LIEM, Wanda - Mom was a simple village girl as she described herself. She told me about the times she’d catch snails in the paddy fields with her friends, have one of the maids cook them up and they’d spend the afternoon plucking the critters for snacks.
When it poured during rainy season, she and her friends would switch to their swimming suits, grab a banana leaf and frolic in the downpour. In Germany, she stayed in the town of Ulm and was shocked women would stop her in the streets and feed me brochen, ham, cheese. The innkeeper, apparently a jolly woman with the proper German name of Frau Yeager, took a liking to me too (c’mon, I was too cute) and babysat me while Mom went to the grocery store and returned empty handed each time. Why? Because where she was from if the store was open, the door was open. If the door was closed the store was closed. No one “opened” a door.
She went on train trip to Paris with her friend who was one of the few Asian models at the time. And me. So when Mom was asleep, well....I flooded the bathroom. I mean it went out to the living room and into the hallway; that hotel staff had to forcibly enter the room. Yep. She and Dad landed at Pearson, in August many years ago, wearing winter clothes, with 14 suitcases, me, $400DM, and two phone numbers (one did not work). There were no settlement NGOs like there are today to greet them and help acclimatize them to Canada. Mom and Dad winged it.
As Ced and I grew up, Mom was a homemaker. Her love was gardening and cooking. She inspired me to cook actually. She loved trying different cuisines. She’d make Shepherd’s pie with vermicelli, microwaved corn and mozzarella was a f-ing delish meal, canned tuna and frozen veggies with rice in the rice cooker would make Uncle Roger go apoplectic, were some of the Canadian meals she came up with. But her specialty was the Indonesian cuisine and Dutch snacks. One year, I sat her down and asked her to recite all her recipes which I have kept secure.
In past few weeks, Mom told a lot of stories about her Dad, who died before I was born. He, unlike most of Mom’s family, loved whiskey and smoked cigars. He loved entertaining too. Mom went with him almost everywhere. Mom had that inquisitiveness. She told me about the Persian man that had regular dinners with many guests and gave Grandpa a copy of a book with prayers. Mom was the only one that went with Grandpa. She told me about the Sikh businessman who trusted Grandpa with all his jewels and bars of gold in his safe. And that Grandpa and he would tell stories about their business trips over whiskey and smokes. Mom fondly missed those days. She told me about the dinner parties Grandpa loved to throw to the consternation of Grandma.
She also told me about the fright she had as a kid when the Japanese invaded and did horrible things. Because my Dad’s condition, recently, doesn’t allow him to travel so much when the COVID rules relaxed, Mom would be with me when we would visit Calista, have a soft cone at Dairy Queen or Tom’s Dairy Freeze, eat at her favorite burger joints, drink bubble tea at the Chinese mall parking lots with the export night cool Asians, get duck eggs at King Cole Ducks and then shop at Yummy Market, buy bags of peanuts at Pacific Mall, and get dim sum takeout to eat with Dad. I guess she wanted to spend that time with Ced, me, and Calista before she went to be with Grandpa, Grandma, Tante Kin and her two brothers. She spent 62 years with Dad. We would have loved Grandpa.
Bye Mom. I’m sure there’s plenty of chicken feet on the other side.
Private Arrangements with Ogden funeral home, Scarborough.
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