I started looking for a Chinese vegetable garden in my downtown Toronto backyard as an early-pandemic activity; soon enough, I couldn’t stop.I love their popularity, their audacity, and the traditions they represent.
I grew up in a small Alberta town with few other Chinese people, and I love my adoptive home in Toronto.I love its diversity, as can be seen from the people walking down its streets and in its restaurants, which feature a rich and varied regional cuisine.Here, not only Chinese food, but also food from Anhui, Chaozhou, Guilin, Shandong; not only Indian food, but also food from Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
In recent years, I have found myself more fully embracing my Chinese identity and heritage.The more I got to know myself – the more I learned in the context of Cantonese classes, the more I wanted to buy myself a meat cleaver, the versatile Chinese equivalent of a western chef’s knife – the more I realized How important this role is. Identity and legacy play a role in who I am.The more my partner, who is also a child of immigrants, encouraged me to seek out foods, experiences, and pop culture that spoke to my Chinese side, the more I would do so, with uplifting results.
But I would be lying if I said that all my recent efforts to connect with my culture had nothing to do with my parents.I miss them like crazy.They still live in Rocky Mountain, Alta, the town where I was born, and I haven’t seen them for nearly two years during the pandemic.
My parents are in their 80s and 90s, and my dad, a long-term diabetic, home cook and centre for family wheels, is currently on dialysis and may never be able to see me in Toronto again.I am writing a book about him.I was trying to understand what his life was like at different stages, but he wasn’t on the phone, so I could only get to know him and the people who liked him in an indirect way.During the pandemic, I called and texted my mom to ask my dad what ingredients and techniques to use in this or that Cantonese dish.I read Chinese food blogs, watched Hong Kong food videos on YouTube, and joined the Facebook group from Haishan, the county my father and many other Chinese immigrants came from.Before moving to Canada in 1951, he was a farmer.Many people in Haishan and its surrounding counties left before they left, and it can be seen that in the minds of many expats, food cultivation still exists.
My vegetable garden obsession started harmlessly.I was immunocompromised due to the medications I was taking, so when the pandemic started, my partner and I stopped using public transport.We are adventurous people.Our favourite is to try new types of food away from the city centre.But with no traffic and no cars, we started our adventure on foot.
An early favorite garden I first saw years ago was in Kensington Market in downtown Toronto.It’s in a corner, on or around its mighty makeshift trellis, and it grows enough food for multiple families.Bird’s eye peppers, four types of Asian melons (some grazing in their carport), vegetables I didn’t know about at the time were amaranth, malabar spinach, garlic and sweet potatoes.More easily identifiable crops such as squash, leeks, cucumbers, tomatoes and raspberries.
Seeing fruits and vegetables growing can be both exciting and disconcerting.At the grocery store, it’s easy to forget how produce came into the world.In the garden, it’s impossible to ignore.
Sometimes while visiting the Kensington Market site, I see an older Chinese woman splashing water on the bottom of the plants.I used to think her garden was novel and rare.But episodes like hers are like limousines: once your eyes are trained to look for them, you’ll notice them everywhere.A recent Dalhousie University study found that nationally and in Ontario, more than half of respondents grow at least one fruit or vegetable in their gardens, and those numbers have increased during the pandemic.My partner and I have seen gardens in various locations: on apartment balconies, on top of shed roofs, in pits in front of high-rise buildings, in front and back yards, and in parks along utility corridors.From the types of vegetables, the decoration of the house, the people who tended the garden, it seems that more than half of the more than 2,000 vegetables we found and recorded belonged to Asians.
Many times, if we stop to look at a garden, the owner of the garden sees us, and if they are Chinese, they approach.This makes me a bit uneasy because although Cantonese is my first language, it is mostly abandoned and forgotten by time.
I am a shy person.I rarely even talk to my English-speaking neighbors.But on the edge of the garden, thanks to my partner’s presence and seeking cultural connection, I still speak.We won’t say much; maybe I’ll tell them my last name and ask if they’re from Haishan or Haiping like my dad and grandmother.I asked what they were growing and I told them their garden was beautiful and it took a lot of work and skill to grow this big.Maybe they object, saying it’s no big deal.Usually, we smile at each other.Maybe I’m also a stand-in for someone they miss.
I might say my Chinese isn’t very good, lest I hear heartache from them – my experience with Chinese elders is that they usually express themselves in an unabashed way – but surprisingly , a friendly answer is the norm.”Go ahead,” they might say.”That’s all that matters.” Or: “Your Chinese is actually pretty good.” Sometimes the choreographed scene of generosity and humility typical of our culture ensues, where they try to give us vegetables, and we refuse , do not want to impose on others, either stand their ground or finally accept the food, full of gratitude and blessings.Eventually, my partner and I left with my heart full.These gardeners and I probably won’t say much, but I can’t tell you how much these interactions mean to me.
Some of the things I love about Chinese gardens are their popularity, their audacity, their diligence in reusing waste.I love the way these gardens reject Western notions of aesthetics.Don’t get me wrong: I love flowers and landscaping, ground cover, hedges, and ornamental trees.But any day can give me the character of a front yard Asian vegetable garden.Give me watercress grown in a kiddie pool, Chinese melon vines growing from pizza boxes or rice bags or tires, or sticks on swings or six-foot trellis made of broomsticks, old pipes, and hockey balls.Despite the rising anti-Asian sentiment, give me the chaotic hallmark of my culture in an era of thriving Asian pride and a life of rebellion.Write me about the present past, a beautiful and stark contrast to the increasing gentrification of my city.
Sometimes walking home after a garden tour, my partner and I excitedly chat about the highlights of the day and the memories we’ve accumulated over the years, and sometimes vegetables as gifts – maybe a fluffy melon, some amaranth or some chayote – Snuggle up in one of our bags.We cycle through how we choose to prepare them: the way gardeners say they use them, the recipes I read online written by Chinese home cooks, memories of one of my father’s dishes or another, my own formed over the decades Impulse as a third culture child’s learning and global influence.I know I have to make a choice, but the results are usually delicious.Later, my mother proudly told her how I became a good friend with an elderly Chinese, and I might ask the Cantonese name of the pumpkin, or if she or my dad ever had fried cucumber, which is a preferred Prep Method A particularly kind woman we met two years ago, the first gardener who tried to give us any of her wares.My parents live far away from me, but with any luck, time on the phone with them and, unexpectedly, time with gardening strangers will make my culture sing in my heart.
Our best stories, recipes, style and shopping tips, horoscopes and special offers.Ships every working day morning.
Don’t be hesitate to contact us if you want to know more about China and Chinese culture ,www.study-mandarin.com or teacher yang: 13918358891
Post time: Jun-02-2022