The Simple Pleasures

During this jovial season of holidaying, I must become more sentimental than usual. Often I catch myself in a maudlin display of nostalgia and bittersweet longing sitting around like unglamorous Godiva chocolates at the after-Christmas sale. And I careen back to my childhood spent as a young school girl and the secret pleasures I found.

Ah no ’tis not so simple, gentle reader. Ms. Wu may have quite the notorious reputation among the digiratti for simply being who she is, this not a pleause of that sort. Allow me to light my cigarette before I delve so deeply into my past…the cigarette is the light of my life, fire of my inspirations. Yes I do digress when a good Gallouise is nearby.

As I was saying. When I was but a young girl unwillingly participating in attending boorish institutions known as “school,” I would find multifarious ways of passing the time before I was allowed to leave the terribly drab place. Needless to say, my parents were quite aghast that they had a daughter who did not attain the highest marks in her class, strived to be good at everything she did, and worst of all, I refused to learn the culinary arts. Ms. Wu and the kitchen go together like black and navy. They don’t. A few times they even threatened to marry me off to the Farmer Zhong’s household to be a ya-do, a girl servant. That was never realized because I had found my fortune by then and bid zha-jian! to Shanghai for good. How I gain my financial independence at such a tender age is another story.

A vestige of my rather uneventful childhood that remain with me to this day is my penchant for Ro Suon. No, that is not a boy but a certain Chinese snack. Ro Suon is perpetually misinterpreted on the plastic containers as “shredded pork” when it is more akin to a dried version of southern “pulled pork meat.” Literally, ro zoung means “meat loosened.” Yes, I know it sounds rather bowel-ish and unappetizing, but if Ms. Wu will at times favor a ro suon sandwich over steak tartare served with a wedge of lime slice and a sprig of rosemary, one must begin to understand the unsurmountable sense of contentment and pleasure a ro suon sandwich can bring at the right moment.

Simple and finite in its assembly, the sandwich requires naught but two pieces of bread with zo suon in between. These morsels, delicious and equal to heaven, were made by the old woman selling little snacks outside the school gate. The sticky rice version with zo suon wrapped in the middle with thin strips of egg custard was just as divine! As a young girl already forming her own peculiarities, I would purchase one of these naughty beasts of pleasure and hide it under my desk lid until I became simply overwrought with the sheer boredom of schooling. At that moment I would pretend to retrieve a pencil or something equally plebian from my desk and have a deliteful mouthful. Then to cap off the rest of the bovine school day, I would take a quick swig from my flask of sorghum liquor and wash it all down. Tis how I spent a small, inconsequential part of my girlhood. The rest will unravel in time.

Until next time I bid you zai-jian,
Ms. Wu