As Mr. Heidkamp pointed out, I left a major part out my blog post “GOST Helped Me Rediscover My Love of Writing.” I mentioned that I was writing a story based on the writing style of of Roy. I chose to write a fiction peace that adopted the concepts of boundless perspective and grammar. I have attached a rough draft of the first few paragraphs of the first chapter below.

“When she arrived at the airport, she stood alone holding her leopard print duffel bag, in her crisscross-y, strap-y sandals. A man, who she wasn’t so comfortable with calling grandpa but did so anyway because of his being a father to her father, was on the way to pick her up. She felt out of place, standing in the terminal without a parent, because her duffle bag and crisscross-y sandals made her look and feel like a child, the opposite of how a girl of 14, who always said she was 15 wanted to look and feel.

The girl’s name was Margo, which she always thought it was such a stupid name. It sounded like her parents plucked it straight out of a Boxcar Children book. So she went by Belle, not because it was her middle name or the name of an aunt or something like that, but because she was sure that no one in her family, not even any great-great grandmas twice-removed had been named that. 

She didn’t know what her grandpa’s car looked like, but knowing him, she expected it to be something small and grey. And it was. Out of the car, after parking like a true old person, came Belle’s grandpa. He was slightly shorter than her, but probably had been much taller back when he was younger. He wore inch-thick, saucer-like glasses that seemed to float on his face like little halos. 

There was an awkward moment when neither went in for a hug and that reminded Belle that this man didn’t love her, which hurt a bit, but ultimately she was okay with that because she hated hugs anyway. Instead he pushed the corners of his lips up into a smile and she waved a hand. He insisted on putting her duffel bag into the trunk, but Belle did it herself because she could.”

Obviously this piece is a rough draft and only a fraction of the story, but I hope you are able to see some elements of Roy’s writing. Here is the link to the story so far, if you are interested.

When we first started getting news of a disease in China, the detail many American kids were captivated with was its supposed origin: a wet market.

A wet market is, simply put, an outside butcher, where vendors sell raw meat, fish and produce. Rumor has it that Covid-19 came from the consumption of a bat from a wet market in Wuhan. When I heard that news I was devastated, not because I’m a vegetarian or because I really like bats, but because of the racist backlash I knew would follow.

Every year my Chinese class goes to Brooks middle school to talk about the Chinese program. This year, in addition to the usual comments about eating dog, we got many insensitive questions and comments about cooking bats and the coronavirus. The whole experience made me really mad

I’m not mad with the Chinese person who ate the bat, or the market that sold it, or the culture that deemed it okay, because its not my culture and it is out of my zone of control. I was mad at the inability for Western people to think from a different perspective because the Cultural norm, that is of course not shared by all Chinese people, to leave nothing to waste deserves so much more respect.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I suggest you read the book, Sichuan Pepper and Shark Fin Soup by Fuchsia Dunlop. In this book, Dunlop tells the story of her travel to China and her discovery of the province of Sichuan through its food. Most notably, Dunlop describes the practice by many Chinese people, to eat the whole animal and to leave nothing to waste. The parts that we Americans tend to leave aside, like intestines, eyes, and fins, are incorporated into some Chinese dishes.

Along with this norm comes the rare consumption of unconventional-seeming animals like turtles, dogs, and bats. I don’t think it’s wrong, not that my opinion really matters, to consume animals such as these. What’s normal is different in different places. For example, the rampant consumption of beef in America may be appalling for many Hindus who believe the cow is sacred and our normalcy of Cheese Wiz may, and probably does, make everyone else want to puke.

Now, what does this have to do with Orientalism? Well, Orientalism is the tendency to warp and exaggerate the differences in the West compared to the East. I believe that the difference in food consumption is one of the many things that has been exaggerated. Yes, the average American eats differently from the average Chinese, but the difference is not as stark as we make it seem and the American horror surrounding these differences really stems from ignorance.