ABOUT THE STYLISH HAT

Very recently an old friend in the Shomron commented semi-irately underneath one of my elsewhere posts: "Of the many things I enjoy about your wandering mind, your eminence, somewhere in the top five is that you are completely out of your damned mind. This is something I have tremendous appreciation for. Most people are only partially nuts."

High praise indeed.

A while back my apartment mate (Canto American) and I got off the bus in Chinatown on our way to the Rose Pak Muni Metro Station (華埠–白蘭站 'waa fau -- paak laan jaam) when we saw a young Caucasian fellow wearing a conical straw hat and what appeared to be a Japanese male kimono. Very geshmak. Shoyn.

I commented to her that the gentleman was trying to blend in.

Her response: "It's working. He's invisible.

Which is also high praise.


I don't know if she was being serious. I have been told that all of us white dudes look alike.
I am outsider enough to know that no amount of conical straw hat will make me look Asian, and insider enough to know that I do not want to know more than that.

So all of you large pale Midwestern tourists who wish to ponce around wearing such things (斗笠 'dau lap'), please, go right ahead. Height of fashion.
It's stylish and shows that you care.

In other news, the steamed fatty pork chunks with ginger and shrimp paste (蝦醬薑汁蒸豬腩肉 'haa jeung keung jap jeng jü naam yiuk') wich I prepared for lunch today was delicious. A completely non-Chinese touch was adding peeled chopped tomato in the last fifteen minutes of steaming, partly as a foil for the greasiness, partly simply for taste. And of course I had sambal on the side.

Both Uncle Roger and Jimmy O. Yang would have liked it, I think. Probably not Jamie Oliver, as there was no trace of chili jam. And the big stainless steel steamer was not celebrity chef approved or endorsed.


By the way: It still baffles me that Uncle Roger and Jimmy O. Yang are so deeply and passionately involved in fried rice. You wanting to cook for white people is it?


Expect people with rice paddy chapeaux to drop by.



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