Two Poems
How I Impress Others with My Cantonese
At a dim sum restaurant
you’ll need to ask for la jiu jeong (chili sauce),
la jiu yeow (chili oil), or dao ban jeong (bean paste sauce)
depending on your preference.
Try not to use Cantonese
after saying hi
if you’re paranoid and unsure
because that’s a rude word
in Cantonese.
Siu mei is not siu mai.
San fu (priest),
san fu (new pants),
san fu (uncomfortable/difficult).
If you’re not sure just
ask for har gow, siu mai,
and char siu bao
and certainly not phoenix claws
unless you like unmanicured chicken feet
(which I do, actually).
I’m usually given a Chinese menu
because I’m visibly Chinese,
because I speak Mandarin
(though it’s called Putonghua in Hong Kong)
better than Cantonese
I may be mistaken for a mainland Chinese person
but because I took Chinese as a second language
in school and scraped by to get into university,
I can barely recognize the traditional Chinese characters
because in Singapore we use the simplified script.
It’s too complicated to explain all these
to the confused/irritated waiter in Cantonese or Putonghua
so I usually go with har gow, siu mai, and char siu bao.
Siu mei is not siu mai.
San fu (priest),
san fu (new pants),
san fu (uncomfortable/difficult).
Choices
I remember spring onions
and a colleague from Hampshire
who was strictly vegetarian
till he came to Hong Kong
and smelled char siu and siu yuk on my rice.
I remember there were times
I can’t be bothered
and simply told the waiter
I’ll have what my son was having.
I remember an all-day breakfast
on a Monday evening in an Irish pub
at Tsim Sha Tsui with a friend who’s
chasing the bacon, sausages
and potatoes around on his plate,
worried about his job at a bank.
I remember at a generic mall in a generic restaurant
my impatience and sighs when my son, daughter,
wife, and mother-in-law took too long to decide,
whether to go à la carte or have shared dishes with rice,
and if it’s shared dishes whether to go with double-cooked pork
not too spicy with less salt or chicken with pine nuts
plus a vegetable dish or actually
there’s no need to have a vegetable dish
since the meat dishes come with vegetables
plus a few dim sum items or maybe
we should go à la carte after all,
with my son choosing wonton noodles,
my daughter wanting shredded chicken noodles
my wife saying she’ll have double-cooked pork
and chicken with pine nuts and a bowl of rice to share with me
and my mother-in-law wanting just a basket of siu long bao.
I remember how we could never go wrong with food
in Hong Kong, till it was whispered that lunch
the other day was really an interview.
I remember a dinner with some Guinness
at that above-mentioned Irish pub
with a new colleague
who was trying to be polite.
And an extra sneaky Guinness
and having to wait an hour before I leave
simply because there were hardworking policemen
pointing their speed guns on Friday evenings.