Chilli sauce, trenches and casinos
Chinese-Timorese grandmother shelters her family from war with chilli sauce.
Popo stepped out her room, the fringed curtain doorway dressed in a modest red lace dress. Her neck was adorned with a plastic pearl necklace and a jade bracelet circled her left wrist; Popo was ready for Crown Casino.
“Hen piaoliang”, I said in my minimal Chinese, she smiled then lifted a forgetful finger and scurried to the kitchen to grab the final piece for her casino trip ensemble; a blue Coles freezer bag.
I stood next to Popo in the living room of her small apartment as she combed the stray hairs of her red perm in the mirror, hanging above her wall heater. On top of the heaters were five three-litre jars filled with fermenting chillies and lemons. She walked towards her narrow hallway and I followed her like a child behind a mother in a shopping centre, not wanting to be left behind. At the entrance, was a handcrafted shelf just above our heads. She stared at two black and white photographs on the shelf and looked as if she were having a conversation with them in her head. She then lit some incense and bowed. “Mama and baba,” she uttered with sorrow in her voice. She placed a teacup saucer on the shelf and thoughtfully stacked three small persimmons on top of each other and turned to me with a warm smile. Popo’s granddaughter Kircy came out of her room and paid her respects as well. The smell of the incense enveloped the room and we were safe to leave the house knowing we were protected. Entering the lift, Popo stumbled a bit, knowing the contents of her bag I offered to hold it for her. She waved her hand in front of me in offence and it reminded me of my own grandma; old, wanting to feel young and able again. Kircy interrupts my thought with a nudge, “don’t worry, she’s carried heavier things in her life”.
Our descent in the lift from the ninth floor of the Richmond retirement buildings was quiet until popo was greeted by a friend who entered from the fourth floor.
I was able to pick out two cheeky words from their Hakka conversation; “Sunday” and “Mah-jong”.
I chuckled at the thought of Popo continuing to feed her gambling addiction the following day, despite already headed to the casino that day. In Asian culture, if you are lucky enough to win at a gamble, it means the spirits above are shining their light on you, blessing you with fortune. When we reached the parking lot of the building, Kircy pointed her car keys to unlock her car but Popo waved her hand in disapproval again. “Tram! Tram! Tram!” She yelled, ten steps ahead of us, already nearing the stop.
Arriving at Crown on a Saturday afternoon, your senses are heightened by the clinking coins and the iron taste they leave in your mouth, jackpot smiles, flashing lights, and the smell of wealth and loss. I was stuck in an over sensory trance, too distracted to notice that Popo was already deep into the crowd. Kircy tapped my shoulder and pointed to her bright blue bag. We struggled to keep up with her little legs, masterfully meandering through the sea of people with ease and familiarity. When Kircy and I finally reached her, she was sat down with a group of Chinese women, all around the same age. They offered Popo a glass of red wine, which she took asked me to hold for her whilst she reached into her bag. She pulled out a small, tattered phone book filled to the brim shorthand Chinese scribbles. She skimmed the pages looking for a name. When she found it, she crossed it out and grabbed two repurposed Dolmio jars full of her famous chilli sauce and handed it over to the lady. Overexcited, her customer opened a jar and took a longing sniff of the sauce and before I knew it, we were walking away thirty dollars richer. Popo then turned to me with a smug grin that highlighted her eye wrinkles and fanned her face with the notes singing “lucky money”.
After Popo had processed a couple more orders, she sat at a pokie machine labelled ‘Golden Festival’. Kircy and I huddled around to watch her play. Popo was staring intensely at the spinning dragons, firecrackers and lucky red pockets, her face changing expression almost as frequently as the symbols on the screen. Any onlooker would’ve seen a stereotypical Chinese grandmother gambling her superannuation away, but that wasn’t Popo. Popo was in it to make a profit out of the money she had just earned selling chilli sauce. It was a business trick her aunt had instilled into her whilst growing up in East Timor. Popo lived with her aunt after both her parents died in a wine distillery explosion. Popo’s aunt loved her dearly and did everything she could to raise her sister’s child. She taught Popo how to cook and that, in turn, saved Popo and her future family’s life when Indonesia invaded.
“The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975 set the stage for the long, bloody, and disastrous occupation of the territory that ended only after an international peacekeeping force was introduced in 1999,” writes The National Security Archive.
Popo stuck to what she did best; using her skills and charm to protect her family during the occupation of her hometown. She opened up a restaurant and offered the Indonesian soldiers free meals, the soldiers loved her cooking so much they ensured the safety of her and her family in return. Popo lived with great caution and worked tenaciously to save enough money to bring her family to Australia, after losing both her parents, she couldn’t bare to lose anyone else. The Chinese tune on the pokie machine increased in pace and the image of a dragon spewing out coins filled the screen; Popo took a celebratory sip of wine from the glass I was still holding for her and collected the winnings for the day.
After a triumphant poker machine session, Popo was back to her hustle, freezer bag on one shoulder, searching for more of her customers around the casino. The woman is precocious and determined, selling one jar after the other, the weight on her shoulder growing lighter by the minute. This woman’s cooking offered her family shelter from war, I watched as she gave orders and jotted down more. The faces of her customers were priceless, one man who was sitting near the bar even twisted open his jar and dipped in a potato chip. I watched as his eyes rolled to the back of his head in ecstasy. “Every time!” He said to me, eyes bulging in disbelief. We had arrived at one in the afternoon and by three o’clock Popo had sold out and was $500 richer. She counted the money in her hands, rolled it up and put it in a little purse you’d find at the dollar store.
“Your grandpa always whines, he says I go out too much and that I spend too much money. I always tell him you worry about your health and I’ll take care of our wealth. Next thing he knows, we’re $400 richer at the end of every week.”
She says to Kircy in Hakka. We chuckle together after Kircy translates and I feel like I’m part of the family.
On our way home, we stopped for McDonald's soft serves, “so good and cheap only thirty cents!” Popo says tapping her receipt against the counter. As we were walking home enjoying our thirty cent ice-creams, I watched as popo strolled along with a spring in her step, the weight previously on her shoulders had now lifted. She peered up at the trees above her as she shuffled towards the entrance of her apartment building. At eighty-four, her eyes hold the appreciation for life many her age would’ve lost. As we stood in at the entrance, I was a little saddened that we had to part ways. I waved goodbye, thanked her for allowing me to tag along and she interrupted me with “No worry, no worry” whilst reaching into her freezer bag to reveal the last jar of chilli sauce. When I offered to pay her, she lifted her hand in disapproval yet again, “for your family”, she said whilst patting my shoulder.
