Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Turkey vs. Hot Pot
37 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Janice and Suzanne unpack the holiday food divide that says way more about growing up Chinese-Canadian than it probably should: Janice just wanted turkey, Suzanne’s family was firmly team hot pot, and somehow both of them ended up carrying whole childhood identities through what showed up on the table. From Lunar New Year traditions and Chinatown memories to soggy sandwiches, fish eyes at school, and the awkwardness of explaining your food and culture to classmates who didn’t quite get it, this conversation is funny, nostalgic, and surprisingly tender.
It’s an episode about the meals we loved, the lunches we hid, and the traditions that still feel worth passing on.
Timestamps
- 00:05 – Welcome back to Episode 2
- 00:22 – Turkey vs. hot pot: the holiday food debate begins
- 04:15 – Lunar New Year dishes and favourite feast foods
- 07:05 – Chinatown memories, night markets, performances, and lucky candy
- 12:14 – Traditions today, sad Christmas dinner, and serious turkey leftovers
- 15:37 – Dry ham sandwiches, soggy lunches, and the school lunch struggle
- 18:49 – Salted fish, fish eyes, and lunchbox culture shock
- 25:13 – What school did (or didn’t) make space for
- 31:32 – Passing on traditions, hot pot, and watching your eyes
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Holiday Meals
00:00:05
Speaker
Hey everyone, first of all, welcome back to episode two to Fresh Off the Bluff. And if you're returning for episode two, thank you so much. It means so much to us, doesn't it, Suzanne?
00:00:22
Speaker
Yeah, we're if you made it to episode two, we're very excited. We're very excited. Yeah, we're very happy to talk about the next topic. And that is about, you know, being a CVC and going through the holidays. And by holidays, we're talking about, you know, all sorts of holidays and that require the big feast dinner. I
Thanksgiving Traditions: Turkey vs. Hot Pot
00:00:42
Speaker
know growing up, my favorite is actually eating turkey. So I actually really like eating turkey during Thanksgiving or through Christmas.
00:00:53
Speaker
How about you? Did you? Versus me, I never had turkey. Ever. What's wrong with you? but Why? I only had turkey if I went to, I don't know.
00:01:05
Speaker
don't even know. I don't think I ever had turkey. A restaurant? A restaurant? Where? In Squamish? Where? No, maybe maybe in Vancouver?
00:01:16
Speaker
No, we were all we were hot pot people. every china Every Chinese New Year, Christmas, any big celebration, hot pot. Oh my god, that infuriates me. I'm just kidding. Hot pot. Yeah, sometimes my sister would suggest to have hot pot during those types of holidays. And I'm like, why? We have, we're we're Asian, we're Chinese, like we have hot pot all the
Family Holiday Meals: East Meets West
00:01:41
Speaker
time. Why do we have to have it during this time you know I don't I don't ask for much I just want my turkey during Thanksgiving which is totally fair and right you know because you don't get turkey very often first of all so to get turkey yeah I can only get turkey during the month of October and December time just in between those times but I mean nowadays I pick and choose I either just do turkey during Thanksgiving or Christmas I don't do both because then it's an overkill of turkey and I have
00:02:11
Speaker
obviously so many leftovers and I can't eat it all in time. And then now my husband is getting sick of turkey and then have to freeze it. So I get it. I have to portion control now, but I love turkey during the day, during that time. love turkey during the day. Me too. During the day. All day. Every day. Not nighttime.
00:02:32
Speaker
I think, I think for us it was hot pot because it was, A, it was easy. And B, we were always having huge family functions. Like it was just too many people almost.
00:02:43
Speaker
Like we always had aunts and uncles and cousins. And i couldn't imagine, couldn't imagine my mom ever making a turkey for that many people. But the turkey is huge.
00:02:54
Speaker
You would need a huge freaking turkey to feed all of those mouths. And we were also like celebrating a lot of the time in Vancouver. And all of those felt like aunts and uncles were super Asian.
00:03:07
Speaker
I don't think like... Okay, so like the what that type of Western meal wasn't really maybe their thing either? No, I don't think so. Yeah. I don't think so at all.
Lunar New Year Dishes
00:03:16
Speaker
So it's not something that we really... We never celebrated those... We never really celebrated those big occasions in Swamish.
00:03:25
Speaker
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. We were usually in the city because we had all of our family in the city or all of my extended I'm the complete opposite. I think because also like my side of the family that that lived here... are also very westernized as well too. So we would have a turkey dinner even at their family household and inviting other family members too because yeah it was like my dad's side the family they were so there's so many brothers and sisters and cousins there would always be you know that type of dinner but yeah but then they would also incorporate Chinese dishes as well too. Like there would always be rice. There would always be some sort of like shiitake mushroom dish. There'd always be some sort of braised beef and daikon dish of some sort. But there would always be turkey, at least during that time.
00:04:15
Speaker
But then I also really love Lunar New Year meal. I
Lunar New Year Traditions and Beliefs
00:04:20
Speaker
think other than turkey, Lunar New Year meal is probably one of my favorites because it has all the types of foods.
00:04:27
Speaker
on it like all the all the protein. I love the fish, I love the chicken, the duck. Okay but you have to explain what kind of dishes you're talking about. So like pork belly?
00:04:41
Speaker
The roasted pork. The the roasted pork. The roasted pork. You know if were okay if we're gonna go guy yeah has chicken but if we're gonna go down the Chinese barbecue that's a whole new topic.
00:04:53
Speaker
Like, i'll i'll just say that I'll just say that barbecue duck is probably my favorite, and then roasted pork is probably my second favorite. But I love the steamed fish. I love, oh, my favorite is the Buddhist feast.
00:05:06
Speaker
Do you know what that is? Is it vegetarian? Yeah. Sounds pretty vegetarian to I gave it a temple style, you know? What gave it away? Buddhist feast. Buddhist feast is the one that has the fungus mushroom. Oh, yes. Okay. hu Yeah. It has the lotus roots. Yeah. Okay.
00:05:24
Speaker
All that fixing. It has the vermicelli. My mom used to make it all the time. It's actually one of my favorites. So it it does. It's very hearty and it has all the fixings in it. But I love the Lunar New Year because it literally has every single dish in it. And of course, in a Chinese fashion, everything has a meaning to it. What does it mean? I cannot tell you right now. I'd have to Google it. And yeah, so. Plates of oranges? Anybody? Anybody? A plate of orange? It's not oranges, it's mandarins. Mandarin oranges. hook
00:05:57
Speaker
Candles. Candles. Of our ancestors. Now, I love Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year growing up, but it was really hard for me to express that during in school because, you know, nobody knew what that was. And during
Celebrating Lunar New Year in Vancouver
00:06:10
Speaker
at home, you know, it's been really exciting time. We have all these traditions, you know, whether for cleaning or sweeping or, you know, doing all these things to get ready, wearing red and gold and all that stuff. And then, you know, getting the red pockets prepped, getting our house prepped, getting the the flowers ready and everything. But going at school, they're like, what's going on at home?
00:06:30
Speaker
and they would just never understand. It would be really hard to explain as well without them being confused or concerned.
00:06:41
Speaker
we did the washing the hair.
00:06:43
Speaker
think no cutting your hair either is a big thing, right? No cleaning, no cutting your hair is a big thing. And I think the majority of the majority of those traditions was so that you don't cut your luck off, wash your luck away. Yes. Right? Yes. Yeah.
00:06:57
Speaker
Or sweep out the luck. right Right. Yeah, that's true. yeah but in yeah But going out to Vancouver was always sleep fun because then you see all the festivities. And then did you ever go to the markets? like the All the time. right and we We spent so much time in Chinatown. Yeah. During chinese youth the Lunar U year, it was like crazy. we I loved it there.
00:07:22
Speaker
It was always the the markets and the line dancing. Oh,
Chinatown Memories and Changes
00:07:29
Speaker
yeah. And our uncle had a little store Chinatown. And he was like, he sold jewelry.
00:07:34
Speaker
Oh. And we so we would always go visit him first and see what little pics of jewelry that we could, you know, that he was willing to give to us. And then we would check out the the night market and then watch all the shows.
00:07:51
Speaker
Oh, like all the performances. All the performances. We would watch. That was like amazing. it was that was my that was We're in Chinatown. Like the little there was a main there's a main strip.
00:08:04
Speaker
Right, right. oh Can't remember the name, but the road. like could point it to you and be like, that's the one. No, because I remember at, what was it, like, P&E, and e they would have, you know, little stalls and stuff. I think it was, like, at the Coliseum where, you know, they would open it up for the Lunar New Year Festival, and you would have all these like things going on It was either there or it would happen in Richmond. I remember going to Richmond. Okay. ah Like, you know, at Aberdeen. They used to host it.
00:08:32
Speaker
But I do remember, like, Chinatown. I just couldn't remember exactly, like, which building it was. And I bet you my husband probably knows because he probably went to it as well, too. So I would have to, like, double check on that, where it was. but I do remember all the festivities happening. And then Choi Sun Yeh, the money god, yeah who would come and give you $1 red envelopes.
00:08:53
Speaker
But really, and they used to give up money. it used They used to give up like real money. Maybe like $2 or $1. But then became the chocolate. No, it became that that hard candy. Oh, yeah. They also give the money coin too. Yeah, money coin. The pirate coins.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah. The pirate coins. They used to give you the pirate coins, but they also gave um like, you know, the red candy. The good luck candy. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That was like strawberry flavor. Yes.
00:09:20
Speaker
Those were good. Those were good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like the white rabbit candy as well, too, but i think I liked the, yeah, the red strawberry candy because there was like milky.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah. those were So back in the day, Vancouver was not what it was today because it was so much cleaner. It was Chinatown was so lively.
00:09:45
Speaker
And the strip, I remember when I was really young, like elementary school, young, young, young. Mm-hmm. There was an entire strip, the like blocks of Chinatown just completely closed off to all the cars.
00:10:01
Speaker
And it would be the night market was just like all the way down from from the residential area all the way down to, i don't know, where the road ends almost.
00:10:11
Speaker
That's true. And then slowly, every year would go or every so often that we would go, would just become shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter until it was like down to one block. Which was really Oh, I think I know what you mean now. Nowadays, it's not safe it's not safe to like have the whole festival, the night market there now. But i do remember seeing the people playing like a Chinese instrument. I thought that was really cool. I like seeing the performances. Oh, yeah, the drums? Yes.
00:10:40
Speaker
And even the lion dance, oh as always, too, because you don't get to see that all the time. And then they play games. I remember one year, i think... I want to say it was Richmond. And my aunts and uncles took me out to go to the festival in Richmond.
00:10:56
Speaker
And if anybody watched TVV, you would know that there was this game show host called the Super Trio. Did you ever watch the Super Trio?
00:11:07
Speaker
It's with like Sun DiYi, Leslie, not Leslie. What's his name? Eric Tsang. And he did the, um, it was like a game show. Mm-hmm.
00:11:19
Speaker
And he came to Vancouver one time in Richmond to do that mini game show with his other co-host. And I was like, whoa. That was my first time seeing kind of like a TVB like Hong Kong celebrity. And they actually came to Richmond. But of course, I was in the back row and I couldn't really see much. because I was so young at that time. was maybe 10. But I was so excited.
00:11:43
Speaker
And I just thought, i'm like oh my God, I want to play. But I don't know what you're going to say few anyway. So, But I want the money. I want the licey. Give me the licey. No, never experienced any of that.
00:11:54
Speaker
I think we we
Cultural Traditions in School
00:11:55
Speaker
mainly just stayed in Chinatown. That was it. That was Every year. You never ventured up to a Richmond? No, I don't think so. Maybe just for the night market, like the actual night market, but never during Chinatown this year.
00:12:06
Speaker
What about today? if do Is there any traditions that you still do today for what you and your family did?
00:12:14
Speaker
Pop pot. Ha ha ha ha
00:12:21
Speaker
Wait, did you have hot pot this year for Christmas dinner? ah No, okay, Christmas dinner was really sad this year. Oh, no, oh, right. i Yeah, don't even ask. We were so sick.
00:12:34
Speaker
Nobody, i don't even know we had like a Christmas, we didn't have dinner. We had slices of apples and crackers because we were so sick. Yeah, that was it. And nobody else was home. Actually, my dad was home.
00:12:45
Speaker
My dad was not sick. What did they eat for dinner? i don't know i cannot say we were too sick. I'm so sorry. I should have brought you over some turkey. I made a huge turkey dinner. They complete opposite. I would not have been able to eat it. I was too sick.
00:13:05
Speaker
But I always envied. I always envied my friends during holidays because I love turkey. I love mashed potatoes. I love cranberry sauce. I love Brussels sprouts. I love Brussels sprouts bacon. You have to have bacon and like grated cheese on there.
00:13:22
Speaker
I love All of it, except for stuffing. I hate stuffing. You haven't tried my stuffing.
00:13:31
Speaker
I'll try your stuffing and then I'll decide if i like that. made homemade stuffing this year and it was bomb. I did it with a fresh baguette and I roasted my own crouton, made my own crouton, and then I used the jus from the turkey and made it myself. It was good. I was nervous because it was my first time making homemade stuffing, but it was good. Next time, i mean, if you weren't sick,
00:13:55
Speaker
yes would definitely have you over but I made a huge feast and my mom was like you're crazy why did you make so much food I'm like so I don't have I have lots of leftover that's why but I don't just make turkey I'm very serious about turkey making because it's the aftermath of what you can make it I try to make Monica from Friends sandwich. I made her moist maker sandwich, which was also very yummy. I tried to make a Taiwanese turkey and chicken, yeah, turkey and rice dish, which is very popular in Taiwan. And I did not know that until I went over there.
00:14:32
Speaker
So then I tried to mimic that also very good. I'm not just tooting my own horn because my husband says it's good. but So I take his advice. Husband approved. Husband approved. And then I made, oh, this is also a very popular one, making turkey congee.
00:14:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yes. I love a turkey congee. My mom asked me to save the bones and the extra fixing. She was like, can you save half your turkey bones for me so that I can make turkey congee? I'm like, yes, mom.
00:15:03
Speaker
as always. I gave her all the innards and stuff like that too. So I'm like, I'll roast it for you, but you can use it for whatever you want to do after. So I always have to do that. And then afterwards, I can just make sandwiches or I make just anything.
00:15:18
Speaker
Did you ever just eat ham from the fridge? I hated ham. Okay, okay. I have to explain though. So when we were young, my parents worked like day and night they were they worked like dogs they had so much going on for them i do feel bad because in the moment when i was young i really resented them yeah for the food that they gave me was it a sandwich i always got just dry bread and a piece of ham that was like you know that packaged ham that has the gooey liquid in
00:15:55
Speaker
rank oh no what that was But they always put the same package to him. Not even like good bologna or anything. was like rank. Is there good bologna though? There's good bologna. I've had good bologna. Okay, that's true. You married a Spanish person. Yeah, I've had good bologna. But this was like...
00:16:14
Speaker
something else. there's Something you would find in, him and I'm not mistaken. No name brand. It was definitely something very cheap. And it had like this liquid in it and they would just slap it on a piece of bread. Like nothing, no sauce or anything, like no mayonnaise or mustard or anything. And I would just have it in this little container and it would be day after day after day.
00:16:33
Speaker
Unless my mom decided that she was going to give me hot lunch, which is like fried rice. Yeah. You know, the classics. um
Cultural Food Differences
00:16:40
Speaker
But otherwise, it was just bread. and this disgusting piece of ham. And most of the time, I never ate.
00:16:48
Speaker
a i would always throw it directly in the garbage, or i would, if I forgot to throw it in the garbage, because I didn't want to get in trouble for not eating my lunch, and I would have to bring it home, and then find a way to sneak a leak,
00:17:02
Speaker
throwed in the garbage before my parents Check my bag. Okay, we were same thing in that in that sense. We were the same way in that sense. I also did not like sandwiches because, first of all, we live in Squamish. It's very cold most of the time there. It's not like Vancouver. I don't know. Or like what maybe it's a warmer Vancouver. don't know. But it was very cold in Squamish. And I do not like cold food.
00:17:26
Speaker
And my parents also were terrible at making sandwiches. But mine would put tomatoes in it. Oh, no!
00:17:35
Speaker
So it would be wet and soggy all the time. So my bread was not... um It was not dry like yours, but it was just wet and soggy. And I'm like, hi it's mush at this point. I don't like any of this, but I did like the ham. I'm like, you just give me that. So I did like the the the luncheon, the okay ah the luncheon, right? The packs. Yes.
00:18:04
Speaker
I love those. And I saw like my friends have it I was like, I want that. But then my parents were like, no, probably because it costs a lot of money. They're like, I can just make you food. So I don't know what happened or what made my parents change. Maybe my complaining did it.
00:18:18
Speaker
So I would always get hot lunches ever since. So my mom would always make me like, yeah, fried rice. I even got instant noodle once, even though it was soggy. But I was like, whatever, it's but better than my soggy bread. I don't care.
00:18:29
Speaker
And then that's when it became a little tricky about the Chinese food that I would get at school because then my mom would give me ham yu with rice. And ham yu is salted dried fish. And, you know, it's very seafoody and it's smelly. So, yeah, that raised a lot of eyebrows at school. And then sometimes I would get the head with the eyeballs. Oh, right. I can't remember if we talked about that before, but.
00:19:00
Speaker
Excuse me. um Yeah, so I got that. And then people would be like, oh, Janice is eating fish eyes the eyeballs of a fish. and i'm like Okay, which is funny, though, because...
00:19:12
Speaker
When we were young, we would fight over the eyeballs. Yeah. Did you ever fight over the eyeballs at home? Yeah. We would fight over the eyeballs. Like, ah um'm I'm not talking about, like, steamed fish. The typical steamed fish with the chopped green onions. Wait, didn't eat that? Okay. Yeah, of course we did. Yeah. Yeah, but, like, I'm not talking about the ham yu anymore. I'm talking about the steamed fish. We would fight over the eyeballs. We would always be fighting over the face.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yes. yeah
00:19:41
Speaker
Okay, so um what about, okay, which kind of, um which kind of holiday specifically would you eat, like, turkey dinners, and then Chinese New Year, you would do what?
00:19:55
Speaker
So if I'm talking about nowadays, or are you talking about, no, when we were, like, back then, did you do Easter? Did you do... No, ah ya actually no. it It was just Thanksgiving oh just things and christmas Christmas and Lunar New Year was a big one. I think like Easter, Easter for Chinese culture is when you go to the cemetery in Sweden.
00:20:16
Speaker
That's what we did during Easter time. Did you do that? We had to go to the cemetery a lot actually. Yeah, we did that during the during Easter time. And we would go visit like grandparents, sweep their tombstones.
00:20:28
Speaker
Like the incense. Like the incense. Yeah. And then we would just feast. But it would just be like any kind of food. But obviously, yeah, i'm mostly trying to Chinese food as well, too. And then because we had to, you know, give our offerings in Chinese food. So like a steamed chicken of some sort and then some.
00:20:47
Speaker
boughs and buns and stuff like that so ultimately we would and then we have to eat that after right because after you give the offerings then you have to eat it anyways which makes sense because or else you're gonna like waste it i don't think you can just burn it to them then we're just creating fires at that point but ah but it was really good food so i was not complaining let love guys and Don't waste it. Exactly. Wasting is a no-no. That's why like Asian culture, we just use up every single part of the body.
00:21:21
Speaker
Definitely. And I think that was a bit of a shock to me being in Squamish because, you know, some of them like their hunting and stuff like that. But if they saw like a whole body of like an animal, they would get freaked out. I think the head also is is something that they're not really used to eating parts of because, for example, the tongue.
00:21:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah. The tongue's really good. yeah That's something that, or like the tripe. I love tripe. don't think that it's something that's very common that they would, or the like chicken feet.
Introducing Friends to Chinatown
00:21:50
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. The first time that I brought one of my best friends for dim sum. Yeah.
00:21:55
Speaker
And they tried chicken feet. Yeah. I don't even know if they tried it. I think they just looked at him it and were like, oh, my gosh. no And of course, I ate it because it's delicious. But I think that the disgust from their face was just like, oh, my God, that is a chicken foot.
00:22:11
Speaker
You're going to eat it? Yep. yup Hell yeah, I'm going to eat that. but Yeah. I like, I really like chicken knees. Okay, yeah. I like the chickenese because it's like crunchy but soft. But I think I i like the crunchy part of it. So... it's The cartilage. Yeah. I like the the kind crunchy part of it. um I did one thing when I was in elementary school was because, you know, every weekend we go out to Chinatown to do our Chinese grocery run. And for some reason, I don't even know how or how it came about, but I...
00:22:45
Speaker
brought yeah one of my good friends at that time and we were like grade 5.6 I brought her out to Vancouver with me to tour her around Chinatown because she's never been before oh that must have been an eye-opener oh my god I think I gave her a culture shock because we went to the fish market I was just thinking the fish market was just sitting in the fish market.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, and she would see all the live fish. She's like, oh my God, are they going to kill it? I'm like, yeah, they are. That's how they that's where we get our fresh fish from. And, you know, this is not all normal to me, but she was like, oh my God, oh my God, just looking at everything. here She's like, what's that? What's that? And I'm like explaining everything to her. And then, of
Cultural Identity Challenges in School
00:23:25
Speaker
course, someone was buying a fish.
00:23:27
Speaker
She's like, what are they going to do with that? I'm like, they're going to... Butcher the fish. They smack it with that rod, that wooden rod they have back there, right? Back in the day, you know, they're a little bit more rough when you're at in Chinatown when you just chop the tzera. Well, no, they did the slamming with the hammer, but they did it so hard the guts flew out and actually hit us.
00:23:56
Speaker
They actually got something that flew over the edge because they're because there's quite a distance. yeah And it actually flew out. And she's like, I think i got some fish guts on me. And luckily, she wasn't that disgusted because then afterwards, we walked away and she said, I want to go back again. Oh. Yeah. Okay. But to be fair, back then, it was really, it was actually kind of gross even for a child and to see that. Like an Asian child to see that in Chinatown because they would they would butcher the fish and then they would leave the guts on the floor and then they would just wash all of it onto the street.
00:24:33
Speaker
Yes. Yes, that's true. That's why you could smell it really You could smell it from like four doors down. Even more, probably. could smell it through the whole block. Yeah, you can smell it through the whole block. It was really, yeah, it's pretty traumatizing.
00:24:48
Speaker
I agree. That's where we got our good stuff. Yeah, definitely. So how about school? Like in an elementary or I guess not high school, but elementary school.
00:25:01
Speaker
Were you ever asked about your traditions or how you celebrated? Were you ever called upon, let's just say, to it to educate someone about it Oh, that's such a good question. The simple answer is no.
00:25:17
Speaker
You never got asked? No, like at school, no one asked about... No teacher asked you? I'm trying to think about it No.
00:25:29
Speaker
No one asked, like, what do you like to do at home or try to get to know my culture? None. Did you? I did. But now that I'm thinking about it, i think it's because we had two teachers who looked Asian to me.
00:25:47
Speaker
and That's racist. I know one was definitely Asian. Okay. His last name was Lam. Lam. Okay.
00:25:58
Speaker
Lam or Lam. Okay. And he, he, but he was really Canadianized. He was like super Westernized. But he actually, in his class, I think it was maybe four or five.
00:26:12
Speaker
Um, he asked me if I could teach this class how to do ah like how to write number one to ten in Chinese. oh So I actually handed out the like Chinese school papers, you know the ones with the blocks, oh squares all over the place and I actually had like I actually showed them on the board one through ten and everybody had their own papers and they wrote one through ten on them but That's really cool. And he ah he asked he also asked me to share a little bit about Chinese Year. And of course, when you're young, I think I remember talking about like Chinese zodiac signs. Yeah.
00:26:51
Speaker
And I didn't know what all the Chinese zodiac signs were. So what did you say? I don't remember. I just remember being asked the Chinese zodiac signs and I was like,
00:27:03
Speaker
I think you're in this. I don't even know who I you playing psychic at the point? was totally playing something. I don't, because I was, ah they put me on the spot and I was like, think of an animal, think of an animal.
00:27:15
Speaker
Wow. That's, oh, that's really interesting. No, I don't remember anyone actually ever asking me about things like that. I would always try to tell my friends about these things. But I don't think it really meat meant anything to them. So it's not like they would keep asking me about it. And I think a lot of the times... So this is very important. I think most of the time, i was trying to avoid being Chinese.
00:27:41
Speaker
So that's why it wouldn't come up. Interesting. I know it sounds you know obvious but not obvious. But most the time, I was trying to just be one of them. So I wouldn't bring it up. Even though I really do love my Chinese culture and heritage. And some things are just...
00:27:56
Speaker
worth holding on to but most of the time I was trying to be someone I wasn't. It's almost suppressive. Yeah so I would have two types of identities outside I'm just Canadian inside the house I was full Chinese watching listening to Chinese music watching Chinese shows talking in Cantonese to my parents that was me outside I'm listening to Backstreet Boys I'm listening to Destiny's Child I'm listening to Usher that was a different era we're eating pizza and pasta and watching the boys do skateboard tricks which they were terrible oh my gosh they were so awful It was a skater boy era that we were living And they were so grungy with their long hair. Yeah, that's another topic. We'll talk into that. let's yeah talk Yeah, we'll talk about pop culture in the next couple episodes. That was, man, because everyone's bringing that back in in TikTok and all the stories and stuff. What, grunge culture?
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah, like they just want to be they just want to be like us when we were you know all that stuff you know they bring di the fashion the fashion the tearaways the adidas i'm gonna say it correctly or else my husband will kill me adidas tearaways which i also had to yeah anyways i'm i'm digressing but yeah no i was trying to be someone else at that time so it didn't really come up but i will say one thing and it really stayed with me till this day was i think i was in grade seven And we had our own journal notebook that we were learning calligraphy. And we were assigned to decorate our notebook, whatever we want, do some sort of coloring design. We were encouraged to really make it creative. And I wanted to make mine with a Chinese character. So I wrote gum as in gold and I and i made it really big and I made it very simple and pretty. And she was really, i don't know, I don't know why she was upset, but she was really upset that we all didn't create ah put enough creativity. and And then just happened by chance, she grabs mine in front of the whole class and she said, what is this?
00:30:13
Speaker
No way. Yeah, she said, what is this? What is this? And I said, it means bold in Chinese. And then she said, oh, and then puts it down. She's like, well, anyways, you guys need to put some more effort into it, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like really shook at that point. I'm like, no wonder you want to shut yourself out.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah. So I like even had teachers that weren't very open with it. I mean, you know, they had to be safe about it. But at the same time, I could just know when someone's welcoming culture. Yes, of
Passing Down Cultural Traditions
00:30:44
Speaker
course. So I think growing up, you have that, you know,
00:30:48
Speaker
have that ability to sense whether you're going to welcome me or not based on how you're reacting and that to me will determine how much I want to share with you as as a person as my as part of culture everything if if I don't see you being welcoming then yes I will not also share as well yeah but and to conclude this has been a really good episode so Is there any traditions that you still want to share with your kids?
00:31:21
Speaker
Hot pot. Me too. Actually, hot pot. I agree. i mean, they had some turkey, but yeah, I think hot pot because pot is really fun. It's so fun. It's really interactive. You cook your you There's so many different varieties of everything that you can put in there. Flavors. Oh my gosh, the sauce. Everyone has their own different types of sauce.
00:31:47
Speaker
Hot pot is really coming back. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's trending now. And it's crazy how much gimmicks that they add on to the hot pot culture now.
00:31:58
Speaker
Yes, for sure. Like if I think about, i don't know, there's Cho Cho, there's a Big Way, there's Heidi Lau, there's... um I don't know how many. I've been to the Heidi Lau here, but I've seen the ones in China. Like, you can go get a manicure while you're waiting for your table. I know.
00:32:17
Speaker
I want to go to that one. ah Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, you know the one at Brentwood, they have arcade games? Yes, I saw that. They were just there recently.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yep. We were just there recently. ah but Be mindful of when they do the noodle show because apparently my sister saw one of the noodles was like, it almost like hit somebody in the face or like grazed the floor and they still chopped it up and put it inside their... I mean, it gets boiled. It kills us. It gets boiled, sure. But I mean, that's kind of gross. That's true. Speaking of hitting the face, they whip my daughter in her eyes.
00:32:55
Speaker
gosh.
00:32:58
Speaker
My poor baby girl. She was okay, but but I actually have it on video. She's like, they got me. They got me.
00:33:08
Speaker
And I was asking her, I'm like are you okay? She's like, yeah, I'm good. But they got me.
00:33:17
Speaker
But yes. ah Hot pot is not that dangerous, everyone. It could it it shouldn't be that dangerous. It's not. When you're at home, it's not dangerous at
00:33:29
Speaker
All right. Well, that concludes this episode. um Thank you so much for listening. And, you know, be safe out there when you're having hot pot. Watch your eyes. Wear some wears some goggles. Yes. um Yes.
00:33:44
Speaker
Thank you again for listening. And please stay tuned for more episodes. This is Fresh Off the Bluff.