The sunlight dimmed between the window’s iron grating as I got distracted by a familiar aroma, a mixture of sweetness and spiciness that I had craved for a long time. I could no longer concentrate on my workbook.

“Time to eat,” I thought I heard a voice from outside, but I wasn’t sure. So I waited to be called again.

I picked up my workbook again, but I heard approaching footsteps, and the door opened. My mother and I stared at each other—I could tell clearly that she was satisfied with how focused I looked, so I smiled and followed her to the dining area.

At that point, my mother and I barely talked about anything but school, as I studied for the college entrance examination that was less than a year away. Nothing else mattered, except perhaps for basic needs like eating. She tried to fill me with nutritious food so that my body, the engine, could function well.

The competitive high school I attended was a few minutes from this apartment, two hours’ drive from the city where I grew up, Zhuhai. My parents had both grown up in central China, and attended a good university there, but then they chose to start fresh in the southern Guangdong province. They settled in Zhuhai, one of the five special economic zones set during China’s Opening and Reform period, which I regarded as my hometown.

They always had great expectations for their only child. When I was very young, my mother set a goal for me: to get into the highly selective experimental program of this high school, a pathway to one of China’s top universities. But my academic performance was not ideal, especially after I realized that I didn’t like the science subjects they persuaded me to choose. To “get everything back in control,” as my parents put it, they rented this apartment, near school, so that I could stay over on weekends and some weekdays.

My mother moved into the apartment while my father switched his job location to the provincial capital, so he could stay with us over the weekends as well. My mom usually did the cooking, but she never enjoyed doing it as much as my dad. Whenever my dad was free from work, he cooked for us.

The aroma that caught my attention on that Sunday night was a childhood favorite dish my dad had cooked, the sweet and spicy kung pao chicken. When I got out of my room, there was the dish, sitting on our dining table. My dad, in a floral apron, turned around from the cooking bench to look at me.

“Try the chicken, my darling,” he said.

It looked as good as it smelled: chicken cubes, glazed with a mixture of cornstarch and water as well as chili oil, and cubes of cucumber and carrot.

“Go ahead, don’t mind me,” he said, “I’ll join you two later.” My dad always tries not to keep us waiting while he’s cooking, especially in winter. “Mission received, daddy, let me try it for you,” I said. I picked up my stainless-steel chopsticks. It was like heaven—the extremely tender chicken along with the crisp fresh vegetables, all with this sweet and spicy taste that I love. For a moment, I forgot my schoolwork and exercise and papers. I forgot where I was.

My parents used to take me to a Sichuan restaurant near home, back in Zhuhai, and I always enjoyed their kung pao chicken. We’d also order egg crisp-fried corn and fish fillet in hot chili oil, both tasty in different ways. But kung pao chicken was my favorite, though not so for my mom.

We are a family of chili lovers—my parents came from provinces that are famous for spicy food, and that’s what they ate growing up, while people in the south, Guangdong province in particular, prefer a much milder taste. Typical Guangdong dishes are fresh and sometimes a little sweet, much less salty and certainly not spicy, as they believe in keeping the original flavor of the ingredients. I developed a taste buds to appreciate both, and I fell in love with kung pao chicken the first time I tried it in that restaurant.

But on this night, a sudden pain jolted and stroke me out of the memory, from a front tooth up to the gum line, not sharp but strong. I cried and threw away my chopsticks.

“What happened,” asked my parents, as they stood up anxiously to check on me.

I had cracked the tooth on the stainless-steel chopsticks—my dad never made kung pao chicken for me again, and I never again used steel chopsticks. But I leave my tooth cracked, probably to remember that otherwise delightful night.

After that exam, I insisted on choosing my own college major, which was not science, and ended up attending two top journalism schools in the states.  

Tags: China, college entrance examination, kung pao chicken