En mai dernier, nous avons reçu Cheuk Kwan à la chronique Regarde les Chinois. Ingénieur de profession, Cheuk Kwan est mieux connu aujourd’hui pour sa série de films Chinese Restaurants traitant de la dispora chinoise à travers le monde vue à partir du restaurant familial. Se décrivant comme internationaliste, M. Kwan a grandi à Singapour avant d’arriver au Canada comme étudiant en 1969. En 1979, il a participé à la réaction à la controverse des Campus Giveaways du W-FIVE. Après un passage à Montréal, il a vécu successivement en Arabie Saoudite, au Japon et à Hong Kong, avant de revenir au Canada. Je l’ai rencontré à la sortie de la projection de son film au festival Accès Asie et on a parlé de ses films, les diasporas, de « chinoisitude ».

Last May, we welcomed Cheuk Kwan to our Regarde les Chinois column. Engineer by trade, Cheuk Kwan is better known today for his film series Chinese Restaurants on the Chinese diaspora seen through the family-owned restaurant. A self-described internationalist, Mr. Kwan grew up in Singapore before arriving to Canada in 1969 as a student. In 1979, he participated in the reaction to the W-FIVE Campus Giveaways controversy. After a stint in Montreal, he lived successively in Saudi Arabia, Japan and Hong Kong. I sat down with him after the screening of his film at the Accès Asie festival and we talked about his films, diasporas and “Chineseness”.

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La nouvelle d’aujourd’hui sur le tourisme obstétrique dévoilée par la télévision de Radio-Canada risque de faire couler pas mal d’encre dans les jours qui viennent.

Ça me rappelle énormément une histoire semblable qui avait enflammé le territoire de Hong Kong à la fin 2006. Les journaux de Hong Kong avaient alors montré que de plus en plus de mères résidant en Chine continentale venaient dans la zone administrative spéciale dans le but de bénéficier d’un accouchement à prix abordable et de la résidence permanente (right of abode) à Hong Kong donnée à leur bébé.

Le site de l’école de journalisme de Hong Kong University a quelques articles là-dessus en anglais:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ajmsc.hku.hk+mainland+mothers

ainsi que le China Daily:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/22/content_765079.htm

et le International Herald Tribune:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/17/news/hong.php

(Dans l’article du IHT, on souligne aussi le cas des mères mexicaines aux États-Unis…)

Bon, on va dire que je vous pose une question ouverte. Que pensez-vous des conséquences au Québec d’un tel reportage? Que pensez-vous de la réaction à Hong Kong?

À Hong Kong, la controverse s’est éteinte lorsque le gouvernement a annoncé en début 2007 que les mères étrangères enceintes de plus de sept mois (on visait les mères de Chine continentale dans les articles que j’ai lu) devront prépayer $USD5000 avant d’entrer à Hong Kong pour leurs soins médicaux anticipés ou seraient refoulées à la frontière.

Following my experience in a dessert place in Markham (dessert houses in Montreal are rare to inexistent), I became obsessed with the idea of making one day my own ginger milk curd, or “keung zap zong nai” in Cantonese (薑汁撞奶). If the number of YouTube videos of people is a clue, then ginger curd is something that is definitely fun and intriguing to make.

Why that? Perhaps because it defies everyday conceptions. The principle of ginger curd is to take ginger juice, a mixture full of enzymes, and mix it to some warm sweetened milk. It’s supposed to react and make the milk curd, just like for tofu or cheese.

In 2006, a bunch of Hong Kong high school students’ science fair project won a prize and their presentation (PDF) became a hit on Google searches.

Ginger milk curd is a speciality of Guangdong, said to actually be from the locale of Panyu, nearby the provincial capital city of Guangdong and maybe where one of my grandmothers came from. It’s a staple dessert in Cantonese style (so, Hong Kong style) dessert houses all over the world. It is not known whether Montreal has a place that serves ginger milk curd, as not even the place I went to in Toronto made their own properly (they cheated by adding eggs, and it had the consistency of flan).

The recipe is rather simple, but just like any chemical experience, can be a little fussy. Here is the Flickr set of my two attempts at making ginger milk curd, the second time being successful:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smurfmatic/sets/72157613733786306/

You can certainly find many recipes in English on the Internet. I notably used this forum page and this page, as well as watching some of those videos. I ignore why my first attempt was a failure (it was ginger-flavoured milk in the end). On the next day, I went to the shop to get fresh ginger (the one I had was sitting in the fridge in a plastic bag for over three weeks and its flesh was getting brownish…). I removed the skin with much precaution in order to keep as much flesh as I could. Then I chopped it and extracted the juice. I heated some milk, and took it off the stove as soon as some steam was coming out.

I added two spoonfuls of sugar. Then I cooled down the milk a little, before pouring it in the ginger juice.

I left it there for twenty minutes on the counter and the mixture had coagulated! Then, I remembered that the taste of something extremely smooth (“waat” in Cantonese) is still somewhat unusual for a Western-trained palate such as mine.

I think it was pretty well done anyhow as it was very smooth, the milk protein having separated from its serum and with the consistency of egg whites (it was way softer than jello, say). Apparently, some people say that it improves your skin! But how can a glass of milk, sugar and some ginger juice do that?

1. 巴士奇遇結良緣 (Strange Bus Here We Love)
2. 迷失超市 (Lost In Supermarket)
3. 有條尾 (Have A Tail)

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Semaine du 3 février 2009 / Week of February 3rd, 2009

Listen live to Radio Centre-Ville in Montreal. My part plays every Tuesday nights at around 11PM as part of the Chinese Cantonese musical show.

SuperDay is a band from Hong Kong, which I discovered through the AMK cover album. They are a cool sweet cutie rock band, reminiscent of Tai Tau Fat, another Hong Kong band with squeaky vocals.

SuperDay were formed in 2002 by band members Superman and Brian. They were joined by Kwok Chi and Regine, specialist of the “cute female vocals”. Two years later, she dropped from the band, and was replaced by current member Winnie.

I like Lost In Supermarket, which refers to local Hong Kong supermarkets in its lyrics.