We were recently back in my hometown to celebrate the Lunar New Year with my parents, and despite the complaints about how busy she is with the festive season, my mother had prepared a whole bunch of things for us to take back.

Without even looking through them, I packed everything nicely into our oversized bags (thank goodness for frequent flyer bonus baggage allowance). Then yesterday I asked my mother for a recipe and lamented that I did not get oyster sauce.

My mother replied almost immediately to say please check my bags because she did give me a bottle of premium oyster sauce!

Indeed she did, and I had wrapped it up in layers of plastic bags and tucked the glass bottle into the pants leg of my denim.

Ah my mother, she does complain a lot but she also does a lot of good things from the heart. And she knows me so very well that I’ve not unpacked my bags.