Kneading Love
Written by: Chang Huey Yin
“你知道什么是 bold 吗?” (“Do you know what bold means?”)
“不知道” (“I don’t know”)
The interview was off to a rocky start as I struggled to translate bold in Mandarin. Nonetheless, it didn’t take too long for my mother, Doris, to have an inkling of what bold meant. To the 52-year-old, be bold be you is to “understand yourself, [be confident] and try something new”.
“When I first made these Paris Brest, I thought to myself “Wah I can make Paris Brest!”” - my mum, 2k20
Back in August 2018, she started attending baking classes in various studios and is currently enrolled in WSQ Higher Certificate in Food Services (Pastry and Baking) at Shatec Institute. In class, she would ask her teachers many questions as she enjoys learning “about what is inside the food that we are eating” and the theories involved.
She hasn’t always been this confident. “Last time I very scared of doing anything,” she said as tears welled up in her eyes. She recounted her many struggles in her previous office job, including that of language. My mum received a Chinese education, but her job required her to speak and write in English.
“I was captain in volleyball!” my mum proudly exclaimed as she showed me photographs of her in secondary school.
She was thus especially grateful for her previous boss (and his wife), who she attributed her growth to. He gave her many opportunities and encouraged her, “No harm trying. You are not going to lose anything, but you are going to learn more. If don’t know, then you have to ask. No point keeping it to yourself and cannot complete your task.”
She took his advice to heart. When she left her job, it was his advice that propelled her to pursue her interests. “[Baking and cooking] is what I like, so I should try. With my age, I should not be holding back. No harm trying,” she reflected.
A few days after the interview, I received a message from my mum out of nowhere. Baking is really important to her. Yeah!
Indeed, for many years, she was a stay home mother of three children and had little time and energy for herself. Finally, she was able to do something for herself. She is especially grateful to have gained “friends that have the same passion and care for [her]”.
My mum and her friends who she met through baking.
As a student, she encountered many challenges along the way. The biggest challenge? Studying. Examinations. English. “I think my family will know how stressed I am,” she said. We do – she gets snappier (hahahah love you mum).
Nonetheless, my mum kept going and will be graduating in March this year. While baking seemed like an “impossible mission” to her years back, she is confident to say that she can bake now.
My mum -- the aspiring dessert chef
While many enjoy baking cakes more, my mum has always taken pride in being a “bread person” – she enjoyed the process of making bread over cake. She likened the process of making bread to life. Kneading the bread is akin to loving someone/something. After kneading, you have to patiently wait for the bread to proof -- the bread “puff up and become soft”. The outcome of the dough will “show how well you knead the dough”. You may not know for sure how the outcome will be but it will correspond to “how much love you put in”.
Feeding us -- be it with her bakes or home cooked meals -- has always been my mum’s way of expressing love. Nonetheless, her love goes beyond that and appears in the most subtle of ways. It was agreeing to be interviewed despite not being confident in speaking and expressing herself. It was baking not one, but two batches of bread in a day, because I did not get ideal shots of the process the first round. Admittedly, I often took what she intended as love, for granted and expressed frustration instead.
“Eh you look like you are sitting on my lap!” - my mum, 2k20
It is often said that what you hate to see in others is what you hate to see in yourself. I get frustrated when my mum is critical to herself, in ways she wouldn’t be to others. I get frustrated when my mum is affected by others’ opinions. I get frustrated when my mum doesn't readily do things for herself, but willingly does things for others at the expense of herself. In retrospect, that’s probably because I hate to see these in myself.
Yet, when I get frustrated by these behaviours, I miss noticing everything else she does. I missed noticing how she figured out what she likes to do. I missed noticing how she dared to try and learn what she wasn’t good at. I missed noticing how she was being bold being you and growing as an individual. Interviewing my mum was not just a reminder of what baking meant to her. It was also a timely reminder for me that even when we are being bold being you, we are made of strengths and struggles -- including our parents.
We have our peculiar ways of practicing love. To me, to love my mum is to validate both her strengths and struggles while she is being bold being you. Perhaps, being bold being you to me, is learning to love what I love and hate seeing in my mum, in me.