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A MIDNIGHT RAID

My years at the China Drama Academy went by with surprising speed. I went from boy to teenager, barely noticing as I added birthdays, inches, and pounds. Though I’d gotten bigger and taller, I hadn’t changed much in personality. I was a mischief-loving boy, and I became a spirited and rowdy adolescent, always popular among the younger boys and still the nemesis of the older ones.

And life at the academy, formerly just a series of long, dull days spent in practice and short nights spent in exhausted sleep, had gotten much more exciting since we’d begun performing. It seemed like a day didn’t go by when we didn’t have some sort of adventure, with me generally right in the middle.

Not that our life had become too complicated. The joys we had continued to be small ones—bits of space time spent playing marbles or other games, until we were interrupted by one of the instructors; surreptitious catnaps taken during lessons, with one eyes open in case Master suddenly made his presence known; and, of course, food, always food.

As we grew up, were increasingly given our independence. Often, we’d be sent to perform at the amusement park on our own, while Master taught the younger students at the academy. When we got this kind of freedom, we took advantage of it to indulge ourselves in the best way we knew how: by filling our stomachs. The snacks that were denied to us when Master was around were ours for the buying when he was away, and before our shows, we’d gorge ourselves on the best delights the amusement park had to offer.

The problem was that, after our long and strenuous performances, we’d always be hungry again. Even if we still had any money, all of the glorious food stalls were usually closed before we’d finished changing and cleaning our faces. So we walked through the deserted park discouraged, with nothing to look forward to but a long bus trip and then the hard practice room floor, since the kitchen cabinets were always locked tight against our prying fingers.

“Damn, I’m starved,” moaned Yuen Kwai. “I can’t believe the stores are closed! I’m dying for a bean bun.” Yuen Tai chimed in his own food

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wish, lotus seed cake, followed by Yuen Biao’s plaintive expression of lust for sponge cake, and Yuen Wah’s rhetorical inquiry regarding roast pork buns.

“God, will you guys cut it out?” groaned Yuen Lung. “All this food talk is killing me. I’m never gonna make it to breakfast.”

Yuen Kwai suggested something that Yuen Lung could eat, which led Biggest Brother to roar with indignation and chase him around the empty park. The chase didn’t last long; both pursuer and prey were too weak with hunger.

I eyed the shuttered stalls, my stomach grumbling as loudly as those of my brothers. The stalls were ramshackle contraptions; just clapboard walls, chicken-wire windows, and an open roof—when it was wet, the vendors would provide scant temporary cover against the rain by draping plastic sheets across the tops of the walls.

We’d worked hard that day, and our performance had brought plenty of people into the park. We deserved better than without supper. And since there didn’t seem to be anyone around…

Without a word, I ran over to the nearest stall, a baked goods vendor, and peered through its chicken-wire window. “Hey, Yuen Kwai—give me a boost,” I shouted, leaping up and grabbing the upper edge of the wall by the fingertips.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” said Yuen Lung nervously.

His eyes scanning the horizon for cops, Yuen Kwai moved over to my hanging legs and grunted as he pushed me up and over the stall wall. I landed lightly on the inside of the stall, and began searching around for anything that might be considered edible.

Despite their fear of being caught, the call of the belly was more than the other Fortunes could resist, and soon their faces were pressed up against the wire, watching me search.

The owner of the stall had done a good job of cleaning it out; everything of any resale value had been locked up or taken home.

“Look over there,” said Yuen Lung, pointing through the screen at an alcove set into the back of the structure. It was a rubbish storage area. Considering where I spent a good part of my childhood, I probably should have recognized it immediately.

Well, no harm in checking. I poked my head into the storage bin and found

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“What are we gonna do with this bread?” asked Yuen Tai. “I mean, it’s as hard as a rock.”

“Hey, food is food,” said Yuen Kwai, hiding the bag under this shirt.

“You give me something edible, I’ll find a way to eat it.”

All the way back to the academy we whispered different ideas on how to eat the bread.

“Maybe we could toast it,” said Yuen Biao.

“Yeah, right, you already could break your teeth on this stuff, and you want to toast it?” snorted Yuen Tai.” We’re trying to make food, not pottery.”

“I think we should just toss it,” said Yuen Wah. “Who knows how old it is?”

“Aw, it can’t be that old; they throw trash out every day at that place,” said Yuen Lung, thinking with his stomach. “Hey, I just thought of a great way to cook this stuff.”

Back at the academy, we crept through the hallway on tiptoe and sneaked our way into the darkened kitchen. There, Biggest Brother began boiling a pot of water, into which he poured a double handful of sugar. After a short time, the water began to boil, thickening to a syrupy consistency. Then he threw in the in the bread crusts, which absorbed the sugar water and puffed up into a kind of sweet bread pudding.

I gathered some bowls and set them out next to the stove, inhaling the sweet aroma of the boiling bread. Soon Yuen Lung pronounced his dish done. The finished delicacy was ladled into bowls, and we greedily consumed the results of our nighttime scavenging.

“Hey, this ain’t half bad,” said Yuen Kwai.

Yuen Biao smiled and held out this empty bowl. “More!”

After a strenuous day, the soft, delicate pudding was soothing, and more important, filling. And the adventure of breaking into a locked stall to harvest the bread crusts gave the dish a special zing. I still remember that meal as being one of the best I’ve ever had.

We each had several helpings, laughing to ourselves and imagining we were conquering warriors, raiding helpless villages for our food. Today it was bread crusts; tomorrow, the world.

And then the kitchen lights come on. It was Master, awake, and as usual, enraged.

“What are eating?” he said.

“Bread and sugar water, sir,” said Yuen Biao, nearly dropping his bowl.

“And where did you get the bread?”

All of us fell silent.

“We didn’t steal it, we found it!” I said defensively. “It was going to be thrown out anyway.”

Master tapped his cane against one foot. “Whether it was going to

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be thrown out or not doesn’t matter. Do you think I want people to believe I don’t feed you? That you have to go through garbage bins to eat?” he shouted. “How much shame do you want me to feel?”

That night, each of us received five hard strokes of the cane, except for me; I got ten because I was the “prince.”

But you know what? The next night, and for many nights after, we turned to the scene of the crime. Only, from the on, we made sure we didn’t get caught.