Tuesday, July 22, 2014

The Headmaster's Wager

There's something about historical fiction that draws me in like no other type of literature.

Reading The Headmaster's Wager (by Canadian author Vincent Lam) made me feel as though I was plunging into a different world, a story world, yet one that seemed utterly plausible, especially given my Chinese heritage. ~ Although the protagonist spoke Cantonese, and the story was set for the most part in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), the themes of family, duty and sacrifice spoke deeply to me. The usual fiction I read puts me in the position of a male, Caucasian young adult braving challenges both self-inflicted and externally imposed. ~ Reading from Percival Chen's perspective was different. Although male and middle-aged throughout most part of the novel, the hou jeung possessed such an intricately Chinese kernel that I could not help but identify with him. ~ Reading from his perspective made me realize how disconnected I actually was from the majority of protagonists whose stories I have cherished in the past. ~ I remember tearing through books, imagining myself in the main character's shoes. ~ But when reading The Headmaster's Wager I was never deluded into becoming the protagonist - only listening to his story with the respect I would owe to a real person telling me their life's tale. ~

The tragedy of the story, the plot twists, and the beautiful language of the text cannot be overlooked. But most importantly to me, the novel felt uniquely like an adult novel, in the sense that although events that occurred to Percival during his childhood were integral to his actions, thoughts and world view as an adult, the happenings of his adult life were just as momentous, just as passionate, just as significant. ~ I remember all the children's and young adult novels I used to read - how they seemed to suggest with their exciting plots and fated-to-be romances that everything exciting that would ever happen to you would happen before you became an adult, that you would meet the one on a quest and fall in love over the course of some trying adventure that you shared. ~ I remember worrying - and sometimes I still do - that once I became an adult (and I guess I am one now), I would have lived all of my life already, and the rest of my years would be spent perusing a series of fond but nostalgic recollections of the glory days of the past. ~ The Headmaster's Wager made me reconsider this belief. Adults lead meaningful lives. Adults are not tied down by their children, who supposedly go on and have the adventures that will replace their parents'. Adults feel, experience, cry, and above all, feel love, shame, fear, guilt, just as vividly as children and teenagers do. ~ Lives change, keep changing. ~ I've been naive, perhaps, living in my fictional world, still dreaming for that one adventure to happen that will change everything - that one letter from Hogwarts, that one visit from Mister Monday, that one discovery of a closet that opens to a whole other world. ~ Here's to another step in the journey of growing up. ~

P.S.: I've also read Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, by the same author. Although it was a great read, with characters whose lives I became invested in and were eerily similar to my own, I didn't find the ending quite as satisfying as this one. Granted, that was a series of short stories connected by the characters. ~ However, the way that Lam tied up everything so neatly, yet so heartbreakingly, in Headmaster vaults this book miles ahead on my list of must-reads. A definite two thumbs up and rec on my part. ~

P.P.S.: While reading, I discussed the rules of mahjong with my dad and realized that I've played a game very similar to it in the past, in card form. Just another connection with my Chinese self, lost in the miles I've traveled in my childhood.


Friday, July 4, 2014

The Great Pudding Fiasco of 2014

You are reading the words of a survivor of the Great Pudding Fiasco of 2014. ~

First things first. Let me give you a bit of background regarding my culinary abilities: I have none. I cook - almost never. I microwave, I open cans, I peel bananas. ~ I once used half and half instead of whipping cream when making egg tarts for a club bake sale. The result? Inedible tarts that had to be tossed out. ~

So what drove me to make lemon pudding tonight? ~ Well, I've been working in a lab as a summer student for the past two summers and I've noticed that doing cell culture work is a lot like what I imagine cooking to be. ~ Both use ingredients (so what if one uses cells and the other sugar?), tools (pipettes vs. spoons? No worries!), and recipes. ~ I can follow instructions - what would be so hard about trying out the Food Network's Lemon Pudding Recipe? ~

How naive I was just a mere two hours ago. ~ Let me now tell you the story of the Great Pudding Fiasco of 2014. ~

I began by heating up the pan - you usually heat up cell culture media ahead of time, so I figured this would be the same. I cranked the heat up to medium. Since I had no measuring cups (my family is Asian and never bakes), I used a drinking cup and a spoon to estimate volumes. Using my trusty chopsticks (ain't nobody got a whisk lying around), I mixed the cornstarch and sugar haphazardly, then got bored and poured in the milk. At this point I realized that while I had a whole lemon, I did not have a grater or a lemon squeezer, and that my concoction of sugar, cornstarch and milk was already beginning to heat up. I ran to the counter and began slicing the peel off of the lemon and dicing it into what I hoped was zest-sized pieces. Halfway through this process I remembered my boiling pan and ran back to stir with chopsticks, only to discover in dismay that the sugar had started burning under all the milk, sticking to the bottom of the pan. I scraped as hard as I could and lifted out my chopsticks to find globs of burnt sugar stuck on the ends. My pure white mixture was becoming littered with little brown flakes. Panicked, I scraped away as much burnt sugar as I could, stirring madly all the while. ~ Realizing not much time was left, I ran back to the counter to chop more zest. Giving up, I ran back and dumped the large flakes of "zest" into the pot. Realizing now that I also needed egg yolks, I ran to the fridge and grabbed 3 large eggs. I cracked them and accidentally mixed yolk with whites - no matter! Dumped the mixture into the pot, stirred, made more zest and dumped that in, added the salt (a bit too much maybe...), made more zest....

At this point I realized my mixture wasn't congealing. Foolishly thinking that the cornstarch must have also burnt and stuck to the bottom of the pan, I added around another 1/4 cup into my mixture. It clumped up instantly despite my vigorous stirring. I took a break to squeeze the lemon for its juices, then realized that I might infuse more flavour into my pudding if I added pieces of the entire lemon into my mixture. I dumped that into the pot and realized stirring was now greatly impeded. More sugar had started to burn, so I conducted my second burnt-sugar-ectomy.

After another 10 minutes of stirring I realized nothing was going to help. I dumped in the lemon juice, added a bit of vegetable oil (because we have no butter at home) turned off the heat and looked around for a strainer. I had this idealistic image in mind of straining the pudding into these cute little mason jars I had, and began that process with bravado. I soon realized I had way too much pudding and that the small strainer I was using with my mason jars wasn't going to cut it. I pulled out my giant red mug, a larger strainer and got to work making pudding in a mug.

This straining process was arduous, especially as I was holding a hot, pudding-filled pan in one hand and ladling pudding into a strainer with the other. I briefly set down the pan on the divider between my two kitchen sinks to take a break. When I lifted it back up, I saw a dent where the pan had been. I freaked and thought that the heat from the pan had melted the sink. I grabbed a glass coaster (which was what I should have done initially) and set the pan down while I examined the sink.

My mom walked into the kitchen at this point (likely drawn in by my under-the-breath swearing) and oggled at the sight. There was pudding over half the kitchen, burnt sugar lumps strewn around my "measuring cups", and one 20-year old girl leaning over a sink in dismay. She came over and I sheepishly explained what I was attempting to do. She just sighed and told me that there had always been a dent in the kitchen sink divider, and that my mason jars were overflowing. Abandoning the sink, I ran back to salvage what I could of my pudding.

My mom attempted to help, then gave up and left me to finish and clean up. I was running out of hope when I licked my fingers during the straining process and realizing that the pudding tasted quite decent - even rather yummy. Encouraged, I continued straining and licking my fingers and the spoon.

Finally, I covered up my mason jars and giant red mug with plastic wrap (much like I would carefully wrap a 96-well plate with parafilm) and left it in the fridge to chill. ~ Only time will tell what happens next.

Prep time 17 mins? Try an hour, with half an hour clean-up time on top of that. ~
Yield of 4 servings? Try two tiny mason jars and one large, red mug. ~


Friday, June 27, 2014

Crime and Punishment

I've never written a book review for my blog before, but after trudging through Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment I feel compelled to lay down some thoughts before they consume me. Warning: I very much want you to read this book, but I will not hold back on spoiling the plot if I want to talk about something.

First off, let me admit that this book took me several months to read - four, to be precise. Given my (typical) university student's schedule (classes, extracurriculars, studying and Netflix), this length of time might have been pardonable, taking into account that the paperback edition of the novel is 480 pages long. However, to be completely honest, the real reason it took me a third of a year to read C&P was that somewhere in between when Raskolnikov commits his crime and when Svidrigailov returns to the picture, I became bored with the incessant pages of philosophical dialogue and psychological musings Dostoyevsky weaved into his narrative. Please don't think me insensitive when I admit that I enjoyed, although with a dark kind of fascination, reading about Marmeladov and later Katerina Ivanova's deaths. Indeed, this book put me to sleep at times.

You might be wondering where I'm going with this. Reading C&P was not an enjoyable process. There is something distinctly morose about Russian suffering, so that it draws you in with an unadorned and unapologetic "Come on in." Perhaps the sole lighthearted scene in the novel was the one describing Razumihin falling head over heels in a bashful and drunken, but utterly pure, way for Dounia. Yet even Razumihin's love for Dounia was a source of pain to me, as his love for Rodion's sister only further reveals his utter devotion to and love for Raskolnikov. Indeed, his marriage to Dounia is a sad one, Razumihin being so determined to make a living and a life for his new family so that they might all be reunited in the future. Reading about Raskolnikov's cold and harsh behaviour towards his family and his friend even up to the very end of the novel (never even personally writing to them when in prison), I could not restrain my feelings of anger but also admiration, all permeated with a vein of cynicism.

More memorable still are the deeply disturbing scenes of forced or hysterical joviality. The consumptive Katerina Ivanova forces her fatherless children to dress up and perform in the streets. They are crying, and she beats them. Her pride, much like Raskolnikov's, drives her to cruelty, despite the fact that she deeply cares for her children. Her delusional ravings and constructed memories reveal how poverty and alcoholism tore apart one family, and reflect how fragile the psyche can be in light of uncompromising personal characteristics.

Equally disturbing is how deeply Dostoyevsky dives into Raskolnikov's mind. While the long passages describing the protagonist's inner turmoil, repressed guilt and sullen belief in the righteousness of his own world view were arduous to read, I think that Dostoyevsky was right in drawing out the descriptions of Raskolnikov's mental and physical disturbances. Objectively, we can summarize Rodion's nervous breakdown, fever, nightmares and silent observations of the aftermath of his crime from his cramped bed, but how much more vivid (if torturous) for the reader to have to explore every crevasse of Raskolnikov's mind with him! What with the dramatic irony and Porfiry's seemingly transparent (but terribly clever) mind games, I was taken in for quite the ride. Really, reading the novel felt more like following a stream of consciousness than anything.

The most captivating part of that long middle section during which Raskolnikov's guilt marinates is the scene where Rodion's article is first mentioned. His theory of Napoleonic men being able to do as they please is a grandiose, nihilistic and self-absorbed one, arguably the product of his impoverished environment but likely something deeper than that. Oddly enough, I can understand, if not empathize, with him. When the circumstances you and those around you live in are so inexplicably horrible, it's easy to want to find some way out. Some people dream of better days to come or that have past, like Razumihin and Katerina Ivanova. Some drink, like Marmeladov. And some imagine themselves outside of the system, of deserving better and having the right to fight for it. In a way, Raskonikov's theory is a coping mechanism sprung out of a life too absent of hope and too full of cynical hatred.

And of course, the epilogue. Much controversy exists regarding this short but revealing section of the novel. Personally, I'm glad that Dostoyevsky included it, in the same way that I'm glad J. K. Rowling tied up the ends to the Harry Potter series. Certainly the fact that Raskolnikov confessed at the end of Section VI, especially given the fact that he was aware of Svidrigailov's death and that Sonya was the ultimate reason he followed through with the confession, may make the epilogue seem redundant. However, the plot really picked up for me again after Katerina Ivanova's death, and at that point I wanted to keep reading. Additionally, I appreciated that Dostoyevsky added a layer of complexity by showing Raskolnikov's first year in prison, when he had not yet truly "repented" despite having already confessed. I add quotations marks around the word "repented" because I don't see Raskolnikov's emotionally-charged last scene with Sonya as necessarily Christian. That's certainly one interpretation, but in my mind it comes down to love, which is more general than religion. Had any other novel employed this type of ending, I would have gagged and made some snide remark about how "Disney" everything turned out (hey, I love Disney as much as the next 90s kid, but that doesn't mean I can't think about the messages they convey in a critical fashion). But again, the Russianness of it all absolves the ending of its lovey-doveyness. Raskolnikov's realization that he loves Sonya opens his eyes to the destructiveness of his unforgiving and deeply egotistical theory. Pride really is the worst sin of all, because it is the one that requires the greatest upheaval of the soul to overcome.

How very freeing it has been to chronicle my thoughts here, without needing to organize them into a cohesive text. Perhaps I shall do this again once I read Lolita. ~