must eat; will travel

Hot and muggy, the evening air swelters and bites in the shape of mosquitoes attacking our damp bodies. Bluish-grey clouds of smoke and incense cloud the red glow of the restaurant’s doors, the scent of tobacco permeating every breath.
Grinning, tan middle-aged aunties slap our arms while we answer cries of ‘It’s been too long! How old are you?’ in muddled Chinese. People cluster like ducks around banquet tables, bursts of laughter exploding like fireworks through the noise.
The tables groan with food. Dishes fill with crunchy, bright pink shrimp bursting with sweet, briny juice that lingers in my mouth. Crackly red roast pork covered with rendered fat that tastes of smoke and pure lard. Fragrant, golden stir-fried eggplant with salty-spicy black beans and garlic, beautiful, fresh steamed fish, the cleanest tasting chicken I’ve ever eaten, pea shoots in broth and steaming hotpots and tangy citrus slices. My cousins and sister and I play a game of who-can-eat-the-most until we are more swollen than appropriate.
My father barely eats, but mingles and chats his head off. When we see him, he is smiling beatifically. It’s slightly unsettling; he is more reserved at home. Here, my father flits between tables like a mockingbird, taking in the echoes and memorials of thirty years like bittersweet nectar. A cousin produces the family register and bids my father write his children’s names in. Embarrassed and happy, my parents bicker over the correct brush strokes amid swells of teasing laughter.
When we leave in a haze of diesel fumes, the rest of my family waves, smiles, and wishes us a happy farewell with boxes of fishy dried turnip and brittle, tannic mandarin peel- come back, just the two of you, they tell my sister and I, and bring the other one too!
I make a promise to myself. If they ever happen by my far-away city, I’ll be more than grateful to give them a night of delicious food and beautiful memories, like the kind of hospitality they showed us that night.