A wok down memory lane: As new immigrants, we found comfort in an old pot
Linda Bleck
To travel somewhere new is adventurous. But, as any immigrant knows, to move to another land, following an unknown future that you believe will be better for your children, is courageous.
In the early 1970s, a stream of political events upended my family’s life in Taiwan. The United States had long been an ally of Taiwan. But that started to change in 1971 when the United Nations General Assembly recognized the People’s Republic of China “as the only legitimate representatives of China,” and expelled Taiwan.
The following year, President Richard Nixon took a weeklong trip to China, ending 25 years of estrangement. It was described as “the week that changed the world.” It certainly changed the world of my parents.
Why We Wrote This
During times of difficulty and change, the familiar comforts of food and family are often a universal balm. When our essayist and her family immigrated to San Francisco from Taiwan in the 1970s, a trusty old wok carried the flavors of home.
The United States’ friendly gesture to China and the looming possibility of breaking diplomatic ties with Taiwan frightened many residents, who feared that China, merely a strait away, would march its army right on to the island. As rumors swirled, my parents decided it was time to leave.
But to where?
Aunt Tehning, my father’s younger sister, had boarded the cargo ship Hai Ho destined for America in 1965 to study plant biochemistry, and was now settled in Illinois, having completed her postdoctorate. We decided to join her in the States.
In the summer of 1978, we said our goodbyes. I was 18 years old, a fourth-year student at a five-year business college. Goodbye, Grandma Waipao, aunts, uncles, cousins. Goodbye, friends. Goodbye, Mount Guanyin and Danshui River. Goodbye, Taiwan.
Though I was sad to leave the only life I’d known, my sadness was overpowered by the excitement of going to a place where the language, people, and culture were alien to me. It felt adventurous. I imagined a life of “explor[ing] strange new worlds,” like Captain Kirk in “Star Trek.” I was not going to be alone, my family would be with me, and my parents would shoulder whatever burdens came.
Our destination was San Francisco. Like the Chinese sojourners who arrived during the gold rush in the 1850s, my father, a banker, hoped to find work – perhaps at a Taiwan-affiliated bank – in one of the largest Chinatowns in America.
The day we landed was sunny. A crystal-blue sky and a brisk cool wind greeted us as we exited the airport. This surprised me. August in Taiwan was usually in the 90s and so humid that the heavy air coated you from head to toe, seeping in until you wondered if mold would soon grow on you.
Besides a large suitcase, I carried our family’s iron wok. It was the one kitchen item my mother insisted on bringing, unsure if we’d find a replacement in America. I must have looked comical – an 18-year-old in flashy bell-bottoms and a bright top, hauling a muddy-yellow suitcase in one hand and a black, round-bellied wok with two handles (called ears) in the other.
As we waited for my father’s friend to give us a ride, a group of teenage boys with golden hair walked by. They looked at me and the wok. One started laughing, and the rest joined in. They exchanged words, which generated even more laughter. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but their tossed heads, cold glances, and mocking tone made it clear I was being ridiculed. I felt humiliated. I wanted to throw the wok across the terminal. I wanted it gone.
But my mother was right. The wok was a necessity. Not because it was hard to find another, but because for a recently immigrated family for whom everything was so new, so strange, having a wok that carried flavors from home so that we could cook up a familiar repast at the end of the day was a blessing. My mother could sauté in the cookware that felt like home. She and my father didn’t have to worry about where to get a wok, or how expensive it would be after converting U.S. dollars to Taiwan dollars. And at 36 Taiwan dollars for every U.S. dollar, at the time, the price would have been astronomical.
In those early days in our small Berkeley apartment, a homemade dinner eased the anxiety of an unknown future. Each night, as we gathered to devour my mother’s piping-hot dishes – egg with scallion and tomato, beef with green pepper, chicken with cashew, shredded cabbage in spicy sauce – we felt calm and secure.
Like a faithful servant, the iron wok fed us, literally and figuratively, for many years.
My mother no longer uses it daily because the wok’s round bottom doesn’t sit well on the electric stove in her new house, but she still pulls it out once in a while to smoke striped bass or chicken. “Look at this,” she’ll say, placing sugar, the smoking ingredient, in the wok’s belly. “Nothing beats a good old wok.”
Remembering our wobbly first weeks in a strange new land, I can’t help but agree.