Sun Li and his granddaughter Zhang Xuan Photo: Courtesy of ZHANG XUAN

From my earliest memories, the distance between my family and my maternal grandpa’s was always “a bowl of soup away.”

It is not a metaphor. Whether it was when I lived on Duolun Road [in Tianjin] or later moved to Anshanxi Road, it only took me five to six minutes to arrive at my grandpa’s house with a lunch box filled with hot chicken soup. Even in the coldest days of winter, the soup was still steaming hot and ready to drink when I stepped into his house.

Despite being over six feet tall, my grandpa was not a particularly strong man. My mother rejected the notion that supplements could replace real food, and was determined to find nourishing options for her ageing father. The early 1980s was not an age of abundance, and ordinary families like us could not afford abalone, sea cucumber and other expensive foods. The only nutritious and fresh food she could get was an occasional old hen. Every two to three weeks, my mom would cook a pot of chicken soup, pack it in a lunch box, and ask me to bring it to my grandpa at dinnertime.

That large courtyard where my grandpa lived had witnessed joys and sorrows of life over half a century. It has dilapidated. My grandpa’s house was completely different from my own. Its high roof was decorated in a Western style. With only two windows, the large room that served as a living room, dining room, and bedroom was not well lit. No matter how noisy it was outside, inside it was quiet. I, usually chattering and bouncing around, had to slow down and keep quite once inside this room.

Crossing the small hallway, I tried not to greet my grandpa loudly. Instead, I usually peeked in at the door and checked what he was doing. If he was reading or writing, I would stand silently for a moment, and softly call out “Grandpa, I’m here” when he paused, absorbed by his reflections.

Every time I visited, my grandpa was always there. It seemed like he never left the house. Unlike some of the other old men in the courtyard, my grandpa, who lived alone, was always dressed neatly and cleanly in a manner ready to greet any unexpected visitor. He never asked me many questions like grandpas usually did to their grandkids, except for a simple inquiry as to what my parents were doing before telling me to “go and play.” I felt that he was “not very enthusiastic”—a silent grandpa.

When I returned home, the leftover chicken and soup were placed on our dining table. My brother and I enjoyed it heartily. The only fly in the ointment was that the drumsticks and wings were always absent from our table. Longing for a delicious drumstick, I had an idea. I knew that the drumsticks were in the soup sent to my grandpa, and that he couldn’t finish them all. The leftovers would be recooked the next day by Ms. Yuzhen, the nurse who looked after my grandpa.

Therefore, the next day, I waited for dinnertime and found an excuse to slip away to my grandpa’s house. As expected, I smelled the chicken soup as I stepped into the house. In the corner near the kitchen, Ms. Yuzhen was preparing soup on a coal stove. Frozen tofu, napa cabbage leaves, and rice vermicelli simmered in the pot. The room was filled with the smell of chicken soup mixed with tofu and napa cabbage.

When my grandpa saw me, he smiled and asked, “Did you have lunch?” “Not yet,” I replied. “Stay and eat then,” he said. The food was served, and my grandpa put a drumstick in my bowl. I hesitated a bit to be polite, then began to chew on it. My grandpa ate slowly, occasionally casting warm glances in my direction, as if the delicious food before him had aroused his appetite. Over and over again, I obtained many drumsticks during my childhood with this little “trick.” The taste of the chicken soup, the dark room, and my grandpa’s smile were my warmest memories.

I discovered the secret of the chicken soup nearly 40 years later. Last year, on the 20th anniversary of my grandpa’s death, I read an article by Xie Daguang, the former deputy editor-in-chief of Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House. In this article, Xie wrote, “On January 31, 1984, I went to Sun Li’s house to pay a New Year’s greeting. Sun was cheerful and talked a lot: ‘I will be busy again this Chinese New Year. My nurse (Yuzhen) is going back to her hometown. I have to manage two stoves alone. I get up at six o’clock every day to start the fire, tending to it all day long in case it goes out. This stuff helps regain me, giving me good appetite. At noon, my daughter would come to help me cook lunch. I usually eat porridge, but since my daughter would be here and it’s Chinese New Year, I have to prepare some meat. My granddaughter comes every day for lunch, and she likes chicken. I usually don’t cook chicken, but I would have some with napa cabbage for her. Yesterday, I reheated the chicken, but she went to her grandmother’s house for lunch, so I ate it myself. Unexpectedly, a small chicken bone broke one of my teeth. It was just a small bone, but my teeth have already decayed. You never know what might happen when you get old.’”

I read this passage again and again, with a mixture of emotions and teary eyes. My silent grandpa had never told me that he knew I liked drumsticks, and that he cooked chicken soup especially for me. What moved me most is that he didn’t even tell me when he broke his tooth on a chicken bone.

Zhang Xuan is the director of the Department of Supplement to Tonight News Paper.