Food From Dad And Stirring Clouds From My Hands

2010

The teenage son came home late. No matter how gently the boy turned the key in the door, his father would always catch him in the act. The father scolded his son for not letting him know he would not be back for dinner. “You could have left a note at the dining table in the morning before school!”

His father did not like that his son was eating out so much. The son’s allowance was quite low, so the food he’d been having wouldn’t have been anything nice. The worst-case scenario would have been that he’d skipped meals. But there was no way for his father to check if all his son felt was fear. The father’s authoritarian figure did not serve their relationship well. It was disappointing that he knew no other way to hold it all together. In the end, the father wondered, how could his son choose to eat elsewhere when their own dad used to be a chef?

It was hard being a single dad. Trying to bond better with his young son, he moved to a managerial position in the corporate office and gave up his own cooking craft in the world-class Chinese restaurant kitchen where he worked. This way, he could get home in the evening to share dinner with his child. His hot-oil-scarred hand, once tossing grains and meat on woks, now pressed buttons on a keyboard to move numbers across a magic spreadsheet. His shift in career was a move that everyone envied, but he only felt a great loss. He inherited the restaurant as the only son in his family. It had then been bought by a giant food conglomerate for its fame, and he’d stayed on as the head chef.

“Could you not just tell me so I do not need to wait for you? Did you go to your friends’ place to play video games again? I have made your favourite drumsticks and potato stew. You loved it when you were a kid, I only wish that you could be happy to stay home again. The potato is so soft, and the meat is falling off the bone. You would once mix it with rice, smooshing it all together in one bowl to make a delicious meal, perfect for eating with just a spoon. I am sorry that I was not around much when you were younger, but let me get back lost time now that Mum is gone. I gave up the restaurant for you. Could you just stay with me for a bit before you become a full-grown man?”

Only if these were the words the father could say to his son.

The son went straight to his bedroom, decorated with drawings of clouds and moons. Here, he’d been encouraged to dream, just as long as he stayed in his room. But now he didn’t want to come back to this room, for his heart needed to run wild. He wished these clouds could deliver him elsewhere - anywhere other than this house would be fine.

2015

The two young men rushed through the front door, ignoring the party in the living room with its loud music and alcohol drinking. The tan-skinned one pulled the fair-skinned one by his hand up the stairs into a room with posters of the planetary systems and paintings of stirring clouds in all hues which hung all over the walls. “You are gorgeous.” He pressed his lips to his left ear. His finger hastily unbuttoned his own shirt, then his trousers. The blonde boy moaned and slowly sat back on the bed’s olive green duvet. He pulled down his shorts so he could gently press his head of black hair down to his loins. A slow cooker next to the open window gave off a constant smell of red wine and bay leaf.

The son has now moved to a bigger city and is in his second year of uni studying oil painting. He spent the first year working the sense of fear out of his system so that he could finally be himself. Sadly, his heart had already been broken when his high school crush went to a different uni in a different city. Perhaps it was this exact crumbled heart that allowed him to venture beyond his shells.

He slipped his hand under the t-shirt of the beautiful man sitting on his bed, exploring his flesh, bobbing his head steadily with his eyes closed. He could not fathom how deeply he relished the body he was clasping with his lips. Dark aroma rose, not from his actions, but the chemical sparks buzzing in his skull. His face was caressed by the warm and freckled hands of the temporary lover. His hands glided along his jaw, down to his collarbone, and squeezed as the hand’s owner let out a pleasurable noise. Feverish. World abandoning.

“Oh, slurp it. Don’t you know how to slurp it? I know it’s not noodles, but I want to hear you enjoying it. I want you to say it’s yummy. Yeah? Like you are on clouds? Say you want more. You like it so much, I can tell. Good boy. You suck it so well. Keep going. Ah.”

The slow cooker gave a series of gentle beep, beep, beep, beep, beeps. He slowed down his movement and gently stroked the man’s thigh just before putting his weight on it to lift himself off the floor. He opened the lid, and it was a casserole of beef bourguignon.

Good boy indeed, he was.

1995

I did not get married to you to be shamed.

There will never be enough Cantonese I could learn to be respected by your evil parents.

No. I don’t care if they meant it or not. I gave up living with my own parents to come and live with your god-knows-how-big family, just because you people don’t believe in starting a new family.

Yes. I am in love with you. My love for you has only grown ever since we met and got married, and now I am bearing your child. Yet, your parents still call me the “gui por” (ghost woman) and have never trusted me with your family recipes.

Just today, I was working for your family in the restaurant, and I could hear them laughing at my attempts to serve the diners in Cantonese. What’s worse is that they knew I could hear it, and yet they still did it. I am a pregnant woman serving food. I felt so bullied. You said things will be better once we give your parents a grandchild, but I see nothing has changed.

No, baby. I know you do enjoy things I love. And yes, I am glad to be part of your culture now. But I do miss doing my own thing. I miss going out for a steak dinner. I miss having a Sunday roast. I miss feeling at ease at the dinner table, without worrying about your cousin trying to teach me how to use chopsticks the right way again.

If you don’t stand up for me, how are you going to stand up for our future child if they want to be different? They are going to be different anyways. They are going to be mixed-race. What if they don’t look Chinese? Imagine the things your parents are going to say if they don’t look Chinese…

I still don’t understand why I got so shamed to be cooking just a beef bourguignon. If I am expected to respect your palate, then why can’t your parents respect mine?

2025

The son decided to spend his thirtieth birthday with his dad.

In the house he used to sneak into at night, he dropped his suitcase in his childhood bedroom. He let out a deep sigh as he stared at the charcoal drawings on the wall. Naive. He thought to himself.

In the kitchen, his father was cooking the best meal ever. Every hob was occupied, and all kitchen appliances were in use. Even the rice was special, a mix of brown, jasmine, pearl and barley, with bits of Chinese sausages and a splash of Shaoxing wine. The roast pork had burst its skin, and the steamed chicken had the smoothest skin yet the crunchiest meat. The dip was the standard chopped scallion and ginger, scorched with hot oil. The son asked his dad about every dish, making sure he memorised the secrets of his father’s cooking.

What was missing was the drumstick and potato stew. The father made it a lot when the boy was young, as he could just leave it in the pot and go off to do more cooking for the restaurant kitchen. He had regretted doing so. He’d thought it was a bad omen for the meat and bone to separate, for in Chinese, there is a phrase of the same meaning that implies the splitting between mothers and sons (骨肉分離).

He blamed himself for everything, in fact. For how his wife and the mother of his only son died so early. For not being there enough when his son was young. For his son being gay. For how he never made the time to understand his son’s art. For his son is now living in another city and only visits once every season.

Over the dinner table, they did not chat much but watched the telly together. There was far too much food. The son could have brought his new boyfriend, and there would still have been food left. His father packed all the leftovers in takeaway boxes and stacked them neatly in a paper bag, with a note that said. “Enjoy them with your friend living with you.”

Before the son left, he hung an oil painting of stirring clouds with leaking sunlight next to a drawing of clouds his younger self had made in his bedroom. He didn’t tell his dad that a series of these cloud paintings had recently been collected by a commercial gallery in Mayfair. It did not matter.

2035

“Daddy, tell me again about my adoption.”

“You were adopted from rural China. We never figured out who your birth parents were, but know that you are so loved. Your papa and I decided to have you after my own dad passed away. Your grandpa is the best chef I know. I am sorry that you don’t get to eat his food.”

“Daddy, you are the best chef I know as well.”

He went blank for a moment. He could almost feel his flesh peeling off his bones.

“What about my paintings, son?”

“I like my drawings better.”