Evi
After our granddaughter Evi was born on Oct. 10, 2002, we went to Boston for a Red Egg and Ginger Party. We call it “Gat How” or “cut hair.”
With our own two children we didn’t have baby parties. We lived in Pennsylvania and worked, played and worshiped among non-Chinese. My mother who was living in Boston didn’t insist that we have a baby party for them either. She probably thought that we being “jook sing,” it wasn’t necessary. Greg and Lauren grew up with all their hair intact.
But when Evi was born, we have lived, played, and worshiped with Chinese Americans for four years already. We have been invited to many Red Egg and Ginger Parties. Now we wanted to have one for Evi.
Having not lived in Boston for almost 30 years, we didn’t know where to have the party. We started contacting my nieces and nephews for restaurant suggestions. Finally my nephew who lives in Lexington, MA suggested the Yangtze River Restaurant and sent us a sample menu. My sister-in-law or “Ah Slow” who is famously known for her passion for parties helped me decide on the menu.
Joy created beautiful invitations that went out to all of our immediate family members and close cousins. Greg and Heather, Evi’s parents invited some old college friends who were still in the area (near Providence where they went to college). And providentially, two Baptist ministers who happened to be in Boston and knew Greg growing up in Pennsylvania came too. Charcoal Choy came to represent our new church family at FCBC. We had five tables.
Before we flew out of SF, Joy bought Evi a little red Chinese dress from Chinatown. November 17, 2002 was a stormy rainy night but we all arrived at the restaurant with excitement to participate in the centuries-old ritual.
When my nieces and nephews were born, I can still remember the whole house smelling vinegar pigs’ feet! My mother purposely planted two cedars in front of the house so that we would cut small snippets to place on the tray with the scissors to “gat how.” I still don’t know what the significance for the cedar branches is.
Before we ate, we began the ritual. The parents were apprehensive about the need to give their little infant a haircut. But they trusted this centuries-old tradition and went along with the ritual. We gave the honor to Joy who is the grandmother to carefully snip a small lock of hair and placed it in an envelope to keep for Evi when she grows up.
I offered a few brief words that traced Evi’s Great, Great Grandfather who first came to Boston to start a new life in the laundry business when the baseball team was the Boston Braves. Her Great Grandfather served the US Army in WWII and became a Red Sox fan. Evi’s Grandfather (Me) went to Fenway Park with $1 complimentary tickets and rooted for Ted Williams. Her father now works in the John Hancock Building that overlooks Fenway today and has a picture of Nomar Garciaparra over her crib. And now we are happy that Evi is the fifth generation of Bostonians who will carry on the tradition of rooting for the Red Sox to win the World Series. That’s what I really said.
Everyone wanted to hold Evi especially the little kids. Evi wore a gold bracelet and necklace besides her little red Chinese dress. After many pictures, we sat down to eat.
After a ten-course dinner followed by a huge sheet cake, Evi’s parents opened gifts. We have fulfilled our wish to celebrate the birth of our first grandchild—even when we were separated by over 3000 miles. Evelyn Grace Ng is officially introduced to the world.
Baby Dedications
According to Robert Fulghum in From Beginning to End—The Rituals of Our Lives (1995), only one-fourth of births born are celebrated in any kind of formal way. The reason for this is that with increase mobility, families live far away from one another; some people have reservations about dedications because of their religious meanings, and for most families today, there is just no time. New parents are often just too busy to celebrate.
From the beginning to the end, we lead a ritualized life. Although we didn’t have a “Red Egg and Ginger Party” for our own two children, we still presented them to God at Baby Dedication Services—Dr. James Chuck blessed Greg after he was born in SF and Rev. Larry Van Spriel blessed Lauren in Exton, Pennsylvania.
Having my memory of “Red Egg and Ginger Parties” recalled by serving at FCBC, we wanted to ritualize Evi’s birth too. By participating in these repeated patterns of meaningful acts, we are reminded of the meaning of birth. We learn about how precious life is in the fragility of an infant. We learn about the responsibility that we all have in nurturing, guiding, and raising up a child in a larger supportive community. And in time, we experience that our lives are sacred and we have participated in something that is beyond our human comprehension.
Even with the obstacle of 3000 miles separating us from our granddaughter and her parents, the baby party for Evi achieved these things:
1. Our family and friends and especially Evi’s parents step off the treadmill of life and took time to give this stage of living meaning.
2. We strengthened the bonds of family relationships by introducing the newest member to the Ng household.
3. Some of their old college friends were welcomed into this centuries-old ritual granting them special privileges to their responsibility of being good neighbors. Good neighbors are made, not imagined or hoped for.
4. My nieces’ and nephew’s children couldn’t stop touching Evi’s baby skin because it reminded them of their own innocence and birth. The additional two Baptist ministers added weight to the significance that birth is indeed a miracle.
5. Joy and I were able to see for our own eyes that our first-born son has now become a father himself. That’s why they say, “Children make babies and the babies make adults.” I saw in Greg and Heather their own rite of passage.
6. As Grandparents separated by 3000 miles, we were glad that with the baby party, we know that there is a larger community in Boston for Evi to feel connected with family and friends, with God and life, and that to live life fully, it is bigger than oneself. I know now that Greg and Heather have a larger family to which to belong and celebrate the other rituals of life: birthdays, anniversaries, memorials, and hopefully more baby parties.
As a Grandparent
I have made a personal commitment that the 3000 miles would not be an obstacle for me to know Evi and for her to know me as “Yeh Yeh.” It is merely a matter of setting priorities.
As a grandfather, I know to sit on the floor and play with anything Evi chooses to bring to me.
As a grandfather, I know that my seat is in the back seat of the car right next to her car seat.
As a grandfather, I know to read the same story over and over again without any changes whatsoever and God forbid if I skip a page.
As a grandfather, I know I need to know the rules of the house and not try to change them unless I really think that Evi is already applying to get into San Quentin.
As a grandfather, I know that I am beginning to believe that I have done an adequate job when our son is beginning to sound like me.
Small Groups
If you are grandparents or grandaunts and granduncles, share how many of these grandkids you have; what have they taught you; and what name do they call you.
“Therefore from one person, Abraham and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
I really don’t know why we Toishan Chinese people call the Red Egg and Ginger Party, “gat how.” But I would venture to guess and theologize that by cutting a baby’s hair for the first time in the presence of family and friends, we are praying that there will be many more haircuts to symbolize long life; that it really does take a Chinese village to raise every child; and finally that as hair regenerates and grows back again that when we see the end of something, it also is a beginning of something new.
And as a sidebar comment, when we are younger and make the mistake of dyeing our hair in weird and unusual colors that in time, we are given a second chance for the mistakes that we have made because our natural colors reflective of the God-given gifts that we have will eventually be revealed again.
I hope and pray that God will bless me and bless you too as he has blessed Abraham and Sarah to have descendants that are as many as the stars in heaven and as innumerable as the grains of sand on the seashores.
Let us pray.