Rice left in the bowl and you get a pocky-face spouse

My mother passed away when I was five and my grandmother moved in with us to look after me as my father had to work shifts. Whilst my sister and my brother were very good to me, no one could expect two teenages attending high school to act as part time parents for their youngest sibling.

I spent lots of time with my grandmother, a lovely and smart house maker, during the day. My grandma always had my lunch ready when I returned home from school. It was the best time of the day because I knew I could monopolise my grandma and her delicious food.

One thing that my grandma kept telling me was if I didn't finish all the rice in my bowl, I would marry someone with a pocky face. Marriage and a five year old don't naturally link up but my grandma's threat really got me going. I would shuffle every single grain of rice into my mouth and to make sure I didn't miss anything, I would ran my fingers around the bowl after my meal. I did so well that I could almost see the reflection of my face in the bowl!

I suppose the lesson that my grandma wanted to give me was not to waste any food. When she was a young mother during the Japanese war, she had to find wild vegetables and at times came up with creative way to prepare some edible dishes using bark of trees. Protein was difficult to come by.

And the person I eventually married? Not Mr Pocky but not Mr Perfect Skin either. I wonder if I can ever use the same line on Changunnie to make her finish all her food.

==Food==

The tricks that I learned from my grandma to make the perfect steamed egg custard... the one that doesn't have a pocky face -

(1) the water/stock that we use should be boiled and when added to the egg, at room temperature. The boiling drives the oxygen out and the room temperature prevents cooking the egg before steaming
(2) could not lift the lid of the wok up till the steamed egg was done.

Who we are

In a way, our stories are similar to that of lots of Asians.

Halaboji (grandpa in Korean) was born during the Japanese occupation. The family moved around like millions of Korean did back then. At one point, the Son's lived in Liao Ning Province and Halaboji was fluent in Chinese. Eventually, the Son's went back to Korea when Halaboji was a school kid. Halaboji and Halmoni (grandma in Korean) moved to the US from Korea in the Seventies of the last century. Their qualifications weren't recognized and the jobs that Halaboji and Halmoni took were nothing like what they did back in the Land of Morning Calmness. In the pursue for better education for the children, they moved to an area in Pennsylvania where, back in those days, their black hair and yellow face stood out. If they wanted anything Korean, they either had to travel far to buy them or they need to make them with ingredients from the Western market.

The Li's have a typical Hong Kong story. My grandparents and their siblings ran business in China and Hong Kong. During the Japanese War, my grandparents took my father to Hong Kong in search of a safer home. My aunt was born in Hong Kong and in 1945, my aunt was sent back to China whilst my father stayed behind with his uncle and that was the beginning of a thirty years separation. My father had to work hard for everything whilst his cousin took it easy. It was an easy choice, my father started his own family in 1956. Life wasn't easy but my parents were happily married and they spent lots of time in the kitchen together. Then in the seventies, I came along.

The historical events between the thirties to the seventies shaped Halaboji, Halmoni and Gong Gong (my father) the way they are and that also predetermined the way on how we were brought up. Nothing should be wasted and everyone should be able to take care of him/herself.

So, that's who we are, a bunch of people with pretty strong characters.