EAT A DUCK I MUST
Of sacrificial rodents and picky children
By Wan Yan Ling
“You can’t have that, that or any of that,” my mom whispers, a restraining arm on mine as she discretely indicates the fried chicken, tater tots, corn dogs and my favorite pizza bites sitting in their resplendent, greasy glory on the party table.
“But mom!” I croak.
“You sound like a frog. The ‘heat’ in these fried foods will combine with the ‘fire’ raging in your throat and make you sicker than you already are. Listen to me, I know.”
“So what am I going to eat?”
Mom triumphantly hands over a neatly packed Tupperware of rice, wilted spinach and silken steamed egg. I look at the tantalizing spread of crisp, golden-brown goodness before me, at the fish sticks and gooey peanut butter treats I’m never allowed to eat at home, and sulk.
As the kids around me joyfully devour chicken nuggets and pop, Mom watches me push my lunch around, making disapproving clucking noises with her tongue.
“If you don’t finish your rice, each grain left will turn into a pockmark on your husband’s face. There,” she says, nudging me, “You see Aunty Mei and Uncle Henry? You can tell they were naughty children who didn’t finish their food.”
I decide the very forbidden M&M-studded devil’s food cupcakes I can see coming out of the kitchen are worth ratting on a girl I don’t particularly like anyway.
“Courtney hasn’t finished her food either.”
“Courtney’s not Chinese.”
Mom states “not Chinese” as if it explains all the mysteries in the world and unlocks the universe’s secrets. And in her world, it might as well have.
If you are Chinese, there are a million nitty-gritty rules that apply to you — and you only. Not to the pretty, olive-skinned girl with brilliant green eyes who brings in honeyed, thousand-layer phyllo pastries for recess, to the blonde angel with stubborn, stand-up hair who reeks perpetually of raw onions, or even to kindly Ms. Patsy next door, with the floury hands, peach cardigans and bottomless cookie jar.
No. If you are Chinese, your body works differently — no matter what your biology teacher or textbook claims — and if you quaff sugary cereal with cold milk in the mornings, you will rock and roll and damage your insides very, very badly.
For everything that you are made to do or are barred from doing, there will be a clutch of reasons grounded in superstition, tradition, logic (infrequently) and what old people say. And you know, if you are Chinese, when an elder asks you to jump, there is no response other then to clarify “how high?” else you get sent to the First Court of Hell for filial impiety and are crushed under heavy stone slabs and boulders, or merrily run through a meat grinder.
(The Catholics, to the best of my knowledge, have only one purgatory. The Chinese? We have eighteen courts of hell — gossipers go to the second, violators of Confucian principles crowd the third, tax evaders the fourth and pornographers the ninth. We like to be very organized, us Chinese.)
Of course, to ask too many questions of the “But why? It’s not fair!” variety is to tempt the ox-head and horse-face guards of Hades to march you off (this one, I’m not too sure my mom didn’t make up), and so generations of little Chinese kids have learned to eat everything put before them. Gelatinous sea cucumbers, coagulated pigs’ blood, stewed innards, fermented tofu that reeks of sewage — we down it all.
When the consequences are not confined to being sent to bed early or being denied dessert — when they involve bigger, scarier, more bloodcurdling things — what’s dead and unmoving on the plate doesn’t scare us.
It wasn’t until China’s one-child policy came along and gave rise to a band of little emperors and empresses that things came to a halt. Suddenly, with only one precious offspring, only one “thousand pieces of gold” to carry on the honorable family name, doting parents and elders turned soft.
“Nation’s Glory” doesn’t want to eat the double-boiled black chicken soup grandma slaved hours over a charcoal fire to prepare? That’s okay.
“Falling Jasmine Blossoms” would rather snack on chocolate-filled panda cookies than eat her dinner of silver fish and oyster porridge? Well, she’s only 5 years old.... We’ll be better off letting her (and her mighty lungs) be.
It wasn’t too long ago that the Chinese were reputed to “eat everything on land with four legs except furniture, anything that moves in the sea except submarines and anything that flies- save planes.”
Now, a whole generation of namby-pamby, “eat only inanimate objects” children are being raised. The picky Chinese child — previously only the issue of sick rooms and grotesquely negligent parents — is born.
This raises serious issues. No, not of the rising levels of childhood obesity or the “busy parent clueless about what to feed midget tyrant” variety. This goes deeper to the roots of Chinese folk medicine. Not witchcraft, divine intervention or even ancestral worship. Just sundry little rituals, or “wisdom” if you may, that have been passed down via word of mouth — what old people say works.
Having grown up in Singapore, an annoyingly over-achieving island-state (where for very little money you get to consult with a Harvard-trained doctor within an hour of entering a clinic, sans appointment), my parents are constantly torn between “thousands of years of ancient wisdom” and modern medical science.
The direction in which they sway tends to depend on how desperate they are — I distinctly recall being sent into exam halls armed with Taoist amulets, Christian crosses, Buddhist blessings and Holy Water from Lourdes. So, when my brother came along three years after me, whooping on the mildest provocation, the diagnosis of asthma was initially met with a battery of inhalers and anti-inflammatory medication.
One fine day, however, when the sun rose not quite in the east (I jest, of course), my brother barked more like a rabid dog than usual. An anxious call to the family doctor’s home was placed, only to find that the esteemed gentleman was off somewhere in Thailand ruining his walk with balls and sticks.
That’s when the family doctor’s mom stepped in. Madam Tay was a weathered old crone with a stooped back and a proclivity to randomly thwacking people with her walking cane. No, actually, she was a Wellesley graduate who was always impeccably dressed in Chanel suits and sensible two-inch heels.
“Find a newborn white mouse. It’s very important that its eyes are still closed and its body pink and hairless. Now, get a fresh lettuce leaf, spread it flat, and roll the rodent into a neat little ball within. You want to be very careful here because, if it suffocates or snaps, you can’t use it any more. Now, make the boy swallow it whole. No chewing, no biting — remember, it has to be alive!”
By good fortune and sheer providence, a cousin bred white mice for sale and had (much to his mother’s dismay) constant litters of newborn rodents on hand. Several promising babies were plucked out and promptly delivered in a cozy Styrofoam take-away box with holes punched out the roof.
If they had been superstitious, my parents would have consulted an almanac or fengshui master for the most auspicious time and day for this very delicate operation. However, time was of the essence, and the babies would only remain shut-eyed and pink for so long.
Now, as with all cultures, the saying “little pitchers have big ears” holds true. Adults know just when to lower their voices and switch to grown-upish, or in this case, to speak in obscure Chinese dialects. Arrangements were thus made, and at the moment of reckoning, a verdant, dew-flecked lettuce was brought to the table and all necessary accoutrements laid out.
With the accomplished secrecy of the adults, how my brother caught wind of the proceedings was a mystery in itself. It may be that his older sister spent the better half of the hour gleefully tormenting him with graphic descriptions of hairless lab rats squirming their way down his throat and continuing to squeak and run around and play mousey games inside his body, rousing him at night to give him nightmares and to exact their rodent revenge.
Just maybe.
Anyway, by the time the little mouse was snugly egg-rolled in its lettuce blanket, my brother was nowhere to be found. Not in his Little Tyke “no girls allowed” pirate ship, by his beloved Nintendo game station or in the super-secret-kids-only nook generously volunteered by his concerned older sister. The minutes were ticking away and a search party had to be sent out.
“He’s here! He’s here!”
My brother hissed at me as I crowed, a handful of his shirt clutched triumphantly in my fist.
“I’m only doing this for your own good, you know,” I primly informed him.
As he tries to bite me, I lunge for Captain, his raggedy, one-eyed cyclops of a wingman. He pulls out of my grasp, dukes me one on the head and, hearing the footfalls of approaching adults, takes off down the hall.
A frantic chase ensues. And after five laps round the circular kitchen table, my brother, cornered by four grown men, could be said to have gone down standing.
With my brother’s limbs pinned and weighted down by a well-placed rump, the little lettuce parcel was daubed in hoisin sauce (“See, just like your favorite Peking duck!”) and unceremoniously stuffed down his throat.
It was a swift end to an afternoon’s hysterics and my brother never required an inhaler again. As Madam Tay had promised, the asthma had been “scared away.”
*The author apologizes for the animals that have been sacrificed in the genesis of this article, though points out she was a picky Chinese child and had nothing to do with it. Really.
Light bulbs, roses or brickbats? E-mail: eataduckimust@gmail.com.
Third memo: Layers
Sifting through layers of life and history
By Ken Ueno
A canon goes off everyday at 12 p.m. Some time ago, in the history of Rome, the canon replaced the meridian as the standard of time. I have noticed, however, that it is hardly ever precise (according to my watch, anyway).
In the garden outside my studio, the benches and chairs move like arms of a clock following the rays of the sun. Seeing their arrangement, one can see how many people had congregated there, and at what time of day. Sometimes alone, sometimes in small groups, they are the pupae left behind from past meditations and conversations.
Larger geographical and architectural features also resonate with evidence of past lives. In Tarquinia, a short trip north of Rome, there are several Etruscan sites. The Etruscans were a civilization wiped out by the Romans, and they built their cities and necropolises (burial grounds) on parallel plateaus, separated by a valley.
Today, the plateaus on which they lived and worked, the cities, are ruins; and on the plateaus of the necropoli, are the modern Italians, living and working the land over the tombs of the Etruscans.
Sometimes they know what is below; some sites are dug and marked for visitors. Other times, most times (probably), they cultivate the land and feed their children with produce without the knowledge of the heritage of the ancient civilization below. But tomatoes are sweeter for it, basil and rosemary more fragrant.
“Heaven. Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.”
At the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome, one can see three layers of history. The lowest level is a first century Mithraeum (a temple to the pagan god Mithras). The middle layer is a fourth century church, whose riches include a fresco on a wall with some of the oldest examples of written Italian. It documents a period in time when there was disparity between the people’s spoken language (Italian) and written language (Latin).
Here, one can see the beginnings of Italian gaining a foothold as a written legacy. And what is this legacy? Well, in the fresco there is a depiction of a cart stuck in the road. The driver shouts to the men behind to push, swearing at them, saying “Fili dei puta!”
The top level of San Clemente is the twelfth century basilica that is visible from the street level.
The street level in Rome has been rising throughout its history. At San Clemente, you can actually see all those layers.
I used to think the yearly flooding of the Tiber was responsible for this accumulation, but it is not. It was detritus. The accumulation of detritus caused the street level to rise, burying the city. What is interesting is that this burying, ironically, helped preserve some of the most ancient monuments. And this accumulation of detritus still happens today.
How alike are the Italians from their Roman ancestors? What is best preserved is what is thrown away. This is also how we know of Aristotle (he was Greek, but I digress). All of his published writing was destroyed. What we know of Aristotle we know from notes, some of which were thrown away by his students. As trash, they were preserved better.
Rome is a big cake, whose richer layers are underground. To navigate here, you have to mainly take a bus, since there are only two subway lines. They only have two subway lines become they cannot dig here. Every time they try to expand the subway system, they run into ancient ruins. I have heard once that Rome was the first city in the world to reach a million inhabitants. So, there is lot below.
Rome is also a Frankenstein. Many medieval and baroque buildings have ancient marble ornaments culled, violently removed, from ancient monuments. For example, the fontana dell’acqua Paola has marble on permanent loan from the Coloseum.
What is interesting for me is that these “spoglie” (Latin for “spoils,” which has become a term used by artists and scholars for ancient marble ornaments encountered in secondary settings) are sometimes structural and load-bearing, and other times, they are not.
Please see the two photograph examples. In one, you can see how the columns don’t match each other (here, they are load bearing). In the other, you can see that the marble ornaments are kind of just stuck into the wall almost randomly (and not load bearing) — like the Talking Heads quote inserted into this text four paragraphs ago.
All of these things are different markers of time. And now, they have influenced my relationship to the art of music composition. I don’t think that I am wasting time, now, when I take a break and drink my tea, looking out at the garden. I think about how important what I am doing is, especially when someone might just grow weeds over it.
Is it any less beautiful? Should you throw away the things you cherish most, in order that they might survive longer? And more concretely: 1.) How should (or shouldn’t) layers of structure of a composition relate to each other? 2.) How important is it to have everything in a structure be organic?
As I write this installment of my Memos, it is Sunday, and all the bells in Rome are ringing again. The canons are daily markers of time. The bells are weekly markers of time.
When I sit on a lone bench in the garden listening to the chorus of birds, sometimes an ambulance siren disrupts their song. These sirens are like commercials when watching TV, for they disrupt the local narrative of time, while relating and reminding the observer of all other like sirens and commercials.
Spoglie are Zen in that they just are. But every time I see one now, they (like sirens and commercials) remind me of other spoglie, for they relate to each other more than they do the present structure into which they were imposed. And they are beautiful that way.
I have no inclination to try to reclaim them into their rightful classical purity.
Variety is the spice of life
DARTMOUTH, Mass. — For the first year, 20 Cent Fiction, UMass Dartmouth’s student-run alternative theater company, will host a variety show. Scheduled for March 6 at 8 p.m., the event will showcase talents and performances of all sorts in the Main Auditorium.
At the beginning of the semester, 20 Cent held auditions for the variety show, with great results. Acts from all walks of life have been booked for the show, including magicians, martial arts demonstrations, comedians, spoken word, live bands, solo musicians, carnival acts and large scale dance performances.
The best part is that all of these acts come directly from the campus community. It serves as a showcase not only for individual talents, but also for the talent of the university as a whole.
As the show’s organizers, Chris Szulewski and Matt Rogers, say, “This variety show [gathers] a large, diverse group of people, and [we’re] hoping to bring back an appreciation for the arts to UMass Dartmouth, as well as the South Coast area.”
In past years, 20 Cent has produced shows such as “The Little Shop of Horrors” and “Malice in Wonderland,” as well as their annual week-long production of “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Later this semester, 20 Cent will host their latest feature show, the stage version of The Who’s “Tommy.”
Students, faculty, staff and community members are urged to come out to the variety and support the local talent. For more information on the event or the individual acts, contact 20 Cent Fiction at 20centvarietyshow@gmail.com.
Sound the alarms
The Siren calls all writers and artists
By Megan Gauthier
The Siren, UMass Dartmouth’s literary women’s journal, first began in the 1970s, allowing women who had been denied the right to express themselves to make history and be represented. The Siren continues to be published every year.
Senior editors Anna Lisa Vust and Kathleen Gearty urge that now is your chance to be part of it. The Siren is currently accepting submissions, which includes fiction and non-fiction short stories, essays, journal entries, poetry and artwork that focus on women’s issues.
This year’s theme is “See yourself in print,” which basically means anything goes. Although this literary journal revolves around women’s issues, men are more than welcome to submit, as well.
Last year’s theme “Voice” inspired many exceptional pieces; the 2006 issue flew off the shelves as soon as it was released. Vust and Gearty hope for the same reaction this year.
A psychology major and women’s studies minor, Vust says, “I think the Siren is an amazing project. I’m undertaking because it gives students and faculty a chance to submit their creative work, which can go unnoticed.”
She continues, “It gives us a chance to see and read work from women’s perspectives and prerogatives.”
Vust also explains that Siren is special because of its focus: “I think in our culture today, so much is focused on the female (whether controversial or not). The woman itself is a figure that describes so many things.”
What makes this journal different from the English department’s literary journal, Temper, is that it gives students a more specific focus, while also giving them creative license that extends beyond the form of the written word. Last year’s Siren included charcoal drawings, photographs, oil paintings and multi-media artwork. The topics covered in that issue discussed motherhood, relationships and being silenced, as well as the physical and emotional aspects of being a woman.
The Siren is now accepting submissions through Friday, March 16. The editors request that all submissions be typed, double-spaced (except poetry). Submissions should include your name, address, phone number and e-mail.
Send all submissions to Siren@umassd.edu. The Siren will be only be accepting submissions through this e-mail account, so if you would like to submit your artwork, please attach a file (preferably JPEG) to the e-mail. Submissions will not be returned, so please make sure that you have a spare copy of your work.
If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail the main Siren account, Kathleen Gearty at U_KGearty@umassd.edu or Anna Lisa Vust at U_AVust@umassd.edu.
The editors would like to thank both their advisor, English Chairperson Kathy Houser, and the women’s studies department for supporting them. Without them, say the editors, the project would not be possible.
SCREW THE ACADEMY
'Ghost Rider' is a flaming wreck
By Bronson Michaud
“Ghost Rider” (2007)
Rated PG-13 for horror
violence and disturbing images
Runtime: 114 minutes
Here we go again: another comic book movie adaptation. The comic book movie genre has, with the exception of the Spiderman and X-Men sagas, been a complete travesty. I regrettably report that “Ghost Rider” is no exception.
Reviewing this movie has proved difficult because, on one hand, it was decently adapted and flowed relatively well with the Ghost Rider story. On the other hand, it was a cinematic abortion.
It kills me to write this, but Eva Mendes (playing Roxanne, lead character Johnny Blaze’s girlfriend) was a bad pick for this role. Albeit beautiful, sexy and not a terrible actress, she just doesn’t seem to flow, playing a character as complex as Roxanne. She should just stick with cheesy, romantic comedies like “Hitch” if she really wants to play to her strengths, even though her low-cut dresses help to distract from the poorly written romantic scenes in this film.
Not everything about this movie was as painful as a circumcision without painkillers, though. Nick Cage, who I generally like as an actor, provided a semi-decent performance as the cursed Blaze. My only problem is that he seems to be having a little too much fun with the character and is even too comical at times to be playing someone with a “tortured soul.”
The CGI effects are very well done, and the soundtrack is almost narcotic, but who pays to see a movie for the music?
If you are a hardcore fan of the Ghost Rider comic series, give this movie a shot (if you haven’t already). However, if you are like me and have just heard of the series or are a casual reader, I beg you: save your money.
Let’s just hope and pray that the film gods smile upon us and bestow a comic book movie worthy of praise and a $10 ticket fee. Personally, I’m holding my breath for “Spiderman 3.”
I give this movie a rating of 1.5 out of 5.
RECOMMENDING RHONDA
Rhonda says: Listen to this album!
By Recommending Rhonda
I don’t know how exactly I stumbled upon Ben Harper. I think he was smushed into the “Musical Bens” category with Folds and Kweller. In any event, I fell in love with his fusion of funk, blues and alternative folk. I am particularly fond of his 2006 two-disc release “Both Sides of the Gun.”
The second disc of the album is a mellow, more folksy side of Harper, beginning with the quiet and haunting melody “Morning Yearning.” Something about Harper’s voice is very raw, and when you listen to his music, you feel as though he is telling you intimate details about his relationships, activism and philosophies.
There are quite a few gems on the second disk, including my personal favorite “Never Leave Lonely Alone,” which is reminiscent of Gary Jules’ “Mad World.”
Harper has been compared to many artists: Lenny Kravitz, Bruce Springsteen and the Counting Crows. However, in my opinion, his sound is unique to him. His voice is very distinct, and he has a tendency to experiment with different musical genres. For example, the first half of “Both Sides of the Gun” is reminiscent of disco-funk, “Sweet Nothing Serenade” on the first disc has a bit of a country twang, and he also won a Grammy in collaboration with the Blind Boys of Alabama for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album. Still, Harper is quite distinguishable from other artists and is well known for his underlying political messages and protests.
His first hit single in the U.S. was the pop song “Steal My Kisses,” which came out in 1997 on his first charting album “Will to Live.” He had released one album in 1994, called “Welcome to the Cruel World,” which wasn’t a huge success, but has been likened to the Grateful Dead.
In 2003, he capitalized on his success with “Will to Live” in his album “Diamonds on the Inside,” which sports such gems as “She’s Only Happy in the Sun” and “Brown Eyed Blues.”
The album I’ve chosen to recommend is his most recent work and is known as his most cohesive, energetic and creative work yet. This is certainly illustrated in the first song on the first disc of “Both Sides of the Gun,” entitled “Better Way.” This upbeat, feel-good song is currently making the radio circuit, and for good reason!
The songs “Black Rain,” “Engraved Invitation” and “Please Don’t Talk about Murder While I’m Eating” carry over the rock-funk, fun side of Harper’s music, and “Both Sides of the Gun” brings a little bit of disco-funk back into the mix.
Overall, I must tell you that I am in love with this album. Harper’s music always seems to fit my mood: when I’m feeling contemplative or mellow, I listen to the second disk. When I’m looking for a mood booster or feel like getting groovy, I listen to the first one. This two-disk release is versatile and, in my mind, delicious.
It gets a big thumbs-up from yours truly.
