To Be Fixed, First You Have To Fix.

Flory was showing me screenshots of online dating profiles. The puns, the tryhard bio, tacky selfies.

Welcome to the 2024 dating scene.

Like online menus, you click on the thumbnails, read descriptions, and decide what you want for dinner tonight. LinkedIn for mating.

Why not just tattoo QR codes at the back of our necks - ‘scan if you like what you see’?

To think we were making fun of mail-order Russian brides only ten years ago.

People want to be Harry or Sally in When Harry met Sally, my life goal has always been Marie (which I only found today was Princess Leia) and Jess.

How do you know if a person is privileged?

They ask ‘what is your favourite food?’
Your favourite Japanese dish.
What's your type?
Your ideal home.

You guys are getting options?

I eat whatever is on the table.

My home is whichever the bank allows me to loan.

My type is whoever that would hold my hand.

To be young, and able to choose partners by swiping a screen.

Yet to be ugly, and forever be judged by looks?

Please, tell me I’ll never have to be out there again.

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Here's a writing tip, start a story from the middle and work your way back.

That way, the readers are committed. Especially when your last post was about separation from the wife and daughter. Switching to online dating tricks the gossipy part of the human brain. Misdirection.

Here's another tip, change the subject completely. Like those viral videos with the presenter saying one thing while performing some other unrelated actions.

Haruki Murakami mentioned in one of his short stories, that when people find out you're a novelist, they tend to open up to you.

Here's my life story, take it.
The king has donkey ears, please, let the world know.

When people find out I write, shoot, and eat ramen, they tell me more about ramen - new trends, new openings, new connections. Which only makes me ramener. I suck up your ramen goodness. Slurp slurp slurp.

Fun fact: that's also how the rich get richer.

Comedian/author Jennifer Wong asked if I was free to take her brother's hiking friend around. She’s from Tokyo, self-published a zine about ramen, and needed a local expert to show her around Melbourne’s local book scene.

Local expert?

*spits tonkotsu broth out*

Me?

Do I look like a babysitter to you?

I found out the zine is Sankaku, that familiar byline that’s been hovering at the bottom of Lee Tran’s Patreon for months.

The ‘friend’ is Florentyna Leow, the author of How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart.

In early 2023 on our way back from Japan I read this article in the airport terminal and decided to pre-order it, seeing that she’s a fellow Malaysian and fellow <ahem> writer.

The book never arrived.

So, like the yolk of a perfectly cooked ramen egg, everything came full circle.

And you know what, I do want to start a food tour of some sort in the future, so maybe I could practise on this out-of-towner.

I knew I was an impostor, but she didn’t.

Jennifer’s intro also reminded me to ask for a refund.

The lunch was a celebratory lunch.

I took Flory to Books for Cooks, the only bookshop I could think of. The only bookshop featuring my book next to the likes of Chae and Baker Bleu.

Tim decided to stock Sankaku.

Look at me, the fixer of all things.

The plan was to bring her to Miznon for lunch, but they weren’t open on a Monday.

Tipo 00? $30+ for pasta is a bit steep, but it’s one of the best in - holy shit it’s $50 now.

We somehow kept walking towards Chinatown, and a lightbulb switched on.

Hold on, you grew up in Malaysia and studied in London, I bet you don’t get Cha Chaan Teng in Tokyo.

And I was right. She said she hadn’t had baked rice for ages.

Look at me, the fixer of all things.

The shredded pork and vegetables on crispy noodles were equally satisfactory.

I was also the Asian mother, who asked about rent in Tokyo, and what was her ‘real’ job, because writers know writers can’t make a living out of writing.

Writers are also jealous of writers who could make it work in big cities.

I kid you not, she’s a tour guide in Tokyo.

The type that has an agency representation, gets paid in USD to bring Hollywood executives around.

Look at you, the fixer of all things.

If I do schedule a trip to Tokyo in my September Japan trip, I’ll have a guide to bring me to kaikarou - the now infamous noodle maker for Michelin-star ramen restaurants like Hachigo in Ginza, and Rokurinsha, my favourite tsukemen place.

When I first read about it in Sankaku, it kinda blew my mind that even award-winning Tokyo ramen restaurants don’t make their noodles.

So you guys are just making stocks, chasiu, and eggs? That makes a lot of sense. Maybe I can start my place one - no, no, bad thought, sit.

According to Flory, they also sell retail noodles.

Maybe I can take away some on my last day in Tokyo, and fly back to Fukuoka to make the stock.

She also knows a great Sichuan place in Sugamo. since I complained that all Chinese food are the same in Japan.

Now you’re talking.

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We said goodbye, as my book guide eating tour was on a strict 10am - 2pm schedule.

Before we left, I also took her to Metropolis.

It was on my list of bookshops to email, and I kinda knew Metropolis being strict with genre has not been stocking cookbooks for a while now.
But hey, never ask, never get.

Here’s another tip on how to end a post.

Some call it a call back, some say foreshadowing, I like to call it completing the circle.

Yesterday, I received my refund for the book that never arrived.

圆 circle, 满 full.