About My Mother, the Features of a Woman

not my picture…

Translated…

My maternal grandmother had a total of nine sons and a daughter, being cramped by all her brothers, my mother can be considered as the apple of everybody’s eye, but, this cherished gem had, fallen, into the Hakka towns, and all that she’d ever gotten on her were the mud and the muck, and it wasn’t until her old age, did life turn for the better for her.

what one of those banquets looked like…

My mother had this long-winding affinity with “elder”, back when she was just nine, she’d become, an aunt and at age eleven, she’d become my youngest uncle’s older sister, and, there were always, never-ending chores around the households to handle, and in the sexist beliefs, my mother wasn’t allowed to get any schooling until she was fourteen, already, and “old” student.  At the age of twenty-five, she finally got married, and, in the local’s eyes, she’d become, an “old maid”; and in her elderly years, she’d gotten invited to various lecture halls to teach people how to make the vegetarian dishes, and everybody called her honorably, “old master”; plus, all of us, siblings would call her, “the boss’s wife”, there were, a ton of relative nouns of her as being “old”.

Born into poverty stricken backgrounds, it’d helped my mother learn, there were, so many things my mother knew how to do, in my memories, she’d rarely sat down to rest, because there were so many of us, if we’d bought everything, we’d be out of money, and so, every single piece of clothing off our backs were, hand sewn by mom.  The treats we’d ordinarily had, the buns for our breakfasts, the fried pork strings, were all, from her making, and, the Hakka’s favorite cakes, she’d known how to make each and every single one of them.  Even my grandmother commended my mother for being so able-bodied.

meal prepared by the head chef here…

Several times we’d held dinners at our place, I’d followed my mother along for the grocery shopping trips, before the baskets are full, my mother said that she was, due back at the house, I’d asked her, “I thought we were hosting a banquet, how is this enough?”, after our return home, I saw her grabbing at things, and, managed, to make an entire table’s worth of delicacies; as for the menus, they were always, inside her mind.

What’s mostly impressive was, how my mother had been able to effectively nickel and dime, and, my mother was very good at her estimations, and it’d usually cost a lot, after she’d shopped for the over dozen tables worth of food, after the guests were fed, the food that’s leftover, after the workers were fed, if there were, some left, at most, it’s just a bit of entrées or a bowl of soup.  My mother had the right amount to cook with and, she was able to, save a lot of money for our house, for the temples, along with the friends and relatives who’d asked her to cook for them too, so, everybody called her, respectively, “Mrs. Save-a-Lot”.

At age seventy, there was a temple in Kaohsiung, don’t know where they’d heard it told, that my mother is good at cooking vegetarian dishes, they’d called to hire her, asked my mother to cook for a banquet of fifty tables all vegetarian, and they’d estimated that it would cost $4,500N.T.s a table, and my mother asked eight of her friends to follow her there, and after the mission was done, the committee member came to give her the money, and, my mother only took $55,000N.T. with the commute included, she’d saved the people a total of $150,000N.T. in sum, it’d almost shocked the committee member too much that he wasn’t able to keep himself steady.  My mother said, “after we’d made our money, we’d still needed to, return it back, I’ll donate it to your temple, it would be troubling, bringing this much money on us!”

not my photo…

After learning of my mother’s actions, all of us hollered, “Hooray!  Mom!”  there’s something that fazed me, how, could my mother who’d usually, nickeled and dimed finally gotten it?  Could it be, that as she got older, she’d let go, of all her inhibitions?  So, the glow of this shiny gem didn’t come until the elderly years.  The very next year, they’d gone, and, hosted a banquet of a hundred tables, then, it was because of my mother’s diabetes, that she couldn’t stand for long-term, she’d turned down the asking of the two hundred tables’ banquet, and just commanded the kitchens of the Buddhist Temple she worshipped in, because she had a ton of younger apprentices, her children and grandchildren she’s ordering around now.

When I was younger, I’d been proud, to resemble my own father, but lately, my husband told me, “You’re more and more like mom, especially, on how you were able to, whip up a table of dishes in an instant, you must’ve taken after her.”  Thinking back, although I’d never actually, acquired all the skills my mother had, at least, I’d gotten something, and, every time the people in the Buddhist temple my mother used to cook for, it’d made me, so very proud.

Had I cherished my mother’s cooking back then, and helped her recorded down the recipes, and, these recipes may become the treasure guide that I would’ve used, as I taught the inmates how to cook; but unfortunately, as my mother was teaching me to cook, I was too busy, looking for a job, and, I’d, missed out on a ton of her cooking skills, so regrettable.

So, this, is how a woman remembered her mother, her mother was a great cook, and, she’d followed along her mother’s side, but, even though she’d gotten commends on her cooking, she still felt that she’d paled by comparison to her mother’s cooking methods, and, the woman’s continually cooking the foods, would be the best way, to commemorate her own mother, by keeping the skills her mother passed down to her going.