How I Learned Not to Eat Food From the Altar

How I Learned Not to Eat Food From the Altar
Copyright 2012 Marcia Norwood

By Faith Fu Ju Norwood

As Told To:  Marcia Norwood

There is an older Chinese woman (about 60 something) who is always glad to see me at the Chinese Market in Kansas City, Missouri.

"My GIRL!" she said as she gave me a big hug. 

Most Chinese people don't hug - so this is very special to me.    

She gave my sister, Sarah Zheng-Kang; my niece, Megan; and me gold and red envelopes filled with money  for Chinese New Year.

Faith Fu Ju, Sarah Zheng-Kang and Megan Jewell

Happy Year of the Water Dragon!
 新年快乐 xīn nián kuài lè - Happy New Year!
 身体健康 shēn tǐ jiàn kāng - Good health to you!
 恭喜发财 gōng xǐ fā cái - May you make a fortune!

There is an older-older Chinese woman (about 80 something)  at the market who never hugs me.  I don't think she likes me very well.  She never shows any facial expressions at all.   She is hard to understand.  She speaks English with a very strong Chinese accent:  "You Chinese.  Why don't you speak Chinese?  Learn Chinese!"

 She reminds me of my foster grandmother, Ni Ni,  who lives in China.  I lived in China for the first eight years of my life, and spoke Chinese every day.  I was adopted by my Forever Family, Ed and Marcia Norwood, in October 2002.  It was hard, but I learned to speak, read and write English.   Most children like me (adopted internationally before they are 14 years old) lose their first language and it is replaced with  another first language - unless their native language is spoken at home.  This is not like ESL (English as a Second Language).  It's called "Subtractive Language."   I would like to learn to speak Chinese someday, and my parents want that for me too.

My American adoptive parents  are proud of my Chinese heritage.  We celebrate Chinese festivals.  We shop the Chinese Market, and attend their  Chinese New Year celebrations.   

Ba Ba, Ed Norwood

The Chinese Market had an altar to Buddha and other gods at the entrance for CNY 2012, the Year of the Water Dragon.  I teased Dad about not eating the food on the altar  -- because the year before (CNY 2011)  Dad grabbed a grape from the altar.   I stopped him right before he ate it.  I learned not to eat food from the altar when I lived in China.    

I  lived at an orphanage and also part-time at my foster family's apartment in Liaoning Province,  until I was eight years old.  All  the relatives in China (aunts, uncles, their children, brothers, sisters - everybody)  went to my foster grandmother's house for several days to celebrate CNY.  Ni Ni (Chinese for Grandmother...pronounced with a long-i)  had a list of rules for Chinese New Year.  Most people followed them because she enforced them.  She slapped the hands of children and grown-ups until they started crying or until their hands were bright red.    It hurt.  She was scary.

Ni Ni's  Rule #1:  The first night of CNY - no one is allowed to go home.  Grown-ups get the bed.  Children sleep on the floor.

This is a good rule because most of the grown-ups are drunk from drinking Vodka. 

Ni Ni's Rule #2:  No one may eat any food that is offered to the gods on the altar.

Ni Ni's Rule #3:  No one may drink or even touch the expensive Vodka - that is offered to the gods on the altar.

Ni Ni poured  the expensive Vodka in a very-old-special-glass that her grandmother gave to her. That glass had to be over 100 years old.  Ni Ni placed the Vodka-filled glass and the bottle on the altar.  She put the biggest meat offering  in the center of the altar.  Normally - it was a  whole cooked pig: head - body - eyes - mouth - teeth - ears and all.   Ni Ni placed all the chocolate, various candies, desserts and mooncakes on one side of the altar, and the Vodka and other  alcohol on the other side of the altar.

Ni Ni's Rule # 4:  No one drinks any Vodka until she pours it for the gods - because she says:  "The gods like Vodka more than any other alcohol."

Ni Ni  liked the expensive Vodka, too.

Ni Ni baked most of the food for our entire family.  I loved the smell of her house on CNY.  Ni Ni cooked food in multiple Chinese steamers, pots and pans on the top of the stove, and in the oven.   She sorted through all  the food, to find the BEST.   For example -  If the Jiaozi 饺子(dumpling) wrapper was a little torn - she would not use it as a gift to the gods on any of the three altars in her house.  She put food for the gods on the best silver platters she had, along with the best wooden chopsticks.   No human  is allowed to eat food for the gods, so I think she must throw the food away.  Each day of the festival Ni Ni made new food for the gods.   It would be greatly disrespectful to take any food or drink that is offered to the gods.

Chinese New Year 1998,  my foster father took me to Ni Ni's house very early in the morning - before anyone else arrived.  I was four years old. I  watched Ni Ni make my favorite jiaozi:  vegetable and meat dumplings filled with pork, duck, chicken, grasshopper, and cricket.  These are not the normal size dumplings you think of.  They look more like a roll  or loaf.  Ni Ni  picked through all the food,  and carefully placed the  silver platter with the BEST  Jiaozi  饺子 on the altar.   The steam was still coming off the food, and it smelled heavenly.  Ni Ni went back in the kitchen.  I couldn't take my eyes off the huge dumpling.  I was hungry.   It was enough to feed four people.  I mean - it was big.  I looked to see if she was watching me.  I picked  the    Jiaozi 饺子   up with my hands...and then took a big bite.  I put it back on the silver platter - and then turned the platter around so she couldn't see the bite I took out of it.


Later - when everyone else arrived Ni Ni  gave each person three  lighted incense sticks to place on the altar.  Each one held the incense sticks between their hands,  bowed at the altar three times, and then put the incense in a pot on the altar.   Each incense stick represented our ancestors. 

Ni Ni was the last one to bow at the altar with her incense.  Her third bow - she noticed her silver platter was cracked.  She picked it up and turned it around, and that's when she saw the big bite I took out of the dumpling, Jiaozi  饺子.

She immediately threw away the contaminated dumpling,  and replaced it  - and a  new silver platter on the altar.  Only the BEST would do for Ni Ni's gods.

Ni Ni  grilled everybody, and it took a while.

No one would confess... not even me,  because I knew what was going to happen.

I wasn't the only one hiding  my hands in my pockets. 

Ni Ni  looked straight into everyone's eyes.  She could tell who was guilty.

Apparently - I flinched.

She told my foster father (her son) that she needed to talk to me alone.

I don't quite remember everything  she said, but I do remember her pointing to the altar and saying:  "This is for the gods.  You don't eat.  Give me your hand."

And - Oh!  Boy!  Did I hesitate.  I was four years old.

She grabbed my hand,  held my wrist, and started slapping away.

Eventually - after four or five hard slaps - my hand became red.  It stayed that way for about two days - maybe three.

Ni Ni said:  "Now!  Maybe you will remember not to eat from the gods' table.

"I'm sorry."  I said.  I was too scared to say anything else. 

All the other kids came up to me and said:  "Did Ni Ni slap you?"

I showed them my red hand.  I didn't cry.  I put on a brave face...that's the Chinese way.  I know Ni Ni loved me, and I loved her.  I was an orphan, but she treated me just like her grandkids.  She would have slapped anyone who ate food from the gods' table.  I hated the slapping part, but Ni Ni loved me enough to teach me not to disrespect holy traditions.

Memories of Chinese New Year celebrations in China came back to me when I saw my American dad reach for the forbidden grape on the altar at the Chinese Market in Kansas City, Missouri.

"No!"  I said.  "Don't eat from the gods' table."

Dad said, "Okay - but in America - when food is set out on a table at a store - it's for everyone to sample."

"Not this one," I said.

Many times during the eight  years I lived in China,  Ni Ni and I climbed  a tall mountain  near her home and prayed at a Buddhist Temple.  It was about a two hour climb.  We wore special holy robes and Buddhist prayer beads.  The  monks sprinkled something on me, and the elder monks laid hands on me.  They gave me a different name rather than the name, Fu Ju, that the orphanage gave me.    

I dreamed about Buddha when I lived in China.  He asked me:  "Do you love me?"

I said, "Yes."

My understanding  as a child was that Buddha lived in  a heavenly place where other lesser gods also lived...and all the ancestors went there, too.  We prayed  to the ancestors.  It's like the ancestors are the middle men that present your  requests to the gods.  If it pleases the gods - they  grant  your request.  That's why you don't disrespect your ancestors - because they won't give your message to the gods. 

I had dreams of a another man in China,  but his face was blurry - because he was so bright and shiny.  I called him Shiny Bright.  He said:  "Do you love me?"

I said, "I don't know you."

I discovered who he was when I came to America.   I recognized him in a painting  at the church where my dad and mom, Ed and Marcia Norwood,  attended.  I cried when I saw his face.  I felt an overwhelming desire to know who he was.  He was my Shiny Bright.  He was also the man-on-the cross that I saw a movie about in China.  Ni Ni  told me the man-on-the cross was the devil who deserved the punishment he received.    

My parents introduced me to Shiny Bright.  His name is Jesus Christ, and I chose Him as my Savior.  He is the one, true, living God.  He is real, and not a statue.  He is the bridge - the middle man - between humans and God.  He gave himself as a living sacrifice - an offering - for every person in the world.    That's how much he loves you and me.  He loves my Ni Ni, too.

Someday I will return to China.  I hope to see Ni Ni again.  I will tell her I miss her, and I remember all the times we spent in her kitchen.  I will tell her my new name is Faith, and share what my name means. 

I'm proud of my Chinese heritage and culture, but  I no longer  worship any of the gods on Ni Ni's altar.  

Faith Fu Ju Norwood, 17 years old

As Told To:  Marcia Norwood, Her Mother

The Message Bible

1 Corinthians 10: 21 - 28

21 And you can't have it both ways, banqueting with the Master one day and slumming with demons the next.

22 Besides, the Master won't put up with it. He wants us - all or nothing. Do you think you can get off with anything less?

23 Looking at it one way, you could say, "Anything goes. Because of God's immense generosity and grace, we don't have to dissect and scrutinize every action to see if it will pass muster." But the point is not to just get by.

24 With that as a base to work from, common sense can take you the rest of the way.

25 Eat anything sold at the butcher shop, for instance; you don't have to run an "idolatry test" on every item.

26 "The earth," after all, "is God's, and everything in it." That "everything" certainly includes the leg of lamb in the butcher shop.

27 If a nonbeliever invites you to dinner and you feel like going, go ahead and enjoy yourself; eat everything placed before you. It would be both bad manners and bad spirituality to cross-examine your host on the ethical purity of each course as it is served.

28 On the other hand, if he goes out of his way to tell you that this or that was sacrificed to god or goddess so-and-so, you should pass. Even though you may be indifferent as to where it came from, he isn't, and you don't want to send mixed messages to him about who you are worshiping.

Galatians 1:4

4 We know the meaning of those words because Jesus Christ rescued us from this evil world we're in by offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. God's plan is that we all experience that rescue.

Romans 3:25

25 God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public - to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured.