Student Translation Project
HKBU 2016
The Savour of Shrimp Roe
HO WU Yin Ching
Indeed, but when sadness passed in the end, enthusiasm was needed again. That day, we made lots of dumplings stuffed with Chinese cabbage or garlic chives, mixed with minced pork or minced beef. How funny! Once boiled, the ingredients in the dumplings were hard to tell apart. All I could taste were images of us making dumplings. When Chun Wing was kneading the dough into dumpling wrappers, he cramped his arms and needed ointment. Dad was all thumbs when he was folding the wrappers — getting nothing close to regular-shaped dumplings. He even gave them ridiculous names like “doll-shaped dumplings”. He was so impatient that he left to play computer games ten minutes later. After gaming for half an hour, he felt a bit sorry and came back to see us bustle around, laughing at our clumsy work. My daughter brought a digital camera with her and took many photos with her floured fingers. She said just so grandpa could take his time and have a good look at those photos on the computer.
On Valentine's Eve, the kids were wide-awake late at night chitchatting in front of the oven. They were making tiny chocolates and a soft mousse cake. I was counting those well-designed gifts of love beside the oven, full of praise, yet I began to feel a sense of sadness. Loneliness was like the high tide at dusk, which was blurred and a little sour, surging wave after wave. There was not much space to stand on the beach while not getting wet. Even in bed, the sweetness of dessert still haunted me.
On Valentine's Afternoon, it became less noisy at the university campus. If I were a student, I would have skipped classes and risked my grades for my valentine today. At the moment, I was alone in the office, listening to the non-stop typing sound, depressed to death. I looked at my watch - it was 5:30 – and thought that my old dad’s helper might have not cooked yet. I called him and asked, "Would you like to go out and have wonton noodles with me?" He was pleased and agreed immediately. I jumped up from the seat, saved a few files on the computer and closed them without even thinking. My train of thought was interrupted, but it was kept safe in the computer’s memory. Several tasks were screaming "no", as if trying to eat me alive. After clicking "Shut Down" then "Cancel" for a few times, only then I got rid of the struggle. I’m not used to leaving the office early. I hailed a taxi and rushed to my father’s home. He was playing online games, again. A computer technician once told me, "Your father’s gaming skill is superb. If there is an age group competition, he would surely take the title."
About a year ago, when my mother was in a really poor condition, my father would play computer games all day long. Now that he is widowed, computer games still occupy a major portion of his life. Then, it was mainly to turn away from reality; now it was to kill time. My mother had always been in poor health and frail with high blood pressure. She was haunted by endless stomachaches, headaches and back pain so she spent most of her time laying down reading. On days when mum felt more energetic, dad would take her for a feast quest. Steamed prawns, pan-fried crabs, pancakes, fried chickens... you name it, and they would swallow indulgently regardless of our doctor’s warnings. Although my mother needed to take blood pressure pills and diuretics every day, as long as she could go out with my father, she would be so pleased that she wouldn’t care about anything. From Yuen Long to Stanley, The Peak to Sai Kung, the two ate everywhere and made a lot of comments back home like some superb food connoisseurs. Then, all of a sudden, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At first it was mistaken as mere stomachaches. Endoscopy showed nothing abnormal, so my mum just kept running on with her feasting business until she started vomiting whenever she ate. In the last few months of her life, she couldn’t eat anything. She only took a spoonful of watery rice noodles no matter how hungry she was. All those diseases related to high cholesterol, such as stroke or heart diseases, which had always concerned our doctor, did not bother her. What took her life was something too hard for her to swallow: cancer cells.
Before the illness, I scolded my parents for being so reckless sometimes, "How could you put everything into your mouths like that at your age? And it’s better to cook with less salt. Otherwise Mum's feet will swell again..." They would not argue with me, nor stop looking for excellent restaurants. Mum called me whenever they found something nice, and she always sounded very excited, "Ching, we're enjoying our tea in Yuen Long and the food tastes awesome! Will you join us?" I could not help being mad when I received these calls. I thought, grumbling to myself, "She knows that I'm at work at 11am. How can I possibly come? Who will support your retirement if I ditch my work to be your company?" Now, nobody gave me calls like this anymore, and my ears felt rather hollow and itchy. It was my turn to call my kids and ask whether they would be home for dinner or not, but very often the only thing I heard was "please leave a message". When they were finally free to call back, dinner was long over.
Now, dinner was the only time I could spend with my dad. Mum did not have a proper dinner for days before she passed away, as she had suffered from unbearable abdominal pain when she was admitted to the hospital. The doctor told us that her stomach tissue had been already dead by then. The two symmetrical red blotches on her cheeks gave her a little flush instead. "They are the signs of vasculogenesis. I am afraid your mother is beyond cure, so it is better for you to prepare for the worst," added the doctor. That day I bought her some congee with dried vegetables but she sipped only a little. At the time, we would become very thrilled whenever mum swallowed a tiny bit of liquid nutrients as if she would get better or recover, but all our hopes were in vein. The few spoons of porridges that my mum ate could only linger in her decayed esophagus, but were destined to stick in my throat for the rest of my life, neither swallowable nor removable.
After swallowing a little congee that evening, mother gradually lost her consciousness and was in a coma for eight days before she passed away. While she was still responsive, my younger brother would not leave her side. But mum said he was disturbing her to watch the drama series. It was a story about Li Shizhen, a legendary doctor in ancient China who could cure all illnesses. I wondered what mum thought about this, yet she never had the chance to answer us.
After the funeral, the fictional story of the miracle-working doctor was still showing on the television. Dad’s hollow eyes scattered along the wreaths of smoke, seeming to fail visualising any object at arm’s length. Fortunately, dad was still willing to eat. Two days before mum passed away, dad came back to the hospital with a roasted sweet potato during the ward round. That instant, the room was filled with gracious savours, and the irresistible diffusion of many childhood memories. Dad grabbed a knife from somewhere and sliced the sweet potato: golden, steaming, juicy, tender and warm. He offered a slice to the doctor, insistently. The kind-hearted doctor took it with thanks and put it in his mouth. Brother and I had some as well, not knowing why we still had the appetite, but we did. After that the doctor pulled me outside the ward and said, "Your father needs medicine, too". Without a dose of surprise, I answered, "Alright. Please give him a prescription". Antidepressants were given. "In the following six months, watch over him carefully," the doctor reminded me, and I burst into tears.
The following months, dad lost more than ten pounds, but still had a good appetite. No one understood why he lost weight. He threw away the antidepressants secretly without telling us. To “keep an eye” on him, my family and I went to his place every evening for dinner. Dishes prepared by dad always seemed too various, too “abundant” to finish in one go and had to be served again the next day. There was no shortage of salted eggs, air-dried sausages, soya beans paste and salted fish, but not quite enough green vegetables . Every afternoon we would bid our children sternly that there was absolutely no way for them to be late. If they were been late for a couple of minutes, dad’s face would turn red. There were several times when we, eating silently, saw him gulp the saltiest things one after the other, and smoke two cigarettes in a row by the window after dinner. It didn’t take long for the kids to say with embarrassment. “Mum, I have swimming training this evening so I won’t go to grandpa’s for dinner,” escaped my daughter. “Mum, I’m busy with my homework. No dinner at grandpa’s then,” fled my son. But when I returned home after having had dinner with my dad, I saw my son cooking supermarket dumplings by himself. Obviously, the kids were afraid of the table that linked eating with death.
One day I told my dad that we would go to his place for dinner every other day instead.Before the conversation, I was quite nervous as I was afraid that it would deepen his wounds. Having struggled for a very long time, I told him. It was to my surprise that dad agreed with no hesitation; his voice even sounded quite delightful. During the following weeks, the evenings not spent at his home felt uneasy. I couldn’t help but picture him stuffing whatever into his mouth, spending the evening alone without even saying a word. However, totally unexpected, dad’s mood became better and better. In the evenings that we visited him, he would buy mutton, or turn on the steam boiler for hot pot, or prepare Teochew cold crabs which was my favourite (although dad is from Zhongshan). Sometimes he would make dumplings with us and end up with flour all over him. Seeing him get back in shape, Chun Wing and I were both very happy but could not understand the change at all. “Maybe he also needs some space. One can never be sad in an enthusiastic crowd,” said Chun Wing.
Since then, dad put on weight again. After dinner, he prepared Gong Fu tea, peeled fruits, traditional snacks and sweet potato sweet soup one by one as usual. We enjoyed all the treats together with TV shows, spending many ordinary nights with our bellies full. Then Valentine’s Day arrived. I asked dad to go for wonton noodles together at a distant place, the one mum praised unceasingly when she was still alive.
The wontons served there were really delicious. Usually in other noodle shops, the wontons were large in size with two big frozen shrimps wrapped inside -- your stomach would be full just seeing them. Mum hated this kind of wonton. But the ones they served in this noodle shop were very small, with a little fresh shrimps and pork inside, appetising indeed. Dad picked up the spoon from the small bowl and put it in front of my nose so that I could have a clear look. “The savour you’ve mentioned comes from these little black dots. See,” he said. “They’re shrimp roe,” I replied and dad nodded. The waiter came to collect the bowls as he noticed we had finished our noodles. “I haven’t finished,” dad said to the waiter. He then sipped the remaining shrimp roe soup and savoured every spoonful carefully.
After a while, on top of the wonton noodles, dad ordered a bowl of pork knuckle noodles, followed by some desserts and sweet soup. How could a senior like him eat that much? “Don’t worry. As long as he’s happy, it’s alright,” Chun Wing said. After dinner, we took a taxi and headed back home. Chun Wing insisted on dropping dad off right in front of his door. “It’s fine. Dad ate so much and he needs to walk for a bit.” Dad agreed with me and said, “Exactly.” I watched his tottering figure recede in the colourful New Year lights, and couldn’t tell if I was happy or sad. “It’s Valentine’s Day,” I made a random remark to Chun Wing. “Yeah, we have sort of hung out today. I didn’t expect there’d still be seats in the small noodle shop,” Chun Wing answered causally. It seemed lovers did not want to celebrate their Valentine’s Day in a noodle shop, no matter how tasty the noodles were.
The savour of the shrimp roe in the wonton soup was still lingering in my mouth, to be replaced by the creamy sweetness of the chocolate. Suddenly, I thought of my parents’ appetite. Tears filled my eyes. What overflowed out of the oven last night was much more than just a romantic festival.
We walked in a slow, slow pace. The kids were probably still enjoying their sweet moments. There was no point rushing back home. To our surprise, our son was already there when we came back. When he saw us, he immediately took out a small piece of mousse cake from the refrigerator and said, “This is for you. My classmates said I did a pretty good job.” We were already stuffed, but I still took the plate he handed to me. I ate it in small bites, and yes, it was heavenly. Just then, the door opened, and there was my daughter. She ran straight to the refrigerator without taking off her backpack and shared with us a few delicate pieces of chocolate she found — wait, weren’t those supposed to be made for her boyfriend?
