One - Eating Duck Tongues
Emmeline stared at the gelatinous little mound of duck's tongues on her plate. The beige odd-shaped wedges looked like rubbery alien fingers - long and with a weird reptile looking texture. Truly
disgusting. Just the thought of putting one in her mouth was enough to make her want to gag.
"I won't eat it!" she said to her mother in a furious whisper. "they make me feel sick!"
Smiling politely at the visitor across the table, her mother threw her a comment from the side of her mouth. "Just eat one, Em! It's really rude for you to refuse!"
Leading by example, Linda Li used her chopsticks to grab a few more tongues from the plate and raised them to her mouth. As she chewed on them with a fake-happy expression on her face, she nodded and praised her visiting sister-in-law. "Mmm, hao chi zi le, Chen Da Sao. (Tastes great, Sister Chen)"
Em turned her face away from her mother's forced expression. She was hungry but eating duck's tongues? She'd rather eat dirt. And dirt was much cheaper. According to Aunt Chen this stuff was really expensive in Shanghai. Em couldn't see why.
Sometimes she really didn't get her family. Why did they have to be all weird and have so many strange customs and traditions? It was bad enough that her parents spoke with strange choppy accents and cooked food that made their whole street smell for days. Now they had to force feed her alien fingers too.
Honestly, at times like these Em just wished someone would come and adopt her already. She wondered idly if being forced to eat duck tongue counted as cruelty. Maybe she could email or write to Social Services to come take her away.
Tuning back into the conversation her mom was having with her, Em heard her mom say something about cow tongues being a specialty in France. Huh, France. Everyone knew they were just plain weird too. They talked funny, all ate garlic and rode on bicycles. Hey, both the Chinese and the French ate tongues and rode on bicycles! Maybe they were related in some way. Maybe not.
Em remembered the time an exchange student Pierre came over from France and joined her fifth grade class for a few weeks. He was kinda cute but really vain and no one really understood what he was saying. Having been warned by Mrs Hopkins to 'be nice now, kids', no one dared to say anything to his face, but the playground and classrooms echoed for weeks with the sound of kids laughing over "zees chaaaair, zees taah-ble, and how you say? Zees te-chare."
Em had laughed too but had felt a little pang of remorse inside as she thought of her parents and how they spoke. Still, she hadn't wanted to be left out or seem different to the rest.
Em decided she had had enough of this food torture. Mumbling something about having to do homework, she got up from her chair and made a dash for her room, leaving her mom to make some apologies on her behalf about teenagers in the States.
Homework, yeah right. As soon as she shut and locked her bedroom door, Em was climbing out her back window, shimmying down the tree that grew really close to it, and out the back gate into the street. Freedom!
Em slouched angrily along the familiar streets, hands in the pockets of her hooded jacket. It was a glorious day in Sommerton, USA - population 483,000. Fall was just starting to turn leaves the colour
of burned toast, and as she walked a few drifted down slowly in a meandering path towards the ground. Fall was her favourite time of year. Most kids liked summer with its pool parties and barbecues and long holidays filled with whatever random pranks they decided to pull next. Em liked the summers too, but when the air turned cooler and days grew shorter, she felt a sense of magic in the air. Fall had Columbus day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. It meant new beginnings in a new year at school.
Em liked school. Call her an Asian nerd, but she liked learning new things and using her brain to figure out new ideas and concepts. And really she also secretly liked it when she was able to understand something that other kids hadn't yet, and when teachers praised her for something. She guessed it was just part of her DNA. Sometimes stereotypes were true.
In any case, as Em walked down the street, the cool air was already starting to have its effect on her hot head. Although she practiced giving every fire hydrant, lamppost and tree the stink eye that she
couldn't give her mom, she was already feeling a lot better.
As she walked to the end of the street, past
Em decided she would go to Jake’s place ‘cause that always worked to lift her spirits.
Jake was a fourth generation immigrant rather than second generation like her. The great-grandson of Polish Jews that fled Europe during WWII, the only thing Jewish about him now was his name. He was tall, with sandy brown hair and a cheeky grin that always made him seem that he was up to some mischief. He could have been some sort of athlete with his height, but he was far too chilled and much preferred video games. He was a Taurean if you believed in that type of thing – supposed to be dependable, loyal, easy going and with a stubborn streak. Em
wasn't sure if she did. Also, he was her BOYFRIEND, and had been for a few weeks. Her first actual proper boyfriend! Of course her parents didn't know.
Finally Em reached the end of the street where Jake lived and went past the open gate, through the back of the garden and entered the house via the kitchen door which was usually unlatched when the family were at home.
"Morning Mrs Weiss!" She sang out cheerfully as she passed Jake's mom on this balmy Sunday afternoon. Mrs Weiss was wrists deep in flour and dough, baking some of Em's favourite Challah egg bread.
"Oh, good morning Em!" The slender frizzy haired parent called after Em's retreating back, as she resumed kneading the soft eggy dough.
Em walked through the oak and pinewood kitchen, past the patchwork quilted living room and up the stairs to Jake's bedroom.
Barely pausing to knock, she opened his door and collapsed on a heap on his narrow single bed with Buzz Lightyear sheets next to an open window.
Jake was sitting with his back to the door and was on his computer with his headphones on, playing World of Warcraft. Pausing his game, he lowered his headphones around to neck level.
"Oh, hey, Em..." He said calmly, seemingly unperturbed by her abrupt entry.
"Urrrrrgh, my mom is so annoying!" Announced Em dramatically, raising her head barely a fraction of an inch from the bed where she had flung herself facedown.
Turning her head to the side, she elaborated.
"So Aunt Chen finally arrived today, this long lost relative from Shanghai that my dad hasn't seen in like 16 years or whatever, and she's making us eat weird stuff like duck tongue and chicken feet."
Jake digested this info slowly and placidly. Finally he raised his eyebrows. "She made you eat this stuff?"
"No, not her, my mom... Weren't you listening?"
Jake stared at his new girlfriend in puzzlement. Em was a very pretty girl, she had nice long glossy hair, and a cute button nose and pretty teardrop shaped eyes. She was a little insecure about being one of the few Asians living in Sommertown, but he thought it gave her a special quality. In any case, he liked it.
Em was his first proper girlfriend if you excluded braces-faced and freckled Mandy from 2nd grade who used to hold hands with him and tell him he was her boyfriend.
Maybe it was cause he was still young and hadn't had much experience, but he really didn't understand girls. They were fine most of the time, someone to talk to and sit in the cafeteria with and hang out after school with. He liked having Em too cause he could kiss her and hold her hand and dream about doing more with her sometime soon.
But every once in a while they had some emotional crisis or overreaction to something that to him was pretty straightforward.
At this point he got that Em was upset and that it had something to do with weird foods, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out why or what he was supposed to do.
"Couldn't you have just eaten it?" He ventured a little warily. That's what he would have done. Popped it in his mouth and if he couldn't stand it just spit it out later.
"Noooo! Of course I couldn't! It's a TONGUE, its been in a duck's MOUTH... It would be like... It would be like kissing a DUCK!"
Jake got that kissing a duck could be unpleasant, for Em at least. The duck would be ok cause in his opinion Em was a great natural kisser. But eating a duck tongue was not at all like kissing. Not as far as he knew anyway, cause no one he knew got their tongues chewed while kissing.
But he had learned enough by being with Em and even with Mandy that pointing this out would just lead to more complaining and a world of pain. And really, Warcraft was waiting.
"Erm.. I'm sorry?" He tried again. Usually that worked, apologising for something even if he wasn't sure why.
Em rolled her eyes. Boys! They were so useless. Rachel would have understood at once the indignity of being asked to eat weird animal parts, and why her mom was just a tyrant of the first order, a reborn Empress Dowager Cixi.
Well, maybe as a typical mallrat Rachel wouldn't exactly have known about the existence of the Chinese empress who had ruled China with an iron fist for 50 years before the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, but she would have agreed with the idea nonetheless.
But Jake just had no clue, and his bumbling efforts to comfort her or give advice just made her laugh inside. And sometimes outside too.
Sighing, she got up from the bed and perched herself on Jake's lap and put her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. Jake may be pretty useless at saying the right thing, but he was great at hugs. And that was something at least.
Jake was relieved. He was no longer on the hook. Hugs he got, hugs he understood. Hugs he was good at. He squeezed Em tightly and shifted her around on his lap so he was a little less uncomfortable. He guessed Warcraft would just have to wait.
So what is she like then, this Aunt Chen? Said Jake after a while.
Em raised her head from Jake's shoulder a little grumpily.
She's ok, I guess. Lots older than my dad, around 7-8 years? Over 60 years old but doesn't look it.
She doesn't speak much English, but she loves to wear and show off all these big brands. Stuff I've only seen on TV and in magazines - Prada, Gucci. Those were like some of the few English words she knew."
Em had been expecting a backward, village type old woman. After all Aunt Chen was her dad's older sister from China! They didn't have all the privileges and weren't as rich as people in the west, right?
But Aunt Chen arrived. She did look rather weathered like a farmer's wife but had some really expensive things. Em had never met anyone who owned or wore Prada or Louis Vuitton before. Didn't each of them cost a few thousand dollars? How could she afford them? Aunt Chen also showed them pictures of her home in Shanghai.
Em was expecting wooden lowrise bungalows and houses like the ones in Sommerton but made from poor quality materials. Instead she saw shiny tall office buildings, European looking buildings along a wide river they called the Bund.
Aunt Em's apartment was full of expensive looking furniture but very ornate, detailed and cluttered. As if someone had heard or read about of textured upholstery, curlicue wooden legs, gold leaf prints and chandeliers and decided to include all that and more in a single apartment. There was a saying that Em had heard before - 'Less is more'. Well someone needed to tell Aunt Chen because she obviously had misheard and thought 'More is more.'
Even her jacket was a jumble of prints, fur, patchwork, buttons and lace. Em couldn't imagine any store or any one who would sell something like this but apparently Versace did.
In all Em was totally bewildered by Aunt Chen. Then there was the whole food business.
At least the lady was only staying a week with them. A week! It was going to be the longest week of her life.
Em became aware of Jake gently pushing her off his lap. "She sounds interesting," he said in a distracted way, "I'm sure you'll have a great time together."
Em followed his gaze to the computer screen she was currently blocking his access to. She sighed and got up.
"Guess I'll have to solve this one myself then." She complained.
No response. Jake had restarted the Warcraft world and she knew she had lost him.
"I'll just get going then..." She said as she made her way to the door.
Out on the streets again, Em was feeling lost. Sunday afternoon... What on earth could she do? Everything seemed the same, dull and slightly boring. She stood for a minute by the side of a fence surrounding a small green field in the middle of their cul-de-sac.
A full minute passed. One car drove by in that time. A bird flew overhead. And a cloud passed in front of the sun.
Was there ever anything more dull?
Maybe she would go over to Rachel's for a change.
As Em walked away, a loud rushing sound expanded towards her and surrounded her. She felt an incredible pressure as if the air itself was trying to compress her into as little space as possible, as if every atom was being crushed together. Em squeezed shut her eyes and tried to scream or call for help but the air was sucked from her lungs through her open mouth.
And then in the space of a few seconds, maybe thirty seconds, it was over.
