A Little, Some and A Few
Words and Art by: 陈醇 Chun Chen
24.04.1987, No. 129, Lane 1233, Xikang Road, Shanghai, 2025
Chun Chen
screen print with cinnamon, cloves, and anise on wood panel, 18 x 24 cm,
family photos from Chun Chen’s archive, from the "Spice House" work series
I call my mum in Shanghai
to ask how to cook 红烧肉 (hóngshāoròu), a signature dish from Shanghai. It is pork belly slowly braised in soy sauce.
Speck, ja. Hier in der Schweiz heisst das Speck. (Speck, yes. Here in Switzerland, it's called “Speck”.)
So how much cinnamon shall I add?
一眼眼。 (a little)
How many star anise pods?
放一眼。 (Put some.)
How much soy sauce?
差不多。 (about right)
I ask her, how much is about right. She says:
格么就要看情况了呀。(it depends.)
OK. But then how much sugar shall I add?
摆几调羹。(a few spoonfuls)
Yes, sugar. In my mum’s kitchen, sugar is a spice.
So which spoon?
就是阿拉屋里厢用的那把。(The one we use at home.)
I open my kitchen drawer.
Teaspoons.
Tablespoons.
Christmas spoons.
Ich habe viele Löffel.
None of them is the one she means.
How long shall I cook it?
慢慢叫,火要小。 (slowly — keep the fire low)
Until when it is done?
闻闻就晓得了。 (smell it, then you'll know)
侬看颜色就晓得了呀? (You will know by the color.)
After half an hour on the phone with my mum, I still don’t know how to cook hóngshāoròu.
I put the phone aside and open YouTube.
My mum speaks from Shanghai.
An influencer speaks from my screen.
One says, “a little.”
The other gives me
grams, minutes, and temperatures.
I listen to both.
Sometimes I add something in between.
Since living in Switzerland,
foods that once felt foreign to me
have become ordinary:
Cheese,
sourdough,
salad.
They start to occupy my fridge.
But when cinnamon and star anise
simmer in soy sauce,
my kitchen changes
before I can name what is happening.
The smell occupies my body.
Then my mind.
Suddenly, I am sitting
at the small desk in my childhood home.
Books open,
pen in hand,
Endless homework.
From the kitchen:
a knife against a chopping board.
Oil meeting ginger.
My parents are talking:
现在小菜是越来越贵了。(The vegetables are getting more and more expensive.)
My father explains
How he cleaned the meat,
How he cut it,
How long he watched the colour darken.
猪肉要斩成正正好好的一块。(The pork must be cut into perfect cubes.)
He tells the story as if the whole evening depends on those cubes being perfect.
At the time, I did not turn around.
I thought nothing was important.
I had heard about the vegetables.
I had heard about the pork.
Sometimes I wanted to say:
Can we talk about something else?
But I knew what they would say:
How about your homework?
So I kept quiet.
Now, in my own kitchen,
this is what comes back again and again.
The chopping rhythm.
The ginger meeting the oil.
Maybe cinnamon means Christmas to you.
Maybe star anise means Glühwein.
For me, together with soy sauce,
they first meant hóngshāoròu.
As a child,
I knew nothing about their histories.
I only knew that when I smelled them,
dinner would be ready soon.
When I moved to Switzerland,
my mum wished to pack a whole kitchen for me.
She even tried to sneak a piece of fresh ginger into my backpack.
Please, Switzerland is not ginger-free.
My mum insisted:
我晓得呃呀,格是侬第一顿夜饭好用呃。(I know. This is for your first dinner.)
I took the ginger out.
She put it back.
In the end,
we settled on a few cinnamon sticks.
Here in Switzerland, people keep asking me:
Chun, please teach us to cook Chinese food.
Of course,
A little cinnamon,
Some star anise,
A few slices of ginger.
Wie viel, Chun? (How much, Chun?)
Ein bisschen. (A little.)
Ist das genug? (Is it enough?)
Du wirst es sehen. (You will know.)
The original text was written for zwischentext's staged reading at Schauspielhaus Zürich, 18 October 2026
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