Tip 205: Identify the wisdom in traditions

Haruka was back in Malaysia for the Christmas holidays. It was the first time she met her great grandmother who is 86 years old. I thought it was good for Haruka to build relations with her extended family, yet later I realized it could not be as ideal as I hoped for. There was the language barrier. My grandmother was born in Malaysia before getting married to my grandfather who hailed from Guangdong. Eventhough, my grandmother had less Chinese roots since she lived her whole life in Malaysia, she did not attend school as girls then were barred from going to school by their fathers. So, my grandmother could not speak English to Haruka and she thought it would be difficult to play with Haruka. That was until I saw photos of Tangyuan in the local newspaper announcing that the next day on 22 December 2009 was the Winter Solstice Festival. It was an opportunity for Haruka to knead Tangyuan with her great grandmother.

Traditions have been introduced by the elders for many decades or centuries with careful thought on how traditions can instill noble values and bring people together. Societies in the past do not have so much convenience and mobility to keep in touch easily. Traditions such as the Dongzhi is a good time for many to make the effort to travel the distance to knead rice flour together to make as many round dumplings as possible as flour was not expensive previously. It also instills patience as a good dumpling is knead with love and lots of attention to detail to ensure its round and chewy. The glutinous rice flour needs to have just the right amount of water, else it will be too dry for kneading or too wet to hold a smooth round shape. If hundreds of balls are made, patience is required and a desire to want to maintain good standards may warrant kneading the balls over and over by reducing the size and rekneading if its too large or too small. Like the Japanese, the Chinese too had many traditions emphasizing the need to put attention to detail.

Nowadays, we can easily ready made Tangyuan knead by factories or vendors in the market, but nothing beats participating in the traditions and reaping the benefits if we identify with the wisdom behind it. Do it - it takes effort, time, inconvenience and unnecessary stress, but there is good in many traditions.

(Photos show Haruka with her Malaysian great grandmother at our home in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia and Haruka with her Malaysian grandmother at the Singapore zoo and Clarke Quay riverside when she came to visit my new Singapore home. Also, Haruka's first hawker center food. The best we tried in our first 2 weeks in Singapore was the Zion Road hawker center opposite Great World City, Tiong Bahru which is clean and has lots of food variety).