January 1, 2017
Tis the Season
No better way to be jolly over the holidays than sharing with love ones. Sharing time. Sharing space. Sharing food. I braced myself for all three as I crammed 13 pounds of sprouted nuts and seeds from the farmers market into my luggage for my Thanksgiving trip to Taiwan. 13 pounds, not counting the sun dried fruits. Because despite my hand injury (who knew mouse clicking is such a dangerous sport,) despite my inability to lift heavy things, tasty new finds I must share. Because tis the season.
As the plane taxied on the runway to a stop, I texted a Taiwanese breakfast request to Mom and Dad. 10-4 echoed. Yes, a glorious morning it will be! In my imagination.
Mom: “Why does your hair look like that?”
Me (I’ve just stepped off the plane, with no sleep): “What did you think it was gonna look like?”
Mom: “Curly! Like the party pictures you sent us a few days ago.”
Me: “You know how long it took me to do that hair with the foam rollers? Hours.”
Mom: “That hair was so pretty, why can’t you look like that every day?”
Me: “It’s not a perm, mother. No one looks like that every day.”
Let’s get on with breakfast. Cruising along the highway in the back seat of Dad’s Mitsubishi Diamante, I calculated the time and space I’d be sharing for the duration of this trip. Never mind about the food.
Mom: “We taking you to a place we really like for breakfast. We already ate some stuff at home, going there only for you. But I’ll eat a little bit. You like the soy milk savory or sweet?”
Me: “They add green onions, Chinese doughnuts, sesame oil and salt to the savory kind, it’s more like soup. I like mine plain, hot, no sugar.”
Mom: “Really? But the savory kind is so yummy, I always get it.”
And two orders of savory soup appeared before us.
Mom: “Why did you order two?”
Dad: “You said you always have it.”
Mom (raised voice): “Ho! I said we already ate at home! Just need one for us two to share, I can’t stomach the whole thing!”
Dad (matching decibel): “Why weren’t you listening when I was placing the order? Already done. Hush! Just sit and eat!”
Me: “Do you have to argue about this? Can take one home.”
Mom: “No good taking it home!”
No good eating it there either. Three of us sat in silence, eating flaky Taiwanese pastry, stewing over the savory heat. Why? Is this what I get for not saying meal prayers? Why? Why did I book two weeks? Oh right. Grandmother. Lord, why does she have to be so old?
Old she is. Almost 100 in actual age, 98 on paper because her parents registered her birth two years late. Her legs are weak but her mind sharp. And stubborn. Like a child. I heard that’s what happens to people when they get old—they go back to being a child. As humid as Taiwan is, your skin does feel dry in winter. The dryness affects my grandmother’s wrinkly shield just the same. Yet the old child refused to put on any body lotion, insisting it’s too oily to wash off. We slept in the same room as I promised to help take care of her during my stay.
In midst of my deep sleep, when I finally fell into a stupor, a hand reached over, grabbing my arm, shaking it like earthquake! Hurry hurry! What’s happening? Itchy! I can’t reach! Scratch up here! Hurry! Oh the long nights ahead. Why did I sign up for this? Oh right. Love. And love was going to get a lot tougher, with broken home appliances.
Me: “How come there is water on the floor?”
Dad: “Where? (Then cursed in a much louder volume.) That’s your mom’s doing! I already told her how to shut the fridge door tight so it doesn’t leak.”
Mom: “The hell it’s me! I haven’t touched your damn fridge today. Your daughter wouldn’t even open the fridge because she can’t lift the door. You’d better fix it!”
Curse, hell, damnation—looping before me, all in the name of a broken fridge door.
Me: “I’ll buy you a new fridge. Please stop yelling.”
Mom: “The laundry washer also no good. Your dad had it fixed twice already, it still leaks.”
Me: “OK. A new washer too. Let’s go shopping.”
I thought my bravado had saved us all from this purgatory. But damn I took pictures of the new machine specs with my phone camera. Late at night, Dad measured the wall space and was checking the fridge dimensions on my small flat screen, and dropped it, cracked the tempered glass. We eyed each other. He said, “why did you put it there (on the table)?” O Lord, if I start saying Grace, would thou bring forth sanity from the earth?
In time of madness, I seek peace and serenity at the farmers markets. But where? Where can I find farmers markets in the second largest city of Taiwan? Street foods and traditional markets in abundance but most produce, if not all, are conventionally grown. My brother! He shifted gear from his eight-to-five job to organic farming earlier in the year. Lucky for me, he was in the middle of preparing produce to sell during a radish festival. The setup, the vendors, exactly like the farmers markets in Los Angeles.
Me: “Why you discarding these guavas? They sell smaller, softer ones that look far worse than these in the LA farmers markets.”
Brother: “Because we are in Taiwan, people care about looks and they are used to looking at big spotless non-organic fruits. Ugly don’t sell.”
Me: “I’d buy those. Little spots on the skin is natural, they are beautiful! Please put them in a separate bag, I’ll sell them for you.”
And sell them I did. All day long, “would you like to try a sample?” I yelled, because that’s what it took to make myself audible to passersby. Not many could resist our home grown crisp and sweet guavas – they are the best, hands down. I would buy the whole lot myself if I could bring it back to LA. People loved them, even the ones with discoloration. Like finishing a marathon, I garnered the hoarse voice I have left to say in Mandarin that only these few left, no more after it’s all sold, but what came out instead was no more after it’s all eaten. My Chinese has taken quite a dive since the day I landed on North American soil.
Exhaustion hit me hard with sleep deprivation at night. Only one thing could happen when three-year old nephew walked into my room with why this, why that, questions galore.
Me: “Auntie is in a very bad mood, you have to leave the room now.”
Nephew: “Why?”
Silent auntie went. Mom rushed in and ushered nephew out of the room before volcano eruption.
On my last day there, at the airport, “are you happy to be going back to LA?” Mom asked. “Yes!” I said.
Back in LA, peace and serenity I breathe. But jet lag’s got me crashing at 10pm, waking up at 1.30am. I walked into the office with a ginormous zit on my forehead.
Charlie: “Hey, Janey, welcome back. The holiday decoration contest, you are on it, right?”
Me: “I what?”
Charlie: “Check your email.”
Coffee in hand, emails I check.
Me: “Our section looks bigger than others.”
Gus: “We nominated you to be in charge of our section. Oh, by the way, what’s the most sexist thing anybody’s ever said to you at work?”
Me: “What? I just came back. What’s that got to do with anything? What made you ask?”
Gus: “’Cause my wife interviewed a man yesterday, and when she paid for lunch, the guy said he never had a lady pay for him before. He said things like that a few times over the course of the interview, she thought it was sexist. I said let me ask Janey her experience.”
Me: “Hmm… there was an incident I would never forget, but I don’t think it’s sexist, just insulting. This was years back on my first day at a different studio. I was at the orientation with two other men, and I asked the coordinator where the recruiter was. The coordinator mentioned about me and the recruiter going way back because I saved her life… because I performed a Heimlich maneuver. To which one of the men said ‘well then of course she has to give you a job!’ I found the comment insulting because he completely negated my ability.”
Gus: “Yeah, I see what you mean. That’s not really sexist.”
Me: “Well, you can tell your wife you guys nominated the only girl in this section to be in charge of holiday decoration and see if she thinks that’s sexist.”
Graciously Charlie had taken over the responsibility of winning the contest, in the name of a new popcorn machine, purchased with the allocated decoration fund. So I could focus on more important things like dinner. Christmas dinner. Grocery bags in tow, I envisioned cousin Marcus and his wife Amanda oohing and aahing my farmers market procurement as I headed south to their place in Irvine.
“Welcome, sis,” cousin greeted me. I stepped into the condo, and Monster drinks in line of sight. It was going to be a long night I thought.
Me: “Didn’t you watch my food video?”
Marcus: “Yeah I did.”
Me: “Then why you drinking Monster? Of all drinks.”
Marcus: “Is it bad? It’s zero calories.”
Me: “What kind of things are zero calories? (I could only think of dead things.) Read the ingredients in the back.”
Marcus: “Sodium?”
Me: “Where you looking? (Point to the ingredients section.) Tell me what you recognize.”
Amanda: “Yeah, you tell him! He bought two huge cases, drinking two or three cans a day. He’s addicted!”
Let it go I told myself, it’s Christmas. So food we made, movie we watched. But my mind occupied. What? What information got lost in the translation? The food video was in English. I needed to find out.
Me: “Did he explain my talk to you?”
Amanda (beginner’s level English): “He told me in two sentences. Eat healthy. Go to Whole Foods.”
Me (about to keel over): “That’s not what I said. And that explains nothing.”
Marcus: “Sis, you talked for an hour and half! It’s too long to explain.”
Me: “I talked for 44 minutes. Of how your body works, what nutrition does, and how food production changed over the years, how everything works together. It’s not long if that’s all you need for life. (To Amanda) I know you didn’t sign up for a lecture, but I’m going to insist, because it’s important. He won’t explain to you, I will. (To Marcus) Play my video please.”
Marcus: “On YouTube? How do I find it?”
Me: “I sent you a new link. I told you I had to delete it before because of the company logo at the corner of my slides, and I uploaded a new one to YouTube. Don’t remember? Never mind. Just type my name and food, it’ll pop up. Yes, that’s it. Pause please. God, I don’t like listening to myself talk. OK, here we go…”
Frustrations ran high as I bumped into terms I no longer remembered its Chinese counterpart, starting with enzymes, on slide two. Cousin stepped in to help, but thyroid hormones blocked him equally. Why? Why does Gout in Mandarin have to end with the word Wind and Hernia Air? Even I got confused piecing the right ailments and vitamins together. Two parts broken Mandarin, one part charades and one part Google completed the translation, three hours later. It was a long night alright. But a praised one from Amanda’s thumbs-up. Even the Monster addict started taking notes half way through the video.
Me: “So what did you learn the first time you watched my talk?”
Marcus: “It was a long time ago, and it was a lot to remember.”
Me: “OK. Now what are you going to tell people? Eat healthy, go to farmers markets? You laugh, but try to give more information if you can, otherwise it’s the same as saying nothing. If we don’t support local farmers, we are all gonna eat shit. (Oh I must stop, it’s way past my bedtime.) Hand over the case of chemicals as my Christmas present.”
Even though we went over how carbonated caffeine drinks double the loss of minerals the body needs to rebuild DNA and proteins and what damaged DNA does, he said “No.” Like a druggie who couldn’t part with his fix. Like a druggie who promised no more after it’s all consumed.
So I watched and whined to my friend.
Sophie: “You only see them once a year, you should’ve just smiled when you were there.”
Me: “I don’t understand. I wasn’t asking for an apology, why couldn’t Dad own up to his mistakes?”
Sophie: “You did something, didn’t you? What did you do?”
Me: “I texted him the next morning.”
Sophie: “And what did he say?”
Me: “He can’t remember saying such an illogical thing.”
Sophie: “See, it’s all your fault, Janey. Why did you do it? They’ve been this way, 30, 40 years of their lives, they never gonna change. Every year is the same. Why you had to point it out?”
Why? Why do I believe things, they, will change? Lord, why do you give me faith? Oh right. Love. Pray I forget not. And brace myself I will, for more trips to come. What will change next time? My hair. I will land with the perfect hair, so help me God.
Until next time. A jolly 2017 to you all!
Take care.
Janey
As the plane taxied on the runway to a stop, I texted a Taiwanese breakfast request to Mom and Dad. 10-4 echoed. Yes, a glorious morning it will be! In my imagination.
Mom: “Why does your hair look like that?”
Me (I’ve just stepped off the plane, with no sleep): “What did you think it was gonna look like?”
Mom: “Curly! Like the party pictures you sent us a few days ago.”
Me: “You know how long it took me to do that hair with the foam rollers? Hours.”
Mom: “That hair was so pretty, why can’t you look like that every day?”
Me: “It’s not a perm, mother. No one looks like that every day.”
Let’s get on with breakfast. Cruising along the highway in the back seat of Dad’s Mitsubishi Diamante, I calculated the time and space I’d be sharing for the duration of this trip. Never mind about the food.
Mom: “We taking you to a place we really like for breakfast. We already ate some stuff at home, going there only for you. But I’ll eat a little bit. You like the soy milk savory or sweet?”
Me: “They add green onions, Chinese doughnuts, sesame oil and salt to the savory kind, it’s more like soup. I like mine plain, hot, no sugar.”
Mom: “Really? But the savory kind is so yummy, I always get it.”
And two orders of savory soup appeared before us.
Mom: “Why did you order two?”
Dad: “You said you always have it.”
Mom (raised voice): “Ho! I said we already ate at home! Just need one for us two to share, I can’t stomach the whole thing!”
Dad (matching decibel): “Why weren’t you listening when I was placing the order? Already done. Hush! Just sit and eat!”
Me: “Do you have to argue about this? Can take one home.”
Mom: “No good taking it home!”
No good eating it there either. Three of us sat in silence, eating flaky Taiwanese pastry, stewing over the savory heat. Why? Is this what I get for not saying meal prayers? Why? Why did I book two weeks? Oh right. Grandmother. Lord, why does she have to be so old?
Old she is. Almost 100 in actual age, 98 on paper because her parents registered her birth two years late. Her legs are weak but her mind sharp. And stubborn. Like a child. I heard that’s what happens to people when they get old—they go back to being a child. As humid as Taiwan is, your skin does feel dry in winter. The dryness affects my grandmother’s wrinkly shield just the same. Yet the old child refused to put on any body lotion, insisting it’s too oily to wash off. We slept in the same room as I promised to help take care of her during my stay.
In midst of my deep sleep, when I finally fell into a stupor, a hand reached over, grabbing my arm, shaking it like earthquake! Hurry hurry! What’s happening? Itchy! I can’t reach! Scratch up here! Hurry! Oh the long nights ahead. Why did I sign up for this? Oh right. Love. And love was going to get a lot tougher, with broken home appliances.
Me: “How come there is water on the floor?”
Dad: “Where? (Then cursed in a much louder volume.) That’s your mom’s doing! I already told her how to shut the fridge door tight so it doesn’t leak.”
Mom: “The hell it’s me! I haven’t touched your damn fridge today. Your daughter wouldn’t even open the fridge because she can’t lift the door. You’d better fix it!”
Curse, hell, damnation—looping before me, all in the name of a broken fridge door.
Me: “I’ll buy you a new fridge. Please stop yelling.”
Mom: “The laundry washer also no good. Your dad had it fixed twice already, it still leaks.”
Me: “OK. A new washer too. Let’s go shopping.”
I thought my bravado had saved us all from this purgatory. But damn I took pictures of the new machine specs with my phone camera. Late at night, Dad measured the wall space and was checking the fridge dimensions on my small flat screen, and dropped it, cracked the tempered glass. We eyed each other. He said, “why did you put it there (on the table)?” O Lord, if I start saying Grace, would thou bring forth sanity from the earth?
In time of madness, I seek peace and serenity at the farmers markets. But where? Where can I find farmers markets in the second largest city of Taiwan? Street foods and traditional markets in abundance but most produce, if not all, are conventionally grown. My brother! He shifted gear from his eight-to-five job to organic farming earlier in the year. Lucky for me, he was in the middle of preparing produce to sell during a radish festival. The setup, the vendors, exactly like the farmers markets in Los Angeles.
Me: “Why you discarding these guavas? They sell smaller, softer ones that look far worse than these in the LA farmers markets.”
Brother: “Because we are in Taiwan, people care about looks and they are used to looking at big spotless non-organic fruits. Ugly don’t sell.”
Me: “I’d buy those. Little spots on the skin is natural, they are beautiful! Please put them in a separate bag, I’ll sell them for you.”
And sell them I did. All day long, “would you like to try a sample?” I yelled, because that’s what it took to make myself audible to passersby. Not many could resist our home grown crisp and sweet guavas – they are the best, hands down. I would buy the whole lot myself if I could bring it back to LA. People loved them, even the ones with discoloration. Like finishing a marathon, I garnered the hoarse voice I have left to say in Mandarin that only these few left, no more after it’s all sold, but what came out instead was no more after it’s all eaten. My Chinese has taken quite a dive since the day I landed on North American soil.
Exhaustion hit me hard with sleep deprivation at night. Only one thing could happen when three-year old nephew walked into my room with why this, why that, questions galore.
Me: “Auntie is in a very bad mood, you have to leave the room now.”
Nephew: “Why?”
Silent auntie went. Mom rushed in and ushered nephew out of the room before volcano eruption.
On my last day there, at the airport, “are you happy to be going back to LA?” Mom asked. “Yes!” I said.
Back in LA, peace and serenity I breathe. But jet lag’s got me crashing at 10pm, waking up at 1.30am. I walked into the office with a ginormous zit on my forehead.
Charlie: “Hey, Janey, welcome back. The holiday decoration contest, you are on it, right?”
Me: “I what?”
Charlie: “Check your email.”
Coffee in hand, emails I check.
Me: “Our section looks bigger than others.”
Gus: “We nominated you to be in charge of our section. Oh, by the way, what’s the most sexist thing anybody’s ever said to you at work?”
Me: “What? I just came back. What’s that got to do with anything? What made you ask?”
Gus: “’Cause my wife interviewed a man yesterday, and when she paid for lunch, the guy said he never had a lady pay for him before. He said things like that a few times over the course of the interview, she thought it was sexist. I said let me ask Janey her experience.”
Me: “Hmm… there was an incident I would never forget, but I don’t think it’s sexist, just insulting. This was years back on my first day at a different studio. I was at the orientation with two other men, and I asked the coordinator where the recruiter was. The coordinator mentioned about me and the recruiter going way back because I saved her life… because I performed a Heimlich maneuver. To which one of the men said ‘well then of course she has to give you a job!’ I found the comment insulting because he completely negated my ability.”
Gus: “Yeah, I see what you mean. That’s not really sexist.”
Me: “Well, you can tell your wife you guys nominated the only girl in this section to be in charge of holiday decoration and see if she thinks that’s sexist.”
Graciously Charlie had taken over the responsibility of winning the contest, in the name of a new popcorn machine, purchased with the allocated decoration fund. So I could focus on more important things like dinner. Christmas dinner. Grocery bags in tow, I envisioned cousin Marcus and his wife Amanda oohing and aahing my farmers market procurement as I headed south to their place in Irvine.
“Welcome, sis,” cousin greeted me. I stepped into the condo, and Monster drinks in line of sight. It was going to be a long night I thought.
Me: “Didn’t you watch my food video?”
Marcus: “Yeah I did.”
Me: “Then why you drinking Monster? Of all drinks.”
Marcus: “Is it bad? It’s zero calories.”
Me: “What kind of things are zero calories? (I could only think of dead things.) Read the ingredients in the back.”
Marcus: “Sodium?”
Me: “Where you looking? (Point to the ingredients section.) Tell me what you recognize.”
Amanda: “Yeah, you tell him! He bought two huge cases, drinking two or three cans a day. He’s addicted!”
Let it go I told myself, it’s Christmas. So food we made, movie we watched. But my mind occupied. What? What information got lost in the translation? The food video was in English. I needed to find out.
Me: “Did he explain my talk to you?”
Amanda (beginner’s level English): “He told me in two sentences. Eat healthy. Go to Whole Foods.”
Me (about to keel over): “That’s not what I said. And that explains nothing.”
Marcus: “Sis, you talked for an hour and half! It’s too long to explain.”
Me: “I talked for 44 minutes. Of how your body works, what nutrition does, and how food production changed over the years, how everything works together. It’s not long if that’s all you need for life. (To Amanda) I know you didn’t sign up for a lecture, but I’m going to insist, because it’s important. He won’t explain to you, I will. (To Marcus) Play my video please.”
Marcus: “On YouTube? How do I find it?”
Me: “I sent you a new link. I told you I had to delete it before because of the company logo at the corner of my slides, and I uploaded a new one to YouTube. Don’t remember? Never mind. Just type my name and food, it’ll pop up. Yes, that’s it. Pause please. God, I don’t like listening to myself talk. OK, here we go…”
Frustrations ran high as I bumped into terms I no longer remembered its Chinese counterpart, starting with enzymes, on slide two. Cousin stepped in to help, but thyroid hormones blocked him equally. Why? Why does Gout in Mandarin have to end with the word Wind and Hernia Air? Even I got confused piecing the right ailments and vitamins together. Two parts broken Mandarin, one part charades and one part Google completed the translation, three hours later. It was a long night alright. But a praised one from Amanda’s thumbs-up. Even the Monster addict started taking notes half way through the video.
Me: “So what did you learn the first time you watched my talk?”
Marcus: “It was a long time ago, and it was a lot to remember.”
Me: “OK. Now what are you going to tell people? Eat healthy, go to farmers markets? You laugh, but try to give more information if you can, otherwise it’s the same as saying nothing. If we don’t support local farmers, we are all gonna eat shit. (Oh I must stop, it’s way past my bedtime.) Hand over the case of chemicals as my Christmas present.”
Even though we went over how carbonated caffeine drinks double the loss of minerals the body needs to rebuild DNA and proteins and what damaged DNA does, he said “No.” Like a druggie who couldn’t part with his fix. Like a druggie who promised no more after it’s all consumed.
So I watched and whined to my friend.
Sophie: “You only see them once a year, you should’ve just smiled when you were there.”
Me: “I don’t understand. I wasn’t asking for an apology, why couldn’t Dad own up to his mistakes?”
Sophie: “You did something, didn’t you? What did you do?”
Me: “I texted him the next morning.”
Sophie: “And what did he say?”
Me: “He can’t remember saying such an illogical thing.”
Sophie: “See, it’s all your fault, Janey. Why did you do it? They’ve been this way, 30, 40 years of their lives, they never gonna change. Every year is the same. Why you had to point it out?”
Why? Why do I believe things, they, will change? Lord, why do you give me faith? Oh right. Love. Pray I forget not. And brace myself I will, for more trips to come. What will change next time? My hair. I will land with the perfect hair, so help me God.
Until next time. A jolly 2017 to you all!
Take care.
Janey