What was your favorite food growing up? Also did you usually have large family dinners? I’m wandering if this may help trigger a core memory of dinner with your grand parents!
In Guangzhou it was 小笼包, from what little I can remember.
In NYC, I remembered liking sushi and Big Macs and McChicken (I mean, back then when that stuff was good). I remember things like Roasted Duck (燒鴨) and Cha Siu (叉燒) from Chinatown and also there were some Chinese restaurants near where I used to live. So often when my parents didn’t cook, we had some of those stuff from the restaurant and just cooked rice at home and the Cha Siu or Roasted Duck was served with rice. On rare occasions, we went to McDonalds (again, back then they actually tasted good, I mean like around 2010s).
In Philly, not really sure, but I think its the Shimai (燒賣).
Now for most hated food? The fucking school lunch ffs, ew. Everyone across all the different school I’ve been to, joked that it was prison food.
NYC used to open schools in the summer so kids can be fed (school lunch was free) so my parents made sure to take me and my brother there so we are less hungry and thus need to eat less at home thus saving money. I hated it. Its literal prison food. Its even worse in Philly schools.
(Okay I’m not actually saying that school is prison, but they sure made it feel like prison.)
Question: why is it that East Asians are so thrifty like the lunch thing? I have seen it in various aspects like at the grocery store when you could take as many bags as you like for packing your food the Asian ladies would grab a stack of like 50 bags and pocket them.
Or at the ATM deposit machine where they have the envelops for deposit, the Asian crowd would grab the whole stack and take it with them.
A neighbour changed their porch light to those tiny 5w night light bulbs.
Our Asian friend grabs all the dog park bags because they are free. I explained they aren’t technically free our city taxes pay for the refills.
Is poverty bad in PRC where you have to stockup on free stuff to save money?
I mean… my parents really hates even a tiny bit of waste. Like the phrase 粒粒皆辛苦 (Something like: “Every grain [of rice] is from hard work”) is said to me whenever I leave like idk a tiny bit of rice in the bowl. Like… Lol.
There was also this I guess Mao-era slogan that goes something like 浪费是极大的犯罪 (Waste is a serious crime) that I hear my father talked about.
(I never really initiated a conversation about how thing were back then, because we aren’t really on speaking terms anymore and I didn’t want to end up in an awkward conversation where they belittle me about every time I did something that costed them money.)
But just from these two phrases, its an obvious tell-tale sign of how thing were. My mom always tell me that since I have food, clothing, shelter, I have basic needs of survival and I should be grateful to be born in this family, and also I should be grateful for being lucky enough to be able to come to the US. “你已經好幸福了，好多人都冇身份來嘅” (Idk how to translate this, somethinh like: “You should be very happy(?) about things, a lot of people don’t even have legal status” basically expecting me to “be grateful” and not complain about anything) I mean, I did have Chinese-American classmates whose parents came without permission.
So… like toys and entertainment is literally never talked about, that’s considered luxury, I rarely had anything fun.
I mean, new immigrants also had shitty jobs, I was stuck in afterschool programs (because I don’t think minors are legally be allowed to be at home without an adult) until like 6PM, then I’d be the last one to get picked up. Like almost every day.
So I guess from this, yes, things are probably not going great. Especially for new immigrants.
Not to excuse those people who do those weird things you described, but I think you probably shouldn’t judge too harshly, hardship makes people act like that.
As far as I can tell, its the character of the people who are able to travel. The most shocking thing I found in China was that Chinese, even tourists within China, were quieter and more considerate than outside China. That’s not to say they’re not still kinda loud at 2am, cut in line, barge onto elevators before letting people off, etc, just not as bad as you see further away from China.
The families who are able and willing to go to America are more likely to be the kind of small business tyrants who have gigantic egos and idolize America.
Its like this small bun thing where there is meat inside, and you steam it to cook it. I remember it being really good.
Those in the supermarkets are not the same thing, those sucks, frozens foods are never even close to the real thing. You have to get it from an actual restaurant.
I think its because of that some variants of the 小笼包 has like “soup” in it, which make it less “dry” to eat, compared to like a standard bun. Its smaller and easier to eat. Kinda feels like a dumpling. And you don’t have to chew through so much bread to get to meat, like the meat to bread ratio is higher.
What was your favorite food growing up? Also did you usually have large family dinners? I’m wandering if this may help trigger a core memory of dinner with your grand parents!
Favorite food…
In Guangzhou it was 小笼包, from what little I can remember.
In NYC, I remembered liking sushi and Big Macs and McChicken (I mean, back then when that stuff was good). I remember things like Roasted Duck (燒鴨) and Cha Siu (叉燒) from Chinatown and also there were some Chinese restaurants near where I used to live. So often when my parents didn’t cook, we had some of those stuff from the restaurant and just cooked rice at home and the Cha Siu or Roasted Duck was served with rice. On rare occasions, we went to McDonalds (again, back then they actually tasted good, I mean like around 2010s).
In Philly, not really sure, but I think its the Shimai (燒賣).
Now for most hated food? The fucking school lunch ffs, ew. Everyone across all the different school I’ve been to, joked that it was prison food.
NYC used to open schools in the summer so kids can be fed (school lunch was free) so my parents made sure to take me and my brother there so we are less hungry and thus need to eat less at home thus saving money. I hated it. Its literal prison food. Its even worse in Philly schools.
(Okay I’m not actually saying that school is prison, but they sure made it feel like prison.)
Question: why is it that East Asians are so thrifty like the lunch thing? I have seen it in various aspects like at the grocery store when you could take as many bags as you like for packing your food the Asian ladies would grab a stack of like 50 bags and pocket them. Or at the ATM deposit machine where they have the envelops for deposit, the Asian crowd would grab the whole stack and take it with them. A neighbour changed their porch light to those tiny 5w night light bulbs. Our Asian friend grabs all the dog park bags because they are free. I explained they aren’t technically free our city taxes pay for the refills.
Is poverty bad in PRC where you have to stockup on free stuff to save money?
I mean… my parents really hates even a tiny bit of waste. Like the phrase 粒粒皆辛苦 (Something like: “Every grain [of rice] is from hard work”) is said to me whenever I leave like idk a tiny bit of rice in the bowl. Like… Lol.
There was also this I guess Mao-era slogan that goes something like 浪费是极大的犯罪 (Waste is a serious crime) that I hear my father talked about.
(I never really initiated a conversation about how thing were back then, because we aren’t really on speaking terms anymore and I didn’t want to end up in an awkward conversation where they belittle me about every time I did something that costed them money.)
But just from these two phrases, its an obvious tell-tale sign of how thing were. My mom always tell me that since I have food, clothing, shelter, I have basic needs of survival and I should be grateful to be born in this family, and also I should be grateful for being lucky enough to be able to come to the US. “你已經好幸福了，好多人都冇身份來嘅” (Idk how to translate this, somethinh like: “You should be very happy(?) about things, a lot of people don’t even have legal status” basically expecting me to “be grateful” and not complain about anything) I mean, I did have Chinese-American classmates whose parents came without permission.
So… like toys and entertainment is literally never talked about, that’s considered luxury, I rarely had anything fun.
I mean, new immigrants also had shitty jobs, I was stuck in afterschool programs (because I don’t think minors are legally be allowed to be at home without an adult) until like 6PM, then I’d be the last one to get picked up. Like almost every day.
So I guess from this, yes, things are probably not going great. Especially for new immigrants.
Not to excuse those people who do those weird things you described, but I think you probably shouldn’t judge too harshly, hardship makes people act like that.
Thanks
As far as I can tell, its the character of the people who are able to travel. The most shocking thing I found in China was that Chinese, even tourists within China, were quieter and more considerate than outside China. That’s not to say they’re not still kinda loud at 2am, cut in line, barge onto elevators before letting people off, etc, just not as bad as you see further away from China.
The families who are able and willing to go to America are more likely to be the kind of small business tyrants who have gigantic egos and idolize America.
Tourists/bussiness travelers would be rich, yes.
Immigrants, however, are typically poor.
Thank you so much for sharing. Mind clarifying what the first thing was?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaolongbao
Its like this small bun thing where there is meat inside, and you steam it to cook it. I remember it being really good.
Those in the supermarkets are not the same thing, those sucks, frozens foods are never even close to the real thing. You have to get it from an actual restaurant.
Oh I love bao! It’s a great comfort food
How does Xiaolongbao vary from other pork baozi?
I’ll be on the lookout for 小笼包. Probably won’t be back in Guangzhou for awhile though.
I think its because of that some variants of the 小笼包 has like “soup” in it, which make it less “dry” to eat, compared to like a standard bun. Its smaller and easier to eat. Kinda feels like a dumpling. And you don’t have to chew through so much bread to get to meat, like the meat to bread ratio is higher.
I mean idk how to describe taste of food lol.