BAD WHITE DEVIL, NO DIMSUM!

This past weekend Savage Kitten went out for yam-cha with some friends.
In over two decades together, she and I did that only once. I probably had more dimsum before we started seeing each other than since.
I would've liked to have gone along with her, but those are her friends.
I have never met them.

[Yam-cha (飲茶): literally 'drink tea', but in the Cantonese context, to go to a teahouse and have a breakfast or brunch consisting of many types of steamed dumplings, savoury items, small dishes - tea is the accompaniment. Dimsum (點心): the generic name for the dumplings and snacks served at a cha-lau (茶樓 - tea pavilion, tea house).
Dimsum means 'dot heart' - that which pleases the soul. Restaurants where dimsum is served tend to be bustling and crowded, as sampling a selection of small snacky things is best done in groups, especially at a place with an extensive spectrum of offerings. Quite often a dozen people will be at a table, and there may be dozens of tables in the place. Tea houses are very popular on weekends, with whole families going out for brunch and getting quite 'cheerful' from drinking so much tea.]

It's part of the 'fear-of-Chinatown' thing. The reason she and I never went out for dimsum together, that is.
When your poisonous bitch mom (臭鬼婆) knows too many people, the chance that someone will report back to old lady that they saw her daughter with some white devil (白鬼) is rather large.

[臭鬼婆: Chau gwai poh (stinky daemonic female relative). 白鬼: Pak-gwai (Caucasian person).]

Had that happened, World War Three would have erupted.


The likelihood of someone betraying us is far slimmer now - for one thing, the old lady is no longer sentient after her strokes, and for another, Savage Kitten and the White Devil are no longer an item.

I would very much have liked to have gone for dimsum. But I wasn't asked.
It would have been odd to have insisted that the EX-boyfriend come along when they never even knew that she had a relationship in the first place.
Probably quite awkward too.

Did I even exist these past twenty years? I remember all that time together, but it nevertheless seems quite figmentive right now. There were so very few witnesses.

How appropriate that the Chinese word 'gwai' (鬼) actually translates much better as 'ghost'.
I haunt the past, but not the present.


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