Yum Cha has always been a ritual in my family, we go almost every week. It’s always the same, we would go out as a family and the waiters are already familiar with us. We’d sit down, they’d ask what tea we’d like and we would order dim sum from the yum cha paper sheets that listed all the different dishes available. The waiters would engage in random chit chat, sometimes about the food, other times about holidays and going back to Hong Kong/China and other times, about things going on in the Chinese Australian community. On these occasions, yum cha feels like a very Hong Kong thing to me. I’m in the vicinity of Hong Kong Australians and the associated wider community. In these situations, I let my parents do the talking whilst I do the eating.
I’ve been to Yum Cha with friends a few times now for catch ups and it always gives me that sense of novelty when I go with people other than my family. I usually go with friends from different backgrounds, so it then makes me feel like the Asian representative and the one who seems most familiar with yum cha logistics, per se. I’d order the food in Cantonese, pour tea with Chinese customs that are so engrained within me and I’d read the menu and recommend food items. It’s like I took on the role of my parents when I’d go to Yum Cha with them. I suppose it’s a feeling that is hard to describe - it’s like I am playing a role yet this is also deeply who I am inside. And it feels like I’m welcoming others to traditions that have been so engrained within that it feels somewhat foreign when introducing it to others that don’t necessarily go to Yum Cha all the time.
I find myself repeating stereotypes when I play host at Yum Cha. I would presume that others don’t like chicken feet and recommend them to eat spring rolls, despite never getting them myself. I suppose it’s an awareness that there are some foods from my culture that others may not be able to handle, due to their preconceived notions. Perhaps it’s remnants from my childhood where I felt ashamed with the food from my culture. I cannot remember if there was any distinct event that made me feel ashamed, but I did want to shield away the fried rice in my thermos away from other people and not let them see it when I was in primary school. I actually wanted to enjoy sandwiches but my mum knew I hated them and I just liked to eat rice, so she packed me rice with some meat for lunch. It was the only food I knew how to enjoy at that age.
It’s a funny feeling, taking command of the Yum Cha table, when it was never my job when I am having Yum Cha with my parents. I feel like I am traversing between the intersections of my Hong Kong background and my Australian upbringing. That’s the thing, being first generation Asian Australian, you grow up in a household that’s largely dominated by the culture of your parents but at school, it’s completely different. I viscerally remember not watching any Australian TV, instead growing up watching TVB (the Hong Kong television channel). Kids at school would talk about The Simpsons, The OC, Cheez TV and all the prime time television shows. I remember feeling that I should watch it and when I did, I didn’t really enjoy it. I would rather watch TVB dramas.
Hosting Yum Cha with my friends feels like I am bringing my Asian upbringing to the surface more. And I don’t know why there are times when I get emotional when I am with them. In the past, during Yum Cha with my friends, there have been some moments when I am winded with some intense emotions that I am obviously hiding. It then makes me want to go back to my parents and have Yum Cha with them again. It’s like I am thinking about the Yum Cha rituals with my family and I just feel the roots of my upbringing emanating through the teapots and chopsticks. I still go to Yum Cha with my family these days, but when I am not with them at Yum Cha, I just think about them and back to all the people I have had Yum Cha with who are not first generational Asian Australian and from different ethnicities. I think about the Yum Cha I had with my grandparents, I think about the Yum Cha I had with the aunties and uncles whom I hardly know, I think about the Yum Cha I had with my dad’s best friend who is my favourite uncle, I think about the Yum Chas I had in Hong Kong with Hong Kong locals sitting there, just doing their thing, like it’s their daily ritual. The Yum Cha table makes me think of all that, all the people I’ve had Yum Cha with whom connect me back to my roots and to my heritage.
Maybe that’s why Yum Cha rouses so many feelings from within - it’s a tradition that connects me back a part of me that feels so familiar and the novelty of sharing it with my friends and carrying on the traditions of my culture, is a privilege.