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Essay on Chinese Food
My mother has always told me not to trust Chinese food. She cannot seem to understand why I would choose the ambiguous mélange of vegetables, sauce and meat (or, more recently, tofu) instead of the "nice" (bland) meal that she has prepared for dinner. Perhaps the abstruseness is the part that appeals to me-- I have always had a penchant for the unusual. Another possibility would be the sleek-yet-portable white containers. Let's face it: they look far more elegant in my refrigerator than old pizza boxes and half-eaten sandwiches. However, I would be naive not to acknowledge the fact that the main reason why I continue to order Chinese carry-out is not for the efficiency nor for the flavor. The embarrassing truth? I collect the proverbs from fortune cookies.
My bizarre obsession began on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. My world seemed to have transformed into a blazing inferno when I discovered that I had been cut from my school's a capella group, and the beautiful weather outside only made it more unbearable. I wanted it to rain that day. I wanted the sky to commiserate with me, but instead it left me stranded.
My voice teacher could already tell what had happened when I walked into her high-ceilinged living room. I told her that I was going to quit voice lessons since I obviously wasn't meant to sing, and she replied only with the phrase, "Where God closes one door, he opens a window elsewhere." I thought nothing of her words at the time, and I went on being a bitter, irrational teenager.
I went home and looked at the pictures on my wall for what should have been the last time. There was a photo of myself portraying Leontyne Price for the Black History Month assembly in third grade. There were tickets stubs from La Boheme, Pagliacci, and Cavelleria Rusticana carefully taped to the door adjacent to my bed. Half of the books on my book shelves were filled with leger lines instead of prose. Music had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember: my earliest childhood memories were of my father playing works by Chopin and Debussy on the piano. I realized then that choosing to live sans music would be like choosing to exist in a catatonic state, so I called the local arts magnet school in order to schedule an audition.
On the following day, I showed up at an unfamiliar building carrying the sheet music to two contrasting arias and a bottle of water. I went through the motions, smiling at the judges and double-checking my theory placement exam, all the while knowing that I couldn't change schools. It was like the childhood game of "running away from home." While I knew that I would never actually leave the place where I could have as many warm chocolate chip cookies as I wanted, the prospect of going into the wilderness with only my backpack seemed intriguing. Besides, I had spent nine years at a small, private, all-female school. The two schools were about as different from one another as Schubert lieder was from Ives art song...
About a year later, I was sitting in my kitchen eating a fortune cookie when I came to a sudden epiphany. I glanced at the two-and-a-half-by-one-half-inch piece of paper and saw a phrase that I had long forgotten: "When one door closes, another will open." I knew at that moment that I had made the right decision in changing schools. I had chosen the more ambiguous path, and, like Chinese food, it had proven rewarding. If success could be measured in opera tickets, it would be obvious that switching schools was an efficacious decision. My wall is now coated with (complimentary) tickets to Turandot, Faust, Elektra, Salome, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, L'enfant et les sortileges, The Gambler.... but there is also a small corner of my room in which fortune cookie proverbs are taped to the wall. I have learned to save every one.
By: Lola Thompson
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