How I Got Owned by a Dim Sum Cart Lady in Front of My Boyfriend (A Tragedy in Mandarin)
REMIXED. ORIGINAL PUBLISH DATE: 08/16/2012.
3:47 AM, Tropical Chinese Restaurant, Southeast Miami
I’d been ping-ponging between San Francisco and Miami for this long-distance relationship thing (because apparently I hate myself), and look—I’d made my peace with being the token Asian guy everywhere we went. You develop this sixth sense for it. The slight head-tilt when people register your face. The mental filing system clicking: Asian boyfriend, noted.
But then my boyfriend mentioned dim sum at Tropical Chinese, some spot in Southeast Miami, and I perked up like a golden retriever hearing the word “park.”
Dim sum. In Miami. Served by actual Chinese people speaking actual Chinese.
After months of trailing behind my Cuban boyfriend to hole-in-the-wall spots while everyone around me machine-guns Spanish at approximately seven thousand words per minute—and me standing there with my two years of “Lupita es alta” high school Spanish like some kind of linguistic toddler—I was ready to flip the entire script.
I had this whole fantasy worked out. I’d stand on one of those metal dim sum carts (structurally unsound, definitely a health code violation), arms raised like Rocky on those Philadelphia steps, flanked by the eleven-to-fifteen-year-old lady dim sum attendants in fighting stances, and I’d announce to my boyfriend: “That’s right, asshole! You’re in MY part of town now.”
(Yeah. I’m aware. I contain multitudes of pettiness.)
Here’s the thing, though, and this is important: I’m a dim sum fraud.
Like, a complete and total phony. My first proper Hong Kong-style dim sum experience didn’t happen until college—COLLEGE—which in Asian terms is like admitting you didn’t learn to use chopsticks until you were legally allowed to vote. My parents aren’t from Hong Kong. They’re from China, via Taiwan, and Sunday mornings weren’t spent eating small plates of fried pork and shrimp and taro products in their infinite permutations.
No, they were spent at Chinese Baptist Church (yes, that exists, yes, it’s exactly as culturally confusing as it sounds), and any small plates we ordered at restaurants consisted of cold, pickled dishes to accompany a bowl of rice porridge. Comfort food, sure—but definitely not the fried pork goodness people crave for the same reason they beeline toward every deep-fried-everything booth at the State Fair, arteries screaming.
In college, I made up for lost time. Went to enough dim sum places to give myself gout. Learned to identify har gow versus siu mai with the fervor of someone compensating for eighteen years of jellied, pickled, cold stuff.
My boyfriend had eaten dim sum before—he’s not culturally sheltered or anything—but never properly in Miami. Never with the old ladies pushing carts around like they’re running a mobile restaurant empire, hawking their wares to seated customers with the aggressive salesmanship of carnival barkers.
Which made me, by default, the foremost expert on Chinese brunch. The Lone Ranger of dim sum. The guy who points and orders with confidence.
(Narrator voice: He was not confident.)
Eating at Tropical Chinese is basically like eating dim sum in San Francisco or Alhambra or Flushing, except for two major differences that immediately shattered my illusions:
Nobody shows up until after noon. (”Latinos eat late,” someone explained to me, waving a hand dismissively. “They’ll all show up at two, just watch.”)
Everyone speaks perfectly adequate English, because—and I cannot stress this enough—there are not a lot of Asians in Miami compared to California or New York. We’re like exotic birds down here. Rare sightings.
(Evidence: There’s a signed headshot on one wall of the restaurant. Some telenovela star I don’t recognize, salutations written in Spanish. I secretly hoped she’d addressed it to Los Chinos, but no. She used the actual restaurant name like a normal person.)
But here’s where my brain—my stupid, overachieving, people-pleasing brain—made a critical error: Even though everyone in the restaurant speaks workable English, I decided to flex with Mandarin. Partly out of respect. Partly to show my boyfriend how linguistically gangsta I am.
(Spoiler alert: I am not linguistically gangsta.)
And thus, my downfall. My Icarus moment, except instead of flying too close to the sun, I flew too close to a rice dumpling.
THE INCIDENT
(Mandarin in italics, because I’m fancy like that)
Me: I’ll have a zongzi.
Old Cart Lady: [squints at me like I just asked for a unicorn] What?
Me: You know. That. [points desperately at the rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, the international gesture of “please help me”]
Old Cart Lady: [with the energy of a disappointed grandmother] That’s nuo mi ji. Zongzi is only eaten holidays. YOU ORDER WRONG THING!
My Boyfriend: [barely containing his glee] Nice.
Me: [dying inside] Thanks.
She comes back fifteen minutes later. I can see her approaching our table. I know what’s coming. It’s like watching a car accident in slow motion.
Old Cart Lady: [grinning like she just won the lottery] You enjoying your zongzi? HA HA HA.
Me: [contemplating whether it’s possible to dissolve into the restaurant floor]
My Boyfriend: [absolutely delighted with my suffering]
Me: Don’t.
My Boyfriend: If you’d like…
Me: Don’t say it, I beg you.
My Boyfriend: If you’d like, I can speak to her in Spanish.
Me: Die. Just die. Get hit by one of those dim sum carts. Perish.
This is why I’m a bad Asian.
When I go to dim sum with friends—and god help me if I’m the only Asian guy at the table—I’m the caller. I’m the one pointing at dishes and ordering in Mandarin with fake confidence, never mind that 90 percent of the dim sum places in the Bay Area actually speak Cantonese. Never mind that the linguistic gulf between Mandarin and Cantonese is roughly equivalent to the difference between Spanish and Portuguese—similar roots, completely different execution.
Never mind that I’d be infinitely better off just asking in English whether pork or chicken is hiding inside those dumplings, like a normal person who isn’t trying to prove something to everyone at the table.
But I nod and smile and recommend dishes and basically just fake that shit, because as the Lone Asian at the Table™ (trademark pending), this is my duty. My burden. My cross to bear.
Even if—and this is the kicker—I know as much about authentic dim sum as that telenovela star knows when she signs autographs to Los Chinos.
Which is to say: absolutely fucking nothing.
(The zongzi was delicious, though. Even if it was technically nuo mi ji. Even if I’ll never live it down.)
Ernie... park? Wanna go? Who's a good boy? Let's get your leash! (Wait, that took a turn. Hmm.)
And if the zongzi/nuo mi ji was delicious, that's what matters! :-)