Disciplining Children - the Foochow Way

I have been observing and thinking about Foochow child rearing methods for years. Some children were lucky they became extremely successful, some were not so lucky. Was it entirely due to luck?

Perhaps I cannot actually propose a theory yet on child rearing.

Below are some of my observations.

Mr and Mrs. Ting ( Ah Chuo) were the one of the first Foochow noodles or mee sua makers of Sibu. Mrs. Ting was a woman with a loud voice, who often spoke loudly and rapidly until she lost her voice. So sometimes she would speak with crackling voice which we called "pang ak siang" in Foochow or half voice. She used two ways to keep her children in tow : scolding and cursing them loudly using phrases like "you die half way","son of a coffin","drop jaw",etc.

She also caned her children, very badly and one day we saw her dragging one of sons out from below the stairs by the hair and with one hand holding the hair, she used the other hand to cane the poor boy.

It was at this time my siblings and I learned the word "ambidextrous". So we would always associate our dear Mrs. Ting with the word. I wrote a sentence for her: "Mrs. Ting was ambidextrous when she beat up her son." I was scolded by my China-born teacher, Mr. Liong, for writing that sentence. He asked me to correct my statement. So I wrote,"Mrs. Ting,my neighbour is a good example of an ambidextrous person."

My classmate, the late Rashid, wrote a brilliant sentence,"Many husbands and wives are ambidextrous when they box each other." The whole class burst into laughter, in our innocence then. Mr. Liong kept a very stern poker face after that.

But as the years went by, Mrs. Ting became one of our best mothers in town. Her children grew up and one obtained a First Class Honours Degree in Economics from Malaya University,another took a degree from Christchurch, New Zealand. One of the Ting girls became terribly wealthy in her own right. And the rest are very good people - professionals. But what is important to the family is the fact that all the children are "GOOD PEOPLE'. And I take my hat off to them.

The Tings lived frugally and ethically. I will always remember their neighbourliness,respect, love and loyalty towards my mother for all those long years we were in Sibu. Their friendship lasted until Mrs.Ting passed away. And now her children and I are in our fifties and still good friends.

Another way of Foochow discipline is by punishment by the father who was regarded as the master trainer of the family. After the punishment, the mother figure would comfort the child to "soften the blow".

I observed this Mr. Wong (name changed) who was often depressed because of his financial difficulties. He had a unusual way of keeping his children quiet and less demanding. When a child misbehaved, he would punish him by humiliating him in public -forcing him to kneel in the shop front for an good half hour or longer,making the child to carry a red cross on the face for a long time, or just punching him in public at any odd him his temper let him . His neighbours were all very understanding and sympathetic. The adults did not consider these as domestic abuse at all. In later years,his children were indeed considered well brought up and folks give the father the thumbs up all the time. More than forty years later, today, his children have good professional careers . In a very Foochow way, the children remember and continue to respect him, even though he had passed away a long time ago.

The aunty staying not far away from us was a nagger. I have no idea why she was so. But whenever her children misbehaved she would repeatedly reprimand them, often for a few days. She would tell everyone their mistakes. Some times she would shout very loudly, releasing her frustrations, asking the heavens to punish her children. I reckoned at that time, it was the correct thing to do:to tell the neighbours that she was doing her duty to keep them in line. By scolding them publicly and very loudly, she was saving her own face too.

All the neighours considered her a good woman and mother. Uncle was a very quiet man, who was cheerful and keeping a low profile all the time.

And to the delight of every one in our neighourhood, aunty and uncle groomed their children to become very useful and God fearing people - accountants, entreprenuers and generally successful business people.

Thus in those early days, parents did not study psychology and sociology to be the perfect parents. No child psychiatrists helped them. They applied the only crude methods they knew and brought up a good generation of Foochows....along my lane in particular...

I would call my lane and my neighbourhood - the Bai Yu Lan Lane - symbolic of purity, fragrance and greenery. I truly believe that my parents , my siblings and I were really blessed by these wonderful people. Later when redevelopment took place, this piece of social history was taken away. Good folks move on and often move away from a place because of economic development but the human connections remain because we choose to keep and treasure them.

We are the sum total of all the micro bits around us.