Ghost Girl and the Tower of Babel

Hello, friends!

I usually start off with a long-winded story, then eventually find some way to tie it in to a recipe, but today, I'm working backwards.
 

Matt, I thought you would enjoy this dish for sure. So many Asian sauces!

Angry Gwei-Por Dragon Bowl
Yields 4 servings
Prep time: 1 hour
Cook time: 5 minutes

Is it Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean? Does it matter? No, because it's freaking delicious. You can play this fast and loose, follow the guidelines or use as much or as little of the ingredients as you want. It's less of a recipe than it is sharing an idea and inspiration, that you may do with as you please.

This is the be-all, end-all, United Nations of noodle dishes, to me, where my favourite flavours from all these different cuisines work together for an explosive, memorable dish, and every bite can be a fun, new taste, with a lot of crunchy, fresh, earthy, sweet, spicy, salty, and sour contrasts. The only thing I didn't throw in there was cubes of fried SPAM, and that's because I'm trying to eat healthier. By all means, go right on ahead.

The ingredients can be found in Asian markets (for Vancouverites, I went to Sunrise and T&T), and to be honest, this dish requires a lot of prep. It's a fun idea to split the work and grocery-buying with friends, so you can share a meal faster (and have a DIY noodle-topping-bar!), or do the prep split between 2 days yourself if you can't get it all done at once.

Madness leads to genius, sometimes. I like when it ends with a full stomach.

Vegetables/Aromatics

1/2 English cucumber, julienned
1/2 carrot, peeled, julienned
1/2 daikon radish, peeled, julienned and rinsed twice
all pickled in 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 2 tbsp kosher salt, 1 tbsp sugar, and cold water to cover

3 cups pea shoots, thick stems removed
2 large handfuls of snow peas

4 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 fat thumb of ginger, chopped finely
1 inch of lemongrass, smashed, chopped finely


Sauce

Mix any amount of these that you like to make about 3/4 cup, for a sweet, salty, spicy and sour sauce that will coat the noodles, and items being stir-fried.

sesame oil
Ponzu
Maggi
Sriracha
mirin/rice vinegar (I use Mizkan)
Hoi Sin sauce


Toppings - Put these in bowls or make piles on a plate

cilantro leaves, picked
Thai basil leaves, picked
mung bean sprouts, rinsed
green onions, thinly sliced on a bias
kimchi, sliced
1 lime, cut into wedges
bird's eye chilies, sliced finely
sesame seeds
roasted peanuts, crushed (or buy raw, if you can't find 'em)
fried garlic
fried shallots


Other

4 packs udon noodles
1 pack firm or fried tofu (not tofu puffs), rinsed, cut into bite-size pieces
1/4 pound Chinese sausage (cooked, not dried), sliced on a bias
4 eggs, cracked, in separate bowls
canola oil


1. Cut and pickle the vegetables. Season to taste.

2. Roast peanuts (if needed) in the oven at 325°F until golden and fragrant. Cool, crush, chop.

3. Do all your chopping, slicing, rinsing, and picking. Garlic, ginger, and lemongrass can go in the same bowl.

4. Mix your sauce, pour half into a large bowl.

5. Bring a large pot of salted water up to a boil, heat up 2 tbsp canola oil in a large skillet on medium-high, and warm up 1 tbsp canola oil in a large, non-stick pan (or on a griddle) on medium heat.

6. Drain the pickled vegetables.

7. Drop the noodles into the water. Throw the tofu and Chinese sausage into the skillet. Carefully pour each egg into the pan.

8. Stir the noodles as they loosen up. Add snow peas, garlic, ginger, and lemongrass to the sausage/tofu pan. Check on your eggs.

9. Dump the noodles into a strainer, and sit it back on the pot. Throw pea shoots and half the sauce into the stir-fry and combine, just until everything is coated and pea shoots are wilted. Check your eggs again.

10. Toss the noodles into the bowl with the sauce. Put into serving bowls.

11. Top noodles with stir-fry, then with egg.

12. Sprinkle on lots of everything. Drizzle on extra Sriracha. Bust the egg yolk. Enjoy.

I had to include this. Pea shoots are just bloody gorgeous. I love playing with the twangy curl.

If you add a lot of the vegetables, sprouts, kimchi, and herbs, this can be a surprisingly healthy dish, even though there's 4 kinds of protein in it.

I was in the mood for a Vietnamese noodle salad, those ones with the rice noodles, cucumbers, and bits of spring rolls and lemongrass pork on top. I live across the street from a pho restaurant, but this is what happens when my city is lucky enough to have Asian supermarkets, and my hunger defies reason and logic.

Yes.

The Lunar New Year has just begun, and I did nothing to celebrate the changing of the guard (it's a water dragon year, apparently), other than calling my Grandma, eating a youtiao, and giving my landlords a cute red box full of coconut-filled and sesame-covered pastries.

It wasn't that I was too busy working, or that I never celebrate my (half) heritage.

I was feeling down. And sometimes, when I'm upset, even if there's a mountain of xiao long bao to be eaten, the grey won't go away.

I work in Railtown, on the outskirts of Chinatown, which means that Sunrise Market, a bustling grocery store, is a regular stop. It's an industry favourite, for picking up inexpensive produce that is ready to be used immediately, as most stores carry food that is under-ripe. Home cooks have the luxury of time, and we are not as fortunate.

The employees are always nice. They see me there all the time, and the cashiers and security guys are friendly. I help bag my own groceries, and always pay in cash; shopping is quick and pleasant. It's the customers you have to watch out for, though. There are drug addicts hollering on the sidewalk, creepy shoplifters and pickpockets, grossly flirty old men who "like a woman in uniform!", and scrappy elderly Chinese folk who would sooner elbow you out of the way for the last pack of shiitake mushrooms  than let you get anywhere near it.

A few times I've had to call the cops, because of fights breaking out in the street or a shady character running away with a flat of produce.

It's rarely a dull visit. Sunrise bring to my mind the phrase "dinner and a show!"

I've had a few run-ins before, too, but surprisingly, with the elderly people.

There was an incident a short while ago, where after waiting in a long lineup to pay (another thing that Sunrise is famous for), I put my items for the restaurant on the counter, and just as the cashier was about to start weighing groceries, a little old woman ran up, and dumped two acorn squash in a bag on the scale, even though there was only a short lineup left behind me.

She said something in Chinese to the cashier, who looked angry, and pointed to the back of the line.

The customer persisted, and then referred to me.

Gwei.

I hate that word.

It fills me with anger, the same way that hateful usages of the N-word would offend an African person, or the F-word or D-word would upset an LGTB person.

She was telling the cashier to let her in front of me, in front of this white ghost, foreigner, savage, inferior being, whatever dirty racist term she was calling me, right in front of me, because I was clearly too stupid to know what she was talking about.

I don't get surprised very often, but looked back and forth between them, curious about this exchange: Is this woman going to get her way? Because if she isn't, I'll be happy, and hopeful for the future progress of humanity, but if she is, I might have to chokeslam her.

The cashier stood her ground, repeatedly.

After finally realizing she wasn't going to get anywhere, the old lady moved to the back of the line, grumbling, and it's a good thing she put distance between us, too.

I stared at her furiously, and she said the word again.

The man behind me, who was in front of her, said it, too, but I don't know if it was in the context of

"Cashier lady, you totally should have let her in front of that ghost girl."

or

"You should stop talking, that ghost girl looks like she's gonna strangle you with her pale, muscular arms."

I had some serious ill will for her in that moment, intensely, and when it became clear that psychokinesis wasn't going to magically stop her little heart, I decided to mess with her.

People talk rudely about others, in proximity, yet behind their backs, because of the assumption that they don't speak the same language and the speaker can get away with it, expecting no consequence.

It's cowardly bullshit that happens much too often, even after the inventions of books, TV, planes, computers, software, and the internet, have all contributed to people being able to learn languages other than their native tongue.

So how is one supposed to combat this societal ill (chokeslamming not included)?

By scaring and embarrassing the other person into realizing that it isn't safe to make these types of assumptions anymore.

If a person wants to act ruthlessly in secret, to shame someone in public without them knowing, a public shaming for them sounds like fair game.

Her goal was to get what she wanted and further humiliate me, without me knowing.

So my goal became to humiliate her right back.

Petty? I don't care. There's little sympathy in my heart for assholes.

The cashier rang me through, gave me change and a receipt, and I had a little Chinese fun of my own.

"M'goi!" I said, looking at the old woman.

The look on her face was priceless.

This never happens to my coworkers, who also visit the market often, and they said it was probably because they always look mad when grocery shopping (we're cooks, that's how it goes), and I always look happy, which some people translate into being a moron or pushover, I suppose. It can't be helped, grocery shopping makes me happy.

I called my mom. That's how furious I was.

She always means well, and usually tries to brush off problems with "Oh, you're pretty," or "Oh, they're jealous," or something else a mom might say to her daughter if she were competing for a Miss Teen America Pageant, but she's finally starting to get that I do not work that way. Brushing my hair does not resolve issues other than tangles and frizz.

"Mom, she was RACIST to me, and this isn't the first time it's happened to my face. What's the Chinese word for racist? I need to use it."

"There isn't one."

"That's why this is a problem! The old people don't even think what they're doing is wrong!"

"Oh, they're not racist, they just look at the world this way: You're either Chinese, or you're not Chinese."

"Mom, do you know who else looks at people that way?"

"Who?"

"Supremacists who actually go out and commit violent hate crimes against others."

"Oh."

She didn't even know what gwei lo meant, probably because it wasn't in her grandpa's rotation of curse words that he used while butchering ducks. It bothers me immensely that older generations of Chinese people don't see a problem with referring to people of different races in a negative fashion. They are so blasé about it, as if everyone should just be fine with it, which breeds resentment with a lot of people, myself included. Things need to change.

If I saw someone harassing an elderly Chinese person on the street, calling them the C-word, you best believe I'd be calling them out. It's not right to treat anybody that way, plain and simple.

I'm with Todd Glass on this one: Be a bully for the right reason.

I have a contentious relationship with my Chinese heritage. I have a problem with it, because it rejected me from the day I was born. My mom has always tried to make me look good in front of her family, but I know, and she knows but won't let on, that it's a futile effort. I like celebrating different cultures, but hate ass-backwards customs that keep people down, if that makes sense, because some people don't get a fair shake, for stupid reasons.

Examples!

1) I'm a girl! Instantly less honour for the family than if I were a boy.

2) I'm not the first-born child, like my sister. My brothers get automatic privileges for being boys, and extra points for one being the youngest child in the family, or my other brother, who is also a middle child, at least has the honour of being the eldest son. So they all have some type of redeeming birth-order quality, whereas, I do not, because I was just born this way. I have no resentment towards any of them for this, because I think that birth order would be an especially dumb thing to be jealous about, and that my siblings, who love me, are the best.

3) I'm not full Chinese. Neither are my siblings, but the relatives liked me less already (see #2). They won't say it, but I know it. I'm not delusional, it's clear when they gift my sister with a gold necklace, and give me a pair of socks that don't even fit. Which leads to #4...

4) I'm not married and popping out babies, and even if I started having babies with a Chinese partner this very minute, they would only be 75% Chinese, which still isn't good enough to be considered a priority for passing on the family's legacy and cultural traditions (see: Girl), which is fine, because I don't want 'em anyway.

My legacy will forever be "Make friends with lots of people, and share food. And if people don't like you for no good reason, you're better off without them."

Basically, I'm SOL, a write-off in their eyes. They go though the motions, and give me red envelopes, like they do for the other kids, but I know they don't care. Their hands reaching over with the lai see feels like a generous but empty gesture, crossing over a huge void that will never be acknowledged, because I will never truly be acknowledged. Chinese people who are from older generations will never welcome me as one of their own (except for some of my uncles, who are all right).

For all-intensive purposes, I do not matter.

I am a ghost.

Less than a person.

Mom always tried to tell her relatives nice things about me, like how I would get top grades in school, or was on a lot of sports teams, or whatever crap I achieved forever ago, but it never mattered. She understands why I feel the way I do.

It still doesn't count, and while it hurts, I don't care too much. I will never be a small, dainty, graceful woman, who can attract a man by pouring tea without splashing it everywhere or having tiny, bound feet, and that's perfectly fine. The thing is, I have worked so hard, that I would never have to need a man (but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy company). I fix things with tools, kill spiders on my own, make my own money, plunge toilets at work if they're clogged, chop food like a freaking ninja, haul countless armloads of heavy stuff, fix my own burn wounds, and can beat the crap out of someone if need be, fingers crossed that I don't have to.

Being pretty is fun, but it has never been on my list of priorities as it is for many other young women. My natural looks work just fine, so I can focus my energy on honing my craft. I have a much bigger life-purpose than batting my eyelashes and waiting around to bring my family honour by sinking my claws into a respectable and lucrative man. There are no claws on these hands. I'm a cook, who has short nails, and lots to do, and even more to share. I want to feed hungry mouths, and make the world a better place, and make people happy, and that's going to require a huge amount of effort. Ask any cook. Being small would make my job much harder than it is, and having little, deformed feet would have made kickboxing class a lot more awkward and difficult. I'm a strong, smart, financially independent, responsible woman who has a career, a roof over her head, and mad trade skills.

If my grandma had her way, I'd probably settle down, get married, have 8 children, rely on a husband for everything, and that would be the end of that. Oprah re-runs playing on loop. If she actually cared to know who I really am, and what I'm really like, she'd probably think of me as an abomination, which would make no difference to me, because I'd rather be a monster of my own creation, than be held hostage by someone else's standards.

Despite everything I am, and everything that I do, ironically, the only thing about me that my grandma is incredibly proud of is how bleeping pale I am.

She tells her friends, and tries to show me off.

Especially if it's summer and Im wearing a V-neck T-shirt or strapless dress.

I wish this was a joke.

Supposedly, it makes me look like I don't work in the fields, under a hot sun, like a poor farmer or harvester.

So it makes me look rich, and delicate, and privileged, and fanciful, none of which I am.

As if I were a princess or something.

I do sleep a lot, like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

But really, I just toil over hot stoves and in cold prep rooms, dragging heavy things, and sometimes getting yelled at, often under fluorescent lighting, like a poor worker.

Maybe she likes having a white ghost.

I am the friendly type.

I'm nice to Grandma, but honestly, I am not interested in fighting for the approval of anybody who, by default, doesn't like me, or likes me less, for something I never did, other than coming into this world.

That's what chefs are for, and they pay me by the hour.

Mom didn't know what to do, so I asked her for help.

I asked her to teach me some Cantonese phrases that would scare the living daylights out of any curmudgeonly old person who felt like acting hurtfully toward me simply because of the colour of my skin.

I figured that if they thought that this gwei por knew what they were saying, they'd think twice before acting rudely to another non-Chinese person "behind their back".

If someone treats you badly, there's at least a motivation for you to be a jerk back to them (should you decide to walk that avenue), but to just strike out like that at a total stranger, because they're different from you? Really? That's some brutal, hate-filled action that doesn't deserve to go unchecked. It's learned behaviour that lets people think they can continue being like that.

I'm committed to doing this, in the hopes that it might discourage them from doing this to other people in the future.

A few days ago, an elderly Chinese man tried to cut in front of me at Sunrise, just as the lady did before.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Uhhh...going in front?" Nice try!

"You can't do that. I waited in line, and you have to wait behind me."

"Oh."

At least I was polite about it.

A different cashier rang me through this time, and even though everyone is always in a rush to get in and out, in the middle of the transaction, she just stopped typing on the register. She took a minute and thanked me for correcting the gentleman's behaviour (which surprised me), because apparently, it happens a lot, and if the cashiers always tell them to pack it up and stop acting bratty, as they would like to, they get hassled because these are customers who come in all the time, and are grouchy, and have too much time on their hands. They're old. They have nothing better to do.

They'll readily talk smack to a cashier who doesn't let them have their way, but if a tall, broad, (potentially) mad-looking ghost girl such as myself were to speak up, they might straighten up and fly right, because they don't know whether or not my culture raised me to respect my elders. This paleness could be put to use for good.

This particular cashier wasn't around for the GWEI situation (it has a name!), but probably heard about it from her coworkers, and her thanks reassured me. I promised to do something if it happened again, and she was happy. Whew!

I hope this post didn't make it sound like a lunatic who has a problem specifically with Chinese people, because that's untrue.

What is true, is that I have a problem with outdated patriarchal traditions that laud offspring for something they were born into, rather than anything they did, parents having abortions when they find out that their babies are girls, communities that will cast out people born into definitive social classes, as well as racists who look down on other people, and unfortunately, they are in many countries, and speak many languages.

As a human being who believes in basic courtesy, and a feminist, this kind of stuff breaks my heart and steels my nerves.

I will never really be accepted by the Chinese side of my family. Their loss.

In my younger days, I thought that some of them were mean to me because they were jerks, plain and simple, but think now it may have been because shunning someone, even if they were a defenseless child, made them feel better about themselves.

It makes me feel like a bastard.

My name is not Jon Snow, but White Ghost isn't too far off.

So my recipe for this post was an Asian mash-up, where I would pluck ingredients from many lands and bring them together, because sticking to doing things the way they're always done gets boring.

I wanted to make something that appreciates its roots and at the same time, ignores the boundaries and structure of tradition.

In my anger, I tried to create beauty and unity.

The stir-fry bowl grew taller and taller, with every delicious ingredient that couldn't be left out.

It was The Tower Of Babel of noodle dishes, with every contribution adding special purpose.

Whether people like it or not, we're different, but all the same somehow, and the gap is closing.

Live long and prosper, as one of my friends translated.

It's a new year, and a tidal wave of change is long overdue.

Kari