How Great Thou Art.

Miss Jackie Fries was a missionary from USA to Sibu twice. She taught me Maths and Physics in Form 4 and form 5 in Methodist Secondary School, Sibu. She was my form teacher. I have forgotten the formal education, but I have not forgotten the two hymns she taught. Amazing Race and How Great Thou Art.

Photos show Miss Fries listening to 3 years old Sam read. I was privileged to host Miss Fries during her Singapore legs of the Reunion in 1999.

Our visitor singer David Morris came to sing in Mt Albert Baptist Church last Sunday. . http://www.davidlylemorris.com/ . He led us to sung How Great Thou Art, first in Maori, and then in English. He said that the Maori Battalion sang it before they went to fight in World War Two.  It was the 28th Maori Battalion, a legendary 

unit that in World War II fought across Greece, Crete, North

 Africa and through Italy.It was the legendary Maori Battalion song;

Almost 3600 men served overseas with the Maori Battalion 

between 1940 and 1945. Of these, 649 were killed in action or died on active service.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2CHyXDJtfU

By

How Great Thou Art _ Whakaaria Mai Lyrics Sir Howard Morrison

http://www.youtube.com/embed/I6NMlFoaESM

Preserving our culture: Our Cantonese Zhung

This is the plant we use the leaves to wrap the zhung.


The standard big one is more than 1/2 a kg. Some mums make it smaller so it cane be eaten by one person.




Our Kwong Neng Cantonese make a special big Zhung. It is big enough to feed a family. To be extravagant, we would have 2 at one seating.

Grandpa went to the jungles and found this big leaf plant which is bigger than the galangal plant and tamed it as a cultivated plant. I have seen him make it and mould it into a pyramid with a rectangle base. 

This Zhung is very significant, we don't eat it only during the Duan Wu aka Dragon festival. We eat it at all special occassions. It is auspicious, the wrapping represents clothing, and the filling food. We have a big slab of belly of pork. Fat means prosperity. The ingredients are glutinious rice, pork, peanuts, shitaki mushroom, white nuts aka ginko nuts and dried shrimp.

When we eat it, Ah Kung would say, got food to eat, and clothes to wear. We don't have any need in life.

To eat it, Ah Kung would use a clean pair of chopsticks and cut the zhung into two. Then he mixes up the rice and ingredients so everyone gets a bit of everything. Thus signifying harmony.

Our Ah Kung made this, mum learnt from him. My two older sisters Rose and Elizabeth too have learnt it. Sister Margaret has a clump of this plant in her garden. It's my roots, and when I visit the old home country, I must ask Rose to teach me.

This zhung is made by my 3rd Aunty Ah Fong and kindly posted on Facebook by her daughter Catherine. Thanks Catherine.

Thanks Sharlene for taking the photo of the plant.

Chinese rocket launch

(Photo  weather dot.com)

Came home from my Chinese Network meeting just in time 

to watch the launching of the Chinese Rocket on live China 

channel 9.

Chinese rocket launch marks giant leap towards space station

By Kathrin Hille in Beijing

China launched its longest-ever space mission on Tuesday, marking another milestone on its path towards developing its own space station.

Shenzhou-X lifted off at 5.38pm from the space centre near the northwestern town of Jiuquan with three astronauts on board. They will stay in space for 15 days, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said.

Like my grand dad, I am proud to be a Chinese.

Keeping tradition and cultural alive 端午节

Keeping tradition and cultural alive. Big Sister Rose demonstrates making the Zhung Zi to two non Chinese friends.
aka as Bak Zhang in the Hokkien Fujian dialect.

Duanwu Festival
Traditional Chinese	端午節
Simplified Chinese	端午节

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duanwu_Festival

The best-known traditional story holds that the festival commemorates the death of poet Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BCE) of the ancient state of Chu during the Warring States Period of the Zhou Dynasty.^[6] A descendant of the Chu royal house, Qu served in high offices. However, when the king decided to ally with the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu was banished for opposing the alliance; he was accused of treason.^[6] During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of poetry, for which he is now remembered. Twenty-eight years later, Qin captured Ying, the capital of Chu. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.

It is said that the local people, who admired him, dropped sticky hi triangles wrapped in bamboo leaves into the river to feed the fish. The rice was wrapped so that fish would not eat Qu Yuan's body and eat the rice instead.^[6] This is said to be the origin of zongzi. The local people were also said to have paddled out on boats, either to scare the fish away or to retrieve his body. This is said to be the origin of dragon boat racing.

Chinese Language Network (中文俱乐部)

I attended my first Chinese Language network meeting this evening. 

(中文俱乐部) 

It wasn't what I expected.I had gone with the intention of improving my limited Spoken Mandarin and almost zilch  written Chinese. As a Child, I failed in Chinese, and the thought of learning it again is quite horrifying. Yet, I know I am a Chinese and it is right to learn the language of my roots.

I had fun tonight meeting with non Chinese friends speaking  Mandarin better than me, with Chinese like me who came for the first time. 

https://www.facebook.com/CLN.nz

欢迎大家！Simple, fun, effective - Chinese Language 

Network has the edge in helping you to learn Chinese - join 

us at our Chinese Conversation Group (CCG) on Tuesdays or 

our CLN Toastmasters Club on Thursdays!

I love you China

Many of the Chinese Immigrants were not considered citizens of the county

 they had gone to live all their lives. They would have loved this song.

Andrew Tan, a very good friend of father posted this first. It is a privilege to be a facebook friend of my dad.

殷秀梅-我爱你中国（祖国万岁60周年国庆晚会）

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=opNks9aWi_w

Father's teak elephant

We Chan kids are a funny lot, we laugh, we cry as we recall the times when we were kids. Memories exude such fondness for each other.

When I was 20 months old, Father went to England on a P & O liner. At each stop, he bought souvenirs. We all remember his black elephant.

Elizabeth asked her daughter Jeng to email us if any of her siblings remembered it. I even jokingly accused her that so it was her who stole the Elephant. Some remembered it was made of teak and the tusk of ivory, another that it had a broken stump.

Actually this wasn't the original elephant. Elizabeth's daughter in law Rosemary bought it in Cambodia, because her husband Wayne must have spoken about it.

I have 2 elephants, because I remembered that elephant. One, we bought it in a duty free shop in Bangkok. The water engineer took it to his office in Singapore. He didn't bring it back.

The other is an ornamented Sri Lanka elephant. This I treasure because my friend's husband died prematurely and left her and her 3 kids in a foreign land.