wan-hsia's world

1. gu you wang chow mein

2020年4月13日

Wer anderen eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein.

/ whoever digs others a grave falls inside himself/

beansprouts curve their slender bodies into crunchy bracelets

swimming in a brown sea of salt and sugar

drowned by a mountain of luscious noodles.

the oiled leeks slip over my tongue, still fresh

from their trampoline in the pan,

though their roots have long been torn. The sauce

trickles down my throat, running into the spaces in my heart.

"Xiao-hsia! Chow mein's here!" The door creaked open as Su-ling steps in, plastic bags crackling in her hands. 

I turned the knob on the tap quickly, placing the chopsticks I'd been washing earlier into the sink with a soft clink. Burrowing my fingers into the fuzzy pink towel we bought last week, I dry my hands. Su-ling sets her haul down on our shared table, littered with scrap paper and files pried apart to random worksheets, as if a badger just ravaged it. Her eyes widen as she surveys the space, once stacked with neat, quaint piles of textbooks and post-its bearing scrawled notes.

Before she opens her mouth, I laugh dryly, knowing what she's going to ask. "Yeah...didn't get much done today." I'd wanted to study for the upcoming Medicinal Chemistry module, but as soon as I sat down, my train of thought would grind to a halt. Perhaps it's still reeling from the endless paper packets of food I've consumed in the past few months, or the torrent of lessons that have been uploaded on the learning portal. More likely, it's been from fear of uncertainty of the next headlines that might appear in the newspaper, particularly how the invention of a possible vaccine would impact us as newcomers to the international scientific community....otherwise I'd probably have spent the time tidying my study materials while listening to an international languages podcast. 

Su-ling nods, recovering quickly from the shock. "Right? Same, been feeling really lousy lately." Her long fingers fiddle with a thin pamphlet, running over the glossy surface restlessly. Her body's half-tilted towards me as she pulled out a shabby stool to sit down for lunch. I'm unsure if it's the tension in the room, but she releases a nervous laugh. "It's just that I thought I walked into the wrong dorm..."

"I said I'm sorry! OK?" I couldn't seem to press the stop button when the indignant words tumbled from my mouth. Suddenly imbued with the attitude of a dragon, I dug into the plastic bag, rolling it quickly down and pulling open the lid on the food container. Except that I'd lost all my appetite to tuck in. The exposed chow mein, a direct victim of the relentless gusts of air conditioning, was cold, and the sinful sauce more similar to a salt solution. 

I remembered my excitement to try the traditionally Cantonese dish and see if it matched my memories, to the extent that I'd written a poem about it. I don't know what had wrested control over my body in the moment, but it felt terrific to dip out of the hectic lifestyle of juggling my focus between focusing on studies and external pandemic developments.  Maybe I'd realised that readers surfing the Internet would make more sense of my sentiments than my own roomie of 3 years. Sucking in a deep breath, I placed the container back and stormed outside the dorm, letting the door close behind me.

"Xiao-hsia, xiao-hsia! Come back in, I wanna show you something!" Su-ling's voice carries echoes of our animated laughter and light, high-pitched conversation we enjoyed in our first year. I'm almost tempted to pry the door back open to check if that bubbly young woman in pigtails and clean-cut monochrome top is still there. But I remind myself that I might have been the one who changed, the one who needs time to get back into the flow of learning and of managing my newfound temper.

So I stray the corridors, until I see the first rays of magenta and gold dye the horizon.