My family were Hakka tribes people from Hebei, in northern China. And then, slowly, like Gypsies, they moved all the way down to the south. But my father spent his working life in Jamaica, where I have a lot of relatives still. He had a bakery there, but he wanted to come back to Hong Kong, where he met my mother and settled down in a Pang village in the New Territories. There was me, my sister and an adopted brother, who we looked after: the elder child looks after the younger one, that's the Chinese tradition.
Our village was Buddhist, but we were Christians. We went to school in the next village, where there was a church and where they were all Christian. It was, I suppose, an unusual arrangement at the time, and we weren't encouraged to play with other children in our village. But to me it was just a simple life in the country. I remember the joy when we caught a fish in the stream near the village; and in the bamboo groves behind the village we used to hunt for a kind of grasshopper to eat.
But although we were Christians, it wasn't that big a deal. Like all Chinese, New Year was far more important -- that's when we got our presents, too. Still, we had to go to church, which meant walking to the next village. When we got back, we'd start preparing lunch, which we usually ate about 3pm. It was always just us: no cousins, aunts, uncles or friends.
Goose was the main dish. Before any festival, Christmas or New Year, father would buy a goose from the market, and we'd feed it on rice, vegetables and anything from mealtimes that my sister, brother and I did not want to eat. The goose grew as big as a dog, it seemed to me then.
Killing the goose was quite a ritual. My father used to do it on Christmas Day itself. He'd tie its wings and feet, then cut its throat, and we'd run forward to catch the blood in a bowl, to cook and eat later. We didn't think there was anything unusual about watching a goose being killed. When the bird was dead, it was put into a tub of boiling water, to make it easier to pluck. That was our job. Father did the cooking. Christmas was his day, his show. He was a better cook than my mother, anyway. Usually, he just boiled the bird, then chopped it up.
As a first course, we had the stock from cooking the goose -- but you had to be careful to scoop off all the fat. Father added dried mushrooms, dried chestnuts and dried octopus, which gave the soup a very deep, densee ate just it as it was, plain boiled, though we sometimes dipped the meat in a sauce made from a lot of raw minced ginger and very strong rice vinegar (sometimes my father added white sugar, too).
Some of the meat was five inches thick, with just a little of the fat and the skin. That was heaven: tender, moist and succulent, and so full of flavor. We never managed to finish the whole bird, so my father would cover the leftovers with coarse salt and leave it for a day, then wash off the salt, steam the meat and serve it with rice. That was a different heavenly flavor altogether.
After the goose, we'd have pork and fish and vegetables. There was one particular pork dish that I adored -- you need a pig's intestine, the big one, not the small one, which you have to clean really well by rubbing it with salt, rinsing it under running water, turn it inside out, then repeating the process three or four times, until it is absolutely clean.
After that, it's simple to cook: you stuff it with whole white peppercorns (the right pepper is vital) and then poach it in pork stock until tender. Then you cut it up and eat it -- so delicate and delicious.
For pudding, we'd have peanut candy, which my father was very keen on. When he made it, however, we were absolutely forbidden to watch him -- he told us that it wouldn't set if we did. Well, needless to say, one day we did watch him, peeking from behind the door. He found us and, to our horror, the candy just wouldn't come into the right shape.
Father drank Chinese wine or beer, while the rest of us had tea. And we'd tell stories about Jesus and the Bible. Come to think of it, Christmas was the only time we children were allowed to talk at the table.
Father died when I was 14 -- he was a stern figure, but when he had gone things changed and Christmas wasn't the same any more.
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