Keohi and the Tofu Fa Uncle

This is a little late, but the photo of Keohi staring at a beloved bowl of Tofu-fa, a dessert of tofu with ginger and sugar, is one of the images I will carry in my mind of his childhood. Unfortunately the Tofu Fa Uncle, or Tofu Fa Man--both monikers we used, died several weeks ago. I tried to explain this to Keohi, but it will only sink in when we return to Mui Wo and he searches for the Tofu Fa Uncle himself and does not find him. Still, the past several weeks, after I told Keohi, he has been pretending to be the Tofu Fa Uncle, scooping out pretend tofu with a pretend paddle, from a large wooden teacake carrier my parents had bought from Ho Chi Minh years ago. It's tall and worn and wooden and dark, which is a fair enough resemblance to the Tofu Fa Uncle's pail he would carry around Mui Wo, filled with fresh tofu.

I admittedly let the Tofu Fa man's dessert spoil more than one meal...anytime we saw him, I'd buy some, and often for Keohi's friends, if enroute to a playdate or if kids were coming over, all of whom seemed to eat the tofu fa with equal gusto. It was a Mui Wo childhood village pleasure and it seemed to also be an interesting demarcation in terms of eating habits--the kids who downed that tofu dessert usually ate more Asian food, of course, and I'd hazard to guess, among expats at least, rolled with village life in a different kind of way.

(I had the unfortunate and sad experience of being met with a OOH YUCK glare from one expat kid when Keohi was eating his treat, the father, of course, trying his best not to poo-poo my child's eating pleasure and ignoring us when I had said that Keohi liked it. The mother tried to be polite. Yawn. All I could think of was memories of being mercilessly teased for eating Asian food as a kid in Iowa and I hoped that Keohi didn't notice her reaction. Luckily he was too involved in eating to care. I used to be embarrassed eating things like dried squid when I was a kid, but the one thing about Keohi being in Mui Wo is that he can eat all of that stuff with utter abandon and pleasure, and for the most part, not suffer people's narrow-minded bad culinary habits--to think that people pass it on from generation to generation is truly pathetic. Anyway, too bad this family missed this part of village life.)

I digress...

Anyway, it got to the point where we had started to carry around a little plastic bag with a spoon and bowl, when we went out, though for some reason, we always ran into him at times when we didn't have it.

As Stephen said, Keohi will have sticky sweet memories of this part of his life in Mui Wo.

Keohi first tried the dessert a little over a year ago. We were biking and noticed our friends Margaret, with her daughter Miriam, and Margaret told us to try some--it was delicious and a fave treat of her daughter's. So he did and had been hooked every since. I feel lucky to have done this or we might have missed out too. Myself, I carry memories of my father taking me to the Buffalo Zoo every weekend and buying me Cracker Jacks (carmelcorn and sugary peanuts with a small prize in the box). Keohi will carry this one, I think.


RIP Tofu Fa Uncle--you made a lot of village kids very happy and they were lucky to experience this part of Hong Kong life that is slowly giving way to fast food and candy from 7-11.