101 guide to a birthday
The candles are finally blown out.
The knife sinks into the cake, but never reaches the bottom.
The noodles must remain long, unbroken, untouched by the blade.
The peach buns arrive. The clock does not.
For a day that’s meant to celebrate another year gained, it’s funny how many rules there are to ensure we don’t lose one.
The nutty, earthy aroma of the noodles crept up into my nostrils, ribbons of warm steam curling around my face. However today, I ate it with caution, not a strand should be broken. I lift them carefully out of the bowl, watching each one stretch long from my chopsticks. There was something strangely reassuring about their length, as though every unbroken centimetre carried a silent promise for tomorrow.
So I held them carefully, almost afraid to fracture the promise they carried.
Please remain long. Please.
Beside the bowl, sat a dough shaped by eternity, almost as if the noodle’s promise alone was too fragile, too unreliable to trust. A blush of pink crowned the bun’s surface, embodying the youthfulness that time so patiently steals from us. The warm, comforting filling anointed something in me as I took a bite. For a moment, it felt like a thin pane of glass was raised between me and the inevitability of time. Transparent enough to see it coming, yet solid enough to let me believe it could not reach me.
So I ate with longevity and swallowed with mortality.
The present table disappeared amongst all the overflowing, ribbons tangled between colourful boxes and cards leaning onto each other. However, somewhere between that a resplendent hand with twelve numbers stared back at me.
My mother’s hands reached it before mine could. She quietly swept it away, almost like a bodyguard, getting rid of something that had arrived, but wasn’t invited.
送鐘. Sung zung. To give a clock.
送終. Sung zung. To accompany someone to their end of life.
Same sound. Two meanings that aren’t invited to a day celebrating life. So the twelve numbers disappeared beneath my mum’s hands, as if time itself didn’t just remind us where it was going.
You can give time, but you can’t take it.
What even is a birthday, when you’re asking it to stay.
Author’s note:
Growing up in Hong Kong, birthdays came with a surprising number of traditions and superstitions. These are a few I grew up hearing, how many did you recognise?
And most importantly, did you figure out why the knife never reaches the bottom of the cake? 👀
Writer – Jocosa Lin
Editor – Jessie Lin
Artist – Natalie Wei
–August 2026–
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