Creative Non-fiction

Tomato and Egg

 
 

My parents grew up teasing me about my love for the Chinese dish, a simple classic both my mother and father cooked for me and my brother. All you needed was tomatoes, eggs, and some sugar and salt. The dish was deceptively simple for a gustatory experience of sweet, sour, and salty delight. Yet it was chock full of memories from both childhood bliss at home, and of exhilarating memories on vacation—a piece of home that survived long flights to Australia, Italy, and Alaska. It was a luxury I took for granted until the permanence of home and our family nucleus was severed all too soon.  

2012—My mom and I moved to Chicago, and then less than a year later to Colorado Springs, pursuing the most elite coaching for my burgeoning figure skating career. I attended three high schools in one year, switched coaches twice, living out of a hotel room for five months, and then moving apartments twice more. Out of the discontinuity, the vibrant red tomato slices, sweet scrambled eggs, and juicy sauce anchored me to my family, and to my brother and father still in Seattle. 

2013—As competitions became increasingly demanding, I spent less time in high school. Instead, I trained during lunch breaks, and ate meals during class. My mom drove me from school to the rink, and then back and forth again, tossing my thermos over as I chased the ringing of tardy bells. My friend, a fellow athlete, would sometimes eat her mom’s dumplings at the rink, but I’d hear the skaters complain, “your food is so stinky!” So rather than risk opening up a thermos of my mom’s cooking in class, I’d go hungry instead.


2016—I’m a freshman now at Harvard, my head spinning with all the cultural organizations on campus that seemed not to suppress or deny our Asian heritage, but to celebrate it. Shocked by the centrality of cuisine in cultural events put on by HRCSA (Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Students Association) or AAA (Asian American Association), and overwhelmed by eating in the packed hall of Annenberg, I came to desperately miss home-cooked food, while shoveling HUDS’ Dan Dan Noodles in my mouth instead—a truly incomparable experience. The first time I returned for winter break, finally re-inhabiting my childhood home in Seattle, my dad embraced my return not with a bear hug, but by rapidly whipping up a dish of tomato and egg. The moment I saw it on the kitchen table, I felt I was truly at home again.


January 2017—Back on campus for my second semester at Harvard, I chanced upon another freshman from Singapore when we sat next to each other on a shuttle bus to a Model UN conference in downtown Boston. We ended up going out for dinner at Dumpling House, and commiserating about feelings of displacement and our longing for authentic Chinese cuisine in Cambridge. As we scanned the menu, sure enough we both pointed excitedly to “Scrambled Egg and Tomatoes with Shrimp.” As we became best friends, blockmates, and then roommates at Cabot House, rising through our undergraduate years and creating a home for ourselves in Cabot House and at Harvard, we made semesterly pilgrimages to Dumpling House to honor the genesis of our deep friendship, and our shared love for Chinese comfort food. With birthdays five days apart in May, we would sneak out from the caverns of finals cramming to share a dish of tomato and egg, and celebrate another year of friendship, growth, and joy to come.

September 2018—I never anticipated the darkness that was to shroud my junior fall, when I discovered that my childhood best friend had died. Wracked with grief, I wandered aimlessly around campus. One panicked night, I bumped into a Cabot tutor, and with their partner, drove me to Whole Foods. They knew exactly what to do, picking out swelling, ripe tomatoes, and a fresh carton of eggs. That night, in their suite, as they stirred the tomatoes and eggs around the skillet, glancing back and forth between the stove and the recipe they’d pulled up online, warmth slowly trickled back into me.

November 2018—all my friends were at Fenway for Harvard-Yale. Instead, I’d broken a sweat in bed with a fever. But Connie, another Cabot tutor, knew just what to do, taking me to some gentle yoga in Central, and then to another meal at Dumpling House, on Cabot. I can’t really taste, but the tomatoes and eggs slide smoothly down my throat with a satisfying gulp.  


May 2020—It is my last week here at Harvard, in a ghost-town campus. All the underclassmen moved out last weekend, and it is just us seniors, a measly five de-densified in our own suites, displaced from our Quad Houses and each overlooking an empty Kirkland Courtyard. HUDS closed when the other undergraduates moved out, so I’m ordering take-out everyday, while trying to squeeze meaning and closure out of my last few meals here.


Today, I order take-out one last time from Dumpling House. With each mouthful, memories flash by—of friendships and support shared through these very same bites, and of the deeper anchoring of familial ties through food. I think back to a childhood of displacement, of suppressing my heritage, and of finding home here at Harvard celebrating heritage and connecting to people through common dishes. As I swallow my last salty-sweet bite, I feel four beautiful years closing on my time here.

I’m packing now to fly home for the last time, headed into 14 days of quarantine. But the very first thing I expect to find waiting outside my bedroom door, replacing embraces from my parents, are their care and love cooked into a simple plate of tomato slices and scrambled eggs.


Selena: 

“For me, coming to terms with my cultural heritage has been a long and uncontinued process. In high school, in particular, having moved to diverse Seattle to the very homogenous and conservative Colorado Springs, I worked to suppress my differences, and thus my identity. Yet, some of the only continuities through this transition came from my mom's home-cooking. At college, I learned to re-claim my identity and to create new relationships by centering my love for my parents' tomato and egg dish, a simple and classic Chinese dish. This piece traces my relationship to the dish across time, life events, and personal realizations.”


Harvard College ‘20 | instagram: @selenazh88

 

Life Underground

 
 

Wen-hao Tien is a visual artist, community artist, and educator. Her studio practice focuses on language and translation, and explores culture and identity through a cross-cultural lens. Wen-hao is also Assistant Director at Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies for the Study of Asia.

In her professional role, Wen-hao builds interdisciplinary scholarly communities as well as enhanced visual tools for global studies. Originally trained in biomedical sciences and public health, Wen-hao’s work often draws inspiration from biological nature. Wen-hao is currently the artist-in-residence at the Pao Arts Center, Boston, MA, where she engages the community through her project “Unveiling Boston Chinatown”. 

Lesley University (MFA ‘19) | Columbia University (MPH) | IG @wenhaotien | Her website


“Life Underground”, Wen-hao Tien



Foraging in the woodland behind the house in Vermont where my family is staying, I have been pleasantly surprised to find many species of colorful wildflowers sprouting under a single tree. The colorful wildflowers are the result of a complex web of germination and symbiosis that is occurring underground. Exploring the subterranean world of ephemeral woodland flowers reveals how interdependent the root systems of various plant species are - like social networks!

These woodland flowers (Red Trillium, Trout Lilly, Bloodroot…) live only between the time the ground thaws and the deciduous trees sprout leaves that starve the flowers of sun. An “accurate” sketch of this site must begin below the ground level - from the bottom up. Aboveground it looks simple, but underground it’s complicated.

Solitary time during COVID-19 has pushed me to look below the surface of things. Days are filled with tasks aimed at achieving big ideas-and I feel busier than before. Many friends say the same. What are the big ideas?


If we want 2021 to yield a rejuvenated world, shouldn’t we be busy preparing our fields? Can we learn from the ephemeral wildflowers and build an underground network to support the miracle of rebirth?

 

To read the accompanying essay piece to “Life Underground”, and to see her other works, please visit Wen-hao’s site here.

 
 

Virtually Social

 
 

“I’m sorry I can’t make section today,” I thumbed into my phone, four minutes before class was due to start. “Painting outdoors at this time is difficult because it’s sunrise here and the light keeps changing, and on top of that it’s currently raining,” I explained. “Can I do the painting later?”

The email whizzed off. I made coffee and looked out the window. The droplets were mistier now, and the sun had almost wiped out the baby-pink streaks of dawn with fully-fledged rays. Maybe I should just get through the work now, rather than have the task (“Studio Assignment #8: Plein Air Painting”) sit on my mind for the next few days. Aurora pinged me back, consenting to my absence from class. I deliberated, gathered my brushes in the name of anti-procrastination and propped a gessoed canvas up in the backyard.

Ten minutes into tracing the edges of three empty pots in the crusted vegetable garden, I remembered that section was still happening over Zoom. Should I dial in? The inertia of my solitude groaned somewhere inside my body. I thought about the feeling of surveilling and being surveilled by pixelated classmates, and went on mixing paint.


After we’d been sent home in the middle of the semester, Matt and Aurora had done their best to keep our painting studio class edifying and enjoyable. Four days into my quarantine at home, a large square package reached my door containing four canvases, paper, oil paints, gesso, solvent and extra brushes. I found the receipt in the box, realised how much they’d spent on me, and felt tired.

This is the first painting class I’ve taken. After an email notified us to leave campus, I rolled up my splotchy paintings in my suitcase, worrying that this gratifying experiment had met its end. Being physically splintered apart could twist this studio class so completely that, even with a personal tub of gesso mailed to my door, it was over.

In the past month, our painting section had morphed from studio time to breakout room discussions of each other’s photographed work. This week was actually unusual in that we’d attempt to return to live painting, and to evoke the coworking space that we’d had before.

I like having routines that slowly slide me out of solitude. The act of walking to class listening to music or coaxing the key out of the door gets me ready for public spaces, for giving and receiving attention. It’s like the feeling of grinding coffee in your pyjamas, the beans nudging your dozing nose awake for another day of breathing. I dread the cold-water shock of joining group calls; the sudden surveillance of a webcam is too rude. The thought of dialing in to section 15 minutes late was too weary to entertain, until guilt took over and I picked up my phone.


I get a similar feeling whenever I click on the link to attend my English seminar. I love this class, and the way it feels like a book club, but it now requires 3:52am alarms (noon in Boston is four in the morning in New Zealand) and focusing my straggling attention on flat little people in flat little boxes on my screen for two and a half hours. I’ll watch my professor explain some line from “Effi Briest” and imagine how he feels, trying to figure out if the 23 muted faces, eyes directed somewhere unknowable, are understanding your take on the merits of Mr. and Mrs. Briest’s parenting style. I imagine not getting any feedback from the usual shuffling feet or subtle eyebrow crinkles, and wondering whether the internet connection might have broken during a critical pedagogical moment.

Now he’s joking about people tuning out, and I anxiously raise my eyebrows at the computer — attentively, I hope — to stem the virtual awkwardness. Look, someone is paying attention to you!

I’m not such an eager student in other classes. The first week I had my video on in my quantum lecture. Only one other person did. I committed, stubbornly, to keeping the camera on. The norms for virtual attention were still malleable, I thought, and I didn’t want the professor to feel abandoned by default.

By the second week, I’d quickly learned that I was not influential enough to change virtual classroom norms, and the administrators had decided to change the grading status of all classes to a universal pass/fail system anyway. I switched the camera off, rolled out my yoga mat, and spent lecture stretching on the floor. Barely listening, I played a round of minigolf on my phone with a friend, thinking absent-mindedly about how all the difficulties of the game were missing in its digital manifestation — you didn’t have to remind yourself to use the right power, swing your arms just enough, or maintain the perfect angle. Everything had lost its physicality recently; minigolf was just another example.

If I looked up from my screens, I’d become distracted by the immense dimensionality that exists in the physical environment. Reflections in a fork! Puckered leaves on a basil plant! Does anyone else ever think about throwing their laptop into the bushes and running away from a life of pixels?

At the end of the class, I unmuted myself. In my best casually-enthusiastic voice I projected “Thank you!” into the microphone and left as quickly as possible.


Virtual socializing has its intimacies. I no longer meet people in neutral public settings in which we follow the norms of being a guest in a third space. No more coffee catch-ups where jazzy café music and indifferent baristas subconsciously prompt us towards a familiar mode of public behaviour. Now, we exclusively show up in our homes, implicitly giving every single person we meet a tour of our most private spaces. I see nice headphones and cats walking across keyboards. They see the titles on my bookshelf and the dramatically green desk my dad bought me in high school. Professors and acquaintances can read my space, deduce that I’m messy. My sister bursts in to call me to dinner, even though I texted her that I was on an important call.

Public and private have inverted, and finally melted together.

What are the new norms we’re establishing? How are we behaving now?

Before COVID-19 really hit, I was scheduled to participate in some informational visits to various organisations in the Bay Area. Now, instead of seeing industry leaders lecturing in their offices, I saw the family photos on their coffee tables. One prominent researcher apologised for the presence of an absurdly massive panda floatie propped behind his shoulder; he was using it to block the sun’s glare through the window.

It would have been so easy to take a screenshot of him and his inflatable panda with the creepy eyes — that’s the thing with digital interactions, you never know which of your footprints others are keeping — but it felt like he was investing in us an unanticipated trust, and I didn’t want to fracture the intimacy of our understanding.

There’s a specific angle that I never used to see people from — throat-first, upward-tilted. Now I see those tipped, exposed faces all the time from the fixed viewpoint of the webcam. It’s accentuated by furrowed brows as people look for the unmute button, blurred cheeks as they hurry through their living room. I never asked for this particular intimacy from others, nor did they ask for mine. It just fell on us circumstantially.


Some days I love the limited interactions and the focused, quiet lifestyle I’m developing. I don’t have to engage in a social performance if I’d rather curl up in my thoughts. Other days I crave running into a friend at Peets and chatting about an upcoming concert, and I can’t quite stomach how different virtual conversations are from those accidental hellos. I plead with my brain to forget about that for a few months.

Often, I can only find out how introverted I’m feeling through having that online social interaction I’m being indecisive about. 

When I virtually entered the painting class, I sensed tranquility. No one was speaking. Some people had their microphone and their video off. My shoulders loosened.

I settled down and scraped burnt umber and ultramarine blue together with a palette knife as my classmates worked quietly, moving across my phone screen. It’s funny how a single sun can manifest as late afternoon rays on some pixelated faces and, at the same instant, as a feeble morning glow on others who haven’t quite reached that point in the day yet. A cricket chirped somewhere in cyberspace, and I heard it.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have known that this class would not exhaust my attention in the same punishing way that others tended to. We were gathered online to work alone.

“I wanted to ask something about lecture,” Emily, another senior, began. Matt gave her the go-ahead. “Abstract Expressionism” —  this was the topic of his most recent lecture — “is often the movement that people point to when they talk of the moment that art became pretentious. People don’t look at Renaissance paintings and say that, really. What is your response to that?”

Wind rustled through a tree somewhere in San Diego. Solvent swished in Cambridge. I dabbed at my canvas with a caked paper towel, agreeing with Emily in my head. Matt mused on the question, said she was broadly right about that impression, ahh’d a bit about his opinion, and asked Aurora for hers. She, too, seemed uncertain. “It’s hard to justify making anything,” she said finally. It spoke to a feeling of pointlessness that tinged my humdrum days in isolation, and yet it was a reassuring comment. I’d found solace in making things — buttercream macarons, portraits of my sister, fragments of writing — to stave off that nihilistic feeling, and although I still couldn’t quite justify these activities, maybe that didn’t matter either.

Amidst the ebb and flow of sighs and swishes and occasional questions, I would find inspiration in one sound or another, each pulling me into a new well of thought. I floated in the pools in my head, without feeling the usual obligation to climb out of the water and begin the effort of camouflaging the gap between this effortless existence and The Normal Class Experience We Should Be Having using attentive-looking smiles and thumbs-up emojis.

We were hearing, feeling, painting together. A shared experience consolidated in virtual snippets of reality and unexpected abstractions, rather than the physical space of the studio.

I unfolded my legs and turned off the microphone and camera on my phone, then went inside to make a snack. As I stared at the closed blinds of the kitchen window, munching on a peanut butter and banana sandwich, birdsong emanated from the phone in my pocket. It sounded like someone was dialing in from a forest. I didn’t check to see who, just contentedly let another reality fill my ears. So many guessing games, so many unknowns — opportunities for speculation hide in every corner of a virtual interaction. Perhaps the birdsong broadcaster was unaware that they had their microphone on, or maybe they knew perfectly well that they’d set off ten different trains of thought (about bluejays or avian migration patterns or something else) chugging around the world. Maybe someone did suspect that I’d abandoned painting in favour of eating in the middle of class.

The professor’s keyboard clacked. The cyber cricket crooned, and the birds went on. I stood at the kitchen sink, letting the sounds from other people’s realities fill my own, become my own.

 

 
A portrait of my sister at the breakfast table. She's not particularly accustomed to my new penchant for depicting her.

A portrait of my sister at the breakfast table. She's not particularly accustomed to my new penchant for depicting her.

 

Saffron:

“A musing on virtuality, and the bag of feelings that I've been experiencing as every social context moves online during this pandemic.”

Harvard ‘20 | instagram: @saffr0n | facebook: @saffronhuang