In my family, main dishes are served with chili and a large pot of long-boiled soup. It’s a mix of Xiang cuisine and a Cantonese classic.
My identity is muddled like these dishes.
I’ve always felt estranged from my Cantonese friends and their discussions about the latest dim-sum restaurant. I don’t care about the sweet taro crisp or the bland porridge. Just serve me some Changsha stinky tofu. Hunanese people use vinegar with the pepper, stimulating the taste buds, making them tingle. This way, I can get a sense of the whole range of flavors, all the ingredients and spices.
In the past two decades for every vacation, my family would go back to Leiyang, my parents’ hometown in southern Hunan. All the relatives take great care of us, trying to make us feel at home.
Leyiang is where we are from, but we feel like guests. The town, although small, is as lively and bustling as Guangzhou. The local way of life is alien to me. The noises of people playing mahjong and the deafening yells of Karaoke rarely die down before midnight..
They use a generous amount of chili in the local soups. This is different from the Cantonese style I prefer – which is rather insipid, but preserves the original taste of the raw ingredients. Every time, I’m choked to tears by the spicy soups. My relatives laugh and conclude: “You are not Hunanese.”
It is my sophomore year at University, at the time of the the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese celebration that is about celebrating your roots. We are supposed to enjoy mooncakes in a pool of mild moonlight. It is a time for reunion and celebrating your roots. But where are mine?
My relatives in Guangzhou gather together in the home of Hua, the youngest son of my eldest uncle. After dinner, I finally pose the question of my belonging, of our belonging, rather. We are all actually in the same situation, straddling two worlds.
“Having lived in Guangzhou for so long, I am Cantonese, aren’t I?” I plead.
“It’s actually not a simple question of yes or no. All the relatives here tonight have found our belonging in Guangzhou as Hunanese. As the first group of immigrants, your parents graduated from universities in Hunan Province and later came to Guangzhou for work last century,” Cousin Hua says. “In 2007, I opened my own restaurant that quickly found success and I opened up nine more branches over the following 11 years. That’s how I’ve made my home in Guangzhou and drawn more relatives to work here.”
“Absolutely! Your cousin Juan and I also found love here,” Fei, Juan’s husband, adds. “Juan came to Jinan University in Guangzhou to do a postgraduate degree in 2010, when she and I met. Guangzhou is really a special place for us.”
He grabs Juan’s hand and they both beam with happiness.
“I know, I know,” I smile.
I know they married soon after Juan’s graduation and wanted to create a good environment for their 4-year-old daughter, Little Dingr, who is now crunching a mooncake the size of her chubby palm.
My closest niece Yu takes the chance to give her opinion.
“Although I have only been here for a year, I love my university. I feel comfortable about both my Hunanese extraction and my Cantonese daily life.”
We have finished our dinner, and it is time to enjoy the mooncakes and video call our relatives in Leiyang.
My mother puts an end to the discussion.
“Don’t bother about ‘Cantonese’ or ‘Hunanese.’ The only thing that matters is how you gain your own sense of belonging by cementing ties with both cities.”
She calls my grandmother over video, too, and I notice a plate of round, tawny mooncakes lying by her hand through the screen.
I take a bite of the rich thick filling, made from lotus seed paste and yolks, and crunch the thin crust. It dawns on me that with more and more of my Leiyang relatives settling down in the Guangdong Province, the branches of our family tree interlock to form a lush and firm net, spreading across the Pearl River Delta and establishing a new hometown. That’s why we can celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival in Guangzhou as well.
Each day I am able to take advantage of my Leiyang dialect in Guangzhou. I can’t live without chili and soup. I have also developed a soft spot for the Hunanese migrant workers in Guangzhou. I greet the Leiyang guards in our community.
I embrace my double identity and coexist with myself as both Cantonese and Hunanese.
The other day when I was loitering in the crowded and pungent food quarters in the heart of Guangzhou, I overheard my familiar Leiyang dialect. I immediately turned around and saw a middle-aged, bulky worker. He had just walked into a rice rolls restaurant and ordered a takeaway, carrying a small bag of chili sauce and a bowl of soup.