Catching a Moment

kryescent — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:28:23 GMT

The length of the caldera stretches ahead of us, its grey, wrinkled body creasing blue in the surrounding Aegean Sea. The sun is almost setting. Once, the island breathed fire; now a wizened man with a towering chef’s hat calls out to me from Grandma’s Restaurant, “The Chinese are my brothers!” He spreads out his arms and smiles with his teeth but not eyes.

We laugh uncomfortably and leave the menu on its stand - written in Greek and perfectly accurate Mandarin Chinese, no less. No English translation. We pass by another restaurant where a waiter dressed sharply in a white summer shirt greets us eagerly, “Ni hao!”

We could’ve been Korean or Thai, I tell my friend Misato.

“But you are indeed Chinese!” she points out. The waiter puts his arm around Misato's shoulders when he learns that we're from Singapore instead.

She’s right, of course. My identification card states – ‘Race: Chinese’. Misato is half-Japanese, half-Singaporean Chinese; she carries upon her shoulders the skin of an entirely different culture, stretched out thin and vast.

Along the caldera’s edge, we follow the trail of dusty cubic houses, like white crumbs leading towards the winking sun. Soon, the groups of tourists sunning themselves al fresco in the village centre begin to ebb near the shadowy outskirts of Thira. We pass by a group of boys playing basketball against the settling blue-grey dusk; overhear the conversations from houses squatting too close to us on narrow lanes. We search for a quiet spot to watch the sunset alone, somewhere that we can claim.

Misato wanders off with her camera, and I catch up with her on a secluded cliff. A group of wine-wielding, middle-aged Americans gather at our spot. It's Fourth of July today - Independence Day, I remind them, eager to inquire about the fireworks and parades.
“Yeah, it is,” the one with the digital camera replies. He turns to Misato to ask for their group portrait against Santorini’s famed sunset – now is not the time for a distant place in another time. We sit and watch the July sun light up the elements with its last red flourish.

They leave soon after the sun sets. We catch a glimpse of the moon and decide to wait in the crisp summer darkness, partly fenced off as someone else’s private property.

As the moon slowly rises over our heads and glows a bright, fiery red, Misato fumbles with her camera, trying to capture the moment. But the battery goes flat. Now we have nothing to claim it with, nothing to lay claim to.

My Scholarship entry - Understanding a Culture through Food

kryescent — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:31:00 GMT

I've been told Thai cuisine revolves around the four fundamental taste senses and my nose is inclined to agree. A few steps inside the Don Hwai local market in the outskirts of Bangkok, the curtain of spicy incense smoke lingering from the outer temple grounds begins to give way to a myriad of other smells. Each passing market stall supplies me with its own, naturally-concocted perfume - from the tangy aroma of lemongrass to the smell of salty air-dried anchovies intermingling with the market-goers’ body odours. Like having one too many whiffs of a range of perfumes, my nose is slowly becoming numb from this olfactory cocktail. I can hardly even breathe.

Yet, my taste buds remain unsatisfied.

According to my late grandfather, my Thai surname is 'Sukhumvit'. It should follow then that the taste for fiery, bowel-churning cuisine should have been genetically bestowed upon me by way of my Southern Thai ancestry, but for the month since I’ve been here, the bittersweet taste of imported durians back home cannot be replaced by the cloyingly sweet flavours of the fresh, home-grown durians in Thailand; and my next-door Thai neighbour can whip up a meaner green curry than the diabetes-inducing versions here. My ancestral roots had set my taste buds high hopes, but my profound familiarity with Thai cuisine from growing up and living in Singapore – a country in geographic proximity to Thailand - had left me well and truly jaded.

Beyond the thick, stale market air, we hop on board the ferry service available on the Tha Chin River alongside the market. A curious, questioning stare on my part at a neighbouring family’s dessert soon leads to the gleeful exchange of food between both parties, and we strike up a conversation. Although I can’t find Thai cuisine agreeable to my taste buds, I revel in the Thais’ sense of blissful contentment amidst other loquacious families enjoying their cuisine as a social activity. Mai pen rai – I’m sure my grandfather would have approved.

Krystalle Teh

Catching a Moment

My Scholarship entry - Understanding a Culture through Food