A Life in Words by You Jin

Author:You Jin
Language: zho
Format: epub
Publisher: Epigram Books
Published: 2019-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

When we were growing up, we did not always have three meals a day but, even though times were lean, my mother was quite clever, and so always found a way to make sure we had enough to eat. When we were small, we loved to sit on stools in the kitchen, watching as she stood in front of the earthen stove cooking. Our tiny kitchen was always full of chopped wood; every evening, our efficient mother used an axe to chop the thick wood into fine sticks, and put them into the stove. She put the kindling on, lit the fire and patiently fanned the flame, her hands moving slowly, then faster. When the wind was sufficient to stoke the flame, golden firelight fell over the room, sparks flying out of the earthen stove. Then, our mother hurried to put the ancient wok over the fire and start frying the vegetables. The sizzling sound accompanied the smell of food, filling the whole kitchen. Sitting excitedly to one side, I had a strong sense of the warmth of home. Because we were poor, our mother would find different ways to prepare nutrient-rich dishes of eggs, such as omelettes with an assortment of ingredients—onion omelettes, luncheon meat omelettes, dried shrimp omelettes, sausage omelettes, preserved vegetable omelettes, pork floss omelettes, tomato omelettes, and other similar things. Those eggs, always fried to a golden brown, put a bright glow over our childhood.

After we moved to Singapore, when we were living in the communal residence, she could not use the earthen stove, but had to rely on a charcoal stove. She pushed the charcoal inside the little burner, lit the fire and fanned it into flame. As the flame burnt brighter, the coal ate the flame up greedily, turning a luxurious red. She sat on a stool with a long metal rod in hand, turning the glowing pieces of the charcoal as needed. When each piece was glowing red, she sat in front of that sweltering fire and cooked a family meal on that tiny stove. In order to ensure that her growing children ate more white rice, she cooked mostly salty dishes. Salted fish with steamed pork, minced pork in soybean paste, and shredded pork with preserved pickles were things we ate often. The stove was tiny and the ingredients simple, but every day when I sat under the light, holding the big bowl of white rice, scooping large bites into my mouth, I always felt that each bite was the tastiest in the world, because that food was cooked with such great love.

The first few years after we moved to Singapore, our life was like a boat run aground, a sort of indecisive struggle. As the tides began to rise, the boat rose too. The winds came, and at last the sails caught hold of it and put the boat back on its course, ultimately bringing it safe to harbour.

And of course, as our financial circumstances turned around, the food we ate also grew much richer.

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