The Unbearable Lightness of Sinigang

by E. P. Tuazon

Alvin Ong - Reunions (2024), Oil on canvas, 120 cm x 150 cm
Image description: Several seats are placed around a red, rectangular dining table, on which a hot-pot meal is laid. Everyday cutlery and various dishes—including crab, shrimp, noodles, and vegetables—fill up the space of the small table. A coffee mug, bottles, and beverages are in the foreground of the painting.

It was like this: the day before Jeff disappeared, his mom picked me up at nine for his birthday, even though it was two hours away and I didn’t even feel like going. It’s not like I hated Jeff or anything. Jeff was probably the smartest kid in 9th grade and earned the most coveted spot on the Varsity basketball team reserved for the best JV player. I’ve witnessed him win spelling bees in elementary school, champion two pentathlons in middle school, and get straight Os (for Outstanding) and As and every letter for the words smart-as-holy-hell. I’ve witnessed him break a 12th grader’s ankles with a step-back, euro-step between three giants, and float an and-one from the top of the key with his left hand. I liked him, I mean, he was a pretty likable guy, but that made me want to hang with him even less.

Everyone knew he was going to be somebody, someday, so they never left him alone. 

I kept to myself, disappeared between the vending machines in the middle of the G building and F building, dove into old hand-me-down Mangas my Kuya Nino tore through in the early two-thousands, and tried to stay nobody. I was a little smart and had a little pull-up jumper that gave most kids a run for their money, but I wasn’t looking to stand out. I wasn’t looking to be somebody like Jeff, not even by association. Too much attention, good or bad, meant trouble. I wasn’t about to step into more of it, at least not like the kind of trouble we were already in.

In the 90s, before we were born, my father had petitioned Jeff’s mother to the States. The way Tita Baby explained it, it was a green card marriage: the two went through the motions—documented vacations, interviews, elaborate proposal, wedding, wedding reception, more interviews—and, at the end, claimed irreconcilable differences and went their separate ways. When the petitioned got their citizenship, the petitioner was supposed to get paid.

“But love always gets in the way talaga.” Tita Baby mused, flipping cards dealt the party before Jeff’s Birthday. She was teaching me to play Pusoy between bouts of the card game and Good Better Best in Tito Julius’s garage. 

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to determine whether I won or lost based on what I had learned. 

“It means your dad didn’t take her money and now your Tita Jasmine is indebted to you.”

“Why me?”

“It’s all of you. It’s just the way Filipinos are. Filipinos do good to people who do good to them. Sometimes, they give more back than what was given. You lost, Joseph.” She said and revealed her winning row of cards that I could only take her word for.

In their house, Jeff’s parents had pictures of my family above their Santa Nino, right next to their light-up portrait of the Virgin Mary. Old photographs of our parents together, some of them with Jeff and I, some of them with just Jeff and I. And, as if that was not strange enough, there were even pictures of just me and Jeff’s parents. There were ones like those at my birthday, at my mother’s funeral, at our middle school graduation, with matching mouse ears at Disneyland, and standing just before the gaping void of Niagara Falls, smiling, both a foot shorter just the year before. To Jeff and his family, my family was special, which meant I was someone special.

*

When Tita Jasmine came for me, I was already out of the door with my father’s pork sinigang for the party. Even though he just used the packets and not his own tamarind, somehow his sinigang was special too. It was the most popular dish at family parties, right next to Lola Emma’s hopia and Ate Cerina’s loaded mashed potatoes and spaghetti. The whole, boiled tomatoes, green beans, taro cubes and pork ribs swam in the piping hot broth, their condensation rising to dot the transparent lid. I could already taste their swill of sweet, savory, and spiciness.

At the time, I could not determine why it was so coveted nor how it was different from other sinigang. I helped my father chop the ingredients, skim the scum that floated above their boiling ribs, and even put in the sinigang seasoning packet when he told me to (the order of when in the process was completely arbitrary and changed all the time), but I still could not find any secret to its success. To me, it was just plain sinigang.

Holding it in a bed of towels nestled in an old cardboard mango container, I could already feel the warmth of a bowl travel down my chest and sink into my gut. I could already feel it spread throughout my body, the weight of it transferring from the pot to me, the heaviness of it lightening.

Tita Jasmine opened my door then went around to her side. She was beautiful for her age, but when I saw her face all I could see was Jeff’s.

“Just put it at your feet.” She said and turned down her music: a slew of 80s OPM hits, one identical love ballad after the other. 

I did as she asked and clenched it with my feet. I reached for her hand at the knob and she quickly flicked hers away.

“Aysusmariosep. You stop that. Mano your elders. Not me, naman!” She laughed and pulled a sharp u-turn towards the freeway. The sinigang stayed fastened to its cradle.

“Sorry, Tita.”

“No, I’m sorry.” She said and brushed my arm and my knee. Thinking of Jeff touching me, I automatically flinched at her fingertips, but, thankfully, she appeared too distracted with the road to notice. “When’s your father coming?”

“He said he’d come by after work.”

Tita Jasmine clicked her tongue. One woman’s wailing on her speakers faded into another’s rising. “He’s always working too much. Tell your dad to take a break. You’re always welcome to our home.”

I thought of what my Tita Baby said about love, my father making himself scarce since my mother passed away, since even before then. “We know, Tita. We appreciate it.”

“We’re lucky to have you. Both of you. I know Jeff will be happy.”

*

At the party, the sinigang was still warm. I dropped it at the food table and found the ring of relatives I needed to mano. I brought each hand asking for my father to my forehead, took off my shoes, and ascended their carpeted stairs to Jeff’s room. 

“Hey.” I said, and before my knuckle even knocked, I was already tipping his door open with my toe. It stopped and swung back at Jeff’s ill-placed fish tank which bonked and shook in its wake. 

I watched the fish scatter with nowhere to run in the mirror beside Jeff. He was at his desk, pouring over opened textbooks, keyboard rattling off a paragraph to some soft study lo-fi. By the time I was halfway in the room, he was hitting a period and spinning around, crumpling something in his hands. The first thing I noticed was his shoes, bright white and pristine, then the wadded-up paper. He launched it across the room, over my shoulder, and all the way to his trash can by the door. I didn’t have to turn around to know that he made it. He always made it. 

“Yo, bro!” He said and brought back his hand as I came close. 

I sagged my palm open at my side and received his hand like an outfielder idly catching a foul ball. “You still haven’t moved that fish tank?” I said and hiked a thumb at it. In the mirror, the fish were already settling, a breath of bubbles rising behind a treasure chest.

“There’s nowhere else to put it. Just gotta mind the door.” He said, already turning back to his work, hiding his shoes under his desk again. His room had space. The tank could’ve been moved, but I wasn’t about to argue with him about it. It didn’t matter to me, and, besides, it was his birthday.

I looked over what he was working on. On the pages he had opened in our history book, I read “Westward Expansion Glossary of Terms.” On his screen were things about “Manifest Destiny” and “Providence”.

“What the hell’s providence?”

“Divine intervention.” He said and slapped the book closed. “But it could just as easily mean preparations for the worst.” 

“What’s that gotta do with the Gold Rush?”

He turned around. “You read the whole chapter yet?” 

“I skimmed it.” I lied and looked at his shoes again.

“Airforce Ones, man! Fresh out the box!” He kicked a foot out beside me and their lack of color nearly blinded me in the light.

“Damn, man. Nelly shoes.” I said and sang the bit from the song.

 “You want to try them on?”

“What? That’s weird, man.” 

“Come on. You’re the same size. They’re new. Break them in with me.”

He shook his foot at me. I frowned down at him and looked back at his door as if there were any escape from what I was feeling. My strong desire to wear them, to make them mine. 

Growing up together, we often shared things. We shared the same toys, the same clothes, and sometimes the same underwear. I was born exactly nine months after him, as if my parents waited for the exact moment he was born to make me. For a time, we were inseparable. For a time, I thought he was my brother because that’s what the teachers and kids at school called us, and, for a time, our parents never corrected them. For a time, I didn’t question why we didn’t live in each other’s homes, had separate sets of parents, or looked different. For a time, I thought we were the same. 

“Naw, man. I brought sinigang.” I said, as if that was any reason for anything.

“Don’t mess with him, he’s sinigang!”

I felt a burst of hot air shoot up from my chest and turn into the painful, awkward laugh I had been fighting to quell in my throat. “Shut the fuck up!” I said, nearly choking to death on his pun. 

He continued with his mock-Filipino accent, leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs with one Nike in the air. “Now is he sinigang beep or sinigang baboy? Baboy, baboy, whatcha gonna do, watcha gonna’nong ginagawa mo?”

“You’re stupid, man.” I said and we laughed. 

*

Alvin Ong - Sayang (2024), Oil on canvas, 200 cm x 260 cm 
Image description: Two human figures and a cat occupy a space crowded with various objects. In the foreground, one figure wearing a blue tank-top and the cat have their backs turned to us. They look down at the bright-yellow table in front of them, on which a yellow cake is placed. Opposite them, the other figure wears a yellow tank top; their gaze is lowered and their palm is held open towards the lit candle on the cake. On the right side of the painting, a tropical tree stretches vertically across the painting. In the background, a yellow-lit domestic scene features a stove, various cooking equipment, condiments, and other everyday objects.

Down at the party, things went like they usually did. Kuya Benedict blessed the food and with the mighty air-chop of his hands signaled for everyone to take their places before the boodle fight. As tradition dictated, Jeff and I stood in the middle of the table where dad’s sinigang was surrounded by an assortment of offerings fanning out on each side of the banana-leaf-covered counter. Starting both ends was rice, after that, the Hawaiian rolls and gulay dishes, followed by the finger foods like lumpia and dilis, then the bbq skewers and grilled pork and chicken and 7Up shrimp, until finally we were at the stews and soups at the center.

It was tradition that I stand beside Jeff at his birthday. It was never a tradition that he stands beside me at mine. It was hard to believe that at the final birthday of his life, he had only ever been without me once, but, of course, that couldn’t be helped. I hadn’t existed yet. 

Tita Jasmine brought us paper bowls and plastic spoons. Instead of a cake, there was always dad’s sinigang. It was a request Jeff had made, which might as well had been ever since his first birthday, except I hadn’t been around to see it. His mother filled our bowls, mine first, then waited for Jeff to get a good grasp on his before she started the round of the happy birthday song. I remember throughout all the singing and the cha-cha-chas in between, Jeff looked down into his bowl of soup as if there was something alive in there. I looked down too, except it wasn’t my bowl I was looking at but Jeff’s Airforce Ones.

“Jeff, make a wish!” My Tita Jasmine said, and Jeff blew at the hot soup as if it were a pool of fire before tilting the bowl up to his mouth and taking all of it in. 

“Now you.” She said to me, and I closed my eyes and wished what I wished a lot for during those days. Even when all of my father’s sinigang was finally in my stomach, I was still there, hearing all of the applause and cheers in the world.

“Maybe next time.” Jeff said to me, as if he read my mind, and proceeded to finger a ring of grilled squid to his empty bowl. “Pusit.” He said, his right-hand swimming in my direction, followed by his left hand popping up and floating away from me. “A-pusit.” 

I think one of the real turning points in Jeff and my lives was when we learned about what Douglas MacArthur did in the Philippines. Our 7th grade History teacher, Ms. Veronica, was asking students where they were from and searching it up on Google Earth to show us where we stood compared to everyone else. When the question came to me, before I could even say anything, this jackass, John-John Dikyurt, shouted out China and made the whole class laugh before Ms. Veronica rang her quiet bell and shut everyone up. 

“That’s enough, John-John.” She said. “Now you apologize.”

“I’m sorry.” He said from his desk without turning to me, but it wasn’t anything I was offended or surprised about. Ms. Veronica sat him at the front because he was already trouble to begin with. 

Sitting beside me was Jeff, my tablemate, who slid a paper on my desk with the words “Dickhurt” written on it. I snorted and bumped his fist under our table. 

“Now,” she said, looking at me, “Where are you from?”

“The Philippines.” I said, even though I wasn’t. Even though I was born here and lived just across the street. Even though the Philippines felt like a whole other planet, a whole other dimension.

Ms. Veronica typed it in and the world spun around and settled on our destination.

“See! I told you he’s from China!” 

“No John-John, it’s just next to China.” Ms. Veronica corrected. “Did you know that Spain colonized the Philippines?”

We all stayed quiet: it didn’t matter to us who conquered who. But Jeff didn’t stay silent like the rest of us. I knew him long enough to know when he was thinking. 

“Did you know the Philippines was invaded by Japan during World War 2?” Ms. Veronica continued. “Did you know that Douglas MacArthur and America came to help the Philippines and, even when they had to retreat, America came back to pay back their debt to all the Filipino people?”

Ms. Veronica looked at me. “Did you know that? Did they teach you that?”

Caught in my lie, I was at a loss, but before I could make anything up, Jeff spoke. “We know that. The Filipino people have always been indebted to America for all they’ve done. Twenty-five thousand Americans died fighting the Japanese in order to liberate us. We are still in their debt.”

“I wouldn’t call it a debt.” Ms. Veronica said. “That’s your home you’re talking about. America had its own interests there, so don’t give them too much credit. Besides, did you know that compared to the twenty-five thousand soldiers America lost, the Philippines lost four times as many? That’s a hundred thousand.”

I looked at Jeff but there was something in his face that made me look back at the “Dickhurt” he gave me. There was something to his silence that was screaming. There was something on his face that understood what she was saying but also understood something beyond her and what happened there. Something he did not want to think about. It appeared for only a moment, but I remembered not looking at him the rest of the period. Like looking directly at the sun, just once was dangerous. 

“I did not know that.” He said with a slight tremble in his voice no one could catch but me. “Thank you.”

*

Towards the end of the night, Jeff had the last of my dad’s sinigang in a cup. By then, there was just the soup left. Everything else had been scooped away. First the ribs, then the green beans and taro, then the chunks of tomato and slivers of whatever meat fell off the bone. I don’t remember if it was gone before or after my father arrived. I don’t remember if he even came at all. All I remember was that cold plastic cup left of soup Jeff was sipping at his desk while he tried to explain Western Expansion to me.

“Think Oregon Trail.” He said, pointing at a red line that cut the early America in half in our textbook. 

“Like shooting buffalo? Getting dysentery and dying?”

“No. Like, two-thirds of America rushing all at once to the west.”

“Ooh! That’s why it’s called the Gold Rush?”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Jeff stretched and leaned back in his chair, putting his bare feet on his desk. 

I looked back at his birthday shoes at the door. 

“Just try them already.” He said, followed by a laugh. 

“Naw man. I’m good.” I said, looking back at his screen, but in the mirror, I couldn’t help but look at their white glimmer below the tussle of Jeff’s fish in their tank. They were hungry and Jeff hadn’t fed them yet.

“You keep saying that and looking over.” Jeff said and got up towards the shoes. “Come on, nothing wrong with putting them on. It’s just us here.” 

I shook my head but followed him. “They’re just shoes.”

“Yeah, they’re just shoes, so put them on. They won’t bite.”

I walked past him and in front of his Airforce Ones. “You sure?” 

“Positive.”

I slipped one foot in and then another. I turned around and looked at them on me in the mirror. “How do they look?”

“Hold on.” Jeff said and got down below me. He started pulling the laces of the right shoe and tightening them around my foot before proceeding to tie it. 

“You don’t need to do that. It’s just supposed to be quick.”

“I got it. Don’t worry about it. How’re you supposed to know how they look like on you if you’re not wearing them correctly?”

I didn’t say anything. I watched him finish tying the right shoe and then do the same to the left one. When he was done, we looked at ourselves in the mirror. 

“See, fresh, right?” He said, looking up at my face’s reflection.

“Yeah man.” I said, looking down at him. 

“You can have that pair. I got another one in the closet.” He said, while he picked himself up and walked back to his desk. 

“What? You got another one?”

“Yeah, one for you and for me. Mine’s in the closet. I just had yours out because I wanted to surprise you.” He said and picked up his cup of sinigang.

“For real? Damn. Thanks, man.”

“No doubt.” He said and took a sip before walking to the fish tank. 

I looked at the shoes in the mirror, not questioning why he gave them to me or if what he said about having another pair was true. All I could see was myself in his shoes.

But then an orange cloud appeared in the water.

Jeff shook the mouth of his cup into the fish tank to let the last drops of my father’s sinigang out. The fish swarmed the cloud of soup in a frenzy. 

“What the fuck?” I said. By then, Jeff was already walking beside me and taking his seat at his desk. 

“I thought I’d give the fish a treat. It’s my birthday. They should party too.”

In the mirror, the fish went in all directions, just as confused as I was. Some of them darted in and out of the artificial coral. Some of them bounced between the surface and the glass ceiling, their sound deafened by the constant sound of mechanisms sucking water up and cascading it back down the filtration system.

“Dude, I don’t know, man. I don’t think fish can eat soup. I think fish are only allowed to be a part of it.”

Jeff leaned into the mirror, but I could tell he wasn’t really looking at the fish. In his eyes, I knew then that there wasn’t another pair, and that the fish weren’t going to be ok. In his eyes, I knew that every decision he made up until then hadn’t been for his own sake. 

“And are you sure about the shoes?” I said, the orange cloud disappearing in the water and growing like a knot in my gut. “You can have two pairs. You don’t have to give these to me. I’ll get some eventually.”

But Jeff didn’t say anything about them after that. As far as we knew, they had always been mine. 

And, by the end of the day, no matter how much I wanted to believe that no one had to be or live up to anything, that there was a pair of Airforce Ones for everyone, and that fish could enjoy eating soup as much as they enjoyed being a part of it, I already knew better than to walk out of the house without his shoes on. Without taking them with me.

Alvin Ong - Supper Club (2022), Oil on canvas, 51 cm x 41 cm
Image description: The yellow-tinted, hazy painting features a face wearing a pair of glasses, peering through a rectangular opening. In the foreground, a translucent bowl and a glass bottle are placed on a shelf. The painting is rendered in broad brushstrokes.

---

E. P. Tuazon is a Filipino American writer from Los Angeles. His latest book, A Professional Lola, came out in 2024 with Red Hen Press and was selected as the winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Fiction. In his spare time, he likes to go to Seafood City and gossip with the crabs.

*

Alvin Ong (b. 1988, Singapore) received his MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (London) and BA from the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. His work has been exhibited internationally, including solo presentations in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul and Brussels, and is held in numerous public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Peranakan Museum, ILHAM, X Museum, and the UBS Art Collection. Recent press includes features in Frieze, Artforum, and ArtReview Asia. Ong is known for his paintings that capture rituals of queer diasporic identity and community in surreal, bodily imagery. Mining tropes of identity and cultural memory, Ong’s allegorical spaces of belonging subvert our expectations of reality, held together by a sense of fragility. Food references and objects function as charged markers of both memory and nostalgia, associated freely alongside references to sacred imagery, art history, and ordinary lived experience. He lives and works between Singapore and London.

---