Degrees of Love (Fake Chinese Restaurants)
M: So, it went well, did it?
S: As well as it could, I suppose? It was very chilax.
M: Are you bringing others into it?
S: They are welcome…I suppose this relates to all of you.
W: Congratulations.
S: Although it’s not the same field as you arose from, D__’s field was Romanticism before.
W: That’s quite all right. Your devotion is commendable. And Romanticism is where popular literatures took off and the common people began to be weighed more.
S: I suppose.
GX: xiu cai for you.
S: There are a lot more now. I’m not sure that carries the same weight.
M: Well, it still went well.
S: No offence to the two of you, but that means a lot, coming from you.
M: It’s not something I could do.
S: No, you compensate for what I lack. And, well, yes, I suppose this is because of both of you,
as well.
GX: What does it have to do with me?
S: They might not consider it, but you may have considered all of your subjects and your children. And this is Asian modernity I am talking about. You would be happy to know this is going on. It’s finally going as you wanted it to go. We’ve finally picked up, and shown the West what we’re made of. All right, it’s more frivolous than what you imagined, but that’s part of my argument, that this is part of modernity. And postmodernity.
GX: I see.
S: And to do with you – well, as you said…the devotion comes from you. The lasting conviction that this is important. And that I have to do this. Even if sometimes I feel like I can’t get my head around some of the concepts, or I feel that I’m not worthy to handle the imaginations of so many greater than me – well, then I must improve myself. It’s become such a part of me. I can only hope I can be a part of it. I’ve been chasing the sublime, and I know I can never work in Romanticism – too many have come before me – but as you said, it’s similar.
M: Don’t start crying again.
S: I’m not going to. I did come close to it many times today. I just…ok maybe your warning just
now was justified.
M: Are you…?
S: I suppose, in a way like…like you.
W: Me?
S: Your character base. It’s hard not to. Don’t worry…it’s not like that at all. I mean, my mother and Prof was already a warning sign about this sort of thing. It’s another degree of love.
M: Well, don’t start crying.
S: The first time was when they guided me out of the room. The second was when I was entering the Phoenix. The third time was when I was looking into my hot water. And the fourth time in the hallway when Jessie and I were leaving, when I saw D and M and V together. Different degrees again. Relief, and thankfulness, and feeling fortunate, and feeling wistful.
M: And in the restaurant?
S: You mean in the evening?
M: Yes. What was that all about?
S: I was thinking, this is Asian America, isn’t it? And I couldn’t help think that I’ve been wrong.
M: About what?
S: About those people. I was being like Frank Chin, distancing myself from people who recently came from Asia, thinking that there are too many differences between me and them. Especially as it relates to consumerism. And the restaurant staff were probably Cantonese and HK kids working in a Northern Chinese food restaurant probably owned by Cantonese people. I would have dismissed the food as inauthentic in a moment, and on the street I would have dismissed youths who look like them as rich kids whose experiences have nothing to do with my life. But I saw them carrying a stack of ten plates in their veined hands while Rilakkuma cell phone chains dangled from their pockets, and I realized, you are who I have been writing about, all your slurry-laced, plate-banging, disjunctive lives. So next time on the street and in Richmond shopping centres, I’ll look a second time and consider us alike.
M: It almost sounds like this moral event was more important than the defence.
S: Well, it’s an outcome of what the defence represented. I was passed easily, I know, but it’s still a defence about why this is important. And those young Chinese people in the restaurant became the reason why this is all important, for a moment.
W: You said once before that your mother urged you to take responsibility for the path you have chosen, that you represent a particular subjectivity of your generation. So this is the fruition.
S: Part of it. When she put it that way that time, I felt burdened. One reason I don’t want to go into Sciences, and especially not medicine, was that I’m generally pretty scatterbrained and I don’t trust myself with the life and death of other people. And I thought she made it sound like Humanities was the same thing, and I was uncertain about whether I want to see the Humanities in this light. But I can’t be hypocritical; I can’t advocate the importance of the humanities without also believing that it could have as much impact over the life and death of humanity, and in some ways I have to admit that it might have more sway that Science over the life and death of our collective Humanity.
In the restaurant, the burden finally rounded out into all the nooks of my skull. I finally saw whose burdens I was carrying. And even if ultimately we are not alike, it didn’t matter. If they never recognize what I’m doing, it doesn’t matter either. If they don’t feel the effects of work like mine, then their descendants would, or new immigrants would. The project of Asian North America and the people finally connected, and the burden was sublime.
