Li Hing Who?

Whenever we have a few minutes to spare, I like to play a 20-question type game with my students.  I'll give them a category (animal, person, place, etc.) and they try to figure it out by asking me questions that I can answer with a "yes" or "no".  They can ask as many questions as they want but I do time them to see which class can come up with the answer in the shortest amount of time.

My current students are seniors and the majority of them had me when they were sophomores so the game is very familiar to them.  Some of them have gotten significantly better at it, too; when they were sophs, the questions tended to repeat because they weren't listening closely to each other and some of the questions were not answerable by a yes or no.  They've learned to tighten up the questions and that's vastly improved their guessing times.

Yesterday our three words were:  tadpole, flash drive and li hing mui (the sweet-salty, dried plum treat of Chinese extraction).  I thought tadpole would be the hardest but the fastest time was an incredible 33 seconds.  Flash drive took something like 22 seconds.  Li hing mui took anywhere from 2 minutes to 4 minutes and 5 seconds--even though they quickly narrowed it down to a Chinese snack made of some kind of fruit. Why the big time discrepancy?

It seems that this generation of students just aren't big fans of the snacks my sibs and friends scarfed up on a regular basis.  For them, "li hing" is the red powder that flavors everything from cake to chocolate covered gummy bears.  There is a total disconnect between the spice mixture and the dried plums they traditionally coat in oh, so many mouth-watering ways.

My children are no different.  None of them want to gnaw the dried plum flesh from the seeds while their mouths salivate uncontrollably and their eyes just can't help but wink rapidly in response to the burst of salty goodness on their tongues.  Even the moist and succulent wiles of a juicy-type li hing mui doesn't tempt them.  The wretches.

A and T don't eat arare, AKA mochi crunch, AKA the rice cracker.  C will eat it occasionally because he is a fan of crunchy snacks, but I can't think of any snack that any of them eat because it tastes good AND because there is a nostalgic appeal. For instance, I love arare but I'm not always sure if it's because it tastes so good or because I remember buying little waxed packets of them for 10 cents from a tiny store on the corner, just a block away from the garage where I took hula lessons on Tuesday afternoons.  The proprietor made his own li hing mui, too; they came 3 to a packet for 15 cents and they were some of the tenderest and tastiest seeds I can remember eating.  On the way home from our lesson, the other neighborhood girls and I always stopped off for a packet or two.  It was just one more reason to look forward to Tuesday afternoons.

Well, arare and li hing mui may cost way more than 10 cents today and my hula days are long behind me; but the memories of my old neighborhood, a few prized treats and the friends who shared them with me are still fresh and sharp; they are the burst of juice from a lemon stuck full of li hing treasure.  Try that for a sore throat!