1.A Slightly Drunk Truck Loader
Most of the time we load and offload shipments,
sometimes we unload the bodies of immigrants.
Once it was 39 of them,
once it was 42 of them.
The first things to disappear are the hope,
the dream,
then the memories.
The first sip of ice-cold beer,
the delicate brush of the midsummer breeze,
popular movie soundtracks,
and thousands of goodnight kisses.
Wedding vows and first love text messages.
Laughter,
especially the ones with some dirty jokes,
are hard to catch.
You got my point,
I don't want to keep going.
You may say they have firefighters for this kind of job,
but you got my point, didn't you?
2.Arctic Tern
I took the form of an Arctic tern last night.
At the end of a 90,000km trip,
me and my tern family stand on one large stone covered with lichens.
I rest,
and feed krills to the little ones,
And so does my significant other.
The humans have put a geolocator on my leg to trace my migration route,
it records my life journey that covers 4 round trips from Earth to the Moon.
Simple, basic data collecting.
But it couldn't show how I drive the aimless wind,
cutting through the mist net of a cumulus cloud.
I can almost see the syrinx of my nestlings when they open their beaks for fish liver,
that is the moment I woke up as a human.
I would be able to handle many things in the life of an Arctic tern—
but the smell of fish liver.
3.Chinese Chili Oil
Among all the recipes for homemade Chinese chili oil,
mine is undoubtedly the most economical and reliable.
Keep the hot chili flakes left from previous pizza takeout in a porcelain bowl,
let's say five or six tiny plastic containers of those,
put more if you have a big family.
Mince two cloves of garlic and a dime size amount of ginger,
add them to the bowl,
and a teaspoon of salt,
following a tablespoon of Japanese soy sauce.
Warm up some Spanish sunflower seed oil,
let it bubble,
carefully pour the burning oil into the porcelain bowl,
And listen to the sizzling sound for a few seconds.
Drop a drizzle of vinegar from Shanxi province, China.
The vapor shows you the vinegar has taken the heat of the oil away;
The intense aroma declares the sovereignty of the kitchen hastily.
One thing you need to pay attention,
it is Shanxi province,
not Shaanxi province,
the first one is famous for the vinegar and the Pneumoconiosis,
the second one is famous for the Terracotta Army, Shadow play,
Qinqiang, a representative folk opera,
and also the Pneumoconiosis.
Now it is the moment to add a few drops of sesame oil,
stir the whole thing gently with chopsticks,
let it rest in peace and cool down for a while.
Then, it is ready to be put on your hand-pulled noodles,
your stir-fried udon,
your angel hair pasta,
your Al Pastor tacos,
your classic or eggplant hummus,
avocado toast and vanilla ice cream,
so on, and so forth.
Pardon me for not giving the exact grams,
I am keeping it for my cookbook.
4.Here Comes the Garbage Truck
I sit at the big round table in the corner cafe,
the sound of all the glass waste hitting the rock bottom of an empty garbage truck strikes,
just like the sound of all the stars shattering at once.
In the echoes,
everything fades away,
the whole neighborhood gets a moment of silence.
My cute little café solo con hielo sweats out a raincoat,
fear and confusion about its afterlife,
I guess.
Don't be,
I wink.
For all of us, fragile beings will pass through the same recycling process,
including the holy grail.
Erase everything…
whatever content you once contained doesn't matter,
a clean slate with a universal symbol,
love.
5.Petrichor
The cloud-paved sky warms up the crowd,
the special smell of rainy days conquers the scene.
The Petrichor,
fancy name,
my grandma just calls it the fishy smell of soil.
I love that smell of lushness,
the golden ethereal fluid leaked from the veins of the Greek gods,
dripping down from all the greens,
fills in cracks and scars,
cleans up human errors.
Time to play my imaginary washboard,
time to be a ten-year-old dancing in the rain.
Not a day for peach-flavored white wine sangria,
but a day for the Old Fashioned.
The day after the Pride Parade,
everyone at La Carra is exhausted,
the substitute bartender poured cheap whisky,
the drag queen was not in the mood to spread love.
Gulp up the golden, ethereal fluid in my lowball glass,
I may be gone for a long, long time, dear.
I will be just as true to you,
I will be in El Raval with Madame Jasmine.
6.There is Nothing Like a Comeback
So I have heard some rumors about the Greek gods,
in the rule of writing,
in the law of the land,
everybody loves a story of a comeback.
Give it an aloof drifter and a three-act,promise a happy ending with a 5D arc,
be merciful to your characters,
for them could be real in another universe;
be merciful when you write,
for one day you could wake up in the world you created.
I love it even though I hated it,
I enter light even though I enjoy dark.
The old me is dead like yesterday's past,
the new me breathing like today's present.
I am ready for the comeback,
sitting in the front row waiting to clap.
7.Chirimoya
We call it Shijia fruit,
The Spanish speaking world call it Chirimoya,
The English speaking world call it custard apple.
Due to the lack of language skills,
I only know this much.
You can always dress your table with some Chirimoya.
Make a delicious tropical centerpiece.
Or simply place one big Japenese-style matte flat plate with one Chirimoya on top,
Kinda of Wabi-sabi,
Kinda of Japandi.
I had difficulty to remember its Spanish name,
Once we were having some coffee and tea at my husband's grandma's house,
His uncle's wife, Anna, Portugese, Ghana descendant,
Mentioned she likes this Spanish fruit,
Which name had just slipped her mind?
It is green in color, heart-shaped, with little bulges on the pericarp,
White pulp with black seeds.
No one seemed to understand what she was talking about.
My Spanish family dived into the names of fruits,
but they didn't resurface.
I got her point,
I was once or twice in her shoes.
With the help from the goddess of unfamiliar vocabulary,
I quickly said,Chirimoya.
She almost cheered, Yes!
That one.
Then we look at each other,
Shared a smile.
Although we have only briefly met a couple of times at family gatherings,
Now we are suddenly closer than ever.
For we both share the love for Chirimoyas,
For we found something beautiful beyond words.
8.Fig
The first time I had fig,
I was seven years old,
At least, I thought I had fig.
Where there are upcycle green bean noodles to replace shark fin,
There is a white reddish fig.
They are shredded into thin strips,
Seasoned, came from a tiny bag,
By tiny, I mean half-poker card-sized.
On the bag,
It writes FIG(无花果),
Savoring the layering of flavors,
You won't believe it is reddish.
When I ate the real fig,
It was not as impressive.
Kids call it Tangsengrou(唐僧肉),Tangseng,
The famous monk from the Tang Dynasty traveled to India to look for Buddhist classics.
Rou,Flesh.
Rumor has it,
Well, at least in the children's literature classic Journey to the West,
It is believed whoever eats a piece of Tangsengrou will be immortal,
The ghosts, the monsters,
Fairy and demon,
they all want to eat him.
That was some good old reddish.
Sometimes, I thought if only Tangshen had a human-sized tuber,
Maybe he could save himself from all the dangers and troubles on the road.
I knew the truth of fig at the age of 34,
At an age, most of us stop being romantic or idealistic.
To me,
That is the age to start questioning
How much reddish I ate in my childhood?
9.Maracuyá
That day, we passed by the Ninot Market,
Saw a few opera singers performing at the gate.
It is a program of the city hall to promote concertgoing.
After listening Una Furtiva Lagrima,
We entered the market,
Where even the price tags are cultured.
It is on the way back from school,
We only enter when the girls have to use their bathroom,
Or when we want to send some local specialties to our families and friends.
But that day was a little different,
The rare free performance encouraged me to make a passion fruit drink,
I don't even know why.
So we walked towards the fruit shop,
The man was busy moving some boxes,
I looked around and tried to find the passion fruit by myself,
I didn't know how to say the word in Spanish yet.
Although he was busy,
He asked,
What do you need?
I have to try my best,
Tienes passion fruit?
He goes,What?
I repeated,Passion fruit?
He frowned, No, no, we don't have.
I said thank you,
and we left.
A few steps later,
My elder one told me,
Mom, they don't sell fruit there.
I said,Yes, they sell fruit,
they just don't have passion fruit.
他们卖水果，只是没有百香果而已。
No, they don't sell fruit, only vegetables.
She said in Spanish, of course.
Yes, they are a fruit and vegetable stand, they sell both.
No, they don't.She insisted she was seven.
I could see she felt uncomfortable,
She is uneasy,
maybe even ashamed,
that her mother doesn't know how to speak right.
I took a long gaze at my daughter,
And said this,
I don't speak much Spanish,
but I am not stupid,
I know they sell fruits.
Do you want to go back and check it?
She also looked at me,
Then said,No, it is ok, maybe I didn't look well.
I stood there,
Wondering how comes this could be a problem for her.
I took my phone out and checked the name of the fruit in Spanish,
Maracuyá it is.
I showed her the photo of the fruit I was looking for,
The name of the fruit is in Chinese, English, and Spanish.
We reached an understanding without addressing more about the other thing.
Because it is easier.
Maybe we could get to the bottom of it later.
On the rest of the way back home,
I ask myself,
Why do we have to go through this?
What if there is no language?
How I wish we could all telepath,
Save the energy and trouble,
Reading one’s mind by seeing their aura,
Listening to their frequency.
No more misunderstanding and dispute,
A peaceful world without words,
They read your maracuyá photo in your mind,
You read the price tag in theirs,
As easy as that.
10.Paraguayo
It is the symbol of longevity,
The one Monkey King couldn't stop eating,
And Xiwangmu(西王母),
Queen Mother of the West wanted for her birthday party,
The one who caused the biggest dispute in heaven,
The motif in the first chapter of a tale,
A tale about how a five-hundred-years jail time underneath Wuxing(五行) mountain Changed a free spirit.
The forbidden fruit here is not an apple,
It is Paraguayo,
The donut peach someone may call.
I like watching how Santi chose them,
She'd touch all the good-looking paraguayos
While talking with the clerk,
'It is for today, that is why.I normally don't poke around so much.’
Returns to her house,
peels and cuts them over the kitchen counter,
Puts them ready on two little plates,
Across,
Sit my daughter,
They stare at her,
Recording every detail in their mind,
Including the new Spanish word,
Paraguayo.
Santi, a historian,
Wife of Uncle Juanca.
She had all the patience for kids,
Working in an elementary school while keeping up with the research work.
The stories she knows,
Female soldiers who had to cook and wash on the front line during the Spanish Civil War,
Esparteros and the process of making the raw material,
Antonio Machado's exile and his last poem,
Estos Días Azules y Este Sol de Infancia.
Every time we pass by,
Her stories inspire us.
My first memory of Pantao(蟠桃),
the paraguayoIs permanently linked with the Monkey King.
My daugthers' will be linked with Santi,
Juanca and the trip to Murcia.
11.Peach
My Yeye, grandfather on my father's side
Used to take care of the peach plantation of the village in the summer.
One day,
He came back with two peaches,
The windfalls.
A bit bruised, and not good for sale.
He asked for permission and kept them for me.
Washed, peeled,
Juicy ripeness dripping down from his fingers,
Then slides into my belly.
I got to taste the sweetness of summer
But have never had the same again.
I still remember how he lit up a bundle of reeds
And waved them in front of the house gate,
Use the smoke to drive away the mosquitoes.
That was a magical and mysterious dance to me,
A way to communicate with heaven,
A way to connect with the earth.
Him, the wise wizard,
Performed the sacred ritual,
Until a better future is granted for his offspring.
After dinner,
Normally corn porridge,
A bit of tofu and green onion salad and pickles,
Yeye and Nainai put out the two wooden benches,
Push them together,
Put a piece of petate on top of it,
And he lay down on it,
Looking at the spoon-shaped Big Dipper,
Rests off the heat and labor.
That is how they lived for many years,
That is how I spent my childhood summer.
I was raised to respect farmers by finishing what I have on my plate,
To cherish what we own already,
To repair broken things and reuse them,
To find beauty where is least possible.
Like those two peaches,
They are still the sweet delicacy,
Just not so perfect and pretty,
Cut off the bruised part,
They could make a kid happy.
Yeye passed away almost 30 years ago,
And I have had peaches in different places,
But no other peaches could come close to the windfalls Yeye kept for me.