Handing down the legacy

2009-03-13T22:01:00Z

Cassandra Chew talks about the legacy of family-run businesses.

WE HAVE all heard of big names like Poh Heng Jewellery, Scanteak and Ya Kun Kaya Toast - family businesses that proudly tell the tales of small beginnings.

Today they are household names, a legacy that decendants must continue, because their success is pride, joy and a livelihood that the entire family shares in.

I can relate.

I still remember when my enterprising grandfather, chairman of his father’s confectionary ingredient business, was perfecting a recipe for a konnyaku jelly powder mix some years ago.

For months, Sunday family lunches would end with variations of the jelly, and his 11 grandchildren would tell him if it was too hard, too chewy, or just right.

And then, like Taiwanese bubble tea and Rotiboy coffee buns, the konnyaku jelly craze hit Singapore, and I could proudly tell friends: "You know, my grandfather has a mix you should try."

Now a third-generation business, much of my family’s identity has become fused with the business - practically every uncle or auntie I have works there.

Yet among the fourth-generationers old enough to help out, we have chosen to join the ranks of teachers, lawyers and journalists instead.

In fact, joining the business is an option I have hardly considered, which leads me to wonder if any of us great-grandchildren will finally be in-charge 50 years from today.

But I must say that there is something alluring about having a legacy; the idea that generations down someone will be Googling a business, an issue or a movement, and find your name amongst its milestones.

It’s the idea that what you’ve done was so significant, others can’t help but talk about it, and when someone mentions your name, everyone responds with "ah"s of recognition.

Despite growing up in a family of businessmen, my preference for shopping rather than keeping shop probably means I’m unlikely to continue in the tradition of business.

But to have a legacy and know that I’ve made a difference -- that’s something else altogether.

I’ll let you know I’ve done something worth Googling.

Read about how family and small businesses are coping in today's Saturday Special Report.

Jolted out of cultural complacency

2009-01-23T22:00:00Z

Cassandra Chew had her CNY customs down pat - or so she thought.

THE time-honoured traditions of the reunion dinner, the giving of mandarin oranges and exchange of hong baos – I thought I had my Chinese New Year customs down pat.

But a week after chatting with Chinese tradition experts like chefs, professors and grandmothers, I wasn't so sure.

I grew up closely with my Hainanese grandparents, and every year we have a steamboat reunion dinner, a sharks' fin soup lunch and multiple exchanges of well-wishes in between.

But before this week, I had never heard the stories of how my great-grandmother would sprinkle sugar over every dish at our New Year's Day lunch, to sweeten the new year.

I only found out through the research I was doing for today's Saturday Special Report on reunion dinners.

"None of us liked the taste of sugar in our food," Grandma said. "That's why none of her children continued it."

And just like that, a tradition that my great-grandmother brought over from Wen Chang, Hainan was put to eternal rest. If I didn't ask, I would never have known about it.

This led me to wonder: Is this the way of our traditions today?

Citing hectic schedules and work demands as reasons, pragmatic Singaporeans decide what customs to follow and which to junk.

Some hold their reunion dinners way before New Year's Eve; others have it in restaurants instead of at home. And some like my Grandma, prefer to dispense with specific practices altogether.

But as our traditions get discarded, simplified or stripped to bare bones, I wonder if 20 years from now, our cafeteria-Chineseness will result in the burying of an entire heritage?

I know it sounds a tad dramatic. But my hunch is, probably not.

By any yardstick, I've never been traditional and my woeful grasp of the Chinese language probably bears this out.

But strangely, discovering how easily traditions can be put aside and forgotten these last two weeks has jolted me out of my cultural complacency.

I realise traditions change because life changes, and the fundamental truth is, the future of our traditions lie squarely in our hands.

If we love it, it stays. If we don't, our children will never hear of it.

All of a sudden, I understand why Grandma still insists on wearing red or pink, or faithfully serves nian gao (traditional sticky rice cake) on New Year's Day.

They are one of the few things we still do that is remotely traditional, and customs that I now know will continue only by our choice.

It is a responsibility that I'm just beginning to realise requires commitment from my cousins and I, and I fully intend to have Grandma lead by example.

So while my family celebrates the Year of the Ox with a steamboat dinner and a shark’s fin lunch, I might put in a special request to have sugar added in everything else next week.

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone.

Read Cassandra Chew's Saturday Special Report and see more pictures here.

The Straits Times Blogs - Cassandra Chew

Handing down the legacy

Jolted out of cultural complacency