Salt Fish Girl: The Durian Stench

1. Salt Fish Girl: The Durian Stench

2. Salt Fish Girl: The Durian Stench • In the city Serendipity in 2044, Miranda and her family live in a future when high technology develops to an extreme. [e.g. “Interactive Electronic Books”(24), “Business Suit”(25), “Spy Goggles”(35), “Swimming Suits”(65)] • The foul smell can be read as an ironic presentation of the exploitation of imperialism and capitalism which are the relentless forces from the civilized world.

3. Outline: The Durian Stench • The cause of Miranda’s foul smell -Biotechnology -Implication • As inkling -race issue: at school -Ian Chestnut/ his mother • Miranda’s Shame -The letters between her father and Dr. Flowers -Miranda taking a bath • Reek of Other People in other Compounds or out in the Unregulated Zone • Symptoms of the Patients/ the dreaming disease

4. The Cause of Miranda’s Foul Smell • Miranda’s conception: durian scent • the smuggled durian (14) • Durians in the Unregulated Zone (14) • Biotechnology • Mutation (32) (62)

5. As Inkling • Miranda’s classmates ignore and scorn her because of her durian stink. (21) • Larissa Lai doesn’t specially describe Miranda’s Asian appearance. • “the only Asian child” (23) • Her social stature (33) • Ian Chestnut befriends Miranda. • Ian’s house (64) • His mother has a smell of rusting iron.

6. Miranda’s Shame • Miranda didn’t care a lot about her smell. (34) • “Suddenly, and for the first time, I felt dirty.” (72) • Her father’s shame (72) (69) • Miranda taking a bath: She scrubs her skin hard but she can’t get away the stink. (73)

7. Reek of Other People in other Compounds or out in the Unregulated Zone • There are other people stink of various smells (70): • orange, tobacco, rotten eggs, cabbage • silk, cotton, coffee, blood and carnage, coal, freshly baked bread, machine oil, dust and rain and mud • Those are the scents from the workers in the colonized countries or the capitalistic society, also from the immigrants who could not find better jobs in the new land. • Salt Fish Girl and Nu Wa in Canton (118)

8. Symptoms of the Patients • When Miranda becomes Dr. Flowers’s assistant doing “blood tests” and “skin scrapings,” she met different patients who tell her different stories. • a man smells of milk -memory of the famines caused by war (101) • a girl smells of stainless steel -memory of tuberculosis (102) • a woman reeks of radishes • -tales of stealing of fruit • a boy smells of oranges -telling of tragic romances

9. Conclusion • The Durian Stench • The dreaming disease, or the drowning disease -the case of the girl who smelled of cooking oil (85) • Water -returning to the root of human being -cleansing the ideology of status