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Saturday, July 26, 2025

Chinese food, Muslim name, Christian life–all Trini

by

20101205

My name is Aneil Hamid and I man­age a South Chi­nese restau­rant. I have a Mus­lim back­ground, more or less. I don't prac­tise Is­lam. I'm a Pen­te­costal. My first name is not Hin­du, it's Mus­lim. It's A-n-i-E-l. It's pro­nounced, "Ah-neel," not "Ah-nil." Peo­ple pro­nounce it wrong all my life but I don't mind.

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I went to mosque with my Dad when I was younger. Up to about age ten. He passed away a cou­ple years ago but my Mom is still around. It's just three broth­ers and my­self. I'm the last. I'm spoilt for sure. My broth­ers didn't re­al­ly have a prob­lem with it.

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I went to Cunu­pia Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry. I moved to Ca­paro around age 12 when my par­ents got di­vorced. I kept a good re­la­tion­ship with my Dad un­til he got sick. He was more strict with my broth­ers but I was the one he spoil a lit­tle bit more. I went to Ch­agua­nas Ju­nior Sec­ondary and Ch­agua­nas Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive. I nev­er felt threat­ened be­cause I was se­cu­ri­ty-con­scious from way back then. If I see trou­ble in that di­rec­tion, I go the op­po­site. I don't like to get in­to con­flict or ar­gu­ments.

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I didn't re­al­ly do any ac­tiv­i­ties at school. Just stick to the books. I would say I was a good stu­dent and my grades would more or less say so, too. Uni­ver­si­ty wasn't an op­tion for me. Straight out of school, I got a job. I've been work­ing in the food busi­ness ever since.

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I love to watch movies. I pre­fer the new cin­e­mas to the old-fash­ioned ones. Back then, most peo­ple nev­er ad­here to the rules. A lot of il­le­gal sub­stance smok­ing go­ing on. The en­vi­ron­ment wasn't com­fort­able. So you tend to hold back. Now, it's more con­trolled so you could ac­tu­al­ly re­lax and take in the movie. It costs more but it's worth it for me, per­son­al­ly, be­cause se­cu­ri­ty is my pri­or­i­ty. And com­fort.

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Mon­ey can split up a friend­ship. Yes, it could! If I have some­thing to tell some­one, it's a lot eas­i­er to say on the phone or on the com­put­er rather than face-to-face. Eas­i­er to send a text. I'm not sure it's the right thing to do, but that's how I am. I nev­er broke up with any­body by text, though. On the phone, yeah, speak­ing ver­bal­ly, but not by text.

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I got mar­ried in 2003. And got di­vorced in 2005. We're friend­ly now. We didn't have chil­dren. I'm still re­cov­er­ing but it's get­ting there. If the Bible says the Earth is 6,000 years old, that's what it is. Even if there is over­whelm­ing sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence that the Earth is bil­lions of years old. The sci­en­tists prob­a­bly need to do some more cal­cu­la­tions to cor­re­spond with what the Bible says. I be­lieve the Bible says one day is like a thou­sand in God's check­ing. So they prob­a­bly need to look in­to that. I not sure how they go­ing to ar­rive at an ac­cu­rate fig­ure.

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In church, there're a lot of young peo­ple. There're young peo­ple in clubs, too, but I'm in an in­dus­try where I'm sur­round­ed by al­co­hol and cig­a­rettes all the time. It's not some­thing I would as­so­ciate my­self with vol­un­tar­i­ly. I might go a year with­out hav­ing a drink. I could lime with a mal­ta. And there's no one could per­suade me oth­er­wise.

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You might look at some­one and think, "Your job ain't im­por­tant." But every­one is im­por­tant. Be your broth­er's keep­er. If I had a com­put­er in my room, I would not sleep. I'd be on that com­put­er whole night. I could hold my own in the kitchen. Be­ing around food for so many years, if I can't cook, it's a big shame. I start­ed in the food in­dus­try at ba­sic lev­el: clean­er, wait­er, wa­ter­er. In a mat­ter of no time, I find my­self mov­ing up. In two-three months, peo­ple ask­ing me ques­tions like, "What should we do with this? Where should this go?" Or­gan­is­ing things came nat­u­ral­ly to me. Even as a lit­tle boy.

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I've man­aged sev­er­al restau­rants be­fore but this is the first South Chi­nese cui­sine restau­rant I've run. I try to make cus­tomers as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble. I main­tain good stan­dards. I do some or­der­ing and pur­chas­ing. Stock check­ing and bal­anc­ing. I like South Chi­nese food. But I would choose sa­da roti and fried pota­to any day over any­thing. Man­ag­ing a South­ern Chi­nese restau­rant is dif­fer­ent from all oth­ers. They cook dif­fer­ent­ly. Their food, taste, spices and herbs are dif­fer­ent. It's not like the reg­u­lar Chi­nese you'd go 'round the cor­ner and buy.

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It's dif­fi­cult, at times, get­ting to know how, ex­act­ly, cer­tain things is pre­pared. Most of the peo­ple I work with don't speak Eng­lish. So I have to fig­ure it out on my own. Al­ways you have new peo­ple com­ing in and most of them would look at the menu and frown their face. You have to be able to tell them, off the bat, how the item is pre­pared and served.

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The best thing about my job is, I am free. Some jobs, you tied to a desk or un­der the con­stant watch of some­one over you. I wouldn't say there's a bad side to my job at all. Even the lan­guage gap is just a mat­ter of adapt­ing and get­ting your points across. I haven't learned any Chi­nese yet. Not even cuss words. I don't think they'd teach me those words, in case they get an­gry and want to cuss me. I don't think they'd want me to know the words.

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A Tri­ni is some­one who can adapt to any cir­cum­stance. Some­one who doesn't dis­crim­i­nate or judge. Some­one who can live amongst each oth­er in har­mo­ny.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is the land of op­por­tu­ni­ty. When one door close, an­oth­er one open up right away.

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Read a longer ver­sion of this fea­ture at www.BCRaw.com


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