Food, memory, family, belonging & Pachinko

As a storm rolls across this river in a golden afternoon haze, I am finally starting this “substack”. This idea of story has been drilling through me. This should not be surprising as I am in the midst of my final revisions for my multi-book, science-fiction space opera, but “story” as a concept seems to have a never-ending depth of discovery for me.

Being human is about discovering the layers of your own story. I hope. I fear. And it turns out, when you start writing a story, the depth of what you write is only a reflection of how much you have unearthed the depth of your own story. That is what these revisions are about.

I have always been a fast reader, even a skimmer, but I absorb information quickly and well. Turns out in life, if things get difficult, weighty, complicated - I skim through life. Disassociation is the psychological term, I believe. I have this beautiful coping mechanism of seeing what I need to see, or experiencing what I can experience. A childhood trauma response, obviously - which feels so appropriate for little me. But now - I should be able to be present for it all. “Should”. Well, I am still learning.

But it has turned out, I have written this difficult, beautiful, soul-tearing novel, and my words dig into the emotions, but can often skim the world. In order for my characters to be fully present and experience the fullness of the world I’ve created, I have to allow them to “be present”. They cannot “disassociate”. At least, as an author, I have to allow my readers to “be present” and not “disassociate” with my characters as they try to absorb what is happening to them, and their agency in this world.

Lesson: I need to dig into my own experience of embodiment, in order to allow my readers and characters to be fully present on the journey I am taking them on. I have to heal the trauma-response to be the writer I want to be. Dude — that’s rough, hard, and maybe the best motivation I have ever had to finish this novel.

Example: And as I do this, I am discovering new stories and reveling in how beautiful they do this. My latest story-love is “Pacinko”, an epic Korean-Japanese-American story on AppleTV.

I love K-dramas! All kinds. Sci-fi, fantasy (of course), but also the rom-coms and the thrillers. But they can have this format of being quite silly — in a way I love. No shade. It is so much fun!! And don’t worry - I have yet to watched a K-drama with a happy ending. They are not for the hollywood idea of “now you get rewarded”. It’s pretty heart-breaking each time and satisfying.

No mater what - the storytelling prowess of the K-drama is bar-none. Characters are smart. Discoveries are not drawn out for dramatic effect. Every person has a full backstory and a full arc. Plot moves, characters completely change in a way that is fully earned.

Pacinko is not a K-drama. It is 1,000 times better. And that is saying a lot. Partly, because it is based on the novel by Min Jin Lee, who has written a true masterpiece.

Pacinko tells a story of emigration, colonialism, power, poverty, wealth, desperation, hope, hate, love — and mostly through the women. It is careful, studied and raw.

So, I am watching this show, and as an aside from the incredible story, I am loving all the scenes with food. All the little bowls that are shared by the table. All the care taken in what is served, no matter the status of the family. In fact, a bowl of rice seems to be the equivalent of a cup to tea in British life. If you visit someone, you will share rice. I took it for granted. It is even a K-drama characteristic. This love of food and a shared meal, as a way to show identity and belonging is something I’ve subconsciously come to expect.

And then, during one episode of Pacinko, the mother begs the grain-seller to sell her white rice (which is reserved only for the Japanese colonial occupiers) as a wedding gift for her daughter. The filming of the scene of her desperation and hope, the cinematography as she carefully washes this small portion of rice three times, was all so painfully and beautifully rendered.

The shock and almost tears of the daughter, as she realized what her mother would have had to give to provide this gift for her, was palpable in my chest. And then, when that same daughter/bride arrives in the home of her betrothed and his family does the same and provides a special meal for her and carefully sets a bowl of white rice before her.

I started crying before she did.

Washing rice. I have washed so many bowls and pots of rice. I come from a Caribbean background and rice is also our staple. I remember my father teaching me how to make rice - perfectly, each time. We washed. We used our finger to measure the water. We set the fire. We adjusted the fire. I also remember my grandmother saying how much she just loved her hands in the water, and how that was part of the reason she loved washing rice. I still love washing rice and the feel of the grains slip around my fingers in the water.

I also come from a people that use a lot of coconut milk, coconut cream and coconut water. Nowadays we use the cans, but the original came from grating the coconut and washing the meat. You always wash it three times. Each time you get a different kind of “milk”.

When I was learning Swahili, we learnt about the making of coconut milk. The three types of milk are called “tui”, and each tui has a special use in the cuisine. The third tui is used to cook vegetables.The first tui is the one they use to cook rice with - just like we do in the Caribbean for our coconut rice, even if ours also has beans, thyme and onions.

Here I was in my early twenties (almost 30 years ago now), and this was the first I was learning about how to make coconut milk, and the range of milks we could use in our cooking. When I went to Tanzania and Zanzibar a few years later, I got to taste these recipes, and immediately got this sense of connection between all the emigration, colonialism, poverty, wealth, desperation, hope, hate and love that had moved across the globe for me to have this experience.

And then came Pacinko. If you have AppleTV, I cannot recommend this show enough. The first episode is slow and there are so many subtitles, but it is WORTH it for you to take the time and allow yourself to “be present” for this story, immerse your senses in this world.

In the end, though, can we stay embodied, not only for the stories of others, but also for our own? I am working on that. Let’s be present. Wash the rice. Feel the grains. Millenia of our ancestors have been present for this, but maybe could not be present for their pain. We get to be present to the fullness of our experience. This should be a privilege, but it requires us to dig through our pain, unearth it and let it be real. Who wants that?

But, we can tell the story differently, stand in the storm, and still wash the rice. That is what I am working on.