China News Service, May 29 (Xinhua) reported that the local website published an article "How did I start to respect Chinese food and respect traditions". In the article, freelance writer Eric He tells how he was born in the United States, how he understood his family's homesickness and tasted his hometown through food.
The article is translated as follows:
At the age of 8 when I was on vacation with my family, I stood in front of my parents and grandparents and declared that I hated Chinese food. Our family was having breakfast at the Best Western Hotel in San Diego. My mother blamed me immediately. Her voice was so loud that a hotel staff member also heard it.
"You should respect your own culture." The staff member said in harmony.
But I didn't care at that time. I was very happy because I was finally able to enjoy the American breakfast.
The free buffet at the Best Western is a far cry from the five-star restaurant, but when I saw exquisite dishes such as bacon, sausages, and muffins, my eyes brightened. I am tired of the Chinese breakfast that my family makes me eat every day. From Monday to Friday, every morning my mother will heat me a pineapple bun in the microwave, and my father will drive me to school after eating. On the weekend, my father would wake up early in the morning to serve steamed buns for breakfast. After that, our family would go to 99 Ranch Market, a popular Chinese supermarket in the local area, to buy ingredients for Chinese meals next week.
I grew up in Santa Clara, California, the city that gave birth to Silicon Valley has a population of more than 100,000. Santa Clara is a diverse place where there are few white people and immigrants are the majority. My parents were born in Guangdong, China. They came to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990s. Like many other Asian immigrants, my parents served local technology companies, and they also contributed to the rise of Silicon Valley.
Our family eats Chinese food three times a day. Breakfast is pineapple buns or buns. After shopping at Dahua Supermarket, we will go to Cupertino for refreshments. If Santa Clara is very diverse, Cupertino itself is like a China Town, where two-thirds are Asian. Every street and every square is packed with Asian shops, as well as a pearl milk tea shop. The dim sum shop we often visit is called Dynasty Seafood Restaurant, and it takes up to an hour to eat there on weekends. They have a good relationship with the waiters there. Even when the Chinese New Year packs red envelopes, their parents will take the waiters in the shop into account.
At Dynasty Restaurant, my family always orders the same dishes. They will drink tea anxiously, waiting for the trolley with those dishes to come to our table, which contains roasted wheat, shrimp dumplings, and rice noodles.
But dinner at home is the most important, especially on Saturday. After noon, the grandmother will start preparing dinner. She will wash the rape and cut it open, and then she will start steaming the sea bass.
I can never understand why Chinese people like to eat fish so much. In order to eat that little bit of meat, you need to pick out the very fine fish thorns. My mother often helped me pick the fishbone, and then complained about how lazy our generation of Chinese Americans was born in the United States. Yellow chicken and soy sauce chicken are also common dishes for our dinner. My father sometimes opens a bottle of Tsingtao beer, which is a mainstream beer brand in China.
And rice.
We eat rice with every meal. Every month, we take home a 25-pound bag of Golden Phoenix Jasmine Rice from Dahua Supermarket. Steaming the rice should be very careful. If there is more water, the rice will taste sticky. If the water is less, the rice will stick to the bottom of the pot.
This is what our family wants to eat every day. Sometimes the dishes may change. When I was very young, I would not resist, because this is the only food I know. When I was in elementary school, I began to notice that there were other options. Every lunch in the school cafeteria revealed something new to me. Friends who buy food in the cafeteria will eat hamburgers, burritos and chicken nuggets, but I can only eat food prepared by my mother in an insulated lunch box, usually noodle wanton, and broccoli. I would even envy the students who buy lunch lunch, because the cold ham sandwiched in Ritz looks very different and more eye-catching.
After returning home, I started to ask my family members why I could n’t eat the Big Mac and why I could n’t use it to replace chicken, rice and vegetables. The family I loved may be too easy to indulge their only son and only grandson. I told my mother that I never wanted to eat the food she brought me, so she had to order a lunch plan for me. Because I threatened her, if I didn't do this, I would eat nothing. Whenever I have a birthday in elementary school, I will pester my family and take me to a local steakhouse. I will order a filet mignon and enjoy it. I will never go to the dynasty restaurant to celebrate my birthday.
Saturday ’s home refreshment was also replaced by KFC fast food. At that time, I was very fascinated by KFC. It made me feel like an American, let me know that I am in the United States, and eating roasted wheat or rape every day does not make me feel the same. A few blocks from my home, the Hometown Buffet became a must-have on Sunday. There is simply my paradise. Potato salad, steak, turkey, ham, fish, chips and apple pie, all waiting for me is classic American food. While eating at home, my grandmother tried hard to make the chicken nuggets I loved, but failed. For me, it is never as delicious as Mai Le Chicken.
After high school, I moved to Los Angeles, 300 miles away, to study at the University of South Carolina. But that seemed to be in another world. I live alone in the heart of the metropolis, which is in stark contrast to the quiet suburbs of Santa Clara. I have 7 roommates, and I am no longer the only child who is doted. The most important thing is that I am no longer restricted and do not need to eat only the food at home. But in my freshman year, my position against Chinese food seems a bit loose. At that time, I was eating a meal plan that my parents had ordered, so free to imagine. I go to the nearby cafe 3 times a day and swallow countless American food.
A few weeks after the first year of school, the school restaurant opened a special Asian food bar. I am really excited. I have n’t eaten Chinese food since I moved. I have been eating salads, sandwiches and burgers. The restaurant and bar sells roasted wheat, dumplings and barbecued pork buns, but the roasted wheat is too salty, the dumplings are overcooked, and the roasted pork buns taste dry and tasteless. I was extremely disappointed. Dynasty Hotel will never make such a low standard of Chinese food, nor will my family. They will help me pick out the fish thorns so that I can enjoy the best fish meat.
That was the first time I missed a simple home-cooked meal. I am no longer excited about going to the cafeteria. My stomach starts to crave pineapple buns, rice noodles and rapeseed, but I can only eat scrambled eggs for breakfast, lettuce and croutons for lunch, and vegetable stew for dinner dish. But all I want is a hot bowl of white rice.
When talking with family members on the phone, they always ask me if I eat well. I always say with a smile, the food here is very good, everything is fine. This is the first time in my life that I have such great freedom. I do n’t want to let my family know that there are some problems in some of them.
But some things I experienced in my life are changing rapidly. For an introverted child from the suburbs, going to college is a big responsibility. I need something that makes me feel at home, so that I can get some relief from time to time, such as a bowl of hot soup, a few plates of snacks made by my grandmother, or a plate of hot fried rice noodles. I miss Santa Clara, which is surrounded by cities with a large Asian population. It is so friendly and familiar.
And most importantly, I realized why Chinese food is so important to my family.
Even after living in the United States for decades, and after changing the Chinese passport to the American passport, my parents still eat traditional Chinese food every day, for a reason. In order to emigrate to a new country and integrate into a new community, they gave up a lot. My parents hate stereotypes of model minorities, and despite this, they understand that no matter how much self-esteem is sacrificed, it is for career, family, and ultimately to provide a quality education for their only child.
But what they will never give up is their culture, most of the time they express this insistence through food.
I go to the Chinese supermarket every week to buy ingredients, and spend a few hours in the kitchen just to make the perfect steamed fish. These are because they have been missing their hometown all these years. Eating a bite of juicy soy sauce chicken, or a bite of soy sauce dipped in just right intestine powder, will make them remember the taste of their hometown.
After going home for the first time after going to college, I was happy to eat a plate of Chinese food my family loved. Every time I return to the Bay Area, I will pull my parents out of the restaurant-no longer to the American steakhouse, but to the Chinese restaurants that I hated when I was a child.
In my junior year, because of an internship at NBC Sports, I lived alone in Stamford, Connecticut for 4 months. At that time, I would drive a 30-minute car to the nearest Asian food supermarket to buy food, and fill the car with the same ingredients that my family bought at Dahua Supermarket. Then I will drive back to the apartment, cut the rape, and make sure that there is not much water in the rice cooker.
On many cold winter nights, when I cook alone, I feel comfortable, because I know that 3000 miles away, my family is eating the same Chinese food. Like me, they are missing their hometown.