Love Wins on Puddle Street

A shirtless man hollers at the top of his lungs, creating chaos in the already jam-packed Wan Chai market. The crowd disperses to the sides, allowing him to barge through with his metal cart of carcasses. As he passes, he releases the scent of sweat, unwashed hair, and rot. 

Today, I’ve come to the market with a mission: To collect ingredients to make “three-cup chicken” for my husband, Derek. It's a traditional Taiwanese dish cooked with copious amounts of garlic and ginger, seasoned with rice wine, soy sauce, and Chinese basil. On the phone, Mama had said to buy fresh chicken from the market with its skin and bones intact for extra savouriness. Mama’s suggestions made my heart sink—the market is grimy and filled with puddles I would rather avoid. However, since I want the best result for my hardworking husband, I make my way to the market with trepidation. 

I elbow my way through stalls of limited-edition anime figurines, imported Korean socks, tacky jade ornaments, and knock-off Calvin Klein underwear. 

"Excuse me!” I say as I bump shoulders with sheepish middle-aged American tourists who have stopped in the middle of the narrow pathway to pose for a selfie. Then, I pass some roaming Mandarin-speaking shoppers crisscrossing from one stall to the next. After avoiding several determined local grannies armed with their nylon shopping carts and stepping around a group of head-scarf clad domestic helpers carrying bags and bags of fresh produce, I turn the corner and enter an even smaller alley. The earthy aroma of fragrant herbs from the vegetable stalls does little to mask the fetid smell from the dried-fish hawker. Before I can stop to catch my breath, the pungent stench of death comes pouring out from the butcher shops—this is when I know I’ve reached Wan Chai Road, or what I call, Puddle Street. Before I married Derek, I’d have run away as fast as I could from that putrid smell. But today, I summon whatever courage I have in me to find chicken for Derek. 

On Puddle Street, it’s impossible to divorce the animals from the meat you’re eating. Carefully watching my every step, I tread by a vendor hawking fish. On a bed of ice, their black, beady eyes stare into nothingness, waiting for their moment on a dinner table. Next to the fish vendor is the chicken butcher. He hangs featherless carcasses by their feet over the counter where you can assess their freshness. Next to the counter, there are cages of live chickens fluttering their flightless wings and flicking at each other with their feisty beaks. Personally, I’d rather buy my meat from the sterile grocery store, where I don’t have to trouble myself with grim thoughts of an animal dying to nourish me. But today, I am committed to my mission. 

Puddle Street is not only a dangerous place for animals, but it can also be life-threatening for shoppers. You must stop and look for oncoming traffic while paying attention to the ground to evade the dark puddles this street is famous for. I am not exaggerating— every pothole on this street is filled with stale, standing liquid —a rancid combination of random spills of unknown fluids, spit of thousands of people, and the water used to rinse the floors of seafood stalls and butcher shops. Every time I encounter a puddle, I fix my gaze on it and tiptoe around it, fearing that if I don’t stare it down, the dirty pool might shift, and I’d trip into it by accident. 

Yes, I’m aware that my squeamishness is silly, and the germs on Puddle Street won't kill me. Yet, I despise them with every single fibre of my body – those very same fibres that love Derek.   

Derek is Midwestern American and loves Puddle Street. He grew up in Madison, Indiana, a quaint, little historical town by the Ohio River, with about 3,000 residents. For someone who grew up in such a rural setting, it's incredible how he could love a place like Puddle Street. It brings him joy to shop there— even daring to go in his flip-flops. When he comes home, he takes cruel pleasure in taunting me, whispering in my ear, “I am gonna rub my feet all over you…” 

“Eww! No!” I yelp, squirming away from him as I imagine all the gross, gunky, ghastly puddles he touched with his uncovered feet.  “Go wash your feet!” I’d shout halfway across the living room.

He sometimes makes a half-hearted attempt to chase me around our tiny apartment. Most of the time, though, he looks at me adoringly despite my irrational fears of puddles. 

I often suspect we were born in the wrong bodies. My phobia would be more fitting for a Westerner or a gweilo. Meanwhile, Derek, the gweilo, would love nothing more than to fit into the Chinese culture, speaking Cantonese and haggling with the vendors on Puddle Street. Our physical characteristics often misrepresent us in Hong Kong: Derek is treated like any other gweilo, and prices go up when a vendor sees his face. On the other hand, with my Chinese face, I am often mistaken as a Hong Konger. 

I was born in Tokyo to Taiwanese parents. When we first moved to Taiwan, I threw a tantrum outside of a dirty shack in an open-air market. In my innocent, six-year-old mind, this simple, bare-boned establishment was unacceptable by my standards of cleanliness, and I refused to go anywhere near it. My favorite aunt came out of the shack, hoping to coax me into the horrible place. After a long negotiation, I finally went inside. I perched on top of a metal stool, my hands in my lap and my mouth in a pout. I refused to touch anything. Every time someone offered me a morsel of food, I shook my head vehemently. 

I was only in Taiwan for four years. Had I stayed longer, perhaps I could’ve developed immunity against all things grimy and gross. Alas, my family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada when I was ten. I grew up in a suburban house and went shopping with Mama in big box stores filled with pre-packed meats and aisles and aisles of processed food. Open-air markets soon became a distant memory in my mind—until I moved to Hong Kong. Over the years, I’ve learned to control my tantrums, but deep down, that neurotic, grime-phobic little girl still lurks. Now, she’s the grime beneath my otherwise polished, grown-up exterior. She comes out in snippets, especially on Puddle Street. 

But love wins on Puddle Street. 

Today, Derek is the only one on my mind. Without venturing too far into Puddle Street, I stop at the first chicken vendor. As I study the limp and featherless chickens hanging above the counter stall, a man in a white apron approaches me. 

“What do you need?” He asks in Cantonese. 

“I am making three-cup chicken,” I stammer in Mandarin. “Which chicken should I get?”

Instead of taking down one of the dead ones hanging over the counter, the man points to the cage before me. There are about four or five chickens inside, quietly cooing. I nod my head while contemplating my options.   

Before I say anything else, the man opens the cage from the top and grabs one of the chickens by its neck. The chicken squawks and all the other chickens start squabbling in terror. Instinctively, I hold my right hand in front of me, my palm facing the man as if begging him to stop such a blood-curdling ruckus. I spin and run away, not even caring which way I am going. In the split second before I bolt, I see a faint smile on his face from the corner of my eye. It isn’t an unkind smile, but he probably thinks I am the most ridiculous person in the market that day.  

I gather myself at the next store, focusing on a shelf filled with jars and bottles of sauces and condiments from all over Asia. My heart pounds and my mind races. I think I just killed a chicken! I take a few deep breaths. I’m pretty sure I just killed a chicken.

After a few minutes, I realize I haven’t told the butcher how I wanted my chicken chopped up. Even though I don’t want to show my face in front of the chickens after I’ve just killed their friend, I drag my feet back to the butcher shop. In a timid voice, I say, “Please chop them in pieces with the skin and bones attached.” 

The man in the apron nods with that faint smile on his face again. 

I head back to the other store to buy Taiwanese soy sauce and cooking rice wine. When I return to the chicken stall, I hear the frightening thuds of a cleaver splitting flesh on a woodblock. 

Moments later, the man hands me a plastic bag.  Surprisingly, it isn’t very heavy, maybe a couple of pounds. I pick up the rest of the ingredients and plod my way back home with the bag of chicken dangling from my hand. 

Inside my kitchen, I empty the bag into the sink to wash the chicken. I gasp as I touch it—it’s still warm. Like I said, you can’t divorce the animal from the meat you are eating, not when you buy from Puddle Street. But love wins on Puddle Street. That night, Derek devours the three-cup chicken as he marvels at my bravery in conquering all the gross, ghastly puddles on the most dreaded street in Hong Kong. 

-Kayo Chang Black

Kayo Chang Black is a Taiwanese Canadian writer who explores hybrid identities, global citizenship, and the intersection of cultures. Her career as an academic librarian brought her to the U.A.E, Bahrain, and Hong Kong. After an eight-year stint in Hong Kong, she packed up her books and cat and moved to Colombo, Sri Lanka. She currently teaches research and writing at the Academy of Design (AoD). Chang Black’s essay, “The Nikah,” has been published in Sunspot Literary Journal and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her other work, “In the Shadow of the Middle Kingdom,” has been accepted by The Normal School for their upcoming issue. To read her work, visit http://kayochangblack.com Follow her on Instagram: @kayo.chang.black or Facebook: @kayochangblack