The other day I was watching YouTube videos and just enjoying the time after lunch. All the sudden, one of the videos make me start crying and I felt very relatable to this video. Even though this video is in Chinese, I still want to share it with you all. You can watch this video with English subtitles.
This video is a part of a longer variety show called Wangpaiduiwangpai where they invite popular Chinese actors, actresses, and singers come to this show and play entertaining games together. In this part, they decide to sit down and talk about their favorite dish or a dish that means significantly to them. The program director made this even more emotional by having the specific dish that they were talking about in front of them and have the person relates to them send them a message.
Two of the stories that they shared really stood out to me. One of them is the story shared by the first girl, Ling Jia. The dish in front of her was chicken stew with potatoes. Her father made a short video for her by telling her body health is important than anything else. Jia told us that her mother is good at cooking the chicken stew with potatoes especially. After Jia’s mother passed away, she was always mad at her dad during Chinese New Year because her dad cannot make the chicken stew as delicious as her mother and both of them will end up crying. The following year, her dad tried so hard to practice this dish and eventually made for Jia on the New Year’s Eve and the taste is just as delicious as her mother’s.
Another person, Qiling Guo’s dish is called laziji. Laziji is a signature dish of Sichuan cuisine involves spicy peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, and chopped chicken. Guo’s grandma used to be the one who cooks for him. His grandma believes that if he loves this dish, she should cook it often. When his grandma is suffering from sickness, his grandma taught his grandpa how to cook laziji so that Guo can enjoy this dish whenever he visits his grandparents. He showed us a picture of his grandma and himself and he highlighted that he has less and less time to spend with family due to the heavy load of work, especially time with his grandparents. He always feels homesick and he really wants to go back to visit his grandparents. However, whenever he is at his grandparents’ house, he didn’t know what to say since he is bad at expressing himself.
I was crying and crying while watching this short video. I felt very relative to the food interview that I did earlier this month. It is insane to think about how tight the bond between people can be through food only. I was always wondering if there is anything else that can connect people and events this close other than food!? At this point, I believe food is not just food, it is way beyond its definition. Food communicates for those of us who are not good at expressing ourselves, food travel with us which make us feel like we are one step closer to home, and food always stays in the warmest part of our memories.