wontons

on finding your connection

When I was little, my mother tried to teach me Mandarin, but because I grew up in London, I never practised, and it never stuck. “I was impatient with you. English was so much easier,” my mum says. But when my mother speaks in Mandarin, I feel a certain sadness that something is being lost in translation. A side of her that I'll never truly know. A world that I'll never truly know. Words, feelings and meanings in one language don’t always have direct translations into others. If I could go back in time and tell my mother to force me to take Mandarin, I would. I know I would hate it at first, as any kid would, but I’d be grateful that there’s a side to my mother that is no longer missing from my life, that I will have that connection to her, and that I can understand what people say about me and would not feel like an observer of this other world that we should have shared. One day, maybe, I could order Dim Sum for us, instead of always relying on her. 

Although my mom and I share only English in vocabulary, there is a mutual love of food shared between us that I suppose, on some level, could be considered a language. When I was little, she would make congee (rice porridge) with shredded chicken and dried scallops. When I left for college and returned home in the summer, it was bowls of stir-fried noodles topped with a fried egg. In kitchens, and restaurants and cafes and food carts on the street, it is always, “Do you want some? Let’s share it.”

It’s a quiet afternoon, with all this on my mind, when my mum asks me to make wontons. I slice and dice garlic and ginger, using the edge of a spoon like my mother taught me to scrape off the skin. I cut it into blocks and then into strips, finally dicing them into tiny cubes to be mixed with the mince. I never made dumplings growing up. I used to be jealous of friends whose mums would teach them how to make sushi, or dumplings or kimchi from scratch. My mother wasn’t like that. We were close, but my Chinese heritage wasn’t something she felt the need to drill into me. Now, in my twenties, I wish she had. I don’t speak Chinese and I couldn’t tell you much about culture or tradition because we didn’t celebrate it growing up. My mother stopped celebrating Chinese New Year after her father died when she was 14. At the very least, I can use chopsticks but that feels like I’m barely meeting the minimum requirements.

I should make the dumpling skin from scratch but instead, opt for defrosting the premade packet from the freezer. I pull up the Instagram recipe that I’ve saved and prop my phone up against a jar of sugar. I wish I could do this from memory. An overenthusiastic content creator blares through my phone speakers as I replicate her recipe.

I finely chop some spring onion, and then baby mushrooms.

Place all the dumpling filling ingredients in a bowl and combine. Add sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. Mix again.

I remember in College having Asian friends who would switch between English and Mandarin. I was in awe and, at the same time, insecure. A friend jokingly commented that I was a fake Asian. I laughed it off, but even years later, I still remember how shit it made me feel. It’s a strange disconnection to realise the things I may have missed out on because I can’t communicate in the same language my mother knows. To know that I have to resort to simple sentences in English when I speak to my aunt in Hong Kong, or that I’ve never said a word to my grandmother because of the language barrier.

My mother keeps a box of plastic gloves under the sink; I slip one onto my right hand and mix the filling, careful not to squish the meat between my fingers.

Place your wonton wrappers on a clean surface and add a heaped teaspoon of the filling into the centre of each wrapper.

I brush the edges with water and cup the small, yellow, wonton skin in my hand. I use a small teaspoon, add the filling in and then pull the edges up and pinch them together. Pinch and fold. Pinch and fold.

Repeat until you’re filling is finished. Set aside under a damp cloth.

I put a pan of water to boil and make the sauce. Chilli oil. Light soy sauce. Rice wine vinegar. Stir, stir, stir.

It’s complicated navigating a mixed heritage. I think the formation of identity and knowing who you are is crucial to having a strong sense of self. When you’re multiracial, people don’t understand your identity: I must be American because of my accent. I’m not Chinese enough, but I’m most certainly not Irish enough with my olive skin tone. I’ve battled the question 'Where are you from?' more times than I can count and have rehearsed the lines enough that I’m sure you would find the words etched into the folds of my brain. When I was a teen, I googled the benefits of being mixed race, and the top two responses were tanning easily and having a stronger immune system to hereditary diseases. I’m not sure the Reddit responder understood what I was asking.

Simmer the dumplings for seven to eight minutes. I drop them in one by one, the steady plop plop plop as they tumble and roll into the water. I turn the magnetic timer we have attached to the fridge.

Sometimes, my mom will say something in Cantonese, and I’ll ask her to repeat it. I practice the way to roll my tongue to emphasise the different sounds of the alphabet. It sounds wrong when I do it. We laugh at my failed attempts. As I get older and children become a common subject, I remember that their heritage will be divided even further: half British, a quarter Irish, a quarter Chinese. I want them to hold onto this thing that I let slip through my fingers. I cross my fingers my mom will teach them Mandarin. She says that she’ll have inside jokes with them purely in Chinese, and all I think is, I hope so. Because I missed that period and it’s a time I’m not sure I can get back.

The timer rings and I dish the dumplings out into a white bowl. Steam rises from the yellow skin and they look perfectly cooked. I scoop a spoonful of chilli oil and drizzle it across before adding the leftover spring onion.

I slide the bowl over to my mum and pass her a pair of chopsticks. She blows across the steam and inhales one dumpling. Then another.

She looks at me, gives me a thumbs up and says, “Momo, 好勁” (hou ging), which translates to “very good.” She later asks me for a second bowl and I happily oblige.

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