Sensory details(:

Hi everyone, recently we have been learning about imagery and sensory details. Also, it is Chinese New Year now, and so I have written a composition with the best of both worlds. The aim of this composition is to emphasise the use of the sensory details in painting an image for the reader. The composition is about a person’s love for Bak Kwa, an extremely popular type of food during CNY. Have fun!

It was time. It was the glorious period when all Chinese celebrated their new year. It was the time for everyone to get together and reunite once again after a harsh and arduous year. It was time for the adults to meet again after not seeing each other for a year and the children to play like there was no tomorrow. However, most importantly, it was the time when the best food on Earth reached the pinnacle of its popularity. Bak Kwa was back.

My name is Jomes Bornd, and I am a self-professed Bak Kwa lover. However, I was not your conventional man on the street who simply liked Bak Kwa, nothing else. I was different. I was a fanatic. I could spend the same amount of time researching on the best Bak Kwa in town as a World of Warcraft addict playing the game. Golden coins, minced pork, sliced pork- you name it, my love for them was unconditional, they were all equally perfect in my eyes. I was a Sales Director for a foreign company, and I earned around seven thousand dollars a month. Every month following up to Chinese New Year, I would scrimp and save as crazily as a K-pop fanatic saving up for the next Super Junior or SNSD concert. Then, on Chinese New Year, while the newspapers would be buzzing with some people spending up to eleven thousand dollars on Yusheng, I would be spending a fortune on the tantalising pork slices. Every year, I seemed to outdo myself. Last year, I spent around six thousand dollars on Bak Kwa alone. Every corner I turned seemed to have a shop having an irresistible sale on Bak Kwa, and I could not resist plonking down large wads of bills in exchange for the delicious and juicy meat. I have done this for as many years since I started working, and I have absolutely no regrets.

Of course, what is the use of describing how much Bak Kwa I bought without describing the experience of eating it? It is impossible to describe the true magnificent experience of eating it, but I will try my utmost best to describe it to you. Get ready to drool. When you first unwrap the paper wrapped around the Bak Kwa, before you will lay the best food you could ever eat. When you pick up the slice of meat and are going to put it in your mouth, be prepared for the best array of tastes that you would experience in your lifetime. Place the crisp piece of meat in your mouth, and let your white teeth sink into the tantalising meat. When your teeth first sinks into the dark red meat, get ready for a myriad of tastes to attack your senses mercilessly. Savour the delightful taste, and then use your sharp teeth and bite part of the meat off. The juice that sinks into your hungry jaws will mesmerise your senses and leave you craving for more. Slowly chew on the piece of Bak Kwa in your mouth, treasure the moment while you can. Can you feel the brilliance of that small chunk of meat attacking your taste buds? Can you feel the delicious juice from that small but amazing piece of meat getting slowly sapped away and entering your gullet? Can you feel your mind slowly succumbing to the taste? Can you feel as if the rest of the pieces of Bak Kwa are like spears piercing the shield of your mind, seemingly asking you to pick them up and devour them? Can you feel yourself craving for more?

After finishing the first piece of meat, your taste buds had better get ready. The plethora of tastes that are going to flood you will stun you; I am more than sure that you would hate yourself for depriving yourself of such a luxury, get ready to be drowned in self-remorse. The rest of the meat would be in your stomach within the next thirty minutes for sure. Bak Kwa is like cancer, once you have it, once you have tasted the sheer brilliance of it, you would never be rid of wanting more. Even though you may suffer diarrhea or stomach flu whatsoever afterwards, I am certain you would never regret taking the first bite. For me, every time my eager jaws crunch yet another piece of meat, I would be suddenly catapulted to heaven; Bak Kwa was truly a gift from the heavens.

*Any character and event in this story is purely fictional.