Posts tagged with "parents"

No More Tea

Thumbnail: Hong Kong milk tea with menu

Walking in, the first thing to notice is the aro­mat­ic smell of fresh­ly brewed tea that per­me­ates the air.

They wait on us using Cantonese with var­i­ous accents, an assort­ment of dialects from minor provinces. They rude­ly throw the dish­es on the table, and tell me that I can’t take pic­tures of the menu. My par­ents com­plain to me about the ser­vice, about their main­land man­ners, and say that they’ll nev­er come here again.

I slow­ly sip my tea, and leave before it’s half fin­ished. Even on a full stom­ach, I can feel myself get­ting uneasy.

The caf­feine is mak­ing me anx­ious, a sub­tle reminder of the pan­ic attack I suf­fered last year.

It’s been six months since I’ve had a glass of authen­tic Hong Kong style milk tea. No more, I’ve decid­ed.

Saturday morn­ings won’t be the same.

Dim Sum

Thumbnail: Dim sum 1

Thumbnail: Dim sum 2

Thumbnail: Dim sum 3

Outside it’s snow­ing, but inside it’s a clat­ter of carts and dish­es. Dim sum is most­ly seafood, espe­cial­ly shrimp, but the most com­mon ingre­di­ents are oil and monosodi­um glu­ta­mate.

My par­ents go full out with the tripe and the phoenix talons (a euphemism for chick­en’s feet), dish­es that scare most Westerners, and even some Canadian born Chinese such as me. The dim sum here is much bet­ter here than at the restau­rant across the street, they note. The rice-flower skin of the shrimp dumplings is delight­ful­ly smooth and thin, a demon­stra­tion of the chef’s skill. The mooli cakes, made from fried daikon radish­es, taste espe­cial­ly savoury. Even the buns are steamed well and slight­ly sweet.

The praise of my par­ents is a tes­ta­ment to the qual­i­ty of the food. They have the abil­i­ty to find fault with almost any­thing, the root of years of child­hood despon­den­cy and con­fi­dence issues, but today the food is near­ly impec­ca­ble.

Growing Pains

Thumbnail: Dry bacon

I caught my father after a show­er. How for­mal the word, father. Like address­ing a char­ac­ter in some Elizabethan play. His hair was mussed, wild, even thin­ner than before. He’s been going gray since he was 15, and every cou­ple of months he colours it black again. It works for him, tak­ing at least ten years off his age. People don’t real­ly know how old he is until he tells them that I’m in my twen­ties.

How scary it was to see him like this, like some crazy old fool with all his hair point­ing out­ward and uncom­posed, but still know­ing that he was still my sta­ble, strong, cold father. The thought that he may one day go senile, lose the viril­i­ty that he seems so des­per­ate to cling to, filled me with pity.

The bacon they serve me for break­fast is dry, dull, devoid of soft fat, or grease that pools in the waves of each strip. A result of his heart con­di­tion. No more cheese, red meat only once a week.

Thumbnail: Wrinkled hand

Even my moth­ers’ del­i­cate hands have deeply with­ered, though they remain soft from her atten­tive care, which include vary­ing sorts of design­er hand creams and spe­cial­ized lotions that fol­low her every­where. My par­ents have long stopped wear­ing their wed­dings bands, but she wears one of my grand­moth­ers rings, a beau­ti­ful old-fash­ioned cut on a clamp mount, left to her in the will. I remem­ber my grand­moth­er pinch­ing my cheeks, hold­ing my hand, her skin loose but, like mom, sup­ple as a soft­ened chamois.

I see this ring on my moth­er, and real­ize that she’s get­ting old­er too.

Music Is The Only Thing

I was­n’t plan­ning on writ­ing until next Monday, but I can’t seem to get away from this.

With the falling tem­per­a­tures come late morn­ings. Stepping out­side ear­li­er, the sky was still dimmed with the street lamps on from the pre­vi­ous night. It felt like the sun had already set, and it was only going to get dark­er. I was in the mood for some jazz, so I fid­get­ed on my iPod until I found a Duke Ellington col­lec­tion. Unfortunately, most of it is com­prised of big band swing songs, fast mov­ing, major keys, a sound that did­n’t quite match the mood. I set­tled on Going Up, a calm pro­gres­sive jazz piece fea­tur­ing brush­es instead of drum sticks, har­mon mutes in the trum­pets, and Les Spann on flute. Four years of pri­vate lessons, with four dif­fer­ent bands in high-school, have made me appre­ci­ate the pol­ished, round­ness of his sound. He trav­els chro­mat­i­cal­ly with utter smooth­ness on the wood­wind, and unlike on the piano, which the fin­gers can move across in one sweep­ing motion, each note is played with a seem­ing­ly ran­dom com­bi­na­tion of fin­gers. In his head, he’s four bars ahead of his fin­gers, allow­ing his into­na­tion remain pre­cise with each pur­pose­ful note.

Sometimes it feels like music is the only thing that can bring out my emo­tions again. Most of them have been replaced by sim­ple deter­mi­na­tion. Everything is busi­ness busi­ness busi­ness because the world is cold cold cold.

I’m going home for the Thanksgiving long-week­end. A much need­ed break that I’ve been plan­ning for a while now. Funny that I still call it home when it’s a five hour dri­ve away, and I own my own house in this city. Home isn’t where you grew up, it isn’t where you live now, home is where the par­ents are.

Life On Contract

I remem­ber once when I was younger, say about nine or ten, my par­ents took me for a car ride. I had no idea where we were going, because I nev­er ques­tioned them when­ev­er they told me to get in the car. I’ve always been a vic­tim of hum­ming engines, and even today I find it hard to stay awake while rid­ing in a car. I fell asleep and even­tu­al­ly woke up in a parked car with my seat­belt still on, uncer­tain of how much time had passed or where my par­ents had gone. The sur­round­ings were unfa­mil­iar, the park­ing lot, half-full, even more so. I sat there, expect­ing my par­ents to come back any sec­ond.

Not know­ing how much more time went by, I start­ed to ques­tion whether or not they had pur­pose­ly left me there, some decade-late, do-it-your­self, abor­tion. “No”, I thought, “They would­n’t just leave the car, it’s too much mon­ey”. When I could­n’t fight against my sus­pi­cion any longer, could­n’t con­vince myself that they would­n’t just leave me in this lot like a baby on a doorstep, I start­ed to cry. I did­n’t know what to do. I gath­ered up the courage to leave the saftey of the car, and locked the door, know­ing that in doing so I would­n’t be able to get back in, but too scared of get­ting in trou­ble if my par­ents were ever to find out.

Wandering around the adja­cent plaza, my face a com­plete sob­bing mess, I looked for them through the store win­dows. Excuses, apolo­gies, promis­es to be a good kid kept rac­ing through my mind as I won­dered from store to store, being care­ful not to let my eyes off the car. Eventually, I found them in a light fix­ture store, chat­ting with a sales clerk about some wood grain ceil­ing fan. I went in, approached them, and all I could say was, “Where did you go?”. They told me, mat­ter-of-fact­ly, that they went shop­ping and that I should have stayed asleep in the car. After fin­ish­ing their con­ver­sa­tion with the clerk, they left with me, and we all went home. I was shak­en, but hap­py that I was­n’t dis­card­ed because of poor marks of bad piano form.

And even though I wish that the entire inci­dent did­n’t hap­pen in the first place, a part of me won­ders what it would be like if I had nev­er found them. Perhaps a res­o­lu­tion.

An end to the stip­u­la­tions of a con­di­tion­al life.