Two families leave China 100 years ago, This is a journal recording their passage, their so-journ in Borneo and then on to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, England and beyond. A fascinating account of how time and place have changed the members.
This
is a flower of my youth. My grand dad used to grow them. In Chinese, we
called them Kai Kuan Fa. Kai Kung is rooster, Kuan is the comb and Fa
is flower.
I saw this patch at the Sandringham village.
This
flower is favoured during Chinese New Year in Singapore. The feathery
type is lined along the Nanyang Tenchnological University, NTU. After
asking the manager the first time if I could recycle his plants after
Chinese New Year, he told me to take them once the 15th day was over. I
made a friend with the manager using my position as the Gardening club
secretary.
I recycled so many pots of this flower and
the small calamansi. When I left Singapore, I sold some of them to raise
funds for my Charity for the Deaf in Kenya.
Cockscomb
flowers are also known as Wool Flowers or Brain Celosia, suggestive of a
highly colored brain. The flowers belong to the amaranth family,
Amaranthaceae. Cockscomb bloom with a compacted crested head 2-5 inches
across, on leafy stems that are 12-28 inches long. The flower's name is
suggestive of a rooster's comb. Cockscomb Flower blooms from late summer
through late fall. The Celosia plant is an annual dicotyledon.
Hydrangeas is part of me. When I was a kid in Tropical
Borneo, I lived with my Grandpa who left China in his 20s. He told us
fairy tales the same way as western children read in books. He spoke of
the hydrangea flower which is known as the embroidery ball flower. In
this fairy tale love story, when a girl comes of age, she would stand in
her balcony and throw her embroidered ball to the young men waiting
down in the garden. The young man who catches the ball wins her hand. I
joked with Grandpa, what if an ugly fat man catches up, Grandpa laughed,
he said, "Why do you have to ruin an aged old story?"
Hydrangeas
became reality when I came to live in Auckland. There are bushes
everywhere. In two houses we stayed. I had the light blue hedges, and I
had lots of stories.
A
hint to gardeners, I was told if you put tins/can at the base of the
plants, the iron rust will make the flowers become a deep colour. I
remember reading John Michener's book Hawaii doing that for their
pineapple plants.
Spend an afternoon on Pender Street with Larry Wong and you’ll never look at Vancouver’s Chinatown the same way again.
I met the salt-and-pepper-haired community historian at the New Town café, a hard-to-miss restaurant
with a giant steam bun on its awning. Larry swears New Town has the
best egg tarts in Vancouver. As I scraped the last bit of flaky tart shell off my plate I was hard-pressed to disagree. They are objectively good.
“For a very long time, particularly in my teens, I hated being
Chinese,” he told me. “Growing up as a member of a minority group in a
Caucasian world was overwhelming.”
Larry was born on Pender Street in 1938. At the time, B.C. was in
many ways a hostile place for Chinese Canadians. The racist “head tax”
that targeted them had only recently been abolished (1923). And they had yet to win back the right to vote or hold public office – rights denied them at Confederation, rights they won back in 1947.
Once ashamed of his culture, Larry’s since become a voracious chronicler – and celebrator – of Chinese Canadian stories. In addition to co-founding the Chinese Canadian Historical Society and writing a book about his childhood in Chinatown, he volunteers much of his time to community work.
“It wasn't until I matured that I began to appreciate my heritage. I
regretted ignoring the Chinese language but I made up for it by learning
as much as I can about the history of my family and of Chinatown and of
China.” Wong family portrait (Larry's the baby).
I met Larry at New Town because I was looking for stories, local
stories about B.C.’s Chinese Canadian community, to complement the
documentaries we’ll be airing over the next 27 weeks exploringthe birth of modern China.
Much like China catapulted to superpower status in just under a
century, B.C.’s Chinese Canadian community has grown significantly –
both in numbers and influence. By 2011, Chinese Canadians made up nearly
15 per cent of British Columbians, according to figures from the
provincial government.
Larry’s old Chinatown stomping grounds remain a central part
of the community. The second biggest Chinatown in North America (next
to San Francisco’s), every building has a story, every lamppost a logic.
Larry remembers it in its 1960 heydays.
“On a Saturday night it was impossible to park in Chinatown because
it was such a vibrant place. We had the neon signs. The restaurants used
to be open until two in the morning.”
He said the whole dynamic of the neighbourhood started to change about 20 years ago. "Part of the problem was when the drug scene overspilled from East Hastings Street."
In the dim stairwell at New Town café, Larry points out vintage photos he shot or curated. Images of “chop suey” in neon, pioneering teenage plane builders, and people celebrating the end of World
War II line the walls. His reverent enthusiasm for the people and the
places is contagious. Down the block, at the corner of Carrell and
Pender, he points out poster boards with community stories, hanging in
the windows of a beautiful heritage building. He tells me that behind
the drawn shades, Bill Wong, “Chinatown’s last tailor”, is still making
suits at 92.
“I bought my suit from him when I graduated from high school in
1957,” Larry said. “It was really kind of a thrill… would you like three
buttons or two buttons? Centre vent or pinched waist?”
I asked him if he still has the suit.
“Are you kidding?” he laughed. “But it was a wonderful suit.”
Larry knows the people who built this community from scratch: the
silk purveyors, the restauranteurs, the advocates and the business
tycoons. He told me about the original owner of the restored brick
heritage building at 51 East Pender, which is now home to Bob Rennie’s
collection of contemporary art.
“Yip Sang had four families… 23 children. Each family had their own
floor in that building. He also had a private tutor because he believed
that all his children should be educated."
I tilted my head back to read the message Rennie installed at the top
of the building in 2009. The modern all caps, subtle and silvery by day
and neon by night, are a sampling of Martin Creed's artwork. EVERYTHING
IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT, it reads.
“There is a very conscious effort to revitalize Chinatown,” Larry said. Larry Wong at the corner of Pender and Carrall streets. What do you love most about the Chinatown in your community? Share your favourite spot or story below.
Greens label existing rules a licence to pollute and call for higher national standards.
Measures proposed by the Greens for improved water quality include rules that ensure rivers are clean enough to swim in. Photo / Christine Cornege
Two-thirds of more than 160 monitored river swimming spots in New Zealand have been deemed unsafe for a dip.
Information
released to the Green Party by regional councils and unitary
authorities showed 66 per cent of the sites had a Suitability For
Recreational Grade (SFRG) of either poor or very poor during the 2013/14
summer.
The data covered all of the country's monitored rivers except for those in Auckland, Waikato, Northland and the West Coast, where councils did not use SFRG indicators in the period.
Among
the worst rated rivers were the Ruamahanga River in Wairarapa, the
Manawatu River and the Mangatainoka River - where resident Tui Brewery
once portrayed its "Tui girls" frolicking and bathing in blue water.
A
total of 46 river sites - among them the Wharekopae River at the Rere
rockslide, a tourist hotspot near Gisborne - were rated as "very poor".
Health
effects from swallowing water tainted with faecal micro-organisms or
other bacteria could include diarrhoea, vomiting and infections.
A further sixty-three sites - including two popular swimming spots in the Wairoa River near Tauranga - ranked as poor.
The Greens claimed there had been a deterioration over recent years, with reports from the Ministry for the Environment showing 61 per cent of monitored spots were unsafe for swimming in 2013, compared with 52 per cent in 2012.
"It's quite shocking," the party's water spokeswoman, Catherine Delahunty, said.
"Families
should be able to head down to their local swimming hole and jump right
in the water without worrying about getting sick."
Last night,
Environment Minister Nick Smith said neither he nor the ministry had
been able to properly assess the figures, but felt they should be
treated with caution.
"Just comparing the results from one year after another does not give a long-term trend on freshwater quality."
Dr
Smith also felt it would be "false" to draw conclusions around the
country's overall freshwater quality from what he considered a "narrow
data set" that wasn't representative of all freshwater bodies.
The
ministry had advised him that while New Zealand's freshwater quality
matched up well by international comparisons, there had been "increased
pressure" on lowland areas.
The ministry hasn't released a
national report card since 2013, but it has collaborated on the Land,
Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA) website that was launched last year and
provides an overview of water quality by region.
The LAWA website
showed median river bacteria (E.coli) levels in the Auckland region
were in "the worst 25 per cent" of sites in the country, while Waikato's
median bacteria levels were in the worst 50 per cent.
Ms
Delahunty described the Government's national standards for freshwater -
introduced last year and requiring a minimum standard to make rivers
safe for "wading" and boating, and allowing local authorities to set
higher standards if they wanted - as "weak" and a "licence to pollute".
Measures
proposed by the Greens include rules that ensure rivers were clean
enough to swim in and fenced livestock out of waterways, an extra $20
million each year for a decade for sewage treatment upgrades in small
towns, and a "resource rental charge" for irrigation.
But Dr
Smith dismissed the Greens' policies as "simplistic", adding they would
block a number of significant water quality schemes.
"The Government is determined to drive a programme that will see improved management and standards of freshwater quality."
New
Zealand's top freshwater ecologists have met in Palmerston North this
week to thrash out a simple way to assess the state of our river
habitats.
Scientists from Massey, Auckland, Canterbury and Waikato universities have teamed up with experts from NIWA,
the Government and regional councils to establish measures where river
habitats could be defined as pristine, good, impacted or degraded.
Their ultimate goal is to achieve better management of rivers and halt or revert damage already done.
With
around 39 per cent of native freshwater fish considered threatened,
Massey ecologist Dr Russell Death said it was critical that new policy
and planning regulations were informed by the best research.
"We know a lot about river habitats, but to come up with a single index to able to be used in resource consents is what we are trying to work our way through."
It
was hoped what came out of the two-day workshop would be incorporated
into a Government review of the National Objectives Framework for rivers
next year.
When I was growing up in Sibu, our houses didn't have fence, when I was living in NTU in Singapore, our houses didn't have fence, in New Zealand, our houses are partially fenced.
January 8, 2010 'Fences' by Sandra Leigh
"All
over my town there are fences - tall ones and short ones, old and new,
elegant and shabby. They all have something to say - like "Keep out,"
"Be careful!" (like this one) or "Stay right where you are," "I'm
utterly exhausted" or "Look at me. Aren't I splendid?" Some have gates;
others simply define a space or support a heavy vine. What kinds of
fences are there in your town? Do they really make good neighbours? Or
do they just isolate us? " Sandra Leigh
Do you remember incidences or chapters in books from years and years ago?
I don't know about you, but I do.
Tom Sawyer's whitewashing the fence
by Mark Twain is something I always remember how Tom tricked his
friends Huckleberry Finn and others (boys and girls) to paint his work
for him by pretending it was a lot of fun. They had to "pay" him for
this privilege. May be it is the constant reminder by all the fences
around me.
Perhaps it is the phrase: Build bridges, not fence that is deep inside the recess of my mind that has this impact.
I
chanced upon this gentleman painting his fence that just jotted my
memory. I studied this chapter when I was 12 and had just started my
Secondary School in Methodist School in Sibu. I can't remember if it was
chapter one. I never forgot. I can picture the teacher's face though I
have forgotten his name.
Today a blogging and facebook friend posted this:
Mark Twain once wrote, "Training is everything. A peach was once a
bitter almond; a cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college
education."
"a cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education." he
obviously is not a gardener. But he must have impacted me, the first
English lesson at junior high school I had was the chapter on Tom Sawyer
painting his aunt's fence.
What
is the difference between a toad stool and a mushroom. When I was
little, my grand dad said, a mushroom is plain looking and OK to eat, a
toad stool is colourful but deadly. The
term "toadstool" was often, but not exclusively, applied to poisonous
mushrooms or to those that have the classic umbrella-like cap-and-stem
form. During my recent trip to Singapore, I forgot I was in Singapore and went for long walks, and I saw these mushroom/toadstool.
I
was so hot that I wanted to faint. I don't think it was due to touching
the toadstools. My maternal grandma would say," Silly girl."
We grew up heeding grandma's anecdote. The whole neighbourhood ate some mushrooms except her and 2 women. They fell into a stupor coma for 3 days. Grandma thought they had died. We joke that Grandma had tried to poison her mother-in-law. Grandma would eat any mushrooms, even bought us.
This cabbage plant has been attacked by white butterfly
The sweet corn grew to produce small corn.
This car makes me think of bat-mobile.
My car had problem, my car mechanis said it's the coil that cause the problem, and told me what the coil is. Mother knew a thing or 2 about spark plus.
xylogenous means growing on wood, so I take it that the Chinese Wood Fungi is xylogenous.
I
went for a walk to a park next to Mt Albert Grammar school. I came
across this tree stump which has some Chinese Wood Fungi growing. I have
never been here, so I walked rather slowly and clicked as I went along.
This
fungi is eaten by the Chinese and has a rubbery texture. You can buy
them in dry form, soak it to reconstitute and it expands about 5 times
its size. Not many people like it as it feels slimy and rubbery. I used
to pick them when I was a child in Borneo.
Wood fungus
is prized in Chinese cuisine for its crunchy texture and therefore added
to dishes only for the last few minutes of cooking. It is good in
spring rolls, soups and stir-fries, and in stewed pork or chicken.
I
remember reading how this Chinese man made his fortune in New Zealand
by shipping them to China. The Kiwis, Pakehas and Maoris laughed at this
China man, but he had the last laugh. He laughed all the way to the
bank.
So now, I will be keenly looking at tree stumps and hope to make my millions.
The
first commercial sale of edible fungi in New Zealand was in the 1870s,
when Taranaki merchant Chew Chong sent bags of dried wood-ear fungus
(Auricularia cornea) to his homeland, China. The fungus was in demand
for the crunchy, chewy texture it added to food.
Wood
ear fungus grows naturally on dead trees in lowland forest. Tonnes were
harvested as settlers cleared forest for farming, and exports to China
continued until the 1950s. In the 2000s, the fungus is now mostly
imported to New Zealand from China, in dry form. Taiwanese growers had
started cultivating a closely related fungus on sawdust blocks in the
1960s, and it became uneconomic to harvest it in the wild. A small
quantity is now grown in New Zealand for the domestic market.
I travel at this junction every week and am amused on how people protest at this issue.
Those
native Pohutukawa trees are slated to make way for road widening. Save 6
pohutukawas at St Luke’s on Great North Rd. Road or trees, which has
priority?
I remember once, there was a community project to build a road, a neighbour refused to let the people chop her tree down. She lay down on the road.
ONGOING SAGA: Supporters fighting to save the six pohutukawa on Great North Rd have used signage to raise awareness to the trees' plight.
Talk between officials and the public have been shut down as backlash over the planned removal of pohutukawa trees on Great North Rd grows. Auckland
Transport (AT) representatives refused to discuss the contentious issue
during a community liaison meeting on Tuesday night, saying it was not
officially a "public meeting".
AT says it will no longer comment "because this matter is going through a legal process and it is not appropriate".
But supporters of the trees are crying foul.
"AT's refusal to speak is basic avoidance," Christine Rose says.
"The fact that there's an independent legal process in no way limits their ability to comment if they wanted to."
Rose was on the former Auckland Regional Council and has joined the fight to save the trees.
"Hopefully
they feel uncomfortable that the community is standing up to their
ill-advised notion of removing the trees. It's a position that deserves
to be challenged.
"But their refusal to engage with the issue won't make it go away, it will just amplify the situation."
AT was given support to remove six pohutukawa by an independent hearing panel late last year.
The trees are opposite Motat and in the way of the NZ Transport Agency's plans to build extra lanes for the $70 million St Lukes motorway interchange.
Grey Lynn resident Patrick Reynolds says Auckland Transport's argument for removing the trees is losing steam.
About 60 people attended the meeting where officials refused to answer questions from the public, Reynolds says.
"It was funny but it was tragic," he says. He left the meeting in disgust.
Waitemata Local Board staunchly opposes the trees' removal and hired a lawyer to represent it during a hearing last year.
Chairman
Shale Chambers says Auckland Transport would still need permission from
the landowner to access the site. The landowner is Auckland Council.
Chambers
says Auckland Transport must be challenged on its stance to remove the
trees and is concerned with how the issue has been handled.
Supporters
of the trees have been vocal both online and off. The trees have been
yarn-bombed – covered in pieces of knitting in protest – and online
petitions have been started.
AT told Auckland City Harbour News earlier this month it regretted the loss of the trees "but a major benefit" would be more cycle lanes leading to the motorway overbridge.
Five
of the six pohutukawa are believed to be 80 years old and sit between
the Northwestern Motorway and Great North Rd in St Lukes. The sixth tree
is believed to be about 20 years old.
A public hearing was held in November during which it was revealed 54 submissions were discounted due to a technical error. Just 12 submissions were counted.
Those
native Pohutukawa trees are slated to make way for road widening. Save 6
pohutukawas at St Luke’s on Great North Rd. Road or trees, which has
priority?
I remember once, there was a community project to build a road, a neighbour refused to let the people chop her tree down.
I walked the CBD of Brisbane and crossed many bridges, I crossed over from the Courts where my brother went and walked the Kurilpa Bridge(originally known as the Tank Street
Brisbane River in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.[1][2] The bridge connects Kurilpa Point in South Brisbane to Tank Street in the Brisbane central business district. In 2011, the bridge was judged World Transport Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival.[3] I walked the whole morning, crossed back to the city
where the Casino was. I walked and walked and overshot, I realised I had
gone too far, I went to a news agent. She was wonderful and gave me a
map. Just before me, a group of young girls had asked the same thing. I asked 5 people including a good looking lawyer and a
policeman. When I went to the court the police showed me, I went to the
wrong court. Joseph told me I need to take a photo for my escapade. I
told him, I pretend to be a lawyer like him.
Father had ambition of becoming a lawyer. He always told
us, if he had the money, and if he didn't get the scholarship to study
Education in England, he would have been a lawyer. He shared with us
news of court cases he read in the newspaper. One day when I was teaching in Kuching, he came for work
in Kuching. he took me to the court and watch a murder trial take place.
I knew he really wanted to be a lawyer. Law is in our blood, there are 5 lawyers in the Chan Clan.
The leaf are food for silkworms.桑叶，fruit is called 桑椹。
Ann ChinThere
is a section in my book by Margaret/ She described how my dad had a bad
headache, and he told her to boil SONG Jee. The first time I heard about
this were the tenants in my Dad's Embang Road house. The wife was
Chinese Sing Say,/doctor and she grew this.
Before that, I didn't hear about
this. In Brisbane, a friend grew a tree, and I tasted it for the first time, It tastes like raspberry.
Now many people are growing it, including my sisters and my cousins. My Sis Rose makes a preserve from the berries.
My cousin Catherine Stephen tells me this,
your Ah Kung would immediately boil some mulberry leaves and stems
('song gii') if there was chicken for lunch or dinner. He said after
consuming the chicken, our bodies need to be cooled down.
He told Mother, "So you know, you should never leave before me - otherwise I would be so hopeless."
When I went traveling, he would prepare his own meals.
One
Saturday evening, he had cooked up this BBQ for the kids. That night,
he had a giddy headache. He called out, Ah Jian was so scared and he
called me up. He said Grandfather John said he was going to fall.
By the time, I reached his room, he was sitting up on the bed, wailing to Mother, "Why did you leave me?" repeatedly.
That
must have scared the hell out of the kids. I was also numb. I did not
know what to do. We could act upon his instruction - getting water and
panadol.
He cried more, "You would know what to do, Wah Kiew".
After
the effect of the panadol, he slept. In the morning, he asked Ah Jian
and me to go the mulberry plot to get the shoots and leaves. I did not
know where it was but Ah Jian knew because Father had brought Ah Jian
there in one of his walks to give him a lesson of silk-making. So we ran
to get them and boiled for his soup.
Father
drank and later explained that mulberry shoots were to "remove the
heat". Then we went to the telephone booth to call Sis Rose. Chai and
Sis Rose came. She prepared herbs and forced Father to drink the
squeezed juice. It worked instantly. So Rose later scolded the kids for
making Grandfather John sick because they were so greedy for wanting to
eat BBQ. For my save
the world meme, the mulberry leaves are mainly used to feed the
silkworms, but they are also used for medicine and food. Add the leaf to sweet potato soup with sago rice. In thailand they sell dried
mulberry leaves to be made into tea to help prevent menstrual cramps.
The leaf are food for silkworms.桑叶，fruit is called 桑椹。
He
told Mother, "So you know, you should never leave before me - otherwise I
would be so hopeless."
When
I went traveling, he would prepare his own meals.
One
Saturday evening, he had cooked up this BBQ for the kids. That night, he had a
giddy headache. He called out, Ah Jian was so scared and he called me up. He
said Grandfather John said he was going to fall.
By
the time, I reached his room, he was sitting up on the bed, wailing to Mother,
"Why did you leave me?" repeatedly.
That must have scared the hell out of the
kids. I was also numb. I did not know what to do. We could act upon his
instruction - getting water and panadol.
He cried more, "You would know what to
do, Wah Kiew".
After the effect of the panadol, he slept. In
the morning, he asked Ah Jian and me to go the mulberry plot to get the shoots
and leaves. I did not know where it was but Ah Jian knew because Father had
brought Ah Jian there in one of his walks to give him a lesson of silk-making.
So we ran to get them and boiled for his soup.
Father drank and later explained that mulberry
shoots were to "remove the heat". Then we went to the telephone booth
to call Sis Rose. Chai and Sis Rose came. She prepared herbs and forced Father
to drink the squeezed juice. It worked instantly. So Rose later scolded the
kids for making Grandfather John sick because they were so greedy for wanting
to eat BBQ.
In 2010, I was curious as a guest from New Zealand
to see how the Aussies celebrated their National Day.
My
brother Joseph and his family took me and Sam in his boat out to sea
and to a beach to join him and his mates to party. Towards the
destination, I was dumbfounded to see a protest of a flotilla of boats
of all sizes and shape. Please click on the photos to read the red
protest sign.
I thought it was very strange to have a
protest on their National Day. Having lived in Singapore for 16 years of
my adult life, I saw how seriously the Singaporeons took their National
Singapore. I teased my young Nephew if they sang, "Majurah Australia."
Jama of Singapore would know what I mean. Or in Borneo and Malaysia,
Kate and Sarawakiana would remember the parades we went as kids.
On
February 6th, it will be New Zealand's Day, Waitangi day.
There will be speeches, songs and prayers for our nation.
I took part in a protest recently, but we could never time it on our National Day.
Let's something I found out about the protest.
Tippler's Protest
For
decades Tipplers was an iconic boating destination and a part of the
old Gold Coast lifestyle until the Gold Coast Council wasted millions of
dollars of ratepayers money by making what some have described as the
worst decision ever by the Council.
No longer is
Tipplers the place where hundreds of boaties would congregate and enjoy a
family day where all were equal - regardless of whether they had
arrived on a tinnie or a luxury yacht.
We want Tipplers back!
Please
join our flotilla on Australia Day (Tuesday 26th January 2010) in
support of the Marine Action Group's campaign to get Tipplers back.
Please come by boat, tinnie or jet ski with your placard, banner or flag and meet at the Paradise Point foreshore at 11:00 AM.
The
flotilla will leave at 11:30 AM and travel slowly around the Sovereign
Islands, past Wave Break Island, the Seaway, The Spit and the Southport
parklands.
For radio communication on the day, please go to VHF Channel 72.
Charter
boat Top Cruise Rani will lead the flotilla - this will be coordinated
by Jim McLaughlin mobile no.: 0447 140 060 - if you need a core flute or
some help with a banner, please feel free to call Jim.
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