Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Tim Parksin conversation with Natalia Ginzburg
(PN Review 49)
Next Issue Hal Coase 'Ochre Pitch' Gregory Woods 'On Queerness' Kirsty Gunn 'On Risk! Carl Phillips' Galina Rymbu 'What I Haven't Written' translated by Sasha Dugdale Gabriel Josipovici 'No More Stories' Valerie Duff-Strautmann 'Anne Carson's Wrong Norma'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
PN Review 275
PN Review Substack

This review is taken from PN Review 264, Volume 48 Number 4, March - April 2022.

Cover of sikfan glaschu
Wendelin Wai C. LawOde to the Meanings and Joy of 'Sikfan'
Sean Wai Keung’s sikfan glaschu (Verve) £9.99
There is simply no other Cantonese phrase more homely and profound than ‘sikfan’. When translated literally, it means ‘to have rice’. However, it is also used broadly to denote the act of having a meal. It has a third meaning, which is explained succinctly by Wai Keung in the title poem, while he conjures a palpable ambience associated with the phrase:
then sat by the window thinking about being a 
    kid again […]
hearing that familiar evening shout of sikfan
    meaning
your food is ready […]
                       dont you miss that
the eagerness/ the hunger/ the sense of mystery
the not knowing exactly what would be waiting on the table
but knowing exactly that whatever it was
it would be delicious
This warm and almost magical scene of ‘sikfan’ doesn’t exist only in the Cantonese-speaking sphere. The collective childhood memory of food and commensality – the act of eating together, are universal and touch all readers. As Wai Keung continues to record his gastropoetic ventures, which are spanning across Glasgow’s restaurants and cafés of diverse cultures and heritage, he showcases how food and eating are domestic, as well as communal and political. The poems are reminiscent of an ancient Chinese saying, ‘民以食為天’, meaning ‘food is the God of the people’: that the people places food before everything else. As apparent as it seems, eating and living are inseparable. It is personal – ‘suddenly a memory is evoked / of pizza eaten on the other side of the world’ (‘byblos cafe’); as ...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image