Culinary Connections

Growing up is never easy, and sometimes it can seem like life is just piling problems on. For the character Chu Jia-Chien, in Eat, Drink, Man, Woman(1994) this is indeed the case. From a promotion that may or may not be good, being swindled out of your life savings, seeing your sisters marry in a rush to escape the house of your father, your favorite uncle dying, your some-time boyfriend some-time casual lover getting married and hoping to still be intimate with you, discovering your sister has been lying about heartbreak for 9 years, and all of this on top of an already tense relationship with your father, and how would you feel trying to manage it all?

Though this film focuses on the lives of 4 central characters, the most tragic figure, and the one who has the least to be happy about in the resolution, is Jia-Chien. I was struck by how enduring her character really is. In the end, she's left with no home, no money, a father with a new wife, sisters with husbands, and a flight out of the country to a job undoubtedly full of its own stress and tension. Her only friend is the very man her sister claimed to have had her heart broken by. Despite all of that, she still manages to smile, still tries to reach her father, and through her perseverance (and a generous dash of ginger) she manages to finally earn her father’s approval. Jia-Chien is a woman trapped in her own loneliness, and only through cooking can she escape and connect with others.

Jia-Chien’s day-to-day life is so far removed from her other sisters and father that they never even appear together, except for in the house, and when paying respects to Old Wen. Though surrounded by people, Chu Jia-Chien is utterly alone. She can’t talk to her family, either they cut her off mid-sentence, or they have something else more important going on. She has no close friends, just an ex-boyfriend that she seeks out for physical comfort, for company. I doubt her family even know who Raymond is. Such removal on the part of her family leads to loneliness, which is why she continues to seek out Raymond, since he’s the only person she can talk to. Raymond however, is only interested in their physical relationship, having left their earlier, emotional one by the wayside. In their modern, understanding relationship, Raymond is free to do as he pleases, as, of course, Jia-Chien is also. The difference is in the fact that Jia-Chien knows almost no one else. She never talks to her older friends, as evinced in the scene where as she was leaving a message on her friend’s voicemail about how long it had been and her office was invaded by well-wishing coworkers. Her work comes between her and other relationships as well, when she could be playing with Shan-Shan, instead she’s inside working on a computer, working so hard even, that she doesn’t sleep in her bed, but on the desk.  The exception to this rule of relationships is Li Kai. Handsome, intelligent and skilled, always knowing the right, witty thing to say, he is the ideal male figure Jia-Chien yearns for. But he caused her sister Jia-Jen’s heartbreak, so she refuses his advances in a frantic scene of almost-lovemaking. This dedication to family, despite her alienation, her desperate need for company, for intimacy with someone that cares, shows what is most important to her.

Her family doesn’t always show the same dedication. Like the traffic-directing cop in the juxtaposed shots of the hustle and bustle of cars and scooters in the streets of Taibei, she is surrounded by excitement, traveling people, and yet unmoved by it all, uninvolved. By raising the subject of moving out of the house, she gives the green-light to her sisters, who both manage to leave before she does. She has a promotion offered, but has to decide whether to go straight and fly halfway across the world, or turn left and stay at home to care for her father, who ends up leaving her first. Raymond’s offer to continue with their ‘friendship’ status after his marriage gets a big red light.  She is trying to direct the traffic of her life, but in doing so, trapping herself in the center of it.

The one act that allows her self-expression, that allows her to feel connections, is cooking. She feels that she can’t do this at home, she feels her father would not let her, for fear of ‘stealing his thunder’. So she goes to Raymond, and cooks enough food for 10 people, talking the entire time about how to cook this and that and what the next dish is. Her facial expression while cooking is so joyous, so different from the typical stoic half-frown she wears. She says, after finishing cooking, that she only remembers her childhood when she cooks up the memories, and tells a story about her father giving her a ring made of bread, and how happy she was that Jia-Jen was so jealous of her. Raymond, typically, jokes about it and offends her, the beginning of the deterioration of their ‘friendship’. Further on, when Old Wen is in the hospital and Jia-Chien comes to visit, it is revealed that her father kicked her out of the kitchen in order to push her to attend college. She never quite forgave him for exiling her from her place of happiness. Once Old Wen passes on, Jia-Chien is alone in the kitchen, getting water for her father, since he can’t taste the flavor in the tea anyway. While there, she glances over the various kitchen knives, the ingredients in the cupboard, the meats and spices hanging up from the ceiling. Though she doesn’t show any emotion here, the sequence reveals a longing in her to cook with the tools in that kitchen. And in fact, after the big announcement is made, she gets to do just that. 

In one of the final scenes, we see Jia-Chien making pancakes, and smiling broadly. And in the final scene, she returns to her father his sense of taste, using a recipe of her mother’s design. This last moment, the breaking through of loneliness, is because of her cooking.