Alphabe-Thursday: Letter W for wishful and wisket and white

A white marble topped coffee shop table.


This is the table my late paternal grandmother brought from China to Borneo almost a hundred years ago. Here I was in my  step grandma's house, visiting from Singapore.

A wishful thinking for an old wisket cosy for the tea pot. This is not grandma's wisket. It belongs to my friend.

 When my late paternal Grandma left China for Borneo almost ninety years ago, she brought two things. A marble coffee-shop style marble table and a Chinese tea pot with a paper mache wisket cosy. She also brought a slave slave, given to her by her parents to serve her in any way she liked. This slave girl aka as MUI ZAI was in an era when the old paternalistic Chinese society when males were superior to the useless girl.

Grandma returned to China before the World War two .

Grandpa always had his tea pot filled with black Chinese tea. It was kept warm by the paper mache wisket cosy. Grandpa married a second wife, so these items went to her.

That pot was very valuable as an antique. When Grandpa was still alive, an antique dealer came round to houses of old people to scour for old things. He offered a good price for the tea pot, and the wisket paper mache cosy. The latter, the antique dealer had never seen. Grandpa refused to sell, no matter how good the offer was.

He told us, it was the only family heirloom that was worth anything. We teased him that he was an old romantic who could not give up the tea pot because it held so much memories for his old flame, my late grandma.

My second grandma is still alive and just turn 100. As for the tea pot, she doesn't use it any more. No, it is too precious to use, just in case someone, like clumsy me, break it. She will talk about it though.

This photo is an exact replica of Grandma's old tea pot.

A wishful thinking of an era gone back, recalled by my younger sister. 

"Prof Madya Dr Margaret Chan Kit Yok" 
if we revisit Ah Kung upper Lanang Road house, as you enter, the rattan teapot warmer is on the table located at the right side of the big lounge cum dining room. Just realised there were no sofa at all. Only the marble top round table against the middle of the wall facing the main door. On the right corner were the dining table and the long benches. We used to play a game and raced to see who can touch the legs of the marble table. 

In Kung Dai's place, there was also a big room with furnishing like Ah Kung, except there was a row of theatre chairs on the left hand side of the wall adjacent to the small grocery shop.