Monthly Archives: March 2021

I meant to write about something entirely different this week, but I really can’t do that song and dance today. After watching news about the murder of eight people in Atlanta, including six Asian women, I discovered that I had been clenching my fists so tightly that I was bleeding from a cut in my palm caused by my pinky nail. I thought I probably needed to work through some things, and here we are.

Fact is, I don’t feel like doing my little “Amazing Thailand” routine about how awesome Thai food is right now. I’m sure I’ll get over that real soon, since I have a cookbook coming out. But right now, I’m just going to let myself be angry.

I didn’t think I would be this incensed over the news. I thought that I was insulated from it, because I had taken the advice of all of those people years ago who told me to “go back to your own country” (spoiler alert: I did!). But the fact is that hate crimes against Asian Americans rocketed by almost 150 percent last year, according to California State University’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, and that trend doesn’t seem to be abating anytime soon. In actuality, we saw that curve rise daily, stoked by people who needed a reliable scapegoat in order to deflect attention away from their own incompetence in fighting the pandemic. We saw politicians cast themselves as “freedom fighters” against masks and vaccines while in reality attempting to take away the freedoms of minorities. I might have left, but my fellow Asian-Americans are still sticking it out at home.

Of course, there is context around it: “economic insecurity”, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. And although everyone around the world is feeling some of that insecurity, including yours truly, only a few places are really making that insecurity be known by knocking doddering old men to the ground and shooting women at their places of work. And before people say hey, #notallamericancities, well, yes, this stuff is happening on both coasts as well, don’t you worry.

The truth is, this was always a very real possibility. When people say “model minority” as a compliment, everyone takes it to mean “hardworking” and “self-reliant” and all that other stuff that Asian-Americans tell themselves. (Why else would so many Asian-Americans be diehard Republicans?) What “model minority” really means, though, is a pat on the head for “eating all the shit that gets doled out to you on a daily basis.” It means that any racist microaggressions, like “Where do you REALLY come from?”, “gentle” racist jokes on driving, getting elbowed out of the way by bigger people who pretend not to see you, are all met with almost no repercussions. What is the worst that could happen if you call someone a “filthy Asian” or make “slanty” eye faces at them? (Please google “Ronaldo slanty eye Korea” and see what else you come up with.) You hurt some people’s feelings? You end up on a Youtube video? You can always fight that by saying that you won’t be cowed by the “woke police”, or that you don’t like being “politically correct”, or that old chestnut, “fake news”, a phrase that my own 11-year-old son tries to use to get out of trouble. The assumption on the other side is that these aren’t real people you are insulting or belittling. They’ll just scurry back to wherever they were before you saw them; there are so many of them, billions in China! And they all look alike. Everybody knows that.

When there are no repercussions, it’s ridiculously easy for that kind of abuse to escalate, especially when the victims are treated as a faceless monolith. This was brought vividly home to me today, when I got angry. Atlanta police officer Jay Baker said the man who — allegedly! — killed eight people was having a “bad day”. This makes me hope that Jay Baker never has a bad day.

I also hope the (alleged!) Atlanta shooter of eight people feels better today. Please, guys, send your thoughts and prayers to this dude with the face like a steamed baozi bun that split at the bottom and started drooling out barbecued pork filling, because he had a bad day. Be nice to these guys! It’s all on us to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.

The only way that Asians can really “rise up”, realistically, is to show their solidarity through their wallets. After all, what else have you been working so hard for, if not this? If there are businesses that support people who put you in danger, whether through their words or through their actions, why give them money? If people ask you for money (and views), only to turn around and incite violence against you, why would you help them?

Of course, I can be called “hysterical” and resorting to “racist cliche stereotypes” when recounting my own feelings and even experiences. It’s happened to me before. There’s nothing I can do about that, of course. What I can say is:

I haven’t mentioned this here before, but I would describe myself as an enthusiastic, if not serious, consumer of fragrances. Scents have been important to me all my life, really, from the very first moment I sneaked in a few dabs of my mother’s Jean Nate After Bath Splash (and got spanked for it.) If I had more means, I would definitely be more of a collector, but because I don’t, I wait until I use a couple of bottles up before I purchase another one. I can now state confidently that I make these additions to my fragrance wardrobe after much deliberation and research. I keep what I like and rotate them in accordance with the season. Of course, I’ve made some mistakes (a plummy floral scent from Berlin and a powdery Penhaligon’s come to mind).

When I was young, I was tied to the idea of having a signature fragrance. I used one smell, no matter what the occasion, no matter what the weather. My first perfume was “Eau Dynamisante” from Clarins, because I was fascinated by all the mysterious unguents at the Clarins counter and imagined myself as an older woman using all of them in whatever way they were supposed to be used. The perfume came in a deep red bottle with white lettering that I displayed proudly on my dresser at boarding school, and the juice inside smelled fresh and green, just like the name seemed to promise.

My friend at the time started wearing the same scent that I did and that put me off of it; I felt like it was the perfume equivalent of ordering the same thing at a restaurant, which is a personal pet peeve of mine (how can you share?)

I started wearing Guerlain’s Pamplelune from its Aqua Allegoria collection, an attempt by the old house to appeal to a younger set turned off by grand orientals like Mitsouko and, God forgive me, Jicky, which I wanted to like but which Karen told me smelled like “old man’s butt”. Pamplelune, on the other hand, suited me perfectly: still fresh, sweet and citrusy, with a little undertow of vanilla. On me, it smelled more like cocktail than teenage girl. I wore it for years, and even getting a whiff of the scent today vividly brings back to me my years in Paris, when I lived on the fifth floor off of Boulevard Saint Germain and only two people fit in the elevator at a time.

It was only when I hit my 40s when I started to think of perfume as a “wardrobe”, something to change with your feelings or with the temperature at the time. As my friend Noy used to say, “Keeping the same scent on everyday is like keeping on the same pair of underwear.” I wanted to change my underwear.

Today I have a modest collection and a lot more little samples that I bring with me when I travel (not so much anymore). It looks like this:

Every scent on the shelf has some purpose depending on what day or event it is. Some, like the Dolce Vita by Dior, I’ve only started wearing again because I was sickened by its bright sweet woody scent, post-pregnancy. Some, like the Byredo Mojave Ghost, I only wear when I have a formal event (so I have not worn that one for a while). The weather got so temperate a few months ago that I was even able to sneak in a few nights of the Guerlain Vol de Nuit, a scent that I keep mostly for the nostalgia factor nowadays. But my wardrobe is mostly the ones remaining: En Passant, of wet lilacs and bread, during the rainy season; Estee Lauder’s Tuberose and Gardenia, gifted by Noy, on hot nights; D.S. & Durga Coriander on my usual day; and Hermes Un Jardin de Mr. Li when it’s so hot that I can’t be bothered to think of what to wear.

Food, obviously, has a scent wardrobe too, and the scents that get you running to the table are different for everyone. For me — and I realize this might be a very acquired thing — it’s the smell of kapi, or shrimp paste. I just love my shrimp paste chili dip, and wherever it is served, I am usually happy to have it. On the flip side of the coin, if the nam prik kapi is disappointing or, God forbid, bland, there is nothing worse in Thai food.

Good thing, then, that I was given very recently my husband’s family recipe for nam prik kapi (what were they waiting for?). Everyone has their own version of this dish, and Win’s family is no different: they include orange juice, which makes it a little sweeter and aromatically, tweaks the scent a little bit as well. It’s not hard to make; I even managed it. For me, it’s best with some fresh Thai eggplants, a nice fluffy omelette, and some fragrant jasmine rice.

Ingredients:

— 1 Tbsp good-quality kapi (shrimp paste. The one we most often use comes from the area around Hua Hin — Prachuab Khiri Khan — which sells kapi kuey, made from the area’s prized fermented krill).

— 3 chee fah (goat or spur) chilies, any color, sliced

— 5 bird’s eye chilies, any color

— 10 small garlic cloves, preferably Thai

— 3 cilantro roots

— 1 Tbsp palm sugar

— 4 Tbsps lime juice

— 3 Tbsps orange juice

— 1 Tbsp fish sauce

— 1 Tbsp tamarind juice

— 2 heaping Tbsps powdered or ground dried shrimp

— 1 handful of pea eggplants, if available

Method:

1. If you have access to banana leaves (but namwah banana leaves only), please wrap your shrimp paste in a banana leaf and roast in the oven or grill over an open flame for 1-2 minutes. If not, roast shrimp paste in a hot pan for 1-2 minutes until fragrant.
2. Mash long chilies and garlic together in mortar and pestle. If you like it spicier like my husband, add the five bird’s eye chilies and mash too. Otherwise, save those chilies for garnish at the end.
3. Add cilantro roots to the mash and pound to incorporate.
4. Add toasted kapi to mix and mash to incorporate. Then add palm sugar, lime juice and orange juice and mix together until incorporated. 
5. Add pea eggplants if you have them. Lightly bruise and stir to mix.
6. Add fish sauce and tamarind juice and mix. Taste for seasoning. It should be salty, spicy, sweet, and sour, in that order.
7. Add dried shrimp powder and mix. Taste again. Adjust seasoning if necessary.
8. Decant into a bowl and garnish with any bird’s eye chilies that are left. Surround with fresh Thai eggplants, cucumbers and boiled eggs, along with eggplants and pork meatballs below.