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Meredith Chang

In Times of a Pandemic, Eat

Passing the aisles of brightly lit food stalls and shops in Singapore, there is an ever-present sense of buzzing excitement that weaves its way through the vicinity, from the people to the food. Everything - the food, the hints of intermingling languages - holds hints of familiarity, but are also all at once slightly foreign to me, a newcomer who has recently arrived in the country. What is not new are the tracing apps, the limitations on number of diners, and the taped off seats used to enforce social distancing that are strangely reminiscent of daily life in Malaysia. These rituals of eating, of socialization, hold hints of regulations made necessary by COVID-19. However, weaving through the food aisles, my mother's mood appears unaffected by the restrictions as she gestures excitedly, pointing out her favorite childhood tidbits, learned from her time spent in Singapore. I try to imagine my mother at my age, unwrapping delicate seaweed snacks before carefully folding them around a rice cracker and popping them into her mouth. For the time-being, this exchange of food and laughter within a public area is still inaccessible to me who has just received the first dose of the vaccination, a pinprick that left my right arm throbbing slightly. My mother orders hot dumpling soup that we lug back to our apartment, the plastic lid sweating and caving in when we open it. We eat on the balcony of our service apartment, facing each other, but bodies angled slightly to take in the city skyline view. We try - with a limited degree of success - to replicate the feeling of ‘dining out.’


My mom winces as I sit down on the stained tiled floor of the balcony. “You’ll dirty your jeans.”

I smile and she relents, plopping down beside me with a heaving sigh. My mother watches me eat because food is how she expresses her love. I think back to the strangers we observed at the mall. A table of several - but no more than five - students bringing trays back from different stalls, sharing inside jokes and loud laughter amidst the sound of clattering dishes and the smell of heady spices that permeate the area. A couple sharing plates piled high with Char Kway Teow and fragrant curries. Old high school friends uniting over bowls of Laksa the color of flaming sunsets, the coconut aromas wafting far past their table. Perhaps to them food is also a manifestation of love, love that now - by necessity - is measured and regulated behind the bars of COVID-19 regulations. For the first time, we are forced to put thought behind our social interactions that once seemed so effortless. This shared meal - the sacred act of dining together - once so commonplace, is now something that I have come to appreciate and treasure for the novel moments that they are.


From childhood to adolescence, the constant notion of a successful life was drilled into me, meals and family swept away from the constant pursuit of leveling up, working towards a bigger, more lucrative yet unnamed and unattainable goal. Yet in that search perhaps I had lost the beauty of this simple meal, of my mother, my family, my friends. The warm soup settles like a firm palm placed over my stomach. For now, I look outside past the iron rails of the balcony, onto the people milling around on the street. They look like small, indistinguishable figures from a distance, their faces obscured by distance and the vibrant umbrellas that they hoist up to shield themselves from the rain.


Nowadays I try to make an effort to cultivate this social interaction - to make the most of the little moments. With a group of friends that numbers six, we adopt the strategy of taking turns forgoing the hangout, with the sixth person usually assuming a position on a FaceTime call. This strategy operates by names in order of alphabetical order. Soon, with my name nearing the middle of the alphabet, it will be my turn.


And a little after that, my mother will board a plane that takes her back to our home country, leaving me enrolled in boarding school. With no guarantees of seeing her until next summer, when the academic year has reached a close, I mentally take note to FaceTime her and tell her about all my adventures through food. Perhaps even like this we will share meals together, with the steam rising from the warm broths, fogging up the camera. Somehow, I think, this will make up for all the skipped meals, all the missed time that will forever be out of reach. Because food is a manifestation of love - and is there really anything more important than love?


My gaze wanders beyond and out. Somehow, after spending so much time alone, or stuck away from the bustle of crowds, the way I see things has changed - the birds, the trees, even the people in the restaurant below who come and go, enjoying a warm meal and a brief reprieve from the noise of the city. Everything is peaceful and it’s like everything has a purpose to just flow. And it does. It all flows so perfectly.




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