How my mother’s cooking taught me to honor my ancestors
Lunar New Year, or Tét in Vietnamese, is a special day in my family; actually, it is the most special day of the year.
It is filled with so many traditions, including lucky money, games, fireworks, dragon dances, and most importantly — eating a feast!
Growing up, I watched my mom cut vegetables for days. A food processor or a slicer was never sufficient; every carrot, broccoli, celery had to be cut by hand, thinly sliced to the length of your palm so it would cook perfectly once the stir fry began.
I watched my mother shuffle around the kitchen, her 5'2 petite frame, cooking restaurant-portioned dishes fit for royal dynasties that somehow my father, sister and I were lucky enough to enjoy.
I watched my mother rub tiger balm on her frail, pale hands and forearms, mitigating and pushing through the pain of cramps and burns that she endured while preparing this feast. My dad lovingly would remind her every year that she didn’t have to make such an elaborate meal. To which my strong-willed, stubborn mother would always roll her eyes, and shake off his comment so vehemently that her glasses would slide down the bridge of her nose, just enough so we could see her stinging glare over the tops of her glasses. It was a reminder to all of us that she didn’t like to be told what to do.
Of course, my father knew better, he knew no one could ever ever control her — even the VietCong, who tried to mentally dilute and delude her psyche to abandon my him after he was captured during the war.
Our Tét meals varied year over year, but my mother always prepared around seven to 10 dishes. Always, by herself.
The traditional dishes comprised of: tofu and veggie stir fry, prepared as if in a monastery, ready for monks and nuns to eat; pork and mung-bean filled rice dumplings wrapped in forest green rice paper — a brick-like delicacy that could also be flattened out into a pancake and eaten fried; Chinese sausage (my favorite), a sweet and savory pork link filled with so much pig fat that you didn’t even need oil when you cooked it. And of course there were the huge baskets of fruit and red aluminum tin boxes filled with moon cakes, red bean treats, pandan jelly, sweet rice, tapioca pudding.
When I was a kid, I’d try to sneak a treat when my mother wasn’t looking; I had to quietly climb on top of a white plastic footstool so that my short arm could reach around just enough to —
“Don’t eat that! That’s for your ancestors!” my mother yelled at me.
I shirked into into the living room, being tortured by the smell of freshly fried handmade egg rolls, longingly watching my mother bop around the kitchen until the wee hours of the night. I would eventually doze off to the sound of her cooking.
Click, clank. Sizzle, burble. Chop, chop, chop.
And ever so often, in between my dreams, I’d wake to see her messy bun and glimpses of her “cooking” uniform — my sister’s old high school t-shirt that was so worn and torn that the fabric was starting to become translucent.
Preparing the altar with offerings
Finally on Lunar New Year’s eve, I’d watch my mom prepare the altar in our living room. A big wooden mantel that rested on top of the chimney we never used in our hot and humid Houston home.
Perched on top was a white, porcelain Quan Am, often known in the Western spiritual world as Quan / Kuan Yin. Even though we had other Buddhas around, Quan Am was who my parents prayed to every day. She is one of the few female Bodhisattvas (a person who dedicates their life to the enlightenment for all beings); she is revered in Asia, especially in Vietnam for her sacrifices she made during her life, in the name of compassion. She was a fixture and spotlight in our home.
After my grandparents died, Lunar New Year looked and felt a little different as I got older. What used to be a night of decadence and celebration (sometimes filled with gambling and drinking), became a little quieter. My father would fold out a table to place underneath the altar, where my mother hung portraits of my grandparents.
She would then place the dishes she had slaved over in handcrafted porcelain bowls in front of their portraits. Two dishes and a glass of water for each grandparent, and a big and beautiful fruit basket for them all to share. I realized through the years that this was a way for them to continue celebrating this special day with us, even though they were gone.
I looked at each of them, most of whom I barely had known.
My maternal grandfather, Ong Ngoai, who had passed away when I was a baby, always wore glasses and had a quiet confidence about him — a reflection of how he overcame his hard life as an orphan to become one of the most successful business men in Saigon. My paternal grandfather, Ong Noi, always had a cockneyed smile and a full head of hair for as long as I knew him. He often squinted in his pictures — from excitement when he was younger and eventually from his blindness once he was stricken with diabetes.
In contrast, my paternal grandmother, Ba Noi, never smiled in her pictures. Her expression, filled with strength and heartache, still peered through after years of surviving childhood poverty and the failure of her adult dreams. I never really got to know her; we had only met a handful of times before she passed away from cancer. My clearest memory of her is recalling a conversation where she listened to my father and my aunts comment on how we all had her same wide, broad body frame — an unusual characteristic for a Vietnamese girl.
My maternal grandmother, Ba Ngoai, was the only grandparent I ever really got to know. Growing up, every weekend, we would go visit her, along with my 13 aunts and their families, all piled up in one of our houses. My grandmother was was about 4'10, always smiling and laughing, and often called me her hugging pillow — a poorly obscured judgmental jab at my weight, but one in which I embraced because it provided a bridge between us, which was often blocked from our language barriers.
I looked at all of them now, flat images, beautifully homaged and remembered in this moment.
Once the table was arranged to perfection, my mother would light three sticks of incense, and then struck the sound bowl on the altar three times to begin her prayers — a signal for us kids to be quiet, while she created a direct line to spirit.
A prayer for our ancestors
I watched her softly whisper out her wish for her, my father, me, my sister, my nephews, my aunts, my uncles, their families — for everyone to have a healthy and prosperous life; she then prayed that the souls of my grandparents be taken into their newest life in the kindest and gentlest way possible. With every word, I could see her intention, how deeply she wanted these prayers to come to fruition. In some way, through her prayers, it was like my grandparents were still with us in this life and would be in the next.
My mother bowed down to the altar three times and placed the incense into the bowl on the altar, as if she was planting her prayers into the universe’s cosmic soil.
My father went next. I watched him do the exact same ritual: lighting three incense sticks, ringing the bell three times, and also pray, with full presence, with full intention. It was a familiar image — watching my Dad praying.
It is often how I woke most mornings — hearing the ringings of the bell, a daily ritual that I know now was also my father working towards awakening.
Nam Mo A Di Đà Phat / I am and am with the Buddha
Nam Mo A Di Đà Phat / I am and am with the Buddha
Nam Mo A Di Đà Phat/ I am and am with the Buddha
My Dad placed the incense in the bowl and stepped aside.
I remember the first time my mom invited me to say a few prayers on Lunar New Year. I was nervous, not knowing what to say; I was a high school kid who didn’t have much connection to Buddhism or my Vietnamese heritage at the time.
Regardless, I took the invitation, and walked up to the altar, hoping that the Buddha wouldn’t judge me for not being able to say my prayers in Vietnamese. My father lit the three sticks of incense for me and I rang the bell three times. I stood there, with the incense burning between the palms of my hand, not knowing what to say or do other than to speak from my heart — which after years of spiritual study is what I advise others to do now as both a mindfulness teacher and Buddhist practitioner.
Carrying on traditions
So as we celebrate the year of the Ox, the animal that signifies strength and perseverance (and stubbornness), I hope that this symbol will be more than a fun zodiac symbol, as we continue to wage through this pandemic.
And though I am not hosting a big Lunar New Year party, a ritual and tradition I started once I moved to New York, I am relishing in the quiet that this year brings. I am relishing in the deep and meaningful relationships that have endured and strengthened during the pandemic, for both my given and chosen families.
I am relishing in my genetic make-up, knowing that in my own small way, by carrying on these traditions, I am honoring the struggles and sacrifices of my parents, grandparents, and the ancestors before me; I am honoring our lineage, our history, and the Asian heritage that lives within me.
Most of all, I relish in the feeling of having a sense of normalcy today, knowing that my mother has finished cooking her feast and has started praying for me, my ancestors, for all of us. I relish most in the fact that I know all those days of slaving away in the kitchen were not just for an elaborate meal, but for me, my sister, my nephews, my mother and father to keep remembering who and where we came from.
I hope that my mother finds comfort in knowing that in my own ways, I have continued to honor these traditions, including keeping all the lucky money, li xi, my parents have given me through the years on my own altar, cooking a somewhat elaborate Vietnamese meal comprised mostly of family recipes, and of course, praying — with three incense sticks and three ringings of the bell.
It is tradition on Lunar New Year to tell your loved ones everything you wish for them in the coming year. And so, to this, I carry on this tradition and extend it to you, with a little bit of metta (lovingkindness) in the mix:
May you be happy, healthy and free;
May you be prosperous, nourished and free;
And most importantly, as my mother says — I wish you lots of money ;)
So chúc mừng năm mới / Happy New Year to you all!
Like me, I hope that you will find ways to carry on your traditions and celebrate your ancestors — because as the Lunar New Year reminds me, we cannot know where we are going unless we remember where we came from.
