Homecoming Notes: Reuniting at the Table, I Realised It Was Never Far Away

by Posted on
A Note from Foodthink
Our memories of our mothers often seem intertwined with food and care. Perhaps she was a gifted cook, remembering every family member’s likes and dislikes, and soothing us with nourishing meals. Perhaps she wasn’t much of a cook, yet she consistently threw herself into household chores, doing her utmost to look after the family. As our mothers age, we find ourselves cooking for them, tending to them in sickness, and slowly learning to replicate their everyday wisdom. Through this role reversal, we begin to grasp the true weight of motherhood and domestic labour.

This April, the author travelled back to her hometown in Chongqing to visit family, reuniting with her mother and grandmother. In honour of Mother’s Day, we share her reflections from the journey home. Wishing all mothers peace, good health, and the comfort of being looked after.

4.3 Coming Home

From late March to early April, temperatures in Beijing ebb and flow, but the accumulated warmth in the soil and vegetation has finally done its work. After months of stillness, the branches have at last pushed out leaves and buds. Magnolias appear first, lilacs follow close behind, and the air carries a distinctly different scent. Thinking of my grandfather, who passed away recently, and my grandmother, who made it through COVID, I booked a train ticket home. Tucked into my bag was a bottle of green plum syrup I had preserved myself the previous May.

●During the Qingming Festival holiday, the subways and trains were packed with people heading home. With luggage that large, one can only wonder what exactly is packed inside.
●After a night’s rest on the train, it rained almost continuously along the way. The following morning, the train crossed the Yangtze River at Fuling.

We arrived in Chongqing and stayed for a few days. Once my mother had collected her medication, the whole family bought tickets to travel together to Fengjie to visit my maternal grandmother. The high-speed train from Chongqing to Fengjie takes just under two hours and passes through Wanzhou, so we planned to stop in Wanzhou first to pay respects at my paternal grandmother’s grave before heading on to Fengjie.

●Before setting off on a long journey, my mother always insisted on topping up the water seal around the rim of the pickling jar. She is incredibly meticulous about such things, so she would also stow away everyday kitchen utensils—the ladle, spatula, spice jars, and so on—inside the cupboards to keep them dust-free, sparing us the tidying up when we returned.

IV. 10 Visiting the Grave

The Qingming Festival had passed, and with it not being the weekend, the cemetery was entirely deserted. My father had bought a bunch of chrysanthemums, joss paper, and incense, and walked briskly ahead. I followed close behind, carrying a cloth bag packed with an assortment of fruits, snacks, a water bottle, and a pack of tissues. My mother, walking more slowly, brought up the rear. The afternoon heat was intense; the sun had taken on a fierce, summer-like bite. I sweat easily, and I could already smell myself turning a bit sour. My grandmother had been gone for eight years. I’d visited her grave three or four times, but I never quite remembered the exact spot. Still, following a rough direction, I found it quickly: a headstone bearing only an inscription, no photograph. We kept the rites simple: laying flowers, burning incense, and offering paper money. As always, my prayers were for personal safety and health, and for world peace.

It struck me that five years had passed since my last visit. On that occasion, I’d brought her a potted plant—a narcissus, one of her favourites. This time, there wasn’t enough time to buy anything specific for her. On a whim, I took out the peanuts and oranges from the bag and laid them before the headstone, knowing how much she loved both. “Your grandmother didn’t care for apples or bananas,” my mother remarked, so I left them be.

4.10 Reunion

Past four o’clock in the afternoon, we boarded a high-speed train. The journey took just over thirty minutes, and we soon arrived in Fengjie.

●My grandmother, photographed in January and April 2023.

Exhausted after a day of running about, I stepped through the front door of my grandmother’s house and saw her sitting upright on the sofa. Instantly, I felt my tension melt away.

She must have spotted a figure from a distance and called out, “Who’s there?” I raised my voice in reply, and she recognised me at once: “It’s Linlin!”

Her right eye has gone completely blind, her left eye is poor, and her hearing has gone too, yet she speaks with a loud, commanding voice. Up close, her cheeks are still full and her skin clear. She rises from the sofa with surprising agility and can manage a few steps without her walking stick—a far cry from the frail, listless figure I saw lying in her hospital bed during the Spring Festival.

My grandmother’s back has been bent for years, making her look particularly slight, yet she has always been remarkably robust—this was, in fact, her first ever hospital admission. Earlier in the year, the whole family split their time between the hospital and home. The uncles took shifts looking after her in the ward, while my youngest uncle’s wife and father rotated kitchen duties at home. By then, my grandfather could barely eat or even drink, but my grandmother was faring much better and could manage soft foods.

●January, at the hospital: my grandfather resting in bed and my grandmother getting up to use the toilet, assisted by my second and youngest uncles respectively (left); my grandmother insisting on holding the bowl herself to drink her thick soup (right).

After she was discharged, the uncles continued to take shifts looking after her. We also hired a carer to stay in the house, both to prevent her from falling and to ensure she wasn’t left alone when someone went out to shop or run errands. Despite her robust frame, my grandmother has always been fiercely independent and reluctant to rely on others; her catchphrase was always, “I can manage.”

Yet, after a lifetime of stubbornness, she has finally begun to bend. She now eats foods she previously shunned, simply because the doctors warned she was deficient in nutrients.

●My grandmother dislikes getting her clothes spilt on during meals. Before eating, my mother ties an apron around her waist, just as she used to fasten a bib on me when I was little.
Mum and my maternal grandmother hadn’t seen each other for a month or two either; they sat close together, chatting eagerly. My eldest uncle called us to the table, where there was a bowl of steamed pork coated in rice flour that my second uncle had pre-marinated: a mix of fat and lean cuts, seasoned, wrapped in rice flour, and kept in the fridge to steam fresh whenever needed. Mum served Grandma several of the fattier pieces. Watching her eat with such relish, I found myself tucking into a few large lean chunks too… My plan to skip a meal or two went straight out the window. After a shower, I climbed into Grandpa and Grandma’s bed just past nine. With several of us lying in the room, Mum switched off the washing machine and turned off the lights.

I slept soundly through the night. Grandpa didn’t visit me in my dreams.

4.11 My Second Uncle

In the morning, having heard I had returned to Fengjie, my second uncle made the special journey by car from the neighbouring county. He first took our family to the cemetery to pay our respects to Grandpa, then headed back home to start cooking.

●The dishes on the table weren’t just tailored to my own tastes. My grandmother, whom we jokingly call the ‘reluctant to step down’ head of the household, surveyed the spread with deadpan seriousness: “This feast caters to every generation’s palate.”
●Amidst a table groaning with dishes, my chopsticks first went for the cold-tossed fish mint leaves.
●My grandmother is particularly fond of broad beans.
●How does Second Uncle manage to get the konjac strips so full of flavour!
●Second Uncle made a special trip to the market for a live chicken, slaughtered on the spot. A glance at the photo tells you this was a properly active bird: a thin layer of fat beneath the skin, deeply coloured meat, and a fine, tender grain. I’d dearly love to take a live chicken like this back to Beijing.
Over the years, my grandparents’ extended family has grown slowly and aged considerably, yet the number of accomplished cooks has increased, their skills all on a par. Nevertheless, Second Uncle remains the undisputed head of the kitchen, a fact even my mother readily concedes. When I was little, upon hearing I had a taste for lamb tripe, he would make a special trip to buy it and clean it himself; when my skin was prone to sores, he heard that snake meat could clear internal heat, and would venture out to the countryside to secure some for me to eat.

4.12 Pork Trotters

● Left: From the balcony of my grandparents’ home, the view looks straight out onto the road at the market entrance; this was taken over the New Year. Right: My mother exercising nearby; a snapshot I titled ‘The Elder Beneath the Tree’.

My relatives cook at home regularly, yet they are never averse to dining out. There are inevitably times when cooking loses its spark or one simply cannot decide what to prepare; after all, honing one’s culinary skills calls for plenty of exploration and tasting.

In the wider Chongqing area, it is remarkably rare to have a disappointing meal out. The locals are passionate about food and possess sharp palates, so restaurants without real skill simply cannot stay open. Nevertheless, save for weddings, funerals, and welcoming guests from elsewhere, my family seldom partakes in large banquets. Our everyday routine involves sharing a bowl of noodles, rice noodles, or wontons at a small eatery, or stopping by a roast meat counter to get some pig’s ears or snout sliced up to add an extra dish to the evening meal at home.

There are several roast meat shops on the ground floor of my grandparents’ building, and one in particular has won acclaim across the city—a fact even my notoriously picky grandfather and second uncle concede. Early in the year, one night, my mother received a call that my grandfather was gravely ill, rousing the whole household. At around three in the morning, I shuffled downstairs in a daze and, as I passed the shop, noticed someone inside arranging plates and bowls. I couldn’t tell whether they had just closed up or were preparing to open.

My second uncle was in charge of the cooking once again. Although the table was already groaning under a feast, he ventured downstairs to order a portion of pig’s snout, specifically instructing the vendor to slice it as thinly as possible. Despite its rich appearance, the snout was far from cloying; even a hearty eater like me found the temptation irresistible.

● The roast meat shop downstairs—open for business before 7 a.m., as evidenced by the digital clock on the wall in the left-hand panel.
● The sliced pig’s snout my second uncle picked up from the shop below.
After returning to Beijing, I have been continually savouring that dish of braised pig’s snout. Northern pork simply cannot compete with the southern variety, but the dipping sauce is relatively easy to pick up. So, while I asked Mum to find a roast meat shop where I could learn the craft, I also started experimenting on my own: using sugar and vinegar as a base, I found the overall flavour profile to be quite close. When I reached out to Mum for advice, she sent over a few voice notes on WeChat: “The reason this shop’s dipping sauce tastes so good is that they use Sichuan pepper powder instead of Sichuan pepper oil. Think about it: oil floats on top of the (watery) sauce. When you dip the roasted meat, it only coats in oil and doesn’t pick up the other seasonings (sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, and similar liquid condiments). That leaves it tasting greasy and lacking in flavour. If you use pepper powder, you completely avoid that problem.” In truth, Mum is the most experienced cook of us all.

4.12 The Market

My grandparents’ flat was situated right next to a market in the county town. The surrounding area wasn’t exactly pristine, and it was fairly noisy, but the convenience was unmatched. If you were missing anything, you could simply open the door, head downstairs, and sort it out straight away. It wasn’t just about food, either; hardware shops, general stores, and clothing outlets were all well represented. The roads in this mountainous town are narrow, and the pavements are even narrower. You’re constantly brushing shoulders with others on the street, making it impossible to walk fast. With any plans to go running completely dashed, I made a habit of wandering out whenever I had free time: browsing about, asking questions to get a feel for local prices, and burning a few calories in the process.

Even from a distance, you could catch the scent of mince patties or pan-fried potatoes from the mobile street stalls—truly mouth-watering. But since I was already thoroughly stuffed from eating at home, I genuinely couldn’t face another bite. After wandering around, I’d inevitably end up back at the market, realising it was far more rewarding to browse there anyway. There were always unfamiliar herbs and vegetables on display, alongside a diverse array of stallholders. It was a place that felt both familiar and curiously exotic.

● On either side of the road outside the market, you’ll invariably find itinerant traders. Some walk back and forth with baskets slung over their shoulders, others set down their carrying poles to squat in whatever gap they can find, while yet more park small tricycles or minibuses by the roadside… Returning to the south this season, I caught the market just as the new garlic and tender broad beans (fava beans) came in. Regardless of how much space they have, everyone is bent over, husking the tender beans and peeling fresh garlic, hands never still.
● In the midst of the bustle, this vendor sits alone by the street. No shouting, just a single basket of roots for stews; once they’re sold out, they pack up and vanish.
● A carrying pole, two wicker baskets, a steelyard scale, a straw hat – remarkably, it’s just as it was thirty years ago.
● Pan-fried dumplings, pan-roasted potatoes, and tea eggs. I haven’t seen one of these old-fashioned honeycomb briquette stoves in ages.
● The “digua” I ate as a child isn’t the same vegetable known by that name in the north. It’s jicama (yam bean), native to Mexico and Central and South America. It can be eaten raw, offering a crisp, juicy bite like a water chestnut, with a clean sweetness. I never would have guessed it actually belongs to the legume family!
● The first time I saw spring onions sold this way, I assumed it was for amateur gardeners. In reality, it’s catering to those who only need the white bulbs. Nestled right beside the spring onions on the right of the frame are “yangyu guoguo” – sun-dried potatoes, a preservation technique I’ve rarely seen anywhere else.
● On the left are small garlic shoots, also called wild garlic, a firm favourite with my father. Finely chopped and tossed with a dash of seasonings, they make an excellent side dish. My father also loves adding them to *cai tofu* for extra depth of flavour. But what is *cai tofu*, exactly? It’s made by grinding soybeans and simmering them without straining, then stirring in chopped leafy greens. It’s drunk straight from the bowl or mixed with rice.
● The roots and leaves of fish mint (*zhe’ergen*). I prefer the leaves on the right. Photographed in January.
● This bowl of fermented sweet rice wine (*laozao*) is almost sold out.
● The yellow liquid is corn milk, prepared in much the same way as soy milk.
● The market stalls are even more abundant around the Lunar New Year. Various cuts of pork offal, all cleaned and prepared, are ready for anyone shopping for their reunion dinner to take home and make into braised delicacies.
● Come the New Year, butchers singe pig trotters and tails over an open fire by the roadside. My mother says the skin must be torched before cooking, otherwise it won’t be tender.
● Come the New Year, even live chickens can be found laid out for sale along the street.

I didn’t know where to look; everything caught my eye and I wanted to buy it all, yet I dared not purchase a single thing. Since I wasn’t the one cooking, I was afraid of getting in the way.

In the end, unwilling to return home empty-handed, I recalled my mother mentioning that our pickling crock needed a top-up of ginger, and my uncle remarking that baby ginger was a bit pricey these days and we should “wait a little while.” I figured buying baby ginger would certainly be the right call.

Back home, I peeled and washed the baby ginger, placed it in a bamboo sieve to drain, and set it on the table outside the kitchen so it wouldn’t come into contact with cooking oil. My father walked past, gave it a quick look, and remarked, “You’ve bought the wrong kind of ginger; the fibres are a bit coarse.”

A quiet smile spread across my face. My father had finally moved beyond mere talk and into the nitty-gritty of daily life.

● Over the past few years, my father has transformed from a complete novice into a proper chef. For this meal, the loofah and pork meatball soup and the blistered green chillies were particularly delicious. Even the pig trotters my mother bought from outside were astonishingly good.

IV. 13 Farewell

Heading back to Beijing today, I bought a midday train ticket, just so I could squeeze in one more proper home-cooked meal. I had my backpack sorted by early morning. Compared to when I arrived, it now carried a few extra wheat cakes, navel oranges, and a parcel of brown sugar sachima that my grandmother had repeatedly asked my eldest uncle to buy for me.

After breakfast, I went downstairs for my usual morning wander. I spotted some fresh fennel resting in an elderly woman’s basket. Without even asking for a plastic bag, I bought a bunch to take home.

Mum and my uncle took one look and said, “Lovely find. You could tuck some away in a crock for pickling.” Dad chimed in, “Or you could fry them into little cakes.” It was a rare hit; our three household chefs all approved.

(Note: 粑粑 (bā bā) refers to a cake or dumpling made from pounded glutinous rice or other grain flour, often mixed with finely chopped vegetables.)

● Leftover chicken soup from two days ago, with luffa added, to keep drinking.
● For stir-fried pork kidneys to stay tender, you need plenty of oil and high heat; the oil left in the plate afterwards is wonderful for boiling noodles.

Grandmother’s meal times are usually rigidly fixed, but today lunch was brought forward by an hour to suit my schedule. Second Uncle isn’t fond of pork kidneys himself, yet he prepared them specially to see me off, probably remembering how much I loved them as a child. The culinary skills remain, but the pigs are different. We all remarked that today’s pigs simply aren’t what they used to be. In the past, people fed pigs on pigweed and swill (leftover rice, dishes, and broth); now they’re fed commercial feed.

It was time to go. Grandmother, who rarely ventures out these days, rose from the sofa and insisted on walking to the door to see me off; no one could dissuade her. Mother leaned over and whispered, “She and your grandad always like to stand in that spot when seeing people off.” I nodded. “I know.”

● Left: This photo, taken by my father, marks my farewell to Grandmother this time. Right: March 2015, I returned to my hometown for a visit and said goodbye to my grandparents. After going downstairs, I looked back to see them standing there watching me, so I quickly pulled out my phone to capture the moment. Back then, people stood by the railings on steamship decks just like this, waving goodbye.

In truth, I could have easily hailed a taxi to the high-speed rail station myself, but Second Uncle insisted on driving us, bringing my parents along. Parking near my grandparents’ place is at a premium and awkward to navigate, so Second Uncle parked further away and went to fetch the car straight after his morning groceries. All morning, Grandmother asked repeatedly, “What time is the train?” “What time is it now?” Eventually, she simply had someone bring a stool to the doorway and sat alone, waiting to see Second Uncle return.

Father joked softly by her ear, “My dear, it’s not like the old days when you had to rush for a boat. Trains are punctual now; they don’t leave early.”

Grandmother must still remember a time when seeing someone off at the docks, they watched the boat pull away and, in a panic, stomped their feet before rushing to the dispatch office to beg them to recall it. Back then, Yangtze River ferry services were infrequent; miss a boat, and you’d wait at least another day.

● Masashi Sada’s 1981 documentary *The Yangtze River*. Sada (the tiny figure on the left) walks a path chiselled into a cliff along the Three Gorges. My grandmother walked paths just like this. She said that in the past, with the Yangtze’s swift currents and treacherous reefs, heavily laden wooden boats were in grave danger heading downstream. So passengers were usually offloaded to “go overland” along the mountain paths, only reboarding once they had cleared the rocky stretch.
● The peak right in the centre of the frame is known locally as “Peach Mountain”. As a child sailing past, spotting it meant Fengjie was just ahead. Image source: Documentary *The Yangtze River* (Masashi Sada, 1981)
● The county town dock at Fengjie in 1981. I showed this to my mother, who told me the archway the stairs in the picture lead to is called “Yidou Gate”. Image source: Documentary *The Yangtze River* (Masashi Sada, 1981)

Transport in the mountainous region around my hometown has traditionally relied on waterways. With no railway lines passing through, the winding mountain roads were notoriously bumpy and slow, and the expressway network is only a relatively recent development.

In the past, journeying from home to Beijing meant either heading downstream along the Yangtze by boat, transferring to a coach as I passed the Three Gorges Dam, and catching a train at Yichang. Alternatively, I would travel upstream by boat or bus to Wanzhou or Chongqing before taking a flight. Both routes were equally time-consuming and complicated.

●Passing through Fengjie on the high-speed rail, the train is only out in the open for a few seconds between tunnels, so you need to be quick with the camera. The carriage is crossing a bridge over the Meixi River tributary, where it meets the Yangtze. Beneath the large cumulonimbus cloud on the left of the upper photograph lie “Peach Mountain” and Qutang Gorge. Taken in July 2022 and January 2023, respectively.

Last year, my small county town, long left out of the railway network, was suddenly linked to the high-speed rail line—a leap forward as sudden as stepping into the clouds. Constructing this section proved particularly arduous and slow; with a bridge-and-tunnel ratio exceeding 95%, the trains spend almost their entire journey threading through dark mountain caverns.

The high-speed train hurtles eastward through the Daba Mountains straight onto the Central China Plain, then turns north, reaching Beijing in just over six hours.

Stepping out of the station, the familiar local accent fades from my ears. The Standard Mandarin crackling over the underground announcements sounds almost unfamiliar. Each step I take brings me one day closer to my next return home.

Foodthink Author
Ahaolan
I want to travel the world unburdened by luggage, yet spend more time with my family. The superpower I would most wish for is the ability to split myself in two and teleport.

 

 

 

Photographs provided by the author

Unless otherwise stated, all images were taken in April 2023

Edited by Ze’en

Published by Foodthink