Dinner Table Dialogue" Will you change your taste for love? ──Chen Moan, Yan Jiaqi, and Buhler eat instant noodles together

Author｜ Shen Mian (literary worker)
Photography｜ Chen Yitang

On the cold night, they used steaming instant noodles to talk about love and loneliness, and how to survive day after day as a low-end population. The scene is like the reproduction of the intimate conversation of three women in the apartment in the Japanese drama "Tokyo Daydream", which is extremely warm and beautiful.

➤Instant noodles are a test of love and a ritual for one person

Instant noodles used to be the representative of convenience and fast food, but this instant noodles used to be only a secondary food. Now, for some people, it is like a meal, and even instant noodles companies have the positioning to heal people's hearts in the cold night. Marketing, not to mention its rising price, some high-end instant noodles are more expensive than bento.

During the time of pouring hot water and waiting for instant noodles, when talking about the most profound instant noodles eating scene, Chen Mo'an was a little embarrassed to show a really exaggerated photo of instant noodles: on instant noodles, there was a bowl covered with noodles. The big soft silk is very luxurious. She first admitted that she was quite vain at the beginning, but this bowl of soft silk instant noodles was really hard to come by.

Chen Mo'an pointed to the handsome lover who looked very much like Yosuke Eguchi and Hideaki Ito at the scene and said: "He likes fishing very much, and the soft silk is the result of that day. And this bowl of instant noodles, I have been waiting for a long time. , it's really a compensation for being lonely all day." She, who almost died of starvation that day, obviously had painful and nostalgic memories of this bowl of noodles.

Buhler, who loves sweets, doesn't particularly love instant noodles, but when he returned to his grandmother's house in Hualien when he was a child, his grandmother would cook a large pot of instant noodles and eat together with relatives and friends. "I felt very happy at that time, very delicious." Adult. Later, the more impressive is the ex-lover who loves instant noodles. Buhler said: "My ex would saute shredded pork or something before adding it to the instant noodles, and then eagerly ask me to eat it."

Tasty? Buhler tilted his head and said that it doesn't really matter whether it's delicious or bad. "However, there was joy in my heart at that time. After all, the other party wanted to share the delicious food made by himself with me."

After listening to Chen Mo'an and Buhler's instant noodle memories, Yan Jiaqi talked about it in a hurry. She lived in the countryside when she was a child, and lived with her grandpa and grandma. When she was in elementary school, she was out of school in the afternoon. There was no one at home, so she spent pocket money. The money goes to buy a bowl of cheap instant noodles and boils the water with a gas stove. She said: "The house is very quiet, and I am alone. Instant noodles are like a ritual for one person, and it is also like food to be alone with oneself."

Then, Yan Jiaqi talked about the trip to Japan with her lover on Tanabata last year, "We went to stay at Awaji Bridge, the hotel designed by Tadao Ando, it was very expensive." Therefore, the two had to live frugally. At that time, she and her lover bought a bowl of instant noodles, a piece of toast and a piece of Mont Blanc. "We ate together because it was very cold," Yan Jiaqi said. "So, we ate it very preciously, and even finished the soup. Usually, when we eat instant noodles, we would finish the soup, but at that time, we were No waste at all, after all, that's the only hot food." She deliberately ate less, wanting to save the last bite for her lover, but she soon found out that her lover had the same mind and didn't want to be the one who finished the instant noodles in the end .

Just when everyone at the scene was being moved, Yan Jiaqi changed her words and completely blew herself up: "However, we still broke up. It's strange." She showed a wry smile that was almost cracked.

Yeah, it's already possible to share the temperature like this, so why not go on? But no one kept asking. A warm stillness that grows in the apartment. And the noodles are about to be cooked.

➤Loneliness and love are questions from the chicken and the egg

So, in love, when do you feel lonely?

Buhler showed a thoughtful expression, "Loneliness is the keynote of love." She believes that loneliness is something that people desire. She often realizes that her lover is a life different from her own, and the intersection occurs occasionally, but it is also fleeting. "So, love and loneliness go hand in hand," she said finally.

Chen Mo'an talked about an experience of fishing with her lover on a cliff somewhere on the coast of Hualien. She waited for hours like that, looking at the back of her lover's attention, she couldn't go anywhere. "Love is waiting, and waiting is mostly lonely." Chen Moan said quietly: "Afterwards, I would always think of that day, a strange situation in my life where I couldn't move. It seemed that I had nothing to do with him, as if I could only stay where I was. Wait for him."

Yan Jiaqi said flatly: "Love is a kind of survival, but love is also a kind of suicide." What does that mean? She added weakly: "Love sometimes makes people feel that life is not so important. After all, with love, there will be loneliness."

When we discuss love, everyone has their own dark side, the dark side that is hard to speak, hard to stare at, lonely, deep, and most likely only one can get in and out of, the dark edge.

➤ Would you change your taste for love?

At this time, photographer Chen Yitang said, "Okay, the noodles can be eaten." He asked the three women to toast with instant noodles. Facing the unbelievable, "Are you serious?" eyes, the photographer did not change his face at all, calmly and calmly, "Come on, three cheers please!"

Everyone at the scene was amused by the photographer's sudden move. Invite the three of you to talk about your experience and views on the relationship between food and your lover.

Yan Jiaqi, who baked Earl Grey tea pound cake and brought it to share with you, said that at first she wanted to express poetry in the form of recipes and make a poetry collection, but due to various restrictions, she could not do it. "B Group" has been like this since then, so there are many poems related to food and love in the poetry collection. She said, everyone eats pound cake, delicious!

Yan Jiaqi said: "Also, I'm a little afraid that everyone will misunderstand." What is the misunderstanding? Embarrassed and serious, she said, "I'm afraid that some people will think that "Group B" is a sequel to "A Dream" (the work of the poet Jing Xianghai)." We all laughed.

Yan Jiaqi, who loves making cakes by hand, wrote "Baking Love", which is to translate the experience of actually making cakes into poetry. She said that pound cakes are not the best when they are freshly baked. It takes a day or two to let the cream return to the body before the flavor is sufficient. Yan Jiaqi also said in a similar way: "Actually, making cakes is like love." Buhler said that there is a high degree of overlap with his ex-lover in other aspects, such as daily habits or entertainment hobbies. , but eating is completely relative. "I don't know why, but we just don't have the same food in common, and it's almost opposite. What my ex liked, I hated. The food I liked, but the other side completely resisted."

How to choose what to eat? Buhler admitted that he would accept the dispatch of his ex-lover, "My ex was very good at cooking, and often made a whole table of his favorite food, and he wanted me to eat with him." For Buhler at the time , it's like an exercise, like "every day is an exercise" written in her poetry collection, practice accepting the other person's likes, but at the same time also accept that that person is that person, that person just can't change, can't like himself as much dessert.

"And I, in fact, haven't changed fundamentally. I used to force myself to eat, but now I don't touch it, and it's back to my original state." Buhler said profoundly: "Love is actually, can't change the relationship with me. A continuous process of deconstruction.” Change and immutability, eating and not eating, are all exercises, and for Buhler, they are all choices in the moment. After the incident, the situation has changed, and it seems that there will be no special emotions left.

Chen Mo'an is the opposite of Buhler, but she takes her lover's taste as her taste. She proudly (?) said that she could not even boil water when she was at home, but now she can make meals that satisfy her lover. "For me, love takes practice all the time."

Therefore, she will practice her craft day after day in order to meet the standard that her lover thinks it is delicious. She wrote in her book "Don't be afraid to make poached eggs again". Not for her beloved lover. "Repetition is the quality of love." Chen Moan's tone was light, but his eyes were firm.

And gradually, she will like the taste, as if she had undergone a transformation, as if it had been recreated. She also cites "Grounded Pork with Dried Tofu with Eggplant" as an example. When she makes it, the eggplant will be put last, but her lover thinks that the eggplant must be put before, so that the taste can be simmered. According to her lover's practice, she "adjusted certain orders to make this dish more in line with the other person's liking. You are willing to change the order in your life for the other person, isn't this love?"

➤ Satisfied B-level life

The three books of the three have something in common: in addition to being full of love and scars, there are also some inferior, inferior, and despicable antisense operations. For example, Buhler defines a bitch like this: "It's better to point to everyone in the turmoil and riots of love." Or Yan Jiaqi wrote B group: "Join them / become all beings" and Chen Mo'an wrote "Deep Love Canteen", which is a canteen , instead of restaurants and high-end restaurants, it is a dining place for the common people, and most of the food that will appear is also visible every day, such as poached eggs, braised pork rice and the like.

Yan Jiaqi said that she really had one mind in writing "Group B", that is, she wanted to flip other people's views on Group B. Group B is the group of people B and others relative to A coffee. Those relatives and friends in the countryside seem to be living an inferior life, but they still have their own way of life, still live a real daily life, still have a soul, and are still concrete and realistic people.

Having gone through an identity crisis, she can already accept her loneliness and strangeness, and is no longer so afraid of revealing herself. After all, there are many people like her in this world. "In this era, seriously—" Yan Jiaqi said, "Actually, everyone is a B, and no one is an A at all."

With a stern smile, Buller said that she had tried a long time ago to be "the same" as everyone else, "but I couldn't do it at all, I failed completely, and I can only be who I am now." Said: "Even if it is a bright and beautiful A coffee, doesn't it have different scars and weirdness?"

Chen Mo'an, who takes on the case for a living, feels that the world-weariness that pervades the society now has an inexplicable optimism. (Yan Jiaqi interjected: "World-weariness is a philosophy of resistance.") Chen Mo'an said: "In such a world where there is too much bullshit, there are too many things we can't decide. But at least we can choose, this meal What we want to eat and how we want to eat. Although this kind of freedom is very small, it is true, and sometimes we feel that it is happiness. And do those A coffee really have more choices and more freedom than us?”

In the time of a bowl of instant noodles, the three people chatted from love to the pull between the individual and the world. A and B can be the class names of the capital society, but they also reflect the priorities in various interpersonal relationships. Looking at Chen Mo'an, Buhler, and Yan Jiaqi who were not familiar with them, they slowly opened their hearts and exchanged temperature and thoughts through instant noodles conversations on winter nights. In these increasingly harsh times, there is no distinction between A and B. It is more like the A side and the B side. Sometimes when you turn it over and look at it, you can understand that it is actually one, the surface and the inside are the same. ●( The original text was first published on the OPENBOOK official website on 2018-01-15)

Group B <br class="smart">Author: Yan Jiaqi
Illustrator: Takuro Kano Publishing: Dark Eye Culture

About the Author: Yan Jiaqi
Born in 1982, he grew up in the countryside of Yunlin and now lives in Mucha. He studied geography at university and Chinese creation at graduate school. Loves cooking, swimming and jogging, and the biggest achievement is fattening cats. He has won several literary awards and published a collection of poems called "Noon in the Wasteland".

Illustrator Profile: Takero Kano
Born in Gunma Prefecture in 1975, now lives in Tokyo. Painter, owner of antique props IONIO & ETNA. In addition to regularly holding solo exhibitions, workshops and LIVE events, he also often cooperates with Japanese fashion brands and book binding designers. The main works are: "Philosophical Walk" (written by Kida Moto), "Sometimes sunny and sometimes cloudy" (Kawakami Hiromi). Personal official website: www.sktec.org
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To the bitches I've loved

Author: Buhler

Published by: Black Eyed Culture

About the Author: Buhler

Born in 1981, grew up in Hualien, and likes the seaside. Sees animals and plants like family and hates noise.

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Deep Love Canteen <br class="smart">Author: Chen Moan
Published by: Squirrel Culture

About the Author: Chen Mo'an
Born in 1987, Kaohsiung, now living in Taipei, hoping to grow old in Kaohsiung. Write down what you don’t want to forget. After you write it down, you can forget it with peace of mind. There are many times when you can’t do anything, and there are many times when you think you can do something. Writing is the greatest disaster and happiness in life. I hope that I can keep writing until the day when I don't want to write at all.

Author of "The Cruel Proverbs of Love", "Goodbye, or After Seeing You Again", "Your Mind, Always Lonely Than You", "When You Fall in Love with Him, You Are Not the Original You", "No matter what card you take, God has its own arrangements", "Micro Healing 1", etc., works are widely loved by readers in Taiwan, China, Malaysia and other places. Facebook fan page: Chen Moan