> if ur mum doesn't randomly bring u cut up fruit is she even ur mum
You're tuning into Cheers, a newsletter made by Tiffany Xie. This week: election feels, civic engagement, italicized food, and what the kids in Subtle Asian Traits know.
Hello friend,
> Spent most of this week swapping impulsive email-checking for impulsive election-checking. I’m feeling relief but also trepidation, knowing the nation that Biden’s administration will inherit. I won’t pretend to be a pundit but the president-elect will inherit a divided nation, a nation (still) setting records for daily new COVID-19 cases. I’m glad, I’m relieved, but I’m not quite feeling what brings people car-honking and bell-ringing into the streets. Perhaps this best encapsulates my feelings?
> I was talking with a friend about how we’re getting more political (in high school we were sheep! are we still sheep?), and I still feel underinformed but also there’s no way I’m going to become a policy wonk. So we were talking about how we political-but-not-politicians can do the work of civic engagement. (I’m stealing another friend’s words here but) I’m thinking about how maybe the best thing I can do politically is just go to medical school next year and then work in communities that need doctors. If I want to make change but I’m not going to run for office and I’m not going to live my life working on campaigns then I have to think about civic engagement through the career I want to have, right? Still thinking about that. If you have advice and/or want to discuss further, message me.
> I forgot to share this last week but if you’re looking for book recs + more email newsletters, I love Nicole Linh Anderson’s All I Care About This Week (h/t Phoebe). Her latest installment, “the erotics of pop feminism,” is awesome.
> Making: spice cookies from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem and jingalov hats from Lavash by Kate Leahy, John Lee, and Ara Zada.
> Thinking about why I avoid cooking Chinese food (insecurity most likely? of it tasting wrong or feeling out of place in the Asian supermarket etc.).
> I went to the library and checked out Hooni Kim’s new cookbook, My Korea. It’s a beautiful book, and part of me can’t stop thinking about Kim went to medical school for two years, dropped out, then opened a Michelin-starred restaurant (it’s movie stuff, isn’t it?). But when I saw the italicized Korean words I thought about Priya Krishna’s discussion of italics as a form of othering in food writing. Khairani Barokka articulates it in this way:
I’ve come to understand the practice of italicizing such words as a form of linguistic gatekeeping; a demarcation between which words are “exotic” or “not found in the English language,” and those that have a rightful place in the text: the non-italicized.
> Just read: Trust Exercise by Susan Choi. It’s a slippery novel, one that seems to be about one story and then becomes another. It’s significant to me that she was born in Indiana.
> The fact that race and ethnicity feature not-at-all within Trust Exercise reminds me of the question of whether BIPOC writers should address their racial/ethnic identity within their writing. Cathy Park Hong writes against this king of pigeonholing at the beginning of Minor Feelings. I guess reading Trust Exercise surprised me because so much of what I read right now foregrounds racial/ethnic identity.
> “What the Kids in Subtle Asian Traits Know“
is that cut up fruit is the ultimate Asian
parent gesture of love.
there are posts like:
TFW your mom cuts fruit
when you’re up late at night
and you see her eating the leftover bits
around the core, before putting the nicely
cut apple slices in a bowl to bring to you
and
if ur mum doesn’t randomly bring u
cut up fruit is she even ur mum
and
one meme in two frames—
in the first, a man reads a book,
and you can only see the cover:
Asian Parents’ Guide to Apologizing
in the second, the inside
of the book. the response:
come eat
now that I am older, I need
to get the translation right.
no — there were never any sorrys
just cold plates of nectarines,
bright pomelo, ice-raw starfruit,
fragrant lychee. sweet ya li pears,
without their papery brown skins,
glistening.
at Jing Fong, at Sam Woo,
at Mei Sum, at Garden,
the restaurants do this, too.
tonight, the apron-splattered man
with grandfather hair, carries a
chipped plate to the register.
the server counts the other table’s change,
but jokes with me: crowded enough for you,
ah neoi?
neoi could mean girl or woman
but it also means daughter.
I have spent years making sure.
he places the oranges on my table.
they do this for all the customers,
but oh, what a glitch in the matrix
tonight. my mother saw me alone
with my empty bowl and splintered face
on wednesday, and she is here.
I know there is a math that measures time,
but what about a math that accounts
for logic? How should I explain the strangers
who will bring me fruit after she is gone?
it has been 31 years of my mother
bringing me cut up fruit without
even saying anything.
sometimes she would put
the fruit directly into my mouth.
tonight, I will eat all of the orange,
sweet or not. I will go home,
I will call her. I will buy an apple,
and cut it for myself.
all she ever wanted
was for me to hurry, finish
before it got brown, no worries
if she did not get a taste.
> Yes, I cried when I read this poem.
> Table setting brought to you by Rinko Kawauchi.
Cheers,
Tiffany