Di Zhao - A Holey Feast

 

When I was six, my parents took me to a restaurant. Now, I had been to restaurants before, but this night was special for a few reasons. Firstly, I was going to be the only kid amongst a sea of adults. This meant that obviously, they're recognizing me as a peer in all of my maturity. [audience laughter] And also, my mom wouldn't be gatekeeping my table manners, because she would be too distracted talking with the grown-ups around her. Furthermore, this was a hot pot restaurant. 

 

Now, if you have never had hot pot, you need to know that it's basically a build your own dinner adventure. You start with a savory soup base in the middle of a lazy Susan that's simmering away, and you order these plates of raw things like sliced lamb, beef, fish cakes, cabbage. By the way, I've never seen anyone eat cabbage at the hot pot, so you don't have to order it. [audience laughter] 

 

Now, we go into this restaurant and we sit down. Everything is moving according to plan. My little head is bobbing at a lower angle than all of the rest of the adults. I'm feeling in my element. The pot starts simmering, and I hiss at my mom to order me my quail eggs. If you've never had quail eggs, you need to know, they are hands down the best thing to order at a hot pot. There's just something that comes together with the yolk and the soup base when it hits your tongue, the creamy factor, umm, [audience laughter] Also, they're the size and shape of a large marble, so they're nearly impossible to pick up with chopsticks, especially in teeny six-year-old hands. 

 

So, when the eggs come by in front of me, I do give it the good college try for a whole minute and I try to pick it up with both chopsticks. Doesn't work, so I decide to spear through one instead with a single stick. And that does work. As I'm watching it fall into the pot, this primal joy takes over me. I start stabbing holes into every single piece of potato in front of me. [audience laughter] I get really methodical about this. [audience laughter] None of the other adults have holes in their food. This has become my brand, [audience laughter] my legacy. [audience laughter] This is the sign that I own these contents of the pot. [audience laughter] 

 

I dump all of my holy stuff in. As I'm waiting for it to cook, I envision in a few minutes, my mom turning towards me in slow motion and seeing a bowl of steaming whole filled vegetables in front of me, and her eyes welling up as she realizes that I'm now capable of serving myself food and I'm probably going to leave her soon. [audience laughter] I like this fantasy so much that I play it a couple of times in my head until I snap back to reality and decide it is time for the harvest. [audience laughter] 

 

So, I take the communal ladle, and I start rooting around in the pot and there's nothing. There's worse than nothing. There's Just cabbage. [audience laughter] There's no quail egg. There's no potato. I sank back down into my seat and I realized with horror that I had violated the cardinal sin of hot pot. I had let the food melt before getting it out of the pot. I'm staring into the bubbles from the pot, which seemed to be made of shame. [audience laughter] 

 

None of the other adults notice my sadness. In fact, the man sitting across from me is laughing uproariously about something with the lady next to him. He picks up his bowl and deftly lifts a qualic up with his chopsticks. And right before it disappears into his mouth, I notice a small hole in the egg. [audience laughter] Time slows down as he chews, he swallows. He picks up more potato slices out of his bowl. Potato slices also with holes in them. [audience laughter] 

 

I suddenly feel my smallness. I thought I was an adult. I thought I was sitting amongst my peers. But this man took my quail egg, he took my potato slices, he saw the holes and he ignored the holes. [audience laughter] Well, I am not an adult. I'm a child. And this cold, harsh desire for vengeance and this clear child logic overtakes me. I am not going to let this grown man, this family friend, this university professor get away with this. [audience laughter] If I don't eat, he doesn't eat. [audience laughter] So, I start watching very closely whenever he puts anything into the pot. It turns out he really likes quail eggs and potato slices too. 

 

In goes some eggs. I wait for him to look away and I ladle it out immediately. [audience laughter] In goes some veggies. I'm eating the egg while I wait for him to look away and I ladle it out immediately. [audience laughter] He drops in another egg. I wait, and then he looks down and the egg is on my plate in, out, in, out. I am taking him to the cleaners. [audience laughter] 

 

After a free rounds of hide and eat, [audience laughter] he is becoming visibly agitated as he roots around and he is getting nothing but cabbage. [audience laughter] Finally, he dumps all of the remaining quail eggs in all at once and I immediately reach over to take them out, noticing too late that this time he has not looked away. His eyes move from the pot up to my arm, down to my plate that's brimming with uneaten eggs. [audience laughter] And for the first time that night, our eyes meet. I slowly eat the eggs as he drinks his 120 proof Baijiu while we're staring at each other all the while.

 

I'd like to think that his silence for the rest of the evening was caused by extreme self-reflection and deep regret over what he's done. While I, on the other hand, have a wonderful night. I managed to harvest more vegetables and eggs from my hot pot. So, I did not become an adult that night, but I did get to relish being a kid, as it turns out, a dash of pettiness adds a ton of flavor to a hot pot. [audience laughter]