In a conversation on social media, some people stated that certain things, if found in someone's house, marked the place as an Asian home. A ricecooker. Extra bags of rice. Cans of Spam. Which of course reminded me of a similar discussion over twenty years ago in which the characteristics of Chinese American households here in San Francisco were mentioned, that being at that time Danish Butter Cookie tins repurposed once the contents were eaten, most often for sewing supplies; bottles of White Flower Lotion (白花油 '
paak faa yau'), a multipurpose medicated unguent somewhat similar to Tiger Balm (虎標萬金油 '
fu piu maan kam yau') and Zheng Gu Shui (正骨水) '
jeng gwat seui'); neatly stacked newspapers going back several months at least, because you bought it, you paid for it, but you didn't finish reading al of it and you might need to find a bit of data in there at some future point in time; and tailored plastic covers for the furniture, the teevee set, the strip of carpet in the hallway and on the stairs, and even the stacks of newspapers.
I agree and disagree. with all of that.
And despite not being Asian, I had stacks of newspapers, for all the reasons listed above.
I finally got rid of them after concluding that anything in there worth revisiting would be on the internet anyhow, and I was running out of space. But as a cheapskate Dutchman it pained me to do so. There was a sense of achievement in neatly ordered newspapers stacked in precise calendrical sequence. And I had paid good money for them!
There have never been Danish Butter Cookie tins in my abode, but my apartment mate was getting kind of pissed by what I had instead: egg roll cookie tins (香酥蛋卷 '
heung sou daan kuen'). Which are red and square and much more practical. And no, not sewing supplies. Those are in her room in a little basket, because buttons.
We don't have a rice cooker (hah! New fangled laziness! We cook rice the old fashioned way, fingers!), the bottles of White Flower Lotion and Zheng Gu Shui are somewhere behind me in the bookshelves don't know where, the Spam and other tinned meats are mine, along with the jars of sambal.
And the fact that there is dried fish here does not mean it's an Asian home. Despite that and other dried foods being almost exclusively found in Asian homes. Surely everyone has a bag of dried deer sinews somewhere which they bought on a whim because it was a bargain and they could read all the words and surely they'd find a use for it or ask that elderly woman they know (let's call her 'auntie Pang') how to use it or gift it to someone at some point for good luck and "
we want you to live a long and healthy life here it's good for tonic soup"?
Dried fish is exceedingly good to eat, as a flavouring for other ingredients like vegetables and pork. The fact that it increases your chances of nasopharyngeal cancer (once called the Cantonese cancer) enormously are a minor issue, unless you eat it everyday.
Which few people do anymore. It's yummy.
There are also other dried edibles here. They're mine.
Also, ketjap manis, fish sauce, and krupuk.
My apartment mate is, despite being Cantonese American, living in a Dutch household, as is proven by the presence of sambal, seafood items, coffee, tea, and pipe tobacco. Plus several etymological dictionaries. That there are also Hello Kitty things on the premises doesn't mean anything, those are all mine (and other than the cute Hello Kitty backpack for extra pipes and tobacco, they were all given to me by friends). There is also a Dutchman here. Q.E.D.
Dutch households ALWAYS have things of dubious edibility.
That's just the way it is.
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