pancakes as a sign
2 - 6 December, Week 10
It was July 2006, or maybe 2007, and we were allowed to go to some public gathering in Magnolia playfield — a fair? An event wherein booths selling food and jewelry were set up around the perimeter of the baseball diamond, and there wasn’t much to do except walk through and decide what to spend one’s allowance on, but it felt festive and summery and significant, when I was twelve, when any instance I was allowed to do something with my friends and no parents was significant.
At the top of the slope up from the part was a booth making crepes. Maybe that was what I chose to spend my easily-earned allowance on, or maybe Julia bought one, but I was transfixed. It was a time where I was latching on to things that would define me, that I could point to and say - that’s who I am - so that I could pretend that I wasn’t just a swirling blob of confusion and unknowing (my first email address contained the word “limegreen,” to illustrate how desperate I was to pin down a semblance of a personality). I pointed at the crepe griddle? pan? - the controlled swirl of the batter, the mesmerizing way it was tenderly coated against the heat with the gentle revolution of the special little wooden crepe squeegee - and I said “I want to be a crepe-maker when I grow up.”
Now, the number of futures I’ve imagined for “when I grow up” is greater than the number of Christmas trees that will blink into illumination this month across the Western world. Just last week I said that I want to be my supervisor when I grow up, which is still true. But that one, a crepe maker, has stuck in my head for some reason. Perhaps because it’s such a visual vision, my hands squeegeeing the dough into a perfect evenness across the perfect the circle of the pan. Perhaps because it’s a repudiation of what I’m supposed to be in most of my imagination - brave, complicated, creative. It’s a gloriously simple plan B, to stand around at festive occasions swirling dough around a hot pan and making people’s mouths and souls content for a few minutes. Anyway, whatever the reason, that moment on that hot July day, pointing to the crepe-maker and trying to mimic certainty to cover up how uncomfortable I felt in my pre-teen body, that moment has stuck with me.
Here comes the freaky part.
I’m continuing to read about Zhang Tianyi and 《如雪如山》, and I was reading an interview with her, and she was talking about how she’s had the mantle of being a writer of woman’s stories thrust upon her. She would really prefer to hide away, she said, and not have to answer questions like, “what kind of hardships have you experienced because of your gender?” (relatable). AND THEN SHE SAYS:
“Actually, I would probably prefer to be a pipe, or a pair of hands making jiānbǐng. I could allow everyone to enjoy fresh water from a mystical source, or let them grasp a steaming jiānbǐng, and it wouldn’t matter what color the pipe was, or if the hands making the jiānbǐng were fat or thin.”
What is a jiānbǐng?
A CREPE.
A crepe coated with egg and sprinkled with seseme seeds, then stuffed with lettuce and sauce and meat and folded - so a savory Chinese crepe - but it’s a crepe.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, as I am very frequently wont to do… but is that not a sign? Even if I’m imagining it, this crepe-y coincidence feels significant to me. Two years ago now, right around this time, I decided that I was going to leave home (Kunming), which was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I’ve spent the last two years convincing myself that it was the right one, and I do believe that it was, even on the days when I remember a random intersection in Kunming and start crying because I miss seeing the guy who was always sitting there at his e-bike repair cart chain-smoking. I believe that it was the right decision despite knowing that there is no right decisions in life, only the ones that you make, thereby relegating the other paths to the unseeable alternate timelines. I believe it was the right decision despite the tears leaking out of my eyes right now, thinking about how much I miss it.
Leaving meant that I got to find out that this Chinese woman I’ve never met also harbors dreams of making crepes. A Chinese woman who also finds significance in the little things, who is creative and complicated and intellectual and does things her own way; a Chinese woman who has written a wonderful book that has yet to be translated. I’m where I’m meant to be, if I got to read “其实，我更愿意做一根导管，或是一双摊煎饼的手。希望大家享用导管从神秘泉眼引过来的甜水、夹了果篦儿的煎饼，而不在意那根导管是什么颜色的、摊煎饼的手是胖是瘦,” next to a window that looks out on a slightly deranged Byzantine-style mural. Leaving has meant so many other things, so many lovely new friends who have helped me learn more about the world, who have made me laugh and who have let me cry. It’s meant growing and doubting and authentic pride, and learning to be picky about where to get a pint of Guinness. I know all these things, but it helps to get a little sign from the universe in the perfectly circular shape of a well-made crepe.
Tangentially, I have not stopped craving jiānbǐng.
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A note on translation: in the above, I translated Zhang as saying that she would rather be a pipe, conveying fresh water from a mystical source. That is a perfectly adequate translation, which I chose because I wanted to focus on the jiānbǐng of it all. However, the genius of Zhang is that 导管 could be “a pipe”, or it could be “a conduit”. 甜水 could be “fresh/sweet water”, or it could be “happiness, contentment”. She’s also metaphorically imagining herself as a conduit, bringing contentment to people from a mysterious source.
A further note: I say crepe in this, because that’s what the booth that 12-year-old Audrey saw was selling, and because pancake means something much more fluffy to American readers. I apologize for any lexical inaccuracy.