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Flames of Memory, Flavors of Tradition
 
“Have you kindled the flames?” my mother called from the clattering kitchen.

“Yes, I have!” I answered, the frustration evident in my voice. Lighting the charcoal had been no small feat. It was once again the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival, and my mother was in the thick of preparing dumplings—choosing, as always, to cook them over charcoal. She swore by the slow, even heat and the aroma it brought out in the dumplings. Personally, I preferred the convenience and tidiness of the gas stove. I looked down at my hands, now stained and sooty, and sighed.

Fanning the flickering fire, I watched as my mother carefully lowered two garlands of dumplings into the pot. “Keep watch and mind the hourglass,” she instructed, knowing full well my tendency to drift into daydreams. And drift I did, almost immediately.

My thoughts wandered back to childhood days in my hometown, where I’d often visit Uncle Chin’s charcoal kiln. I was endlessly curious back then, always tagging along, asking far too many questions—most of them repeated. I must have been such a handful.

Charcoal, I had learned, came from timber burned in kilns—simple structures, but rich in process. Uncle Chin’s kiln was an impressive sight: a fifteen-foot-tall dome of clay, topped with a crown of attap leaves. Each morning, the workers would head to the nearby mangrove swamp to collect wood. They’d return, slice it to the right size, and stack it upright inside the kiln. Once packed full, the wood was set ablaze from the top. The fire would slowly creep downward, just like a stick of incense.

Beside the kiln, Uncle Chin would explain that the fire shouldn’t be too intense—no raging red flames, or the wood would turn to ash. A slow, greenish flame was the goal, one that encouraged the wood to smolder gently, transforming it into perfect charcoal.

“Uncle Chin, how do you know when the flame is just right?” I’d ask again and again.

“Experience, my boy,” he’d reply with a chuckle, often recalling the scoldings he once got from his own teacher for failing to judge the flames properly.

Suddenly, the rich scent of cooked dumplings snapped me out of my reverie.

“Oh no, the time!” I cried. “Mother, are the dumplings done?”

I rushed toward the pot, my earlier annoyance forgotten, overcome by the anticipation of that first delicious bite. The fire, the food, the memories—all bound together in that moment of celebration.
 
 
 

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