Written by Tim Chin
Translated by Ricky Lai
Photography by Tim Chin

When I was a kid, coming home from school was the highlight of my day. My parents were busy running their business so usually that meant we were greeted at home by my grandmother, my Poh Poh. Unfailingly, whenever the weather was somewhat cool, there was always a fresh pot of pork bone soup on the stovetop waiting to be devoured by my brother, sister, and I shortly after we stepped off the school bus. When the weather was warmer, she would make fresh steamed dau saa baau (red bean buns), and at Christmas dinner she would bring her legendary no mai faan — sticky rice with Chinese sausage, shiitake mushrooms, and chestnuts — which never left me envious of this “stuffing” I kept hearing about from all my Caucasian friends. Undoubtedly, we took these things for granted. Even now, I wouldn’t be able to tell you when those days started or ended. 

In my mind, the idea of ritual is like that. Seemingly it has no beginning or end — a kind of “always been that way.” Yet, at the same time, it is somehow so essential — and by that, I mean “of one’s essence.” There is no parsing a ritual from a person — it is more often than not, a describer of a person. If someone is religious, or superstitious, or athletic, or caring, or musical, or {insert your chosen adjective here}; you can probably account for it in what their rituals are. 

Every Saturday morning that I am available to do so, I will wake up, stumble to the kitchen and make crêpes for our kids. They love eating them and I love making them for them. I have a system: an assembly line of sorts that has been optimized to not allow for any deviation in production. Once the batter is prepared it sits on the left of the stove, I use two pans that rotate on the two front burners, and the finished crepes get rolled up and delivered to a plate on the right. It is always this way. And I don’t want to brag, but they are pretty delicious. It may be trivial, but I want my kids to remember these times, these everyday things that define the colour and shape of our own personal version of normal. Like my grandma’s pork bone soup, I want the memory of my silly crêpes to be a source of nostalgic comfort for my kids as they get older. 

Last November, my Poh Poh passed away. When someone passes away, the natural thing to do is to look back at their life and acknowledge their accomplishments, the adversities they’ve overcome, and the mountains of life that they’ve climbed. My grandmother, in fact, has an incredible, barely believable story: widowed at 33, with 5 kids under 10 and pregnant with her sixth, she managed to defy the odds. She instilled strong values and a work ethic in her children that would have them all complete post-secondary education. Despite living in remote, rural Malaysia, they were inspired by her tenacity to pursue their passion and ambition. But when I think about my experience of her, it’s not that undoubtedly amazing story that I will miss the most. It is the constant and consistent things, the things that I didn’t even realize that were taken for granted.

As a photographer, I see my job as primarily to capture moments. I hunt for moments, trying to seize split seconds in time that are quite literally fleeting. What I’ve realized, however, even in this relentless pursuit, is that the images that mean the most to me, those moments that are deeply personal, are not necessarily the decisive ones where something is just about to happen. Instead, they are the ones that inform me of a person’s character, a window to who a person is. Sometimes it is of an activity that they always do, an object that speaks of a general time, or an image of a place that is wholly familiar. They are the images of people in the midst of their rituals, a presentation into their souls not necessarily at a specific time, but most definitely at a specific state of being. These are images that are catalysts for those specific stories and memories that we hold dear, are born from ritual.

Somewhere along the line, the idea of “regular” obtained a negative connotation. In today’s world, we are always in search of what is new, what is fresh, what is hip. So we become easily distracted by our various alerts and notifications, but there’s something to be said about purposeful regularity. Our own personal rituals can be the structure for what moves us forward, the small things that give life rhythm can help us find our step and give us perspective. 

I don’t know when my grandmother started making her soup, I don’t know if she would be able to tell you if she were still around to do so. But I do know that even in the valleys of her life, those darkest of times, she fed her kids. She dug her heels in, and did what made sense. Perhaps, what I need to realize, is that our rituals — the everyday way in which we put one foot in front of the next can actually be what gets us up those mountains, out of the deepest pits and views along the journey in between as long as we are aware, and oriented in the right direction. So if it is our Saturday morning breakfasts or the prayers we say before we sleep, my hope is for my children to believe in the power of the extraordinary ordinary.

小時候，下課回家是全日最興奮的時刻。因為父母忙著打理生意，所以我一般都是靠外婆接回家的。當天氣轉冷時，灶頭上總會有一鍋溫暖的豬骨湯等候著我們幾兄弟姊妹。天熱的日子，外婆會造一些美味可口的豆沙包給我們作茶點。聖誕節期間，外婆會炮製一碟極之美味的糯米飯。當中的臘腸、冬菇和栗子配合起來簡直令人垂涎三尺，絕不失色於應節的火雞和餡料。我們把這一切，都當作是理所當然的，都忘了這些日子的開始和終結。

在我的心目中，慣俗便是如此。不曉得可時開始的，卻又成了生活的一部份。慣俗往往能夠代表著一個人，更可延伸至能夠形容一個人的各種字眼。

每星期六的早上，我都盡可能起床為孩子們準備煎薄餅作早餐。他們十分愛吃，而我也十分愛弄給他們吃。我弄煎餅很有系統，令造出來的每一份也似模似樣。麵糊弄好後我會把它放在爐的左旁，然後會有兩個平底鍋位於前方的兩個爐頭，而弄好的薄餅則會放在右旁的碟子上。我不是自誇，但薄餅真的很美味。這些事情可能很瑣碎，但我卻想我的小孩可以記住。這些日常的瑣碎事，其實也説明了我們所認識的一種平常。就像外婆的豬骨湯一樣，我希望我的孩子們在年老的時候仍能夠懷緬著我的煎薄餅。

去年的十一月，我外婆去世了。當親人離世時，最自然的一件事便是回顧他們的一生，包括他們的成就和他們所跨過的一些逆境等等。我外婆的故事更可以稱得上是難以置信。三十三歲時，正懷孕的外婆帶著五個未夠十歲的小孩不幸成為寡婦。她從逆境中，把價值觀和努力工作的態度教給她的孩子，使他們全部都成為大學畢業生。縱使身處馬來西亞的鄉村地區，他們也被外婆的拼勁所感染，勇敢追尋自己的夢想。對比起這不平凡的故事，我最想念外婆的畫面，卻是那些日常不以為然的瑣碎事。

作為一位攝影師，我的工作是要捕捉重要的時刻，一些𣊬間即逝的時刻。在這種不懈的追求中，我發現最動人的畫面，並不一定是關鍵一刻之時。有時候，最動人的卻是一件最平凡，而又令人最感親切的事情或物件。這些情節都是人們在習慣當中的一種心靈上的表現，一種生活型態的描述，更造就了生命中的種種回憶。

不知甚麼時候，平凡成為了貶義詞。現代社會中，人們都追求著最新最配合潮流的，令我們都忽略了有意義的規律。我們的習慣，往往可成為推動力背後的架構，讓瑣碎事為我們的生活加添節拍。

我不知道外婆是甚麼時候開始弄豬骨湯的。我相信如果她還在世也未必能夠告訴你。我知道的是，在她生命中最黑暗的時刻，她仍咬緊牙根，努力供養她的孩子。可能我要明白的是我們的習慣往往能成為我們跨過難關的玄機。不論是星期六早上的薄餅，或是睡前的祈禱，我最希望的是我的孩子們能夠相信平凡帶來的不平凡。