Helena Allum

My father came to Trinidad from China in 1929. His Chinese passport shows that he was a native of Un Ping from Kwang Tung Province. His certificate of registration dated some 11 years after his arrival here gives his profession as shopkeeper (what else?).

 I was made aware of these details sometime after his death when the two documents were found. He never spoke about China or his life there save that he would like to visit the place of his birth sometime, but always with a return ticket to Trinidad his present homeland. We speculated that his life in China must have been a very difficult one.

“If my father was alive I guess the holiday would mean more to me,” said a friend with Chinese ancestry like myself, with reference to the holiday to mark the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Chinese immigrants in Trinidad. In saying this she helped me explain my own ambivalence about celebrating the anniversary.
 
If my own father was alive he would I guess shrug off the thought of celebrations with as Trinidadian an expression as “Ah chut man..”  He would not have gone to any of the activities, but nevertheless he would have poured over the newspapers and television, smile contentedly over the news items and give his own explanations about what was shown.

From what we know about his life after he arrived here, he settled for a while in Manahambre, Princes Town with his shop. His association with the large East Indian population there taught him something of their own culture. So when his granddaughter was born with, (among others) East Indian heritage, he was able when playing with her to teach her some East Indian words.

Long before this, however, he moved to Moruga and also changed occupations from shopkeeper to fisherman and later gas-station proprietor. In almost each village from Moruga to San Fernando there was the Chinese family with the Chinese shop.

 My older siblings recall the outings to some of these families on special occasions – christenings and weddings. At these gatherings the small cups of tea were always served. They recall too the boxes that arrived from these families at Christmas time.

 In them were the tins of biscuits, bags of prunes and of course the toys. My sister thinks that these families were usually of the men who came to Trinidad on the same boat.

Whenever a member of one of these families visited China, he (always a “he”) returned with pictures of some (to our eyes) strange-looking people all dressed the same way.

They were said to be, members of the extended family still in China. Ever so often a letter (air-mail form) from China arrived. My father kept these stored away. He would answer them on similar air-mail forms.

As the years went by and he forgot the language or the language changed, he sometimes sought help from one of the Chinese families in understanding and replying to the letters.

As a fisherman my father interacted with other fisherman from fishing villages throughout the country. And so as a family we too interacted with them and their families. Fishermen used to move from one fishing village to another, following the fish wherever they “were catching”.

Seems as though the fish moved along the different coastal villages at different times of the year. We met fishermen and their families from far off San Fernando, Cedros, Buenos Aires. There was a boathouse at the back of our house where some of these men lived while they were in Moruga.

My father undertook all the activities involved in fishing. He was always self-sufficient. Anything he wanted done, he attempted to do himself. He built the carts to haul in the boats from the sea to the shore, he mended his nets, at one time took his fish to market, salted some of his fish (corned fish), made shark oil for a variety of ailments.

Operating a gas station, which supplied gasoline not only for cars but also for the boat engines, was also part of this self-sufficiency. He also mended his own clothes (yes khaki pants and merino).

He made the sapats (wooden clogs) to be worn around the yard. The clak, clak clak sound foretold his appearance. We too wore our sapats around the yard, often just to make that noise with them.

My mother recalls that he had a picture of La Divina Pastora even before they were married. We speculate that he must have acquired it in his days in Manahambre from his East Indian friends there. On the feast, he lighted up his candles around the picture, which is still a family possession today. He had too a tiny Buddha which he displayed in the gas station.

In thinking about my father there are no doubt habits and practices that were uniquely Chinese that we have followed. I remember well, what I thought was the foul-smelling tea, which he sent to buy from the Chinese grocery in Port of Spain.

There was a mixture of all kinds of things in that tea – not quite the same as the tea I have every day now. Almost each one of us carries around the obligatory bottle of Tiger Oil and Tiger Balm, which is for us a panacea for all ailments. I’m not even sure if it is of purely Chinese origin. 

He passed on to us clearly what he thought was important and what not. Food was important and every now and then he cooked some really special Chinese food like a roasted pig leg and a variety of soups.

Clothes and other material things were not. As far as he was concerned you could have two of the same colour and same style shirt or pants and one pair of shoes. The lesson was really one in being detached from material things. He practised what long after his death I came to understand was his own kind of Tai Chi, and he did it very casually.

Knowing how our family and other families lived, I never agreed with the comment of the Chinese in Trinidad being clannish. I also found it difficult to start responding to my own feelings about this celebration for the 200th year of arrival. I don’t know how much of what he passed on was as a result of being Chinese.

Whatever, by the time of his death he was truly Trinidadian – and this was not only as a result of his naturalisation papers.