It's that time of year again. That joyfilled celebratory time when good things happen, and little children get to play with explosives.
That time of year when Savage Kitten has to do that Chinese stuff. Red envelopes. Tangerines and oranges. Candied lotus root, incense, burning ghost money. Glutinous rice gao.
End of Year Dinner with family, followed shortly after by New Year's Dinner.
[Chinese New Year is on the seventh of February this year.]
And, seeing as she's an unmarried female, that means going over to her mom's house.
What, I hear you ask, do you mean, 'unmarried female'?!!? Haven't the Toad and the Kitten been living together for nearly two decades?!!?
Why yes. Yes, indeed they have. They just never bothered informing her relatives. It is far simpler and easier that way. The Toad and the Kitten are cowards.
An imaginary conversation:
"Mom, Dad, this is the white barbarian that I'm going to go live with - he speaks Chinese, have a blast verbally abusing him in your own language while I pack my meager belongings prior to fleeing from you forever".
That would be only the first line of the conversation. You can imagine the rest.
But Baruch Hashem it never happened. I already knew all possible words in Cantonese for stinky white devil, she didn't want her siblings to be banned from ever speaking to her again, and neither one of us wanted to cause a parental heart attack.
[No, we never told, and yes, we're living in sin. It is very good.]
So, like a loyal and obedient unmarried daughter, she trucked over to Mom's house yesterday evening, while the stinky white devil lazed about Toad Hollow eating fatty food, reading, and smoking.
Italian sausages fried in duck fat. Dirty rice with greasy oddments. Indian oiled pickle (aam ka achar). Strong milk tea, and cigars to follow. Some single malt too.
Sheer heaven!
She had a traditional Chinese dinner with her kin-folk.
She got food-poisoning.
Superannuated Cantonese mothers are not one hundred percent on the ball when it comes to kitchen-hygiene.
I do sheerly love living the Cantonese life vicariously.
The Toad wishes you a happy Chinese New Year.
San-nien kwei-lo, man si yu yi, and all that jazz.
Gong hay, y'all, gong hay.
Duck fat.
Heh.
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So, like a loyal and obedient unmarried daughter, she trucked over to Mom's house yesterday evening, while the stinky white devil lazed about Toad Hollow eating fatty food, reading, and smoking.
Italian sausages fried in duck fat.
Missed the period between "smoking" and "Italian" on the first read. Had to re-read again, after shooing away the image of a Dutchman trying to smoke a fried Italian sausage.
I don't get it. Do her parents never visit her? Who do they imagine that is answering the phone when they call?
I'm totally baffled as to how you've managed to keep it a secret for all this time.
Or is it just a pretense of a secret, where they pretend not to know as long as she doesn't bring it up?
Do her parents never visit her?
Her dad passed away several years ago. Her mom, even after five decades living in SF, doesn't know her way around outside Chinatown. And the address that everyone knows about is a post-office box.
Who do they imagine that is answering the phone when they call?
"Speak into the machine, comrade, you are being recorded."
She has a message service for her number, and I have a message service for my number. The actual home phone almost never gets called - except by phonecompany salesmen trying to get us to switch, and Chabad reminding me of some good causes. Or, exceptionally, the conspiracy trying to get a hold of me, and Rabbi Pinky when he's visiting Yeshiva Chipas Emess - West Coast.
It isn't surprising that her mom does not know her way around town - many C'town old ladies navigate strictly by bus line ("take number one for a block, get off and take number thirty for four blocks, take the 83 up three blocks, walk downhill half a block, turn left in the alley....... where did you say you lived again?").
Oh, and her mom seems to believe that Savage Kitten is an old-maid living with another old-maid. An old college classmate. Cantonese.
Two Cantonese-American old-maids rooming together. Not at all unusual. Especially as it is not at all odd for Cantonese-American women to do so (at least as far as the older generation knows..... nobody here but us chickens).
Given the numbers of bi-racial couples I've seen in this city ("old maids, old maids, bachelors, bachelors, old maids - nope, nuzzink going on at all!"), the older generation is probably worried sick about a shidduch crisis.
Making fun or not, you're bitter.
Have you met her mother, by the way, however "innocently"?
And a question not really suited fo' da web - does the referenced kitten have a problem with your not being Canton ease? Not necessarily in her rational or emotional self, but through her brainwashing, or, as it is called these days, education and upbringing?
I have to say, that as Tet dinners go, you seem to have established a winner: Italian sausage in duck fat...yum! The only improvement I might suggest, for next year, would be splurging on Little City's fine product, either the Sicilian or the Calabrese, or one of their fine seasonal varieties, or the Caffe Puccini...you really can't go wrong.
Well have a good year of the rat!
Which Chinese Animal/Zodiac sign is S.C.?
Does the Blogmeesters animal match hers?
Is it any of my business?
Graham
I wonder if her mother has conversations over Mahjong with the other superannuated Cantonese mamas about what to do with their lesbian daughters... ;-}
Her mom doesn't play mahjong. That's something only "those" people do.
You know, self-indulgent, sinful types.
And the mom keeps telling her daughter that she (the daughter) is stupid, ugly, defective... At this point the mom has convinced herself that this is why the daughter is still "unattached".
Lesbianism? That's something only white people do.
Living with white people?
The daughters of mahjong players probably do that.
Making fun or not, you're bitter.
Yes, somewhat. More actually towards friends and family who, being unfamiliar with Chinese dynamics, don't understand why we wouldn't just brazen it out. Sometimes acting all white is not the best approach.
Have you met her mother, by the way, however "innocently"?
Yes. But her mother doesn't know it.
And -- does the referenced kitten have a problem with your not being Canton ease? Not necessarily in her rational or emotional self, but through her brainwashing, or, as it is called these days, education and upbringing?
I doubt it. Her first language is English, she is more American than I am, and I speak better Cantonese than she does.
I think whatever problem she may have with the situation is that she does not want me to get burned by exposure to the dynamics or by involvement in her mom's 'unique' world.
Either that or "this white guy is mine, do you hear me, all mine! Get your own damn white guy!".
Besides, if I were Cantonese, it would be too close for comfort. I'd be more likely to know someone who knew a person who ... via-via-via ... was somehow connected to her family.
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