Hainan Dao

Book I Chapter 02

“Please, Jimmy, don’t tell me you’re not having any.” Abby began to ladle the heavy, dark liquid into my bowl. “This is good soup. It is…”

“That’s all right, Abby. I know what it is.” I didn’t.

Need I say it? I never came to these gatherings for the food.

She filled my bowl to the rim with the suspicious mixture. I gazed deep into it, already feeling the phlegm building up in the back of my throat. The debris swirled around inside, turning in circles like leaves caught in a dust devil on a windy day. I watched and waited for it to settle.

Soup is a big deal for the Chinese people and for whatever reason, much more so for Abby. And I’m not talking about chicken noodle or the beef gumbo variety. No, sir. I’m talking about bad-ass, major league kind of soup, like oxtail soup, the kind with the ox still attached on the one end, screaming. Or maybe pig bone soup, with big hunks of skeletal pork remains sunk to the bottom of a stained metal pot, with bits of Geizhi, ginger root and chopped abalone thrown in for good measure. Then you would turn up the heat and cook it for the better part of a day. You’d get up before the sun to start your preparations, wiping your brow with the back of your arm when the chopping got too gruelling. By the end of the day, when everything that you’d thrown in there had pretty much melted into a uniform sludge, you would know that it was time to drink it. You would usually leave the sludge alone, since most of its nutrients and usefulness would be gone by then. You would not scoop it out of there with a shovel and slop it down on a plate to eat it, unless of course, your sister was feeling especially cruel that day.

Having been raised over here in Canada, I didn’t quite have the same feeling for soup that my sister did. I happened to feel that my basic North American diet was more than nutritious enough. In fact, that’s probably why most Canadians and Americans are obese. We’ve all been over-nourished.

Neither the Chinese soup phenomenon nor our obsession with eating is as weird as it sounds, though. I’ve been told since my non-comprehending days of early childhood, that these traditions only speak of the incredible sadness of our people as a nation. Our present day generation, I was told, was the only one that had not yet seen war. Every other generation has had to go through one of its own. Making the most of every meal, by reflex, was simply a genetic memory.

Abby picked up a morsel from the black mushroom dish and placed it in my bowl.

“You know who really loved this?” she asked.

“Hey, I think I know that one already.”

Abby frowned at me. “What?”

I rolled my eyes. “What?”

Abby shook her head. “Jimmy, that’s one thing about you I’ve never been able to figure out. You’re always hounding me about my health, and you would never hear a bad word about Dylan, but whenever it’s about Dad…!” She put down her chopsticks.

“Abby, please.” I took a glance around to see if people were watching us.

“You know, you can say what you want about him, but he was also a good man in many ways. If you could only see him differently…”

“I know.” I sipped my tea.

Sighing, Abby placed a hand on my shoulder. “Furen…”

My sister always used my Chinese name when she felt a lecture coming on.

She shook her head. “There’s no reason for you to be bitter. You should be appreciative of everything that he gave you.”

I glanced over to the window and saw two flies landing onto the barbequed pork hanging on their hooks. I turned back to her and smiled. “Abby, please. I know this already. Didn’t I just say that?”