You know how we slowly realize we are becoming just like our mothers – or fathers (especially in our forties). Some of us greet that fact with untold horror. Scream, ‘I’m becoming my mother/father!’ The funny thing is, as mothers/fathers, we quite like the idea of our children becoming just a bit like us.

This page started as a lasting tribute to my late mother. Eventually I found it easier to upload thoughts, ideas and issues via my Blog here where you can read my blog entries such as:

No more paper kitchen towels (almost)

Farmers Market

Going organic and chicken tales

Tiffin for two (or three)

Back to 'Becoming Mother' then

Mother was the foremost recycler. She recycled everything. When I say everything, I mean everything.

Paper, string, rubber bands, bits of metal wire, water, scraps of fabric, bags – paper and plastic, food, used matchsticks, you name it.

She lived by the principle of (in Cantonese) yaat mutt yee yung (literally any object/material can be used in two ways). So, to say it the second (!) way: Recycle!

Growing up I rebelled because it looked like we were living in abject poverty. O! The shame of having to use scrap paper! And why are we the only ones on that floor (with eleven other flats) who had a swill bin. All leftover food, vegetable peeling, bones, etc, were put in there and collected regularly by a lady who then turned it into pig feed. O, the horror! The smell!

Well, where I live now we have the Brown Bin scheme. We recycle leftover food, vegetable peeling, bones, etc.!

So, long before recycling was fashionable – and necessary – Mum taught me how to recycle. She was of the generation who suffered through the Japanese Occupation when they didn’t know where the next meal was coming from. She became that generation of mothers who grew fat from eating children’s leftovers. Nothing was allowed to go to waste. Nothing.

String (jute usually) was wound up into little balls and used to tie up stacks of newspaper. Newspaper was cut up and strung up with bits of metal wire. My father used this in his business as a butcher until the health-and-safety regime in Singapore told him he had to use – yes! – plastic bags. 

Rubber bands were hung on little hooks and we used them to keep things together. One of the highlights of every little girl’s life back then was to collect enough rubber bands to make a skipping rope. If you want to know how, email shopkeeper@organic-ally.co.uk.

Bath and laundry water was collected into buckets to flush the toilet. Even when we bought a washing machine, she would always pipe the waste water into buckets for later use. 

She never bought a dustpan in her life but made them out of empty biscuit tins. The best thing was what she did with bits of fabric (‘Bou soey’ in Cantonese). But I shall leave this story for another time.

I don’t think Mother understood or envisaged any of the present environmental issues we now face. But having been impoverished had instilled in her a life-long habit of recycling.

I guess what I am saying is that my passion for recycling did not happen out of the blue. Yes, I read and understood the implications of global warming and the threat to the rain forests, etc. but it was Mother who demonstrated that it is not so difficult to think about yaat mutt yee yung.

And that is the attitude I would like to instill in my child too. 

I can picture him now, turning to his loved ones one day, ‘I’m becoming my mother/father!’

Wherefore tinfoil? (11th August 2005)

Of course Mum never threw good food away. Leftovers were always kept for another meal. Sometimes they were modified into another dish. We all do that.

It suddenly occurred to me: What was life like before aluminium foil and cling film? Mum never used those things. Leftovers were covered with an upturned plate. As we did not even have a fridge for a long time, food was kept in an old-fashioned cupboard with wire mesh doors for ventilation and to keep the flies out. (I'm not sure if this is what the English call a 'larder'.)

Incidentally, we never suffered from food poisoning. Everything was reheated (either fried up in the wok or steamed, in the same pot where the rice was being cooked, just after you see the 'holes' appear at the surface of the rice, thus economising on energy use again) before we consumed it.

Why do we now so automatically reach for single-use foil or cling wrap when we wish to return leftovers to the fridge?

What's wrong with an upturned plate that can be washed and reused, and does not add to landfills?

I, for one, have one answer. I started using cling film and tin foil because I thought it was the fashionable thing to do. It said 'I am a modern girl'. How wrong and naive I was. I'm now back to upturned plates again.

Thank you, Mum.

Afterthought (2nd October 2005)

Another reason for the use of cling film: When we wish to keep half-used packets of readily-packaged foods (usually ham in our case), cling film seems to be a good idea because it wraps round the item so easily.

Solution: Buy such products loose and transfer to reusable box as soon as possible. Reduce, reduce, reduce.

Better still. I'm going to take reusable boxes to the market/supermarket, and ask the staff to put the ham straight in the box, and they can stick the price label on the lid. Will be fun to see if anyone objects to that.

I'm now seriously considering importing and selling stainless steel tiffin carriers. They were great for buying hot and messy foods from markets and food stalls before plastic took over. Please tell me if I'm daft.

Other articles related to Mother can now be found in the Blog area. Examples are:

Going organic and chicken tales

Truancy, poverty and food

Stomach ulcers and Barry Marshall

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