Papers written on a place I miss.
We made our way up the escalators together. My brother and my dad standing in front of me, in identical positions; one foot on the next step with an arm rested on the raised leg. Dad looked as if he had a miniature identical twin following him around all the time. Mum was standing behind me, posture straight, while I leaned against the moving rail, hip dragging along the glass. As the escalator ended on the fourth floor we slowly walked off and toward the petite girls in bright pink qui pao dresses with pasted on smiles. They were the qui paos that the old American tourists would buy down on Sha Mien for their granddaughters back in the Midwest; the ones they always paid way too much for, but thought they were getting a hell of a price. The girls stood behind their podium and a confused look came over their faces simultaneously as we approached and announced, “Si ge, xie xie,” (Four, please). Ever confused, giving her partner a shifty glance, one of the girls grabs a sheet of paper and asks us to follow while surveying our group.
Pale Caucasians with bright blue eyes have a tendency to stick out at dim sum restaurants in the heart of Guangzhou, China.
The place was filled with people, screaming at the person next to them about the conversation they had with their jie jie. The sound of dishes clanging together as people sat down to wash their plates, cups, bowls, spoons, and chopsticks in their tea. The smell of damp jasmine filled the room one moment and was replaced by the smell of garlic and sweet meats. The room itself was a sight to behold. The massive ballroom looked as if it was decorated by my Polish great-great-grandmother. The walls were papered in that hideous Pepto-Bismol pink and the windows were partially covered by gold curtains; that 70's gold that people felt somehow belonged in the kitchen. There were pink and yellow streamers and balloons all over the room to match the ghastly décor and give it that extra party-animal feel. A gaudy chandelier hung over-head; the 10 foot diameter gold frame held a million octagonal crystals off of it on strings, meeting in the centre, making it look like a giant breast. The chandelier had never been cleaned and the 15 years of dust had accumulated and settled over my lifetime in this country.
I loved every inch of it. I leaned over an told my parents, “If I get married, I want the reception to be as tacky as this place is,” only half jokingly.
The weekend tradition of having a dim sum breakfast, braving though the cacophony of noise as we nursed our hang-overs into silence, had begun. Mum pulled out her notebook, after ordering a pot of jasmine tea and partaking in the loud clanking cleaning of our dishes at the table, and asked what we wanted this morning. A rapid-fire stream of answers met her ears in a volume as loud our fellow patrons.
“Shu mai!” “Char sui bao!” “Jiao Si!” “Taro cake!” “Choy sum!” “Man Tao!” “Har gao!”
A universal, “Om nom nom,” was shared between myself, my dad, and my brother as we acknowledged each of the dishes we had shouted out.
An older waitress approached our table and took our orders as we fired off the names in our broken Chinese. She smiled and yelled at various other waiters and waitresses something about our table. Something that resembled, “These people are locals.”
We were local. We had to become local after living in Southern China for as long as we had. We watched as people sank or swam to fit into the life they were given in this place. We swam, and we swam well. I remember more of my life in this busy country than I do of living in Oregon. My mum had my brother on a vacation back in Portland. He posed for his passport photo the day after he was released from the hospital and was on a plane two weeks after that, headed back home with us.
We talked loudly to each other at the table and shovelled food into our mouths between sentences, bowls poised under chins, as the various dishes made their way from trays to the table in steam baskets. It was like a competition of which table could be louder and consume more food. People at other tables looked over at us and waved, pointed at our table and ordered what we had. Everything was chaotic and busy here, even at breakfast.
We consumed steamed and fried dumplings filled with shrimp, pork, leeks, and roe; pulled apart soft, freshly steamed buns filled with barbecued pork laced with cinnamon; chewed on pillowy taro cakes and crunchy greens adorned with bright yellow flowers; dipped fried buns into sweetened condensed milk and washed it all down with floral tea. Once we were done, we ordered more, and kept going, yelling, laughing, clanking, shovelling, and eating.
Hangovers were forgotten, headaches had abandoned our brains, and everything was bright and shiny again; bright and shiny in that loud, pink and gold room.
