History 1 Dropping a Brick at Table by Lim Cheng Ean

Fingers and chopsticks ENGLISH TABLE MANNERS were not observed in my family; because my mother, born and bred in Pulau Tikus, Penang,  about the middle of the 19th century, ate her meals in the Malay fashion with the aid of the four fingers and thumb of her right hand; while my father used a bowl an  a pair of chopsticks as befitted an emigrant newly arrived from China  where he was born at  nearly the same time as  my mother .  And as for the children, we somehow chose the mother's style without the slightest objection from the father. I was too young  to worry my head as to which of these two methods of eating was the more civilised. For me the most important thing then to fill my stomach as soon as possible by whatever available method. As for the midday lunch at school, I ate it in the same way  even licking my fingers at the end of the meal to facilitate washing them afterwards. There  were no forks and spoons for the Indian rice-and-curry hawker to wash in readiness for the next customer.  I was too young then to pose the question; ‘which would you trust?  Those forks and spoony or your finger?' Later on when I was already grown into manhood and had a chance to read Sir Hugh Clifford, I appreciated the Malay man's opinion in one of the stories that he preferred using his fingers,  because he knew no other person had used them.  But this was  sheer solecism; because it omitted the situation where the forks and spoons were so washed that they were as clean if not cleaner than one' s own fingers. When I became a boarder and ceased to eat my 2 cent plate of rice and curry with my fingers in the eating-shed, I had to eat the 3 principal meals and take my afternoon tea in a refectory with the other boarders and had to use forks, spoons and knives instead of my fingers.  It wasn't hard to learn the new technique; for I could watch my neighbours , who were more adept, or look up at the Brother in charge for the cue. The Brother had a table to himself, set up on a platform high enough for us to see him and for him to see us. I learnt how to put the fork and spoon side by side on the plate to show that I had finished eating and I also learnt to use a napkin or serviette .  I also learnt not to smack my lips to show how tasty the food was.  I thought I had learnt everything that there was to learn until I embarked on an ocean liner for higher studies in England in the autumn of 1910.

Soup in a dish Table manners on that ocean liner were much in advance of those in the boarding school.   To begin with there was a menu on the dining table to tell me what I was going to have to eat; and there were so many dishes that were new to me.  I had never before seen soup served in a dish and not in a bowl, sipped with a special kind of spoon. The dish had to be tipped away from me, when I wanted to tackle the last few spoonfuls, so that if the soup spilled out of the dish, the soup would fall on to the centre of the table and not on me.  Nor had I seen fish served separately and eaten with a special kind of fork and knife.  And the dessert and the fruits and coffee that ended up every dinner were new and delightful.  It was exhilarating to see men pulling out chairs for ladies to sit on and even lighting the cigarettes held between the lady's lips. How gallant were European men (specially Englishmen) towards their womenfolk!  We  didn't make such a fuss over our women. This was for me indeed an introduction to a new world, so different in so many ways to mine. I thought I had learnt enough during this voyage about table manners until my debacle at a luncheon given to a group of  freshers by the senior tutor of Clare College, Cambridge, in the autumn of 1911.  I was seated on his left. I behaved quite correctly throughout all the courses until we came to coffee.  I saw the gyp come in with a tray containing coffee, cream and sugar.  He walked straight to the space between me and the host.  As soon as he lowered the tray down to table level, I turned round to help myself, and after filling my cup with coffee, milk and sugar I calmly put it in front me. Immediately after this I realised my faux pas, my awful breach of etiquette. Why did I not hand over that cup of coffee to him instead of appropriating it? I felt like a fool. I could have kicked myself.

Conscience stricken The host and the other guests pretended not to notice my bad manners.  Although some 66 years have gone by,  I am still conscience-stricken, because I never apologised to my host. He was Dr Morrison.  I hope I have got his name right,  but if I have made a mistake I hope to be pardoned.   I may forget how to spell his name  but his face I shall never forget; and the advice he gave me just before my examination in Part II of the Law Tripos.   I asked him to give me another year before sitting for it.  I had been plagued with indigestion ever since my admission into Clare. I  was so bad with dyspepsia that I was on doctor's advice given exemption from eating my dinners in the hall with the other undergrads.  He too had not the best of health either,  for he was troubled by insomnia.   I once heard his wife say that she always read to him at night till 3 in the morning,  I was filled with admiration for her.  What a devoted wife she must have been!  Later on I came to know of other instances of high and noble conduct on the part of English women,  especially those who gave up marriage in order to look after a sick father or mother.  I still think English women are noble-minded and that the spirit of Florence Nightingale still lives in them. But why did I have such bad table manners? ‘Manners maketh man'  is the motto of a certain English public school.  I wish had gone to that school before going up to Clare! #

The Penang Story is a project organised by the Penang Heritage Trust in collaboration with Star Publications with the aim of assisting Penang and Malacca's joint listing in the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisations's World Heritage list. The project is sponsored by the Japan Foundation, ABN-AMRO Bank and the Penang Government with the City Bayview as the official hotel.  The Penang Story tells of the peoples of  Penang and can be found at www.penangstory.net

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