Add most of the dressing and toss thoroughly. Add more dressing if required. Sprinkle the salad with roasted peanuts and crispy shallots for added flavor.
My husband saw the incoming call flashing on my iPhone and hollered for me to come in from the balcony where I was watering plants. We stood there staring at the phone as if it might explode if we breathed too loudly. Finally I overcame my nerves and took the call.
“Congratulations!” a jolly producer called out, sounding as if he’d just sucked down some helium. “You are one of our twelve finalists to get on Sliced and Diced! Well, actually, you were thirteenth, but one of the other contestants had a –”
I was too stunned to listen. The only way I had kept my composure through the interviews and screen tests and awkward waiting-room encounters with other contestants was to cling to my certainty that they would never, ever choose me. Now they had. My world flipped upside down. My fate was to be a good wife to my husband and to take pride in his accomplishments, not my own. That was the way I was raised. That was the way generations of Vietnamese women had been raised. Who was I to buck that system? Who was I to hope to change my fate?
“Thirteenth?” I stammered weakly, realizing I’d better say something to the producer on the phone.
He laughed.
“No, no – you’re twelfth. You made it!”
Why is it that when you try your hardest to stop the tears from flowing, they only gush more?
“Thank you,” I said faintly, wanting to kick myself for sounding like a little girl.
The producer prattled on, relaying the logistics of what would happen next. He mentioned that he would be sending the details along in an email, so I knew I didn’t have to try too hard to make sense of what he was saying. How could I make sense of anything?
There are four feminine virtues a Vietnamese woman must possess: Công, Dung, Ngôn and Hạnh. Be skillful, be beautiful, be eloquent, be virtuous. A Vietnamese woman has no choice but to accept the fate she is given by God. She can complain about that fate and get sympathy for it, but nothing more. She definitely cannot change it.
Fate was biased. A man could attempt to change the winds. He could do his utmost to shift the direction of his life if he wished. If he succeeded, he would be congratulated. “Truthfully, fate is only about 80 percent of life!” would come the pronouncement. “You can change the other 20 percent if you really want.” If he fell short of his goal, well that was fate, wasn’t it?
If a woman successfully changed the outcome of her ill-fated life, then it was just meant to be. Fate intended that for her all along. It wasn’t because of something she did to escape its grips. And upon observing her physical traits, ah ha! It was ordained in her features to succeed.
My ex-mother-in-law never really cared for me. She thought I was too fat for her son, the doctor. Since he insisted on marrying me, she made sure to have my star charts read by a Vietnamese astrologer who deemed that our signs were compatible. She reluctantly accepted me as her future daughter-in-law only because I have a nose that was rather round at the tip. This was a sign that I would be rich.
Thank goodness I didn’t opt for a nose job to slim out the tip of my nose and raise its bridge as so many Asian women do. The desire for this perfect feature has sent many girls to the operating table. Before the surgery the others would criticize the woman for having an unattractive flat or big nose. After the surgery they would talk behind her back, whispering and giving knowing looks that she had undergone surgery, clucking that her new attractiveness was bought and unnatural. You could never win.
For us, learning to love yourself didn’t exist as a concept. Loving yourself meant you were selfish and self-centered. You would be violating the fourth admirable attribute, Hạnh.
To live for others and to please them was your duty, a duty drilled into us from an early age. As a teenager I was not allowed to go out often with my friends. If I planned to go to the movies on a Saturday, I would have to do extra chores, being extra cheerful and helpful with Mom to justify asking permission to go out with my friends. I’d wait until Saturday morning, when Mom seemed to be in a good mood, to plead my case.
“Mom, may I go to the movies with my friends tonight?” I asked sheepishly.
“What?” she barked. “Đi đâu – Go where?”
From her tone I knew I was in deep trouble. I wished I could take the question back. If I could, maybe that vicious look she was giving me would vanish from her face. I lowered my voice to answer her while avoiding looking into her big, dark eyes.
“To the movies,” I stated as evenly as I could.
“Again?” she fired right back at me.
Her face was hard as stone as she put me in my place.
“You always want to go play around,” she carried on. “You don’t care about this family. Do you think this is a hotel? You should spend your time studying and tidying up the house!”
I bowed my head and bravely defended myself.
“I’ve only been out once with my friends! That was five months ago!” I protested.
OK, not really. I was such a coward, I could only voice such a brave response to her in the peace and quiet of my own thoughts. I never dared speak aloud such words to my mother. Instead, I clenched my jaw to hold back the tears of indignation. If she saw me cry, things would only get worse. I stood there until she dismissed me by turning her body away from me and returning her attention to watching Hong Kong kung fu movies, dubbed in Vietnamese. That was the end of the conversation. I went from being the model daughter all week to being an ungrateful, uncaring and shameful human being. I was fourteen.
Was she aware of the impact such a simple conversation would have on my life? Did she ever replay her memories of her own childhood, back to that time when she swore on the mountaintop of Shaolin Temple that she would never treat her children the way Ngoại treated her?
Mom had an active imagination as a child. To escape her daily life, she became a huge fan of martial arts books. Her favorites were written by a former Chinese newspaperman named Louis Cha, who wrote under the pen name Jin Young, or Kim Dung as he was commonly known. His books were packed with action and adventure and sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. They explored human failings and constructed the moral foundations of many young people from her generation to mine. Within the pages of these books Mom found love and developed her sense of heroism.
In fact, these books were the best friends my mother had as a girl. Whenever she fell into a mood of thinking life was unfair, she would dream of climbing up to the top of Mount Song to live with Buddhist monks at the Shaolin Monastery, founded in the fifth century, and learn the ways of kung fu. After she had learned all the secrets of the masters, she would come down from the mountain and save the world from all that was unjust. She used to act out the action scenes in her sleep. She jumped around, kicking and fighting, so much the mosquito nets on her four-poster bed fell over. Spanking and scolding soon followed those action-packed nights. That was when she swore never to hit her own children.
The philosophies from Dung’s books shaped my mother’s morals and world view throughout her life. This is probably true of many Chinese and Vietnamese youth of her time, and of my generation as well. We embraced Dung’s philosophy of good vs. evil. Of how the truth will reveal itself one day. Of taking on suffering alone. Of protecting the weak. Of never explaining our actions. Of searching for our one true love. Of accepting that suffering is simply a part of life.
Mom never physically hurt us. She kept us in line by sending fear and disapproval surging out through her eyes. She had this way of widening her eyes so big you could see the white all around her dark irises. Her nose flared and we knew to stop whatever we were doing instantly. In place of whips to split our flesh apart, she used her big eyes and cutting words to tear through us.
Upon arriving at the television studio in New York City I was greeted by my new housemates, otherwise known as the competition. There were camera
s everywhere capturing our every move. Thus it began. I put on my performance face and straightened my posture. I knew I looked good in my navy blue shift dress with capped sleeves, comfortable three-inch black pumps and 32D, back-fat suppressing bra. Everyone had drinks in their hands. To calm their nerves, I imagined. I was offered some Champagne but declined with a faint smile. I am allergic to alcohol. This is God’s gift to many people of Asian descent.
I sized up my competition while smiling at them and shaking the men’s hands and giving the women the appropriate three-second hugs. I could tell some were not huggers. I was not a hugger, either, but I wanted to throw them off. I knew from previous shows that it was best to play nice with everyone because you never knew who might become your teammate during one of the challenges, and there was always time later to turn people into enemies. I noticed Elvis sitting in the corner with his smartphone. So he made the show. Interesting. I slowly zigzagged over to him, acting as if I were headed somewhere else and had run into him by accident, then extended my hand.
“Hi, I’m Kieu,” I said and waited for him to look up. Then I kept waiting. And kept waiting. I wondered if a camera in some corner was capturing my growing look of awkwardness. Elvis was thumbing his way through a text and clearly in no hurry to interrupt his progress.
“Hi, I’m Jay,” he said, finally glancing up. “I saw you at the tryout.”
So he was a straight shooter. I liked that.
“And I saw you,” I said, a smile hovering at the corners of my lips.
Jay, it turned out, was a twenty-six-year-old working as an executive chef in a small restaurant in Dallas. His show was about giving a unique twist to traditional recipes. He was confident and articulate. I was impressed. I was also glad when our conversation was cut short by the host of the show.
“Welcome everyone to Sliced and Diced!” the host called out.
He waited out a smattering of applause from the obvious butt-kissers among the contestants, and then flashed a wolfish smile.
“From now on you are no longer allowed to use your phones unless it is authorized by our producers,” he announced, prompting a chorus of groans. “Those are the rules. Say bye-bye!”
Elvis’ face crumpled into a look of extreme agony as his phone was wrenched from his hand. I did not have time to gloat. We all had to search our bags and pockets for our phones and hand them over as solemnly as possible, as if we were naughty children being punished. My iPhone is an extension of me. I was sure the separation anxiety and withdrawal pains from giving it up for the length of the competition – up to three months – would be a lot tougher than being away from my family.
“I am your host, Peter,” he continued, pausing to see if he could milk a little more applause out of the moment. No luck on that front. The butt-kissers were chastened. Peter looked the part, that was for sure. He was a blonde man in his late thirties, handsome bordering on pretty, with a British accent and stylish spiky hair. He was the new host, just announced. His predecessor had been mysteriously dumped. Rumors circulated about a scandal involving fold-up lawn chairs, circus performers and Cheese Whiz, but the details shifted with each telling.
“Are you ready for your first challenge?” Peter intoned, hands clasped in front of his waist to highlight his perfect posture.
Every contestant but one – me! – gasped. They should have seen this coming. It was like a predictable plot twist in a scary movie: You had to know, if you watched enough reality TV, that they were going to try to catch you off-guard early with a shift in the routine. It was practically part of the routine. Silence settled over the room like a heavy sheet, but I was not fazed in the least. I had arrived the night before and got a good night’s sleep before coming to the studio so I would be more than ready for whatever came. I’d heard talk of most of the others carousing until late.
“Today we would like you to cook a dish that represents you,” Peter said, leaning on the last word like a life raft. “It can be anything you want it to be!”
Nervous buzzing filled the room again.
“You have one hour to prepare your dish and present it on camera to our panel of judges!”
Peter introduced the three judges and continued with the explanation on the rules of engagement. I listened attentively. Some of the contestants had clarification questions. Someone always had questions. This annoyed me. I wanted to get to my dish. Peter answered all the questions and then paused for emphasis before making one last statement for the cameras, smiling smugly and pausing for a long three-count.
“And two of you will be eliminated today!” he pronounced.
That was a new one for this show. They’d never axed two contestants right out of the gate like this before. Even I was shocked. Still, I did not put my hand to my chest or cover my mouth in astonishment, the way some of the women did. It was no surprise to have more drama thrown at us and no help to dwell on the latest twist. I was not worried about being eliminated this round. It was not going to happen. I had come prepared and knew exactly what to make. My mom’s own creation, Vietnamese Feminine Salad. I picked this recipe because I was able to tell an interesting story about it. It required a lot of knife work but simple cooking techniques. I had practiced it for weeks before coming on the show and knew I could finish it in thirty minutes, no problem.
I put on the required white apron with the red Sliced and Diced lettering at the top and changed into the flats I always carried with me, dropping me from five-five to a mere five foot one. On almost any other occasion this sudden change in height would have left me feeling self-conscious and flustered, but not this time. Right then it did not matter to me how tall or short I was. Nothing mattered except that I was ready to go. I was ready to charm the hell out of them, a mantra I kept repeating to myself as we stepped over to the next stage, where twelve professional kitchen stations were set up.
“You have ten minutes to familiarize yourself with the pantry and collect all your ingredients,” Peter told us.
Then he told us again – and again and again. As I was discovering, filming these shows required a lot of retakes. A one-hour show required dozens of hours of taping. I was anxious to get started.
“Get ready?” Long pause.
“Go!” exclaimed Peter.
The mad rush began. Almost everyone raced to the pantry, refrigerator and spice racks. Some ran to claim a cooking station, although there was one for everyone and they were all identical. It was hilarious, watching contestants dash madly, like cockroaches scurrying every which way when you turn on the lights. There were camera operators all over the place, capturing everything that happened, and I had to give one or two other contestants a gentle little forearm shiver to clear space as I moved around the kitchen like a ninja, quick as the wind but balanced and light on my feet.
I collected my fresh ingredients and herbs and spices and rushed to my cooking station. One of the first things I did was fire up a pan with deep-frying oil to fry my thin slices of sweet potato, and it was comforting to hear and smell the oil heating up. I pulled out my chef’s knife to quickly julienne and chiffonade all my ingredients. Unlike professionally trained chefs with a full passel of knives, Vietnamese home cooks relied on cleavers. The rectangular-shaped blade is used for slicing, chopping, mincing and pounding. The handle is also used for pounding or for breaking hard shells like a hammer. We didn’t need special tools for special tasks. One big, sharp cleaver and that was about it. Even professional chefs such as Martin Yan, my idol from the PBS show Yan Can Cook, used a single cleaver to do everything from thinly slicing a cucumber to deboning a whole chicken.
Personally I never liked using a cleaver. They looked clunky to me and, frankly, scary. I did not even own one. When Mom came to visit, she kept telling me that without a cleaver I did not have a real kitchen. I did not get offended by her attitude. I enjoyed the reminder to us both that I am not my mother. She loved her cleaver. I loved my knives. That’s why I didn’t much like cooking in other people’s kitchens. I h
ated to do without my own knives. I could judge a cook by their knives. If they were dull, then it was going to be bad meal. This was actually one point on which Mom and I agreed. I had years of practice in her kitchen, working as her sous chef for most of my childhood, so slicing came easily to me. I used to hate the monotony of slicing, but Mom used these menial chores to train and prepare me to be a Vietnamese bride. She knew I could learn to meet the Công, be skillful, one of those four virtues required of a woman.
I made the sauce and tasted it a few times to be sure it was just right. I usually cook without any recipes so tasting is vital to pulling off a great dish. I was careful to use a new spoon to taste each time to keep everything clean. I didn’t want to be caught on camera double-dipping. That would really be embarrassing. Mom would no doubt have disowned me and publicly denied I was her daughter, even though in our culture double-dipping was considered quite normal.
I deep-fried my julienned sweet potato and placed the slices on a napkin to soak up the excess oil. I could hear the commotion my competitors were making all around me but mostly ignored I everything except the work in front of me. One exception was the familiar aroma of curry, which I had to pause to savor, ever so briefly. My favorite Indian chef was cooking up some amazing flavors two stations away from me. She looked beautiful today in a green sari with silver trim. Peter, always skilled at catching you unawares, sidled up to me and broke my concentration.
“Kieu, what are you making?” he asked.
“I’m preparing my mom’s own recipe of Vietnamese Feminine Salad.”
“Why do you think you’re going to win Sliced and Diced?” he asked point-blank.
No time to stall. No time to think. All I could do was sound confident.
“Because I’m the best cook here!” I replied, smiling, as if his question was almost too obvious to deserve a reply. My tone was rushed, with a teaspoon of annoyance and a pinch of hidden pride. I was sure the producers would love it – but would my fellow contestants hate me for it?
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