Tofino

and a prologue about Newtown Bakery

Mel and I both wake to the pouring rain ahead of our drive to Tofino. I sleepily take two gai (chicken) baos out of the fridge that I had bought the night before at Newtown Bakery. They patiently circle in the microwave before being put back into their box as if freshly steamed. Over the years, a box from Newtown has become a show of care. When I was younger, my uncle, who really wasn’t my uncle, would always bring over boxes of takeout from Chinatown every Sunday. Sui jyu gap (roasted squab), gai lan, chow fun, fresh crab, singapore noodles, lobster yee mein—other times, a few baos from Newtown to snack on even though my dad was already making dinner. I’d take the bus down to Chinatown with my friends in high school to get char siu baos (bbq pork buns). Years later, when L visited, I took him because I knew they had vegetarian ones; that time, we sat in the booth and ate a couple plates of dim sum before going to Sun Yat Sen. In 2017, after we had broken up and I moved back to Vancouver for a year, I sought out old comforts and went for some prawn fried rice, har gow, and baos with Claire.

2017

Newtown has been a constant throughout moments of fundamental transition. Before covid, my mom and I got baos from the takeout window after watching the Lunar New Year parade, and during covid, I’d wait in lines behind all the other aunties and uncles hoping to get their fix. Life’s moods fluctuate, but the bakery remains relatively the same despite no longer needing to take a number ticket from the dispenser by the freezers. The walls, however, are still bright orange with display cases full of all the same pastries—pork and prawn turnovers, snowballs with peanut or red bean, tapioca cake, and youtiao (Chinese donut). On the back wall, all the baked baos—bolo bao (pineapple bun), gai mei bao (coconut bun), dou sha bao (red bean bun)—and within enclosed warm metal towers, the steamed baos. It’s here that I’ve always felt comfortable ordering in Cantonese because I can practice my numbers and the names of all my favourite things. Loeng gai bao, mmmgoi is a subtle phrase where I can feel some elementary sense of belonging. My tones are always incorrect, so nobody minds when I inevitably switch back to English. I ordered two steamed chicken buns and two bbq pork buns. Earlier that week, a friend had brought me a box to eat alongside his homemade chicken soup. We sat and watched Broker by Hirokazu Koreeda while dipping youtiao between the brothy noodles. For the sweets, I ordered a red bean bun and a jiandui (red bean sesame ball) alongside a box with a butterfly cookie, dan taat (egg tart), a second jiandui, and the last apple turnover—I got it for half off (I note that I happily accept imperfect things and leave feeling exhilarated over the deal because I’m mostly just excited that there was one left.)

It’s 7:30 am and I take a bite of my gai bao, the filling still warm. The sky lifts off its dark blanket and wakes to the murky morning light. It’s misty from yesterday night’s heavy rain and over the weekend, relentless in all that it washes away.