THE TASTE OF MEMORY.6 1/21/2021

It’s always a special treat to catch up each week with our students “in person” even though we keep in touch via WeChat regularly sharing their artwork and stories. Spica is still in quarantine in Taipei and I zoomed from the rehabilitation hospital I’m in after having hip surgery. Unfortunately, Susanna couldn’t be with us this week and Stella was babysitting, however she and her grandson dropped in near the end of class to say hello. Sook Fong is the first of our students to receive the first in a series of 2 COVID-19 vaccinations. We wish her the very best.

After a warm up in which each student created a short routine to a ten beat count for us all to follow, we shared the Breakfast pages begun last week and completed for homework. They are terrific! Susanna drew a sausage and two donuts on a plate, which looked like the number 100. Her mother made this special breakfast for her, and placed the items just so, after she achieved an excellent grade. 

This week we focused on our favorite snacks, some from childhood and what we enjoy now. Pun told us that as a child she liked onion flavored potato chips and chocolate. Now she sucks on candies that are really good throat lozenges. She also enjoys Premium crackers with peanut butter. So Sim’s sister-in-law is in charge of the cooking in their household and she makes a delicious BQ pork snack. Jing Wei enjoys almond cookies and hazelnut squares and a type of rice puff, known as the Emperor’s Dessert from the Qing Dynasty. Lao Yu makes these rice puffs herself! Her favorite is “Sky Flakes” a sweet crispbread. She also likes pickled onions. 

Hui Fen enjoys green tea and pineapple cake biscuits. Dried apricots and mangoes are Ru Ping’s choice of snacks as well as Brookside dark chocolate. She told us her son likes to eat ice cream in winter and summer. She finds this strange as she likes warm foods and told us she even microwaves watermelon! She joked that maybe eating ice cream makes you warmer in the freezing cold Beijing winters. 

JuLisa claimed that nothing could beat a regular Kit-Kat as the perfect snack. She introduced us all to Pomegranate Beauty, a thickened paste that is very healthy. To munch on in between meals she has a large barrel of mixed nuts. Margaret reminisced about the delicious and varied street foods you can snack on in Hong Kong. But a western favorite is potato chips and ice cream, because she enjoys the mix of sweet and savory. However, a special time she spends with her husband Bob is afternoon tea which consists of coffee and pastries bought at a great Bakery in Chinatown. 

We extended the focus of storytelling this week to include: Who, What, Where and When. We encouraged our students to think about who they were with when they bought the snack, or who made it for them and where they bought or consumed it. Was there a special memory associated with the taste of the snack? It’s important to allow time for our students to share their experiences and memories. By talking to others, it helps them develop their own ideas and inspire storytelling.

Layout of their page was discussed, and we used Margaret’s Breakfast page as an example. She placed a large round table in the center of her page, then drew the cloth over it. 14 rice bowls were scattered at different angles around the table to show a big meal had just been finished. In the center of the table, she wrote her story. Next students began sketching their snacks keeping in mind how the objects and writing would be placed on the page.

As usual time got away from us. Our marvelous students will work on this SNACK page for homework and share with us their exciting, finished products.