droop and all I can focus on is the white glow of the moon which warms the car as I begin to drift to sleep.
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