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My Turn by Wayne Chan

From The Asian Reporter, V33, #9 (September 4, 2023), page 6.

I went to an amazing Yappy Hour recently.

No, that’s not a typo. I’m not being lazy with spellcheck. I went to Yappy Hour.

Here in our neighborhood, every two weeks, a neighbor will volunteer to open up their backyard to the rest of the neighborhood. The hosts provide drinks and everyone else brings an appetizer. It’s been going on for more than ten years now.

When it first started, as I’ve been told, it was just neighbors getting together with their young kids to let them play together, give the grownups an opportunity to catch up, and share in the misery and/or joy of being parents of young children.

But those children are now all grown up, so we bring our dogs in place of the kids. Thus the name: Yappy Hour.

If, for some reason, a host cannot or prefers not to have dogs attend, then we call it "Yap-Less" Hour.

I’ve lived in six homes in my life since I was a kid. Until I moved to our current neighborhood, I could count on one hand the total number of neighbors I knew or with whom I’ve had any real interaction. In today’s world, as busy as we all are, I’m guessing I’m not the only one.

That all changed with Yappy Hour. I know the majority of my neighbors. Besides Yappy Hour, we go out to dinner, ski in the winter, and look out for each other. It’s probably the most pleasant and supportive "Neighborhood Watch" group one could ever hope for.

When we first moved to the neighborhood, we went to our first few Yappy Hours. Not long after, I had a fairly minor surgery on my left eye. After arriving back home from the hospital to recover, I was amazed to find that a few of our neighbors had arranged to cook meals and deliver them to us so we wouldn’t have to worry about getting dinner ready for the kids. It’s a memory I’ll never forget.

We should all be so lucky to have friends like that.

But Yappy Hours aren’t normally about crisis or drama. It’s usually a time to catch up with friends, blow off steam, and just have some fun.

Case in point: The Story of Wayne’s Most Excellent Soup.

At a recent Yappy Hour, one of my neighbors — one of the most jovial men you’ll ever meet — asked me a question. I’ll call him Jay.

Jay said, "Wayne, you remember a few years ago when you and Maya hosted a Yappy Hour? You made a soup that everyone loved! Do you remember that?"

"Yeah, I remember," I replied.

Jay followed up with, "What was the name of that soup? I asked Maya and she didn’t remember. I remember it was some Chinese soup you made, but it was absolutely out of this world. What was that soup?"

I knew what Jay was asking about. I know that soup. I made it. In fact, I’ve made that soup every time we’ve hosted Yappy Hour at our house.

The problem is, I didn’t want to reveal where I found the soup recipe. Why not, you ask? Well, it’s not because I made up the soup recipe myself, or that it’s some huge secret.

It’s because Jay made such a big deal about this soup that I did not want it to be a big letdown when I told him the truth. But, I didn’t think quickly enough, and I just sort of blurted it out.

"Jay," I said. "The soup is called Zuppa Toscana. And I got the recipe from … the Olive Garden."

"What?!?" Jay exclaimed. "Don’t tell me that, Wayne — I thought that was a recipe passed down from your Chinese ancestors or something! Don’t tell me you got it from the Olive Garden!!!"

I was really sorry I burst Jay’s bubble. After giving it some thought, I’d like to revise my earlier answer on the origins of my famous soup. So Jay, here’s the real story. This is for you.

A long, long time ago, while I was walking down a path towards China’s Yangtze river, I came across an old woman who was standing beside a large cow, drinking water from the river. The old woman looked distraught and I asked her what was wrong. She told me she had dropped the SIM card from her iPhone into the river and dug all around and couldn’t find it. I immediately looked down and saw the SIM card floating on a leaf, so I picked it up and handed it to her.

As a way to thank me, she handed me a bottle of milk as well as an envelope with one bean inside and said, "Thank you so much for your help. As a way of thanking you, this is the milk from my cow. This is a virgin cow (yes, a virgin cow), and the milk has special properties. The bean in the envelope is from a mung bean and it’s the last of an ancestral bean from my family. Grow it in your yard and it will bring good fortune for the rest of your days."

So Jay, the Yappy Hour soup I cook is made from the milk of a virgin cow from the Yangtze river area and all the mung beans in it come from one single bean I’ve harvested in my backyard.

You’re welcome.

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