Probably the most interesting search that brought a reader here is "why is Sparafucile in Rigoletto a Burgundian?" That's a good question, and the answer is that I have NO idea.
Despite consulting Wikipedia, I still have no idea.
But I was struck by this phrase: "Rigoletto approaches his house and is accosted by the assassin Sparafucile, who walks up to him and offers his services. Rigoletto considers the proposition but finally declines; Sparafucile wanders off, after repeating his own name a few times."
Good heavens! Rigi-boy lived in San Francisco!
The rest of the opera bears this out.
Like many others in this city, I too repeat my own name a few times after chance meetings. Or whenever the fancy strikes. If you don't know it, I'll spell it out for you. A ('ay'), t ('tea'), b ('bee'), o ('owe'), th ('thee'). Avec un 'T', comme Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. The final letter is the thound of thomeone thpeaking with a hot potato in hith mouth.
"Equō nē crēdite, Teucrī! Quidquid id est, timeō Danaōs et dōna ferentīs!"
Don't trust the darn horse, you condoms! Whatever it might be, I suspect the geeks even when they do bring gifts.
Or something of that nature.
Caffeine, at quarter past six in the morning, is wonderful. I can feel all my synapses sparking, and I am strangely alive. Like the monster, electricity courses through my veins.
I need to put on some thunderous music.
And have a smoke.
Brownie points for whoever grasps why that line from Virgil's Aeneid automatically came to mind.
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Thursday, August 21, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
THE UNINVOLVED MAN
Courtesy of an insensitive acquaintance, I am cognizant once more of all the holidays I am so un-vested in as to rather dislike hearing about them nowadays. This pursuant a favourite celebration which is coming up, that has the saving grace of being, for me, largely about food.
One item. High sugar, high fat, high cholesterol.
Choice of several traditional flavours.
Plus one, or two, or three.
中秋節或八月節
This year the moon festival will occur on Monday, September 8.
The traditional food is the mooncake, that being a large hockey puck consisting of thin pastry surrounding a sweet filling. The top is usually embossed with a design that evokes the season, or a lucky phrase and various lucky images.
The most traditional filling is lotus seed paste, but other common fillings are adzuki paste, five fruits and nuts, candied melon, and several others, all based on sugar, fat, and a flavour that goes with sugar and fat.
Traditionally, a whole salted egg yolk is in the centre, contributing its own wonderful richness to the whole. Nowadays, one can find versions with two egg yolks, or even three.
Think of it as an ancient energy bar.
But a whole lot better tasting.
Caloric excess.
Yes, the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month has an immense overlay of family connotations, togetherness, rich folkloric tradition, home town memories, and all the rest of that good stuff, along with rebellion and conspiracy, which are also very popular tropes in Chinese culture.
But, being a Caucasian, for me it's all about the cake.
White people get to be kind of insensitive.
And anyhow, we lack culture.
Actually, I'm going to darn well ignore that family and home town business, seeing as I have little left of the first, and cannot really claim the second.
Lotus seed paste, with TWO salted egg yolks.
Yum babies, you betcha.
APPENDIX
The celebrations which now mean very little to me are listed below.
Chinese New Year.
Lantern Festival.
Superbowl Sunday.
Valentine's Day.
Carneval.
Purim.
Saint Patrick's Day.
Ching Ming.
Passover.
Easter.
The Queen's Day.
Bevrijdingsdag / Cinco de Mayo.
Mother's Day.
Gay Pride.
Father's Day.
Dragon Boat Festival.
Solstice.
Independence Day.
Bastille Day.
Rosh Hashanah.
Simchas Torah.
My Birthday.
Hallowe'en.
Dia de los Muertos.
Guy Fawkes Night.
Thanksgiving.
Saint Nicholas Eve.
Channukah.
Christmas.
Oud Jaar's Avond.
Most of these have special foods associated with them, and many are either community or family events embedded in specific cultures.
I'm a rather generic kind of fellow.
My bonds aren't very strong.
And I rain on parades.
PS. Already acquired two mooncakes, planning on more.
Don't stop me. I shall be on a roll.
Expect happy.
==========================================================================
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==========================================================================
One item. High sugar, high fat, high cholesterol.
Choice of several traditional flavours.
Plus one, or two, or three.
中秋節或八月節
This year the moon festival will occur on Monday, September 8.
The traditional food is the mooncake, that being a large hockey puck consisting of thin pastry surrounding a sweet filling. The top is usually embossed with a design that evokes the season, or a lucky phrase and various lucky images.
The most traditional filling is lotus seed paste, but other common fillings are adzuki paste, five fruits and nuts, candied melon, and several others, all based on sugar, fat, and a flavour that goes with sugar and fat.
Traditionally, a whole salted egg yolk is in the centre, contributing its own wonderful richness to the whole. Nowadays, one can find versions with two egg yolks, or even three.
Think of it as an ancient energy bar.
But a whole lot better tasting.
Caloric excess.
Yes, the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month has an immense overlay of family connotations, togetherness, rich folkloric tradition, home town memories, and all the rest of that good stuff, along with rebellion and conspiracy, which are also very popular tropes in Chinese culture.
But, being a Caucasian, for me it's all about the cake.
White people get to be kind of insensitive.
And anyhow, we lack culture.
Actually, I'm going to darn well ignore that family and home town business, seeing as I have little left of the first, and cannot really claim the second.
Lotus seed paste, with TWO salted egg yolks.
Yum babies, you betcha.
APPENDIX
The celebrations which now mean very little to me are listed below.
Chinese New Year.
Lantern Festival.
Superbowl Sunday.
Valentine's Day.
Carneval.
Purim.
Saint Patrick's Day.
Ching Ming.
Passover.
Easter.
The Queen's Day.
Bevrijdingsdag / Cinco de Mayo.
Mother's Day.
Gay Pride.
Father's Day.
Dragon Boat Festival.
Solstice.
Independence Day.
Bastille Day.
Rosh Hashanah.
Simchas Torah.
My Birthday.
Hallowe'en.
Dia de los Muertos.
Guy Fawkes Night.
Thanksgiving.
Saint Nicholas Eve.
Channukah.
Christmas.
Oud Jaar's Avond.
Most of these have special foods associated with them, and many are either community or family events embedded in specific cultures.
I'm a rather generic kind of fellow.
My bonds aren't very strong.
And I rain on parades.
PS. Already acquired two mooncakes, planning on more.
Don't stop me. I shall be on a roll.
Expect happy.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
MEN WITH GLASSES
According to a recent survey, men who wear spectacles are obscenely hot. Which is good news. Yet I don't know how I feel about that.
I suppose I'll have to fight off women with a stick.
"No no, little female person", I shall say, "I am entirely unsuitable!"
The survey said nothing about Vandyke beards and pipe smoking. That has to have been an oversight. I'm guessing that they will issue a correction in the fullness of time. Glasses, Vandyke beards, pipes; a natural trinity.
Debonair, suave, and mucho macho.
Surely I'm not the only one who thinks so?
==========================================================================
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I suppose I'll have to fight off women with a stick.
"No no, little female person", I shall say, "I am entirely unsuitable!"
The survey said nothing about Vandyke beards and pipe smoking. That has to have been an oversight. I'm guessing that they will issue a correction in the fullness of time. Glasses, Vandyke beards, pipes; a natural trinity.
Debonair, suave, and mucho macho.
Surely I'm not the only one who thinks so?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
TEDDY BEAR AND FRIEND
My apartment mate, Savage Kitten, needs cheering up because she and Wheelie Boy are no longer an item. It is proving a depression-inducing thing for the poor girl.
She'll get over it.
It may take a while.
Having some experience in break-ups involving people with Aspergers, automatically I realize that probably the best medicine is distraction. Get their minds to obsessively go over entirely different tracks by shifting the train engine sideways, as it were.
I also know that whenever I ask if she wants to see a cute picture from Facebook or elsewhere on the web, she'll say 'no'. She's not into cute. Unlike me, she's a hard-nosed cold and unemotional Cantonese female, utterly opposed to cute, adorable, charming, sweet, or any of the other gentler things.
Hard-nosed. Cold. Unemotional.
So the other day I didn't ask.
I just lifted up my computer and rotated it one hundred and eighty degrees so that she could see.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
[SOURCE: http://www.boredpanda.com/rats-teddy-bears-ellen-van-deelen-jessica-florence/ .]
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!
Crucial background: she still has a teddy bear, who is her best friend in the whole wide world. When she was a little girl, she had pet hamsters whom she loved.
Let's call it 'pre-conditioning'.
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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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She'll get over it.
It may take a while.
Having some experience in break-ups involving people with Aspergers, automatically I realize that probably the best medicine is distraction. Get their minds to obsessively go over entirely different tracks by shifting the train engine sideways, as it were.
I also know that whenever I ask if she wants to see a cute picture from Facebook or elsewhere on the web, she'll say 'no'. She's not into cute. Unlike me, she's a hard-nosed cold and unemotional Cantonese female, utterly opposed to cute, adorable, charming, sweet, or any of the other gentler things.
Hard-nosed. Cold. Unemotional.
So the other day I didn't ask.
I just lifted up my computer and rotated it one hundred and eighty degrees so that she could see.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
[SOURCE: http://www.boredpanda.com/rats-teddy-bears-ellen-van-deelen-jessica-florence/ .]
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!
Crucial background: she still has a teddy bear, who is her best friend in the whole wide world. When she was a little girl, she had pet hamsters whom she loved.
Let's call it 'pre-conditioning'.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, August 18, 2014
THE DEFINITION OF A GOOD WOMAN
Several of my habits appall the fairer sex, and rightly so; this blogger is by all rational standards a fairly disgusting specimen. If you met me on the street, you might run away screaming.
I rather wish you would.
I'm still smarting from the remark made by an imposing woman that by smoking tobacco I was to blame for the death of puppies and little children.
No, I don't feel particularly guilty about it, as there are very many of both of those items remaining, and they are an infinitely renewable resource.
But I would have preferred it if she had worshipped the ground.
Seeing as pipe smokers are universally avuncular.
Precisely what canines and kids like.
Uncle Stinky-winky! Oooh!
And 'woof'.
I rather suspect that the repulsive specimen of femininity may have been an anti-smoking tofu-abusing veg-head member of PETA and several other ultra-radical action fronts OR a tacky suburbanite soccer-earth-mom shopaholic, as well as malnourished, despite her girth. A lack of protein in the diet leads to brain problems, oedema, and aggression.
Plus hyper-sensitive nostrils.
In addition to smoking, I also consume highly refined sugar, non-organic non-green coffee and tea, animal flesh, and strong condiments.
I have not eaten soy-bean curd in several weeks.
I'm sure my soap was animal tested.
Did I mention lard?
Buckets!
It's probably quite unfair to equate all women with that person. Several members of the other gender ('female') are in fact extremely likable, and immensely good company for a filthy male individual like myself or of my ilk. At least TWO of them smoke cigars! Admittedly, the bourbon-drinker is a vegetarian, but it is likely that the other one eats meat.
She seems far too nice to not have any 'vices'.
Another woman I know is a committed carnivore, which makes up for her never touching tobacco or alcohol, and the rabbit mom who lives across the bay is a notorious disturber of the peace and a dangerously incorrect person, both of which are traits I find admirable.
Actually, there are a few such among my ken.
All upstanding in my book.
So, in conclusion, your sanity is preserved if you adhere to at least two or three of the following evil practices: meat-eating, tobacco smoking, whiskey drinking, rabbit keeping, rabble rousing, and disturbing both peace and Presbyterians.
And if you're white, please don't cook tofu.
That last is just an opinion, of course.
But I've eaten white-cooked tofu.
It was extremely upsetting.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
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I rather wish you would.
I'm still smarting from the remark made by an imposing woman that by smoking tobacco I was to blame for the death of puppies and little children.
No, I don't feel particularly guilty about it, as there are very many of both of those items remaining, and they are an infinitely renewable resource.
But I would have preferred it if she had worshipped the ground.
Seeing as pipe smokers are universally avuncular.
Precisely what canines and kids like.
Uncle Stinky-winky! Oooh!
And 'woof'.
I rather suspect that the repulsive specimen of femininity may have been an anti-smoking tofu-abusing veg-head member of PETA and several other ultra-radical action fronts OR a tacky suburbanite soccer-earth-mom shopaholic, as well as malnourished, despite her girth. A lack of protein in the diet leads to brain problems, oedema, and aggression.
Plus hyper-sensitive nostrils.
In addition to smoking, I also consume highly refined sugar, non-organic non-green coffee and tea, animal flesh, and strong condiments.
I have not eaten soy-bean curd in several weeks.
I'm sure my soap was animal tested.
Did I mention lard?
Buckets!
It's probably quite unfair to equate all women with that person. Several members of the other gender ('female') are in fact extremely likable, and immensely good company for a filthy male individual like myself or of my ilk. At least TWO of them smoke cigars! Admittedly, the bourbon-drinker is a vegetarian, but it is likely that the other one eats meat.
She seems far too nice to not have any 'vices'.
Another woman I know is a committed carnivore, which makes up for her never touching tobacco or alcohol, and the rabbit mom who lives across the bay is a notorious disturber of the peace and a dangerously incorrect person, both of which are traits I find admirable.
Actually, there are a few such among my ken.
All upstanding in my book.
So, in conclusion, your sanity is preserved if you adhere to at least two or three of the following evil practices: meat-eating, tobacco smoking, whiskey drinking, rabbit keeping, rabble rousing, and disturbing both peace and Presbyterians.
And if you're white, please don't cook tofu.
That last is just an opinion, of course.
But I've eaten white-cooked tofu.
It was extremely upsetting.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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WEEKEND ZOMBIES
The concept of going out from Friday till Sunday and getting wasted has always baffled me. For two reasons, mainly, those being that blottoness seems pointless -- wouldn't you rather have crystal-clear memories of having fun -- and if you're going to wake up with a screaming headache, why do so on your own time? Isn't it far better to schedule your hangover for that horrible sales-meeting with the big football players from the fly-overs?
Big smelly John says: "Think outside the box, all of you. There is no 'EYE' in 'team."
What a dingo; does he EVER have an original thought?
He's the corner-stone of the sales force.
High-school jock, super butch.
A popular guy.
You have two choices.
The first one is responding with: "Let's throw that at the wall and see if it sticks. If not, we can do lunch over this and see if we can strategize a directly implementable methodology to manage the inevitable infrastructure alterations that will be necessitated by the failures in communication. Why don't you reach out to your people to see if they can coordinate a time, and send me the 411 at your earliest convenience."
The second choice is to calmly lean over and vomit.
Jesus. You've always wanted to do that.
Thanks to Bourbon, now you can.
He'll sure remember the San Francisco sales meeting.
Probably for the rest of his life.
With any luck, the trauma will wake him up screaming every night.
The memory, oh, the horror! Make it stop!
Consequently, I confess my self completely baffled at the sheer number of zombies, werewolves, and vampires floating up and down Polk Street on Saturday evening. During the week those people are probably utterly normal worker bees, unremarkable, without any distinguishing peculiarities or interesting characteristics.
Saturday night, they know they're fabulous.
Totally unique individuals.
Drunk.
I would rather be a pain in the gand during working hours.
My time off is when I'm at my very best.
Mondays and Tuesdays are for leisure.
I am all sweetness and light right now.
Note: Waffflegab business blurkle above courtesy of Greg, a notorious bon vivant.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Big smelly John says: "Think outside the box, all of you. There is no 'EYE' in 'team."
What a dingo; does he EVER have an original thought?
He's the corner-stone of the sales force.
High-school jock, super butch.
A popular guy.
You have two choices.
The first one is responding with: "Let's throw that at the wall and see if it sticks. If not, we can do lunch over this and see if we can strategize a directly implementable methodology to manage the inevitable infrastructure alterations that will be necessitated by the failures in communication. Why don't you reach out to your people to see if they can coordinate a time, and send me the 411 at your earliest convenience."
The second choice is to calmly lean over and vomit.
Jesus. You've always wanted to do that.
Thanks to Bourbon, now you can.
He'll sure remember the San Francisco sales meeting.
Probably for the rest of his life.
With any luck, the trauma will wake him up screaming every night.
The memory, oh, the horror! Make it stop!
Consequently, I confess my self completely baffled at the sheer number of zombies, werewolves, and vampires floating up and down Polk Street on Saturday evening. During the week those people are probably utterly normal worker bees, unremarkable, without any distinguishing peculiarities or interesting characteristics.
Saturday night, they know they're fabulous.
Totally unique individuals.
Drunk.
I would rather be a pain in the gand during working hours.
My time off is when I'm at my very best.
Mondays and Tuesdays are for leisure.
I am all sweetness and light right now.
Note: Waffflegab business blurkle above courtesy of Greg, a notorious bon vivant.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, August 17, 2014
MALARIA
Over a year ago I passed an old gentleman lying flat on his back in the street in Chinatown, while smoking my pipe one afternoon. No, I did not stop; he was being ably assisted by emergency personell, one of whom was keen to find out about his medications. The questions were being asked in Cantonese.
I do not know much about any ailments in Cantonese.
Mostly, my vocabulary is strongest about food.
Not the best subject, probably.
In that instance.
"Did you recently eat anything the ingredients of which, as well as the mode or preparation, might be suspected of having caused a sudden feeling of lassitude OR existential angst?"
“你近日食咗啲嘢，其中嘅成分或模式及準備方式樣，可能會被懷疑引起精神唔振嘅覺得或著存在焦慮突然感覺嘅咩？”
['Nei gan-yat sik-jo di ye, gei-jung ge sing-fan waak mou-sik gap juen-bei fong-sik-yeung, ho-nang wui pei waai-yi yan hei jing-san m-jan ge gok-tak, waak-je chuen-jai jiu-leui dat-yin gam gok ge me?']
Sounds a bit complicated. Best to simplify, given that he's tipped over.
And taking into account my miserable pronunciation.
"Hey! How's your gout then?"
喂，你嘅痛風病，而家點樣呀，老生？
['Wei, nei-ge tung-fung beng yi-kaa dim-yeung ah, lou-saang?']
On second thought, perhaps I am not the right person to make medical inquiries. Which, more or less, brings me right to the subject of Malaria.
From Wikipedia:
瘧疾，俗稱打擺子、打老張，是一種由瘧原蟲造成的全球性急性寄生蟲傳染病，通過瘧蚊傳播。獨特癥狀為間歇性發冷發熱。世界範圍內，呈現臨床癥狀的病例每年就在3億到5億之間，每年因患瘧疾死亡的人數在一到三百萬之間，其中大部分為兒童。兒童、孕婦、旅遊者和各地的新移民對本地流行的瘧原蟲免疫力較差，故是易患瘧疾的高危人群。瘧疾主要的流行地區是非洲中部、南亞、東南亞及南美北部的熱帶地區，這其中又以非洲的疫情最甚。
口服或肌肉注射奎寧是一種有效方法。20世紀中期以後也出現了一些新的藥物，中國科學家研製的青蒿素有很好的抗瘧疾效果。不過一些瘧疾也發展出抗藥性。
"Malaria, colloquially known as "fighting tremors" or "fighting Old Chang", is a global acute parasitic infection caused by the malaria parasite, which is spread by the Anopheles mosquito. The disease is characterized by intermittent fever and chills. Cases worldwide each year showing clinical symptoms number from 300 million to 500 million, the annual number of deaths suffering from malaria between are one to three million, most of whom are juveniles. New immigrant children, pregnant women, tourists and others with low or no immunity to the parasite are particularly at a risk. Malaria is endemic in Central Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and tropical regions of the northern part of South America, but the hardest hit region is Africa by far."
"Oral or intramuscular quinine is an effective treatment method. After the mid-20th century, there were also some new drugs; Chinese scientists have developed a very good antimalarial from artemisinin. However, some strains have developed drug resistance."
[Key vocabulary: 瘧疾 'yuek jat': malaria; intermittent fever + illness, sickness; hate. 俗稱 'juk ching': commonly referred to, vulgarly known (as). 打擺子、打老張 'daa bai ji, daa lou Cheung': hitting tremors, hitting old Chiang. 瘧原蟲 'yuek yuen chung': malaria origin bug; plasmodium. 造成 'chou sing': cause, bring about. 全球性 'chuen kau sing': global, world-wide. 急性 'gap sing': acute. 寄生蟲 'gai saang chung': parasite, parasitic. 傳染病 'chuen yim beng': infectious disease. 通過 'tung gwo': by means of. 瘧蚊 'yuek man': malaria mosquito; anopheles. 傳播 'chuen bo': disseminate. 獨特 'duk dak': having the characteristic of, distinguished by. 間歇 'gaan hit': interval cease; stop while, intermittent. 發冷 'faa ling': feel chill. 發熱 'faa yit': feel heat. 範圍內 'faan wai noi': pattern encircle inside; within the scope or range of. 臨床 'lam chong': approach framework or parameters; clinical. 每年 'mui nin': each year. 患 'waan': suffer. 死亡 'sei mong': dead loss, die perish. 人數 'yan sou': person number, people count. 其中 'gei chung': that which + among, central; including, amongst which. 大部 'daai bou': great section; majority. 兒童 'yi tung': children. 孕婦 'yan fu': pregnant woman. 旅遊者 'leui yau che': journey roam agent; travelling person, tourist. 新移民 'san yi man': new shift people; recent migrants. 本地 'pun dei': original earth; local, native. 流行 'lau hang': flow, drift + walk, travel, move; spread, disperse, flow about. 免疫力 'man yik lik': evade pestilence power; immunity. 較差 'gaau chaai'; comparatively wrong; mediocre, rather faulty or flawed. 地區 'dei keui': earth area; region, district, area. 非洲中部 'fei jau chung bou': Africa central sector. 南亞 'naam (ng)aa'; Southern Asia. 東南亞 'dung naam (ng)aa'; east south Asia. 南美北部 'naam mei pak bou': south America north sector.]
I don't know why I started reading about malaria recently. Possibly it was because my apartment mate had a fit when she saw a mosquito the other day, maybe it is a potent association with certain smells.
Some types of incense drive away mosquitoes.
Among them are aquilaria woods.
I've never had malaria, and I do not intend to ever catch it either.
Living in San Francisco I am not at risk.
Never the less, I have both aquilaria wood incense and a mosquito net.
The resinous punkum has a pleasant old-timey fragrance, the gauze makes night-time dreamier.
In the year 1094, the great scholar and poet Su Tung-po (蘇東坡) was sent south to Guangdong province, with the express purpose that he should die of the miasmas and tropical diseases there and thus cease to be a nuisance to the clique then holding power in the government.
He survived six long years among the colourful birds, jungly denizens, and howling langurs south of the passes. Sadly, he died on the way home in 1101 C.E.
中秋節 CHUNG JAU JIT
The mid-autumn festival is coming up once more, this year it's on the eighth of September. Soon mooncakes will be available again, and people will be travelling home to spend the time with family. The astute reader will readily understand the mental association that brought this up; Su tung-po wrote some lovely poems about the season, which are still quoted today. Unfortunately they are rather hard to translate well.
Forgive me, I shan't even make the attempt.
"Su Shi". Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Su_Shi.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Su_Shi.jpg
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I do not know much about any ailments in Cantonese.
Mostly, my vocabulary is strongest about food.
Not the best subject, probably.
In that instance.
"Did you recently eat anything the ingredients of which, as well as the mode or preparation, might be suspected of having caused a sudden feeling of lassitude OR existential angst?"
“你近日食咗啲嘢，其中嘅成分或模式及準備方式樣，可能會被懷疑引起精神唔振嘅覺得或著存在焦慮突然感覺嘅咩？”
['Nei gan-yat sik-jo di ye, gei-jung ge sing-fan waak mou-sik gap juen-bei fong-sik-yeung, ho-nang wui pei waai-yi yan hei jing-san m-jan ge gok-tak, waak-je chuen-jai jiu-leui dat-yin gam gok ge me?']
Sounds a bit complicated. Best to simplify, given that he's tipped over.
And taking into account my miserable pronunciation.
"Hey! How's your gout then?"
喂，你嘅痛風病，而家點樣呀，老生？
['Wei, nei-ge tung-fung beng yi-kaa dim-yeung ah, lou-saang?']
On second thought, perhaps I am not the right person to make medical inquiries. Which, more or less, brings me right to the subject of Malaria.
From Wikipedia:
瘧疾，俗稱打擺子、打老張，是一種由瘧原蟲造成的全球性急性寄生蟲傳染病，通過瘧蚊傳播。獨特癥狀為間歇性發冷發熱。世界範圍內，呈現臨床癥狀的病例每年就在3億到5億之間，每年因患瘧疾死亡的人數在一到三百萬之間，其中大部分為兒童。兒童、孕婦、旅遊者和各地的新移民對本地流行的瘧原蟲免疫力較差，故是易患瘧疾的高危人群。瘧疾主要的流行地區是非洲中部、南亞、東南亞及南美北部的熱帶地區，這其中又以非洲的疫情最甚。
口服或肌肉注射奎寧是一種有效方法。20世紀中期以後也出現了一些新的藥物，中國科學家研製的青蒿素有很好的抗瘧疾效果。不過一些瘧疾也發展出抗藥性。
"Malaria, colloquially known as "fighting tremors" or "fighting Old Chang", is a global acute parasitic infection caused by the malaria parasite, which is spread by the Anopheles mosquito. The disease is characterized by intermittent fever and chills. Cases worldwide each year showing clinical symptoms number from 300 million to 500 million, the annual number of deaths suffering from malaria between are one to three million, most of whom are juveniles. New immigrant children, pregnant women, tourists and others with low or no immunity to the parasite are particularly at a risk. Malaria is endemic in Central Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and tropical regions of the northern part of South America, but the hardest hit region is Africa by far."
"Oral or intramuscular quinine is an effective treatment method. After the mid-20th century, there were also some new drugs; Chinese scientists have developed a very good antimalarial from artemisinin. However, some strains have developed drug resistance."
[Key vocabulary: 瘧疾 'yuek jat': malaria; intermittent fever + illness, sickness; hate. 俗稱 'juk ching': commonly referred to, vulgarly known (as). 打擺子、打老張 'daa bai ji, daa lou Cheung': hitting tremors, hitting old Chiang. 瘧原蟲 'yuek yuen chung': malaria origin bug; plasmodium. 造成 'chou sing': cause, bring about. 全球性 'chuen kau sing': global, world-wide. 急性 'gap sing': acute. 寄生蟲 'gai saang chung': parasite, parasitic. 傳染病 'chuen yim beng': infectious disease. 通過 'tung gwo': by means of. 瘧蚊 'yuek man': malaria mosquito; anopheles. 傳播 'chuen bo': disseminate. 獨特 'duk dak': having the characteristic of, distinguished by. 間歇 'gaan hit': interval cease; stop while, intermittent. 發冷 'faa ling': feel chill. 發熱 'faa yit': feel heat. 範圍內 'faan wai noi': pattern encircle inside; within the scope or range of. 臨床 'lam chong': approach framework or parameters; clinical. 每年 'mui nin': each year. 患 'waan': suffer. 死亡 'sei mong': dead loss, die perish. 人數 'yan sou': person number, people count. 其中 'gei chung': that which + among, central; including, amongst which. 大部 'daai bou': great section; majority. 兒童 'yi tung': children. 孕婦 'yan fu': pregnant woman. 旅遊者 'leui yau che': journey roam agent; travelling person, tourist. 新移民 'san yi man': new shift people; recent migrants. 本地 'pun dei': original earth; local, native. 流行 'lau hang': flow, drift + walk, travel, move; spread, disperse, flow about. 免疫力 'man yik lik': evade pestilence power; immunity. 較差 'gaau chaai'; comparatively wrong; mediocre, rather faulty or flawed. 地區 'dei keui': earth area; region, district, area. 非洲中部 'fei jau chung bou': Africa central sector. 南亞 'naam (ng)aa'; Southern Asia. 東南亞 'dung naam (ng)aa'; east south Asia. 南美北部 'naam mei pak bou': south America north sector.]
I don't know why I started reading about malaria recently. Possibly it was because my apartment mate had a fit when she saw a mosquito the other day, maybe it is a potent association with certain smells.
Some types of incense drive away mosquitoes.
Among them are aquilaria woods.
I've never had malaria, and I do not intend to ever catch it either.
Living in San Francisco I am not at risk.
Never the less, I have both aquilaria wood incense and a mosquito net.
The resinous punkum has a pleasant old-timey fragrance, the gauze makes night-time dreamier.
In the year 1094, the great scholar and poet Su Tung-po (蘇東坡) was sent south to Guangdong province, with the express purpose that he should die of the miasmas and tropical diseases there and thus cease to be a nuisance to the clique then holding power in the government.
He survived six long years among the colourful birds, jungly denizens, and howling langurs south of the passes. Sadly, he died on the way home in 1101 C.E.
中秋節 CHUNG JAU JIT
The mid-autumn festival is coming up once more, this year it's on the eighth of September. Soon mooncakes will be available again, and people will be travelling home to spend the time with family. The astute reader will readily understand the mental association that brought this up; Su tung-po wrote some lovely poems about the season, which are still quoted today. Unfortunately they are rather hard to translate well.
Forgive me, I shan't even make the attempt.
"Su Shi". Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Su_Shi.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Su_Shi.jpg
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
CONSIDERING THE IDEA OF DINNER
On Friday evening, my apartment mate (Savage Kitten) came home with a bad attitude and a take-out meal, and I realized that I sorely missed having a woman to eat with. No, we didn't eat together; we never do. She hadn't had a decent lunch, and had simply stopped by the Kam Po or somewhere to pick up dinner for herself.
She had been dealing with people all week, she needed alone time.
I went out and had a bun and some milk-tea.
Followed by a smoke.
Actually, that bun was the first thing I ate on Friday. Having been up since dawn, I suppose I should have eaten much earlier, but I wasn't inspired. Food, far more often than not, is not an event keenly anticipated, but either a desperate act, or mere fuel.
There are a number of places I can think of, where it would be very nice to eat with someone else. They're all nearby, and fun to go to, but they would be much more fun with female companionship. I can well imagine the pleased delight another person might have sampling various scrumptious items. Small, not too crowded, and cosy.
Nah, shan't share them here; they are private.
Wouldn't want to see them taken over.
Food with a woman is more fun by far than eating alone.
Plus shared tastes make everything delicious.
I'm going to have to try that again.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
She had been dealing with people all week, she needed alone time.
I went out and had a bun and some milk-tea.
Followed by a smoke.
Actually, that bun was the first thing I ate on Friday. Having been up since dawn, I suppose I should have eaten much earlier, but I wasn't inspired. Food, far more often than not, is not an event keenly anticipated, but either a desperate act, or mere fuel.
There are a number of places I can think of, where it would be very nice to eat with someone else. They're all nearby, and fun to go to, but they would be much more fun with female companionship. I can well imagine the pleased delight another person might have sampling various scrumptious items. Small, not too crowded, and cosy.
Nah, shan't share them here; they are private.
Wouldn't want to see them taken over.
Food with a woman is more fun by far than eating alone.
Plus shared tastes make everything delicious.
I'm going to have to try that again.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, August 16, 2014
SF CHINATOWN: WHAT DOESN'T EXPLODE MAY BE WONDERFUL!
After passing several clusters of bellowing tourists on Grant Avenue, it finally struck me that visiting Chinatown is the best thing to do. Why bother finding out about San Francisco, seeing the real sights, talking to locals, when all you have to do is follow a list: go to Chinatown, hike up to Coit Tower, walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, see Fishermans' Wharf, boat over to Alcatraz, and shop for tacky crap.
So easy, so simple, so not requiring thought.
Tourist don't want to think; it's hard.
And it might require research.
The necessity to use their brains makes them stumble when it's time to return from the Golden Gate Bridge. Like anxious chickens, they will flock up to the first bus that hoves into view, and fight to board.
Never mind that several people are getting off.
This is our bus, we saw it first!
Outta the way, bitches!
It's usually the number seventy or eighty out of Marin. The driver will explain several key things, once the honoured foreigners and fat Midwesterners have stopped foaming at the mouth.
This bus does NOT go to Union Square or Fisherman's Wharf. No, he does not know how they can get there from here. Downtown is large; if they don't know where they are going, they should not take this bus.
Those tickets are only good on Muni (the city buses), he has fifty people sitting behind who are being even further delayed by tourists pointlessly yelling in Italian or German, and it costs four dollars and fifty cents to travel on this conveyance, which is a regional bus, rather than the two bucks OR convenient tourist pass on Muni. Which you missed, back there behind you, it's just pulled out, but you could have caught it if you hadn't wasted fifteen minutes arguing.
Sadly, disconsolately, the smelly and fat visitors fade into the frigid mists of the Bridge Toll Plaza, to wait yet another hour for the next Muni bus. Some of them will mob another vehicle from Marin before it is all over.
They're geese. Or sheep.
Albeit quite rabid.
And vicious.
In the same un-thought-out fashion, they go to Chinatown.
NOT THIS CHINATOWN
Part of the problem is that San Francisco always insists that this is the largest neighborhood of its kind outside of Asia. Which it isn't, by a very wide margin. New York, Toronto, and Vancouver have far greater Chinatowns, and our second and third Chinatowns are bigger too.
Another issue is that tourist guides, hotel desk clerks, and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce speak glowingly of the food and antiques, lovely brocades, fabulous quaintness, and totally cute omg sights, people, and objects.
The food is either every day Cantonese food for a local population which wants good for cheap and gets it, OR high-priced muck sold primarily to white people who demand stuff that the locals will not touch.
Tablecloths? Who ever heard of such a thing?
There is no Perrier, so sorry.
Nor ketchup.
You must understand that the ONLY reasons why Chinatown still exists are three-fold: It's a commercial nexus for people who need goods and services such as among many other things Chinese ingredients, cheap clothing, translation, and haircuts; it's a half-way house for people who are desperately unable to use English effectively and are struggling to move up and out; and old folks. Please note that NONE of these involves tourists, colourful dances and song, putting on shows for the white people, or anything else that caters to the very important non-Asians temporarily passing through.
Except, of course, for Grant Avenue. Which is in the main a ghastly tourist trap. Cameras, tee-shirts, cheap plastic breakable mementos, tea that mostly only white people drink, and coolie hats. More or less.
Really, Grant Avenue is fairly pointless.
BARBER SHOPS, FOOD, AND GROCERIES
Again, San Francisco Chinatown is by no means the enormous and significant community of "exotics" that tourist brochures say it is.
The largest Chinese population in San Francisco is out in the avenues, many of them speak English, a large number speak English better than any other language, and they're working for and running businesses that are very similar to what you would find in Milan or Iowa. The only thing truly unique is that their children are academically superior.
Unless you desperately need tee-shirts and knick-knacks, what you should do in Chinatown is get a haircut, and have a snack.
Plus buy a condiment or a dried fish.
HAIR CUT
There are very many hair dressers in Chinatown. My barber has a shop there, and he does a fabulous job on my head. His English is better than my Cantonese. Some of his customers do not speak Cantonese.
Heads are all very similar, they've seen them before.
Chinese know about such things.
SNACK
Just point. If the place is doing a booming business, it's because they offer decent food and drink at a reasonable price. No, none of the stuff they sell is weird. Most of it consists of fairly common ingredients which are combined in fairly predictable ways. Starch, meat, vegetable stuff, and flavourings. Stop asking questions, and just look at what's available. The appearance will tell you whether it's a main dish, a starch-type substance, a baked product, or contains vegetables. The people who work there might not have the time or the English ability to patiently and thoroughly discuss every tiddly little detail. And you aren't their target audience, who will return often, and whose custom they depend on.
For your assistance: BoBa is large balls of tapioca added to chilled beverages. Charsiu is a type of roast pork. Almost all pastries contain animal shortening. Dried shrimp adds a seafood saveur. Joong (so-called 'Chinese Tamales') are glutinous rice surrounding pork and beans or peanuts, wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed for hours, they keep for days. The lotus leaf packets contain glutinous rice, chicken, a slice of Chinese sausage, a little black mushroom, and only a few other ingredients, and are a delicious lunch. Dumplings could be almost anything (but will often contain an animal protein surrounded by or folded into a starchy component which may be made of rice flour, wheat, or tofu skin. If it looks crunchy, it probably is crunchy.
'Vegan' and 'kosher' are not concepts that operate here.
Even 'vegetarian' is very hard to grasp.
Allergies are your problem.
FYI: Vegetarian restaurants often have the word 素 ('sou') in the name (vegetarian is 素食 'sou sik'; "vegetarian eats"), and another term that crops up in relation to vegetarian food is 齋 ('jai'), which refers most commonly to Buddhist-type vegetarianismus. Neither are popular.
Veganism, besides being quite utterly ridiculous, is 純素食主義 ('suen sou sik chu yi'), "purely vegivorous ideology".
Kosher is 符合猶太教教規的食物 ('fu hap yau taai gaau gaau kwai dik sik mat'), "according with Judaic religious regulation comestibles".
Halal is 符合清真教教規的食物 ('fu hap ching jan gaau gaau kwai dik sik mat'), "according with Islamic custom food".
Respectively 猶太潔食 ('yau taai git sik') and 清真食 ('ching jan sik') for short.
Allergies are called 過敏 ('gwo man'), allergic reactions are 變態反應 ('pin taai fan ying'), and a food allergy is 食物過敏 ('sik mat gwo man').
Peanuts are 花生 ('faa sang'); they're nearly everywhere.
Wheat gluten is 麵筋 ('min gan'). It's good for you.
CONDIMENTS
If you're flying, you shouldn't buy sauces. Rules about what you can't bring onto a plane are strict. Otherwise, please understand that the list of ingredients required by law is very comprehensive, and that many of them contain at least one of the following: sugar, starch, a fermented fish product, salt, wheat derivatives, monosodium glutamate, and chili.
Most of them are meant to be added to food as it is cooking, a few can be added afterwords as you are enjoying the meal. None of them are suitable for massive amounts. Many of them keep very well in your refrigerator after opening. Shrimp paste is essential, Hoisin sauce less so. Douban sauce is useful, but you may not use it often enough.
DRIED FISH
Nothing says "I've been to Chinatown" like a handsome dried fish.
If you are Scandinavian, Dutch, or Belgian, you have seen such things before -- though they may not have been utilized in your kitchens in several generations -- and some Italians and Iberians may have used similar products. If you are modern middle class urban, you will likely eschew fish entirely, and if you are English or Midwestern you may not even know how to cook it when it is fresh. Likely you don't cook anyhow, at most you heat up prepackaged hot-pockets and curry.
Or open a can and mix the contents with mayonnaise.
You rely on celery salt and ketchup.
Dried fish is seldom the mainstay of a meal. But it is a valuable taste-contribution in not particularly large quantities. It will often be soaked and fragmented, and used to flavour simple vegetable dishes.
That's ONE vegetable. Not a mish-mosh of a dozen.
Cooked all dente. Not boiled to death.
Think 'blanch, then saute'.
There are multiple uses for a dried fish, of course, but it's dried; it keeps. That's the whole point of it. Just put it in a large resealable food-storage bag once you get home, if you do not intend to consume it all within weeks.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Below is a selection of places. It is short. It may seem idiosyncratic.
That is deceptive.
DIM SUM
I shan't mention the small hole-in-the-wall dimsum counters I favour, as you probably wouldn't like them anyhow. They also do jook and cheap rice plates. Eh, you wouldn't like those either.
For sit-down dimsum of high quality:
城景 CITY VIEW RESTAURANT
662 Commercial Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
415-398-2838
Between Kearny and Montgomery, very good.
多好茶室 DOL HO
808 Pacific Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-392-2828
Just west of Stockton. Good food, a frenetic or eccentric atmosphere.
If you're a snob you might have reservations.
Why are you here?
羊城茶室 YANK SING
49 Stevenson Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-541-4949
Outside of Chinatown, in the financial district. A bit more expensive, but deservedly popular among both Chinese and white folks.
For a complete list of dim sum specialties, see this post:
Dim sum: kinds, names, pronunciation, description.
Not all of the items listed will be available.
Not even in Hong Kong.
SNACK
For bakeries, I recommend these three:
荷里活茶餐廳 NEW HOLLYWOOD BAKERY & RESTAURANT
652 Pacific Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-397-9919
人仁西餅麵包 YUMMY BAKERY
607 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-989-8388
幸福餅家 BLOSSOM BAKERY
133 Waverly Place
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-391-8088
All three of these have excellent wife cakes (老婆餅 'lou po beng') and milk-tea (港式奶茶 'gong sik naai chaa'), two of them also have wonderful charsiu turnovers (叉烧酥 'chaa siu sou').
They also have other offerings worth exploring.
Sit down and take a break.
For egg tarts (蛋撻 'daan taat'), head to Golden Gate Bakery (金門餅家) at 1029 Grant Avenue, between Jackson Street & Pacific; for coffee crunch cake and mooncakes in season, go to the Eastern Bakery (東亞餅家), 720 Grant Avenue, at the corner of Commercial Street.
RICE
If you want to eat at a restaurant, go here:
京都餐館 CAPITAL RESTAURANT
839 Clay Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-397-6269
Great for family dinners and solid Cantonese food, this place can get packed and chaotic during the rush. The clientele is mostly Cantonese speaking, so don't get too fussy and persnickety; they're really trying to keep everyone happy, but that does mean that convoluted questions are better fielded during quieter moments.
上海飯店 BUND SHANGHAI RESTAURANT
640 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-982-0618
Top-notch Shanghainese food, and delightful chive and pork dumplings (韭菜豬肉水餃 'gau choi chü yiuk suei gaau'). This is a place I would love to take a date sometime.
嶺南小館 R & J LOUNGE
631 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-982-7877
Excellent Cantonese food, and very much the place you would bring your elderly out of town relatives. It's a bit fancy, but the quality has remained consistent for years. They can also do larger groups, and cocktails are available.
FLAVOURS
Condiments of most types are available at any place that looks like a grocery store. Many of them also have dried fish. Prices are all very much in line, as they really want to move the merchandise. They will not be able to answer questions very well, especially if you have a horrible German or French accent; know the subject before you go in, or be willing to take a chance. The worst that can happen is that you might waste one or two dollars.
Do NOT purchase chin cha lok (真加洛醬 'jan kaa lok'), as it explodes; very unstable!
Dried fish and soy sauce never do that.
AN AFTERWORD, TER VERANTWOORDING
Indeed, I am also white, just like you. And although I speak some Cantonese, I do not fancy myself in any way special or somehow superior. The key difference may be that I tend to obsessively look things up.
Which also explains my very minor facility in Cantonese.
That language has proven more useful in the past several years than Dutch, German, and Indonesian. This is primarily the case when I am communicating with people who do not speak Dutch, German, or Indonesian, in addition to lacking fluent and idiomatic English.
I am also an egomaniac; I like to be able to get what I want without struggling, and attract a modicum of favourable attention at the same time. A white person who is at least semi-intelligible in Cantonese is a lusus naturae, though probably not someone you want to know.
I collect cookbooks and foreign dictionaries.
And I eat rather well in consequence.
I also know how to take buses.
These are nice things.
PS: Transit information is available all over San Francisco, as well as in the guide books. Many maps also have valuable clues.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
So easy, so simple, so not requiring thought.
Tourist don't want to think; it's hard.
And it might require research.
The necessity to use their brains makes them stumble when it's time to return from the Golden Gate Bridge. Like anxious chickens, they will flock up to the first bus that hoves into view, and fight to board.
Never mind that several people are getting off.
This is our bus, we saw it first!
Outta the way, bitches!
It's usually the number seventy or eighty out of Marin. The driver will explain several key things, once the honoured foreigners and fat Midwesterners have stopped foaming at the mouth.
This bus does NOT go to Union Square or Fisherman's Wharf. No, he does not know how they can get there from here. Downtown is large; if they don't know where they are going, they should not take this bus.
Those tickets are only good on Muni (the city buses), he has fifty people sitting behind who are being even further delayed by tourists pointlessly yelling in Italian or German, and it costs four dollars and fifty cents to travel on this conveyance, which is a regional bus, rather than the two bucks OR convenient tourist pass on Muni. Which you missed, back there behind you, it's just pulled out, but you could have caught it if you hadn't wasted fifteen minutes arguing.
Sadly, disconsolately, the smelly and fat visitors fade into the frigid mists of the Bridge Toll Plaza, to wait yet another hour for the next Muni bus. Some of them will mob another vehicle from Marin before it is all over.
They're geese. Or sheep.
Albeit quite rabid.
And vicious.
In the same un-thought-out fashion, they go to Chinatown.
NOT THIS CHINATOWN
Part of the problem is that San Francisco always insists that this is the largest neighborhood of its kind outside of Asia. Which it isn't, by a very wide margin. New York, Toronto, and Vancouver have far greater Chinatowns, and our second and third Chinatowns are bigger too.
Another issue is that tourist guides, hotel desk clerks, and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce speak glowingly of the food and antiques, lovely brocades, fabulous quaintness, and totally cute omg sights, people, and objects.
The food is either every day Cantonese food for a local population which wants good for cheap and gets it, OR high-priced muck sold primarily to white people who demand stuff that the locals will not touch.
Tablecloths? Who ever heard of such a thing?
There is no Perrier, so sorry.
Nor ketchup.
You must understand that the ONLY reasons why Chinatown still exists are three-fold: It's a commercial nexus for people who need goods and services such as among many other things Chinese ingredients, cheap clothing, translation, and haircuts; it's a half-way house for people who are desperately unable to use English effectively and are struggling to move up and out; and old folks. Please note that NONE of these involves tourists, colourful dances and song, putting on shows for the white people, or anything else that caters to the very important non-Asians temporarily passing through.
Except, of course, for Grant Avenue. Which is in the main a ghastly tourist trap. Cameras, tee-shirts, cheap plastic breakable mementos, tea that mostly only white people drink, and coolie hats. More or less.
Really, Grant Avenue is fairly pointless.
BARBER SHOPS, FOOD, AND GROCERIES
Again, San Francisco Chinatown is by no means the enormous and significant community of "exotics" that tourist brochures say it is.
The largest Chinese population in San Francisco is out in the avenues, many of them speak English, a large number speak English better than any other language, and they're working for and running businesses that are very similar to what you would find in Milan or Iowa. The only thing truly unique is that their children are academically superior.
Unless you desperately need tee-shirts and knick-knacks, what you should do in Chinatown is get a haircut, and have a snack.
Plus buy a condiment or a dried fish.
HAIR CUT
There are very many hair dressers in Chinatown. My barber has a shop there, and he does a fabulous job on my head. His English is better than my Cantonese. Some of his customers do not speak Cantonese.
Heads are all very similar, they've seen them before.
Chinese know about such things.
SNACK
Just point. If the place is doing a booming business, it's because they offer decent food and drink at a reasonable price. No, none of the stuff they sell is weird. Most of it consists of fairly common ingredients which are combined in fairly predictable ways. Starch, meat, vegetable stuff, and flavourings. Stop asking questions, and just look at what's available. The appearance will tell you whether it's a main dish, a starch-type substance, a baked product, or contains vegetables. The people who work there might not have the time or the English ability to patiently and thoroughly discuss every tiddly little detail. And you aren't their target audience, who will return often, and whose custom they depend on.
For your assistance: BoBa is large balls of tapioca added to chilled beverages. Charsiu is a type of roast pork. Almost all pastries contain animal shortening. Dried shrimp adds a seafood saveur. Joong (so-called 'Chinese Tamales') are glutinous rice surrounding pork and beans or peanuts, wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed for hours, they keep for days. The lotus leaf packets contain glutinous rice, chicken, a slice of Chinese sausage, a little black mushroom, and only a few other ingredients, and are a delicious lunch. Dumplings could be almost anything (but will often contain an animal protein surrounded by or folded into a starchy component which may be made of rice flour, wheat, or tofu skin. If it looks crunchy, it probably is crunchy.
'Vegan' and 'kosher' are not concepts that operate here.
Even 'vegetarian' is very hard to grasp.
Allergies are your problem.
FYI: Vegetarian restaurants often have the word 素 ('sou') in the name (vegetarian is 素食 'sou sik'; "vegetarian eats"), and another term that crops up in relation to vegetarian food is 齋 ('jai'), which refers most commonly to Buddhist-type vegetarianismus. Neither are popular.
Veganism, besides being quite utterly ridiculous, is 純素食主義 ('suen sou sik chu yi'), "purely vegivorous ideology".
Kosher is 符合猶太教教規的食物 ('fu hap yau taai gaau gaau kwai dik sik mat'), "according with Judaic religious regulation comestibles".
Halal is 符合清真教教規的食物 ('fu hap ching jan gaau gaau kwai dik sik mat'), "according with Islamic custom food".
Respectively 猶太潔食 ('yau taai git sik') and 清真食 ('ching jan sik') for short.
Allergies are called 過敏 ('gwo man'), allergic reactions are 變態反應 ('pin taai fan ying'), and a food allergy is 食物過敏 ('sik mat gwo man').
Peanuts are 花生 ('faa sang'); they're nearly everywhere.
Wheat gluten is 麵筋 ('min gan'). It's good for you.
CONDIMENTS
If you're flying, you shouldn't buy sauces. Rules about what you can't bring onto a plane are strict. Otherwise, please understand that the list of ingredients required by law is very comprehensive, and that many of them contain at least one of the following: sugar, starch, a fermented fish product, salt, wheat derivatives, monosodium glutamate, and chili.
Most of them are meant to be added to food as it is cooking, a few can be added afterwords as you are enjoying the meal. None of them are suitable for massive amounts. Many of them keep very well in your refrigerator after opening. Shrimp paste is essential, Hoisin sauce less so. Douban sauce is useful, but you may not use it often enough.
DRIED FISH
Nothing says "I've been to Chinatown" like a handsome dried fish.
If you are Scandinavian, Dutch, or Belgian, you have seen such things before -- though they may not have been utilized in your kitchens in several generations -- and some Italians and Iberians may have used similar products. If you are modern middle class urban, you will likely eschew fish entirely, and if you are English or Midwestern you may not even know how to cook it when it is fresh. Likely you don't cook anyhow, at most you heat up prepackaged hot-pockets and curry.
Or open a can and mix the contents with mayonnaise.
You rely on celery salt and ketchup.
Dried fish is seldom the mainstay of a meal. But it is a valuable taste-contribution in not particularly large quantities. It will often be soaked and fragmented, and used to flavour simple vegetable dishes.
That's ONE vegetable. Not a mish-mosh of a dozen.
Cooked all dente. Not boiled to death.
Think 'blanch, then saute'.
There are multiple uses for a dried fish, of course, but it's dried; it keeps. That's the whole point of it. Just put it in a large resealable food-storage bag once you get home, if you do not intend to consume it all within weeks.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Below is a selection of places. It is short. It may seem idiosyncratic.
That is deceptive.
DIM SUM
I shan't mention the small hole-in-the-wall dimsum counters I favour, as you probably wouldn't like them anyhow. They also do jook and cheap rice plates. Eh, you wouldn't like those either.
For sit-down dimsum of high quality:
城景 CITY VIEW RESTAURANT
662 Commercial Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
415-398-2838
Between Kearny and Montgomery, very good.
多好茶室 DOL HO
808 Pacific Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-392-2828
Just west of Stockton. Good food, a frenetic or eccentric atmosphere.
If you're a snob you might have reservations.
Why are you here?
羊城茶室 YANK SING
49 Stevenson Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-541-4949
Outside of Chinatown, in the financial district. A bit more expensive, but deservedly popular among both Chinese and white folks.
For a complete list of dim sum specialties, see this post:
Dim sum: kinds, names, pronunciation, description.
Not all of the items listed will be available.
Not even in Hong Kong.
SNACK
For bakeries, I recommend these three:
荷里活茶餐廳 NEW HOLLYWOOD BAKERY & RESTAURANT
652 Pacific Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-397-9919
人仁西餅麵包 YUMMY BAKERY
607 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-989-8388
幸福餅家 BLOSSOM BAKERY
133 Waverly Place
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-391-8088
All three of these have excellent wife cakes (老婆餅 'lou po beng') and milk-tea (港式奶茶 'gong sik naai chaa'), two of them also have wonderful charsiu turnovers (叉烧酥 'chaa siu sou').
They also have other offerings worth exploring.
Sit down and take a break.
For egg tarts (蛋撻 'daan taat'), head to Golden Gate Bakery (金門餅家) at 1029 Grant Avenue, between Jackson Street & Pacific; for coffee crunch cake and mooncakes in season, go to the Eastern Bakery (東亞餅家), 720 Grant Avenue, at the corner of Commercial Street.
RICE
If you want to eat at a restaurant, go here:
京都餐館 CAPITAL RESTAURANT
839 Clay Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-397-6269
Great for family dinners and solid Cantonese food, this place can get packed and chaotic during the rush. The clientele is mostly Cantonese speaking, so don't get too fussy and persnickety; they're really trying to keep everyone happy, but that does mean that convoluted questions are better fielded during quieter moments.
上海飯店 BUND SHANGHAI RESTAURANT
640 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-982-0618
Top-notch Shanghainese food, and delightful chive and pork dumplings (韭菜豬肉水餃 'gau choi chü yiuk suei gaau'). This is a place I would love to take a date sometime.
嶺南小館 R & J LOUNGE
631 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-982-7877
Excellent Cantonese food, and very much the place you would bring your elderly out of town relatives. It's a bit fancy, but the quality has remained consistent for years. They can also do larger groups, and cocktails are available.
FLAVOURS
Condiments of most types are available at any place that looks like a grocery store. Many of them also have dried fish. Prices are all very much in line, as they really want to move the merchandise. They will not be able to answer questions very well, especially if you have a horrible German or French accent; know the subject before you go in, or be willing to take a chance. The worst that can happen is that you might waste one or two dollars.
Do NOT purchase chin cha lok (真加洛醬 'jan kaa lok'), as it explodes; very unstable!
Dried fish and soy sauce never do that.
AN AFTERWORD, TER VERANTWOORDING
Indeed, I am also white, just like you. And although I speak some Cantonese, I do not fancy myself in any way special or somehow superior. The key difference may be that I tend to obsessively look things up.
Which also explains my very minor facility in Cantonese.
That language has proven more useful in the past several years than Dutch, German, and Indonesian. This is primarily the case when I am communicating with people who do not speak Dutch, German, or Indonesian, in addition to lacking fluent and idiomatic English.
I am also an egomaniac; I like to be able to get what I want without struggling, and attract a modicum of favourable attention at the same time. A white person who is at least semi-intelligible in Cantonese is a lusus naturae, though probably not someone you want to know.
I collect cookbooks and foreign dictionaries.
And I eat rather well in consequence.
I also know how to take buses.
These are nice things.
PS: Transit information is available all over San Francisco, as well as in the guide books. Many maps also have valuable clues.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, August 15, 2014
MAYBE YOU'VE WON THE JACKPOT
One search brings people here with depressing regularity. No, it has almost nothing to do with naughtiness, the feminine attributes, or deviant practices. There may be a small element of that, but the main reason why people type this criterium into their browsers is to find something that they have never seen. An almost mythical curiosity.
They've heard about it, and its peculiarities have been explained. For some reason they think it a legendary achievement to see, a fabulous beast to behold.
NAKED MIDDLE AGED MAN!
This is something that even wives of the subjects in question don't know the appearance of, or what on earth it looks like. Let alone civilians, recent college graduates, or grammar school children.
The mature male nude is quite reclusive.
No-one ever sees such a thing.
It just isn't done.
"What", the little boy wonders, "will I look like when I am impossibly old and knackered, as my father is right now?"
It's a good question. In the past, one could rely on college professors to demonstrate the beast, as so many of them had little shame and happily attempted to seduce nearly anything twenty years younger than them skipping across the campus. British politicians also couldn't resist letting you know exactly what to expect, and both vicars and Roman priests disrobed at the drop of a hat.
One word, sonny boy: SPOTS!
It's sad that the educational aspect of perversion has had to suffer because of our new-found modesty.
Inquisitive people come here looking for a naked middle aged man. Sometimes it's a naked middle aged WHITE man. Even rarer!
They leave disappointed. I have nothing to offer them.
It is not easy to see a naked middle aged man.
We are shy, as well as fully clothed.
They came for this:
What they got was this:
As I type this, I am NOT naked. Anything but, in fact. It's summer in San Francisco, darn cold, and nudity is not part of the programme. It would be silly.
If the right person asked, I could be induced into a temporary state of deshabille, provided it was mutual, and cups of a warm beverage were involved as well as a warm blanket.
Sadly, that's extremely unlikely.
I think people tend to worry that the warm beverages will get spilled, possibly due to shaking and shivering. Combined with tachycardia, and other symptoms of severe chill, it's almost like the subject is having an epileptic seizure, and no one is willing to risk a soggy blanket.
Or a rug. It could happen on a rug.
Two warm beverages.
Big mess.
But the warm beverages are essential. No one in their right mind strips in San Francisco unless a warm beverage is involved.
Do you really think you're ready for this?
I'm pretty sure you aren't.
In the same way that school-age children and adults are desperately searching the internet for the naked middle aged man, I should like to find a person of suitable age and gender who is willing to risk her carpet getting hot coffee or tea spilled on it. Or even cocoa.
Her profound curiosity might get rewarded.
The rest of you are out of luck.
I'm staying warm.
Just look in your mirror, and construe.
ICELANDIC HONEY
I am presently wearing longjohns, skintight leggings, and corduroy pants, plus a woolen shirt and a thick Irish fisherman's sweater, underneath my fur coat. Plus earmuffs, a fuzzy scarf, and a hat.
At night it feels like the frigid North Atlantic.
It's so crikey cold and dark, oh strewth!
Only insane people are naked.
Note: All illustrations in this essay are by Edward Gorey and Mrs. Regera Dowdy, who both understood the fully clothed, partially clothed, largely unclothed, or completely starkers, middle aged man paradigm as no other. The two of them pretty much invented it. Which is why the third picture is a perfect portrait of me. Note the stylish tennies.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
They've heard about it, and its peculiarities have been explained. For some reason they think it a legendary achievement to see, a fabulous beast to behold.
NAKED MIDDLE AGED MAN!
This is something that even wives of the subjects in question don't know the appearance of, or what on earth it looks like. Let alone civilians, recent college graduates, or grammar school children.
The mature male nude is quite reclusive.
No-one ever sees such a thing.
It just isn't done.
"What", the little boy wonders, "will I look like when I am impossibly old and knackered, as my father is right now?"
It's a good question. In the past, one could rely on college professors to demonstrate the beast, as so many of them had little shame and happily attempted to seduce nearly anything twenty years younger than them skipping across the campus. British politicians also couldn't resist letting you know exactly what to expect, and both vicars and Roman priests disrobed at the drop of a hat.
One word, sonny boy: SPOTS!
It's sad that the educational aspect of perversion has had to suffer because of our new-found modesty.
Inquisitive people come here looking for a naked middle aged man. Sometimes it's a naked middle aged WHITE man. Even rarer!
They leave disappointed. I have nothing to offer them.
It is not easy to see a naked middle aged man.
We are shy, as well as fully clothed.
They came for this:
What they got was this:
If the right person asked, I could be induced into a temporary state of deshabille, provided it was mutual, and cups of a warm beverage were involved as well as a warm blanket.
Sadly, that's extremely unlikely.
I think people tend to worry that the warm beverages will get spilled, possibly due to shaking and shivering. Combined with tachycardia, and other symptoms of severe chill, it's almost like the subject is having an epileptic seizure, and no one is willing to risk a soggy blanket.
Or a rug. It could happen on a rug.
Two warm beverages.
Big mess.
But the warm beverages are essential. No one in their right mind strips in San Francisco unless a warm beverage is involved.
Do you really think you're ready for this?
I'm pretty sure you aren't.
In the same way that school-age children and adults are desperately searching the internet for the naked middle aged man, I should like to find a person of suitable age and gender who is willing to risk her carpet getting hot coffee or tea spilled on it. Or even cocoa.
Her profound curiosity might get rewarded.
The rest of you are out of luck.
I'm staying warm.
Just look in your mirror, and construe.
ICELANDIC HONEY
I am presently wearing longjohns, skintight leggings, and corduroy pants, plus a woolen shirt and a thick Irish fisherman's sweater, underneath my fur coat. Plus earmuffs, a fuzzy scarf, and a hat.
At night it feels like the frigid North Atlantic.
It's so crikey cold and dark, oh strewth!
Only insane people are naked.
Note: All illustrations in this essay are by Edward Gorey and Mrs. Regera Dowdy, who both understood the fully clothed, partially clothed, largely unclothed, or completely starkers, middle aged man paradigm as no other. The two of them pretty much invented it. Which is why the third picture is a perfect portrait of me. Note the stylish tennies.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
RETHINKING THE FIRST MEAL OF THE DAY
Continuing its unhealthy obsession with America and Americans, the BBC recently posted an article titled "What does America have for breakfast?" No, shan't post a link. It's too long, boring, and badly researched to make reading it worthwhile, and there are no recipes or significant conclusions.
Apparently they've decided that we eat.
Which is true. Many normal people stick a breakfast in their gob at least once a day. This blogger does not do so, as the concept of solid food has neither relevance nor appeal until after lunch time at the earliest.
On Thursday I got up at six in the morning, and had two cups of coffee and a smoke. Ate a cookie about four hours later. And another one at three in the afternoon. There were three cups of tea and a yoghurt drink between the two cookies.
At four o'clock I had some kofta and rice in lavash.
Didn't bother with dinner at all.
More caffeine.
My apartment mate, who is a very dear sweet girl who has recently broken up with her boy friend, seems to not have much of a breakfast appetite at present. When it returns, she'll probably fry herself up a porkchop and eat it with rice and a little bokchoi. Either that or heat up a packet of matar paneer or alu saag and dump a fried egg over it.
Sometimes she has a bowl of cereal.
Or simply a banana.
She's a rather untypical San Francisco Chinese American in that regard. Chinatown likes dim sum or jook for breakfast; there are only a few places where one can get fried eggs or a hamburger at seven in the morning.
She'll recover. She still won't be typical, though.
This is not a typical household.
BUT WHAT DO OTHER PEOPLE DO?
Many other San Franciscans start the day with a large Starbucks coffee, Facebook, and an entitled attitude. Nothing solid there. Except, perhaps, deserved regrets at their mis-spent youth, as well as the "thing" that they brought home last night. Conceivably they are thinking "dang that camel looked better last night after five zombies" as they frantically erase all the embarrassing selfies from their page.
That "thing" discreetly departs.
Then they eat a donut.
Some begin the day with a refreshing vodka-based beverage.
An hour or so later, they drag their blond selves into the office, where they will have more Starbucks, shop on e-bay for a while, and gossip about reality shows omg.
I believe they may have a salad during day.
Something elegant, with a darling spork.
Breakfast isn't really a San Francisco thing. Not for the e-yuppies who came here from elsewhere in the country. It takes up too much time, interferes with a healthy hip lifestyle, might get stains on your fabulous wardrobe, and unfortunately TWO hands are required to read all your twitters and updates, as well as respond to e-mail messages.
Besides, if no one can see you eat, it isn't worth it.
No matter how vegan and pretentious it is.
You need awed witnesses.
Sushi bars don't open till noon.
It's currently just past midnight -- 12:11 AM.
Perfect time for bacon and eggs.
Plus a splurt of hotsauce.
Wish me bon appétit.
I'm going in.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Apparently they've decided that we eat.
Which is true. Many normal people stick a breakfast in their gob at least once a day. This blogger does not do so, as the concept of solid food has neither relevance nor appeal until after lunch time at the earliest.
On Thursday I got up at six in the morning, and had two cups of coffee and a smoke. Ate a cookie about four hours later. And another one at three in the afternoon. There were three cups of tea and a yoghurt drink between the two cookies.
At four o'clock I had some kofta and rice in lavash.
Didn't bother with dinner at all.
More caffeine.
My apartment mate, who is a very dear sweet girl who has recently broken up with her boy friend, seems to not have much of a breakfast appetite at present. When it returns, she'll probably fry herself up a porkchop and eat it with rice and a little bokchoi. Either that or heat up a packet of matar paneer or alu saag and dump a fried egg over it.
Sometimes she has a bowl of cereal.
Or simply a banana.
She's a rather untypical San Francisco Chinese American in that regard. Chinatown likes dim sum or jook for breakfast; there are only a few places where one can get fried eggs or a hamburger at seven in the morning.
She'll recover. She still won't be typical, though.
This is not a typical household.
BUT WHAT DO OTHER PEOPLE DO?
Many other San Franciscans start the day with a large Starbucks coffee, Facebook, and an entitled attitude. Nothing solid there. Except, perhaps, deserved regrets at their mis-spent youth, as well as the "thing" that they brought home last night. Conceivably they are thinking "dang that camel looked better last night after five zombies" as they frantically erase all the embarrassing selfies from their page.
That "thing" discreetly departs.
Then they eat a donut.
Some begin the day with a refreshing vodka-based beverage.
An hour or so later, they drag their blond selves into the office, where they will have more Starbucks, shop on e-bay for a while, and gossip about reality shows omg.
I believe they may have a salad during day.
Something elegant, with a darling spork.
Breakfast isn't really a San Francisco thing. Not for the e-yuppies who came here from elsewhere in the country. It takes up too much time, interferes with a healthy hip lifestyle, might get stains on your fabulous wardrobe, and unfortunately TWO hands are required to read all your twitters and updates, as well as respond to e-mail messages.
Besides, if no one can see you eat, it isn't worth it.
No matter how vegan and pretentious it is.
You need awed witnesses.
Sushi bars don't open till noon.
It's currently just past midnight -- 12:11 AM.
Perfect time for bacon and eggs.
Plus a splurt of hotsauce.
Wish me bon appétit.
I'm going in.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, August 14, 2014
LION HEADS IN SOUP: 滬式上湯獅子頭
One of those things which everyone knows about, but seldom finds in a Chinese restaurant, is a large meatball with some greens in broth. Think of a hamburger, as regards the meaty part, with the vegetable for balance, and soup to make it fun.
Actually, don't think of that. The hamburger bears no resemblance, as the meatball is round, and made of pork. Instead, consider something in between the typical Dutch gehaktbal and the frikandel. That's much better. So round, so plump, so bursting with oinky goodness!
They're called 'lions heads' (獅子頭 'si ji tau') in Cantonese, and are supposed to be a Shanghainese thing. But the recipe most people use is typically Hong Kong, as it includes water chestnuts (馬蹄) and either lahp cheung or cured bacon for flavour, plus often a preserved egg.
To the Shanghainese, this is very close to heresy.
The Dutch wouldn't recognize it either, and instead of soup, they would serve it with hot mustard, and the vegetables on the side. Plus sambal.
Everything on a Dutch plate is better with sambal.
My recipe below does not include the preserved egg, and substitutes three rashers of peppered smoked bacon for the lahp cheung.
Because I am a barbarian, and I can do that.
[係呀，我係鬼佬；點少得嘅咩？]
Well then.
滬式上湯獅子頭
WU SIK SEUNG TONG SI JI TAU
[Shanghai style lion heads in soup]
For the balls:
One pound ground pork.
Three rashers bacon, chopped.
Five or six matai (water chestnuts), chopped.
Two TBS soy sauce.
Two TBS sugar.
One TBS sherry.
Half TBS sesame oil.
One green onion, chopped.
One thumb of ginger, minced.
Two to three cloves garlic, minced.
Two eggs, beaten.
Four TBS cornstarch.
Pinch of five spice powder.
Pinch of freshly ground pepper.
For the broth:
1 pound bokchoi, bases trimmed.
One or two slices of ginger.
One and a half cups of superior stock or broth.
Note: you can substitute quatre epices for the five spice, or a little ground nutmeg.
To prepare the lion heads, mix the pork, bacon, ginger, garlic, matai (馬蹄), and green onion. Work it over with a chef's knife or cleaver till it is considerably finer in texture than it was. Use the blade to scoop it into a bowl, and add the remaining ball-ingredients. Mix well. It should be sticky but on the firm side, not gloopy. If necessary add a little more cornstarch.
Form into four large balls.
Heat a layer of oil in a deep pan or wok. Place the meatballs herein, and colour all over; whether you roll them around or turn them is up to you. Do not cook through, merely brown the outside and firm them up.
Remove them to a casserole. Heat up the stock or broth and pour over the meatballs; it need not cover them. Simmer for about ten minutes or so before adding the bokchoi to cook alongside. When the stems have become tender and the leaves are wilted, the dish is done.
I like to cook large chunks of cucumber (peeled and seeded) with the meatballs and cabbage; see previous excuse that I am a barbarian.
Serve each ball with some of the soup and vegetables.
Rice is an essential adjunct.
So is sambal.
AFTER THOUGHT
Here you have what every Cantonese person thinks of when considering a meal. Pork, bokchoi, rice, and soup, plus the taste of something fried.
Sambal and cucumber are just icing on the cake.
This spells complete happiness.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Actually, don't think of that. The hamburger bears no resemblance, as the meatball is round, and made of pork. Instead, consider something in between the typical Dutch gehaktbal and the frikandel. That's much better. So round, so plump, so bursting with oinky goodness!
They're called 'lions heads' (獅子頭 'si ji tau') in Cantonese, and are supposed to be a Shanghainese thing. But the recipe most people use is typically Hong Kong, as it includes water chestnuts (馬蹄) and either lahp cheung or cured bacon for flavour, plus often a preserved egg.
To the Shanghainese, this is very close to heresy.
The Dutch wouldn't recognize it either, and instead of soup, they would serve it with hot mustard, and the vegetables on the side. Plus sambal.
Everything on a Dutch plate is better with sambal.
My recipe below does not include the preserved egg, and substitutes three rashers of peppered smoked bacon for the lahp cheung.
Because I am a barbarian, and I can do that.
[係呀，我係鬼佬；點少得嘅咩？]
Well then.
滬式上湯獅子頭
WU SIK SEUNG TONG SI JI TAU
[Shanghai style lion heads in soup]
For the balls:
One pound ground pork.
Three rashers bacon, chopped.
Five or six matai (water chestnuts), chopped.
Two TBS soy sauce.
Two TBS sugar.
One TBS sherry.
Half TBS sesame oil.
One green onion, chopped.
One thumb of ginger, minced.
Two to three cloves garlic, minced.
Two eggs, beaten.
Four TBS cornstarch.
Pinch of five spice powder.
Pinch of freshly ground pepper.
For the broth:
1 pound bokchoi, bases trimmed.
One or two slices of ginger.
One and a half cups of superior stock or broth.
Note: you can substitute quatre epices for the five spice, or a little ground nutmeg.
To prepare the lion heads, mix the pork, bacon, ginger, garlic, matai (馬蹄), and green onion. Work it over with a chef's knife or cleaver till it is considerably finer in texture than it was. Use the blade to scoop it into a bowl, and add the remaining ball-ingredients. Mix well. It should be sticky but on the firm side, not gloopy. If necessary add a little more cornstarch.
Form into four large balls.
Heat a layer of oil in a deep pan or wok. Place the meatballs herein, and colour all over; whether you roll them around or turn them is up to you. Do not cook through, merely brown the outside and firm them up.
Remove them to a casserole. Heat up the stock or broth and pour over the meatballs; it need not cover them. Simmer for about ten minutes or so before adding the bokchoi to cook alongside. When the stems have become tender and the leaves are wilted, the dish is done.
I like to cook large chunks of cucumber (peeled and seeded) with the meatballs and cabbage; see previous excuse that I am a barbarian.
Serve each ball with some of the soup and vegetables.
Rice is an essential adjunct.
So is sambal.
AFTER THOUGHT
Here you have what every Cantonese person thinks of when considering a meal. Pork, bokchoi, rice, and soup, plus the taste of something fried.
Sambal and cucumber are just icing on the cake.
This spells complete happiness.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
IS THERE ANYTHING BRITISH THAT YOU NEED?
Apparently the British wish to boycott Israel.
QUOTE:
"UK arms export licences to Israel will be suspended only if there is fresh violence in Gaza, ministers have said. The UK has identified 12 licences for components which could be used in equipment in Gaza by Israel. It said it would suspend them "in the event of a resumption of significant hostilities"."
End quote.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-28765040.
Which begs the question: is there anything made in England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland, that anyone really needs?
Tiaras, perhaps? Ermine robes? Baked beans?
The reason I ask is because the British, by this action, put all the blame for recent events on Israel. Despite Hamas firing off rockets far too numerous to count, despite all Palestinian provocation, and despite the Muslim Brotherhood so ably assisting the only regime in the Middle-East that does not want to exterminate them for being a bunch of homicidal maniacs.
The British ask nothing of Hamas in return.
I did not in the past support the IRA. If the IRA and the Irish weren't such a bunch of pestilent Jew-haters, just like the British, I would seriously consider doing so now.
I will, however, refrain from buying British.
Much like I refrain from buying Irish.
Other than Jameson's whiskey.
Back to the question whether there is anything that I or anyone else might require that is made in Great Britain.
We have our own candy and woolens here, as well as some damned fine whiskeys. The British are not known for edible substances, don't know beans about coffee, and purchase tea from all the places where they used to massacre civilians, plus China. That last mentioned place is where most of their consumer goods come from anyway. There are no British restaurants to boycott; every fish and chip shop I know is owned by Koreans. Indian restaurants in the United States are anything but English, despite the boast that Indian food in London is better than anywhere else (it isn't).
Most, if not all, of my favourite British pipe tobaccos are manufactured in Germany (Kohlhase & Kopp) or Denmark (Orlik and MacBaren). The famous pipe brands that originated once in London are now either defunct or made in France and Italy. Bangers from local butchers, insofar as they are edible, are infinitely better than the beastly wursts from Blighty. English bacon is an abomination, crumpets are crap. British beer is rather horrid, especially when compared to many of the fine brews available locally, even in so-called Irish pubs.
Toffee and licorice are better elsewhere.
Tweed is useless in California.
Britain is hardly known for quality merchandise, and hasn't been in several decades.
The only things which I can boycott, then, are tinned Haggis, dark-hued Oxford Marmalade, and the remarkable line of Indian pickles and condiments made by Pataks Foods Ltd. in Leigh, Lancashire.
I can make better Haggis than the Scots -- actually, anybody can, but why would they want to is ever a mystery -- and I have several recipes for achars and chutneys, all of which I've made in the past.
Tinned haggis and jarred pickles are convenient.
But they are not essential at all.
Sorry, Pataks.
BLIGHTY!
About the only effect of Britain refusing to export components to Israel is that the Israelis will make them themselves, rather than sourcing them from desperate British manufacturers, and make them far better, eventually competing with the English.
Oh, and I will have to forgo genuine Oxford Marmalade.
So some culinary experimentation may be necessary.
Never thought I'd say that about anything British.
By the way: The best tea STILL comes from China.
Don't know about that muck the British drink.
Good for their stomachs, I suppose.
Especially after a fry-up.
Oink.
ADDENDUM AS OF AUGUST 15:
If you weren't already boycotting South Africa, feel free to do so now. SA President emeritus Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki has just rewarded his paymasters. Proving that the new South Africa is just as morally bankrupt as the old South Africa was alleged to be.
Nope, shan't even mention their epidemic of rape.
That's a prized part of local culture.
As well as a way of life.
Ubuntu.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
QUOTE:
"UK arms export licences to Israel will be suspended only if there is fresh violence in Gaza, ministers have said. The UK has identified 12 licences for components which could be used in equipment in Gaza by Israel. It said it would suspend them "in the event of a resumption of significant hostilities"."
End quote.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-28765040.
Which begs the question: is there anything made in England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland, that anyone really needs?
Tiaras, perhaps? Ermine robes? Baked beans?
The reason I ask is because the British, by this action, put all the blame for recent events on Israel. Despite Hamas firing off rockets far too numerous to count, despite all Palestinian provocation, and despite the Muslim Brotherhood so ably assisting the only regime in the Middle-East that does not want to exterminate them for being a bunch of homicidal maniacs.
The British ask nothing of Hamas in return.
I did not in the past support the IRA. If the IRA and the Irish weren't such a bunch of pestilent Jew-haters, just like the British, I would seriously consider doing so now.
I will, however, refrain from buying British.
Much like I refrain from buying Irish.
Other than Jameson's whiskey.
Back to the question whether there is anything that I or anyone else might require that is made in Great Britain.
We have our own candy and woolens here, as well as some damned fine whiskeys. The British are not known for edible substances, don't know beans about coffee, and purchase tea from all the places where they used to massacre civilians, plus China. That last mentioned place is where most of their consumer goods come from anyway. There are no British restaurants to boycott; every fish and chip shop I know is owned by Koreans. Indian restaurants in the United States are anything but English, despite the boast that Indian food in London is better than anywhere else (it isn't).
Most, if not all, of my favourite British pipe tobaccos are manufactured in Germany (Kohlhase & Kopp) or Denmark (Orlik and MacBaren). The famous pipe brands that originated once in London are now either defunct or made in France and Italy. Bangers from local butchers, insofar as they are edible, are infinitely better than the beastly wursts from Blighty. English bacon is an abomination, crumpets are crap. British beer is rather horrid, especially when compared to many of the fine brews available locally, even in so-called Irish pubs.
Toffee and licorice are better elsewhere.
Tweed is useless in California.
Britain is hardly known for quality merchandise, and hasn't been in several decades.
The only things which I can boycott, then, are tinned Haggis, dark-hued Oxford Marmalade, and the remarkable line of Indian pickles and condiments made by Pataks Foods Ltd. in Leigh, Lancashire.
I can make better Haggis than the Scots -- actually, anybody can, but why would they want to is ever a mystery -- and I have several recipes for achars and chutneys, all of which I've made in the past.
Tinned haggis and jarred pickles are convenient.
But they are not essential at all.
Sorry, Pataks.
BLIGHTY!
About the only effect of Britain refusing to export components to Israel is that the Israelis will make them themselves, rather than sourcing them from desperate British manufacturers, and make them far better, eventually competing with the English.
Oh, and I will have to forgo genuine Oxford Marmalade.
So some culinary experimentation may be necessary.
Never thought I'd say that about anything British.
By the way: The best tea STILL comes from China.
Don't know about that muck the British drink.
Good for their stomachs, I suppose.
Especially after a fry-up.
Oink.
ADDENDUM AS OF AUGUST 15:
If you weren't already boycotting South Africa, feel free to do so now. SA President emeritus Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki has just rewarded his paymasters. Proving that the new South Africa is just as morally bankrupt as the old South Africa was alleged to be.
Nope, shan't even mention their epidemic of rape.
That's a prized part of local culture.
As well as a way of life.
Ubuntu.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
FULL OF IT AT DAWN
Anybody who hasn't seen the documentary Grey Gardens is blessed. And anyone who has, deserves to be. More than anything else it reveals New Yorkers' love for the Hamptons. Which, in their tightly restricted and obsessive world, stands for everything good and decent and desirable.
But I shall not pursue that chain of thought. Doing so on the internet inevitably leads to group insanity.
And off-key singing. Lots of off-key singing, darnit.
Facebook is ripe for organ harvesting.
Recent remarks prove this.
I admit guilt.
ONE
"Most people in high sin tax states simply purchase their quality pipe tobacco from internet retailers. Often a huge savings!"
In some ways I am a hypocrite, in that I disapprove of the tendency to buy everything on line. It ruins neighborhoods and puts honest merchants out of business. In some states internet shopping has caused such a decrease in tobacco stores, book shops, clothiers, and toy merchants, that the local strip mall is given over entirely to Birdcage Wok, Outback Steakhouse, Applebee's, Panda Express, and Boston Market.
I'm thinking particularly of New York and California, where the sneering puritan hordes wish to interfere in the lives of every one else, and tax whatever they disapprove of out of existence. Or ban it outright.
Such as smoking, soft drinks, shopping bags, and seafood.
Don't shop. Just get fat.
No wonder so many people are nasty looking; the bio-chemicals generated by unpleasantness and sh*tty food are oozing out of their dermis.
I do not want you to rely on the internet for tobacco.
However, I shall continue to do so.
I'm cheap.
TWO
"BTW: pipe smokers are notorious tightwads. On those rare occasions when they DO actually wander into a brick and mortar, they'll take up to an hour to NOT buy a pipe, then at least twenty minutes deciding which tin of tobacco. Or even longer. High maintenance customers by definition.
Whereas a cigar aficionado will spend five times as much in six minutes, walk out with a smile, and be back in three days to repeat the process."
Buy your stogies locally. Then get stuffed at Birdcage Wok, Outback Steakhouse, Applebee's, Panda Express, and Boston Market, fatso.
Hmmph. Cigars.
THREE
"The Orang Utan deserves our sympathy. Obviously the shiksa in the bikini is one twisted mama, either a sadist or a sexual deviant, and a sociopath. He's the victim here!"
Tropical wildlife and white chicks are a bad combination.
I do not wish to be that ape.
FOUR
"Dudes! Always mention Pinot Noir, Tofu, and Hello Kitty! Always!"
These are cultural metaphors for California.
Not San Francisco. California.
FIVE
"Your mother and I have a shipment of plastic explosives coming in; it belongs to the bass player for "Guns 'n' Spittle". I've been giving him all the pocket change I steal from your pants while you sleep. Please don't let this affect your basic trusting attitude toward people."
Maybe this is what my sex-life would be like if I were a young blonde woman. Yes, if that were my misfortune, I'd probably engage in risky procreative behaviours with sleazoid lawyers and band members.
As, I have reason to believe, many of them do.
Fortunately I am a middle-aged male. With good taste.
Not a young blonde woman.
"Everything is made of plastic now, not like the old days. When we still used rock for everything. "Here honey, happy Valentines day; it's a rock!" "
I miss the days of my youth, when nice girls still carried rocks.
SIX
"Burley blends, as well as some of the richer Cavendishes. Not so much Latakia mixtures, because the characteristic of a corncob is that while it delivers a very satisfying smoke, it does not pull as broad and deep a spectrum of flavours from the tobacco. With proper care, even a corncob can last for a great many years. And, even if smoked multiple times in one day, it breathes, and consequently will dry out better overnight. Evenso it is best to have three or four for proper rotation, if that is the only type of pipe being smoked (with briars, of course, a regular smoker will need half a dozen or more). I would avoid the standard aromatics; Cornell & Diehl make some lovely Burley mixtures, and if he wants to try aged Virginias (flue-cured leaf, not necessarily even from anywhere in the States), he can't go wrong with Samuel Gawith: Best Brown Flake, Golden Glow, St. James Flake, and Full Virginia Flake."
Valuable advice for a gentleman who purchased an inexpensive smoking tool recently. With a bit of luck he'll graduate to briars, and fully experience the pleasure that pipe tobacco can provide.
Especially if bought cheaply.
Strip malls are like smorgasbords. So many fabulous edibles and quasi-edibles to choose from, tons of chain-snacks, and a wealth of oozing fatheads and young blondes for your viewing pleasure.
It's nothing at all like San Francisco.
Eat it before it all melts.
NOTE:
Much of the commentary above was indirectly inspired by tourists and suburbanite types, both of which are blisteringly loathesome. The rest can be blamed entirely on a yearning for little fatty pork meatballs in a green curry sauce, which is unsuitable for breakfast, and would take a little too long to prepare anyhow.
Normally breakfast is not an issue; two cups of strong coffee, and a pipeful of dark flake. That almost always does the trick.
I'm heading to Marin in a short while.
The horror, the horror.
"Houri: from the city of Hawar, famous for plump, clear fleshed grapes. Hence a descriptive of eyes (where the white is visible all around the iris), luxuries and delicacies (such as sweet juicy raisins), fabulous and rare trade goods (see above), and the haunches of racing camels (don't ask). So: if you die for a noble cause, surely you will be rewarded (follows a series of metaphors for a semi-illiterate audience, who at that moment are not enthused about the horrible prospects). More or less the equivalent of 'a land flowing with milk and honey', and other poetic images in other Semitic tongues."
To which the only possible response is "Tempeh, on the other hand, is a euphemism for "inedible substance".
It might be better to eat at Birdcage Wok, Outback Steakhouse, Applebee's, Panda Express, and Boston buggery Market.
The last time I sang karaoke every one went outside for a smoke break.
Even the non-smokers.
Learn Dutch instead; FAR more useful.
Facebook; it's organic.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
But I shall not pursue that chain of thought. Doing so on the internet inevitably leads to group insanity.
And off-key singing. Lots of off-key singing, darnit.
Facebook is ripe for organ harvesting.
Recent remarks prove this.
I admit guilt.
ONE
"Most people in high sin tax states simply purchase their quality pipe tobacco from internet retailers. Often a huge savings!"
In some ways I am a hypocrite, in that I disapprove of the tendency to buy everything on line. It ruins neighborhoods and puts honest merchants out of business. In some states internet shopping has caused such a decrease in tobacco stores, book shops, clothiers, and toy merchants, that the local strip mall is given over entirely to Birdcage Wok, Outback Steakhouse, Applebee's, Panda Express, and Boston Market.
I'm thinking particularly of New York and California, where the sneering puritan hordes wish to interfere in the lives of every one else, and tax whatever they disapprove of out of existence. Or ban it outright.
Such as smoking, soft drinks, shopping bags, and seafood.
Don't shop. Just get fat.
No wonder so many people are nasty looking; the bio-chemicals generated by unpleasantness and sh*tty food are oozing out of their dermis.
I do not want you to rely on the internet for tobacco.
However, I shall continue to do so.
I'm cheap.
TWO
"BTW: pipe smokers are notorious tightwads. On those rare occasions when they DO actually wander into a brick and mortar, they'll take up to an hour to NOT buy a pipe, then at least twenty minutes deciding which tin of tobacco. Or even longer. High maintenance customers by definition.
Whereas a cigar aficionado will spend five times as much in six minutes, walk out with a smile, and be back in three days to repeat the process."
Buy your stogies locally. Then get stuffed at Birdcage Wok, Outback Steakhouse, Applebee's, Panda Express, and Boston Market, fatso.
Hmmph. Cigars.
THREE
"The Orang Utan deserves our sympathy. Obviously the shiksa in the bikini is one twisted mama, either a sadist or a sexual deviant, and a sociopath. He's the victim here!"
Tropical wildlife and white chicks are a bad combination.
I do not wish to be that ape.
FOUR
"Dudes! Always mention Pinot Noir, Tofu, and Hello Kitty! Always!"
These are cultural metaphors for California.
Not San Francisco. California.
FIVE
"Your mother and I have a shipment of plastic explosives coming in; it belongs to the bass player for "Guns 'n' Spittle". I've been giving him all the pocket change I steal from your pants while you sleep. Please don't let this affect your basic trusting attitude toward people."
Maybe this is what my sex-life would be like if I were a young blonde woman. Yes, if that were my misfortune, I'd probably engage in risky procreative behaviours with sleazoid lawyers and band members.
As, I have reason to believe, many of them do.
Fortunately I am a middle-aged male. With good taste.
Not a young blonde woman.
"Everything is made of plastic now, not like the old days. When we still used rock for everything. "Here honey, happy Valentines day; it's a rock!" "
I miss the days of my youth, when nice girls still carried rocks.
SIX
"Burley blends, as well as some of the richer Cavendishes. Not so much Latakia mixtures, because the characteristic of a corncob is that while it delivers a very satisfying smoke, it does not pull as broad and deep a spectrum of flavours from the tobacco. With proper care, even a corncob can last for a great many years. And, even if smoked multiple times in one day, it breathes, and consequently will dry out better overnight. Evenso it is best to have three or four for proper rotation, if that is the only type of pipe being smoked (with briars, of course, a regular smoker will need half a dozen or more). I would avoid the standard aromatics; Cornell & Diehl make some lovely Burley mixtures, and if he wants to try aged Virginias (flue-cured leaf, not necessarily even from anywhere in the States), he can't go wrong with Samuel Gawith: Best Brown Flake, Golden Glow, St. James Flake, and Full Virginia Flake."
Valuable advice for a gentleman who purchased an inexpensive smoking tool recently. With a bit of luck he'll graduate to briars, and fully experience the pleasure that pipe tobacco can provide.
Especially if bought cheaply.
Strip malls are like smorgasbords. So many fabulous edibles and quasi-edibles to choose from, tons of chain-snacks, and a wealth of oozing fatheads and young blondes for your viewing pleasure.
It's nothing at all like San Francisco.
Eat it before it all melts.
NOTE:
Much of the commentary above was indirectly inspired by tourists and suburbanite types, both of which are blisteringly loathesome. The rest can be blamed entirely on a yearning for little fatty pork meatballs in a green curry sauce, which is unsuitable for breakfast, and would take a little too long to prepare anyhow.
Normally breakfast is not an issue; two cups of strong coffee, and a pipeful of dark flake. That almost always does the trick.
I'm heading to Marin in a short while.
The horror, the horror.
"Houri: from the city of Hawar, famous for plump, clear fleshed grapes. Hence a descriptive of eyes (where the white is visible all around the iris), luxuries and delicacies (such as sweet juicy raisins), fabulous and rare trade goods (see above), and the haunches of racing camels (don't ask). So: if you die for a noble cause, surely you will be rewarded (follows a series of metaphors for a semi-illiterate audience, who at that moment are not enthused about the horrible prospects). More or less the equivalent of 'a land flowing with milk and honey', and other poetic images in other Semitic tongues."
To which the only possible response is "Tempeh, on the other hand, is a euphemism for "inedible substance".
It might be better to eat at Birdcage Wok, Outback Steakhouse, Applebee's, Panda Express, and Boston buggery Market.
The last time I sang karaoke every one went outside for a smoke break.
Even the non-smokers.
Learn Dutch instead; FAR more useful.
Facebook; it's organic.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The Fertile Crescent, whenever it hits the news, remains a depressing and ghastly blip on our collective consciousness. In a very large part this is because we cannot understand the Arabs, whose horrifying mores and behaviour continue to baffle and flabberghast.
Dangerous, volatile, and unbalanced.
Nothing but horrendous news.
Thank G_D for the Brits.
BBC: THE LATEST ATROCITIES
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r35OsSLfy5o, also here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eyT-Y7Zk0s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtRYBiH10uY.]
I should mention that those men with kilts around their heads are incomprehensible. It must be those Scottish accents.
That doesn't help, guys; learn English.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Dangerous, volatile, and unbalanced.
Nothing but horrendous news.
Thank G_D for the Brits.
BBC: THE LATEST ATROCITIES
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r35OsSLfy5o, also here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eyT-Y7Zk0s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtRYBiH10uY.]
I should mention that those men with kilts around their heads are incomprehensible. It must be those Scottish accents.
That doesn't help, guys; learn English.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
DRUNKEN BRITS
Over the years I've grown accustomed to reports of British people getting over-the-top swozzled and creating incidents. Whenever there are serious soccer-related disruptions in western Europe, it is often the English who are in some way responsible, and whenever they are overseas, the local press has a field-day describing what the Queen's subjects did, didn't do, and shouldn't have done but did at great length.
The drunken Englishman is a regular fixture.
I don't know where the Irish and the Russians got the reputation for being intoxicated lumps of coal; maybe that was just the nation of Chaucer and Maugham fighting back.
Additionally, Irishmen and Russkis are kind of fun when they're blotto, however rarely that occurs. The English, when drunk, are usually utterly unbearable, and violent besides.
All of my father's English colleagues, when we lived in the Eindhoven area, were insensate on cheap beer half the time. I honestly don't know how Pater put up with them, although it was undoubtedly less stressful than having the Germans trying to shoot him out of the sky for three years during the war.
Sane and sober Englishmen must be a rarity; one never notices them.
Maybe they're in permanent hiding. Flying under cover.
If they can do American accents.
Be that as it may.
This blogger, being a sane Dutch-American person with a Waspy accent and a serious tea habit, occasionally has cause to resent being mistaken for one of that lot.
I suppose the Londonian pipe tobacco doesn't help either.
I counter this by seldom eating bangers.
Or drinking gin & tonic.
Please imagine my lack of surprise at a key detail in a news article recently that mentioned a plane turning back because of a passenger who was misbehaving.
QUOTE:
"A rowdy British passenger forced a London-bound Virgin Atlantic flight to return to Hong Kong on Monday (Aug 11) after he "lost control", police said.
The 26-year-old, identified only as "Robert", was on a Heathrow-bound plane from Hong Kong International Airport and became disruptive after the flight had been in the air for more than an hour.
It was forced to turn around after 90 minutes, the airline said, and landed safely back in Hong Kong. The passenger was arrested then sent to hospital."
End quote.
[Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/rowdy-passenger-forces/1306796.html.]
British. How predictable. How utterly unsurprising.
What is remarkable, however, is how soon it happened. He must have slammed down drinks at an alarming pace immediately after the unfasten your seat belts sign lit up. Pounded an entire bottle of tuppence gin. Stolen his seatmates' cocktails too.
A minor cause for wonder was that I first found out about the incident from an article on the BBC website (see: "Passenger Bob"), which entirely neglected to mention that Robert was British. Not even a hint.
Good going, guys.
You know, we Yanks have an expression about 'not showing your ass in public'. It means acting properly if among people, not embarrassing yourself or your group by your behaviour, showing the flag as it were, not giving the other tribes too many opportunities to think ill.
Whenever possible striving not to let down the side.
Gentlemanly behaviour. Acting cricket.
Not being such a wanker.
Showing class.
Just saying.
Anyhow, Mr. Robert (the British passenger) was taken into custody at Hong Kong airport by the authorities and transferred to a local hospital.
Where he was treated. For what may have been a very severe case of alcohol poisoning, or an excess of high spirits.
He had not been charged a day later.
Probably still too drunk.
All of the other passengers were inconvenienced.
There should be travellers' insurance for that.
It's not entirely unexpected nowadays.
Airborne Brits; a public hazard.
Some restrictions apply.
Cheers, mate.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The drunken Englishman is a regular fixture.
I don't know where the Irish and the Russians got the reputation for being intoxicated lumps of coal; maybe that was just the nation of Chaucer and Maugham fighting back.
Additionally, Irishmen and Russkis are kind of fun when they're blotto, however rarely that occurs. The English, when drunk, are usually utterly unbearable, and violent besides.
All of my father's English colleagues, when we lived in the Eindhoven area, were insensate on cheap beer half the time. I honestly don't know how Pater put up with them, although it was undoubtedly less stressful than having the Germans trying to shoot him out of the sky for three years during the war.
Sane and sober Englishmen must be a rarity; one never notices them.
Maybe they're in permanent hiding. Flying under cover.
If they can do American accents.
Be that as it may.
This blogger, being a sane Dutch-American person with a Waspy accent and a serious tea habit, occasionally has cause to resent being mistaken for one of that lot.
I suppose the Londonian pipe tobacco doesn't help either.
I counter this by seldom eating bangers.
Or drinking gin & tonic.
Please imagine my lack of surprise at a key detail in a news article recently that mentioned a plane turning back because of a passenger who was misbehaving.
QUOTE:
"A rowdy British passenger forced a London-bound Virgin Atlantic flight to return to Hong Kong on Monday (Aug 11) after he "lost control", police said.
The 26-year-old, identified only as "Robert", was on a Heathrow-bound plane from Hong Kong International Airport and became disruptive after the flight had been in the air for more than an hour.
It was forced to turn around after 90 minutes, the airline said, and landed safely back in Hong Kong. The passenger was arrested then sent to hospital."
End quote.
[Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/rowdy-passenger-forces/1306796.html.]
British. How predictable. How utterly unsurprising.
What is remarkable, however, is how soon it happened. He must have slammed down drinks at an alarming pace immediately after the unfasten your seat belts sign lit up. Pounded an entire bottle of tuppence gin. Stolen his seatmates' cocktails too.
A minor cause for wonder was that I first found out about the incident from an article on the BBC website (see: "Passenger Bob"), which entirely neglected to mention that Robert was British. Not even a hint.
Good going, guys.
You know, we Yanks have an expression about 'not showing your ass in public'. It means acting properly if among people, not embarrassing yourself or your group by your behaviour, showing the flag as it were, not giving the other tribes too many opportunities to think ill.
Whenever possible striving not to let down the side.
Gentlemanly behaviour. Acting cricket.
Not being such a wanker.
Showing class.
Just saying.
Anyhow, Mr. Robert (the British passenger) was taken into custody at Hong Kong airport by the authorities and transferred to a local hospital.
Where he was treated. For what may have been a very severe case of alcohol poisoning, or an excess of high spirits.
He had not been charged a day later.
Probably still too drunk.
All of the other passengers were inconvenienced.
There should be travellers' insurance for that.
It's not entirely unexpected nowadays.
Airborne Brits; a public hazard.
Some restrictions apply.
Cheers, mate.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, August 11, 2014
SO....., WHAT SHALL WE TALK ABOUT?
Something I saw on the internet has indicated that I should re-think the dating paradigm.
GRAB THE FLOWERS BEFORE THEY'RE GONE!
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqTE-ig7NhY.]
I actually haven't been on a date in what seems like forever.
Perhaps because it IS forever.
It's not something that has any great appeal. Two people optimistically deciding that a few hours in each other's company under VERY trying circumstances -- clothes they don't normally wear, a restaurant that one or both of them may never have been to, their best behaviour, and an attempt to find out enough about the other person to determine that he or she is not particularly vested in human sacrifice and ax-murdering their kin while self-medicated -- followed, usually, by two sets of sincerely "concerned" friends asking all manner of prying questions that will inevitably make the experimentor or experimentrice think that it was a silly and ill-advised thing to do, quite insane even, perhaps best not repeat it.
She has lettuce stuck between her front teeth. Which are crooked.
His breath smells of oatmeal. Maybe that's all he eats?
I'm allergic to flowers; doesn't she know?
Why does he fake that accent?
That skirt is too short.
Nose, long.
Dates are like job-interviews.
But perhaps a little worse.
Doubtful 'pleasure'.
Fortunately, while I've got the usual set of inquisitive associates like every body else, I've always been good at keeping a straight face and never telling them about certain aspects of my life. And there are no pressing relatives within a hundred miles. If I actually saw someone, my friends would not find out, though they might be supportive when it leaked.
Some women are very nice people.
I know that.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
GRAB THE FLOWERS BEFORE THEY'RE GONE!
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqTE-ig7NhY.]
I actually haven't been on a date in what seems like forever.
Perhaps because it IS forever.
It's not something that has any great appeal. Two people optimistically deciding that a few hours in each other's company under VERY trying circumstances -- clothes they don't normally wear, a restaurant that one or both of them may never have been to, their best behaviour, and an attempt to find out enough about the other person to determine that he or she is not particularly vested in human sacrifice and ax-murdering their kin while self-medicated -- followed, usually, by two sets of sincerely "concerned" friends asking all manner of prying questions that will inevitably make the experimentor or experimentrice think that it was a silly and ill-advised thing to do, quite insane even, perhaps best not repeat it.
She has lettuce stuck between her front teeth. Which are crooked.
His breath smells of oatmeal. Maybe that's all he eats?
I'm allergic to flowers; doesn't she know?
Why does he fake that accent?
That skirt is too short.
Nose, long.
Dates are like job-interviews.
But perhaps a little worse.
Doubtful 'pleasure'.
Fortunately, while I've got the usual set of inquisitive associates like every body else, I've always been good at keeping a straight face and never telling them about certain aspects of my life. And there are no pressing relatives within a hundred miles. If I actually saw someone, my friends would not find out, though they might be supportive when it leaked.
Some women are very nice people.
I know that.
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NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
INCREDIBLE HORRIBLE AND TWISTED PEOPLE
When I first moved to this neighborhood there were eight functioning churches within walking distance. And there still are. Yet there has been a bit of change, they aren't the same eight.
I suppose that's a good thing. Churches get stale and settled, and take the suckers for granted after a while. Then they begin to get kind of snooty and meaningful, and yack on at you about The Lord.
Who the hell wants to hear that kind of crap?
The other possibility is that they become all soft and touchy-feely, with parishioners attempting to win you over by showing what likable and loving people they are. Filled with warmth, understanding, and a rigidly non-judgmental soup of the fermenting yoghurt of human kindness.
No wonder all those shallow e-commerce yuppies are turning to Christ.
It's enough to make you sick to the pit of your stomach!
WHAT ALL CHURCHES SHOULD BE!
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRujuE-GIY4.]
I don't know about you, but I found that quite refreshing.
Anent biscuits (or cookies, knäckebröd, crackers, wafers, melba toasts, and the like) I should advise you to firmly stay away from any crunchy-munchies that Christians may provide. A church is NOT a snackbar!
At the very least try to ascertain beforehand that your fellow nibblers are NOT sin-filled hypocrites or among the damned.
Spiritual people and their depraved ilk.
Do NOT even consider dropping by to say 'hi'.
Half-assed musings on the divine!
Forsooth.
I haven't been in a church in years. Probably ever since they stopped burning witches and lepers.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I suppose that's a good thing. Churches get stale and settled, and take the suckers for granted after a while. Then they begin to get kind of snooty and meaningful, and yack on at you about The Lord.
Who the hell wants to hear that kind of crap?
The other possibility is that they become all soft and touchy-feely, with parishioners attempting to win you over by showing what likable and loving people they are. Filled with warmth, understanding, and a rigidly non-judgmental soup of the fermenting yoghurt of human kindness.
No wonder all those shallow e-commerce yuppies are turning to Christ.
It's enough to make you sick to the pit of your stomach!
WHAT ALL CHURCHES SHOULD BE!
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRujuE-GIY4.]
I don't know about you, but I found that quite refreshing.
Anent biscuits (or cookies, knäckebröd, crackers, wafers, melba toasts, and the like) I should advise you to firmly stay away from any crunchy-munchies that Christians may provide. A church is NOT a snackbar!
At the very least try to ascertain beforehand that your fellow nibblers are NOT sin-filled hypocrites or among the damned.
Spiritual people and their depraved ilk.
Do NOT even consider dropping by to say 'hi'.
Half-assed musings on the divine!
Forsooth.
I haven't been in a church in years. Probably ever since they stopped burning witches and lepers.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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GRITS AND TOFU
Like most Americans, I have a list of people who should be peacefully retired from public service and thereafter kept away from their desks,...
