Family history - my mother's side Foo 符
(8 minutes reading time)
My mother’s family has a fascinating history. I don’t know much about my grandfather. My Ah Kong’s 阿公 name was Foo Duen Ji 符敦瑜. My Ah Poh 阿婆 (my grandmother) was Heng Lian Hua 邢蓮花. These are their names in Malaysian phonetics, as pronounced in Hainanese.
Hainan is an island off the south coast of China (South West from Hong Kong) that they are from. It’s been described as the “Hawaii of China”, being a popular holiday resort since the 90s. Before then it didn’t have much.
I believe my grandparents escaped China during the Revolution. At some point my eldest aunt was born, and my grandparents were stuck in a refugee camp within the jungles of Malaysia (then known as Malaya) during World War II. They were also desperately hiding from the Japanese who had invaded. If the Japanese had found them, they would likely have been slaughtered.
After the war, my grandparents ended up working for a British family. This is not something I was aware of until my late 20s.
As a child living in Kuala Lumpur, our family would often congregate together at my grandparents’ home. My aunts, uncles, and cousins would all show up for a magnificent Sunday Roast of lamb, ham, potatoes, cauliflower cheese, peas and gravy.
With rice.
It was utterly delicious and I loved it.
But I never knew why my grandfather could make such good food. My grandfather was the cook for that British family! This also explained how he knew to make jam after strawberry picking when they came to visit England. The smell in my aunt’s house as it was boiling down was delicious. He loved afternoon tea, with creamy scones and the jam he’d freshly made.
I discovered this from asking my Mum about the race riots in Kuala Lumpur and how it affected them. They weren’t, because they lived with this British family. They watched the fires from on top of the hills.
But before all of this, what happened to my grandmother before it was arranged for her to marry my grandfather (there’s a gap in between that is still very unclear to me) is the story that is both deeply fascinating but also troubling.
My Mum and her siblings had told me that Ah Poh 阿婆 was somehow connected to high society during the Last Emperor’s reign. This information came to light around the time of The Last Emperor movie’s release.
She was the adopted daughter of a general in the Last Emperor’s court. She was doted on by his favourite wife. It was usual in those times for men of wealth to have multiple wives. A practise that thankfully died by the 80s. In fact, he had “adopted” my grandmother as a gift for his wife, as she had no children of her own. What actually happened was that my grandmother was abducted from her village. She had no idea who her birth parents were. Children to this day are still abducted in China. Tens of thousands of them.
So she grew up in Chinese high society, often accompanying her adoptive mother to the Mah-Jong dens, where she learned the game. My Ah Poh 阿婆, as many older Chinese ladies do, loved playing the game with her pals.
Ah Poh 阿婆
I love my Ah Poh 阿婆 very dearly. It pained me that we couldn’t travel to KL for her 90th birthday, with all of the rest of the family. We were expecting the birth of my first daughter. She was born within days of my grandmother’s party. I rang my Mum on the night from the hospital car park. She was with Ah Poh 阿婆 of course in KL. Ah Poh 阿婆 asked what we’d named my girl. She couldn’t pronounce the English name. But then I told her my girl’s Chinese name: Mei Hui 美慧. She was so delighted! Said she really loved the name, and that we were really good at choosing. She kept asking when we would visit for her to meet her great-granddaughter.
Just a year later, my Mum was in KL again to visit Ah Poh 阿婆. One day at work she rang me. She told me that Ah Poh 阿婆 was very unwell and that it would be best if we could get there as soon as possible. I have never, ever flown across the globe any quicker than this. We drove straight to Heathrow, checked into a hotel and caught the first flight out the next morning. In between we bought a stroller from Argos to wheel my girl around in. At the hotel by Heathrow airport, I booked another hotel in KL for our arrival and a hire car.
The night we arrived, I was shocked to see the sight of my grandmother with straight hair. My entire life, I’d only know her to have permed white hair, even I’d seen the photos of her as a beautiful young woman with straight black hair. This time her hair wasn’t permed, and she was beautiful still. We brought my baby girl into Ah Poh’s 阿婆 room, and sat her on the foot of her bed. Ah Poh 阿婆 sat up, looking at my baby, saying over and over how this baby is so beautiful. Then… I don’t know why my girl did this, but she moved toward my Ah Poh 阿婆 and hugged her. The whole room gasped. We had all gone there to say our goodbyes, but I am especially glad that my girl was able to give her a final moment of such joy.
Later my family said that Ah Poh 阿婆 was very groggy and docile until that moment, and it was as if she had a sudden burst of energy. They hadn’t seen her sit upright for days.
I remind my girl of this moment sometimes. She doesn’t remember Ah Poh 阿婆, but she knows this story. These are the stories that we need to remember.
Updates
From Li-Ann
I heard she was the daughter of a tribal chief
And was smuggled out before war broke out between the tribes or something.
Yeaaaa. That’s what I heard
But after that, I don’t know how she got out
Lollllll
I mean. Where she went
My mum told me
Maybe need to cross check between all the sources 😂
But my mum just told us that she wasn’t full hainanese and was smuggled into hainan. That info is brand new.
I thought she was smuggled out of hainan 🙉
From Zhaun
I’m learning more than I thought reading your article
Please add in Ah Kong’s famous meringue - everyone in the family loved it and when he passed, we asked Ah Poh and even she didn’t know how to make it like him.
I didn’t know Ah Poh was connected to the Emperor? What I heard was that she was the daughter of the village elder / leader? Miao tribe.
She kept a headpiece which was placed on her during the funeral.
Also, something to note as they worked in a British family, they understood limited english although they rarely used it with us. Ah Poh was a servant while Ah Kong was the chef. I think she served drinks - when Uncle John was over she would ask if he wanted brandy or whiskey on the rocks.
We did play Mahjong and I didn’t know she went to Mahjong dens haha
Well I did bring her to her friends place in OUG for a long time where they played a version of chinese cards.
With a bit of research I believe they were called 四色牌
or a variant
And this was a really big part of her activities
Might also be worth mentioning she enjoyed watching hainanese opera which we did on VCR tapes back then
British High Commission Families
I was looking through my Mum’s photos that my eldest cousin Charlie had digitised for us all. I came across this:
I checked with my Uncle Ah Seong and he confirmed that this was the home that my Mum’s family lived in with a British family. I asked what the family’s name was. He said he couldn’t remember theirs, but the other 2 were the Cross and the Taylor families, whom they were fond of. The ones in this photo he couldn’t remember.
And I was super confused.
Turns out the house belonged to the British High Commission! The families from Britain worked for them, and lived in this house for a few years at a time.
In this photo from left to righ: Auntie Ying, my Mum, unknown British lady, my Ah Poh 阿婆 holding an unknown British baby, Uncle Ah Seong, Uncle Peng (the youngest sibling) and my Ah Kong 阿公.