Oolong Tea and White-clothed Tables

      Piping hot oolong tea poured in small, white porcelain. Chopsticks fighting as the Lazy Susan turns. Overlapping chatter. The red rice bucket passed by reaching hands. 10:30AM.
    I sit in the decorative chair using the white table cloth as a makeshift blanket to cover my knees. My mother is speaking with one of my Jiu Jiu’s (uncle) in Mandarin, leisurely placing a sauce-covered chicken feet between her lips while he pokes at the head of a fried fish. Family members spin the Lazy Susan and park it when the dish they want is in front of them. I wait for the mapo tofu to come my way. My chopstick skills are unacceptable—according to my grandmother—as I pierce a cube of tofu and chew on it. The rice is my favorite part; I stack grains on the tapered sticks of wood until it forms a mountain and I quickly devour it before it topples. My sisters and cousins are patiently waiting for the adults to conclude their two-hour conversations, where they can begin to argue about who’s credit card is the lucky winner. I sip on the cold oolong tea and bring the bowl to my face in oder to slurp up the rest of my food. When my other Jiu Jiu wins the seesaw game of “Who’s Paying Today,” we leave. 
    But it does not end at the doors of the Chinese restaurant. Us children and adults cram into three cars and head to a café. Boba shops are like sacred lounges in the San Gabriel Valley. It is an entire subculture where Asian-Americans hold close to their identities. Like always, I ask my mother to order a “Niu Nai Cha” (which renders ‘boba milk tea’ in all Rowland Heights cafés) because I am too timid to talk to the cashier. The two-hour conversations once played at the white-clothed tables resume at wooden tabletops of a boba shop. The children gather around each other and exclaim at innocent words exchanged through mouths inhaling tapioca pearls and milk tea. The sweet, beige milk tea indulges my tongue followed by spheres of starchy tapioca bubbles. It is now close to 2:00PM. We utter goodbyes to our family members outside the café, like birds chittering in the trees, and depart to our separate houses. 
    That is a normal occurrence in my family, and many other Asian families. Brunch affairs consisting of family-style dishes at Chinese restaurants and meet-ups at local boba cafés made up my childhood. Growing up in Rowland Heights (California), a predominately Asian city, I was surrounded by Mandarin-speaking Ayi’s (older women) and aromas of delectable Chinese treats like sweet bread and steamed buns. Despite the fact that my mother and father’s families are from Taiwan, Chinese culture is widely practiced within our area. The times my mother, my sisters, and I visited our cousin’s house, we would make two pit-stops: Dolphin Bay and Ni Ni Bakery. Each three minutes from both of my cousins’ neighborhood. Dolphin Bay (which is now closed) was the spot all of us children begged the adults to take us to. Right inside the door were toy vending machines, each capsule waiting for a kid’s hand to insert a quarter into the slot. Pop! was the sound of the jumbo straw puncturing the plastic that sealed the treasured boba milk tea. I’d carry my beverage to Ni Ni Bakery, which was literally three stores from Dolphin Bay. Rather than toy vending machines, we were greeted with cream colored trays and tongs. I’d lift the plastic lid and extract the bread, the dough indenting by how delicate it was. Pineapple buns, sponge cake, or red bean paste buns filled the tray in seconds. My hands would run along the cases of cakes and pastries as if I could reach my hand through the glass and grab them. The next step of the assembly line was bagging, where the cashier somehow convinced my mom to buy a box of four savory buns. The practice of that routine had been engrained into my lifestyle, until I moved. 
    The memories of weekly brunches and (almost) daily boba runs carried with me when I moved to Arizona at the age of eight. With a fraction of Asians located in the city I live in, the scarcity of authentic Chinese restaurants and boba shops are apparent. I began to integrate myself into, what I call, “Gilbert culture.” The city of Gilbert opened a door to Hispanic food and American influences. No longer did I have the luxury to live on streets lined with my favorite Chinese foods. It was replaced with fast food chains. My relatives all within the same state, but my family was 300 miles away. Nostalgia hits when I walk in the front doors of my cousin’s house; my Jiu Jiu and Jiu Ma (aunt) preparing our favorite Chinese dishes. When we pack into three cars and drive to an Asian-owned restaurant, where the adults have to order because I am no longer fluent. When we pick up ‘niu nai cha’ after every meal even though our stomachs are filled. When we select breads from Ni Ni Bakery we have known since we were five. When we pass the red rice bucket around the table, or when we turn the Lazy Susan like a game of roulette. Although I am eighteen years old, every visit to my hometown immerses me into my youth once again. Generations upon generations of Asian immigrants (and Asian-Americans) built a culture of food in California, which will always be a reminder of my roots. Now, I cherish the culture I was so used to as a child, but with a deeper understanding of how it ties me back to family.
    I peer into the small white porcelain of oolong tea and reminisce on my childhood at the Chinese restaurant.