When I was a teenager, I heard jokes of Foo-Chow people being loud like want to fight and sits with one leg up like a trishawman. This, I can't say it's true nor confined only to this segment of Chinese.
Then I heard people say that the Foo-Chow dialect is the hardest to speak, and hardest to understand. You can't guess what they are saying. And this is definitely true. I remembered my Chinese New Years spent as a child in Sitiawan (where my paternal grandparents lived) listening to foreign words, and not knowing Mandarin doesn't help, because it was like chicken and duck talk with my grandmother (thank God my grandfather spoke English).
A Foo-Chow guy in my previous previous workplace once told me, having discovered that I was Foo-Chow like him too, that it's a pity I am already married, else it'd be great to marry a Foo-Chow lady like me, keep the breed pure - that's his excuse. Hhmmpk. What kind of era is he living in, anyway?
And lately my Foo-Chow uncle from the States joked that old Foo-Chow men used to walk around with loose shorts on very hot days, sit with their legs up (maybe it's true then) with unsightly sights of their balls peeping through. Eeuuu!!
Don't shoot me yet for any hard feelings on what I written. Foo-Chow have wonderful, if not the best, Chinese food around! Unfortunately I don't know if we get many authentic Foo-Chow restaurants in Klang Valley.
Last month, we went back to Sitiawan (pronounced as City A1) to celebrate my Ah Ma (to the kids, she is Ah Chor)'s 86th birthday. It was a short 2D1N trip up north, and we stayed at the Orient Star Resort in Lumut (nothing to shout about except for their chapati).
We managed to take a dip in the pool the afternoon we arrived, ate James' famous cendol, enjoyed Foo-Chow food during Ah Ma's birthday celebration, ordered and tapau-ed 30 gong peang (dough-like pastry that comes in two varieties ie pork or shallots) and tapau-ed 40 Foo-Chow balls back home. My only complaint is missing the bamboo noodle.
The famous red wine chicken mee sua. A tad bit too saltish for me, but because we were all famished by the time this first dish was served, it literraly disappeared within 5 minutes! I think I can cook better... ahem!
I just realised that I didn't take any pictures of my favourite sweet sour spicy fish maw dish. : ( I must have been too excited to dig in, and totally forgotten about snapping away. Oh well... the next trip then.
Here's one I picked up from the internet.
I am proud to be half Foo-Chow. Although I speak no Foo-Chow, nor do I sit with one leg up in public. My red wine is very precious as my grandma no long makes them, and it's a dying trade.
I am another half Cantonese. : )
5 comments:
ehhehe i have one bottle of red wine sitting in my kitchen..waiting for me to cook Red Wine Mee Suah Soup...=) I am half foo-chow too (dad is foo-chow and mom is hockkien)
@littlelamb, you too? which foo chow are u.. city a1 or sibu (famous for buying shoplots by the block, btw) when u cook red wine, hint to me lar, i will thick skin hop over... : )
Interesting....I've never seen the plastic bags for takeaway at a restaurant table b4!
I'm not foo chow but my BIL is from CityA1. My sis was lucky,
her foo chow MIL bred kampung chickens n made her own red wine for my sis confinement. I was the lucky lil sis who got to eat along w her :)
hahaha...your remark on the guy marrying a foo chow girl stuck to me. Coz I also dated a foo chow man once and he also made that remark. Indeed what era are they living in?
I went to Sitiawan one day to eat sea food when I was still in Ipoh. How was the hotel and the beach there? Worth the visit?
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