The Other Shade of Green
The Dream
I am walking down the street and I get to a stoplight. The light is red, and I’m at a busy intersection. To my 3 o’clock there is a constant stream of scooters flowing by my eyes. I look to my 9 o’clock at the traffic light to watch the seconds tick by for the little green walking man, signalling for him to hurry up. My time is coming soon. 8…7….6….5….4….
12 o’clock. My little red man turns to green, and he moves his legs at a leisurely pace. There is a Starbucks across the street, directly next to a milk tea shop. Why are they so close together?
I bring my focus to eye level now to play the game of quick eye contact with pedestrians who are walking in the other direction. They are all wearing face masks. Even in the dream, COVID-19 is an ever-lurking presence — a phantom floating from face to face. I try to lock eyes with the pedestrians as they walk by me in the other direction. I’m almost halfway across the street when I lock eyes with someone, and I stop in my tracks.
I’m staring directly at myself. It’s not a mirror image, but it’s real. It’s me, but it’s not me. We are dressed slightly different. My doppelganger wears grey pants, and a long sleeve shirt. I never wear long sleeves. I am wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt with a picture of the rat king on the front, his tail on the back. My doppelganger’s hair is slightly longer. His stubble is grown out.
He is as startled to see me as I am him. We both stop in the middle of the crosswalk, and other pedestrians pass us by. We say nothing, and time stands still. I lift up my right hand to reach out and touch him. He lifts up his left hand.
The dream ends.
The Reality
The first time I saw Taiwanese avocados, I had no idea what I was looking at. There was something vaguely familiar about them. They were very shiny green, reflective, almost polished. I thought they might be some sort of sub-species of mangoes grown in Taiwan. I never made the connection that they were avocados. Even when I asked the fruit stand lady (she loves going barefoot) what they were, her answer still baffled me because the word for avocado in Chinese is totally different in Taipei than what it is in Beijing. Nomenclature for fruit is a sacred area of language acquisition that we need to respect. Whenever we learn what a fruit is called in a new locality, we need to drop whatever names we have in our head and go with what the locals call it. And as for the whole fruit vs. vegetable debate with avocados…this is neither the time or the place.
After learning that these shiny green objects were, in fact, locally grown avocados from the South of Taiwan, my excitement grew. Avocados are one of the so-called “super foods,” (packed with nutrients, vitamin B, and folic acid) and it’s a fruit that I cannot seem to get enough of. Although these ones may look different, and they feel different with smooth and shiny skin, rather than the rough and wrinkled skin of the avocados from the West, they are still avocados, nonetheless.
Besides difference in size and texture (some of the Taiwanese avocados are around the same size as a small American football), the richness of taste is also quite different. Avocados from the States, Mexico, and New Zealand, while small in stature, pack quite a punch in their richness and creaminess. The avocado flavour is strong and thick. Avocados from Taiwan and the Philippines, while much larger, have a more subtle flavour and often contain more water than those from the West.
But they are still avocados….
When they are bright, don’t bite
Due to their size, Taiwanese avocados are not difficult to cut, and I’ve never been worried about slicing off one of my fingers. They are easy to handle, like building blocks in a children’s play school assembly model. They are smooth, and their shape almost begs a magnetic and sensual pull to the palm of any human hand. The challenging part, however, is knowing exactly when to slice an avocado. Regardless of race, colour, or creed, picking the correct time is the dilemma that faces each and every avocado purchaser. Once you make that commitment to slice an avocado, there is no turning back. The knife is in hand, and the avocado is on the cutting board, waiting to be sacrificed for the benefit of intestinal-kind. Everything hinges on the moment you make that decision and go balls out to cut into it’s peel.
For the novice avocado-cutter, one may be tempted to cut into it’s skin when it is at its brightest and greenest. This mistake will, however, curse the offender to a lifetime of suffering and ever-lasting damnation, I’m sorry to say. If you remember anything from this piece at all, please remember these words and take them to your grave — don’t be lured in by the shininess and sparkling of the light as it reflects off of the avocado’s green peel. This iridescent trick is is the avocado’s way of saying, “better luck next time, sucker.”
Knowing exactly when to cut into an avocado is especially tricky. After reading some online feedback about Taiwanese avocados, it’s apparent that many people have given up hope and become unabashed avocado-haters here on the green island. Below are anonymous quotes from those who have obviously not enjoyed their Taiwanese avocado experience:
“Last time I bought some they were ripe for about 5 minutes then became over ripe dark brown pieces of crap.”
“Avos here suck.”
“I have not tried Taiwan avocados in years due to the bland taste.”
One of the things I have noticed about avocados here in Taiwan is that rather than eating them on sandwiches or making dips out of them (which does also happen here), the method of choice is to mix up an avocado with milk in a shake. Many of my colleagues like to blend avocados with milk and pudding to give it a thicker and sweeter flavour. I prefer to blend a quarter of an avocado with about 110ml of milk, two sprinkles of ground cinnamon, a few drops of honey, and 3 ice cubes. To me, an avocado shake is a perfect way to start my day. If I play my cards right, one Taiwanese avocado can provide me with four mornings of breakfast shakes. I actually think that due to their high water content, Taiwanese avocados lend themselves quite naturally to being put into shakes rather than eaten. For all of those Taiwanese avocado-haters out there, I say give them another chance. You just have to know how and when to cut them.
In between Sleep and Consciousness
When I purchase my avocados, they are usually at their brightest, greenest, and hardest. I bring them back to my apartment, and put them on a standing counter where they are in full view for me to enjoy. I like the process of watching an avocado change its shade of green over the course of a week. For the first day or two, nothing seems to change. The avocado is wide awake, hard, and alert. Still, when I pass the avocado in the morning, I am drawn to its surface, and I palm it, toying with it, knowing that I will not be tricked by its brilliance. On days 3 and 4, the colour and physical texture of the avocado starts to change. Like a soldier standing at attention constantly, its as if a changing of the guard is coming soon — its spirit is broken, or is it transforming into something more beautiful? Each day passes, and each day in the morning and evening I palm the avocado and notice as it gets softer. Specks of brown and dark purple start to blend in with the green. The avocado has lost its brilliance.
It is at this moment, when the avocado is hovering between consciousness and a dreamy sleep-like state that I strike hard and fast. It’s important not to wait until the avocado is entirely purple to slice into it, for at this time, the doppelganger has taken over, and the avocado has turned into mush. Once this happens, there’s only two choices — you must suffer through eating the doppelganger avocado, all the while cursing your lack of timing — or you trash the doppelganger and live to fight another day. Either way, it’s really a shame to waste what could have been an excellent shake.
Recently I have almost perfected the art of catching an avocado in that state of limbo between consciousness and slumber, and this increasing skill has produced some of the most rewarding avocado shakes I’ve had in my life. I think about the doppelganger avocado, about mine in the dream, and I wonder if and when I will meet them again…in the Land of Nod or in wakefulness? I think about the avocado-haters out there and sincerely hope that they are able to welcome Taiwanese avocados back into their lives and enjoy the tender relationship between avocado and human as we wait for ripeness to enter the world. So many things in this world need patience in order to be enjoyed — the ripening of a Taiwanese avocado is just one of many in life’s rich garden of wonder.
