“Afternoon Tea” by Lloyd Chung1 min read

Art project by Lloyd Chung’s sister when she was 13 or 14 years old in 1962/63, seven years after the family arrived in Canada in 1956.

Seating
Absentminded
Drinking a cup of Chai
It’s afternoon somewhere,
Past joins me Now
I watch and partake in this luxury
I would accompany my “Ah NENG”
to visit a cherished friend “Ah Pauw”
Rare shared old tales of
past lives in China over Chai
Actually decadent “Red Rose” tea with
canned “Borden Carnation Milk”
A treat for Us kids
to be able to treasure
Us children allowed
to share our learned English
lapsing our Native Tongue
spoken only to our parents.
Like cartoon cutouts
the two old spinsters
dressed in their daily China black leatherette…
Sharing tales so old
tearless past
that brings laughter but
more often silence.
of a country that they will never return
I still have in my possession
her Black Woven Bonnet that
she faithfully wore.
That is the only thing of hers
besides few photos that keep
her in my memories.
Those Afternoon Tea
Now I sit and have my sapporo.
to remember my “afternoon tea.”

Lloyd Chung is Canadian-raised Chinese and also a paper son arriving on the shores of “KANATA” in 1956. Grandfather arrived in the late 1880s in search of a better life spurred by the search for “GIMM”.