馋¹

“Password is love you for 10,000 years.”


Damn, I think to myself, stretched out across my bed in the makeshift cinema of my darkened bedroom. Atop my duvet, tie-dyed blue like the Pacific Ocean, sits an empty bowl that contained my “movie snack” that I ate in approximately 5 minutes. I’m watching Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express; it’s my first time seeing it, and my 179th movie since last March, and so late into the pandemic I wonder if it’s a symptom of my longing to hear Cantonese being spoken at length, or for a place that rescinds further from reality into memory as each day passes. In the film, Tony Leung’s character slurps a bowl of instant noodles, adjacent to an open oblong can of black bean dace. I become preoccupied with thoughts of sesame-tinted, bouncy soup noodles and tiny fried dace plucked from a yellow and red tin, each soft black bean bursting with concentrated saltiness, and the oddly satisfying crunch of little fish spines. The food shared between the two protagonists of In the Mood for Love (played by Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung), feed the underlying sensuality of the fantasy they weave as they mimic their spouses in an affair. They dine together in cramped quarters–trapped in Leung’s room overnight–picking at the same plates and coaxing wonton noodle soup from metal containers into bowls. As they eat sticky rice, the back of my tongue tingles with the muscle memory of knowing the toasty bitter taste of lotus leaves. I’m reminded of the intimacy of eating out with another person, the shared mmm’s after eating something delicious, the sensation of the surrounding chatter and clatter falling away the deeper the conversation gets. Afterwards I remain in a highly melodramatic disposition; my stomach feels like an endless pit and I don’t know what I’m longing for more, shared platters and laughter with friends in a tightly-packed restaurant, or the deep comfort of sitting at the dinner table with my parents, bowls of white rice in our palms as we pick at a styrofoam container of burnished, glistening roast meats–both fictional scenarios (in current circumstances) that replay in my brain. All that running through my mind, and what I say aloud instead is simply, “I’m so hungry after watching that.”


「密碼係愛你一萬年。」


屌，我心諗，在昏暗睡房的臨時戲院裡，我攤開身體睡在床上。在紮染成像太平洋一樣藍的羽絨被上，擺著一個空碗，大約五分鐘前它裝著我剛吃完的電影零食。我在看王家衛的《重慶森林》，這是我第一次看這部電影，也是我自去年 3 月以來的第 179 部電影。我想這是因為疫症大流行那麼久以來，我太想要聽–大段的廣東話，又或者是隨著日子一天天過去，我太想念那個從現實褪色成記憶的地方。在影片中，梁朝偉飾演的角色啜食一碗公仔麵，旁邊是一罐打開的橢圓形豆豉鯪魚罐頭。我只想著芝麻色、有彈性的湯麵和從黃紅罐頭中夾出的炸鯪魚，每一粒柔軟的豆豉都散發著濃郁的鹹味，咬下的魚骨發出令人滿意的嘎吱聲。《花樣年華》（張曼玉和梁朝偉主演）的兩位主角模仿他們各自伴侶出軌時的情景，他們共享食物為他們編織的幻想添加了誘惑的成分。他們困在梁朝偉的房間裡過夜，在狹窄的房間一起吃飯，從共用的碟中夾菜，將雲吞麵湯從鐵壺倒到碗裡。他們吃糯米雞時，我的脷根感到刺痛，因為它還記得蒸荷葉的苦味。我想起了和另一個人外出吃飯的親密感覺，在吃到美味時共同發出「嗯」的聲音，周圍嘈雜的聲音隨著對話的深入逐漸隱去。但吃完之後我依然興致很高，我的胃就像一個無盡的黑洞，我不知道我更渴望什麼，是在擠逼的餐廳與朋友分享拼盤和歡笑，還是與父母坐在餐檯旁，手捧著白米飯，從發泡塑盒裡夾起閃著油光的燒味時的幸福感——現在，這兩種虛構的場景都在我的腦海中不斷重演。而所有這些在我腦海中閃過，我大聲說出的只是：「看完之後我好餓。」


For the past year and a half, I’ve been living in two states: fantasy and hunger. I’m writing a story about two sisters who are spies that save the world, and a play about another pair of sisters who travel to Hong Kong, although I’m an only child. I write essays on food for my newsletter, Simmer Down, and to do so I dredge old memories from times when I was freer–ramen in Japan, pasta in Venice, hot and crispy bubble waffles from the night markets of my youth. I imagine elbow-to-elbow family meals, fridge-cold fruit after dinner, washing down mooncakes with crisp jasmine tea, moments of respite with my cousins during not-too-hot Summers, us drinking bubble tea and nibbling on creamsicles. These moments are a plenty, as I was raised in a 為食家 (wai sik family) where food is the centrepiece of our occasions. “為食” is a phrase used only in Cantonese, and can be described as an absolute infatuation and devotion to food. It’s to be gluttonous–not for great quantities to consume, but to experience food’s utmost potential, from simple and subtle flavours to those amped up to max volume. For the 為食, food is life; it’s thinking about the next meal while you’re eating, it’s breaking a long streak of intergenerational scarcity by ensuring your loved ones are well fed, and it’s an effective medicine for the soul. On the cusp of the first UK lockdown, on top of being afraid to go outside due to a lethal virus and the heightened potential of assault in our contemporary wave of scapegoating Chinese people instead of looking critically at failing governments, I was also obsessively worried about whether I’d have enough to eat.


在過去的一年半里，我一直生活在兩種狀態：幻想和飢餓。儘管我是獨生女，我卻在寫兩個關於姐妹的故事——一個關於一對拯救世界的間諜姐妹的故事，一個關於另一對去香港旅行的姐妹的戲劇。我為我的訂閱專欄《慢燉》(Simmer Down) 寫了一些關於食物的文章，為此，我挖掘了我之前閒暇時的舊回憶——日本的拉麵、威尼斯的意大利粉、年少時在夜市里吃熱乎乎的香脆雞蛋仔。我想像著一家人齊齊坐的家庭聚餐，晚餐後由雪櫃取出的水果，吃完月餅後消滯的茉莉花茶，在不太熱的夏天與我的表兄弟姊妹飲波霸奶茶，吃雪條。這些時刻很多，因為我是在一個「為食家」長大的。在這裡，食物是我們的核心。「為食」可以說是對食物的欣賞，它是一種貪吃——但不是為了大量地吃，而是為了體驗食物的味道，從簡單而微妙的味道到最大限度刺激味蕾感官。對於「為食」，食物就是生命：它是在你吃這一餐時計劃下一餐；它是在經歷吃不飽的幾代人後，確保你所愛的人能吃飽喝足；它是醫治靈魂的特效良藥。在英國第一次因為疫情全國封鎖時，除了因為致命病毒而不敢出門，以及擔心某些人不但沒有批判當地政府的無能，反而將中國人視為代罪羊來攻擊，我還極度擔心我是否有足夠的食物。


My mom loves to remind me that growing up, in reference to the home cooked Chinese meals my dad would produce 6 nights a week, I used to say, “there’s nothing good to eat.” I would sit for extended periods of time at our white formica table staring into my bowl of Cantonese soup with my left hand cradling my head, my neck unable to carry the weight of all my misguided dreams of cheeseburgers and spaghetti. My dad is a trained cook, and there were afternoons when he would pick me up after primary school with little paper sleeves of thick chips or slices of apple pie in tow–he cooked those foods for other people, I thought, why didn’t he cook them at home? I know now. Mentally chasing an unattainable version of life as a kid, I refused to notice the sensory delights evoked by the fragrant steam bursting from our rice cooker every night, the silky warmth of tofu made savoury by braising liquid, the throat-soothing properties of winter melon soup, or the satisfyingly unctuous and fruity juice of a chunk of roasted duck. I got over this as I grew older of course, and as lockdown continued, my desire for these foods became more urgent. In desperate need to taste the familiar, I realized I had to learn how to make everything I wanted from scratch, and began my quest to place myself in the comforting arms of home food.


我阿媽經常喜歡提到，以前阿爸每個星期煮六晚中餐，我總是會說：「冇乜好野食。」我會在我們白色的餐檯旁坐很長時間，左手托著頭盯著我的湯，我的頸無法承受我發的所有關於芝士漢堡和意大利粉的夢。阿爸是個訓練有素的廚師，在上小學時，他接我放學，有時還帶著載有厚切薯條或蘋果批的紙袋——我想，他為別人做這些食物，為什麼在家他不做？我現在知道了。小時候我在精神上追逐遙不可及的生活，拒絕注意每晚從電飯煲噴出的芬芳蒸汽所喚起的感官愉悅，炆煮嫩滑溫暖豆腐的濃汁，冬瓜湯的潤喉功效，或一大塊燒鴨上令人滿足的油香和肉汁。當然，隨著年齡增長，我不再這樣了。但封城的繼續，讓我對這些食物的渴望變得更加迫切。這種想要嚐到熟悉味道的迫切感，令我意識到我必須從零學習製作我想要的一切，以求將自己置於家鄉食物的舒適懷抱中。


The process of making home food at times feels habitual, and at other times new and completely laborious–a series of trial and error sessions that have provided unexpected and immeasurable solace. A week into the first lockdown, I dumped a single pork rib and a log of lotus root from our tiny freezer into a pot of water with re-plumped shiitake mushrooms, dried red dates, and slices of ginger.  I learned then that lotus root is not fit for freezing, as when it defrosts, the ice crystals embedded into its flesh cause irreparable mushiness. In pre-Rona times I might have been disappointed at the diluted nature of my lotus root soup, but in that moment, stirring the pot while taking a video to send to my parents back in Vancouver, I felt like another person entirely who was performing an act of care that I couldn’t bear to criticize. I learned how to cook a lazy person’s version of Hainanese chicken rice, gently poaching chicken thighs in a liquid of ginger and spring onions, which I continued simmering with the chicken bones until only four small jars worth of rich broth remained, ready for nights of congee, macaroni in soup, and udon with wilted iceberg and homemade char siu.


自製食物的過程有時好像習以為常，但有時又是全新且費力的——但我沒想到這一系列失敗再來試的過程給了我無法估量的撫慰。在一次封城的星期後，我從雪櫃冰箱拿出一根排骨和一條根蓮藕，丟進一煲水裡，裡面有泡發過的冬菇、紅棗和薑片。那時我才知道蓮藕不適合急凍，因為它解凍時，嵌入肉中的冰粒會將蓮藕變成糊狀。在疫情時代前，我可能會對我稀釋的蓮藕湯感到失望，但在那一刻，我一邊攪拌著湯，一邊拍影片發送給我在溫哥華的爸媽，完全不忍心批評自己。我學會了做懶人版的海南雞飯，加入薑蔥做成的汁用慢火煮雞髀，然後又繼續煮雞骨湯，直到剩下四小罐的濃湯，準備好晚上吃粥、通心粉、烏冬面配已經失去水分的西生菜和自製叉燒。


I studied up on how to make dumplings. In a period where it felt like time was being taken away from me, I was taking time back by learning these laborious processes–standing for long periods in the kitchen, focusing on the consistency of the pork, the elasticity of the dough, and the pressure of my fingertips that had spent too long tapping at my keyboard and gliding over my phone. I took care to freeze the pleated parcels individually on trays before tossing them into a bag, an act that considered the future me, anticipating the days leading up to stressful bi-weekly shops when the fridge was empty.


我研究如何包餃子。在感覺時間被奪走的日子裡，我通過學習這些費力的過程來奪回時間——在廚房里長時間站立，關注餡料裡豬肉的稠度、麵團的彈性，以及長時間敲過鍵盤和滑過手機的指尖的壓力。我小心翼翼地將包好的餃子一個個擺在托盤上再放入冰箱凍硬，之後才將它們装入袋裡保存。很快，当雪櫃空空如也的时候，我將面臨又一輪兩週一次的緊張購物。


I ordered the various flours to make my own rice cakes, stirring with water and steaming the opaque mixture before rolling it into the logs that would be cut into bevelled oblongs the next day. I fried them with pork and shredded cabbage, attempting to recreate how I’d eat them at a restaurant, including extra oil so they would leave a gloss on my lips, but it wasn’t the same. Growing up, my grandma used to cook scratch made rice cakes for lunch on school days, stir fried with bean sprouts and pork in a wok that would sear a smoky crispiness to the exterior of some of the noodles, providing a contrast to their springy interiors. Whenever I make rice cakes, I think about her, and of our family around a large round table, digging into Shanghainese breakfast after spending our Sunday morning paying respects to those loved and lost.


我買了各種麵粉來做年糕，將它們加水攪拌，蒸熟這團不透明粉團，然後把它滾成長條狀，第二天沿著斜面切成橢圓片。我將年糕、豬肉及椰菜絲一起炒，試圖做出我在餐廳吃到的感覺，包括放多些油來抄，這樣它們就會在我的嘴唇上留下光澤，但我做出的還是不一樣。我還在上學的時候，我阿婆常常自己揉麵做年糕作為午餐，年糕與豆芽、豬肉一起炒後，外皮焦脆，與裡面的煙韌彈性形成鮮明對比。每當我做年糕時，我都會想起她，想起在週日早上紀念離去的至親之後，我們一家人圍著一張大圓檯吃上海早餐。


Missing family dinners, I subsequently made efforts to perform our traditions during Mid-Autumn Festival and Lunar New Year, re-learning customs I realized I never paid attention to until I had to uphold them on my own. I often ask my parents for advice during our frequent phone calls, our conversations ricocheting solely between COVID, ramblings about the past, and food. They recount their nights prior eating homemade pho, braised beef with daikon, green curry, milk tea ice cream bars dotted with tapioca pearls, and I’m overcome with a sense of feeling 蝕底–a suffering caused by missing out. “When you come home, we’ll eat ______,” is the response to my jealousy. But the three of us know some things might never feel the same again, that while the pandemic has changed our social boundaries and way of life, so much more has happened alongside it that cannot be repaired. When this feeling arises, I’ll hear about times long before I was born, of Hong Kong cart noodles eaten on the sidewalk, or taken home in the same kind of metal container Maggie Cheung carries down that narrow stairwell in In the Mood for Love. We’ll reminisce about my grandma’s cooking, her super stuffed 粽 (rice dumplings) for Dragon Boat Festival, and 鹹水角 (fried glutinous dumplings) and 豆沙角 (red bean dumplings)–pastries referred to collectively in Toisanese as “tay” that she would make exclusively for new year. No one else learned how to make them, and long after we’ve let that loss roll off our backs have we comprehended how integral that food is–not only to our family’s tiny legacy, but to what it means to be diasporic Hong Kongers as we enter a present that is producing, by force, a new generation of exiles.


因為想念和家人的聚餐，我在之後的中秋和農曆新年期間努力恢復我們的傳統，重新學習我從來沒有關注過的習俗，直到它們變成了我的習俗。在我和父母頻繁的電話中，我經常向我的父母尋求意見，我們的談話僅在新冠肺炎、對過去的漫談和食物之間跳來跳去。他們回憶起晚餐吃的自製越南河粉、牛肉炆白蘿蔔、綠咖哩、珍珠奶茶雪糕的夜晚，我被一種「蝕底」的感覺佔據，一種因錯過而造成的痛苦。 「等你返屋企，我哋就食______」，這是他們對我嫉妒的回應。但我們三個人都知道，有些事情可能永遠都不再一樣了，新冠肺炎不僅改變了我們的社會界限和生活方式，隨之帶來的很多事物亦無法修補了。當這種感覺出現時，我們會聊到在我出生之前，人們在行人道上吃車仔麵，或者裝進鐵壺裡帶回家，就是張曼玉在《花樣年華》中從狹窄的樓梯走下來時手裡拿的那種鐵壺。我們會想起我阿婆做的食物，端午節她做的餡料滿滿的糉，還有只在春節做的鹹水角和豆沙角——這是在台山話中統稱為「tay」的糕點。我們沒人學會如何製作它們，而我們也一直沒有在乎。直到很久之後，我們才理解食物是多麼不可或缺——它不僅是我們家族的小小遺產，而且當香港人踏入這個被迫流散各地的時代，對我們這些散居的香港人而言，它意義重大。


I often stream Cantopop compilations, like the tantalizingly titled Unforgettable Hong Kong Cantonese Golden Hits 1, or my playlist of English and Cantonese songs assembled under the theme of watching the irreversible change of that which you love. It starts with Hayley Williams singing, “why do memories glow the way real moments don’t?” before slipping into Jacky Cheung’s “每天愛你多一些”(“Loving You More Everyday”). I listen while writing Simmer Down, waxing poetic about the distinctly Hong Kong foods–and the culture that produced them–that both my mother and I were raised on, one generation after another, in two separate parts of the world. I grew up eating in 茶餐廳 (HK cafés), watching HK dramas and listening to Cantonese radio, and spending weekends in Richmond where lit signs stack high at roadsides with Chinese in bold and English as an afterthought–but as a child, I had only been to Hong Kong once, in 1997. I returned 20 years later, unknowingly for the last time. A friend of mine calls Vancouver the “Hong Kong afterlife.” If one believes in afterlives, maybe it’s reassuring knowing that once the past is complete, there’s only the road ahead, but it doesn’t ease the pain of witnessing what could continue to live be sentenced to death, over and over again.  I cope with the news by spending a day watching yeast bloom, spilling bread flour, kneading canary yellow dough by hand and shaping them into balls. Hours later, I pull half a dozen pineapple buns with beautifully crinkled tops from the oven. I share the batch with my friend–her first pineapple buns–and ate mine as 菠蘿油, sliced through with a slab of cold Lurpak butter thick as cheese nestled in the centre. All I have capacity for in this stasis is to lean on home food for survival and solace, as a carrier of legacy, of memory.


我經常放廣東流行音樂合輯，譬如標題很吸引人的《香港粵語難忘金曲1》，或者我的英文和粵語歌曲播放列表，主題是看著你所愛的人和事不可逆轉的變化。開頭是海莉·威廉姆斯 (Hayley Williams) 在唱「why do memories glow the way real moments don’t?」，之後是張學友的《每天愛你多一些》。我一邊聽，一邊寫著《慢燉》。我以詩意的語言書寫獨特的香港食物以及孕育它們的文化，在世界的兩個角落，這些味道養大了我和阿媽一代又一代人。我自小在茶餐廳吃飯，看港劇，聽廣東話廣播，週末在列治文度過，路邊是高高掛起的招牌，上面是粗體的中文和後來加上的英文——但其實我只在1997年去過一次香港。20年後，我再一次回去，卻沒想到竟然是最後一次。我的一個朋友稱溫哥華為「香港來世」。如果一個人相信來世，知道一旦走完一生，前方還有直行的道路，或許會感到安心，但這並不能減輕一次又一次目睹本該活著的人被判處死刑的痛苦。為了應對這些消息，我用了一天時間看酵母發酵，灑上麵粉，用手揉搓金黃色麵團並將它捏成球形。幾個小時後，我從焗爐裡拿出六個頂部有漂亮紋理的菠蘿包。我和朋友分享這些菠蘿包——這是她人生的第一個菠蘿包——然後我在我的菠蘿包里塞進一塊厚厚的凍牛油，中間再夾一層一樣厚的芝士，做成菠蘿油吃。在這種停滯狀態下，我所能做的就是依靠家鄉食物來生存和慰藉，作為遺產和記憶的載體。


I lay on my duvet, tie-dyed blue like the Pacific Ocean. As the first story of Chungking Express ends, the protagonist goes for a run, hoping that he’ll sweat enough that his body runs out of water for tears. He checks his voice mail and after receiving a warm birthday message, asks, “if memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates? If so, I hope they last for 10,000 years.”


我躺在紮染成像太平洋一樣藍的羽絨被上。《重慶森林》的第一個故事結束時，主角去跑步，希望通過出汗用完身體的水分，這樣他就不會流淚了。他查看了自己的留言信箱，在收到一條溫暖的生日留言後，他說：「如果記憶是一個罐頭的話，我希望這個罐頭不會過期；如果一定要加一個日期的話，我希望是一萬年。」