jolantru: (sing to the dawn)
[personal profile] jolantru
My mother insisted I learn how to wrap rice dumplings and so I did, starting from a very young age, when I observed her nimble fingers deftly folding the fronds into a cone and then into a pyramidal shape. When I was a teenager, I ended up joining the women in the kitchen, breathing in the steam, the fragrance of fronds soaked in hot water and listening to the chatter.

That was long ago, back on Terra, before I made the decision to join the Explorers. Now onboard a ship, heading for the new colony on Mars, I found myself thinking about the old traditions that kept my mother and her grandmother going. The festival for the rice dumplings, Duan Wu, was approaching. Most of my childhood memories were lunar-based. Fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Right in the middle of summer, when it was hot and dry.

The legend spoke about a patriot who threw himself into a river as a protest. The people, in order to save his body, threw rice parcels into the water so that the fish would not eat his flesh. I used to think that the legend was a little gruesome and a little tragic. Of course, food was featured in many of the myths and legends. Rice dumplings. Tang yuan. Mooncakes. Sweetmeats.

Well, the only river I knew now was Yin He, the Milky Way. Yin He. Silver River. The old language was so evocative, rich in texture. I did not think throwing rice dumplings into space would work.

Before Duan Wu itself, I made sure I had all the ingredients ready in the main mess hall kitchen. Even the dried leaves, bundled and stored in one of the cabinets. A couple of my colleagues came and watched me as I poured hot water into a large tub and soaked the leaves in. As the leaves became more supple, fresh, I prepared the rice and the savory filling. I loved the chestnuts the most - sweet nuggets.

I made thirty rice dumplings, little pyramids of rice and filling. Enough for the ship's crew and the scientists. Rice dumplings were also gifts and my mother would give away clusters to close relatives and friends. I sat in the kitchen, immersed in the aromatic steam. I was home.

Later, as I stood next to the viewing window, watching the stars streaming past in the Milky Way, I thought of silver rivers and the gentle conversations in a kitchen, fading away as if in sepia.

Date: 2009-05-28 03:41 am (UTC)
dechant: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dechant
I can just about taste these. Mmm. You must have the most acute senses, to write so.

Date: 2009-05-28 04:27 am (UTC)
dechant: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dechant
Oh! Hey, happy Duan Wu, then, if that's the appropriate greeting. May you not get et by whatever's in your particular river.

Date: 2009-05-28 05:06 am (UTC)
delfinnium: (Default)
From: [personal profile] delfinnium
Funnily enough, the sentences "The legend spoke about a patriot who threw himself into a river as a protest. The people, in order to save his body, threw rice parcels into the water so that the fish would not eat his flesh." made me think that I'd accidentally wandered over to my own piece here, but then, there's only so many ways you can talk about the guy. :|

I quite like it, I think. Hmm. Though, maybe - hmmm... There's that thing about the narrator having to 'explain' that she follows the lunar calendar. Maybe she could do a bit more? Like, does everyone else follow the lunar calendar? Or do they follow the solar calendar? how does she follow it? >.>

I like the last sentence best. Sepia. Mmm. Age and nostalgia

Date: 2009-05-28 05:11 am (UTC)
delfinnium: (Default)
From: [personal profile] delfinnium
端午节!:P mmmm I want 粽子。 :|

Date: 2009-05-28 05:51 am (UTC)
delfinnium: (Default)
From: [personal profile] delfinnium
waaaant.

:| neither my mother nor father know how to make zongzi. So we never learned to make it. -_- Though, I know how to make wonton! :D If you buy the wonton skin first....

Date: 2009-05-28 06:04 am (UTC)
delfinnium: (Default)
From: [personal profile] delfinnium
making zhong is like making physics! You either know it or you don't. And then it all falls down to the floor going splat. :|

Date: 2009-05-28 01:57 pm (UTC)
delfinnium: (Default)
From: [personal profile] delfinnium
At least not Durian. Durian can kill people and all the prospective SEAsian Newtons.

Date: 2009-05-28 05:52 am (UTC)
delfinnium: (Default)
From: [personal profile] delfinnium
hahahah. a whole series each... >.>

Date: 2009-05-28 05:52 am (UTC)
delfinnium: (Default)
From: [personal profile] delfinnium
hee. thanks. :3 And apparently it IS close enough to the Re-myth thing that they say I could label it as Re-myth. But I don't know if I should, I was thinking of it, when I wrote it, but not really as beautifully as the other pieces.

Date: 2009-05-28 06:04 am (UTC)
delfinnium: (Default)
From: [personal profile] delfinnium
TOtally. >.< it's what I don't like about being here. :|

Date: 2009-05-28 01:58 pm (UTC)
delfinnium: (Default)
From: [personal profile] delfinnium
*sigh* Yeah. NZ was... actually quite beautiful, and with all the ASians there - you really don't notice. Festivals were as much for the Asians as for the white people oogling.

Date: 2009-05-28 03:16 pm (UTC)
dancinglights: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dancinglights
This is so gorgeous. I have no such traditions, but I love the food, and even without that nostalgia you are making me miss it right now. And stars, of course.

Date: 2009-05-28 03:26 pm (UTC)
dancinglights: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dancinglights
I believe it :)

You did a really good job of capturing the feeling, even for those of us with different wheel-of-seasons food traditions. It reminded me a little of my own Christmas/Chanukah ones, still making my grandmother's cookies I can't eat, just to give them away and connect back to that piece of the past from my very different life... all from another culture entirely, a fact which is not lost in the text.

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