Recently,
I was grading my students’ responses to a book review I had assigned. In my
assignment, I had thrown in a few questions pulled from the study guide at the
back of the book, without giving much thought to the answers to the pre-made
questions. As I read over the responses, however, I found my students
beautifully describing a concept that seemed to impact them as much as their
responses impacted me. It was the idea of fish soup.
The
book I assigned is called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne
Fadiman. It is a classic ethnographic tale of two cultures clashing when a
Hmong family brings their epileptic daughter to a California hospital for
treatment. Throughout the book, language barriers and cultural
misunderstandings threaten to overwhelm any chance the toddler has of avoiding seizures and receiving care. Woven simultaneously into the stories of American
doctors and the Hmong family, is the history of the entire Hmong culture. Wars
and migrations, oppressions, empires, entire centuries slip into chapters about
a single doctor’s visit in California.
Early
in the book, there is an anecdote about a Hmong student who is asked to give a
five-minute report as part of a language class;
“His
chosen topic was a recipe for la soupe de
poisson: Fish Soup. To prepare Fish Soup, he said, you must have a fish,
and in order to have a fish, you have to go fishing. In order to go fishing you
need a hook, and in order to choose the right hook, you need to know whether
the fish you are fishing for lives in fresh or salt water, how big it is, and
what shape its mouth is [Fadiman 1997: 12].”
The
book goes on to explain:
“…that
Hmong have a phrase hais cuaj txub kaum
txub, which means ‘to speak of all kinds of things.’ It is often used at
the beginning of an oral narrative as a way of reminding listeners that the
world is full of things that may not seem to be connected but actually are;
that no event occurs in isolation; that you can miss a lot by sticking to the
point [Fadiman 1997:13].”
Lately,
perhaps because of the cold weather that drives me inside to my books and my
bed where my thoughts can wander freely, I’ve been stewing my own sort of fish
soup. I’ve been reminded lately of the
all the stories of people I’ve encountered in my own journey; people I’ve grown
up with, people I’ve met while travelling, people I know only through letters
and family stories. So many times in life, we encounter another soul for even a
brief moment, yet part of his or her story stays with us over the years. And though
in isolation, these moments seem disparate and unrelated, they are stewing
together within us our own fish soup.
In a
film I watched recently set during the Holocaust, a young German girl runs out
into the line of Jews being marched out of the city. She looks desperately for
her friend while whispering to each man that passes by, I won’t forget you. I
won’t forget you.
At
times, I wish I could tell the same to the people whose stories have stuck with
me. I won’t forget you. You are part of my fish soup. I would tell it to the
woman in a Thai prison who hadn’t seen her daughter in years and in her place
gave me a mother’s hug. I would tell it to the hardened and stoic fireman who
broke down into tears while telling me of the first time he saw death on the
job. I would tell it to the family in Cairo who tried to give my friend and I a
ride home after we got lost in the market. I would tell it to the family in
Chile that I’ve never met, but who call me their gringa niece and tell me
stories of my mother. I would tell it to the children I worked with in India
years ago, Shivam, Afshar Ali, Rishi. They are all grown up now, who knows where
they are. I would tell it to the boy who sat across from me on a balcony in
Bangkok one night when I was 17, who in many ways started it all by telling me
everyone had a story to tell, even me. I won’t forget you.
There
are so many moments we experience so briefly, so many different chapters in our
lives that sometimes, they can seem incredibly disconnected. Where I am now
looks nothing like where I was two years ago, or five years ago, or ten.
Sometimes I’m not quite sure what to make of all the people I’ve met, the
stories I’ve heard, and the places I’ve been. But one thing is certain, they
are all connected. We are all connected. And to me, that is a beautiful thing and a thought worth sharing.