Dear Tony, A Bad Taste
Dear Tony,
Have you noticed? Disgust is a universal expression.
Not one you want to see, leveled at the packed lunch my mom lovingly had prepared for my 4th grade field trip to the Museum.
Draw eyebrows were squinted together as index finger and thumb gingerly examined my hammy bacon.
“Is this even cooked?” A combined question and accusation.
“I like it chewy!” I defend. This isn’t the first time my meals have been investigated like this. There’s a stereotype that Chinese people eat anything, and ‘those people’ say the mfkers from the GuangXi province actually eat everything. /I’ve heard monkey brain… while it’s alive!!/ But the prejudice is steeped in some truth. I grew up eating all manners of things the white suburban families of my town would consider weird. Shrimp with heads and shells. Fermented tofu. Pickled radish. Pork floss. Eels. Pig ears. Livers in spicy black beans were a treat. But even the roasted and sliced porkchop on whole wheat bread sometimes got stares at the lunch table as the smells of garlic and five spice would seep from mayo dripping out of the saran wrapped sandwich in my brown paper bag
Frankly in the memory, the bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo sandwich my classmate’s mother is nitpicking at is as American as it can get.
This juvenescence sticks in my brain. I’m not sure why. Plenty of other lunchroom instances are more explosive. Other crueler expressions of ridicule were more unreserved. But I think younger me put weight into the opinion of grown-ups. As if they should know better. As if the casual cruelty of ignorant children is always outgrown by adulthood.
That’s not a given. You aren’t assured to get wiser. The opposite can happen. It’s possible that growth through your adolescence and younger years reverts as you age into your “Golden Years”. Check the traditionalist mindset of any generation as they throw their own disgust at how wrong the world has gotten. “Why back in my day….” A joke that repeats ad infinitum.
Levity doesn’t quite capture what that memory means to me. Even if I’m able to laugh at it now. There’s something about that unfairness that elicits a flash of fear and shame so powerful that it resonates more than a decade later.
The hang-up clasps on to present me, who can’t ignore this moment and just enjoy my freshly caught Honduran Snapper, $2.50 bought from the guy pushing the wheelbarrow. Par-steamed in soy sauce, ginger, scallions, lime, apple cider vinegar, lime juice, a garlic knob and whole habanero. A fantastic treat dinner to myself, I enjoy suckling the tender cheek meat from the skull bones, pinched between my fingers. I’ve long been trained to devour such delicacies and nothing remains on the skeleton. No waste. A sign of pride.
Eating fish heads is like eating pussy. Every nook and cranny must be explored, no two will be alike, and the pleasure is not so much physical but sensational, as you devour gifts given to you by the bounty of Calypso.
But where did this invasive thought come from? Why did it linger as I cleaned up my dishes? Clearly it means something. I am able to push out five hundred words on the subject.
This train brings me to my empathy towards my fellow Asian Americans and Asian immigrants everywhere. Many [if not most] of us are long citizens of the countries we reside in now. But these countries we now call home have never been fair. It’s never been crack endemic bad, but we’ve had a race riot or two. And now we’re getting attacked. Part that is the panic of the COVID-19 virus. Part of that is the institutions of racism that still exist and are emboldened thanks to our frothing-deranged [lame duck! ex!] President.
This happens. All the time. To all races. All of your friends. Nearly every person in America has faced some sort of horrid fascination, investigation, humiliation at their background, their gender, their different-ness.
Like it matters.
Shut up.
Do you boo.
As we keep remembering who these things happen to; our friends, our neighbors; our communities. That we also work to find out what’s wrong, how to fix it, what is truly undesirable, and what lines we as a society draw.
Everytime you turn your nose up, consider it a failure of your imagination, a failure of human life, an inability to enjoy the things that other people must enjoy in all their delightful and degenerative ways.
Everytime you “Ew.” at, consider those who live on the otherside. Those who have no choice. Those who are proud of their culture. Those who are simply different. What taste do you leave in their mouths? How is your scorn received?
I know I’ve covered a lot, but let me just finish this with one more extension. Clearly, to say eww at a kid’s packed lunch is wrong, regardless what you actually think about the food. Someone’s eating it after all, maybe happily, maybe because they have no choice. You can simply ignore it if you want. No one has to share.
But in the age of American divisiveness we all have to ask ourselves a question. A solid 22.46% [73 mil/325 mil] of our country is drinking the Kool-aid. Guzzling it. Angry that we don’t see it their way, angry enough to tear apart families. Angry enough to build unscalable walls. Angry enough to wish for Zeus to smite them right where they stand with all the righteous indignation and torrential wraith we can muster.
Maybe. As much as it rolls my stomach to think of the full implications of what I’m writing. Maybe we all have to step back and taste what the other side devours. So we can sit at the same table. Because we do sit at the same table after all.
Preferably squat stools. Something delicious to eat. Something cold and bubbly to drink.
The more we eat together, the more we drink together, the better off we’d be.
Much love Tony. May those tables be full of love and light.
Winston
