Dumpling Days

by Grace Lin

  I walked up to the teacher’s desk. He had brought in the chops for the class to use. They were all simple, without any elaborate carvings, but the smooth stone felt nice in my hand. The teacher knew most of us couldn’t read Chinese, so he placed each chop on a piece of paper with the meaning in English written on it. There were a lot of chops, maybe a dozen to choose from. He probably wanted to make sure there were enough choices to match our paintings. Some were the ones he had mentioned earlier—“love,” “harmony,” “happiness,” and “spring.” There were also some that I thought were kind of odd for paintings, like “forever,” “mercy,” and “profundity.” I didn’t even know what profundity meant. I’d have to look it up in the dictionary when I got home.

  So which chop matched the mood of my painting? Since the three birds were supposed to be me, Lissy, and Ki-Ki, I wasn’t sure which chop to pick. “Harmony” or “peace” wouldn’t be true—we always fought about things. “Spring”? Was it spring in my painting? I hadn’t really thought about it. The birds were on a bamboo, so it could be any time of year. The teacher had said painting a bamboo meant to wish something. Hmm, what were we wishing for? Not love. That would look stupid.

  But I had to decide fast. Class was ending, and the teacher was calling on everyone to give him their paintings. Everyone was frantically sorting through their papers, and there was a mad rush as people clamored around the table to get one of the chops to stamp their paintings. Which one? I thought. I grabbed the chop on the paper marked “happiness.” I wasn’t sure if that was exactly right, but it kind of fit. Lissy, Ki-Ki, and I always wished to be happy, right?

  I brought the chop and the red ink over to my desk and quickly but carefully stamped my painting. I made sure to leave plenty of room below the stamp to put my own name chop, whenever we got those. Maybe that’s what the three birds were wishing for, for their name chops to be carved!

  I lined up behind Audrey to give the teacher my painting. Over her shoulder, I saw she had chosen the red flower painting. It was really good. Was it better than mine? I looked at my birds. I couldn’t really tell. I guess we’d find out at the exhibit.

  Chapter 30

  THAT NIGHT UNCLE SHIN ARRIVED. HE HAD COME ALL the way from Philadelphia to Taiwan for Grandma’s party, and everyone was happy to see him. When he laughed, everyone else laughed, too. And he laughed a lot. Uncle Shin was always jolly. Mom said he was a playboy, which I thought was true because he always likes to play and have fun. And instead of eating at a restaurant for dinner, Uncle Shin wanted to go to the night market.

  “What’s that?” Lissy asked.

  “You haven’t taken them to the night market!” He looked at Mom and shook his head. “It’s what Taipei is famous for—the night markets.”

  “But what is it?” I asked. “Is it just a market at night?”

  “Yes,” Uncle Shin said, “but not just shopping, like a flea market. There’s lots of food! My favorite food is always at the night market. It’s a lot of fun. You have to see it!”

  “Well, they’ll see it now.” Mom laughed. Aunt Bea called her home to get our cousins Julian and Shogun to meet us there, and we all rushed to leave.

  Outside, the sky was the color of ink. When Julian, Shogun, and their father met us, the streetlights shone down and I stared at my long shadow in front of me. Taxis streaked by, their headlights looking like staring eyes in the dark. I remembered how Aunt Ami didn’t want us traveling at night during Ghost Month and looked quickly at everyone else. No one seemed worried. In fact, everyone was quite cheerful.

  “This way!” Uncle Flower said, leading us down the street. We all followed Uncle Flower like we were in a parade. The noises of the street got louder and louder, and more and more people began to pack around us. A strong, hot smell filled the air, a mix of frying oil and smoke. Glowing signs lit the streets as bright as the sun, making it easy to see the peddlers crowded with their stands of frying foods. It was like a carnival or a fair. It reminded me of being at the temple in Lugang, except it was at night, busier, and, as I soon found out, much bigger.

  “Is this the night market?” I asked Uncle Shin. I had to say it loud so he could hear me over all the sounds and clattering of the crowd.

  “It’s the beginning of it!” he said to me. “There’s a lot more!”

  I followed him deeper into the masses of people. It felt like everyone in Taiwan was at the night market, too. Everyone was coming and going, pushing and crowding. It was hard to keep my eyes on Uncle Shin when there were so many things to look at. One peddler had piles and piles of meat on sticks laid out on trays in front of a grill. At another stand, a woman was frying six big omelets on a round stove that looked like a metal barrel. Another stand had a steaming hot metal form with circles molded in it, like a line of cups. As the peddler poured in batter, round cakes—the shape of hockey pucks—baked golden brown. I was starting to get hungry.

  “Can we eat?” I yelled to the back of Uncle Shin’s shoulder. He nodded and pointed to a cart nearby. When we got there, I saw there was a long line.

  “We’ll start with this!” he said.

  “What is it?” Lissy asked. She, Mom, and Ki-Ki had been right behind me the whole time.

  “Chicken cutlets!” Uncle Shin said. “One of the famous foods of the night market. I’ll take you to all the famous foods tonight, okay?”

  As we waited in line, Ki-Ki tugged on my arm. “Look!” she said.

  At the cart next to us, there were fat hot dogs on a stick. But not any hot dogs. These were baked in bread that looked like waffled cones. Some sticks had a wavy line of something that imitated ketchup or mustard on it, but I think it was really frosting. A couple of them had candied eyes on them, and one even had a bow tie!

  “Waffle dogs!” I said. “They should make one that looks like a dog!”

  We looked at the rows of waffle dogs waiting for buyers. There was one made to look like a baby, with a pink bow, but no dogs. We were a little disappointed.

  Uncle Shin handed each of us a huge chicken cutlet wrapped in paper. It was flat and round and so big that it had to be folded in half for our hands to hold it. It was like a super-extra-large piece of fried dough at a carnival, except it was meat. I didn’t think I could finish all of mine, but it was so good! The meat was tender and juicy, and the fried batter was salty and crispy. It was like the best chicken nugget I could imagine—as well as the largest.

  We were just taking our second and third bites in the chicken cutlets when Aunt Bea, Shogun, and Julian came up to us. Shogun and Julian were sharing something that looked like a sauce-covered baseball from a carton.

  “Everyone else is down there,” Aunt Bea said. “They wanted chou doufu.”

  “Chou doufu!” Uncle Shin said. “We’ll get that next. That’s famous, too.”

  We pushed our way down the street. This was the most crowded place I had ever been. It was busier than the subway, the train station, and the temple in Lugang. The heavy smoke smell of grilled foods and charcoal hung like a fog, and the mixture of all the people talking, bells from nearby games, and music blaring from stores was just a loud, confusing noise. There was a pink booth filled with hanging toys and a row of small, desk-sized pinball machines actually made with real pins and had marbles for balls. One woman laid out clothes on a large cloth in the middle of the road, and we had to squeeze on either side of her display. We even passed a booth selling wigs!

  But mostly the night market was full of food. So much! Little golden cakes in the shape of cute pigs and ducks. Colorful fruits looking like a rainbow on ice. Shiny, egg-shaped sausages. Some things were just weird, like little tomatoes skewered on a stick with a candy coating on them. It was like candy apples—but tomatoes! We had no idea what other things were. “What’s that?” we kept asking and pointing. “What’s that?”

  “Quail eggs,” Mom said about some small batter-fried balls with a brown sauce.

  “Pig’s blood cake,” Aunt Bea said about dark, almost
black mounds on a silver tray.

  “Duck tongues,” Uncle Shin said about some deep-fried things that looked like insects. “Want to try some?”

  We shook our heads hard, and I started to think maybe we should stop asking. But Lissy pointed at a sign with a drawing of a frog on it, and among all the Chinese writing, there were three English words written exactly like this: WOW FRog egGs.

  “Frog eggs!” Lissy said. “Is that a mistake? Did they mean frog legs?”

  Either way, I hoped we wouldn’t eat there.

  Mom looked at the sign and laughed. “No,” she said. “They really mean frog eggs. But it’s not what you think.”

  “It’s a drink,” Uncle Shin said. “Let’s get some.”

  We followed, cautiously, as Uncle Shin bounded over. At the stall a woman was wearing a white apron with the same frog on it as the one on the sign. It didn’t say “WOW FRog egGs” on her shirt, though. She was stirring a big silver bowl full of tea-colored water and what looked like clear Jell-O. Behind the bowl were two deep vats we couldn’t see inside of.

  Uncle Shin nodded, ordered, and then passed us each a plastic cup with a straw as wide as my thumb sticking out of it like a flagpole. The cups were full of golden-colored water and ice, but at the bottom, floating around like tadpoles without tails, were round balls.

  “What are those?” I asked. “Are those the frog eggs?”

  “Those are tapioca,” Mom said. “They just call it frog eggs because they think that’s how the tapioca looks.”

  I looked again at my cup. They really did look like what I imagined frog eggs would look like. I took a sip. Kind of lemon-tasting but not lemonade. It was cool and sweet. A tapioca pearl rose up the straw and into my mouth. It was smooth and slippery as I chewed and swallowed it. Fun! It was like eating a drink. I was glad they weren’t real frog eggs. “You can get this in the States now. They serve it in all different flavors of drinks and teas,” Uncle Shin told us. “But it’s called bubble tea or black pearl tea. ‘Frog eggs’ didn’t sound appealing to Americans!”

  We laughed, even though I thought it was a good name change. Frog eggs didn’t sound appealing to me at all. I was American that way, too.

  As we walked farther down, Uncle Shin said, “Ah! Chou doufu! Can you smell it?”

  I sniffed the air. The only thing new that I smelled was an unpleasant odor that reminded me of the bathroom at the train station. Ki-Ki looked at me and pinched her nose, so I knew she smelled it, too. But we kept following Uncle Shin.

  It was only when we met Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie Jin, and Uncle Flower in front of a food cart did I realize the smell was coming from there! I looked at the cart—nothing looked horrible. Silver trays full of golden fried squares of what I guessed was tofu. A woman, completely unconcerned by us, painted a brown sauce over them. Was it the food that smelled like that? I stood closer and sniffed… and then covered my nose and mouth! Yes, it was the food that smelled!

  “What is that?” Lissy said, pinching her nose, too.

  “Chou doufu!” Uncle Shin said. “Stinky tofu! It’s famous!”

  “Famous for smelling bad?” Lissy choked out.

  “Yes,” he laughed, “and for tasting delicious. You want one?”

  “No way!” I said. “It smells like throw-up!”

  Everyone laughed. Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie Jin, and Uncle Flower stood to the side, all of them already eating from plates full of it. They seemed to really like it. And it looked like a lot of people did because as we stood there, person after person came up to the stall and bought some. None of them seemed disgusted.

  “Here, try some of mine,” Mom offered, holding up a piece of the tofu in her chopsticks.

  Ki-Ki shook her head and clamped her lips tight. Lissy and I stared. It looked just like the fried tofu we’d had many times before. How could something that looked so harmless smell so bad?

  “You try it,” Lissy said to me.

  “I don’t want to try it!” I said. “You try it!”

  “It’s really good!” Aunt Bea said. “It’s a Taiwan specialty. You shouldn’t leave Taiwan without even trying it.”

  “I’ll try it if you try it,” Lissy said.

  I hesitated. I had eaten raw fish and chicken feet. I should be able to eat some tofu, even if it did smell bad. “Okay,” I said finally. “But you go first.”

  Lissy plugged her nose with her fingers again and reached for Mom’s chopsticks. She took a deep breath, made a face like a squished lemon, and dropped the tofu into her mouth. And then swallowed. Everyone clapped and cheered as if she had just won a contest.

  “Good for you!” Uncle Shin said. “See, pretty good, right? Now, Pacy, you try it!”

  Lissy whispered to me, “I didn’t really taste anything. I just swallowed it as fast as I could.”

  But now it was my turn. I pinched my nose like Lissy did, closed my eyes, carefully put the tofu in my mouth, and chewed. The tofu was soft with kind of a tangy taste that wasn’t bad…. But I could still smell it! And in my mouth, it seemed to smell even stronger. I quickly swallowed.

  “What did you think? Delicious, right?” Uncle Shin said as he ate his last piece. “I’m going to get some more. Do you want me to get you some?”

  Lissy and I both shook our heads. I hoped no one else wanted more. I wanted to get away from the stinky tofu as soon as possible.

  Chapter 31

  EVERYONE FINALLY FINISHED EATING THE STINKY tofu, and we continued walking down the street. I was still hungry, but there was no food in the next part of the street. Instead, a row of red booths appeared. I watched as one of the peddlers tapped a gold disc that looked like a metal pancake with a chopstick. Tap-tap-tap-tap! The peddler hit it quickly, looking at a sheet of paper at the same time. Were they some sort of drum musicians? If they were, their music wasn’t very good.

  “Who are they?” I asked, rudely pointing.

  “Fortune-tellers,” Mom said, pushing my finger down.

  More fortune-tellers! I was still surprised when I saw them. I kept thinking fortune-tellers would look more spooky or bizarre. These ones looked the same as Aunt Bea or Uncle Shin, wearing sweatshirts and glasses. I remembered the fortune-teller who had told my fortune, who had also looked so normal. She was the one who said I had a special skill that would stay with me. But my art talent had kept leaving in painting class, so she had been wrong about that. She also said I was going to get into trouble. Maybe she was wrong about that, too.

  We passed the fortune-tellers, and then I saw lots of kids crowding around something in the middle of the street. Ki-Ki, Lissy, and I went over to see what was so interesting.

  It was a big red plastic tub full of water. In the water, hundreds of goldfish swam and shimmered like shiny pennies.

  “What are they for?” I asked.

  “It’s a game,” Aunt Bea said. “You get a net and if you catch a goldfish, you can keep it.”

  “That’s it?” Lissy said. “Some game!”

  But the game was harder than it sounded. I watched as a pigtailed girl all dressed in red tried to catch a goldfish. She chased an orange fish with her net, trying over and over again to scoop it up. By the time she caught it, the net had crumbled and the fish easily escaped. It was only when she held up her tattered net and wailed did I realize that the nets were made out of paper.

  “Can I try?” I asked.

  No one answered me. I looked up and Mom, Lissy, Ki-Ki, Shogun, Uncle Shin—everyone—weren’t there!

  I was alone.

  Chapter 32

  I JUMPED UP. MAYBE I JUST HAD TO CATCH UP WITH them. But which way did they go? I couldn’t remember which way we had walked from.

  I followed the movement of the crowd. There were so many people, but none of them were Mom or Uncle Shin or Grandma or Grandpa. The night market was endless. Food, shopping, and games kept going and going. I kept walking aimlessly, wandering and looking.

  Where were they? The longer I walked, the louder the noise
s grew in my ears. Where were they? Words I couldn’t understand tripped and ran into each other over and on top of me. The smoke and smells flooded the air, and the neon signs glared with their garish colors. Where were they? The black sky seemed to come alive, and I felt like I was getting pressed into the mouth of a giant monster. The bright demon-colored red of the fortune-tellers’ booths reappeared and the tap-tap-tapping of the sticks echoed my heartbeat. Where were they? Where were they? Where were they? I started walking faster and faster. And suddenly, like a stabbing knife, fear cut into me. Where was I?

  I was lost. That first fortune-teller had been right. I was in trouble, big trouble.

  People swarmed and shoved, walking as if they didn’t see me. As if I were invisible to them. The burning air filled my lungs, and I gasped to breathe. I was the tree that no one saw, that didn’t exist. I was erased; somehow a ghost had gotten me, and now I was a ghost, too. A hungry ghost, desperate and scared, that no one could see and no one cared about. A sick, nauseous feeling formed at the bottom of my throat. I didn’t belong here! This place with the meaningless words and the harsh lights was fading me away. Soon, I’d be gone, evaporating into nothingness. I was going to disappear.

  All of the sudden, someone grabbed my arm. I almost screamed, but then I saw it was Shogun.

  “Pacy?” he said, and then he said a lot of words in Chinese I didn’t understand. But I didn’t care. I was so glad to see him! Tears started to pour out of my eyes, and my breath started to hiccup. Shogun tightened his hand on my arm and pulled me down the street.

  Then I saw Mom and Auntie Jin and Aunt Bea, Lissy and Ki-Ki. Seeing all of them again, their familiar faces after being so scared—I cried even harder. Mom hugged me tight and Auntie Jin and Aunt Bea joined in, too. Even Lissy and Ki-Ki were relieved.