Latest / Bookies' Favourite / Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King | Review | International Booker Prize 2026

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Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King | Review | International Booker Prize 2026 · Bookies' Favourite

• 0:11
  Hi, welcome to the club bookies favorite book club.
• 0:14
  We read literary shortlists and award-winning novels.
• 0:18
  We're an independent podcast with no official links to the
• 0:20
  awards we discuss. We're currently reading the
• 0:23
  International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist.
• 0:26
  This award recognizes the vital work of translation in the UK
• 0:29
  and Ireland. In this episode, we're
• 0:31
  discussing Taiwan Travelogue by Young Zhuangzhou, translated
• 0:35
  from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King, published by And Other
• 0:39
  Stories. The audio book is narrated by
• 0:42
  Sarah Skier. This novel was previously
• 0:44
  awarded the National Book Award for Translated Literature 2024,
• 0:48
  the Golden Tripod Award 2021, the Bifang Shell Book Prize
• 0:53
  2025, the Alta First Translation Prize 2025, the Best Translation
• 0:59
  Award in Japan 24 and it was shortlisted for the Chaminade
• 1:04
  International Women's Literary Award 2026.
• 1:07
  You can follow us on Instagram and Goodreads at Boogie's
• 1:10
  favorite book club and you can e-mail us on
• 1:13
  boogiesfavoritebookclub@gmail.com. All of our socials and emails
• 1:16
  are in the description. Well, hi guys, I'm Hannah and
• 1:20
  I'm currently trying to appease my monstrous appetite.
• 1:25
  I oh I'm such mixed feelings on this book because OK spoiler but
• 1:30
  like I'm an idiot who thought even though I read the
• 1:34
  afterwards and all thought this was kind of based on a real life
• 1:38
  scenario and then until we discussed it, I realized I am
• 1:41
  really just stupid. So I don't know was that I was
• 1:47
  just not in a place this week that I really wanted to read,
• 1:50
  but like it wasn't that it was like a slog to get through, but
• 1:54
  I just felt like I don't know, I wasn't getting it.
• 1:56
  But then there was moments where I'm like, oh, I'm really
• 1:58
  enjoying this book. So I don't know, I've been mixed
• 2:01
  feelings about this, but overall quite enjoyed it, especially the
• 2:04
  all the descriptions about food. I really love that.
• 2:07
  I'm broadcast journalist Aaron Rice at Aaron Rice Media on all
• 2:13
  of my socials, and I am riding the train from city to city.
• 2:19
  I haven't finished this book. I am rough.
• 2:26
  I'm roughly about halfway through.
• 2:28
  I was in two minds about whether or not I should join for this
• 2:31
  conversation, and I just want everyone to take it with a grain
• 2:34
  of salt that I haven't finished this book yet.
• 2:37
  I actually, I'm really enjoying it, but you really have to be in
• 2:41
  the mindset to read it. I think because of the language
• 2:44
  used since there's so many cultural references to Japan and
• 2:48
  Taiwan that it's so out of my what I'm used to to reading.
• 2:54
  So it it just, I really have to be like switched on and active
• 2:58
  while while I'm reading it. And I have been using the
• 3:02
  audiobook as well as reading it kind of both at the same time
• 3:06
  and we can get into the audio book in a little bit.
• 3:09
  Hi, my name is Lucy. I'm currently in the lavatory
• 3:12
  outside building 1 after the curfew.
• 3:14
  I read this book like over a month ago.
• 3:18
  I really actually was surprised because I thought this is the
• 3:21
  kind of book when it was long listed originally I was like I'm
• 3:23
  going to hate this book. I thought there's no way I'm
• 3:26
  going to enjoy this. And then I actually found it
• 3:28
  really like a really enjoyable read.
• 3:31
  It was quite, quite peaceful at times, quite like then.
• 3:34
  I think there's such an interesting look at colonialism
• 3:37
  and a very direct look at colonialism.
• 3:39
  I think a lot of books kind of skirt around kind of issues, but
• 3:43
  this is like everyone is having quite frank conversations about
• 3:46
  the colonialism that is actually happening.
• 3:48
  And I like the nested element to the story, the fact that it's
• 3:52
  kind of a fake translation that's been found.
• 3:55
  And I like that side of things. And yeah, I really, I think I'd
• 4:00
  say I really enjoyed the book when I was reading it back.
• 4:03
  I've read bits and pieces of it and I kind of was like I the
• 4:07
  food stuff, while I kind of found it nice at the time, I'm
• 4:09
  like it's there's too much food stuff.
• 4:12
  Well, if you haven't read the book guys, this is your spoiler
• 4:14
  warning. From this point on, let's start
• 4:16
  with a quote from Taiwan Travelogue.
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  One day people will no longer remember the Islander way of
• 4:23
  life, but during the King period, the Hoklo people also
• 4:26
  did the same thing to the native tribes ways of life here.
• 4:29
  How far back should one go when lamenting such cruelties?
• 4:32
  But the absurd thing about humanity is that we only feel
• 4:35
  pain when we're on the receiving end.
• 4:38
  Taiwan Travelogue is a nested story where the author of the
• 4:43
  book Young Shanghui has found in the records a Japanese book
• 4:50
  written about travelling through Taiwan, which is kind of a novel
• 4:54
  based on a on a travelogue and she has translated it into
• 5:00
  Mandarin. But actually young Chang Zhuhui
• 5:02
  has written the whole book herself.
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  And basically it is the story of AO Yama, who is a Japanese woman
• 5:12
  in 1938, who has come over to Japan, run Taiwan to write
• 5:19
  stories about local Taiwan. And while there she meets Chi
• 5:24
  Chan, well, who she calls a woman who she calls Chi Chan,
• 5:27
  that is her kind of interpreter and her local guide.
• 5:31
  And she has a very serious attachment towards this woman.
• 5:35
  And it's a study of colonialism, power dynamics and and and
• 5:41
  friendship at its at its core. And food.
• 5:44
  Food is also like 1/3 of this book.
• 5:46
  So let's dive into the the plot and what do we think of this
• 5:53
  story? I thought it was quite sweet,
• 5:55
  like quite a like, I know it's it's kind of what all these big
• 5:59
  themes and stuff, but at at its core, it is a travel story about
• 6:04
  this woman who is going about Taiwan who wants to really
• 6:09
  experience the local way of life.
• 6:11
  And I suppose there's like a modern appeal to this because
• 6:17
  while travel probably wasn't as massively common as it is now
• 6:22
  and in 1938, that this woman is kind of probably making a lot of
• 6:25
  the mistakes that that modern travelers make in their kind of
• 6:28
  journey to try and get the local experience of somewhere.
• 6:33
  Really disappointed to find out this wasn't real.
• 6:36
  Like I fully like man. Aaron on Friday night had a
• 6:40
  brief discussion about the book. Like we didn't overly get into
• 6:44
  it or anything because we don't want to.
• 6:46
  We save this all for you guys on the podcast.
• 6:49
  Umm, but I was like, Oh, I don't know how I'm feeling about this.
• 6:52
  I don't know if I'll have much to say this week.
• 6:54
  And then I read the afterwards and then my heart just felt so
• 6:59
  connected, like it just felt this little warmth and I thought
• 7:02
  it was all real and it got me and I was like, wow, I love this
• 7:06
  like a story that like, because to me, I thought it was like a
• 7:10
  love story as well of like how these, umm, two women like it's
• 7:15
  a, well, we can discuss this whole idea, friendship, not
• 7:19
  friendship, but like our friendship, but like a love
• 7:21
  story. That's never going to be, you
• 7:23
  know, more than I suppose, like a platonic love in the end.
• 7:29
  And I love this connection through food because it really
• 7:31
  reminded me a little bit about butter, you know, the way there.
• 7:35
  I know their stories are completely different, but the
• 7:39
  idea like food being used in it. But I kept reading this book at
• 7:42
  night and ended up hungry. So I just not reading it during
• 7:45
  the night because I then wanted to get up and make meals so.
• 7:48
  I know I was reading it during Lent and it was horrific.
• 7:51
  I did really enjoy the extreme descriptions of like, how to
• 7:55
  make this like, meal and a big take this woman like 12 hours
• 7:59
  and she's like making paste out of like, fish bones and like
• 8:03
  random stuff. And then there's a part of me
• 8:05
  that was like, I kind of went into a Zen place when she was
• 8:07
  like discussing all that. I said to to Hannah and this is
• 8:10
  a spoiler for my overall thoughts at the end.
• 8:14
  Also, bearing in mind I haven't completed the book, I'm only
• 8:17
  about halfway through. I think this book's going to win
• 8:20
  based off looking at last year's winner, Heartlamp.
• 8:24
  Now that was also published by And Other Stories.
• 8:28
  That's not the reason why I think it's it's going to win.
• 8:32
  When we read the shortlist last year, I was under the impression
• 8:36
  that this prize, the International Booker Prize, is
• 8:41
  looking at what's the best book. It's now in English.
• 8:45
  So which is the best one? Which is the most interesting,
• 8:48
  blah blah, blah. But looking back at last year's
• 8:53
  winner, Heartlamp, it was a very specific story about the culture
• 9:00
  that could only really have been written by someone from that
• 9:04
  culture, that could only have been written in its native
• 9:09
  language and then translated into English for English
• 9:13
  speakers to actually understand what that culture is like.
• 9:17
  I think that this story is an insight into Taiwanese culture
• 9:23
  and Japanese culture with that kind of intersectional crossover
• 9:27
  of looking at it from the Japanese point of view, that it
• 9:34
  would never have worked if this was originally written in
• 9:37
  English. But the fact that it's done so
• 9:40
  beautifully and and we do get such an insight into these
• 9:43
  cultures, I think that's where it succeeds.
• 9:47
  I think it's also interesting just reading it with then the
• 9:51
  extra thought that, yes, this entire book was written as
• 9:57
  though the original author had come across it and translated
• 10:03
  it. So she herself is acting as a
• 10:05
  translator. But then we have the extra layer
• 10:10
  on top of that that it has actually been translated for us.
• 10:13
  To me, there's just so many layers to this.
• 10:15
  Also with the fact that Chichan, we find out wants to be like a
• 10:20
  translator of novels, I, I, I think that this is like the book
• 10:27
  for people who appreciate like translated literature and I just
• 10:32
  can't. I I know I've only actually read
• 10:34
  one other book on the shortlist so far, but I can't see any
• 10:38
  other book appealing to what this award is.
• 10:43
  I like more than this book. I think you could well be right,
• 10:47
  but I do think that last year was maybe a bit of an anomaly on
• 10:50
  that sense of that the judges took it really seriously to be
• 10:53
  like and in their speeches and stuff, they were like, this is a
• 10:55
  translated prize and this is very, you know, where like, I'm
• 10:58
  not saying that the previous winners, I've read most of the
• 11:01
  previous winners of the international book.
• 11:03
  I'm not saying that they're not like culturally like they are
• 11:05
  very like culturally linked to the places they're from, but I
• 11:09
  wouldn't say that they're similar to Heartlamp in that way
• 11:11
  that it's like a real trans. Like it is a translation prize,
• 11:14
  but at the same time like 50% of it goes to the original writer,
• 11:17
  50% goes to the translator. I think that, well, it could
• 11:20
  well win. There's a lot of other examples
• 11:22
  of where a book is quite just straightforwardly a normal book
• 11:25
  that has has won national. Well, this one just seemed like
• 11:31
  not like a simplistic story, but like it was a nice, it's almost
• 11:35
  sweet, beautiful story with important like points made in
• 11:40
  it. I was waiting for that moment or
• 11:42
  something kind of shocking to happen.
• 11:43
  Or like I was like, oh, are they going to kiss?
• 11:45
  Are they going to not like that? That when it didn't happen, it
• 11:49
  didn't not like I didn't hate the novel.
• 11:51
  I just felt like a love story almost of like like the food,
• 11:55
  the culture, what is friendship? You know those elements and I
• 12:00
  meet me appreciate it a lot. I think the conversational
• 12:03
  nature of a lot of the stuff in it, like they were having these
• 12:05
  kind of conversations where they couldn't quite tell each other.
• 12:10
  A lot of things. They're quite like flirty with
• 12:12
  each other. So I like, I get the idea that
• 12:14
  this is kind of somewhat of a love story.
• 12:17
  But then also it's kind of like, you know, in your head, it's a
• 12:20
  love story, but you also are like, there's nothing concrete
• 12:23
  to be like this. They have any feelings for each
• 12:26
  other but you. But I suppose in the letters at
• 12:28
  the end, you're kind of like, OK, they obviously mean a lot to
• 12:31
  each other because there's actually more to their
• 12:34
  relationship, like the whole colonizer kind of thing.
• 12:37
  And then there's also the the relationship, as in there's such
• 12:40
  part dynamics between them, the two of them.
• 12:42
  So I feel like her character is like so naive, you know, like
• 12:46
  that when you're travelling. I think not.
• 12:49
  Well, a lot of us would be like looking up different, like when
• 12:52
  we go to visit a different country and we're looking at be
• 12:55
  how to be respectful and like how to greet people and things
• 12:59
  like that. But I love this idea that and
• 13:02
  she's just like so excited to try and and she's thinking she's
• 13:05
  going to live this authentic year in Taiwan and really
• 13:08
  immerse herself into it. But she's so naive to like the
• 13:12
  like colonialism. Like she's like, oh, yeah, it's
• 13:15
  kind of happened. But you know, and I just love
• 13:18
  that Chi Chan is just like when she needs that break from her as
• 13:22
  well. And it's an explanation of like,
• 13:25
  you're not getting it. Like you're not like, how are
• 13:28
  you not seeing this? And in the novel, I just want
• 13:31
  like I'm reading, I'm like, I want to scream because I feel
• 13:33
  like sometimes when you have like being from Ireland and you
• 13:36
  have people trying to explain stuff to you and you're like,
• 13:39
  you don't get it, like or you don't see things.
• 13:43
  And but I just love how strong to Chinese for that.
• 13:48
  Like, she just reminds me of myself sometimes in a way of
• 13:51
  like, she has her things that she is strong on and her morals
• 13:55
  and that and she's not willing to be like, oh, thank you for
• 13:59
  like trying to save me and take me back to Japan and give me
• 14:02
  this life. It's like, no, you're being
• 14:04
  disrespectful. And like, how can you not see
• 14:06
  that? Like I wanted to shake our main
• 14:08
  character. Be like you're so rude.
• 14:11
  I really loved both of them, like in for different reasons.
• 14:15
  The minute you know that she's Japanese and she's going over to
• 14:18
  Taiwan, you're like, OK, she's this like Egypt, but she's
• 14:22
  actually so there's something so nice about her.
• 14:24
  She's so like she does want to know everything about the
• 14:27
  culture and it may be misguided, like the reasons behind it and
• 14:29
  all that stuff, but it's like she genuinely like loves Chee
• 14:34
  Chan. I think no.
• 14:36
  Does she know Chee Chan? Not necessarily.
• 14:39
  I think she she loves, she wants a wife basically, and Chee Chan
• 14:44
  is like being her her wife for the year.
• 14:46
  But I feel like there's something really nice about her.
• 14:51
  Like she really, she does want to experience everything.
• 14:55
  And I think that you can kind of relate to her in a way of like,
• 14:58
  you can never come over to a country and understand
• 15:00
  everything about that country and and be this person that's
• 15:03
  immediately like gets it and knows what to say and knows what
• 15:06
  to do. Whereas she kind of just comes
• 15:08
  in with this really open mind to everything.
• 15:12
  And I feel like she takes people's criticism actually
• 15:15
  quite well because people are quite like Machima and Chee Chan
• 15:19
  or like she doesn't get it. But she's never going to get it
• 15:21
  in any real sense because she can't be from Taiwan.
• 15:24
  She can't be, you know, a mainlander born in Taiwan.
• 15:28
  She can't be someone of Chinese heritage in Taiwan.
• 15:32
  She can't be a native person in Taiwan.
• 15:33
  She has to do this from a Japanese colonial.
• 15:36
  And she has no other option available to her.
• 15:38
  But she's quite, she's quite open to being told, you know,
• 15:41
  you're an idiot. She's quite open to, to making
• 15:44
  all these mistakes and not feeling stupid about it.
• 15:47
  And you kind of get the sense of the way that the the
• 15:50
  mainlanders, which is the term for Japanese people, which is
• 15:53
  quite confusing because geographically they're much
• 15:56
  closer to China and China would be much more of a mainland.
• 16:01
  But so the mainlanders are kind of like insular with their
• 16:04
  culture and they have all the Japanese food and everything in,
• 16:08
  in those areas that they're, they've kind of colonized in
• 16:10
  Taiwan. And she doesn't want to see any
• 16:13
  of that kind of stuff. Those people that are Japanese
• 16:16
  or at least have Japanese heritage that are living in
• 16:19
  Taiwan, they seem to have no real interest in that.
• 16:23
  Well, some of them seem to have no interest in the Taiwanese
• 16:25
  culture. So when they're showing her
• 16:26
  about places, they're showing her all the Japanese stuff and
• 16:28
  all the Japanese shrines and all the Japanese.
• 16:31
  And I imagine if you were in her shoes, you would be like, well,
• 16:34
  what's the point in me coming here?
• 16:37
  Like you would want to experience the actual like
• 16:39
  Taiwanese culture, But it's like she has no real way of doing
• 16:44
  that. And to be honest, as anybody,
• 16:45
  when they travel to another country have like in modern
• 16:48
  times, even it's like, we've got Google.
• 16:49
  We can Google everything, but it's like you can't just
• 16:51
  immediately go somewhere and understand exactly what it's
• 16:54
  like for those people and, and be culturally makes sense.
• 16:59
  It is kind of like when when people come here and they say
• 17:01
  really stupid things and you're like, what an idiot.
• 17:03
  But it's like at the same time, what, what do they know?
• 17:05
  What can they know? They're not from here.
• 17:07
  This is why I think food is so important in this story, because
• 17:11
  like, she keeps asking for local food.
• 17:14
  She keeps asking for street food, she keeps asking for the
• 17:16
  food that the locals eat. And they're like, yeah, yeah,
• 17:18
  yeah, we'll, we'll get you sorted.
• 17:21
  And then they end up making her food that's just like Japanese
• 17:24
  coded and she's like, like, I mean, I'll eat it because I eat
• 17:28
  literally everything, but this isn't what I wanted.
• 17:31
  I wanted the authentic experience.
• 17:34
  And to me that's where it actually hit the hardest with
• 17:37
  that They were like, we can't feed someone from Japan or local
• 17:41
  food because they deserve better.
• 17:43
  Like we would never subject them to, to our culinary like
• 17:49
  delicacies. Then like she's really trying to
• 17:52
  bridge that gap because there's the part where they talk about
• 17:55
  the soup that only those experiencing poverty would eat.
• 18:00
  And that like really was a really, yes, yes, Chi Chang grew
• 18:04
  up. I, I find her character very
• 18:07
  interesting because she grew up the daughter of a very like
• 18:12
  high-ranking, like family, but because she was the daughter of
• 18:16
  a concubine, she doesn't get to actually live that life.
• 18:22
  So she's kind of like an inbetweener of these worlds
• 18:27
  where she like grew up in poverty, even though she has
• 18:31
  this background and that that she was born into.
• 18:35
  And, but like she's also, she doesn't want to share a lot of
• 18:39
  her experiences because like, I understand our protagonist
• 18:43
  wanting to connect with the culture, but there's a certain
• 18:48
  level of like ignorance where if you are somebody who grew up,
• 18:52
  grew up in poverty in that culture, you don't want somebody
• 18:56
  to like be like the, I'm getting the true experience by living
• 18:59
  like, I, umm, somebody who lives in poverty in this country.
• 19:04
  Like I understand trying to bridge that gap, but I also
• 19:07
  understand the other side of it where it's like, oh, like this
• 19:13
  isn't a fun little like get together.
• 19:17
  Like let's cook a meal that you're thinking it is.
• 19:19
  Like this is we'd literally have nothing else to eat.
• 19:22
  So we have to make soup from the byproduct of what we make on our
• 19:27
  farm because there's nothing else to eat.
• 19:30
  And it was that like cultural ignorance, but at the same time
• 19:36
  she was trying. Yeah.
• 19:38
  So like, who is she wrong? Is she right?
• 19:41
  Like do we just have to accept that that's just part of being
• 19:46
  human and you don't know other cultures?
• 19:49
  And if you do want to go and learn other cultures, it might
• 19:52
  come across as insensitive. But how else are you supposed to
• 19:57
  actually connect with that culture if you can't at least
• 20:03
  attempt to? See what it is that they go
• 20:06
  through and and kind of what the lives that they live.
• 20:10
  Something I think's interesting is to your point is like later
• 20:13
  on in the book, Mishima, who was her original kind of guide, is
• 20:17
  brought back and he says to her, the way in which you talk about
• 20:21
  the island's flavors does not sound to me like you're
• 20:23
  appreciating them for being delicious, but more for being
• 20:26
  exotic as one might appreciate a rare animal.
• 20:29
  I feel like that is the lens in which she sees the island.
• 20:32
  It's like a exciting, like, I want to try everything.
• 20:36
  And as you said, Aaron, she's like really quite hard.
• 20:39
  Like, yeah, she wants to try this soup that people only have
• 20:43
  an extreme circumstances of poverty.
• 20:45
  And it's like she thinks it's great.
• 20:47
  Like, it's a great fun thing, but it is like this horrible
• 20:51
  circumstance at which the soup was born from.
• 20:53
  Yeah. But she's still, he's still
• 20:57
  quite like her for the fact that she does it.
• 20:59
  You know, you're. So I think the thing with this
• 21:01
  is you are. So I suppose maybe it's because
• 21:03
  it's from it, it's from Ayama's perspective.
• 21:07
  You, you know, she doesn't have a bad like she doesn't, she's
• 21:14
  not coming from a bad place, but you can see all the things she's
• 21:17
  doing and how she isn't just completely overlooking what
• 21:21
  other people's experiences might be like.
• 21:23
  And he is totally fetishizing the island for its food.
• 21:25
  There's no intent from her to be like cruel or be like, oh, I'm
• 21:31
  going to live like a peasant for the day.
• 21:33
  You know, she's just like to meet you.
• 21:37
  Both characters remind me of little elements of myself in a
• 21:40
  way, like because she's like on this exotic holiday for a year
• 21:45
  and she's like being just so silly because she's like, oh, I
• 21:49
  want to try everything. But then not being super like
• 21:53
  respectful annoyed but she thinks she's being respectful.
• 21:56
  But then again there's no intent of her being like she's just
• 22:00
  being an ass about it really. She's just really wanting to
• 22:03
  like, learn everything is possible.
• 22:06
  You kind of could come to the conclusion that because the
• 22:08
  whole power dynamics in which Cheatham is hired to work for
• 22:14
  IAMA. So there's that employee
• 22:16
  employer, there's also the colonizer colonized dynamic as
• 22:20
  well. But something that I think is
• 22:22
  quite nice about Chee Chan is that she obviously does to some
• 22:27
  degree love. And I think it's quite clear,
• 22:29
  even at the start, she does like IO Yama, or at least have the
• 22:33
  same kind of bond that IO Yama has for her.
• 22:37
  Because I I was thinking she would be so much nicer to I I I
• 22:43
  know she is unbelievably nicer and she does so much stuff for
• 22:45
  her and she does her job very well, but I think she would lie
• 22:48
  to her if she had no actual bond with her.
• 22:52
  Because when when I am is like, oh, we're friends, right.
• 22:55
  We're we're buds. Chee Chan is like, I feel like
• 23:00
  if she if she didn't respect I am or didn't like I am and she's
• 23:03
  like, yeah, we're friends. We're best friends.
• 23:04
  Yeah, cool keep Yep, 100%. Like I think she would lie to
• 23:08
  her. I don't think because I think
• 23:09
  there's a lot made of the fact that she's a concubines daughter
• 23:12
  and the idea that she's worked in certain places where like
• 23:17
  meal guests would be kind of treated very nicely.
• 23:20
  I think that in some ways she could just do the same thing to
• 23:23
  Ayama and be like, yeah, you're great.
• 23:25
  Everything you say is right, Everything you do is brilliant
• 23:27
  because she knows that that would get her the most favour.
• 23:30
  But she chooses not to do those things because I think she has
• 23:33
  genuine she genuinely does like Ayama, But they still there
• 23:37
  still is all these things that she can't explain to her in in
• 23:41
  why she probably fears that IO Yama only likes her because
• 23:46
  she's doing all these things for IO Yama, which I think would be
• 23:49
  a horrible position to be in if you were teacher and you're
• 23:51
  like, oh, this woman talks about me like we're real friends, but
• 23:55
  she doesn't know me. I think that would be a really,
• 23:56
  really sad place to be where it's like if I stopped spending
• 24:00
  12 hours a day making her food, would she still care if I was in
• 24:04
  the same room as her? But I think that and also I
• 24:07
  suppose something that IO Yama, she does love her for her food
• 24:10
  making skills, but she also like she's so enthralled by her, like
• 24:14
  every time she like looks at her like there's that.
• 24:16
  That's where the you know, I'd say romantic love maybe comes
• 24:20
  in. And also like she really
• 24:22
  respects her because she realizes that Chee Chan's really
• 24:25
  intelligent. She speaks of the different
• 24:26
  languages. She obviously is well versed in
• 24:29
  so many things in life. And so I don't think it's like
• 24:33
  she does things for me. Therefore I love her.
• 24:36
  I think she does have genuine love.
• 24:37
  Part of me is thinking that the reason why she is almost
• 24:43
  resistant to their relationship, to their friendship is because
• 24:49
  the different like rankings that they are.
• 24:52
  And I think she's in a position of servitude.
• 24:55
  Even if she does see that they are friends, I think she has to
• 25:00
  be resistant to acknowledging that because she's like, oh I
• 25:05
  can't put myself on the same level as you.
• 25:07
  Just like she couldn't eat at the same table as her because
• 25:09
  she was like, oh, we, we are of different ranks.
• 25:12
  So I think that their culture is just one of so much respect that
• 25:18
  they, they really do distance themselves and, and they make
• 25:22
  sure to not place themselves on the same like level as, as
• 25:29
  others that they would see as, as ranking above them.
• 25:32
  I think it is just like as a, as a cultural like servitude thing
• 25:36
  where she's like, Oh, I, I can't tell you that we're friends.
• 25:40
  Like I'll be your friend if you want me to be your friend.
• 25:42
  But at the same time, like you are ranked above me.
• 25:45
  So like, if you don't want to be friends, like that's completely
• 25:48
  fine. Like I won't be friends with
• 25:49
  you. I don't think I did take it like
• 25:51
  that. I think, I do take it that I
• 25:53
  think that the damage in them is, is huge and massive, but I
• 25:56
  kind of took it as Ayama. Ayama had asked her very
• 26:01
  specific, like had said something like or like we're
• 26:03
  friends. You're like my friend and she
• 26:05
  can't answer. And I, I don't know if it's
• 26:08
  maybe spelled out in the book or I don't know why I have this
• 26:11
  opinion, but I just thought that it was more than just the
• 26:14
  relationship dynamics. But it was well, it was because
• 26:19
  of the relationship dynamics that IO Yama didn't know her or
• 26:23
  didn't understand where she was coming from or doesn't get her,
• 26:26
  so therefore she can't answer. Or we're friends because she
• 26:30
  knows that IO Yama isn't really friends with her because she
• 26:34
  doesn't know. Where Do you see what I mean?
• 26:35
  That's how I. Part of me had taken it well
• 26:38
  because it's like someone from the island and then then having
• 26:42
  someone from Japan, there's like those stark differences.
• 26:45
  And then I think Chichan is also being like, you'll never really
• 26:48
  get me, Like you're not really understanding me.
• 26:51
  And, and I think there's also a resistance in my head because
• 26:56
  she knows she's only there for a year.
• 26:59
  So it's like, how much do you want to invest in this
• 27:03
  friendship other than like work? Because they're going to be gone
• 27:06
  at some point, Like you may never see them again.
• 27:09
  So I think there's like that cultural divide and then the
• 27:13
  also like of not wanting to get your heart to trapped, you know,
• 27:16
  because you'll miss them too much.
• 27:18
  But I was so glad you guys have brought up like the whole
• 27:21
  friendship thing because it's like one of the big main things
• 27:24
  for me. And as you know, I like to
• 27:27
  reflect on loads of things that made me think about my
• 27:29
  friendships of people and hide those little things of like
• 27:32
  sharing me with someone is so intimate.
• 27:34
  Like I don't overly think about it.
• 27:36
  But now I'm like, oh, it is quite an intimate experience and
• 27:40
  having those like one on ones or like sharing a table with people
• 27:44
  And then like especially making friendships and even more as an
• 27:47
  adult where you get to like learn these little bits and
• 27:49
  pieces about these new friends that you've made.
• 27:53
  So I think that's why maybe even Chi Chan is a bit like resistant
• 27:57
  to share more about her life because how well, like it's a
• 28:02
  new friendship and do you want to like spill everything about
• 28:05
  your life just like a stranger who might not really get it
• 28:08
  because they're not from the same place.
• 28:11
  Like there's all these little dynamics in the book.
• 28:13
  I just absolutely love. One thing I would absolutely
• 28:16
  love to talk about is one of my favorite parts of the book.
• 28:20
  So Q Chan wins that competition, you know, with the dice for them
• 28:25
  to have that like authentic meal by a like Taiwanese cook, isn't
• 28:33
  that right? Or chef.
• 28:34
  And they have that like banquet between them, which is normally
• 28:37
  meant to be served with like 8 or more people.
• 28:40
  I think it's it's meant to be like a big banquet and it's just
• 28:43
  between the two of them. And the idea is that like the
• 28:46
  final course is a soup that's made over with the leftovers of
• 28:51
  from the banquet. But I fully love that chapter.
• 28:55
  It just felt so like intimate to me.
• 28:58
  And I'm the responding bits of like, is it the server?
• 29:02
  You know, it has to take away the plates at times because
• 29:05
  they're like nearly finishing it too much and they need some of
• 29:08
  the leftovers, like in quotations to put in this this
• 29:11
  final course soup. But at the the chapter ends, but
• 29:15
  she transcend like this is the final meal we'll like have
• 29:19
  together. And then she doesn't see her,
• 29:21
  you know, she sees her one more time, you know, after that.
• 29:24
  But I just love it was such a like a little like love story,
• 29:28
  beautiful moment that combined the food, the friendship, the
• 29:33
  culture. And then it ended with this like
• 29:36
  moment where my heart hurt because like, I know, like, I
• 29:39
  wasn't thinking of it as like a romantic meal in a way.
• 29:41
  But like, I don't know, sometimes I think friendships
• 29:45
  and when you lose them are almost harder than romantic
• 29:48
  relationships when they break up.
• 29:50
  So I felt that like peeing on my chest of like, Oh no, they're
• 29:53
  chitchat. Don't leave.
• 29:54
  Like I got so emotional about it.
• 29:57
  What? Did you think of the dice stuff?
• 30:00
  Because she's like, it's so bizarre.
• 30:02
  Like I was kind of like, is this verging into magical realism
• 30:06
  because she cannot lose a dice? And it's like every time they
• 30:11
  play, and then I think it's Ayama is like, OK, well, we'll
• 30:13
  do it the other way around where it's like whoever gets the
• 30:15
  lowest score, they win. And then your girl still gets
• 30:18
  the lowest score and your Ayama starts getting really high
• 30:21
  scores. And it's like something's not
• 30:23
  right here. There is a part where Ayama says
• 30:27
  that luck is a skill as well when they're taught, when
• 30:31
  they're playing dice. So is it just that she's just
• 30:36
  extremely lucky and that's just one of the skills that she has
• 30:38
  in life, that she's really lucky?
• 30:41
  I know that's like crazy to say that luck is a skill, but that
• 30:44
  that is a quote. And from it, is that then saying
• 30:49
  more than just dice? Is it then saying that like
• 30:54
  success? Because we know that Ayama is a
• 31:00
  very successful writer. Like, is that just luck?
• 31:04
  And is that a skill that she has as well?
• 31:08
  And is the whole like colonialism, like a luck?
• 31:14
  Like I, I don't know, like maybe I'm taking a small thing and
• 31:17
  just like adding it to the bigger picture when it doesn't
• 31:20
  actually apply. But like if they are actually
• 31:24
  legitimizing this, like the statement that that luck is a
• 31:29
  skill, then how does that play out in in a larger scale?
• 31:33
  I actually don't know a lot about Taiwan.
• 31:36
  So I found this book quite interesting in that way and
• 31:39
  exploring, you know, the culture and that.
• 31:42
  And then I was like, oh, after reading this book and like,
• 31:46
  we're doing our podcasts and stuff, I was like, oh, I might
• 31:48
  actually go and read up a bit about Taiwan because reading it,
• 31:52
  I was like, this is actually quite interesting.
• 31:54
  And, you know, given like the political climate and that and
• 31:57
  the dynamic of it, I was like, I feel like there could be some
• 32:00
  interesting bits in it. Yeah, Hannah, I get where you're
• 32:02
  coming from with that. This book you didn't need to
• 32:07
  know, you didn't have to have all that background knowledge
• 32:10
  because it kind of drip fed it to you in a way that made sense,
• 32:14
  was understandable. And I know I feel like I at
• 32:19
  least have a decent kind of grasp on the basics, But like,
• 32:24
  Taiwan is such a blind spot for me in general that they make
• 32:29
  reference to a great earthquake that happened there like a year
• 32:32
  or two previous to when this novel takes place.
• 32:36
  And like, I didn't know that that had happened, but they said
• 32:39
  that their country was like, decimated by this earthquake and
• 32:42
  this bridge, like, collapsed. And now it still remains, even
• 32:46
  nowadays, it still remains as a like monument to this great
• 32:52
  earthquake that had happened that like really destroyed the
• 32:55
  island. I don't feel like it's like
• 32:56
  bashing me over the head with all this knowledge and yet like
• 32:59
  you said, like a drip feed throughout and it doesn't feel
• 33:01
  like a lot. It feels like I've got like a
• 33:03
  nice little a bit more knowledge of Taiwan than I ever had
• 33:07
  before. I really liked the bet in the
• 33:09
  school with the like dormant stuff.
• 33:12
  I thought it was really interesting.
• 33:13
  It's like a high achieving girls school in the area.
• 33:16
  There are mainly Japanese girls or Mainlander descendant girls
• 33:21
  and then there's also local Taiwanese girls.
• 33:24
  And Ayama has just heard of this slur that's used against the
• 33:28
  Taiwanese population by mainlanders.
• 33:31
  And they hear of an incident that happened in the school
• 33:34
  between these two girls. And then the 2 girls come over
• 33:36
  to them and they seem like in a really like affectionate
• 33:40
  relationship with each other. The one of the girls is of
• 33:44
  Japanese heritage and the other one is of Taiwanese heritage.
• 33:47
  Then they're told not to go to this toilet in the dormitory.
• 33:52
  And then it seems like from what I can put together is that there
• 33:56
  was a rendezvous happening between the two girls in that
• 34:00
  toilet, which is why they told everyone don't go to that
• 34:02
  toilet. It's a magical new dimension.
• 34:05
  And basically, I'm assuming there was something, I assumed
• 34:11
  that they were in some form of relationship because there was a
• 34:15
  photo left and the photo was of one of them dressed as a man.
• 34:19
  And I got very queer vibes from that and the fact that it was
• 34:22
  like they clearly had chosen to mate, but there was so much like
• 34:26
  unsaid about that. Yeah, so I got quite queer vibes
• 34:29
  from it as well. And it's like, especially the
• 34:33
  photograph where she's like in a suit or something, is it?
• 34:37
  Or she's like with a tie and that.
• 34:41
  And then, yeah, I didn't really fully get, I don't know if I'm
• 34:45
  not getting like, what it was, but I really like that she
• 34:49
  chatted, like saying one of the girls like it seemed like she
• 34:51
  was trying to protect her, but then she doesn't need to really
• 34:54
  be protected in a way. And that's how she sees her
• 34:57
  relationship with like, IO Yama. And I liked that there was like
• 35:03
  a reference back to it, but I'm not necessarily sure of like I
• 35:07
  just felt a bit random slightly. I quite liked it because at one
• 35:10
  point it's like, because they're trying to piece together what's
• 35:12
  happening, so they go to the lavatory that's like forbidden
• 35:15
  because they think it'll be a gag.
• 35:17
  So they go and they're like, they're there, but they disturb
• 35:21
  one of them and they're calling each other this slur, which I
• 35:24
  think they then are like, oh, this is some kind of weird
• 35:27
  blackmailing thing going on. And they put like something
• 35:30
  darker to it, like they the, the friendship.
• 35:34
  And actually they're probably just using it affectionately
• 35:37
  towards each other. Like it's a bit of a joke
• 35:39
  between them. Like to say the slur, that's
• 35:42
  what I got from it. But they, oh, yeah, man, Chi
• 35:45
  Chan are kind of like trying to be detectives about the whole
• 35:48
  thing and working out what the story is.
• 35:50
  And they're like, yeah, I don't think they get it until later
• 35:53
  on. And then it's kind of left
• 35:54
  unsaid, which I think is to the queer element of this whole book
• 35:57
  is everything's a bit left unsaid.
• 35:59
  So I think that they probably in their heads hit on the
• 36:02
  relationship that is there because I read that as gay.
• 36:07
  I don't know if it was. I have no idea.
• 36:10
  Like it's not explicitly said. No, because then I thought was
• 36:13
  this hint more like, is this where the relationship is going
• 36:16
  to go with like Chi Chan and everything and then it never
• 36:20
  really fully goes there We. Were talking earlier about the
• 36:22
  fact that she has written a novel and the novel has been
• 36:26
  made a film. I actually thought that was
• 36:28
  quite important to the plot because she sees life through
• 36:34
  that lens of she's reasonably well off and is self-sufficient
• 36:39
  in her like her means in life, whereas Chi Chan is not.
• 36:44
  And Chi Chan will have to marry. And she's always been like, I
• 36:46
  don't like the fact that you're going to marry and I don't like
• 36:48
  the fact that you've to do this. But Chi Chan is obviously a
• 36:50
  pragmatist and understands she's not in the same situation.
• 36:53
  And if she goes to Japan with our Yama, she'll just be a wife
• 36:57
  as well. Like she'll just be doing the
• 36:58
  same thing. So it's kind of like, like, what
• 37:01
  does she do? Does she be in this situation
• 37:04
  where she's at the womb of what, some woman and she'll have no
• 37:08
  legal link? Or does she marry a random man?
• 37:12
  One of them is a safer option. But I think Aliyama doesn't
• 37:15
  understand that Chichan has a completely different trajectory
• 37:19
  and she doesn't have self-sufficiency, which I think
• 37:22
  is like something that she just seems to again, have a blind
• 37:25
  spot. And there's so many blind spots
• 37:26
  that Aliyama has throughout the book, but this is definitely one
• 37:29
  where she's like, she's like, why are you marrying this man?
• 37:32
  It's like, well, why do you think she's marrying him?
• 37:34
  Like, like, use your brain. Come on.
• 37:37
  Yeah, I know. That's the points where I want
• 37:39
  to like, shake her and be like, how are you not getting this?
• 37:42
  But I also love that you're so flawed.
• 37:45
  I think IO Yama jumps to into Chichan's defense like, too many
• 37:50
  times. And as much as you're like,
• 37:52
  yeah, go on, like, challenge them, when you reflect on it
• 37:56
  more, it's like, Oh, yeah, she's not getting that structure,
• 38:00
  hierarchy of where Chi Chan stands, you know, in society.
• 38:05
  As much as I love that she's like, defending her and being
• 38:07
  like, no, this is my interpreter.
• 38:08
  Like, don't speak to her like that.
• 38:10
  We're not getting, you know, what her life is like when Iyama
• 38:13
  isn't there. It's like a culture clash where
• 38:16
  like it. It reminds me of how Westerners
• 38:21
  try to bring feminism to the Middle East.
• 38:24
  It's not as easy as like replicating what we think of as
• 38:28
  feminism and trying to like have the same thing happen in the
• 38:35
  Middle East. Like, they have their own
• 38:38
  culture, they have their own way of things.
• 38:39
  And we might not necessarily understand that.
• 38:43
  They might not see it as oppression.
• 38:45
  They have their own like, feminist movements that that we
• 38:50
  should be encouraging rather than trying to replicate what
• 38:54
  what we have here. And yeah, same thing where you
• 38:58
  have Ayayama, who comes from Japan and she's like, hang on a
• 39:01
  second. Don't talk to her that way.
• 39:03
  Like give her respect and yes, like you can cheer that on and
• 39:08
  be like, yes, she's standing up for this person who is being
• 39:11
  talked on to. She's standing up for someone
• 39:14
  who is being really like cruelly treated by a lot of these
• 39:20
  people. But that's her perspective.
• 39:24
  That's our perspective from their perspective.
• 39:27
  Like, it's maybe a bit culturally insensitive for her
• 39:31
  to like, impose and say, like, hang on a second, you're going
• 39:35
  to do things my way because my way is the better way of doing
• 39:38
  things. It's one of those things where
• 39:40
  it's like, is there a right side?
• 39:42
  Because, yes, she's trying to do the right thing.
• 39:45
  She's trying to make sure that people respect other people in
• 39:51
  this culture. But at the same time, is that
• 39:55
  what her role is? Is that what she should be
• 39:57
  doing? Like maybe not.
• 39:59
  I don't know if maybe I saw a slightly differently, but I kind
• 40:02
  of, I was like, I got the feeling that Aliyama wasn't like
• 40:10
  she'd seen this injustice be done to cheat him.
• 40:14
  And she was obviously right rightfully annoyed about it.
• 40:17
  And I think anybody would be. But I actually thought that the
• 40:21
  way she kind of went about it was so kind of.
• 40:25
  I I could, you know, you, you couldn't have not been offended
• 40:28
  if you were Cheecham of the way she's kind of like, I think I
• 40:32
  think, yeah, I'm always doing it for herself, for her own.
• 40:35
  Like I'm doing justice. I'm being the right person and
• 40:39
  I'm going to be really loud about it and I'm going to be
• 40:41
  really like, you can't treat people like this and like
• 40:44
  shouting at another person. I think that that causes a bit
• 40:47
  of like, she can do that in other ways, but I think she's
• 40:49
  doing it totally for herself. Like she's she's totally, she's
• 40:53
  not even necessarily at that point doing it for Chee Chan,
• 40:56
  though I think she thinks that Chee Chan should be grateful for
• 40:59
  her, but I think she's doing it in like a this is me and this is
• 41:03
  who I am and I'm a good person. And I think that she's the only
• 41:07
  person that is that is getting anything out of that interaction
• 41:12
  is her. And I think that there's other
• 41:14
  ways of doing it, but I don't know that she would know those
• 41:16
  other ways of doing it. I don't even know if I would
• 41:17
  know those other ways of doing it.
• 41:18
  But I think that she is making a bold statement that is correct.
• 41:24
  And but I don't even know that I think she has inner heart of
• 41:27
  hearts, the right intention with it.
• 41:29
  I think that she has she comes from a place of she's doing this
• 41:32
  for herself. She's not doing this for Chichan
• 41:34
  in in a in a real way. So like I said at the start, I
• 41:37
  was audio booking this and this was very tough to get into
• 41:44
  initially. The narrator of the audio book
• 41:46
  is so animated with her characterizations, even just
• 41:52
  like the regular like narration parts.
• 41:55
  They're they're so over the top in a way that was very jarring
• 42:00
  to begin with. It felt to me like it was like a
• 42:05
  preschooler's cartoon. The the way that there there was
• 42:10
  so much extra oomph like added into these characters in a way
• 42:17
  that was like, this isn't natural, like this flows
• 42:20
  completely off. It feels like I'm being like
• 42:23
  talked onto in a way of like I'm being in like infantilized and
• 42:29
  it just, I couldn't get into it. It was so jarring, I actually
• 42:34
  had to stop listening to the audiobook and go back and just
• 42:37
  start reading the book from scratch and I had a completely
• 42:40
  different interpretation. Also, there are a lot of
• 42:42
  footnotes from both the the writer and the translator
• 42:47
  throughout, and none of that is included in the audiobook.
• 42:51
  And also I noticed that there's a lot of parts where the
• 42:57
  characters are speaking and and we don't understand the language
• 43:02
  or the dialect that they're speaking in.
• 43:04
  So in the book it's just XXXXX for whatever words that they're
• 43:09
  using that aren't being understood.
• 43:11
  But that's not always related in the audiobook, which like when
• 43:17
  you're like narrating an audio book, how do you get that point
• 43:22
  across that like XXXX, like I don't understand what these
• 43:24
  words are and but there are parts or she does just XXXX, but
• 43:29
  there are parts where she doesn't do that.
• 43:31
  So I the audio book wasn't my favorite, but after a while, I
• 43:35
  just had to jump back into it because I wanted to get as much
• 43:38
  of this book uncovered as possible so I could join the
• 43:41
  conversation. And I did.
• 43:43
  I did get used to it a bit more and I almost now appreciate the
• 43:48
  characterizations, but I had been speaking with both of you
• 43:53
  about this. But Lucy, you had specifically
• 43:55
  said to me that you are going to have a completely different
• 43:59
  interpretation of these characters through the
• 44:02
  audiobook. Well, I think at the point at
• 44:05
  which I'd maybe read, I'd read like 50% and I was like, oh, I
• 44:08
  really want to find out what happens in this.
• 44:10
  And like, I think it was maybe during that, the part in the,
• 44:14
  the dormitory in the girls school, I was like, I want to
• 44:16
  know what happened. So I was like driving to work
• 44:18
  and I put it on on Spotify. I had to, I had to turn it off
• 44:21
  immediately. It's like it's so yeah, it's
• 44:24
  very cartoonish. It's very like, yeah, it's just,
• 44:28
  it just was not how I saw the characters.
• 44:31
  And I was like, if I just started with that view, would I
• 44:34
  have maybe find the characters a bit a bit more like unserious
• 44:41
  that I think maybe that's the give me a really unserious vibe.
• 44:44
  And I hadn't I hadn't done that with the book.
• 44:46
  And I was kind of concerned when you because I'd forgotten about,
• 44:50
  I'd forgotten about that experience.
• 44:51
  And I was like, oh, if you're only going to listen to the
• 44:54
  audio book, you're going to have a completely different view to
• 44:59
  to maybe everyone who's read it. No, I felt the exact same way.
• 45:02
  So Aaron had played like a short snippet for me and it just seems
• 45:06
  so jarring between like the way one character speak to the other
• 45:11
  and I was like, this is not how I imagined them in my head at
• 45:15
  all because I've listened. I'm not a big audio book person,
• 45:21
  but I had umm, last year when we did the Booker Prize.
• 45:26
  I'd listened like last August, September.
• 45:30
  I had got a bit ahead before the shortlist was announced.
• 45:32
  So when some of them were on the shortlist, I audio booked a few
• 45:36
  of them and they were slightly different to what I would
• 45:39
  imagine the characters. But I was like, yeah, that's
• 45:41
  normal. But for me, I don't know why
• 45:43
  this one just seemed so, like, cartoonish or maybe like you'd
• 45:47
  said, yeah, I don't know. I'm still not really sold on
• 45:51
  audiobooks. So this is definitely one where
• 45:53
  it makes me think, yeah, I don't think audiobooks are for me.
• 45:55
  But yeah, even for those few minutes, I was like, yeah, I'm
• 45:58
  really glad I just read the physical book.
• 46:01
  I really liked the title. Like, I wouldn't change it.
• 46:04
  One grabbed my attention and two, I think summarizes, like, a
• 46:07
  good bit of the book of, like, her travels.
• 46:10
  What about anyone? Else I think it's pretty
• 46:11
  perfect. One thing that this book
• 46:13
  reminded me of was the start of Like the Michelin Guide.
• 46:19
  Like that has now turned into Michelin stars.
• 46:22
  Yeah, Wasn't it like the Michelin tires or whatever and
• 46:26
  it had something to do with like food stops or whatever?
• 46:28
  Wasn't that or a map or something like that?
• 46:31
  So I believe one star, one Michelin star meant if you were
• 46:36
  passing by this place is worth stopping for.
• 46:39
  Two Michelin stars meant if you were going somewhere and you
• 46:44
  have to take a slight detour to get there, it's worth doing
• 46:47
  that. And three Michelin stars means
• 46:51
  it's worth just travelling there, whether or not you have
• 46:54
  any reason to be in that area. Like it's worth travelling just
• 46:57
  to, to go there for the food. So this Taiwan travelogue really
• 47:03
  felt like how that had kind of come to to fruition initially
• 47:10
  and where it felt like this is an exploration of food and she's
• 47:15
  travelling around at least the western side of the island.
• 47:21
  Are you saying to me, Aaron, that you're going to travel to
• 47:23
  Taiwan and then make a Michelin star of like stars where people
• 47:27
  should go, you know? No, I feel like that's what this
• 47:29
  book is. I feel like this book is like,
• 47:33
  oh, in this city, like you can get this food, and in this city
• 47:37
  there's like this food. So we should take a bookie's
• 47:39
  favorite book club podcast strip to Taiwan and visit the spots?
• 47:45
  Oh, that would be unreal. Guys, we need and we need to do
• 47:48
  something like that. I feel like that we have to
• 47:51
  acknowledge so that that might be problematic just because we
• 47:55
  have acknowledged that she is a bit problematic just exploiting
• 47:59
  them for their their cuisine. But I do love food, so I would
• 48:03
  definitely be up for that. Lucy, if people like this book,
• 48:07
  do you have anything to recommend this week?
• 48:11
  There possibly are other books that are like to do with
• 48:13
  colonialization and relationships and status, but I
• 48:17
  was actually thinking much more like much more on the nose.
• 48:24
  And you'd mentioned it before, but that book Butter that we
• 48:28
  both read a while back, it's, I mean, the only similarities are
• 48:33
  there's a lot of food mentioned, but both books, there's an awful
• 48:37
  lot of food. And it's very much food is like
• 48:40
  the, the process of food, like the, and this is something that
• 48:45
  I know this is not a Japanese book, but you get that a lot
• 48:49
  with Japanese authors is that they're so preoccupied with
• 48:53
  food. I literally had this goal on
• 48:55
  discussion with Aaron on Friday night where I was like, oh, a
• 48:58
  lot of translated Japanese novels I've read, there's like
• 49:01
  food is such a significant part. And I was like, oh, I'd love to
• 49:04
  explore that idea a bit more. But we kind of have in a way
• 49:07
  today of like talking with the intimacy of food and and that
• 49:11
  thing of like cooking for people that you love and showing the
• 49:15
  time and effort and all that goes into it.
• 49:17
  But yeah, I'm quite curious if anyone has read her new book
• 49:22
  Cooked, if there's such as if there's still a new like anyone.
• 49:27
  I hear that he's listening if you comment if there's still of
• 49:32
  big sections of it dedicated to food.
• 49:34
  Like it's the prep I that I really like about the way those
• 49:38
  books go into things. Like butter does it quite well.
• 49:40
  I think there's a lot of Murakami books where he just is
• 49:42
  like, this is what I'm going to have for dinner and it'll be
• 49:44
  like a simple whatever. And it's like so much less
• 49:46
  simple than anything I've ever done.
• 49:48
  But I really there's something quite Zen about it.
• 49:52
  Like it makes you feel like it's kind of a nice read.
• 49:55
  It's, and I think a lot about this book, even though it does
• 49:58
  deal with like really intense themes, it's really just a nice
• 50:02
  book to read. Like it's quite enjoyable.
• 50:05
  It's quite, it's not fast-paced, it's not like, oh, what's going
• 50:10
  to happen. It's not cliffhanger.
• 50:12
  It's but it's still a really enjoyable read.
• 50:15
  Oh, the Land of Milk and honey. Because obviously that's a big
• 50:19
  book about food. And well, that book is kind of
• 50:24
  dealing with the idea that like kind of like end of the world
• 50:28
  and things are dying out like food resources, but this person
• 50:36
  becomes someone's own, like personal chef and they're able
• 50:39
  to get all these ingredients and stuff and make all these meals.
• 50:42
  So that's really food heavy as well.
• 50:44
  And I quite like it. So I would check out the Land of
• 50:47
  Milk and Honey as well, if you like a book with meaning that it
• 50:51
  has food heavily in it. Well, guys, since this is a book
• 50:56
  club, we want to hear from some of you who read the book and
• 51:00
  have been following along with the International Booker Prize.
• 51:02
  So, you know, reach out to us on our Instagram or give us an
• 51:06
  e-mail and everything will be LinkedIn our little description
• 51:10
  box and let us know what you think of the books or this one
• 51:13
  in particular. Do you guys want to give your
• 51:16
  rating then of like what you thought of this book?
• 51:19
  Yeah, this one's a tough one because I really, really enjoyed
• 51:21
  it. But then I kind of do think it
• 51:23
  didn't have that edge where I was like, oh, that's brilliant
• 51:28
  and fantastic. I think with a lot of the books
• 51:31
  in the long list and the short list is they're actually quite,
• 51:35
  quite average. I don't know that any of them
• 51:37
  have made like a massive leap in the anything like that.
• 51:40
  It's really exciting or really different.
• 51:42
  So I think this one's going to be a 3.2.
• 51:46
  I really enjoyed it, but I don't, sorry, not 3.23 point 5.
• 51:49
  I don't know what's going on in my head there. 3.53 and a half
• 51:54
  stars and I really made like. Sorry, 3.2 because I was like
• 51:59
  wow, that's really precise. It's going to have to be a 3.2
• 52:03
  for me. Yeah, no, it's 3.53.5.
• 52:07
  And like, again, like, I don't see anything wrong with it.
• 52:10
  And I really, I struggle to rank and rate books because I did
• 52:14
  really enjoy it, but I still am like, do I think it's a four or
• 52:17
  five? I still think that though.
• 52:19
  I've rated it the lowest. She Who Remains Part 1 is
• 52:23
  probably the highest bit. It's just wrecked by Part 2.
• 52:26
  But like, that would probably be my highest one so far.
• 52:30
  But yeah, I I enjoyed it. It's it's a good book.
• 52:35
  I think this could well win. I don't know.
• 52:37
  I if Iron thinks it'll win, it probably will win because he
• 52:41
  he's quite good at gasoline. So I'm just going to go with the
• 52:44
  Iron vote here and be like, yeah, yeah, 100%.
• 52:46
  It's it's the winner. But now that I've said that
• 52:49
  it'll win, it won't win. So it's kind of a bit of a
• 52:51
  paradox here. I feel the complete same way
• 52:57
  with Lucy written it a 3.2. Yeah, I'm also going to give it
• 53:02
  a 3.5. I think for me, this book was
• 53:07
  slightly missing just that little bit of punch or just
• 53:10
  something just a little bit for me to like, just push it over
• 53:14
  the edge. I really enjoyed it.
• 53:19
  I did think at times I was like, oh, it felt like a bit to get
• 53:23
  into it. But again, every time we discuss
• 53:25
  these books, that makes me appreciate them way more.
• 53:28
  I'm not sure for me, even if I reread this one, when I get more
• 53:32
  out of it and I think I'm just going to appreciate it for what
• 53:34
  it was of like talking about these topics and exploring
• 53:38
  friendship and this like pure love that I thought was so sweet
• 53:43
  in it. And yeah, for me, well, chat
• 53:48
  with Aaron, you know the discussion at the start, like I
• 53:50
  could see why I could potentially win, but for me I
• 53:55
  think she humor me. And what like Lucy?
• 53:58
  The first part would be more of the winner for me right now than
• 54:03
  this one, but I still appreciate it for what it is.
• 54:06
  I haven't finished it so I'm not going to give it a rating.
• 54:08
  And I'm honestly surprised though that you guys both went
• 54:12
  so low. Like I was thinking currently
• 54:15
  where I'm sitting at is like a four.
• 54:17
  I don't think I, there's no way it will be a 5 for me.
• 54:21
  It can only drop and and maybe because it is such a lengthy
• 54:26
  book, if it's just more of the seam, it might drop because, you
• 54:31
  know, if it could be condensed down, there's no point in it
• 54:35
  being so long. And but like I said at the
• 54:38
  beginning, two books in for me, this is my winner.
• 54:43
  I just I could see it winning. I think it does translation
• 54:48
  extremely well. And the fact that, like, one of
• 54:52
  our main characters is a translator and the other is a
• 54:56
  novelist. Like can you pander more to the
• 55:03
  prize than than that? Join the book club and read
• 55:06
  along with us. The next book we're tackling on
• 55:08
  the shortlist is The Witch by Marie and Jay, translated by
• 55:11
  Jordan Stump. If you liked our discussion on
• 55:13
  this book, you might be interested in our other episodes
• 55:16
  on the International Booker Prize, both this year and last
• 55:20
  year. Our socials and e-mail are in
• 55:22
  the description. Share your thoughts on the
• 55:24
  shortlist, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and rate
• 55:28
  US five stars. Let's end on a quote from Taiwan
• 55:31
  travelogue. What was the definition of
• 55:34
  friendship anyhow? I had long lost sight of the
• 55:37
  answer. Cookie goodbye.
• 55:40
  Bye bye.