Short Stories: Grocery List

‘Ma, I’m just calling to let you know, it’s only me for Christmas dinner this year. Mei and Ting need to work overtime again.’

I put my hand in my pocket to reach for that crumpled grocery list Mama passed to me. She wanted to make pork and chive dumplings this Christmas while all the other families on our suburban street had turkey with cranberry jam. She says we have lived too far from home for too long, we have forgotten what Chinese food tastes like, even though we grew up eating at Uncle Ming’s shop at least once a week. When she says this, I think she is missing her own Mama. We have also forgotten the springs from which our culture flourished. Mama often recites the cheng yu she learned when she was a girl to us with scholarly smugness when she wants to insinuate that we have been lazy with our Chinese lessons. Nevertheless, this Christmas, the task was to sit down and make dumplings together. Starting new traditions begins with making good food, Mama instructs. I was inclined to agree, even though secretly I felt that it was far too late for us to begin any worthwhile traditions.

Father and Mama met when they were studying in British Columbia. They convinced themselves that it was love. I guess coming from immigrant families meant that they both had something to prove. He insisted that she stayed after graduation and she, at the time, did little to protest. They bought a house and made a family but I think Mama never found a home in our cold, sleepy town. When she sometimes recalls the flush of her impulsive youth, she never forgets to warn my sisters and me to marry the first man we fall in love with. Now with her daughters at twenty-five, twenty-eight, and thirty, she wonders anxiously (and rather loudly) if any of us would ever get married. We get interrogated every Chinese New Year. However, the of us remain staunchly single. Mama’s hope of coddling grandchildren is a fast-fading light, or at least this is what she reluctantly admits to us privately, after telling the nosy aunties who ask each year that she is satisfied with hardworking career women.

Every weekend, Mama would lead her three little girls like ducklings to stroll along Chinatown and she would have us greet each shop owner. I remember being especially fond of Uncle Bao, he would give us steaming buns that blushed pink oozing with sweet and rich lotus paste. They were especially tasty when it got cold--which it always did. Auntie Ling was nice too, she was the youngest and only helping her mother with their small business but as time passed, she married Uncle Ming from the restaurant next door. It was all for the best. They had agreed, or their parents had. Good for the business they had said. The Lings would supply the Mings with the freshest produce for their restaurant at a good rate. Nobody explained why marriage had to be a part of the business. I knew better than to ask. Father had seldom accompanied us on these routine trips so he did not know all these juicy details. I more than made up for this by talking his ear off when we returned from our weekly trips. Maybe this was why he decided to leave.

I wandered down to Auntie Ling’s shop. Despite being several years younger, Auntie Ling was Mama’s good friend. My sisters and I practically grew up in her small grocery shop. Before Father left and Mama had to take over as the sole breadwinner, she would spend the lazy afternoons here with Auntie Ling. They would chat for hours while we dashed across the aisles, hiding between them and peeking through the shelves, pretending to be spies for the government. Each time the front door jingled we would scramble to stare at the new customers, giggling and dashing off once we lost interest. My sisters and I all took part-time jobs at Auntie Ling’s as we grew older, we all knew that the top shelf on the third aisle does not sit right, and the lightbulb in the employee toilet flickers once every three seconds. My second sister Mei met her first boyfriend when she was still cashiering at Auntie Ling’s, and they broke up during a quarrel at the steaming dumpster behind the shop. Ting and I were not as lucky to have had such a romantic courtship. Now Auntie Ling has grey hair, wears thin wire-frame glasses that perch low on her nose and takes care of the shop alone. She never had children with Uncle Ming.

‘Ma, I can’t find any hua tiao jiu at Auntie Ling’s. But she says she still has the brand of sesame oil that you like though.’

The list of ingredients Mama handed to me was written in Chinese, the light grey pencil scratchings forced me to squint to decipher the details. Mama’s English was very good and so was ours but despite all these years of living in Canada, she was still adamant about using Chinese with us. Don’t forget your roots, she often reminded us. She’d let us get away with many things but remained uncompromising on this front. Yet, she had also forgotten that neither of her three children had any Chinese roots to remember, much less forget.

‘What? But--Okay fine. This means I might get home quite late, are you sure you want me to go all the way there just for one ingredient?’

For all her regrets, my mother did love her children. Even if her love took the form of scalding lashes from the teng tiao. Afterward, Ma’s guilt always manifested in a grand feast, plates of food so numerous they competed for table space and often threatened to tip over the table's edge. The risk of plummeting dishes aside, her apologies were always delicious. Over the years, my sisters and I did our best to learn well how to avoid bearing the brunt of her love, but it seemed as though the unintentional lesson of avoiding your aging mother was the only class I could not ace. Mei and Ting passed with flying colours as usual.

‘Hey. don’t take it out on me, I’m just the messenger. Auntie Ling already explained that nobody uses hua tiao jiu here and it’s a waste to keep bringing stocks in--Okay, okay, I’ll tell her you said that but don’t be mad if she never lets you into the shop ever again.’

I hear Auntie Ling snort from her seat at the counter when she hears me say this to Mama. She knows exactly what Ma would be cursing right now. I bid Auntie Ling a fond goodbye and made my usual empty promise to come visit more often. The shop Ma swore would have hua tiao jiu was still quite a distance away, I watched my breath make small puffs of white clouds when I exhaled. My fingers were numb and blue, so I tucked them under my armpits and marched forward. I think about Ma’s smooth fingertips, and how years of housework have shined off the ridges of her fingerprints. I think about her weathered palms cradling a soft parcel of pork mince wrapped in paper-thin dough. I think about how she used to show us how to seal dumplings, her thumb pressing swiftly across to fold neat delicate creases. I remember we were wide-eyed, fascinated with her practiced deftness and speed. Our little dumpling assembly line had turned chaotic right after, each sibling scrambling to seal the most dumplings. By the end of the day our palms were red and hot with cane marks.

‘Ma, they have it here! I got two bottles just in case. I’m on my way home, see you soon… Huh? What do you mean you don’t want to cook anymore? But I just bought all the ingredients!’

I glanced down at the basketful of ingredients in exasperation, I glanced heavenward for divine intervention. Ma had insisted that I buy enough for four people in case Mei and Ting could suddenly make it. My footsteps seemed to sink deeper into the snow as I trudged ever closer home. The sky was darkening. I wonder if Mei and Ting have eaten Christmas dinner.

‘It’s okay Ma, I understand. Please rest, I’ll do the cooking when I get back. I’ll wake you up when dinner is ready.’

That evening, I could not get Ma to wake up after she took her nap. That evening, a plate of misshapen, poorly-made dumplings grew cold sitting in the middle of a large dining table big enough to seat four. That evening, there was no start to any new traditions, I had been right. It was far too late, in the late grey winter, all things were doomed to die.

‘Ma, the food is ready. Come, time to wake up. Eat while it’s still nice and hot.’

cheng yu (成语): traditional Chinese idiomatic expression, most of which consist of four characters. The one referred to in the story is 饮水思源.

teng tiao (疼条): a thin piece of rattan that is typically used as a cane to discipline children; the literal translation is 'tender strip'.

hua tiao jiu (花雕酒): a rice wine commonly used in Chinese cuisine, the name describes the flowery pattern engraved on the jars to store the wine. Also called Shaoxing wine, named after the city in China's Zhejiang Province famous for rice wine production.