Hot Pot

女兒今年的獲金獎作文，“火鍋”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

　   At least once a week, I see the white grocery bags from Yun Lai scattered around the kitchen floor and hear the familiar roar of the meat slicer. Just a couple of minutes later, I sit in front of the dining room table with my parents, where I am greeted with full plates of pre-cut potatoes, fresh green bok choi, and sweet winter melon. Beside these are bowls of raw lamb, uncooked ramen noodles, and sesame butter sprinkled with coriander.  My mouth waters at the delicious waft of the creamy chicken broth, and as my chopsticks move the raw ingredients into the soup, I grin.
     “Hot pot” is one of my favorite meals, consisting of a clay pot on top of a small grill. My family gathers around the simmering soup on Saturday nights. We take turns adding our favorite ingredients—thin potato slices for my dad, shrimp for my mom, and shrimp balls for me—before sitting back and waiting for the concoction to cook. The waiting process is long if I am especially hungry that day, but it is never boring. Setting aside my homework assignments, my family and I talk. Topics vary, but more often than not, our conversations lead to our Chinese culture. My dad often begins these discussions, with his fascination for ancient Chinese history and passion for poet Li Bai’s works. We talk about everything, ranging from criticisms of China’s excessive use of censors to why the prosperous Tang dynasty eventually fell, or just why the color red is so popular. When the food boils, we all quickly dive into the pot, chopsticks clashing as the steam rising from the water clouds our vision. After devouring spicy ramen and enoki mushrooms, we simply add more, and the process begins again.
    Many of my Saturday nights are spent this way, in the comfort of my house with my parents. During these nights, gathered around the single pot of boiling soup, my universe is simplified, consisting only of the warm meal before me, matched by the steadfast company of my parents. The glow that encases my world is small and cozy on these quiet evenings, but the warmth radiates for me at a greater level, into older rituals and deeper cultural origins.

     As American as I feel on a regular basis, when I eat hot pot with my family, I am transported thousands of miles back to my hometown in Xi’an, China. I am reminded of peaceful Saturday nights in a completely different way—with my family and friends the summer I visited, many years ago. I think of the cheerful street in front of my childhood apartment, illuminated with soft yellow lamps and alive with the chirping of cicadas. The stories I hear are greatly expanded from the ones I have heard at home. I sit wide-eyed as my grandmother talks about growing up amid the Cultural Revolution and ask curious questions as my second cousins share how during their school day, they go home during the afternoon and nap before coming back for night studies. Everything I hear I devour hungrily, feeling it resonate in me as I realize just how different my life is compared to theirs. However, strangely, I don’t feel distanced from them, but instead experience a connection, through language and custom, which cannot be broken. Through a single meal of hot pot, we talk into the night as the street is filled with the sounds of lively conversations from people with different upbringings but, ultimately, the same roots.
     And today, while dipping shrimp balls into the simmering soup, I am reminded of who I am and what will always be a part of me.