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Ono Poke or Fractured by LanguageOn a retreat in Hilo, the author reflects on fish, language, and the comfort of the local
Hilo, Hawai'i - August 22, 2005 - I love this recipe for Ono Poke. It is absolutely glorious, a treasure discovered on the shelves of the KTA Supermarket in Hilo. I have no idea what it says (or tastes like), but I keep reading the recipe over and over, entranced by the way it freely employs Hawaiian and pidgin words without any explanation or definition. The reader is just supposed to know what all the words mean. I know that ono conveys “delicious” —I read it in a children’s book about Korean New Year in Hawaii called Dumpling Soup—and I think that lomi has something to do with salmon. (In another cookbook, Hawaii’s Best Local Dishes, this author does the same with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ingredient names…ko choo jung sauce, harm ha sauce, won bok, mochiko). The cookbook author—part Chinese, part Japanese, and longtime Hawaiian—knows her audience. She wrote these cookbooks for a local Hawaiian audience—not for tourists, not for transplants, and not for me—a visitor merely summering with transplants. The recipes are not fancy or exotic, but simple and down home—almost like an Asian Pacific American (APA) Greatest Hits Collection. How refreshing from most “ethnic” cookbooks that start off with pages and pages of pictures and tedious explanations, “A wok is a pot…Rice is a grain…” and end with more tedious pages of glossary and addresses of where to buy these “strange and exotic” ingredients. I am struck by the wish that I could live my life like that and just speak and write without glossaries or explanations for the tourists visiting my world. Instead, I feel fractured by language. I need to figure out how to lomi it all back together.
A Fractured Vocabulary
I never realized how much I edit or censor my language until last February when I was talking with my husband and I wanted to say something like “accoutrement” or “fait accompli,”—some word with French origins that was not too esoteric but not every day either, yet it was exactly the word for what I wanted to say. I paused for a moment, out of habit, to think of an easier word, but then I realized that my husband would understand, so I just said it out loud and my husband understood. It was a thrilling sentence because it had been such a long time since I had had felt free to use just exactly the word for what I wanted to say. It was so simple. These days, most of my friends are non-native English speakers so I tend not to use too many high-brow words in conversation with them. Most speak English well enough, but I do not know what their upper limits might be. I do not want them to think that I am showing off or trying to put them down. Understanding is a difficult enough goal. Instead, I help them decipher their children’s slang: “What does ‘have a cow’ mean?” It is easier with my Chinese friends because we simply speak Chinese, but even there I constantly have to stretch for just the right word, and when my Chinese vocabulary fails me, I have to resort to taking a stab in the dark or, worse, English. Although I am usually very good at figuring out words I do not know from context, my good friends have become adept at recognizing the momentary blank look on my face when I do not understand and then they patiently explain the Chinese phrases or sayings to me. With Caucasian people (who are native English speakers), I also edit my words, and avoid the words of my daily work at Asian American Village—APA, ABC, JACL, hapa, desi, haole, 1.5 generation, Spam musubi, mochi, issei, nisei, sansei—because they will not know the words and it will take too long to explain. I also disguise my criticisms and hide my worries about racism and stereotypes behind florid apologetic language so they will not realize what I am really saying and get offended or defensive. In contrast, almost every time I talk to a Caucasian person, I end up getting unintentionally insulted. Because I am one of the few Asian Americans they know who can speak English well, they touch my arm and whisper conspiratorially what they really think, because they assume I am “more American” than the others. Or they instinctively grimace and say, “How disgusting!” or “That’s so weird!” not realizing that they are insulting my everyday food, practice, or culture. These are polite Midwestern people who would be horrified if they knew what they were communicating. I just keep a frozen smile pasted on my face, so they will not feel embarrassed for their ignorance or insensitivity. Sometimes I get so confused switching all the time from Chinese to easy English to politically censored English to sanitized kid-speak (no bad words) that I end up speaking Chinese to my husband. You’re talking in Chinese again. Oops. Sometimes I feel like my English is deteriorating and I hear myself dropping articles and plurals, and pronouncing certain words with a Chinese accent—my own personal pidgin.
Repairing a Fractured Psyche
When I first moved to Michigan for graduate school, I had the hardest time making myself understood. Was it my L.A. accent (or lack thereof…I thought that a California accent was supposed to be the national broadcasting standard)? My too-casual California style? My face and voice confounding their expectations? My mysterious Oriental aura (sic sic sic!)? I never knew how people were going to hear what I was saying. I could have conversations with people that lurched into new directions with every single sentence because we misunderstood each other so completely. With many of my peers I felt that although we were native English speakers, we clearly were not speaking the same language. When I met my husband, he was the first person to get my jokes in almost two years (so I had to marry him). Since I was a philosopher of language, I thought the solution would be to rein in my language and to try to speak more and more precisely, and only say exactly what I meant. The more people misunderstood me, the more I pared my language down. No more metaphorical descriptions, no figures of speech, no polite lies and pleasantries. What a disaster. That is not how normal people speak, and even less how Midwesterners speak. The more I whittled and honed my language, the less people could understand what I was saying. These days, when I have a chance to hang out with my very few American Born Chinese (ABC) friends or other American-born APA friends, I find I can finally relax and talk freely. I can switch between English and Chinese as needed, I can use the APA words of my work, talk about the real issues that trouble me, and use words as big as I want without anyone even noticing. They understand what I am saying and what I am not saying. My stories and my struggles make sense to them. I do not have to translate or search for another word. I just finished reading Garrett Hongo’s book, Volcano. I had been saving it for a time when I could read it while staying on the Big Island of Hawaii, just down the hill from Volcano Village. Surrounded by the same rainforest, giant fern trees, and constant rain, I find the book a delightful read with beautiful language, vibrant imagery, engaging stories, and a compelling truth. He refers liberally to literature both Western and Eastern, classic and modern—from the landscapes of Dante to characters from the Bhagavad Gita to dialogue from Japanese samurai films and more. However, one of the things in it that thrills me the most is the sheer number of words that I do not know, writers of which I have never heard, literatures I have never read. It has been a long time since I have been challenged in this way.
I used to write like that, think like that, talk like that. It has been so long. Could I really do it again? Do I dare? As I wavered on the brink, I went to see Jason Scott Lee’s production of the play, Burn This, up at his place in Volcano Village. One of the characters talks about how to fearlessly create art and live life. “Make it personal, tell the truth, and then write ‘Burn This’ on it.” Then, if you are really brave, instead of burning it, dare to share that truth with the world. Another character says, “This isn’t opera, this is life…Burn this.” Like the author of the Ono Poke recipe, I need to trust that people will get it, and be so compelling that those who do not get it will go out and try to learn more. No more fake polite smiles. No more fake apologies. More truth.
Other Readings of Interest by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang
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