Saturday 27 February 2016

A dream at the acupuncturist's

I like to lie down on that little bed in the little poky room at the back of the shop while the acupuncturist is reading and shuffling his papers softly. It is quiet, the air is a little stuffy, and particles of subtle and familiar Chinese herbal medicine smells hang in the air.

It transports me to afternoons in my early childhood, a time when I was living with my grandparents. 
Can you remember things that you saw and heard as an infant? I think I can. I can't have been older than 2.
My granddad would do that, turn the TV off and have the whole household very quiet for my nap time. Everyone else would have left for work or study or whatever they needed to attend to in their day. Only my granddad, my grandma and I would remain in the little flat.

I could hear and feel the love as I slowly dozed off to sleep, the reassuring sound of silence mostly, punctuated regularly by the turning of pages, a soft clearing of the throat, a brief clanging of pans in the kitchen where my grandma would be preparing a special afternoon treat for my granddad.

Sometimes she would cook him a steak, just for him, in the middle of the afternoon, when no other family member is around. 
We have always eaten very well, every meal would have at least 3 dishes displayed in the middle of the table, and enough for everyone and for leftovers. 
But that was his secret treat, her private way of saying how much she adores him over everyone else. I truly believe that food has much deeper significance in traditional Chinese culture. Many a time I was the privileged witness of the deep and private Chinese love between my grandparents.

Granddad would have that delicious piece of beef with Maggi sauce, and sometimes with a little Dijon mustard. He would feed tiny pieces to me, after dipping them in the soya sauce.

I feel a hand on my wrist. Ah. The acupuncturist is checking that I am alive. He is now proceeding to remove the needles and asks me how I feel.

I feel a bit stunned and spaced out after the session. After the cortisol and adrenaline of worrying are taken away and the Qi energy in my body is realigned, all that is left is my profound tiredness, unmasked and heavy.

Friday 5 February 2016

My emotional attachment to soondubu jjigae (Korean soft tofu stew)

As I grew up, I was never very keen on spicy foods. I would watch my mother and brother eating very spicy curries, and biting into fresh bird's eye chillies, both intrigued and incredulous about how anyone could enjoy inflicting pain on themselves, especially in an area as sensitive and significant to me as the palate.

Fast forward to my last year of uni, which I spent in an incredible adventure in Shanghai, China, where I made friends, not with Chinese people, but mostly with Korean foreign students. 
The university was a popular destination for Korean students, and consequently the foreign student canteen served a variety of traditional Korean dishes.

15 years later, I am still obsessed with the dish I kept going back to: a spicy soft tofu stew, or soondubu jjigae.
My Korean friends made me try it the first time, their answer to my objections about my dislike for spice being that spice gives you a "fresh" feel at the same time as being warming.
I wasn't entirely convinced but I had intuitively rationalised the concept in my mind, enough to give it a try.

The first mouthful was volcano hot, firstly in temperature, being served still bubbling in the earthenware pot that it was cooked in, burning my mouth and my tongue, and secondly in spice, the deep red colour having warned me of the dangers of the experience. I looked at my friends through a tear in my eye, they were nodding and smiling encouragingly. 
We didn't have a fluent language in common, but body and sign language, and facial expressions turned out to be very effective ways of communicating our appreciation for each other and other emotions that built and strengthened our friendship.
I went back for seconds, determined to share the experience they had described, another way that I had at my disposal to understand them better. 
Sweating and gulping air to cool my mouth down, I finished my bowl of stew, feeling proud that I had conquered the challenge, but also feeling that I had understood an area of the human experience which had been closed to me until then.
The burning spice in one's mouth isn't just pain, it triggers many other things in your body: the heat, the sweat, the struggle of your mouth to cool down enough to keep going for more, as a small challenge that builds your character and makes you feel strong and winning, and the endorphins releasing into your body, making you feel awake, warm and happy.
I had this stew again and again during my stay in Shanghai, developing a stronger understanding of the experience and each time, giving in a little more to the pleasures of this black bowl of red volcano.

Today I take pleasure in this dish for all these reasons, and an additional one, which is the nostalgic reminiscence of those days of sharing meaningful human experience with wonderful people with whom I didn't even have many common words to express myself or my feelings for them.
It reminds me that the human experience transcends borders and languages, and fills me with the belief that the human race is good and that the world is a wonderful place for us to experience.