Parents Wedding 1939
I am not the typical Nyonya like my mother. At a tender age of 16, she was already betrothed to my father who was then 21. My mother had been trained in the social graces since the age of 12.
She was taught how to dress, sew, cook and also trained in deportment and language. She had to carry herself well, tread gently and gracefully and sit properly on a chair or on the floor. She was also taught the correct way to address her elders using the correct words and phrases and always in the gentle tone and manner befitting a genteel lady. Etiquette was taught according to Chinese or Malay traditions.
I recall my mother's ability to cook several dishes in keeping with the traditions for the various festivals and ancestral worship which was mandatory. In fact she was adept at making Nyonya cakes as well and something to marvel at, as the work involved was tedious without modern equipment.
Cake making itself was a daily practice . There was pounding, grinding, scraping of coconuts and squeezing out the milk, and baking. She had to know which flowers or leaves to use in colouring the cakes either blue, green or black
She also had to learn to tailor her clothes and learn the art of beading on canvas material for her own slippers and to embroider many things. All these had to be learnt in addition to home training that included washing, ironing, and sweeping the floor.
Armed with such skills, the Nyonya maiden was then considered a prospective bride. In the early 1900's, a Nyonya maiden was never seen alone in public. She would be chaperoned wherever she went, even to a relative's house. In those days, when travelling by car or rickshaw, the vehicles would be screened on all sides thus preventing young men of those days from catching a glimpse of young girls from other families.
Matchmaking was common in such a situation. The go-between was more likely a relative or an old mutual friend of both families. The matchmaker was normally a very sociable person with access to many households and a shrewd judge of character.
I am not the typical Nyonya like my mother. At a tender age of 16, she was already betrothed to my father who was then 21. My mother had been trained in the social graces since the age of 12.She was taught how to dress, sew, cook and also trained in deportment and language. She had to carry herself well, tread gently and gracefully and sit properly on a chair or on the floor. She was also taught the correct way to address her elders using the correct words and phrases and always in the gentle tone and manner befitting a genteel lady. Etiquette was taught according to Chinese or Malay traditions.
I recall my mother's ability to cook several dishes in keeping with the traditions for the various festivals and ancestral worship which was mandatory. In fact she was adept at making Nyonya cakes as well and something to marvel at, as the work involved was tedious without modern equipment.
Cake making itself was a daily practice . There was pounding, grinding, scraping of coconuts and squeezing out the milk, and baking. She had to know which flowers or leaves to use in colouring the cakes either blue, green or black
She also had to learn to tailor her clothes and learn the art of beading on canvas material for her own slippers and to embroider many things. All these had to be learnt in addition to home training that included washing, ironing, and sweeping the floor.
Armed with such skills, the Nyonya maiden was then considered a prospective bride. In the early 1900's, a Nyonya maiden was never seen alone in public. She would be chaperoned wherever she went, even to a relative's house. In those days, when travelling by car or rickshaw, the vehicles would be screened on all sides thus preventing young men of those days from catching a glimpse of young girls from other families.
Matchmaking was common in such a situation. The go-between was more likely a relative or an old mutual friend of both families. The matchmaker was normally a very sociable person with access to many households and a shrewd judge of character.
With the exposure to Western education and influence, many parents allow their children to select their own partners as in the case of my parents .
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