Abecedarian for White Rabbit Candy
Isabel Gan
amalgamate velvety cream with vanilla and you will get magic.
back in my singapore motherland we called it 大白兔奶糖,
candied ivory and softest of yellow undertones. in pīnyīn that is to say
dà bái tù nǎi táng—the nostalgic white rabbit candy. in truth, i say
each one is a testament to time, its stories fragmenting, like how i
feel the thinnest of translucent rice paper flaking on my fingertips.
generations ago my ancestors from china brought white rabbit candy
halfway down the world, onto a dot not quite visible, settling on an
independent island—island nation—nation of merlion children.
jubilee bridge paves jubilee walk for motherland's golden jubilee;
kowtow to her fissures borne of lightning. watch as she breathes
life into her merlion children, weeping their renewal once more.
melt seven white rabbit candies and you get a cup of milk, but
not quite the real kind like the slogan claims. for it is runny syrup
overflowing—the taste of ‘tóng nián’ childhood, and all the
previous nameless figures who once had coated lips of sugar,
quixotically believing in wind-whispered, water-wished promises.
reality reminds me, remember that you too, are a merlion child.
see, when i immigrated, i too looked for white rabbit candy. yet the
tootsie roll was america’s gift to me, chewy chocolate with an
unsubtle, undesirable, artificial fruit taste foreign to my tongue.
vacantly, i unwrap and chew, dissolving lingering tastes of white rabbit candy.
worn, i let them butcher my chinese name, pain radiating in my
xiphoid, blunt chest trauma from erasure of myself and at night i repeat
yǔ xuān, third-tone first-tone, warmth in speech. homesick, i weep for
zygotes of unborn merlion children asleep in my motherland’s womb.
This piece has been previously published in Fleeting Gaze Magazine.
Isabel is a junior based in California who is an avid reader of literary and historical fiction. She is a lover of all forms of evocative imagery and an adamant believer in alliteration. She is also a zealous overuser of em-dashes—they are her favorite punctuation. Isabel edits for Open Expression, Bardics Anonymous, and Words With Weight, and she can often be found late at night with her unfinished musings.
