[story] mooncake magic
Sep. 26th, 2011 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ib_archiveauthor: naoko kensaku (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mistressnaoko)
email: beta.read.edit [ at ] gmail dot com
This story was inspired by The Malaysian Magician.
There is no magic in Malaysia, they say. Magic doesn't exist like what they show you in the movies.
My aunt disagrees with them. She thinks that such thinking is a whole lot of bollocks.
"Besides," she tells me, "if there was magic, it wouldn't be flamboyant like in the West. Always with those grandiose gestures. Exploding stuff, crazy storms. We Asians are more subtle, more modest," she would continue, and I would bite my tongue to stop myself from pointing out that John Tan had done the same, if not more. In unspoken history and among the older generation, he is revered as the Malaysian magician, the one who protected the people from the Japanese, even as the British failed miserably.
But John Tan's existence is denied in our text books. They don't want to teach us about magic. It's the time of science and reason, my teachers always tell me. Magic is superstition. It's dangerous. And for that, they teach us about how magic can only bring bad consequences, especially when used by bomohs and dukuns to charm the unwary, to swindle people out of their money. My aunt scoffs at the thought.
"What do they know?" she complains loudly. "It's against their religion to even believe in magic!" she speaks with unexpected vehemence. I keep my silence. It's an argument I've heard before.
Thwap! My aunt smacks the back of my head.
"You stupid girl! Watch how you press the molds!" She takes it away from me angrily and demonstrates again, carefully pressing down so the mooncake comes out perfect. "Idiotic child," she mutters, pointing me towards the half-baked mooncakes awaiting their egg glaze coating. They are piping hot from the oven.
I pick up the brush and begin to glaze the mooncakes carefully but quickly, as they have to go back into the oven for a final round of baking. My aunt uses the traditional method of making mooncakes, which means it's a long, time-consuming process. She makes only two flavours: lotus paste filling with egg yolk and without. A lot of people suggest she add more flavours like what the bakeries are doing, but she laughs them off. She is never short of customers even though she sells only these two flavours and for very dear prices. The packaging is simple and has not been changed since Aunty started selling; it is a small paper cardboard box with the Chinese characters, "Mid-Autumn." A red dot in the upper right indicates filling with egg yolk.
The egg glaze is perhaps the only part of the process that Aunty does not allow anyone but either herself or me to do. No other family member or worker is allowed to do it. The last time one of my sisters picked up the brush to hurry the process, Aunty threw a fit and the batch out of the house. My sister was not allowed back into Aunty's house for an entire two years and my father was furious. Aunty refused to tell him why, but I knew of course.
The magic of Aunty's mooncakes is in the glaze. Or rather, it is activated by the glaze. When we apply the glaze we think of families eating the cakes together. We think of colleagues sharing them in the office, no matter their race (Aunty has made sure that she has the Jakim Halal certification, so even Muslims can buy our mooncakes without worry). We think of how mooncakes united our people together to throw off the oppressors in ancient times.
And then we whisper these hopes as we glaze the mooncakes. Aunty insists on using exact words, but I've learnt that you don't need the words, only the intent. Magic isn't bound by words, even if those movies make it seem so. It's in the intent.
Everyone comes back for Aunty's mooncakes. Even the Indians and the Malays, who often complain that the lotus paste feels like toffee in their mouths. When they come back though, they're often smiling. They tell Aunty stories of their offices, of their homes, of how even the toddlers seem to laugh when they are eating the mooncakes.
"Funny la, your mooncakes, Aunty," one customer says to Aunty while I am packing his order, "Seems like there's magic in them. Are you sure they're safe for a devout Muslim to eat?" Aunty glares at him while the only other customer laughs at his jest.
"Magic your head la! Where got such thing?" Whenever Aunty starts using her Malaysian Chinese accent and adds in the lahs and slangs, I know she's pissed. "You think if got magic I can get this cert huh? It's not for show!" she says, and chases him out. Even the old Malay uncle from next door stares, as he's never seen her lose her temper before.
Aunty sells the mooncakes out of her house, but the uncle doesn't mind. His son does though, and we've heard many an argument when Aunty's making mooncakes about how his son doesn't believe those heathens next door really know how to make halal* things. The same argument as the one we've just heard is an old story next door, but it's a new one here.
Once the last customer in the shop is gone, Aunty closes up for the day. It's only noon and we usually sell till sunset, but Aunty's adamant that we close early today. The only customers she entertains are those who have already made appointments for the day. Later, when tomorrow's batch of mooncakes are already packed and the workers have gone home, Aunty makes me count over the mooncakes again while she sits near the door, fanning herself with an old fan. Grandmother gave her that fan before she passed away, she explains. I've never known Aunty's mother and Dad's mother as she died when I was born, but I've heard she was a strict disciplinarian.
"Your por por," she uses the Chinese term that refers to the paternal grandmother, "always said we cannot sell things with a sour face. Brings bad luck to our customers. That's why I close so early. Stupid boy, go and ruin my mood," she half-explains, half muses to herself. I count and make a mark. Aunty's delivered many a lecture this way.
This time though, she just sighs.
"Girl, you finish already?" I look up and tell her the count. She nods and tells me to bring her cigarettes and sit near her. I make a face; Aunty smokes Winston, and I hate the smell. "Aiyah, just come here la!" I sit obediently on the stone steps under her and put my head against her lap. In many ways, my father says, Aunty's a lot like grandma. I suppose he is right.
She lights a cigarette and takes a long drag, tapping its ashes into the ashtray before patting my head fondly. For the longest time she says nothing, and when she does, it's with a sad note I've never heard her use before.
"Girl... when Aunty dies ya," I straighten up and began to protest instinctively at the thought like how a normal Chinese girl would, but the look on her face frightens me into silence, "Don't continue this business. Don't listen to your ba ba and open this shop. If he asks why, tell him por por told me I'm the last to make mooncakes. Ah Ma didn't want any of us to continue this business," this was the first time I have heard of my grandmother selling mooncakes. "So if he ask, say no. If not I'll come back from the grave to curse him. You understand?" I nod.
"Everything else is yours, remember." She's named me as her heir before, but this is the first time she's spoken of it since I was five years old. "This house, the land, all of it is yours. Just kill the business, ok? If you want to use the ovens, can. But no more mooncakes."
"Can give as presents or not?" I ask, slipping into Manglish. Aunty's tone has scared me. She smacks my head gently.
"Cannot. You can eat and make for yourself. But don't give as presents to anyone. Not even to your own family. If you make, you eat immediately," she clarifies. "Anyone asks, say it's my will." She laughs, and I laugh with her. Some of Aunty's favourite movies are those where the heirs need to do ridiculous things to inherit, and she is using this to her benefit now.
"Ok?" she looks down at me and I look up at her.
"Ok," I reply.
"Good girl."
the end
Notes:
* Non-prohibited foods
** Mooncakes are eaten during the Mid-Autumn festival
mistressnaoko)email: beta.read.edit [ at ] gmail dot com
This story was inspired by The Malaysian Magician.
There is no magic in Malaysia, they say. Magic doesn't exist like what they show you in the movies.
My aunt disagrees with them. She thinks that such thinking is a whole lot of bollocks.
"Besides," she tells me, "if there was magic, it wouldn't be flamboyant like in the West. Always with those grandiose gestures. Exploding stuff, crazy storms. We Asians are more subtle, more modest," she would continue, and I would bite my tongue to stop myself from pointing out that John Tan had done the same, if not more. In unspoken history and among the older generation, he is revered as the Malaysian magician, the one who protected the people from the Japanese, even as the British failed miserably.
But John Tan's existence is denied in our text books. They don't want to teach us about magic. It's the time of science and reason, my teachers always tell me. Magic is superstition. It's dangerous. And for that, they teach us about how magic can only bring bad consequences, especially when used by bomohs and dukuns to charm the unwary, to swindle people out of their money. My aunt scoffs at the thought.
"What do they know?" she complains loudly. "It's against their religion to even believe in magic!" she speaks with unexpected vehemence. I keep my silence. It's an argument I've heard before.
Thwap! My aunt smacks the back of my head.
"You stupid girl! Watch how you press the molds!" She takes it away from me angrily and demonstrates again, carefully pressing down so the mooncake comes out perfect. "Idiotic child," she mutters, pointing me towards the half-baked mooncakes awaiting their egg glaze coating. They are piping hot from the oven.
I pick up the brush and begin to glaze the mooncakes carefully but quickly, as they have to go back into the oven for a final round of baking. My aunt uses the traditional method of making mooncakes, which means it's a long, time-consuming process. She makes only two flavours: lotus paste filling with egg yolk and without. A lot of people suggest she add more flavours like what the bakeries are doing, but she laughs them off. She is never short of customers even though she sells only these two flavours and for very dear prices. The packaging is simple and has not been changed since Aunty started selling; it is a small paper cardboard box with the Chinese characters, "Mid-Autumn." A red dot in the upper right indicates filling with egg yolk.
The egg glaze is perhaps the only part of the process that Aunty does not allow anyone but either herself or me to do. No other family member or worker is allowed to do it. The last time one of my sisters picked up the brush to hurry the process, Aunty threw a fit and the batch out of the house. My sister was not allowed back into Aunty's house for an entire two years and my father was furious. Aunty refused to tell him why, but I knew of course.
The magic of Aunty's mooncakes is in the glaze. Or rather, it is activated by the glaze. When we apply the glaze we think of families eating the cakes together. We think of colleagues sharing them in the office, no matter their race (Aunty has made sure that she has the Jakim Halal certification, so even Muslims can buy our mooncakes without worry). We think of how mooncakes united our people together to throw off the oppressors in ancient times.
And then we whisper these hopes as we glaze the mooncakes. Aunty insists on using exact words, but I've learnt that you don't need the words, only the intent. Magic isn't bound by words, even if those movies make it seem so. It's in the intent.
Everyone comes back for Aunty's mooncakes. Even the Indians and the Malays, who often complain that the lotus paste feels like toffee in their mouths. When they come back though, they're often smiling. They tell Aunty stories of their offices, of their homes, of how even the toddlers seem to laugh when they are eating the mooncakes.
"Funny la, your mooncakes, Aunty," one customer says to Aunty while I am packing his order, "Seems like there's magic in them. Are you sure they're safe for a devout Muslim to eat?" Aunty glares at him while the only other customer laughs at his jest.
"Magic your head la! Where got such thing?" Whenever Aunty starts using her Malaysian Chinese accent and adds in the lahs and slangs, I know she's pissed. "You think if got magic I can get this cert huh? It's not for show!" she says, and chases him out. Even the old Malay uncle from next door stares, as he's never seen her lose her temper before.
Aunty sells the mooncakes out of her house, but the uncle doesn't mind. His son does though, and we've heard many an argument when Aunty's making mooncakes about how his son doesn't believe those heathens next door really know how to make halal* things. The same argument as the one we've just heard is an old story next door, but it's a new one here.
Once the last customer in the shop is gone, Aunty closes up for the day. It's only noon and we usually sell till sunset, but Aunty's adamant that we close early today. The only customers she entertains are those who have already made appointments for the day. Later, when tomorrow's batch of mooncakes are already packed and the workers have gone home, Aunty makes me count over the mooncakes again while she sits near the door, fanning herself with an old fan. Grandmother gave her that fan before she passed away, she explains. I've never known Aunty's mother and Dad's mother as she died when I was born, but I've heard she was a strict disciplinarian.
"Your por por," she uses the Chinese term that refers to the paternal grandmother, "always said we cannot sell things with a sour face. Brings bad luck to our customers. That's why I close so early. Stupid boy, go and ruin my mood," she half-explains, half muses to herself. I count and make a mark. Aunty's delivered many a lecture this way.
This time though, she just sighs.
"Girl, you finish already?" I look up and tell her the count. She nods and tells me to bring her cigarettes and sit near her. I make a face; Aunty smokes Winston, and I hate the smell. "Aiyah, just come here la!" I sit obediently on the stone steps under her and put my head against her lap. In many ways, my father says, Aunty's a lot like grandma. I suppose he is right.
She lights a cigarette and takes a long drag, tapping its ashes into the ashtray before patting my head fondly. For the longest time she says nothing, and when she does, it's with a sad note I've never heard her use before.
"Girl... when Aunty dies ya," I straighten up and began to protest instinctively at the thought like how a normal Chinese girl would, but the look on her face frightens me into silence, "Don't continue this business. Don't listen to your ba ba and open this shop. If he asks why, tell him por por told me I'm the last to make mooncakes. Ah Ma didn't want any of us to continue this business," this was the first time I have heard of my grandmother selling mooncakes. "So if he ask, say no. If not I'll come back from the grave to curse him. You understand?" I nod.
"Everything else is yours, remember." She's named me as her heir before, but this is the first time she's spoken of it since I was five years old. "This house, the land, all of it is yours. Just kill the business, ok? If you want to use the ovens, can. But no more mooncakes."
"Can give as presents or not?" I ask, slipping into Manglish. Aunty's tone has scared me. She smacks my head gently.
"Cannot. You can eat and make for yourself. But don't give as presents to anyone. Not even to your own family. If you make, you eat immediately," she clarifies. "Anyone asks, say it's my will." She laughs, and I laugh with her. Some of Aunty's favourite movies are those where the heirs need to do ridiculous things to inherit, and she is using this to her benefit now.
"Ok?" she looks down at me and I look up at her.
"Ok," I reply.
"Good girl."
the end
Notes:
* Non-prohibited foods
** Mooncakes are eaten during the Mid-Autumn festival
