Sometimes, I think I still remember what it smelled like. Stinky but good, salty and earthy, brown and fermented; deep-fried oily cubes dipped in thick red sauces that both tasted sweet and sour at once. On the crowded street corner of a city where the average temperature is 30ºC, people would wait in line overflowing from the pavement onto the asphalt road, occasionally blocking the cars trying squeeze themselves into the adjacent flower market.
It wasn’t really on my way home from school, but you’d still find me there, pirouetted over the crossing, my senses awakened by the pungent smell that some described to be “bad like sewage.” Yet even that didn’t stop them from queueing for the fermented street snack.
“How could it smell so bad but taste so good?” They’d exclaimed.
The mixed urban stink of this street food would combine with the burning petroleum of 24-seater worn-out minibuses, mismatching the sweet aroma of white lilies, pink and yellow chrysanthemums, and purple orchids of the flower shops, hidden in the narrow alleys. Sandwiched between highways of Hyundais, Toyotas and Nissans zooming by, and flooded by office workers coming in and out of the underground stations, this formed a most bizarre contemporary scent-scape as you walked by.
Oddly enough, I’ve never actually bought one. I didn’t dare try. It was too intimidating, even though it was cheap and its scent spread so far that it became the signature smell of the street. I’d walk close by, watching how the hawkers picked the tofu cubes from shallow pots with tongs, resting them in rows on a metal rack, then drizzling red sauces on top of them and carefully handing it to the eagerly waiting customers. It’s an incomparable level of olfactory stimulation.
Sometimes I believe I’m good at remembering scents. I can recall how my childhood home smelled: herbal tea boiling, the metallic electricity of an old desktop and the TV, jasmine blossoming… The last time I visited, it had since been replaced by a synthetic green tea home spray. However, I have never learned enough words to describe the odour of this street food. Tangy and balmy, not too salty, a bit spicy, with a nice warmth; that’s my best go at describing toban sauce.
I once worked at the perfume counter in a skincare shop, where I learned how to introduce their fragrances. I’d spend all day studying their list of top, middle and base notes: petitgrain, cedar, cumin, frankincense... One was reminiscent of the seashore, with notes of juniper, sage and vetiver. Having grown up in a coastal city, the first time I sprayed it on a test paper left me wishing to be back home. Disappointing.
I’d like to imagine my ability to recall scent as a sort of superpower. You can blindfold me and I’d recognise my husband and close friends just by sniffing their necks. It would make a fun game at a wedding.
I can still remember what my ex-boyfriend smelled like.
Sometimes I think I’ve forgotten a scent, but then I’ll be on the escalator in a shopping mall and the memories will just hit me. I’m standing in front of a shop with round buttons on display, and my dad says to me “see, there are so many circular pins.” I am six and so confused, because my birth name (元樟) has the same pronunciation as’ round button’s (圓章). I guess these two shopping malls, located half a planet apart must use the same air freshener, how ambrosial.
Once, I was walking on the street holding a takeaway coffee and a strong peppery whiff hit me. Suddenly, I saw the three-story-tall water canon-mounted truck appear in front of me, causing a crowd to start rushing in the opposite direction. An older man among us yelled “Calm down!”, while young men and women opened their umbrellas to block their faces from the surveillance cameras on the weaponised vehicle.
A loud broadcast announced this to be an illegal gathering, warning that those who would not leave would be sprayed and dispersed. A couple held hands while running across the road and disappearing into a narrow alley. A woman rushed past me, pushing the glass door of a lobby and shouting at the guard trying to stop her “I work here!”
My fifteen-minute walk transformed into a two-minute panic as everyone ran for any exit possible. A little later, the street, squeezed between tall office buildings, was empty but for the sweaty, oniony stench of a fetid choking mist.
It smelled horrible, but that smell forms a core part of my identity. It is an identity I share with those who recognise these streets as ours. How can something which smells so bad taste like a sweet memory?
The stinky tofu shop shut down when I returned two years ago. It had been there for twenty-five years. Many of the floral shops have since shut down too (1.), leaving only the acrid stench of traffic to cut the thin air.
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