Cantonese desserts, fresh steamed fish, and Huacheng Square

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Today is our last full day in Guangzhou. It’s crazy that our time here went by so quickly. We’re doing an early breakfast at the hotel tomorrow morning before heading to the railway station for our 10:30 train back to Hong Kong. It’s a bit bittersweet: I would love to have another few days to further explore Guangzhou, but I’m looking forward to going back to explore and eat Hong Kong for 1.5 days before heading back to New York. And frankly, neither Kaia nor I are going to miss these squat toilets in mainland China. I’m looking forward to being back in the land of super clean and pristine public toilets of the Fragrant Harbour City!

On our last full day here, we visited the historic Yong Qing Fang district, which is in the old town of Guangzhou. Once upon a time, Yong Qing Fang was a gathering place for the literati, martial arts actors, and Cantonese opera actors, including Bruce Lee’s father, Hoi-Chuen Lee, who was a famous Cantonese opera star. Hoi-Chuen Lee has a home that has been re-branded as “the ancestral home of Bruce Lee” and is a (free) tourist attraction in the area. We visited it today, and it’s a beautiful place that is like something out of historical Cantonese dramas I used to watch with my grandma as a child: lots of old wood and brick, along with delicately carved doors and walls, and carved glass screens. Though as Chris said, it was a bit of a stretch to call it the ancestral home of Bruce Lee; Bruce Lee seemed to have spent most of his life either in Hong Kong or San Francisco. The feel of the district is both old and new, traditional and modern. The original location of Tao Tao Ju is here; from the photos of the original Tao Tao Ju, they did a pretty good job keeping it looking like it did back in the day in 1880 when they first opened. Most of the old building here have been renovated, but they intentionally retained their original architectural style and historic value.

While here (and in Hong Kong), I wanted to maximize the Cantonese-style dessert eating as much as possible. Cantonese desserts are known for their “tang shui,” or their “sugar water,” or sweet soups, so we definitely maximized on these types of desserts while here. In a single day today, we visited two different Cantonese dessert shops in the area: Bai Hua and Nan Xin. We tried five different desserts: egg custard soup with white sesame tang yuan (filled glutinous rice balls), which was unique because I usually have only seen black sesame filling, not white; mango sago with coconut milk; ginger “double skin” milk custard, coffee milk custard, and mango, coconut, grapefruit sago with a mango puree. Chris found enjoyment in all the desserts other than the ginger double skin milk custard, which was far too spicy and gingery for him. For me, it was like a little bit of heaven: it was clear they freshly juiced this ginger — it was no joke! And to think that if you add 1 RMB to your order, you could even get EXTRA ginger! While he did like them, his immediate comment was, “This is good, but it’s no gulab (jamun)!”

For lunch, we ate at a seafood restaurant called Shenggangwan, which is located on a higher floor of a building in the Huangsha Aquatic Products Market. The market is exactly what it sounds like: a fresh wholesale seafood market with every possible sea creature you could imagine. We saw crabs bundled and knotted in ways I’d never witnessed; massive prawns, slimy looking sea cucumbers, and some very aggressive and antsy fish in all shapes and sizes. I wanted some fresh seafood, so I ordered the whole fish special of the day, which was a leopard coral grouper. It’s red and white on the outside with a white flesh. It was steamed and prepared the traditional Cantonese way, with ginger, scallion, and sweet soy. While it was tasty and perfectly moist and well cooked, to Chris’s point, the fish itself didn’t have much depth of flavor. And when we found out how much it was when we got our bill, we had a bit of a shock. “Market price” really should be checked before buying… We also ordered extremely garlicky gai lan and a plate of beef chow fun to appease Pookster, both of which were super cheap by any standard, especially compared to our fish! As a bit of comic relief, the servers were all completely besotted by Pookster. They loved watching her eat, and especially loved it when I was feeding her fish I deboned. They kept coming over to praise her and say how cute she was and what a good eater we had. I felt like they were likely watching us the whole time, giggling to themselves and commenting on not only Kaia, but our racially mixed family and how I get my brown husband to eat Cantonese food. Kaia also loved the little artificial ponds set up around the restaurant and kept watching the fish. When I told her it was time to leave, she insisted that she go and say bye to all of them. She kept saying “byebye!” and waving to all of them multiple times. It was really cute, and some of the servers on break watched and laughed.

Towards the end of the day, we walked around and explored Huacheng Square, where we admired all the very tall and colorfully lit and flashing buildings surrounding us. My favorite building is one you can see when in the square and looking towards Canton Tower: it looks as though there are strung crystals dangling from the top of the building, sparkling in hues of blue, purple, and silver. It was also clear that the powers that be wanted to instill some sort of mood into visitors of the square: classical music was playing at just the right volume during our entire walk through discreet speakers. I loved how grand and sprawling this square was. It’s really the kind of place you could just sit and relax in.

We ended the day with Hong Kong style hot pot near our hotel. Kaia had a field day with the order of clams Chris ordered that we let her toss into the pot. It also felt like that night, she knew we were leaving and didn’t want our time in mainland China to end: she kept stalling sleep that night in her bed in a separate room. Whenever she heard Chris cough, she said she had to go check on him to make sure he was okay. She did this at least three times before Chris insisted she had to go back and sleep in her own bed.

“Daddy coughing. I need to go check on Daddy,” she insisted, as she’d get out of bed and run over to our bed.

That’s my concerned and loving Pookie.

Xinjiang cuisine, Bai Hua Mountain, the oldest standing dim sum house in Guangzhou, Beijing Road, and a mall Anpanman play house mishap

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Xinjiang, the Uygur Autonomous Region of China, is located in the northwestern part of China and is particularly interesting in its cuisine because it fuses together Chinese cuisine along with many different ethnic groups that represent Xinjiang, such as Uygur, Kazak, Tibetan, Mongal, Russian, and the list goes on. Xinjiang food has a lot of roast mutton and lamb, kebabs, bread made in round coal ovens. The spices used in this cuisine are also very different than anything Han Chinese: Islamic spices are the norm on meats you eat here. If you like meat, bread, and spices, Xinjiang cuisine will most definitely be your thing.

Chris was in a very meaty mood when we arrived in Guangzhou. After eating a smaller meal of chang fen (stuffed rice noodle rolls) and noodle soup with fish dumplings and fish balls, he annoyingly told me he was not satisfied and still wanted something more “substantial.” So we came across an area walking distance from our hotel where there were a number of Xinjiang restaurants. We popped into one on the second floor of a building that was beautifully decorated with multicolored glass lanterns and decided to sit down. There was a tea fee at this restaurant that was mandatory, so I chose a xue ju (I guess that translates as snow daisy or snow chrysanthemum?) tea that I’d never heard of before. It was a bright orange, almost red hued liquid, and the flavor was floral and almost smoky at the same time. We also ordered the roast lamb in a naan pit and a stir fried spicy noodle dish with vegetables for Kaia. When the lamb arrived at our table, it was served on massive metal skewers along with a tasty red and orange (but not hot) herb/spice mixture and slices of raw onion. It was absolutely delicious and cooked perfectly; even Kaia gnawed at the meat until it was just bones. We had so much meat that we ended up taking a decent chunk of it to go.

Today, after a delicious breakfast buffet at our hotel, we took a DiDi ride to Bai Hua (“One hundred flowers”) Mountain, then took the cable car up to the summit (or what we thought was the summit). From there, we could see the views of all of Guangzhou in all its cloudy, polluted haze. At the time we arrived that morning, you could just see Canton Tower through the haziness, but by the time we left, it was pretty much invisible to the naked eye. As we walked around the eating areas, I was shocked to see how extensive the menus were. If you were at a similar spot in the U.S. where you got a cable car ride up to a summit, you might have some really fancy (and overpriced) food options as well as fast food stuff (hello, burgers, fries, and chicken tenders), which would be more typical. But here, I was so impressed: for snacks, you could get made-to-order Hong Kong style egg waffles, also known as bubble waffles, which are super crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside (and if you are lucky, filled with something delicious and gooey, like matcha cream, strawberry, or even durian!); fresh tofu pudding, a whole steamed fish (yes, really); and if that was not enough: AN ENTIRE BANQUET STYLE MEAL. I was floored looking at the spreads of food that people were casually eating outdoors on this semi-warm, cloudy day.

For lunch, we went to the famous Bejing Road, known for its endless foodie delights. And we went to a location of the the oldest standing dim sum house (since 1880) in Guangzhou: Tao Tao Ju. They have multiple locations now, and unfortunately, while I did not bring us to the original location, I was pleased to see that this new location retained all the charms of the original with its traditional Chinese architecture and decor. I knew this dim sum experience was going to be good as soon as the server confirmed that yes, they did have chrysanthemum tea (I’ve already had multiple places tell me that they either don’t have it, or they make you pay an up-charge for it); and when the tea pot came, the server placed it on a little warmer with a lit candle inside it.

The service was straightforward, and the ordering was easy because most dishes had photos with Chinese descriptions. They also won brownie points with me because they immediately gave Pookster a little kids’ (unbreakable) plate, plus a disposable bib with a little toy truck with ladder. The most notable dishes we had at this tea experience were also some of the most basic, but executed extremely well: the siu mai (shao mai) had delicious flavor and perfect texture between the crispness of the prawn against the chewiness of the minced mushrooms, and the softness and fattiness of the pork. The “cherry” on top, which I honestly could not appreciate but liked the presentation of, were the black caviar on top of each. Their Tao Tao Ju version of ha gao, or Tao Tao Ju “big prawn dumplings,” were perfect, with well executed and crisp prawns along with a thin and soft tapioca based dumpling skin. I also loved their version of nor mai gai (nuo mi ji), sticky glutinous rice with savory chicken, mushroom, and abalone (what a surprise! I went back and translated the Chinese character which I mistakenly thought was fish, but it actually said abalone), wrapped into a steaming lotus leaf. The “cute” dish I ordered were liu sha bao, or egg yolk lava custard buns, decorated on the outside to look like little piggies. This was the one thing Kaia actually ate in full at this meal.

Random other fun things we did along Beijing Road: we got already prepared fruit that we picked ourselves from a fruit vendor, with the main highlights being the fresh and sweet jackfruit and the cherries (Kaia ate ALL the cherries); even the free cantaloupe the vendor threw in were sweet! Chris found a shop called Han Xiao Liu that specializes in durian products. He picked up a durian-shaped ice cream stick for us to share; it had 30 percent durian in it! I also went hunting for a bathroom that actually had toilet seats for Kaia since she cannot deal with the squat toilets here, which led me back into the mall that Tao Tao Ju was in. That led us to stumble upon an Anpanman themed kids’ playhouse. Kaia ran into it and slid down the slide three times until an employee was checking who knows what and kicked her and another little friend out. She motioned toward the sign when another parent came to protest. I translated the sign with my translator app to discover that in order to allow Kaia to play here, while it would be free, I’d still need to register as a user on WeChat… which I obviously didn’t do. WeChat and Alipay rule here!

I was aware that China was on the road to becoming a cashless society based on what I read; I was not aware exactly how little cash I’d see while here… which is to say, NONE. Literally every vendor or shop only took payment via AliPay or WeChat; even homeless people begged with a WeChat or AliPay sign for you to transfer money directly to them. Chris had planned ahead and had downloaded both apps. I just didn’t realize that even a kids’ playhouse would require a WeChat registration. It sounded nuts to me, but I suppose that’s the goal of the Chinese government: to literally track every movement of its citizens as well as its visitors. Ouch.

First time in Guangdong and the concerned and kind Guangzhou DiDi driver

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Train travel in China has come quite a long ways since I first visited the country, my fatherland, in summer 2006. Back then, I studied Mandarin for a month in Shanghai, with lots of fun outings all over the city, plus two day trips to the neighboring small towns Suzhou and Zhouzhuang. Although I very much wanted to visit Hangzhou at the time, I was told that it would take me four hours to get there, which was way too much time for a day given my days without class were numbered, and I wanted to soak in as much of Shanghai as possible. Four years later, China’s rapidly developing high-speed train systems finalized the Shanghai to Hangzhou route, which reduced travel time between the two cities to just 45 minutes (during our summer 2019 trip, we did that exact train trip between Shanghai and Hangzhou, and it was incredible!!). Then, in 2018, the high-speed train was made available between Hong Kong and Guangzhou; the ride is just one hour long. It would be possible to take a quick trip to the capital city of the Chinese province where my paternal family’s lineage originates.

Though I was able to visit my mother’s home village in central Vietnam with both my parents in 2008, I know that it’s doubtful I will ever visit the village where my paternal grandparents are from — Taishan (or in local Toisanese dialect, Toisan), which is about an hour and 40 minutes away from Guangzhou by car. Three of my cousins got to visit our grandparents’ village when traveling to China with my aunt (their mom). But with my dad, he’s expressed zero interest in ever visiting the place of his roots… or anywhere outside of his own city of San Francisco, for that matter. I don’t have other family who could take me there to show me around, so it would feel like I was yet another stranger, gawking around at how everyday village people live in rural parts of China. So, Guangzhou is the closest I will likely come to my dad’s place of origin in my lifetime. I did not always feel this way, but I suppose that with time and age, I’ve really embraced my Cantonese culture. I am proud of the rich history of Guangdong, the vibrant culture, and of course, the incredible food, which is a culture in itself. Cantonese cuisine is so rich and varied that Guangdong could even be considered its own culinary country! Guangdong cuisine, or yue cai, has given the world yum cha (“drink tea”) aka dim sum (dishes that “touch the heart”), siu mei (Cantonese roast meats like cha siu), siu laap (cooked and preserved meats like lap cheong or Chinese sausage), lightly seasoned seafood to highlight the seafood’s distinct and fresh taste, claypot rice (the masters of crispy bottom rice; in Toisan, we call it “fan diew,” one of the few phrases in Toisan I can remember offhand and without any prompting), lou mei (dishes made from internal organs and entrails, like my favorite beef brisket stew), and of course, all the incredible and beautifully presented banquet dishes that define the word “sumptuous.” It’s hard not to like Cantonese cuisine even if you tried your best to be a hater.

From a language standpoint, I always wish I knew more Cantonese and could speak it properly. When I’ve had some free time, I’ve even taken some short courses on Cantonese in Udemy, since I have free access to the full collection of courses as an employee. But Mandarin has always been more of a focus. Toisan was really my first language with English, and as someone who spoke Toisan, I think it sounds a lot like Cantonese with the exception of a handful of key everyday phrases; pretty much NO Cantonese speaker agrees with me, though. 😀 My grandma and dad couldn’t speak Cantonese, so it’s not like I would have been exposed to Cantonese much at home unless my aunt were speaking it in my presence. At the end of the day, while I think it’s more important (practically speaking) to know some Mandarin vs. some Cantonese, Cantonese is closer to my roots. So, that’s why it will always be a little sad to me that Kaia will have little to no exposure to Cantonese or Toisan… and also why I got so excited when I heard her speak some Cantonese words she picked up at school, and that her bestie at school spoke Cantonese at home and with her at school. Outside of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is the one place where of all Chinese dialects, I mostly heard Cantonese aside from Mandarin; I probably heard it equally if not more than Mandarin. Part of that may also be we were surrounded by a lot of Hong Kong-based tourists, but I think it’s also because Cantonese the language really helps to define Cantonese/Guangdong culture. If you take the language away, the culture isn’t quite the same.

The train ride was over before we knew it. We had arrived at Guangzhou South Station. Chris had done all the planning and research ahead of time for this trip that I never did: he knew that China was almost completely cashless at this point, so he made sure to download the WeChat and Alipay apps before we arrived for payment (apparently, even homeless people beg and ask you to transfer money to them via these apps!). He also had DiDi ready to go on his phone for our Uber-like rides. Unfortunately, when we waited for our DiDi driver, we had no idea where he was. The app was precise; it told you where your driver was approximately based on GPS; if he was at a stop light, you could see the seconds count down to when it was ready for him to accelerate. But we couldn’t figure out where our driver was, or where the correct pickup/drop-off point was. All the signs (which were in Chinese and English) didn’t say anything about a general pickup/drop-off point.

Chris and the driver were messaging (good thing a translator is built into the app). He went to go look for the driver while I stayed with Kaia and our bags. Eventually, the driver and Chris found each other. The driver had spent at least 20-25 minutes looking for us, out of his car. He walked all over the station to finally find us. And when he found out I could speak some Chinese, he laughed at me and asked why I didn’t just call him. I told him my Chinese wasn’t great, plus I didn’t know all of the signs and areas of this train station since it was our first time here (all the signs I could see were for P2-P4; he was apparently waiting for us at P5, which is the official drop-off/pickup point that neither Chris nor I saw signs for….). We were both really touched he actually left his car unattended in the drop-off zone (he’s technically not supposed to idle) and ran all over the station searching for us. It was truly above and beyond and clearly done out of genuine concern. That is customer service right there.

When we got into the car, we made some small talk. I thanked him profusely for being so kind to look for us (and spending THAT much time, which ended up increasing our fare by 50 percent, but it’s fine because we knew he was trustworthy). He explained that Guangzhou station was full of ripoff artists, that all of them would charge 2-3 times what Didi was charging us for the same ride (this gave me bad whiplash of the stupid fares quoted to me while we were in Beijing and didn’t have access to DiDi), and he was worried that given we were visitors, we’d get ripped off, so he was happy we didn’t just leave and get into a taxi. He said cab drivers couldn’t be trusted, and he insisted that any ride we take should only, only be via DiDi and to not trust anyone. He asked the usual things Chinese people in China ask about me, a hua ren (overseas Chinese person): where is my family originally from, where was I born, where do I live, what do I do for a living? How much of China have I seen? Is this child in the backseat mine (ummm, yeah). What’s your relationship to this guy in the back (he’s my husband, believe it or not! He thought Chris was my friend!). He asked about Chris’s family origin. After I told the driver that Chris is ethnically Indian but from Australia, he asked me how we could possibly eat the same food, and how we got by. I was confused and asked him what he meant. “Indian people don’t eat beef because of their religion,” he said. “You eat beef, don’t you?” I laughed and told him that Chris wasn’t Hindu, and he says a typical Chinese thing: “I thought all Indians were Hindu!” He told me that he was retired; he was originally from Hubei but moved down to Guangzhou for work. He spent several decades working as a civil servant. He had a wife and three children, all grown. Although he had a comfortable pension, it never hurts to have more money, he winked. He was used to working six days a week, so he actually drove DiDi six days a week most weeks now as a retiree because he didn’t want to be bored. He was pretty honest about money with me, as most Chinese people are: With all his DiDi earnings each week, he collected over four times what his pension check gave him. That’s not so bad, is it?

It was frustrating at first to spend so long waiting to find our driver, but it was worth it in the end. Meeting and chatting with him on the way to our hotel was a very warm welcome to Guangzhou and back to mainland China for the third time.

Kennedy Town, popping boba, and fireworks from our hotel room

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It was the last day of 2024 today. We spent most of it exploring Kennedy Town, a neighborhood on Hong Kong Island that has been redefined in the last 10+ years. For the longest time, urban development was slow in this area until 2014, when Hong Kong’s incredible MTR extended out that way. Now, it’s gentrifying quite a bit, with endless luxury high rises going up, as well as trendy bars and coffee/tea shops.

We enjoyed coffee and a waffle at a cute little coffee shop called For Single. There, I had a flat white made with coffee beans from Yunnan province (I didn’t realize coffee was grown in China!). For the first time, Chris had siphon coffee, which is supposed to enhance the coffee aroma more. Watching our barista make his coffee with the siphons was really fun for the first time, as it was like watching a chemistry experiment in action. Although I doubt either of us would be interested in purchasing siphons to make siphon coffee at home, it was an experience watching it made for us, and the coffee itself did seem different than coffee made out of a Chemex or Aeropress.

We found a slightly off the beaten path swimming shed called Sai Wan, where you descend down several flights of stairs into a “swimming shed” that is essentially the open water. This was a good place to see some nice views of Hong Kong, and also helped me learn a bit of history: I didn’t realize “swimming sheds” were a thing in Hong Kong. They were built in the early 20th century by the Hong Kong government, providing changing rooms, showers, and piers for swimmers. The entry fees were cheap, and with cheap leased swimming suits, people started coming to swim in droves. Unfortunately, the water pollution in the harbor gradually got worse, so the popularity of swimming sheds in Hong Kong started dwindling. Today, Sai Wan Swimming Shed is the lone, single shed still standing in Hong Kong. From what I could see, most of its members seem to be older women.

We also hiked up Mount Davis for some views… which were mostly blocked off due to weeds and trees, but it was good to get the exercise anyway. Chris pushed Kaia up via the stroller, but coming down, we tried our best to get her to walk down a LOT of stairs. She had to be cajoled quite a bit and promised treats, as she kept on insisting, “I’m too small! This is too far for meeeee!” There were only about two public toilets along our hike, and Kaia never had to go…. until she decided she had to go where there were none to be found. I had to coax her to squat and pee by a bush, which she finally did because she was so desperate. Unfortunately, she wasn’t positioned properly, and she ended up getting some pee on the bottom of one of her shoes. Good thing we had alcohol wipes to clean that off!

Later on in the day, we had some claypot rice for lunch, then stopped at a dessert spot called Sweet Dreamer Dessert (or Sweet DD), where we enjoyed a decadent pistachio lava mini cake with ice cream, as well as peach flavored popping boba for the first time (which we didn’t realize would have popping boba in it; we just thought it would be a peach juice flavored drink!). Kaia was completely obsessed with the popping boba and even preferred it to her much loved ice cream. All she wanted to do was hold the boba in her hands, place them one by one in her mouth, and feel them explode in her mouth! I’ll be honest even if it makes me sound old: while it was fun to try out something new and trendy like popping boba, I will admit I probably would not order it again knowingly and far prefer regular tapioca boba.

Kaia also got lucky, as at Belcher Bay, we stumbled upon a big children-centered fair. They had several massive foam (or fake snow) machines that she was squealing nonstop about. The theme of the fair was very cutesy Chinese: “Saying Love in the Snowfall.” There was also a hilarious snowball throwing contest between two teams. Chris noted how clean and thorough the workers were between the fights starting and ending: every last smidgen of snow and ice was cleaned up to the point of being anal — I love Asian cleanliness!

We ended the evening with dinner in Central, where we ate at Little Bao, a fusion restaurant that a friend of mine had recommended. Kaia indulged in a bowl of Shaoxing wine and butter clams, while we had fancy versions of fried dumplings, “filet o fish,” and very strong cocktails.

While we were here for New Year’s in 2016, I was still recovering from pertussis, and so we didn’t actually stay out late that night to see the fireworks. I suppose we made up for it this time, though as parents of young children: Chris ensured we had a harbour-view room on a high floor (floor 37) that would allow us to see the entire fireworks display on the harbour from our room. We watched and recorded the full 12-minute fireworks show in our pajamas from our hotel window (with me sitting on Kaia’s roll-out bed closest to the window while she was fast asleep). It was quite spectacular, with fireworks on all sides, and lots of different types of firework artistry that I hadn’t seen before. You could say it was the lazy man’s way of watching the fireworks — to do it from bed and then immediately go to sleep after. Or, you could also argue that this is what people who are lucky to have means do: we can afford a room with a view like this at this time of year, so why not take advantage of it, especially since we have a young child who cannot yet appreciate things like staying up late to ring in the new year, or a fireworks show? This was a far more comfortable way to watch the fireworks for all of us given Kaia’s age, plus who wants to be standing around outside in the semi-cold for hours on end?

It was a fun and memorable way to usher in 2025; it’s a good thing I have a husband who plans this stuff out in advance and thinks of all this because I had no idea we were guaranteed a harbour-view room until we got here!

Hong Kong public restrooms circa 2024; ordering dim sum while comparing the Chinese menu vs. English menu

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While exploring the Yau Ma Tei Wholesale Fruit Market this morning over on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong, I was intrigued by the fresh cherimoyas and ripe hachiya persimmons. I haggled my way into a small discount with two hachiyas. Unfortunately, I was unsure which of the cherimoyas were ripe and ready enough to eat, so I hesitated on those and ended up not buying any, which was a shame given that I cannot even remember the last time I got to enjoy that custardy, sweet fruit. Kaia said she had to go pee, and when I asked the workers where the closest restroom was since my daughter had to pee, a fruit manager took pity on us and offered their toilet in the back for her to use.

“The closest public one is too far away!” the fruit worker insisted. “She’s too young to wait!” I always love how Asian ladies dote on littles so much.

Unfortunately, their toilet was…. not particularly the cleanest one we’d ever encountered. It smelled as though it hadn’t been properly cleaned in years. There wasn’t any soap in the bathroom, so I had to use hand sanitizer on both of us. Within a few blocks, Kaia said she had to pee yet again, and so I begrudgingly took her to the public restroom right there, completely not expecting the experience we would have.

As soon as I entered, I saw a worker wiping down surfaces with sanitizing spray. Beside her was a mop, which she was using to clean the floors. The entire bathroom smelled like jasmine flowers. Each of the stalls had a clean toilet, a clean seat down with a lid, as well as ample toilet paper. Next to the toilet paper dispenser was a little motion-activated machine to allow you to use some toilet paper to spray a disinfectant spray onto the toilet seat before using. In English and Chinese on the inside of each stall, a sign explained that to ensure the highest levels of hygiene to please close the toilet lid before flushing. I was so surprised and excited to see this; the toilet lids being closed while flushing has been noted in lots of hygiene-related studies and news articles as the number one way to increase cleanliness in bathrooms and to prevent the (airborne) spread of fecal matter, which tends to be all over your bathroom whether you are aware of it or not (unfortunately, this is impossible in U.S. public restrooms, as virtually NO public toilets will have a lid. It’s actually disturbing to me how prevalent that is and how no one seems to [know to] care about it). The sinks were wiped clean of even the smallest water drops. The soap dispensers were all motion activated and filled to the brim. There was the option of a hand dryer or paper towels (much to Kaia’s excitement since she’s completely terrified of hand dryers).

I just couldn’t believe how clean this public restroom was — literally every single part of it. And there was an attendant parked there to clean every centimeter of that place. And that restroom was not the exception here — this was how every public restroom we entered was. Contrary to how I feel when using public restrooms in the U.S., I actually never dreaded using a public toilet here in Hong Kong and instead, found it quite fun to see exactly how sanitized and clean all of them were. Hong Kong’s public toilets should be a model for the rest of the world!

Later on, we chose a slightly upscale dim sum house for lunch. I was excited for the opportunity to enjoy a proper yum cha experience in Hong Kong… and was quickly confused when I was handed the (Chinese) dim sum ordering menu to check off which items I wanted and realized I couldn’t read or recognize most of the dishes listed. I know how to read pretty much every semi-common, popular dim sum dish, in both Cantonese and Mandarin. I didn’t understand why things read so differently on this menu. I started using Google Lens to help me translate some of the dishes, but frankly, it wasn’t much help. The biggest issue when reading Chinese menus, as I’ve tried to explain to Chris and multiple others who don’t read or speak any Chinese, is that a lot of food dishes in China have very idiomatic naming conventions and have no real meaning within themselves at all. The dishes are very rarely as straight forward as Western menus are with their descriptions or names. So unless you are familiar with old Chinese texts that make these historical references or “nicknames”/shortened names for foods, you will have no idea what dish you are actually looking at.

Here’s an example of language/cultural nuances from my childhood of a common dish we had on our table at restaurants, especially for the kids, also a dish I crave every now and then: gan chao niu he 干炒牛河 (beef chow fun). The characters literally say “dry fry beef river.” But if you know the language and what’s being shortened, you’ll know right away that what it’s really saying is 干炒牛河 [粉] or gan chao niu he fen –– dry fried beef with flat rice noodles (NOT saucy or with gravy is the meaning of “dry.” 河粉 Or “he fen” / “ho fun” is the name of the long, flat, wide, rice noodles. And if you don’t know the language or food, you’ll just sit there feeling puzzled, not understanding what the heck a “beef river” is.

I sat there, as Chris says, looking like I was studying for an exam while going over that freaking Chinese menu. It took me a while to make my selections. He was getting antsy with me because he was quite hungry, and he could see the dishes were clearly being made to order and were taking a while to come out to other tables. Here’s one dish we ordered which I took a chance on and ended up really enjoying, but it literally meant nothing to me other than three characters (dou miao and egg) when I ordered it: 金銀蛋浸豆苗 jin yin dan jin dou miao or literally, “gold silver egg dipped dou miao/pea shoots.” I didn’t know what all those characters meant together, but I did know that there would be dou miao/pea shoots in it, as well as egg, so I just checked it off. If you read that translated word for word, what would you think it meant? And what came to our table but a large bowl of clear soup with floating egg drop wisps, a generous pile of pea shoots, and thick slices of pi dan/century egg. It was a deeply flavorful, savory broth that we all enjoyed (and Kaia devoured), but it was confusing because I genuinely wasn’t sure how gold silver egg dipped pea shoots translated into a SOUP? I would love for someone to explain this to very Americanized/Westernized me.

So we got a bit of a hodge podge of dim sum because a lot of these things just are not typically on standard dim sum menus in Chinese yum cha houses in the U.S.: the pea shoot and century egg/egg drop soup; fried sesame balls with a light mung bean filling; chee cheong fen (HK style, no fillings other than sauce); fried silken tofu with a slightly peppery coating; shui jiao (fried glutinous rice dumplings with pork, mushrooms, and jicama; mango pudding. Chris wasn’t super satisfied, so I figured now was the time to relent and ask for the English menu. I took the English menu and compared it against the Chinese menu, and there were maybe only two or three things that had crossover; the English menu had all the standard things you’d expect, like ha gao, siu mai, nor mai fan, etc., yet NONE WERE ON THE CHINESE MENU. I was even more confused at this point (and I asked the server if we could add black bean sauce steamed spare ribs, off the English/Chinese menu, to “complete” our meal and make sure Chris didn’t feel jipped of his first Hong Kong yum cha experience this trip). This led me to believe one of two things:

  1. Locals who just know will order the dishes that we in the West consider “standard dim sum” dishes off menu, so there’s nothing for them to check off on the ordering card; it’s simply understood by the server and by the kitchen that they will churn out these dishes, or
  2. The restaurant doesn’t make what we consider “standard dim sum” dishes for locals and makes them only for overseas Chinese/Asians who have come to expect certain dishes to be “authentic” Chinese yum cha dishes.
  3. Or, maybe a combination of 1 and 2…?!

I don’t know. This kind of felt like discrimination or gas-lighting to me!

Back to Hong Kong on the glorious Cathay Pacific

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Flying Cathay Pacific is one of the greatest flight experiences. But to be fair, service on even budget Asian airlines is always top notch. When I’m flying on an Asian carrier, it always makes me think how extremely basic to nearly nonexistent “service” is on U.S.-based carriers. On Cathay, I am always greeted by name, or “Ms. Wong.” It seems like such a little thing, but it always feels so formal and welcoming. Occasionally on American Airlines, they greet me this way when acknowledging my status, but that is a rare occasion. If I have pre-ordered/chosen a meal on Cathay, the flight attendant will have always done their homework and confirm that was the chose that I made (unlike on American airlines, where they barely check anything before they get on board and ask you what you would like, and then look surprised when you tell them you pre-ordered). Flying on Cathay or JAL is an experience in itself during your travel; they define what it means when people say, “It’s not about the destination, but the journey.” While I certainly do want to get to my destination, I absolutely love the in-flight experience, from the appetizers to mains to desserts to snacks to the drinks (they have their own signature drink called the Cathay Delight! It has just three ingredients that most definitely delight: fresh squeezed kiwi juice, coconut milk, and mint) to the service itself.

I also love that they have a Western option vs. a Chinese option. Why you would choose to fly on Cathay and select the Western meal (unless you are from somewhere in Asia and need something “different”) is beyond my comprehension. For my breakfast option, I was served century egg and shredded pork congee, stir-fried egg noodles with mixed vegetables, and mixed fruit. And the lunch option I chose is one of my comfort foods: braised short ribs with egg noodle soup. The egg noodle soup was perfect in pretty much every way: the brisket was flavorful and melt-in-your-mouth tender; the noodles were slightly springy and al dente, and the soup itself was multi-noted and extremely fragrant and savory. For once, Kaia actually ate most of her two kids’ meals in flight (well, with me spoon-feeding her as she happily got way too much screen time with Pepa Pig…); she even finished off my soup and seemed obsessed with it.

After we arrived in Hong Kong and dropped off our bags at the hotel, we went out in search for our first meal, which I wanted to be roast goose. We never get the option of roast goose at Cantonese style roast meat places (not that duck or pork is a bad option!), so while in Hong Kong, we want to maximize our time here. So we chose a spot that was walking distance from our hotel. We sat down, ordered half a roast goose, rice, noodles, and a plate of blanched yu choy (you cai) with oyster sauce on the side. It had been so long (since end of 2015-early 2016) when I was last in Hong Kong, so I had forgotten that most places do not provide napkins/serviettes, so we ended up paying $2 HKD for a small packet. But regardless, the meal hit the spot and was delicious. According to people who know way more about geese and ducks than I do, goose tends to be fattier than duck, and a tiny bit gamier. Both have a pretty thick fat layer between their skin and flesh. To be honest, in the moment I couldn’t really tell the difference. But I really enjoyed the crispy skin and all the drippings that flavored the rice we ordered. The meat was juicy, soft, and tender. It was so satisfying, and a great way to welcome us into eating the little world that is Hong Kong.

When we were on our way from the airport to the hotel, our driver and I had some small talk about living in Hong Kong vs. New York. He complained about the rapidly rising cost of living in Hong Kong and said that things that were once cheap were now extremely expensive (sounds like the complaints of pretty much everyone everywhere, self included). He even used the English word for “inflation” to emphasize how frustrating it all was. In general, Cantonese-style roast meats, known as 燒味 siu mei in Cantonese or shao wei in Mandarin, are considered a delicacy in Chinese cuisine — an integral style of cooking that makes Cantonese cuisine (粤菜 or Yue Cai) so highly respected across China. Though dishes like cha siu (Cantonese-style BBQ roast pork) are nearly daily staples that tend to be more affordable at roast meat shops in Chinatowns around the world, dishes like roast goose and duck are always far more expensive, as they require a bit more skill. Though I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t totally expecting our half roast goose to come out to 258 HKD, or just over $33. I was fine to pay it since we never get roast goose, and we’re on holiday in Hong Kong anyway, so why not while here? But these sounded like prices I’d pay for a similar half duck or goose in New York. So, this definitely wasn’t the cheap eats meal I was remembering from 2015-2016 for sure. However, I suppose to even it out, our decently-sized plate of yu choy was only 20 HKD, or just over $2.50 USD. It’s a give and take world here in post COVID-19 pandemic Hong Kong while in a high inflation period. I’ll still be happy to eat all, but I know that the “cheap eats” is all relatively defined, and a lot of things, if cheaper, will only be marginally cheaper than back home in New York.

Packing packed luggage for the long trip back

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Ever since we’ve been coming down to Australia for Christmas with Kaia in tow, packing to go back to New York has always felt stressful. It’s not actually like we have more luggage or more stuff, but it feels like it’s more stressful, and I’m not sure how to explain that. Before she existed, Chris would mostly pack the large suitcase coming back with lots of his favorite Arnott’s biscuits and crackers, Australian wine and gin. We’ve had to cut way, way back on all of that in favor of all of Kaia’s gifts. In the last two years, Kaia actually hasn’t received that many gifts quantity wise, but somehow, some way, they manage to fill up the large luggage pretty quickly. There’s really no polite way to tell friends or family in Australia that if they’d like to gift Kaia something on the larger side to please just have it shipped to New York, huh?

I have lost count of the number of stuffed animals she has been gifted. Luckily in the last year or so, she’s grown fond of some of her stuffed animals, like Peter Rabbit. But even he has lost his charm with her. She pretty much doesn’t even acknowledge him anymore. Now, she seems into certain stuffed animals in the moment. Chris’s friend gifted her a little monkey we named Simon (after the friend), and she seems to like him for today, so I guess we’re bringing him back with us. Chris’s cousin got her a huge koala stuffed animal that was customized with her name on its belly. I cannot believe how much space this koala takes in this suitcase!

I’ve told Chris this a number of times, and I will say it here: I would really, really love to one day, take an international trip somewhere, and only walk through the airport with just my purse; no backpacks, no other carry-on roller bags or luggage. In that event, I’d just check a single roller bag, and that would be all my stuff. I would love to not have to deal with packing a super-stuffed suitcase and having anxiety about it being over the weight limit when we get to the airport to check in. But alas, I do not think that international trip will ever happen coming back from Australia, and it’s unlikely to happen while traveling with Chris, who wants to always check as few (or no ) bags as possible.

Family judgments and passive aggression

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At Chris’s and Chris’s cousin’s urging, Chris’s brother offered to host the wider family over at his place today for our fourth and final day of family festivities before everyone goes off and does their own thing until next year. The logic Chris’s cousin used was: it would be easy because we’d mostly be eating leftover food, and given we’d have a much later start (he asked everyone to come over at 5pm onward, as opposed to around 1pm onward for Christmas Day), he “wouldn’t need to do much” because we’d be playing games and chatting mostly. What no one actually did say in terms of effort, though, when it comes to hosting anyone over, is: you still need to… host. That means doing things like, doing what you can (in the leftover food situation) to tally and ensure there actually *will* be enough food); making sure you get everyone fed and hydrated, having adequate stocks of drinks, alcoholic and nonalcoholic; preparing and heating up the food; cleaning up surfaces and areas where leftover food could be; ensuring you have enough plates, cups, and cutlery for everyone attending. Chris’s mom panicked a little when she heard that her youngest offered to host: “He’s never hosted before. He doesn’t know what to do!” and when she asked him what he planned to serve, he responded, “Leftover food… and I can make everyone espresso martinis!”

It kind of panned out the way I thought it would: While Chris’s brother did deliver on making an espresso martini for everyone who asked for one, and he did provide enough plates, cutlery, and cups, he… didn’t do much else. As I expected, his mom took charge of things like reheating the food, laying out all the placemats and foods and ensuring people ate and drank, cleaning, loading the dishwasher, and helping people empty out their rubbish into rubbish bags. She spent most of her time looking preoccupied cleaning or rinsing or wiping something down that I came over a few times to remind her that she should sit down, relax, and eat, that this wasn’t her place. And she gave me this helpless look. “Poor Ben! He’s just all about his espresso martinis and just doesn’t know…” she said, with this sadness in her voice.

I refrained from saying this, but, no, he’s not poor. He’s so far from poor that he has no idea what the word “poor” actually means, in any sense of the word.

So, it was an interesting night at Chris’s mom’s house… I mean, Chris’s brother’s. And what made it more comical were some of the comments I heard Chris’s aunt make to me. Right before we started talking, I heard her ask one of her grandchildren to pass around the snack bowls that Chris’s mom had put together, because, “No one is passing out any food for anyone to eat. Can you go around and offer this to everyone?”

“Oh, just look at him,” Chris’s aunt said to me, with this half look of pity, half look of mockery. “He must not have ever hosted this many people in his life! You think he will ever find someone to marry? What do you think?”

I wasn’t sure if that was a rhetorical question, but I simply responded and said I wasn’t sure. Realistically speaking, how could anyone be sure who anyone would partner up with or marry or divorce or what? But it certainly felt like a jab not just at Chris’s brother, but also at their parents… for raising someone like Chris’s brother, who Chris’s aunt clearly was not very impressed with tonight.

Laksa station for Boxing Day

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Ever since late last year, when Hot Thai Kitchen published a video about how approachable laksa broth could be to make at home, I started accumulating a very pathetic, paltry collection of shrimp heads in my freezer, which are being stored in a bag. But I would really love to make from-scratch laksa, by making my own laksa paste. It’s easier said than done, not just from time and effort, but from the mere sourcing of ingredients. Candle nuts are an authentic ingredient used in laksa; they are hard, if not impossible, to find in the U.S. Prawn/shrimp heads are a must for real laksa broth, and unfortunately, in U.S. food culture, while Americans love shrimp, they usually have them with no heads and barely any tails. The prawn heads are where all the flavor is to make a delicious laksa broth. So when we were in Springvale in the first week of our time in Melbourne, I was in the spice aisle at an Asian supermarket and came across some promising laksa pastes. I chose one (based on the ingredients list/least amount of preservatives) and decided I’d make laksa at some point during this trip. As we approached Christmas, I came up with this idea that I’d set up a laksa station on the day Chris’s parents hosted. They hosted today, on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), so I decided to set up my station: I pre-cooked some cut up chicken thighs, blanched snake (long) beans, tofu puffs, fish balls/fish cakes, bean sprouts, and Hokkien wheat noodles. I omitted the prawns since I figured we’d have enough protein. For the broth, it was really simple and quick: I combined the laksa paste with water and coconut milk, boiled, then simmered. And that was it! As family came in, I ambushed them at the door to ask them if they wanted laksa. They came to my station to tell me which components they wanted, and then I made each bowl to order. It was definitely a different thing to do, since usually on Boxing Day, we have leftovers all re-heated and set up potluck style, but I thought this would be fun to mix things up.

And it seemed like in the end, it was a hit: even Chris’s cousin’s three sons, who are picky eaters, all ate some component of the laksa station. Two of them even said they liked the broth and didn’t find it too spicy. One of them ate my fish balls…. although slathered in ketchup. But you know what? I think it’s a win when a picky eater is willing to eat anything new for the first time. I also discovered some of Chris’s relatives’ eating neuroses: One of them has a slightly paranoid hatred of tofu in any form (he asked me three separate times to make sure that there was no tofu in his bowl) and has passed it down to his daughter, who greeted me with the same paranoia when I told her I had a bowl of tofu puffs. Another relative refuses to eat prawns, and when she found out the broth had shrimp paste, she said she wouldn’t eat it. Then, she subsequently told me excitedly that she is going to Vietnam with her husband, cousin, and cousin’s spouse in early January, but while this may be new and exciting, she’s terrified of eating the food (“No offense,” she insisted, knowing half my heritage is Vietnamese). “I just don’t like eating things that are unfamiliar!”

There is something about serving food to loved ones that always gets me excited. A bunch of relatives kept thanking me and saying it must have been a lot of work. But to me, a bunch of blanching, reheating a pre-made, store-bought laksa paste with some water and coconut milk, and a little stir-frying of chicken actually isn’t too much effort. Sure, it took time to set up everything, but all good things take some time. These are the times it’s yet another reality check to me that most of my from-scratch cooking isn’t done by most people of today; I’m truly an anomaly, even among people who love food. A cousin had exclaimed how amazing it was that I went to the effort to make laksa for the whole family, and to order, and I laughed it off, saying it wasn’t even from scratch; I used a pre-made paste! And he responded, “Oh, no — you don’t understand: in my household, that IS ‘homemade’! You don’t even want to know what we eat at our house most days!”

I may do another laksa station Down Under next year, or another made-to-order station in the same vein. I found this whole thing really fun! We’ll just need to tell people to make less food next year to prevent food waste.

Everyone’s aging this Christmas… and every day of the year

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It’s Christmas day today, and Chris’s 43rd birthday. Chris has been telling everyone that he’s been loving his 40s and that his younger brother, who is turning 40 next September, should be embracing this new era of his life. Chris’s aunt and uncle hosted Christmas at their house. We did as we usually did and had lunch/dinner potluck style, so everyone brought a bunch of dishes to share. Given that we had a good chunk of the family away in Canada this year, there were fewer people to eat the food, so there was probably far more food than we really needed. In addition, some of the kids are slightly picky eaters, so Chris’s aunt made some plainer dishes like penne with tomato sauce and sausages in buns to ensure they ate.

Chris’s aunt just turned 70. She told me that she is feeling her age: simple tasks that were easy to do make her tired now. She has had her three grandsons over more often for babysitting because her older son’s place is undergoing some unanticipated renovations due to water damage; sometimes, she’s even had them overnight. She’s gotten stressed feeding them because they are so picky; one of them claims he’s allergic to vegetables or anything green. But she said that with age, she’s also realized she has to just let things go. “Let them!” she’s said to me about her new attitude when people say or do things she doesn’t like or she can’t stand. She said that there’s a podcast she wants to listen to that is literally called, “Let them.” His aunt said that hosting Christmas and events is tiring, but someone has to do it, and she still wants people to enjoy. So it’s worth it in the end. Though this year, she said, she wanted to make things a bit simpler and use disposable cups and plates. “It’s just one less thing to fuss over!” she said. If it’s easier for everyone, why not? Sure, it’s less environmentally friendly, but it’s just a couple days a year.

It makes me wonder, though, when it’s really our generations’ turn to do the bulk of the work for “hosting.” I think it really should be… NOW. Granted, Chris and I don’t live here, so it’s not like we could do it (plus, we already cook a big chunk of the dishes for the gatherings). But I think that given our parents’ generation is getting older and many are already in their 70s, it really should be more on us to do the work for hosting, whether it’s using our spaces (really, Chris’s cousins’ or Chris’s brother’s), setting up, organizing, laying out the food spreads, cleaning up. It’s why whenever Chris’s parents host, I try to do what I can to help set up, cook, and clean up. It especially makes up for the fact that their youngest son doesn’t do any of the above and just rolls in like he’s a guest. Sometimes, I can’t understand why it seems like everyone in the family of our generation is helpful when their parents host, literally every year and every time… except for Chris’s younger brother. Where did things go wrong here?