Seemingly every Australian country town has a Chinese restaurant – and Jennifer Wong has visited lots of them. In the ABC series Chopsticks or Fork? she travelled around the country to meet the people running those vital regional establishments and now she has followed that up with a book of the same name. The writer, presenter and food enthusiast is also a regular on the standup comedy scene and appears at a range of events at Adelaide’s OzAsia festival this month.
Wong’s multifaceted career keeps her busy – and she relies on a special object to keep her grounded in the face of competing deadlines. Here she tells us about the healing power of her favourite plant and shares the stories of two other important belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
A painting by one of my dearest friends, Luke Tribe. He’s a talented designer and illustrator, and one of the most thoughtful gift-givers I know. One night after dinner, I told Luke I had to head home because my mum was coming over to eat persimmons – the first of the season and important enough to mention.
In response, Luke broke into song: “I’m going to give myself persimmon to shine! I’m going to shine, shine, shine!” We walked to Town Hall station, laughing and singing all the way, delighting in the joy of singing a Bachelor Girl song from 1998 (which is called Permission to Shine). It’s one of my favourite memories: friendship, wordplay, singing and in-season fruits.
Six months later Luke gave me this painting for my birthday – a beautiful in-joke callback. And truly the respect that persimmons and Bachelor Girl deserve.
My most useful object
This peace lily expresses its need for water with incredible drama: each leaf droops with heavy sadness, each stem a curved spine of fatigue. But after it spends some time in a bowl of water, the leaves perk right up again like a many-armed ballerina reaching up and out.
It is my most useful object because it reminds me that when I feel low and tired, I am probably only a metaphorical container of water away from feeling slightly better. It’s useful to me as a freelancer because I don’t have an end time to my workday, so sometimes it’s easy to forget to step away from the computer and do the equivalent of submerging myself in a bowl of water.
The item I most regret losing
When I was in my 20s, I went through a period where I wore hats. For some reason, I was particularly taken by the newsboy cap, despite neither working in the news nor being a boy. Did anyone even wear newsboy caps apart from Keira Knightley in the 2000s? Maybe I liked it because it made me think of my grandfather in Hong Kong, who wore one every day.
I had bought an olive green one from the men’s section at a Topshop in Singapore, and it was one of my favourite things. When my grandfather passed away I had it with me on the day of the funeral in Hong Kong. After the funeral, the entire family boarded a bus which took us over the border to China for the burial. Despite it being a very hot day, I left the cap on the bus, unsure if it was rude to wear a hat for a formal ceremony outside. When it came time to get off the bus back in Hong Kong, I couldn’t find my cap.
It was upsetting because I associated it with my grandfather and I didn’t really have anything to remember him by. When I think of it now though, I wonder if he did me the ultimate favour by telling me I should stop wearing newsboy caps. I haven’t worn one since.
Jennifer Wong is performing at The Special Comedy Comedy Special on 9 November at Dunstan Playhouse in Adelaide as part of the OzAsia festival
