CHAPTER 36

Original: 2001-6-5

Reposted: 2025-4-5

Looking back, one of the reasons that I was able to recover successfully after being ill, was that I developed a habit since childhood, which is about eating.

I love to eat, can eat, digest and absorb. I eat more when I’m happy and in a lively atmosphere; when I drink Cantonese tea, I eat while talking; and when my appetite is at its peak, I will almost certainly eat all the dimsums on the table without having to “pack up” any.

After the successful liver transplant operation, the head nurse reminded me before I was discharged that if I could eat, I should eat beef to recuperate my body, and I followed her advice. My wife cooked very diligently, but she couldn’t satisfy my appetite. I had to get up in the middle of the night and go to the kitchen to fry pork steaks when I was hungry. I would eat and then go to bed again. I could sleep even with a full stomach.

In addition to being born with a love for food, it is also influenced by the environment in which one grows up. My father supported the family alone and also had to help relatives in the Chaoshan countryside. The economic environment was tight, and my parents gave birth to children within a few years. I was the third child. My younger sister, who was one year younger than me and was also the only daughter, died of whooping cough before she was two years old. While my parents are in pain, they also have to work hard to run the household. They cherished should be diligency and austerity. We ate simple but enough food.

There were many people in the family and I was young, so naturally I couldn't eat as fast or as much as they did. I often felt that I had not eaten enough, so I naturally loved to eat. This also cultivated my fighting spirit. When I could eat, I would eat as much as I could. I would stare at the big shrimps and the fried steamed buns. When my two brothers were focusing on other dishes, I would act fast to win.

For breakfast, I drank a glass of "light" milk, two teaspoons of condensed milk mixed with warm water, and occasionally added a slice of square bread with a light butter. After having Teochew porridge for lunch, I went to school for afternoon classes. During the break, I drank Vitasoy and had two pieces of sesame dry bread. For dinner I ate as much as I could. During holidays, we liked to have tea. My favorites included steamed bbq buns, lotus leaf rice and steamed egg cake. They were delicious and filling.

When I was a child, eating was mainly about speed. After my three younger brothers were born, I was much older and bigger than them, and they couldn’t eat as fast as I did. By the time I was in middle school, I grew fast. Eating more was the top priority. I would have three to four bowls of rice at each meal. It happened that I was so full that my stomach hurt. Later, I changed to eating slowly, chewing each mouthful of food thirty times. This enhanced my ability to digest and absorb, so I could eat more. As such, a dinner, including chatting, would take an hour in my family.

When there was a banquet, we were in high spirits and of course ate as much as we could, not missing any dish, and had one or two beers, and then went home having a great time. Once I ate watermelon after dinner, and on the way back the bus was shaking so much that my stomach felt so uncomfortable.

I loved to eat when I was young, but I was a very picky eaters, for example, I only ate saltwater fish. Later, inspired by a patriotic documentary and seeing how deliciously the steamed grass carp from fish pond tasted, I also started eating freshwater fish. In a Taiwanese movie, after the husband, a truck driver, drove home, his wife, actress Zhang Meiyao, fried a large dish of leeks. Best male actor Ko Chun-hsiung ate it with big mouthfuls. Since then, I also started eating leeks. The older I got, the less picky I was about food.

I ate a lot, but my calories were consumed quickly and I didn't gain weight. That changed when I was 25. I gained four pounds every year and had to buy new pants every two years. It lasted till I was forty. Since then I tried weight loss with ups and downs. Ten years later, I adopted a diabetic menu and finally saw results. How to execute? I’ll talk about it later.