Where Chingchoks Chirp My Childhood Days in Bangkok , livre ebook

Archway Publishing - Kim Pao Yu

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178 pages

English

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The sight and sounds of Bangkok in the late 50s and early 60s as experienced by a Chinese boy, where life as written by Conrad and Maugham mingled with those of post-WWII immigrants in an emerging multi-cultural city.

Bangkok in the 1950s and early 1960s was a relatively small city consisting of exotic temples and palaces built in bygone days surrounded by rows of commercial and residential shophouses. Author Kim Pao Yu, a child born into a traditional Northern Chinese family, writes about his parents, their origins in Shandong, and how they escaped the war and communism in China to settle in Bangkok.

In Where Chingchoks Chirp, a collection of essays, he shares his parents’ beliefs and values, their hopes and joys, and their struggles to ensure a better life for their children. Raised in a shophouse where his parents owned an antique and furniture store, situated in a compound inhabited by immigrant Chinese from Swatow, Kim describes everyday activities—the myriad vendors who sold their goods and services, the neighborhood children and the games they played, and how they celebrated holidays and festivals. The selections also cover the food and recipes his mother left as a legacy; his memories of people and experiences encountered while growing up; and his adventures at an American school as a local Chinese boy attending with the children of American expatriate and military families that shaped his thinking as he left Bangkok for higher learning in the United States.

Where Chingchoks Chirp shares the sights, sounds, and smells of the bygone days of Bangkok, now a modern, bustling city that still retains much of its past.

Sujets

Biography

Chinese cuisine

Autobiography

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Publié par	Archway Publishing
Date de parution	10 janvier 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781665735032
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Where Chingchoks Chirp MY CHILDHOOD DAYS IN BANGKOK

Kim Pao Yu

Copyright © 2023 Kim Pao Yu.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3502-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3503-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022922900

Archway Publishing rev. date: 01/10/2023
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1 My Mother
Chapter 2 A Compound in Bangkok
Chapter 3 Vendors along Siphya Road
Chapter 4 Vendors In Our Compound
Chapter 5 Lunch Vendors
Chapter 6 Snack and Other Vendors
Chapter 7 Holidays and Festivals on a Calendar
Chapter 8 Chinese Holidays and Festivals
Chapter 9 Thai Holidays and Festivals
Chapter 10 American Traditional Holidays
Chapter 11 Winter and Christmas
Chapter 12 My Mother’s Banquet
Chapter 13 Mom’s Recipes - Slightly Altered
Chapter 14 The Origin of Popular Thai Dishes
Chapter 15 Roast Duck and Hainan Chicken
Chapter 16 Durian
Chapter 17 Dining at the Pacific Hotel
Chapter 18 Shopping in Bangkok
Chapter 19 Going to the Movies
Chapter 20 Movie Theaters
Chapter 21 Western Movies
Chapter 22 The Wat Flicks
Chapter 23 Beijing Opera Phonograph Records
Chapter 24 Childhood Scents
Chapter 25 The Legend of Tiger Balm
Chapter 26 Hu Ba Ba
Chapter 27 My Chinese Teacher
Chapter 28 Tao Kae Niang
Chapter 29 Marian’s Godmother
Chapter 30 Pian Tze in Old Bangkok
Chapter 31 The Refugee Who Hid in Our Godown
Chapter 32 My Year as a Boy Scout at ISB
To My Mother
Preface
During the late 50s and early 60s, the compound of shophouses where I grew up in Bangkok was filled with all kinds of sounds from dawn to dusk.
There was the constant blaring of horns and revving of engines from the cars and tuk-tuks (that noisy, smoke-generating motor tricycles that have become an icon of Bangkok traffic vehicles) on Siphya Road, a major thoroughfare connecting Chinatown to the rest of the city.
And from the homes and shops, separated from each other by only wooden plank walls, came the clanking of pots and pans, screams and yells from mothers and children, and the timpani and shrieks of Teochew operas from radios.
However, after dinner, and after cooling showers that splashed away the sweat and grime of the day, it was time to put children to bed, and quiet finally descended onto the compound.
I listened as I laid on my mattress on the second floor that served as the bedroom for the family, feeling the soft breeze from a slow whirring electric fan.
From outside the screened door and windows, I heard the soft chirping of chingchoks, those harmless little lizards that hung on the walls and ceilings of every home.
Chingchoks come out after dusk to feed on mosquitoes, and as dozens of them are drawn to light, this feeding frenzy scene, nature’s way of pest control, can be seen every night in the arena of lit light bulbs.
Their appetites satisfied, chingchoks give off chirping sounds. There are four or five chirps, one after another.
They sound gentle, almost like the ‘tut tut’ sound made by a well-mannered lady, politely expressing her mild reproof over something.
As a child, relaxed in bed and lulled by the comforting chirps, I felt that all is well and safe in my surroundings, a familiar sound that sent me off to dreamland.
Familiar senses trigger our memory cells, and for a moment, we are transported back to our childhood days.
Nowadays, walking past just as a waiter takes the lid off a hot bamboo steamer to let out the fragrance of freshly steamed buns and suddenly, I am at our kitchen table in Bangkok, as my mother lifted the bamboo cover of a large steamer to reveal a tray full of white steaming bao tzu.
As school children pour out of school, our neighborhood ice cream cart vendor is there to greet them, playing Little Brown Jug as he drives past my home.
I think back to the time when I return home from school, to be greeted by snack vendors plying icy drinks, fruits, and so many kinds of kanom , the Thai word for desserts, in the compound where we lived.
When I bruised myself, or when I got bitten by a bug, I reach for my small capsule of Tiger Balm. And when I see that embossed trademark of a running tiger, I remember a similar one that laid in the cabinet on top of our sink in the home in Bangkok, where we stored bottles of lotions, colognes, and local remedies.
As I prepare a familiar dish without needing to refer to its recipe because I have done it so many times before, and as I stand over a wok, adding ingredients and stir-frying, I see images of my mother who did the same so many times before.
And as I lift my chopsticks at a banquet table, celebrating some holiday with friends and loved ones, I remember when I was a child, how our family gathered around the round teak table at home, waiting to dig into all my mother’s grand dishes served on china that was used only for special occasions.
Watching old movies on TV, many now labeled ‘classic films’, takes me back to when I saw them the first time in Bangkok cinemas, each showing an event with ads, previews of coming attractions, then the audience standing up in respect when the King’s image is projected onto the screen and his anthem played.
And when I binge on historical dramas from China, episode after episode that told familiar stories from famous classical novels such as The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and The Water Margin, I remember the Beijing operas that sang those tales and the books that my Chinese teacher, Zhu Laoshi, eagerly introduced to me when we visited a bookstore in Bangkok Chinatown.
When I read about the plight of refugees, I remember the one whom my parents helped – a stranger from Burma who hid in our godown (warehouse) until he safely emigrated to Taiwan.
Experiencing familiar senses are catalysts to bringing back our memories, and childhood memories are the most vivid and long-lasting.
Someone said that our brains work on our memories so we retain mostly happy ones.
Be that as it may, my memories of my childhood days in Bangkok are certainly happy ones, and it is my pleasure to share them with you.
01
My Mother
Unlike many Overseas Chinese families who settled in Thailand as refugees that fled from the homeland when the Communists took over China, my parents were more fortunate. They were already in Bangkok when World War II started.
Shortly after the war, they rented a small shophouse that my father used as a base, storing imported table cloths and textiles that he sold by bicycling to the homes of expatriates.
He saved his money and dreamed of the day when he could return to his hometown in Shandong Province as a merchant who made his fortune overseas.
His dreams were shattered when the Communists took over. When land and property got nationalized by the new regime, he realized that he couldn’t return home, and he must continue to live in Thailand.
Hearing and believing propaganda that the Communist regime is short-lived and soon they will be able to win back the mainland, and also fed by his wistful thinking, my father’s new dream was to live in Thailand, save money, and return home after the Communists are driven out of China.
Instead of bicycling to sell his textiles, my father decided to set up shop and import other merchandise such as furniture, antiques, and works of art.
The shop prospered.
All this happened about the time when I was born, in the year 1950.
As children, my two sisters and I, having been born in Thailand and never having stepped foot in China, what we know of this homeland of our parents came from pictures from story books, objects of art sold in our antique shop, and mostly from tales and stories told to us by our parents, relatives and their friends.
During evenings after supper, we gathered together in front of our parents, sitting on low stools, fanning ourselves to keep cool.
As a lit coil of Cock brand incense released a lazy spiral of smoke to repel mosquitoes, we listened to our parents telling stories about themselves and their homeland.
My mother was born in 1915, in the town of Zhucheng in Shandong, a northeastern province of China.
She was the eldest of four in the Li family and was given the name Kwei Tze, which translated as Osmanthus Flower.
The Li family was an old and venerable family in Zhucheng, a town renowned as the birthplace of legendary heroes and loyal officials.
Indeed the most famous amo