Eating With Michelle Law

The writer and social commentator on Hong Kong hotpots, hair loss and being a Homecoming Queen.

- Lee Tran Lam

What are your stand-out memories of food from childhood?

My mother had this really great soup she’d make with tomato, chicken and sour greens. I was running around the house once and accidentally collided with her as she was holding a whole potful, and she tipped it right over me. I was maybe four and I had to be shoved into a cold shower for about half an hour. I just remember lying on my front on the bed for two hours, just sobbing. My mum was like, “This is why you shouldn’t run in the house”. Tragic.

Where was a place you often ate while growing up?

I grew up on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. My mum was very protective, but luckily we lived right across the road from a shopping centre. So that was my haven. It sounds bogan, but my memory of food and growing up is of food courts: Chinese take-out, kebabs, McDonald’s. I think, to this day, that’s why I find shopping centres comforting, even though most people consider them purgatory.

Your play Single Asian Female (which premièred at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre earlier this year) is set in a Chinese restaurant. Is that an environment you’re very familiar with?

My siblings, when I was growing up, had to work at most of my dad’s restaurants. And I did for a bit, but I’m so terrible at hospitality that I just resigned, because I caused the business too much strife and was giving customers the wrong change.

What would you eat from your father’s establishments?