Chinese dishes from my childhood

2025 is the Year of the Wooden Snake and celebrations begin in a week. I’m not Chinese but I love Chinese food. And I cannot talk about this love affair with Chinese food without mentioning my paternal grandfather.

When I say I’m not Chinese, I mean there is nothing in my known genealogy to show it. But, on my paternal grandfather’s side, my known genealogy ends with him. My grandfather who had fair skin and shape of eyes one commonly associates with the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. My grandfather who cooked dumplings in oversized bamboo steamers. My grandfather who, as my brother once pointed out so adroitly, ate his meals out of a bowl using chopsticks.

The shape of his eyes and the color of skin skin were inherited by all his three children. My father, the youngest, passed them down to me. I’ve been mistaken for Chinese ever since I was a little girl. Shop owners talked to me in Chinese and my parents were forever explaining that I didn’t speak Chinese because I wasn’t one.

It’s a story that would get repeated throughout my life. In school, at work, at parties… Not too long ago, at the entrance of the Natural History Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, I was offered a printed guide in Chinese. I shook my head, I was handed one in Japanese instead, I shook my head again and said, with a smile, “In English please.” Similar incidents happened in Japan, in Taiwan, in Hong Kong.

Do I have Chinese ancestry? I am not a hundred per cent sure, to be honest. The Chinese have been in the Philippines long before the Spanish colonists arrived. They brought their food, settled down, intermarried. Whether my grandfather descended from one of those intermarriages, I have no idea. But he loved Chinese food. Cooked Chinese food with panache. And he shared that love with his children and grandchildren.

At first, it was just my brother that he took on eating sprees in Chinatown. A grandfather-grandson bonding activity, I suppose. I was included only after I complained to my grandmother. I still remember that his favorite place was Smart Restaurant (I don\’t think it exists anymore).

My father later carried on with these Chinatown jaunts. They became bribes and rewards at the same time. If I went to the dentist without making trouble, we’d eat at his favorite place, San Jacinto, afterwards. We’d order bird’s nest soup with quail eggs (my brother and I were always given the same number of eggs), pork spring rolls (we call them lumpiang Shanghai in the Philippines), sweet sour pork and fried rice. Those were our favorites.

But, sometimes, we went to other restaurants and ordered different dishes. There was Peking duck, stuffed boneless chicken wings, taro puffs… The first time I was taken to a dim sum place with those trolleys, well, to say I was hooked would be an understatement. It became a tradition that I would later introduce my daughters to.

So, you see, whenever the Lunar New Year comes around, I get a little nostalgic. Especially when we receive boxes of nian gao (tikoy). I remember watching my grandfather slice the sticky rice cake, dip the slices in beaten egg and frying them until a crisp golden lace-like pattern forms along the edges. My father cooked nian gao the same way.

China may not be the most popular country in the world, especially these days, but Chinese food will always be comfort food for me.