Bathing in Soy Sauce

“Coming through!”

A woman in white pushes a loaded dim sum food cart across the wet tile floor. It sounds like a skateboard chugging down the old Brooklyn Banks: chic-a-chuck-a-chick-a-chuck-a.

The room is packed. Lian Xiang Lou is a legendary breakfast spot for Hong Kong locals. It almost hides above the bustling street outside—were it not for the long line of hungry early-risers trailing up the stairs from the sidewalk.

We manage to enter, but—where can we sit?

Any effort must be worth it though: why else would there be so many people? Hong Kong is always buzzing, and one could find breakfast elsewhere much easier.

My Chinese father-in-law, my wife, and I scramble for seats, tiptoeing through the few narrow spaces between feet, chairs, carts, and buckets. We find a couple of empty places at a table in the corner and turn it into three, near the street-side window. To the wall clings a metal fan and a British grandfather clock.

“Are these seats taken?” we ask.

An older man, swallowing a stuffed dumpling (whole), shrugs and nods. We read that as a “yes” because at a place like this, one does not simply ask a hostess for a table; one searches for and claims it. The same rule applies to “ordering” food from a dim sum cart. We sit with the man and his friends, all of whom are too busy chowing to worry about tourists.

To my left sits another elderly Hong Kong gentleman reading a newspaper. He looks clever and gentle with straight, gray hair, clear spectacles, and a clean-shaven face.

“Have some tea,” he says, smiling.

The tabletop is round, glass, and wet. White cups and spoons await in the center. The tea, though, is for more than just drinking. One may pour it over any dish (chopsticks, cups, small plates) in need of a cleanse.

My wife and father-in-law will “order” for us, not only because they have a better idea of what's going on, but more importantly, they have a keen sense of what local dishes we must try. Meanwhile, the old man makes more conversation with me—in articulate English--and soon feels like family.

“What do you think about education here, and in the U.S.?” he asks.

The food cart passes our table. My father-in-law waves a hand. Because he speaks Mandarin (not Cantonese), our new friend assists. In seconds, various dishes steam from our plates: sweetened pork dumplings, shrimp rice cakes (bathing in a pool of soy sauce), and chicken feet.

We hadn't just found seats and good food, though. We'd found friends.