Regular readers will know that in the little flat I share with Saffy
and Amanda, we’re prone to flash obsessions.
One minute we’re
hyperventilating at the mere mention of “The Following” and the next, we’re
cyber-stalking Kai Kai and Jia Jia, the two insanely cuddly pandas at River
Safari.
Of course, we’re
triumphant at dinner parties because we can talk about just about anything to
anyone. Amanda can switch effortlessly from the latest Victoria’s Secret
Fashion collection to why Hillary Clinton is, despite her fondness for
pant-suits, the best Secretary of State. Ever.
I once completely
charmed my boss when I spent the whole evening at a party discussing with his
fifteen-year old daughter just how unsuitable Selena Gomez was for Justin
Bieber. We were, like, instant BFF. The next day, he gave me a pay rise.
Our current obsession
is food in general, and food in China specifically.
The other day, at
breakfast, Saffy was scrolling through her iPhone when she suddenly squealed.
“Oh my God, you guys
have got to see this!” she said.
Immediately, our phones pinged with incoming messages.
It was a website link
called Ministry of Tofu and the first item was a sequence of photos that showed
someone inserting a piece of rubber into the forehead of a dead duck so that it
would now look like a dead goose.
“But why…” Amanda
began. “Oh…”
Apparently, roast
goose is more expensive than a roast duck, so some clever Billy in Guangdong decided
to cheat and pretend a duck was a goose and sell it at a higher margin.
Saffy was impressed.
“I tell you, the Chinese are just so entrepreneurial!”
Amanda blinked. “Uhm,
you’re not in the least bit outraged?”
“Why? You think your
precious Birkin bag actually costs $15,000 to make?”
Amanda was outraged.
“Excuse me, but how is making a fake
goose the same as an authentic made
in France bag?”
Saffy was unruffled by
the italics. From experience, she knew the best way to win an argument with a
lawyer, especially one educated at Harvard, is to change the subject while
pretending it’s still the same subject, thereby completely derailing the
conversation. “It’s whatchamacallit, caveman empty?”
Amanda blinked again. “What?”
“You know, when it’s
your responsibility to check what you buy and if you don’t, it’s your fault if
you bought a dud!”
It took a moment. “Oh,
you mean caveat emptor!”
Saffy beamed. “There
you go. God, you’re so clever, Amanda, to know all that satin, I mean, Latin!”
Unused to praise,
Amanda visibly swelled. Then she frowned. “Wait, so what are we talking
about?”
For days, we trawled
through the Ministry of Tofu, alternating between horror at the chemicals and
additives and downright culinary cheating to be found in Chinese restaurants,
and complete admiration that someone actually found the time to come up with
the different scams in the first place. It was riveting.
Of course, Sharyn had
her own perspective on the whole thing.
“Yah, lah, the world
got food shortage, mah! Sure must find substi-tute, right? We Chinese are very clever, one!”
“Food shortage?” said
Amanda who only ever eats a salad leaf for dinner these days.
“Abaden? You know,
hah, in America, each American throw away 400 pound of food, you know or not?
UK lagi worse, ah, I tell you. Each
year throw away 7.2m tonne! How not
to have food shortage like that, I ask you?”
Saffy, unused to
having numbers thrown at her like this from a best friend who normally only
complains about the quality of her married sex life, was reduced to silence and
a blank stare. Only the rhythmic heave of her bosom indicated she was still
alive.
“Some more, hor,”
Sharyn went on, “the world throw away thirty to fifty per cent of the food it
produce! And now America got worse drought in fifty year! One six of corn
production kena! I tell you, ah, ten year from now, we all con-firm die, one!”
Amanda later said that
it was one of the most unsettling conversations she’s ever had in her life,
including the one she had when she was thirteen with her mother about how a new
friend was going to be visiting her every month for the rest of her life. “What
the hell was that?”
“It was like a scene
out of ‘Rain Man’,” Saffy confirmed, adding, “but in Singlish!”
“Speaking of, did you
know that Dustin Hoffman is now seventy-six?” Amanda piped up.
“Shut. Up!”
“No, really. I wonder
what skin care he’s using. He looks amazing!”
“I am ob-sessed with him!” Saffy said. Her eyes
shone.
1 comment:
I can't stop laughing at the Rain Man comment. How backhanded of Saffy!
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