“Is it yummy?” - a question I am regularly asked by my co-teacher. Maybe it is because I work in a preschool or maybe it is not, but while living in Vietnam the translation for, “what does it taste like?”, when at a restaurant or at my regularly occurring snack time is whether or not it is yummy. I absolutely love this translation decision. After hearing the question nearly every day for three months, I am always thrown off by it. “Is it yummy?” could also be wondering if I’m enjoying the chef-prepared Vietnamese school lunch we are having each day, or if I enjoyed the food on my vacation. Why go to the trouble of a deep dive into a straightforward meal when really all you want to know is if it’s yummy or not.
If the food is good, I nod my head with a smile, “Yummy!” If the flavor is escaping me, I might say, “Yummy…” squinting my eyes trailing off and looking for the next chosen words. If I did not have a good food experience, I will say gravely and/or sadly, “Not Yummy.” When I say, Not Yummy, we both look sad because despite this simplification, she happens to love food as much as I do and understands the heartbreak and disappointment of going on vacation only to report back, not yummy. Ms. T does not see this question as amusing and I have never indicated to her that I find it amusing, partly because I don’t want to shame her usage of English, which is extensive, and also because I find the use more than funny, it tickles me. Something in my soul is delighted by getting to evaluate life through the lens of yummy and not yummy.
Yummy finds its origins from the word delicious, which was then said as ‘yum yum’ to babies, and eventually found its way to yummy. If we start with the word delicious, we have the start of an understanding to yummy’s potential. “Oh that is delicious,” a villain might declare when hearing of their foe’s downfall. ‘Delicious,’ said drippingly, indicates at least a hint of sinister intent. Its phonetic adjacency with the word, lascivious, might be lending a hand as well. Where delicious leans toward the dark, yummy breaks the mood with jelly beans and jumps towards the light. Visually, yummy is fun with its near palindrome dressing. The y’s without their tails could start to blend with the u, little vessels to hold what falls while the smoothness of the double ‘m’ creates a mini mountainous landscape right in the center. Sonically, it tells you what it is with those double ‘m’s as well. ‘Mmmm’ or - ‘Why? You? Mmmmm. why?’ trailing off with a final question to the user which innocently requests for more information and a better understanding.
So what is life, yummy? Or not yummy? How far can we extend our understanding? My meal at the restaurant is satisfying, yummy. My walk to work in the morning as it started to rain, not yummy. My recently dyed hair which looks great, but feels like a bundle of straw, still yummy. My cycling vacation where I slept outside in the rain and cold, yummy now, not yummy then. Recent family traumas, not yummy. That everyone’s okay? Yummy! No matter how difficult or conversely outstanding the situation may be, distilling it down to yummy - not yummy makes it somehow manageable and relatable.
Waltz with Bashir (2008) is one of my first remembered instances of seeing a light filter applied to Difficult Life. It depicts a soldier coming to terms with life he led and the destruction he took part in. Throughout the movie, we travel through Bashir’s memory as told with stylized animation similar to that used in the TV show ‘Archer’. While the animation style is not silly, it is decidedly not real. Similarly, the movements of the people are verging on stilted, hanging on individual frames milliseconds longer than would be seen in live action. At the very end, the viewers are shown actual photographs from the filmmakers time at war that were animated and shown throughout the movie. These scenes are traumatic and to spare the viewer that trauma, we have a style laid over which is associated with children, even more so in 2008 when the film was made and prior to the steep rise in adult animation. This is not to say it is the only film which does this (it’s not) or that it is the best example (once again, not), but for me, I was a freshman in college and this was the one that stuck.
Artists use these filters to soften the blow, distort the reality they are already playing with and bring the viewer into their space, saying decidedly, this is a new world and you needn't bring with you the baggage or the presumptions of the old. An obvious filter pleads, “please see this from my point of view.” Getting asked, “Is it yummy?” in Vietnam has a similar effect on me. I’m pulled from the daily drudgery, the things we collectively roll our eyes at, waking up to the alarm, eating breakfast, going to work, coming home, having dinner, going to bed, and being asked playfully whether or not I am enjoying myself. At least until the novelty fades, it is yummy.