Imitation of Leslie Chang's zuihitsu

I was so struck by this form (and it's content) after doing some research that I decided I would try and imitate the style for some of my writing. I'm very interested in the fusion of creative non-fiction prose with poetry, and this form seemed appropriate in which to experiment. In case some are curious, a zuihitsu is a Japanese-style record of everyday life and reflection that dates back to the 700s. It developed mainly in the aristocratic courts as a way to bring out themes or recurring ideas of love and nature (mostly). One of the first writers to use the style was, ironically (or maybe not) a woman, Sei Shonagon, who Chang mentions and who is also given mention at the bottom of the page, along with her book of zuihitsus, The Pillow Book. Anyway, I was intrigued, and here is my attempt down below:


Tembang Sunda for Indonesia


Pad Thai

Tonight I need curry paste and red pepper, hidden in the cupboard behind the cardamom and cumin seeds. Reaching into the back, my hand rests momentarily on each jar’s cap, each pinched-off bag’s tip. I pull my hand forward again—on my fingertips light dustings of Calcutta, Beijing, Valparaíso. Toward the very back, in-between Indian and Japanese, I pull to the front the crumpled package of shredded coconut with peanuts my stepfather’s mother uses.

Lumpia

Or sticky white rice stuffed with seasoned, shredded chicken—of which I no longer eat.

Once, when I was little and waiting for the lumpia to be done, I sat down in my Oma’s apartment—the one that rose twenty stories from downtown San Jose; the one with the water fountains across the street; the ones my older brother and I would jump and dance until our shoes and clothes were soaked; this apartment—and drew out a long box stuffed with pictures and letters. Their edges were torn in places, their corners bent and some broken off, now lining the bottom of the box. Like the little bits of memory that break off and linger just underneath the rest.

Torn edges

Memory

Leafing through the box, I found a photograph—black and white and gray tones—with stucco walls lining one side and trees, as dense as the stuffed box, lining the other. In the center stood a dark woman, her hair pulled tightly back over her skull so that the long, intricate earrings hanging from her ears would not catch and snag on a loose strand.

The woman held a child, wrapped in cloth. Turning from the box, “Oma,” I asked, “who is this?” I held the photograph out to her, but she told me to shut the box and put it back.

Those days are done.

Come and eat, schatje.

Or, come and eat, my precious one. We will talk of happier things tonight. The rest, it seems, is just torn edges, rifts in memory.

I glanced over at the table and saw my father, who remembered little of Indonesia. In seventh grade the teacher assigned a class project: we were to investigate our family history. “Tell us about your mother’s side and your father’s side,” Mrs. Woicicki said.

“Does stepfather count?” I asked.



“There were white walls,” he said, when I asked him to remember Indonesia. Also, a courtyard in the back of the house. Fruit trees. And monkeys. In the mornings and afternoons the thin-tailed animals crawled over the courtyard walls and he fed them bananas from a tree in the yard. The monkeys would cautiously approach and take the fruit from his hands.

Uncertain memories

Uncertain because he did not know if they were his, or sentences his mother told him throughout the years—

A servant attended Oma to the marketplace every morning. She carried an umbrella over Oma’s head for shade. By late afternoon, when the shadows in the courtyard were long and full, Oma sat in a woven chair while another servant combed coconut oil through her long hair.

Her hair is now short and gray and wispy. You can see right down to the bone.

When she left Indonesia and moved to Holland, my father was three. 1952. Post-WWII independence. The Dutch leave the islands. Sukarno—the country’s first president.

In Holland, her family of six shared a one-bedroom house, which my stepfather described as no bigger than a bathroom.

Shared spaces

Table

Bed

Sink

Toilet

Windowsill

Doorway

When they sat down to eat, at the table laid bare, I imagine my stepfather asking “Why?” Did my Oma continue to boil the rice, stir the sauce? Was she able to find those things at all? What remained there between the krupoo and peanut sauce—hollow memories, again, better left untouched. “Come and eat, Son.”

White spaces

A blank page

An uncoiled thought

Years later, after finding the box and after the interview with my stepfather, I imagined my Oma laying the table bare. Maybe one day, I thought, she will tell me herself about the men, and the guns, and the shot she watched tear into her first husband’s head as he stood in the street, lined up next to so-and-so from next door and down the way. Perhaps she can still recall the exact point of entry—or did she close her eyes? Perhaps she can remember the sound as she stood five feet away—or did she cover her ears? The years after—what were they like? To remarry, knowing more fully that nothing remains, to bear children, not knowing as she made her way across the Indian Ocean and up the Gulf of Aden that the one still wrapped in cloth from the local market would die before her memories began to fade.

Memories

Of the boy who I can no longer picture in my head—not a laugh, not a smile, not a tone of voice.

To be locked up with memories muddled suddenly by another language, from another time.

I imagine redemption will be a thread.

A small strand that somehow comes loose to cause all memories to be shared in common, at a table laid bare. One day the food will conjure up some thought that will roar out and split the air—“Oma,” I will say, “who is this?” And my stepfather, from his grave will echo, “Why?” Maybe our voices will sever the stillness at once, but for now, there is silence between spaces, a quiet feast to commune with things buried.



I put the pot on the stove—it doesn’t matter when—yesterday, last week, three-thousand-six-hundred and twenty-two days ago—and boil the water for the noodles.

Pad Thai is not lumpia, is not krupoo. But it is what I know. Sliced carrots, cubed tofu, ground peanuts, bean sprouts. Spices. In college I tried cooking Indonesian rice, like the kind Oma used to make in the apartment. I copied the recipe from a page in Vegetarian Times Magazine onto a 3x5 note card. I rode my bicycle eight and a half miles to downtown Spokane and up the South Hill to Huckleberry’s Natural Food Market. I filled a bag with brown rice and purchased peanut and sesame oil, a can of crushed pineapple, red bell pepper, snow peas and water chestnuts.

At home I brought out a half cup of orange juice, red pepper, minced garlic and tamari. I chopped scallions and celery, toasted cashew pieces at 300 degrees.

When the rice was tender I mixed in the other ingredients and licked the wooden spoon. I could not remember the taste.

Cardamom

Coconut

Lemongrass

If I were to sit down at this moment, at this table laid bare, my food would be for thought, not words, to separate and judge generations.

If all remained, we would eat.

Julie Lauterbach-Colby