Dim Sum at Hei La Moon (Picture Credits to Sally Weng)
My roommate and I have a joke that every time we have been to Boston, three out of three times, we took a pit-stop at the TJ Maxx right by the Hynes Convention Center station. Of all places to go, we end up in the red and white aisles every time, poking fun at the blindingly colorful array of flannels, the questionably shiny outwear, and the sequin-covered sweaters.
Today was the first day back to school after Fall Break. I’m proud to say that we did more than hang out at TJ Maxx this time around (though we did get stranded twice and had to call Ubers because the shuttle bus was full).
On Sunday, at my friends’ encouragement, we went out to Chinatown for dim sum at a restaurant called Hei La Moon. Though we waited outside the restaurant for a good 15 minutes listening for our number, it was well worth the wait – the food reminded me so much of home. Home for me is hidden in chopsticks, porcelain bowls, and crowded restaurants; home is tucked lovingly in homemade dumplings and simple, sweet, Shanghainese dishes; home is sitting at a wobbly circular table with friends and family, sharing the same dishes we all grew up on. I saw the gan chao niu he noodles that my family would always order at Cantonese places, the shrimp dumplings (xia jiao) my brother-in-law always hoards, the chicken feet (feng zhua) that my mom would devour in minutes, and the liu sha bao dessert buns that I always asked for after meals like these. We stuffed ourselves and laughed while remembering how our Asian parents would all tell us to eat more while actively spooning meat into our bowls. We poured tea for each other like how we did in our families – the youngest pouring for the oldest. It was a really great time – I remember having a massive food coma afterwards, passing out right away on the shuttle back to Wellesley.
My friends and I on Marathon Monday (From Left to Right: Sally Weng, Tatiana Ortiz, Cindy Min, Amy Xuan, and Me)
Monday was my first Marathon Monday. Wellesley is the halfway point in the renowned Boston Marathon, and we are also known for the “Scream Tunnel” where Wellesley students cheer on the runners by making creative signs and screaming from 9 AM to 3 PM. I went with a few of my friends, and even though none of us are morning people, we all got up early, got breakfast together, and even color-coordinated in pinks and reds. Actually, screaming for around an hour straight was pretty therapeutic. Wellesley has another tradition called the Primal Scream where, a day or two before finals, at midnight, everyone screams. On Monday, I was pretty worried about a paper I wrote that was the worst thing I’ve ever written. But all that worry flew out the window when we were cheering on the runners by yelling at the top of our lungs.
Wellesley very much has a “work hard, play hard” sort of culture. My roommate and I had a chat about our slight workaholism – we’ve got the “work hard” bit down, but now we’re trying to undo any guilt of not being productive while having fun. We really shouldn’t be thinking about the papers we need to write and the readings we need to do while we are out with our friends. We even brought our computers out to Dim Sum thinking we would study after hanging out with our friends. (Why.) Instead, we just carried our heavy computers around as we milled around Boston with our friends, reminded every second of the work we were literally carrying around that we won’t be getting done. Hopefully one day we’ll let loose and “play hard” too without a worry on our minds.
On that note, that same Monday afternoon, my roommate and I promised each other that we will have fun and not do work at all. So we went out to Boston after the roads opened back up post-marathon. We didn’t have much of a solid plan, so we wandered around Newbury Street, popping in a few stores here and there. We spent the majority of our time at the Trident Bookstore and Uniqlo – it was so great. I got two books (on sale!) from the bookstore – Human Acts by Han Kang and The Bridegroom by Ha Jin :D. Very Important Side-note: At Uniqlo, they had this really cool blazer but it was like $150 :(. They also had this beautiful pleated midi skirt, but they only had one Large left :(( (I typically wear XS because I am dreadfully short). Even though we didn’t have a plan – which usually is a point of stress – and even though we ate dinner at Shake Shack – which was not too bad actually, we had a lot of fun. And, of course, we still visited TJ Maxx.