CHAPTER 131

First written (Published in Evergreen News): 2015-11-10

Rewritten: 2026-02-21

At my age, the greatest pleasure in celebrating the Lunar New Year is nothing more delightful than gathering with relatives and friends to share good food. Suddenly, I was reminded of the exquisite delicacy Buddha Jumps Over the Wall (BJOTW), and decided to share it with them. That was at the end of 2014.

I have had Buddha Jumps Over the Wall(BJOTW) twice in my life—so delicious it was beyond words. The first time was in Hong Kong, the second in Richmond.

Two years after my liver transplant, my health, energy, and physical strength had recovered well without any complications. Confident enough to travel from Canada back to Hong Kong, I made sure to clarify travel insurance coverage for organ transplant recipients and arrangements for emergency medical care. In early December 2014, I returned to Hong Kong to visit family and friends. The city had changed dramatically because of the “Occupy Central” social movement—both chaotic and strangely subdued.

Having emigrated to Canada, I had lost contact with my secondary school classmates for many years. I learned that during my stay, our graduating grade happened to be holding its annual alumni dinner gathering. I immediately registered from overseas—the first to sign up. That evening, we gathered at the alumni association of Queen’s College in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. It was there that I tasted BJOTW for the first time. Unforgettable.

The alumni clubhouse was not large, able to host at most four banquet tables at once. Including myself, 22 alumni attended, seated at two tables. Each table was served one pot of BJOTW.

This dish is luxurious and elaborate, with a market price of HK$5,000 per pot, and must be ordered well in advance. Thanks to alumni friendship, we paid HK$3,500 per pot—still more than half the total cost of the entire menu. That evening, after introducing the ingredients, a senior restaurant worker explained that the entire pot was sealed tightly in paper and placed inside a giant earthen jar to stew for ten hours—from 11 a.m. until it was served at 9 p.m.

All the essence dissolved into the broth; the flavors embraced the tongue.

It felt as though my tongue had wandered into a grand garden of sensations. The flavors spread from the tip of the tongue, nourishing the body and delighting the mind. What impressed me most was the Jinhua ham—aged, wind-dried, and rich with concentrated flavor. Stewed until tender, it softened and gently fell apart upon entering the mouth. Its classic saltiness paired with the yellow-skinned chicken in the broth created a fullness of savory fragrance. I had never tasted, nor even imagined, Jinhua ham prepared to such a sublime level. All the other ingredients became mere embellishments.

Eager to maximize time for conversation, I arrived early. It had been over thirty years since I last saw my secondary school classmates. To gather and share such heavenly cuisine together was truly rare. Among the twenty-one others present, some had never even been in the same class with me, nor exchanged a single word in the past. Yet their faces and expressions felt entirely familiar.

The second alumnus to arrive was someone I recognized immediately. In secondary school, new students were arranged to stay in the same class for two years. We had been classmates since Secondary One; he sat right in front of me. On the very first day, we introduced ourselves and shared our birthdates. He was one day younger than I was. After graduating from university, he became a teacher and had already been retired for a year.

He was not the only retiree present. The organizer of the dinner still had the energy to return to university to study statistics—admirable indeed. Speaking of perseverance, my desk mate in Secondary Six, nicknamed “Chatterbox,” had been the school’s 1500-meter champion for many years. A few years ago, he switched careers to become a lawyer—his endurance clearly intact. “Old Master,” who once had a head of curly hair in our youth, now sported a shiny bald crown, though his facial features remained unchanged.

A refined-looking gentleman whom I found very familiar greeted me and even asked after my elder brother, who was also an alumnus. Only then did I suddenly realize that the pediatrician standing before me was the son of my primary school vice-principal. We had entered the same secondary school together, and that vice-principal had been my father’s classmate in night school. This reunion felt like tasting the first sip of the BJOTW soup—over thirty years of human warmth, slowly simmered, settling gently into the heart.

As for the Buddha Jumps Over the Wall I tasted in Richmond—that is another story.