Andrea and Jennifer Presentation
Dim sum’s history goes way back to when the Silk Road travellers existed. Travelling through the Silk Road is a tough journey, so the people would often need a place to take a break before continuing. Because the number of people passing through increased, teahouses opened up along the roadside of Southern China. They first only sold tea, but when they realized that tea is beneficial in digesting, they started to sell small snacks with the tea. The small snacks that they sold, is dim sum. The action of drinking Chinese tea and eating dim sum is called ‘Yum Cha’. Basically yum cha is a type of Chinese brunch tea which involves tea and dim sum.
Yum cha is now a significant part of Chinese culture. In Hong Kong, many restaurants start serving dim sum as early as five in the morning. Because Yum cha is a Chinese brunch, they serve Dim sums early so that people can enjoy in the middle of their breakfast and lunch. Traditional dim sum restaurants don’t serve dinner, instead, they open early and close in the early afternoon.
Dim sum means ‘touch the heart’ in Chinese. There are many dishes served for dim sum. Some popular ones are phoenix claws (chicken feet), rice noodle rolls (beef or shrimp rice noodles) and seafood dim sum. Also, desserts are served with the dishes. Coconut milk pudding, steamed sponge cake is the most common dessert that is served together. Dim sums are usually on a trolley and people choose the type of dim sum that they themselves favor. A dish of dim sum is about $2.75 to $4.50, and it is categorized according to the size of the dish. The most common tea that dim sum restaurants typically serve is chrysanthemum tea, green tea, and oolong tea.
‘We lived on Waverly Place, in a warm, clean, two-bedroom flat that sat above a small Chinese bakery specializing in steamed pastries and dim sum. In the early morning, when the alley was still quiet, I could smell fragrant red beans as they were cooked down to a pasty sweetness. By daybreak, our flat was heavy with the odor of fried sesame balls and sweet curried chicken crescents. From my bed, I would listen as my father got ready for work, then locked the door behind him, one-two-three clicks. (page 45 chapter ‘Waverly’)
This paragraph from Waverly describes where she lives. We can imagine a small alley where the morning cool air sweeps pass each window. In one of the window, we see Waverly, half asleep, half awake. The first thing she notices when she wakes up is this warm, delicious aroma from the bakery shop beneath her house. She starts imagining all kinds of food with her eyes closed, and slowly a smile spreads across her face. Soon, she hears her father’s quiet footsteps as he walks out of the house, trying to not wake anyone up.
By daybreak, the only thing she can smell in her house is the heavy smell of fried sesame balls and chicken crescents. As the smell invaded her house, more frequently the image of the food would keep popping into her head. Because Waverly was poor, she could not afford to eat such delicacy every morning. The sweet scent is just a representation of Waverly’s distant child dreams. Although it was very near, it was not for her to enjoy.
Food is one of the first things that Waverly describes in the story. In the beginning when nothing had happened yet, food is as wonderful as ever. Food represents the ties with her family. In the beginning, she was very intertwined with her family. She communicated a lot with her brothers and her mother, but as she started to gain interest with chess, she begins to turn her back on them. She starts to climb up to a peak where her family members can not understand or reach. In the end, the food that awaits her at home is an almost finished large fish. Her mother does not speak to her as she returns home. The rest of the family members choose food over her, and this represents the completely broken ties between her and her family.
Waverly did not notice this until that moment when her mother snapped at her, and rather than apologizing, she runs into her room and imagines her mother as her enemy. She imagines herself slowly losing her pieces to her mother. On the chessboard, her mother is black, and she is white. This is the proof that she is now considering her mother as an opposing side. In the Chinese beliefs, there is a diagram called the yin and yang. It is a circular diagram where the black is combined with the white. The black is considered evil, and white is considered pure and just. In the game the main character is challenging the mother with, the mother controls the black.
Dim sum is one of the food that Waverly imagines as she smells the aroma. We can see that it is one food that she enjoys very much.
