22nd Aug 2010 (24)
MOTHERHOOD BECAME CHILDHOOD
A good friend of mine once asked me whether I was deprived
of games and toys during my childhood.
I said no but on the contrary, I did play a lot of games and toys in my
motherhood. After I had become a mother, I often enjoyed playing games,
painting and making handicrafts with my two children - a son and a
daughter. I used cardboard papers to make tanks, and blankets and chairs
to set up tents or houses. In fact I learned a lot more of children's books
after I had my children. In the 1970s I started to appreciate books written
by authors like Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, Hans Christian Anderson, etc.
I like the comic character Tintin who was very amusing. Barbie was
not born yet, and there was only Sindy in the market. Barbie gradually
took over Cindy in the years to come. I was never a fan of Barbie. It
might be because of its glamorous style and it carried some kind of
vanity. I used to play GI Joe with my son. My son's first electronic game
was called 'Merlin' and in fact it was only a naughts and crosses game.
My grandmother and mother loved Cantonese opera. They used to listen
to the radio whenever there was a live broadcast of a Cantonese opera
show. My father did not appreciate the Chinese opera at all and said that
the songs sounded like the noise of killing a chicken. My mother used to
buy live chicken and asked me to help her to kill it in a halal way. She
usually asked me to hold the chicken upside down by the feet and she cut
the throat in one go with a knife so that blood flowed down into the basin
immediately. While she was cutting it, she would say a few Arabic words.
That's how my father knew about the sound of killing a chicken.
Yuen-yee
MOTHERHOOD BECAME CHILDHOOD
A good friend of mine once asked me whether I was deprived
of games and toys during my childhood.
I said no but on the contrary, I did play a lot of games and toys in my
motherhood. After I had become a mother, I often enjoyed playing games,
painting and making handicrafts with my two children - a son and a
daughter. I used cardboard papers to make tanks, and blankets and chairs
to set up tents or houses. In fact I learned a lot more of children's books
after I had my children. In the 1970s I started to appreciate books written
by authors like Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, Hans Christian Anderson, etc.
I like the comic character Tintin who was very amusing. Barbie was
not born yet, and there was only Sindy in the market. Barbie gradually
took over Cindy in the years to come. I was never a fan of Barbie. It
might be because of its glamorous style and it carried some kind of
vanity. I used to play GI Joe with my son. My son's first electronic game
was called 'Merlin' and in fact it was only a naughts and crosses game.
My grandmother and mother loved Cantonese opera. They used to listen
to the radio whenever there was a live broadcast of a Cantonese opera
show. My father did not appreciate the Chinese opera at all and said that
the songs sounded like the noise of killing a chicken. My mother used to
buy live chicken and asked me to help her to kill it in a halal way. She
usually asked me to hold the chicken upside down by the feet and she cut
the throat in one go with a knife so that blood flowed down into the basin
immediately. While she was cutting it, she would say a few Arabic words.
That's how my father knew about the sound of killing a chicken.
Yuen-yee
Chinese opera singers