Dimsum Sundays: A Friendship Ritual
On Sundays, my best friends and I eat dimsum. I can’t tell you what exactly it is that they do for a day job, and if it weren’t for Google calendar reminders I might forget the day they were born. But I can name their favourite dishes at the 24-hour dimsum shop that we like to go to. Their usual orders, what they drink to wash it all down, how they eat their savoury and sweet dimsums, their eating habits — these are valuable details of what my friends are like which I’ve picked up on our Dimsum Sundays. It was our weekly friendship ritual, how we would spend quality time together and enjoy good food.
Sometimes we look at the menu just in case there’s something new to try, other times we’re too hungry to give the menu a look and will order the minute we arrive at the dimsum shop. Sahnaz orders hakau; those shrimp dumplings wrapped in rice paper that glisten from the steam are her favourite. My plate of lumpia udang kulit tahu is ready and placed on our round table, and I dig in almost immediately because I’m starving. I see the plate of cheong fan and I know Nadya’s the one who ordered it. The server brings Iko’s lo mai gai along with the Chinese tea that comes in a ceramic teapot which we ordered to share. There’s some golden fried mantau and sweetened condensed milk in a little dip tray too which we wait to cool down and enjoy later. Sometimes we order more than necessary, which is where Albert comes in — he’ll eat almost anything that’s on the table which the rest of us can’t fit into our stomachs.
We were hungry university students with assignment deadlines, midterms and finals back then. But no matter how busy our schedules would be we would always find time to grab dimsum on a lazy Sunday. After what seemed like a blink of an eye, we were then fresh grads with our very first adult jobs moving to the crowded city of Jakarta. Our schedules got busier but even then, we’d still make time for our Sunday ritual. Despite the occasional social anxiety that would try to weigh me down, or the pure tiredness from the week’s load of work that needed to be processed, I still showed up because I wanted to see my friends and enjoy good dimsum. I’m glad we had our Dimsum Sundays to look forward to.
Nowadays, Dimsum Sundays rarely ever make an appearance in my digital calendar and are instead memories of that time when my friends and I lived in the same city. Whenever I’d see frozen mantau in the freezer section of the grocery store, or a little plate decorated with a similar design to the ones the restaurant uses to serve their dimsums, I get flashbacks of my friends and I in a dimsum place on a Sunday morning.
We’re usually the most obnoxious ones, talking and laughing the loudest, and most importantly the ones having the most fun at the restaurant — or at least that’s what it seemed like to us. We would laugh till our bellies hurt when one of us shares a funny story, collectively sigh when that person who’s engaging in an on-again-off-again relationship announces it’s back on again, all in between bites of dimsums and slurps of hot Chinese tea. Dimsum Sundays is also when each one of us lets the others catch up on the latest season of our lives. Though I’m all caught up on their Instagram stories and live tweet updates, the catch-up over dimsum feels a lot more intimate and lovely. I have the honour of knowing intricate details and hearing it directly from their mouths in addition to sharing food together, and I’m always down for that.
They say that you know you’re in love when the person becomes the centre of your focus and everything else fades into the background. At least that’s what I’m told tends to happen in romantic love. But in platonic love, I think the friend glows and makes everything around us glow too. There’s bright colours, beautiful music and sweet smells all around me, and I don’t feel as alone as I did before. And just like that, all of a sudden life isn’t as dreary as I once thought it was, all because I spent quality time with my friends which felt magical in a humble way.
I will always have a profound appreciation for food that’s made to be shared. Not that there’s any shame in eating dimsum alone, that has been me on a couple occasions. Although I wouldn’t say that I was entirely alone, how could I be when there’s a book with me, other people queuing at the sauces station, servers coming and going and checking in on me every now and then? Whether it’s food, drinks, stories, or even our time, it’s good to share, and that’s what the dimsum shop represents to me.
Dimsum Sundays are more difficult to plan now that my friends and I are apart. Some of us aren’t even living on the same continent, but should the five of us manage to miraculously find ourselves in the same place at the same time, preferably close to a Sunday and somewhere that has a place with good dimsum, I’ll be ready.
