Remembering Taipei: Stinky Tofu* by Eric Tinsay Valles I’ll miss stinky tofu Wafting around sundown From iron-grilled windows on narrow lanes Like friends made after hours of language exchange. Its sour vinegar is like endless ting xie:** Every morning in class, A bloodletting to master Mandarin, friends of friends crowing, “Are you from Hong Kong?” Brine is flavored with chili and minced meat Like plane tickets and freebies (even a water cooler once) Offered to reporters as part of the job, Like a color photo next to my column.*** Tofu is golden like sunlit clouds Shrouding the Taipei basin in summer, Freewheeling democracy, Briefings I half understand, friends half translate. Eating tofu makes strange music, Like a slight drizzle and breeze Or an emphatic pause after an IT executive Tells me to read out my interview notes. The sweet stench is gone like a daydream, Yesterday’s front-page byline beside Bill Gates’ photo Or a chat with a cabbie with betel-stained teeth: “You look Japanese.” Stinky tofu, whoever is lucky to gobble you up Cannot make me savor you less As I recall your glories now as a nameless graduate student In a Dettol-scented, Singapore library. *Fermented tofu with a strong smell. ** Dictation drills in Mandarin. *** I was a business reporter and columnist for the English-language daily Taiwan News in the late 1990s. Copies of After the Fall (dirges among ruins) may be bought online at this site: ethosbooks.sg/store/mli_viewItem.asp?idProduct=355 . Those outside Singapore need to pay postage fees. The book is already being sold at the Singapore Writers Festival Pavilion and Booktique (B1-17A, City Link Mall), where Ethos Bookclub members get a 10% discount.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 00:45:12 +0000
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