Hangry Alice x CZ — Reconnecting with an Old Friend by Creating Something Good
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Hi Friends, I’m excited to share a project that I’ve been working on for the past few months! Most of you may know me as the girl who loves to eat, but what some of you may not know is that I love clothes too! Way back in high school, I had briefly toyed with the idea of becoming a fashion blogger and had started an extremely cringe-worthy Blogger page where I shared collages of imaginary outfits that I created on Polyvore (a mood board / collaging tool which has since shut down). As I was only 16 at the time, my blog was complete with teenage angst and sappy quotes from Gossip Girl which, I have since realized, promotes toxic relationships and conveys terrible messages to adolescents but, at the time, was my favorite show ever and caused me to make many questionable life choices in an attempt to become a real-life Blair Waldorf (except Chinese, not wealthy, living in suburbia and considerably less confident in who I was).
Fast forward a decade and, though I still make questionable life choices at times, I’ve outgrown my fashion bloggers dreams, started a full time job in finance and have found something that I am much more passionate about— food! However, I still frequently romanticize about creating a piece of clothing that I could share with my family and friends. There’s just something about the idea of knowing that someone out there is wearing and loving something that you created that really gets me excited. So, when I was thinking about something that I could do to help local restaurants and businesses that are struggling in the wake of the pandemic, the idea of creating merch immediately came to mind.
How it Began
When COVID hit NYC, it was devastating to watch my favorite restaurants and local businesses shutter their doors. As the weeks passed, I felt more and more helpless as temporary closures became permanent. The most heartbreaking part of it all was that many Chinese and Asian restaurants were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 due to the wave of xenophobic rhetoric that accompanied the pandemic. I felt like I needed to do something— anything— to help. After all, food is such a core component of culture, and restaurants play such an important role in preserving the culinary traditions of every culture. Whenever a restaurant (or any small business, for that matter) closes for good, a sliver of culture disappears.
After mulling over a variety of options, I decided to create something that encapsulates the reason why I love food and why I love restaurants: food has the power to create empathy and bring people together, and restaurants help facilitate that process. With the weather getting colder, I decided that a sweatshirt would be a great medium for this project, and so I set out to find someone who could help me bring my idea to fruition.
The Moleskine cover Crystal made me for my 20th birthday
As I have approximately the artistic talent of a duck, I needed to find someone who would be willing to work with me on the design pro bono. As fate would have it, my dear friend and college roommate, Crystal Zhong, whom I met while working at an Asian bakery in college (a great example of how food brings people together), had made me a beautiful custom Moleskine cover for my 20th birthday featuring my three favorite foods: ramen, dumplings and boba milk tea. (Yes, I am basic. Fight me.) I texted her to ask if she would be willing to collaborate with me on a non-profit design project and, to my delight, she immediately said yes!
I told Crystal that I wanted a design that was “Lady and the Tramp but platonic with Asian influences” and, after weeks of hard work, countless revisions and putting up with my incessant stream of new ideas, she created this beautiful illustration that captures the very essence of what I wanted to convey.
About Our Design
The Noodles
Some of my favorites noodles ever from Soba Noodle Azuma
The noodles in the bowl represent the strings of fate that tie us all together in the complex web of shared destinies that every human being on this planet is a part of.
Along with dumplings and rice bowls, noodles are one of my favorite foods (yaaas carbs). In many Asian cultures, noodles are a symbol of good luck and longevity. In Japan, toshikoshi soba, which roughly translates to “year-crossing soba”, is a traditional dish that is eaten on New Year’s Eve to welcome the new year. In China, chángshòu miàn, or “longevity noodles”, are commonly eating during birthdays and special festivals in hopes of having a long, healthy life. It is believed that the longer the noodle, the longer the life; hence, you must eat the entire noodle in one slurp without breaking it.
We chose noodles as the food for this illustration because of their cultural significance and because of their resemblance to string. I was originally inspired by the beautiful East Asian legend about the red string of fate, which postulates that people who are fated to meet each other are connected by an invisible red string. Although the string in the legend is usually more romantic in nature, the idea of people being destined to meet is a common theme in many cultures. In China, the idea of yuán fèn, which translates to “fateful coincidence”, is based on the belief that there is a universal invisible force that pushes those who are preordained to meet together. This is a beautiful concept to me, and I wanted to capture the feeling behind that idea in the image that we created.
One fun fact: We originally had soft boiled eggs as toppings in the noodles bowls, but we decided to go with veggies instead since I’ve been trying to eat plant-based whenever possible, and bok choy and enoki (my favorite mushroom) have never offended anyone. ;)
The Eternity Knot
Page from Crystal’s sketchbook when we were trying to come up the initial idea
Growing up, my parents always had decorative Chinese knots hanging in our home. The Chinese name for knot is shéng jié, which is significant because the word jié means “unity” and can be found in a variety of phrases related to harmony and togetherness. For example, jié jiāo means “to make friends”, jié hūn means “to marry”, and tuán jié means to “come together” for a special event or holiday. The particular knot style that we chose represents the idea of eternity and is most often dyed red as a symbol for good luck. Crystal had the brilliant idea to use the noodles as the string that weaves into the eternity knot, thereby symbolically tying together the two characters enjoying noodles together.
The Grandma, the Young Man and the Steam
Page from Crystal’s sketchbook when we were trying to come up with the shape of the steam
We chose an elderly woman and a young man as the protagonists of this illustration to convey the idea that food can bridge generations. In many cultures, food is the vehicle by which oral histories are passed along from generation to generation. When you think about the major holidays in each culture, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Probably the image of family and friends, young and old, gathering to enjoy the unique dishes and practice the dietary traditions that are associated with each holiday. For example, when you think of Thanksgiving, you think of turkey. When you think of the Mid-Autumn Festival, you think of moon cake (lotus seed paste for the win). When you think of Passover, you think of matzah.
The common thread between all these food traditions is the fact that they have been passed down from generation to generation. And along with these food traditions come legends, stories and oral histories that facilitate the transfer of centuries of cultural knowledge and history from the old to the young-- all over a dinner table. With the power of food, you can even connect with people who are no longer here, such as your ancestors, as legacies live on when recipes are passed along. We tried to capture this concept through the steam emanating from the noodles, which was inspired by East Asian cloud drawings and are oftentimes used to symbolize the spiritual realm. Depending on how you interpret it, the grandma could either be alive or someone visiting from the afterlife.
