Yesterday was the Hungry Ghost Festival (鬼節 'gwai jit'). No, I didn't take it personally, but I didn't go to my usual haunts anyhow. Because I know it's not about me. The Hungry Ghost Festival is when the spirits can easily visit the mortal world, and it's only an odd coincidence that white people are often referred to as "ghosts" (鬼 'gwai'). Amusing, too.
Boo, little kiddie, boo!
The Hungry Ghost Festival occurs on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, which this year was August 15. The Moon festival is coming up soon (less than four weeks), which is a more cheery event.
You can look up both celebrations on Wikipedia, there is no need to detail them here. Suffice to say that people think of their family and kin at both times, and remember relatives who have passed on.
Not being Chinese, I can safely assume that my ancestors do not expect offerings at any particular time of the year. And, seeing as Caucasian families usually aren't very close after four or five generations, they'd be surprised if there were any.
"Never mind us", they might say, "just keep on doing what you do, because it's so entertaining to watch you spin your little wheels".
One of my ancestors was a gentleman in the Thirteenth century named 'Gompert'.
I try to imagine what he was like. Did he have any teeth left by the time he died? Was he arthritic? Would he have enjoyed the foods that I eat? Was he happy? And what the heck would his late mediaeval dialect of Eastern Netherlandish / Brabantish / Limburgian have sounded like?
Any words of wisdom?
Perhaps someone rather like Dennis in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Sneering at kings, sacred swords, and moistened bints lobbing scimitars. Because, as we all now realize, supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Other than his name, time, and place, I know nothing about the man.
Facebook, My Space, and other social media don't go that far back.
The same lack of crap all over the internet holds for almost everyone else from whom I am descended, although a little more is known about Abraham Pietersen van Deursen, a native of Haarlem, who brewed beer in New York during the sixteen hundreds. He probably would've sneered at the swill modern Americans drink. Bud, Coors, Corona, Heineken, Miller.
Watney's Red Barrel.
In the main, I am not a beer drinker. Sort of breaking with a long tradition on this. But I am a pipe smoker, as many of my relatives during the past four centuries undoubtedly have also been. And all of those individuals probably enjoyed caffeinated beverages, meat, fowl, spices, condiments.
Those who could got vaccinated, and ate GMOs. To the best of my knowledge, I am not related to any Vegans, Shamans, Spiritual People, Crystal Healers, Gluten-phobics, Massage Therapists, or White Buddhists.
Good people. Straightforward.
Burghers.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, August 16, 2019
Thursday, August 15, 2019
ODD QUESTION
Several times today people asked me where I was from, presumably because of my accent. But a better question, with a less predictable answer, would be what language I think in. As far as numbers and counting are concerned, it's often in Dutch. With the mental image of the whole number and the decimals if applicable. Food is frequently in Chinese or Indonesian, complex concepts are in English.
I doubt that such a split-up is rare among bi-linguals and multi-linguals, and it probably varies considerably from person to person.
In what language do you dream?
It depends on what I dream.
And who is talking in that dream, as well as whether I am listening to them. Food dreams tend to be the most diverse, which probably means that in many ways I remain unclear on my identity. Not Dutch. Not American.
Not definitely anything else.
But also, all of that.
My noodle preferences are largely southern Chinese.
Condimentally, very not American.
Junkfood? Dutch.
Plus Chinese, Indonesian, and Filipino prepared dishes. Fish sauce, dried fish, other salty ingredients, tanginess, and rich tastes. Food, of course, is not a national or ethnic identity. Consider all the people outside of Italy who list pizza as a favourite, or the world-wide fondness for herring.
Tea and curry are universal.
My citizenship is American, from birth. About which I'm slightly proud, but it does not really define me, nor for that matter any citizenship of any country would most people. The complexity of the modern world allows, as purely a hypothetical (and rhetorical) example, a German to watch Italian opera or an American murder mystery on his television while happily scarfing down a plate of microwave goulash. While on vacation in Morocco. That preference for Perry Mason or Carlo Tagliabue (who also sang in German, there may be subconscious reason there) defines him more than a scrap of paper or any fate of birth, though the latter may have a strong influence on his taste in entertainment and food. Goulash? Tagliabue? Morocco?
Like many Germans, he smokes Marlboro cigarettes, drinks Coca Cola™, and wears blue jeans. But he's not American; he's sure he's German.
The language of his dreams is almost certainly German.
Except for pop songs; those might be in English.
He has not considered his un-Germanness.
Most people automatically indulge in not contemplating how foreign they might actually be.
I'm kinda pissed that I was reminded of it so often today.
I do not have a foreign accent.
I'm not Canadian.
BTW: In Dutch, the word "vreemd" can mean 'unknown', 'strange', 'peculiar', 'odd', 'unnatural', as well as 'foreign', 'from somewhere else', 'non-native'.
P.S.: The "vreemdelingenpolitie" are NOT the detectives tasked with asking eccentrics odd questions.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
In what language do you dream?
It depends on what I dream.
And who is talking in that dream, as well as whether I am listening to them. Food dreams tend to be the most diverse, which probably means that in many ways I remain unclear on my identity. Not Dutch. Not American.
Not definitely anything else.
But also, all of that.
My noodle preferences are largely southern Chinese.
Condimentally, very not American.
Junkfood? Dutch.
Plus Chinese, Indonesian, and Filipino prepared dishes. Fish sauce, dried fish, other salty ingredients, tanginess, and rich tastes. Food, of course, is not a national or ethnic identity. Consider all the people outside of Italy who list pizza as a favourite, or the world-wide fondness for herring.
Tea and curry are universal.
My citizenship is American, from birth. About which I'm slightly proud, but it does not really define me, nor for that matter any citizenship of any country would most people. The complexity of the modern world allows, as purely a hypothetical (and rhetorical) example, a German to watch Italian opera or an American murder mystery on his television while happily scarfing down a plate of microwave goulash. While on vacation in Morocco. That preference for Perry Mason or Carlo Tagliabue (who also sang in German, there may be subconscious reason there) defines him more than a scrap of paper or any fate of birth, though the latter may have a strong influence on his taste in entertainment and food. Goulash? Tagliabue? Morocco?
Like many Germans, he smokes Marlboro cigarettes, drinks Coca Cola™, and wears blue jeans. But he's not American; he's sure he's German.
The language of his dreams is almost certainly German.
Except for pop songs; those might be in English.
He has not considered his un-Germanness.
Most people automatically indulge in not contemplating how foreign they might actually be.
I'm kinda pissed that I was reminded of it so often today.
I do not have a foreign accent.
I'm not Canadian.
BTW: In Dutch, the word "vreemd" can mean 'unknown', 'strange', 'peculiar', 'odd', 'unnatural', as well as 'foreign', 'from somewhere else', 'non-native'.
P.S.: The "vreemdelingenpolitie" are NOT the detectives tasked with asking eccentrics odd questions.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
SALT FISH EGGPLANT RICE -- HAAHM YÜ KE JI FAAN
One of the most interesting things I heard this week was that someone had learned his unaccented English in the Sacramento County Jail. If they just added reading and writing to their curriculum, people would flock there, or send the kids. Especially useful, one would think, for folks from the rest of our country.
On the one hand, I am not so sure of that. Despite clear text, like on the front of the bus AND at the stop itself, visitors from "Elsewhere US" still ask stupid questions.
Which, of course, is why so much is not written in their language. Doing so is useless. "Is there", they will ask, "gluten in this tasty baked product?"
To which the correct answer is either "whut" or "go away".
No animals were harmed making this hamburger.
As you can tell, the tourist season is upon us. And travelers from the other side of the Sierras are swarming the city. Bless them.
WE HAVE NO BANANAS!
So naturally on both of my days-off I ended up in establishments where the tourists quite often fear to enter, because their bafflement is a barrier.
They recognize nothing, and do not wish to experiment.
One of the wall-specials caught my eye, salt fish eggplant rice, so I ordered it for lunch; 鹹魚茄子飯 ('haahm yü ke ji faan'). It was delicious and fragrant, and adding hot sauce made it more so. While I ate an entire family from lord-knows-where came in, looked around, looked confused, and departed. Followed by a blonde woman in shorts (same general result), a large man who asked if they had hot dogs (no, sorry), and five very tan kids with their older sister, who all observed everything with great fascination, twittered, and left.
Maybe a plane just landed. Refugees from Miz'pi or Kay'liner.
Or, gorelpus, Abama. Poor bastards.
Flurda?
Fortunately the waitress knows me, because she was getting fed up with White People, as, and perhaps you instinctively realized this by now, was I.
Stop staring at my food, okay?!?
Folks, if you are not going to spend any money, please keep out. The happy diners with plates of food in front of them are not a tourist attraction, except perhaps where you come from. The food is awful there, we know.
And we're very sorry about that.
By the way, we have Kung Pao, General Tso, and Sweet 'n Sour.
These are on the menu for your convenience.
We know that's what you eat.
No Crab Rangoon.
Eggrolls!
San Francisco is also filled with Italians and Dutch people right now.
Nope, not going to say a darn thing about that.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
On the one hand, I am not so sure of that. Despite clear text, like on the front of the bus AND at the stop itself, visitors from "Elsewhere US" still ask stupid questions.
Which, of course, is why so much is not written in their language. Doing so is useless. "Is there", they will ask, "gluten in this tasty baked product?"
To which the correct answer is either "whut" or "go away".
No animals were harmed making this hamburger.
As you can tell, the tourist season is upon us. And travelers from the other side of the Sierras are swarming the city. Bless them.
WE HAVE NO BANANAS!
So naturally on both of my days-off I ended up in establishments where the tourists quite often fear to enter, because their bafflement is a barrier.
They recognize nothing, and do not wish to experiment.
One of the wall-specials caught my eye, salt fish eggplant rice, so I ordered it for lunch; 鹹魚茄子飯 ('haahm yü ke ji faan'). It was delicious and fragrant, and adding hot sauce made it more so. While I ate an entire family from lord-knows-where came in, looked around, looked confused, and departed. Followed by a blonde woman in shorts (same general result), a large man who asked if they had hot dogs (no, sorry), and five very tan kids with their older sister, who all observed everything with great fascination, twittered, and left.
Maybe a plane just landed. Refugees from Miz'pi or Kay'liner.
Or, gorelpus, Abama. Poor bastards.
Flurda?
Fortunately the waitress knows me, because she was getting fed up with White People, as, and perhaps you instinctively realized this by now, was I.
Stop staring at my food, okay?!?
Folks, if you are not going to spend any money, please keep out. The happy diners with plates of food in front of them are not a tourist attraction, except perhaps where you come from. The food is awful there, we know.
And we're very sorry about that.
By the way, we have Kung Pao, General Tso, and Sweet 'n Sour.
These are on the menu for your convenience.
We know that's what you eat.
No Crab Rangoon.
Eggrolls!
San Francisco is also filled with Italians and Dutch people right now.
Nope, not going to say a darn thing about that.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
MAINLANDERS, MANDARIN SPEAKERS
Regarding the very minor civil disturbances in Hong Kong, people on the mainland are getting their nationalist knickers in a twist. They are not really educated, fed pablum by their masters, and may, heaven forbid, have very sheltered lives. Or tunnel vision.
This blogger loves mainlanders, most especially the ones taking Golden Gate Transit to the bridge, cheating lying S.O.B.s, who take up two seats per person, and talk loudly. Or the ones who sneer at everything in a local restaurant, haggle and bargain for the slightest discount, push ahead of other customers, or send their brats over here to buy fancy sportscars, handbags, and designer clothing.
My affection for them is deep and wide.
In any case, they're angry. And vocalizing on Weibo and other sites.
What with being upset at Hong Kongers.
So, as a courtesy to Mandarin speakers and Mainlanders, for their convenience here is a short list of essays in which I mention them.
These are some of my best posts.
Do please read them all.
Chronologically.
FUJIANESE GANGSTERS
TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019
A little something about exemplary provincials.
MANDARIN SPEAKERS
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2019
More specifically, students from the mainland.
MAINLAND CHINESE STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES
WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019
Again, those Mandarin-speaking members of the younger generation.
LET'S BE DENSE
FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 2019
Largely about pig carcasses dumped in the river.
ROTTEN CABBAGE AND STEAMED BRAN MUFFINS
TUESDAY, MAY 02, 2017
Conversation with a northerner.
I am a "splitist"
THE CANTONESE BURDEN
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 09, 2016
Lovable qualities of mainlanders.
A WONTON POINT OF VIEW
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2015
Southern dumplings (good) versus northern dumplings (dog food).
NO ONE IS GOING ANYWHERE, SO SIT TIGHT! 今天誰也別走了，就這麼耗著！
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2014
Younger people on buses.
MEN! SUCH TROUBLE!
MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2013
What Mandarin is actually good for.
A FEW WORDS IN PRAISE OF CANTONESE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 2013
Comparison between Cantonese and Mandarin.
Mandarin loses, hands down.
[Mandarin is what you screech at rabid dogs. It's a country bumpkin dialect, spoken primarily by inbred savages, who have no regard for manners, few standards, and little decency.]
There's a lot more, but you get the idea.
As a further kind note to Mandarin speakers from the north, stop smelling like rotten cabbage all the time, learn how to cook and bathe, enunciate clearly even if you can't speak a civilized language rather than sounding as if you have a rat stuck in your throat or a soda water syphon, no one likes mantou (饅頭), and lastly, if you stop throwing garbage on the street and hawking up loogies in public, you will leave a far better impression.
I say this sincerely, because I feel for y'all.
We love you.
POST SCRIPTUM
The Fujianese and Shanhainese get off easy. I've mentioned them in greater detail elsewhere, but it's largely those pushy spitting barbarians from north of the passes and the rivers who are targeted above.
The Shanghainese are excellent tailors and barbers, Fujianese make good oyster omelettes and pork dishes, Wenzhou people should not speak, ever, because their language* is frightening, and both the Hunanese and the Sichuanese have a culinary sense of humour.
[* 天不怕地不怕，就怕温州人説温州話。]
No serious mention is made of the Hainanese, because I've only met five of them in my entire life. Su Tung-po (蘇東坡) was sent to Hainan Island with the express purpose of dying of Malaria.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
My affection for them is deep and wide.
In any case, they're angry. And vocalizing on Weibo and other sites.
What with being upset at Hong Kongers.
So, as a courtesy to Mandarin speakers and Mainlanders, for their convenience here is a short list of essays in which I mention them.
These are some of my best posts.
Do please read them all.
Chronologically.
FUJIANESE GANGSTERS
TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019
A little something about exemplary provincials.
MANDARIN SPEAKERS
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2019
More specifically, students from the mainland.
MAINLAND CHINESE STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES
WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019
Again, those Mandarin-speaking members of the younger generation.
LET'S BE DENSE
FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 2019
Largely about pig carcasses dumped in the river.
ROTTEN CABBAGE AND STEAMED BRAN MUFFINS
TUESDAY, MAY 02, 2017
Conversation with a northerner.
I am a "splitist"
THE CANTONESE BURDEN
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 09, 2016
Lovable qualities of mainlanders.
A WONTON POINT OF VIEW
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2015
Southern dumplings (good) versus northern dumplings (dog food).
NO ONE IS GOING ANYWHERE, SO SIT TIGHT! 今天誰也別走了，就這麼耗著！
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2014
Younger people on buses.
MEN! SUCH TROUBLE!
MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2013
What Mandarin is actually good for.
A FEW WORDS IN PRAISE OF CANTONESE
SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 2013
Comparison between Cantonese and Mandarin.
Mandarin loses, hands down.
[Mandarin is what you screech at rabid dogs. It's a country bumpkin dialect, spoken primarily by inbred savages, who have no regard for manners, few standards, and little decency.]
There's a lot more, but you get the idea.
As a further kind note to Mandarin speakers from the north, stop smelling like rotten cabbage all the time, learn how to cook and bathe, enunciate clearly even if you can't speak a civilized language rather than sounding as if you have a rat stuck in your throat or a soda water syphon, no one likes mantou (饅頭), and lastly, if you stop throwing garbage on the street and hawking up loogies in public, you will leave a far better impression.
I say this sincerely, because I feel for y'all.
We love you.
POST SCRIPTUM
The Fujianese and Shanhainese get off easy. I've mentioned them in greater detail elsewhere, but it's largely those pushy spitting barbarians from north of the passes and the rivers who are targeted above.
The Shanghainese are excellent tailors and barbers, Fujianese make good oyster omelettes and pork dishes, Wenzhou people should not speak, ever, because their language* is frightening, and both the Hunanese and the Sichuanese have a culinary sense of humour.
[* 天不怕地不怕，就怕温州人説温州話。]
No serious mention is made of the Hainanese, because I've only met five of them in my entire life. Su Tung-po (蘇東坡) was sent to Hainan Island with the express purpose of dying of Malaria.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
HEATHEN MILK
Last night while I was drinking a carbonated beverage at the best hamburger dive in the city while screaming obscenities about our president, someone cruised into my blogsite here and left me a comment.
At 11:26 PM, Faithful Reader said…
Hi,
I would really like you to write a post analyzing and commentarizing on the following excellent short story: https://dovbear.blogspot.com/2011/05/story-of-addiction.html
Literature. Wonderful literature. But it needs extensive footnotes, and you are the wondrfulll person to do this intellectual task.
Please.
And thank you.
End cite.
The tale he references mentions chocolate and magazines.
I'm sorry, I can't. It hits too close to home. Painfully so. After avidly reading all the articles in thirty plus years worth of National Geographic Magazine while still in my single digits, I started devouring political analyses in the International Herald Tribune, the Volkskrant, and the Eindhovens Dagblad. By the time I was fifteen years old I was reading the NRC Handelsblad, Het Parool, Nieuwe Revu, and Der Spiegel at the back table of a bar.
Plus Time, Newsweek, and The Saturday Review.
And Elsevier, Vrij Nederland.
Horizon! Now there was a great publication! Stimulating!
The pictures inside were also fascinating, yes, tasteful black and white photography, as was more common then. Moody.
Many of the Dutch and German weeklies had beautiful advertisements for cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, household goods! I saw my first picture of pipe tobacco (MacBarens) while reading those.
On the other hand, I never had a thing for sugary heathen milk products.
A few passages from the relevant Dovbearian essay below.
Cite:
"As a young hassidic boy, Elya didn't have much to do while bored. Many nights he would sit in his room counting the paisleys appearing one after another on the sheet covering his blanket. Somehow the number he ended with was always different."
End cite.
Paisley is ab initio a heresy, more common as a pattern for hippie shirts with wide lapels than should have been allowed. It automatically reminds the sensitive man of tie-dye, sitar music, and horrible strawberry incense.
If there is ONE single thing that should have been outlawed from the seventies, it's paisley.
Oh, and patchouli.
Cite:
"He soon began heading out to study with his father a few times a week."
End cite.
Fond memories! Basic engineering, the internal combustion engine, aviation, French sauces, history, and proper punctuation.
Slightly unstructured.
Cite:
"Isn't that chalav akum? Where'd you get it? you can't eat it."
End cite.
Chalav akum = American cuisine. Inedible.
Cite:
"... a rack of magazines, He eyed the titles, Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Economist."
End cite.
Current affairs. Very tempting to impressionable young minds.
Cite:
"He turned the page, and his heart began pounding, there it was, the reason why people buy this magazine; page after page of conservatively dressed women."
End cite.
Oh, Angela, Angela, Angela, Angela! "Ich denke an dichte fenster! Kein anderes land kann so dichte und so schöne fenster bauen."
I cannot stop thinking of fensters.
Cite:
"His favorite, the one he went back to time after time, pages worn, ink smudged, was Time magazine's 9/11 First Anniversary Collectors Edition. Endless pages of women appropriately dressed for a memorial service."
End cite.
Always dress appropriately. You are an example for the young.
Beautiful, but it ends on a sad note. Read the entire cautionary tale here: Addiction!
It's basically about the dangers of the modern world if you are a well-brought up young hasid. Why, there's chocolate and paisley everywhere!
As well as appropriately dressed women.
Plus fensters.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
At 11:26 PM, Faithful Reader said…
Hi,
I would really like you to write a post analyzing and commentarizing on the following excellent short story: https://dovbear.blogspot.com/2011/05/story-of-addiction.html
Literature. Wonderful literature. But it needs extensive footnotes, and you are the wondrfulll person to do this intellectual task.
Please.
And thank you.
End cite.
The tale he references mentions chocolate and magazines.
I'm sorry, I can't. It hits too close to home. Painfully so. After avidly reading all the articles in thirty plus years worth of National Geographic Magazine while still in my single digits, I started devouring political analyses in the International Herald Tribune, the Volkskrant, and the Eindhovens Dagblad. By the time I was fifteen years old I was reading the NRC Handelsblad, Het Parool, Nieuwe Revu, and Der Spiegel at the back table of a bar.
Plus Time, Newsweek, and The Saturday Review.
And Elsevier, Vrij Nederland.
Horizon! Now there was a great publication! Stimulating!
The pictures inside were also fascinating, yes, tasteful black and white photography, as was more common then. Moody.
Many of the Dutch and German weeklies had beautiful advertisements for cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, household goods! I saw my first picture of pipe tobacco (MacBarens) while reading those.
On the other hand, I never had a thing for sugary heathen milk products.
A few passages from the relevant Dovbearian essay below.
Cite:
"As a young hassidic boy, Elya didn't have much to do while bored. Many nights he would sit in his room counting the paisleys appearing one after another on the sheet covering his blanket. Somehow the number he ended with was always different."
End cite.
Paisley is ab initio a heresy, more common as a pattern for hippie shirts with wide lapels than should have been allowed. It automatically reminds the sensitive man of tie-dye, sitar music, and horrible strawberry incense.
If there is ONE single thing that should have been outlawed from the seventies, it's paisley.
Oh, and patchouli.
Cite:
"He soon began heading out to study with his father a few times a week."
End cite.
Fond memories! Basic engineering, the internal combustion engine, aviation, French sauces, history, and proper punctuation.
Slightly unstructured.
Cite:
"Isn't that chalav akum? Where'd you get it? you can't eat it."
End cite.
Chalav akum = American cuisine. Inedible.
Cite:
"... a rack of magazines, He eyed the titles, Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Economist."
End cite.
Current affairs. Very tempting to impressionable young minds.
Cite:
"He turned the page, and his heart began pounding, there it was, the reason why people buy this magazine; page after page of conservatively dressed women."
End cite.
Oh, Angela, Angela, Angela, Angela! "Ich denke an dichte fenster! Kein anderes land kann so dichte und so schöne fenster bauen."
I cannot stop thinking of fensters.
Cite:
"His favorite, the one he went back to time after time, pages worn, ink smudged, was Time magazine's 9/11 First Anniversary Collectors Edition. Endless pages of women appropriately dressed for a memorial service."
End cite.
Always dress appropriately. You are an example for the young.
Beautiful, but it ends on a sad note. Read the entire cautionary tale here: Addiction!
It's basically about the dangers of the modern world if you are a well-brought up young hasid. Why, there's chocolate and paisley everywhere!
As well as appropriately dressed women.
Plus fensters.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
A FIT CELEBRATION
And what, you may ask, are we celebrating? The one month anniversary of my appendicitis. Mensiversary, more correctly. As well as one month since my appendectomy. Both of which were learning experiences that I'm rather glad I won't have to experience again. Although I would know now what to do differently.
NEW WORDS
As you would expect, I learned how to say appendicitis in Cantonese: 闌尾炎 ('laan mei yim'). And Appendectomy: 闌尾手術 ('laan mei sau seut').
What I didn't learn until the very last day in the hospital was that there was a telephone in my room, because, frankly, I did not quite feel like chatting on the phone, and in any case I have almost no phone numbers memorized. Which also tells you A) cell-phones are not a major thing in my life, and B) my friends consider a telephone a tool for occasional necessary communication, rather than a social appendage.
Now, imagine that you are in England, visiting Stonehenge, and admiring the effort of placing megaliths into precise circles that the ancient natives of that region engaged upon. What you don't know is that a few miles away there is an equally impressive monument, created by individuals of far smaller stature, which is frequently overlooked.
A circle of majestic fecaliths!
The fecalith may also be called an appendicolith. Possibly there is a Chinese term for this, but none of my dictionaries have it. And I'm fairly certain that if I were to ask my doctor, he wouldn't know it either.
Neither 'fecalith' nor 'appendicolith' are common conversational matters, and as you can tell from my English example above, one struggles to find a context into which to cast these objects.
I'm not sure they're even relevant in my case.
Both words were quite unknown to me till five days afterwards, when I finally had access to the internet again. Which, if I actually owned a cellphone, would have been much earlier.
So today marks twenty two days since I started using the term 'fecalith'.
Conversationally I have been a bloody bore for over three weeks.
Did the protesters in Kowloon throw fecaliths at the police?
Maybe, or perhaps they were just thinking it.
Beware of flying fecaliths!
They're everywhere!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
NEW WORDS
As you would expect, I learned how to say appendicitis in Cantonese: 闌尾炎 ('laan mei yim'). And Appendectomy: 闌尾手術 ('laan mei sau seut').
What I didn't learn until the very last day in the hospital was that there was a telephone in my room, because, frankly, I did not quite feel like chatting on the phone, and in any case I have almost no phone numbers memorized. Which also tells you A) cell-phones are not a major thing in my life, and B) my friends consider a telephone a tool for occasional necessary communication, rather than a social appendage.
Now, imagine that you are in England, visiting Stonehenge, and admiring the effort of placing megaliths into precise circles that the ancient natives of that region engaged upon. What you don't know is that a few miles away there is an equally impressive monument, created by individuals of far smaller stature, which is frequently overlooked.
A circle of majestic fecaliths!
The fecalith may also be called an appendicolith. Possibly there is a Chinese term for this, but none of my dictionaries have it. And I'm fairly certain that if I were to ask my doctor, he wouldn't know it either.
Neither 'fecalith' nor 'appendicolith' are common conversational matters, and as you can tell from my English example above, one struggles to find a context into which to cast these objects.
I'm not sure they're even relevant in my case.
Both words were quite unknown to me till five days afterwards, when I finally had access to the internet again. Which, if I actually owned a cellphone, would have been much earlier.
So today marks twenty two days since I started using the term 'fecalith'.
Conversationally I have been a bloody bore for over three weeks.
Did the protesters in Kowloon throw fecaliths at the police?
Maybe, or perhaps they were just thinking it.
Beware of flying fecaliths!
They're everywhere!
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
THINK ABOUT OTHER THINGS
Well over a year ago I stopped going to a local drinking establishment because the karaoke there attracted mostly arrogant people with huge screaming egos and horrible personalities, all of them convinced of the stupendous beauty of their own singing, now applaud dammit. It's art!
That being the regulars. Over the years only the tough and brutal survived, and as a permanent non-singer I was a weakling.
I would go there for conversation.
And for a quiet smoke outside.
Which used to be possible.
Tonight, as per long-standing custom, I will end up at another karaoke bar, where, because I do not drink, I shall have some hot water with a friend, who also doesn't sing. We will have conversation.
Perfect social activity consists largely of listening to the rest of you, provided you aren't too horribly loud and badly behaved, and those of you with big screaming egos leave those at the door.
Either before or afterwards I will enjoy a pipeful of good tobacco, in peace and quiet, perhaps while thinking of nipples. Unless there are any nearby, in which case I will resolutely NOT think of nipples. I am polite that way.
Thinking about nipples is rarely a proper social activity.
Precisely like smoking a pipe in some ways.
It is, never the less, pleasant.
Nice things.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
That being the regulars. Over the years only the tough and brutal survived, and as a permanent non-singer I was a weakling.
I would go there for conversation.
And for a quiet smoke outside.
Which used to be possible.
Tonight, as per long-standing custom, I will end up at another karaoke bar, where, because I do not drink, I shall have some hot water with a friend, who also doesn't sing. We will have conversation.
Perfect social activity consists largely of listening to the rest of you, provided you aren't too horribly loud and badly behaved, and those of you with big screaming egos leave those at the door.
Either before or afterwards I will enjoy a pipeful of good tobacco, in peace and quiet, perhaps while thinking of nipples. Unless there are any nearby, in which case I will resolutely NOT think of nipples. I am polite that way.
Thinking about nipples is rarely a proper social activity.
Precisely like smoking a pipe in some ways.
It is, never the less, pleasant.
Nice things.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
FUJIANESE GANGSTERS
Protests in Hong Kong are getting out of hand. And, given that there is a pointlessness to all of this, as things will not change even if Carrie Lam resigns, one can either wonder what the end game will be, or frankly encourage mayhem from all sides.
Quote:
"Tensions remained high in North Point, a potentially dangerous hotspot where hundreds from the city’s close-knit Fujianese community, bolstered by clan reinforcements from mainland China and the Philippines, waited to confront any protester arriving in their neighbourhood."
End quote.
Source: Hong Kong police ramp up force, firing tear gas inside Kwai Fong MTR station, as city rocked by more anti-government protest violence - SCMP.
"Protesters continue hit-and-run tactics – police respond to bricks and petrol bombs with tear gas and baton charges"
One suspects that after this is all over, speaking the Fujianese languages in public may not be wise. Except in Fujian, Beijing, Manila, and New York. But especially not in Hong Kong. The other thing that's striking is the word "petrol bombs", which indicates a level of insanity which was previously unimaginable -- well, to anyone not familiar with the Cantonese, who despite their very many admirable and even lovable qualities have always had an edge of batshit crazy that is almost de rigeur for their stubborness and keen spirit of enterprise -- that demands a response from the authorities. More baton charges, more teargas grenades, more water cannons.
And possibly armoured vehicles and actual bullets.
Slight sidetrack about the increasing chance of police violence: Staging a threatening riot on Muk Lun Street (睦鄰街) at the Wong Tai Sin Disciplined Services Quarters (黃大仙紀律部隊宿舍), where families of the police are housed, will not have contributed anything positive, and might well have been the all-time most bone-headed thing to do.
Ten weeks is a slow ramp-up to utter madness.
香港北角嘅臭死福建人
I am disturbed by the mention of "clan reinforcements from mainland China and the Philippines". How the hell did those violent scum get in?
And who is enabling and funding this?
Quote:
"More than 1 million people from Fujian province, in southeast China, live in Hong Kong and there is a large and close-knit community of Fujianese living in North Point. During an address to the federation in October, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said the Fujianese in the city had always been patriotic and supported the government."
End quote.
Source: Fujianese community rally in support of Hong Kong police, call for end to violence - SCMP
"Federation general secretary dismisses report that some clans had joined forces with the 14K triad gang in plan to attack protesters ... "
This blogger is perfectly fine with putting all Fujianese, from whatever region or country, on a no-fly list until all of this gets sorted out.
BTW: There are a lot of Fujianese in Manhattan.
Perhaps too many.
AFTER WORD
The Fujianese languages represent a fascinating subject for linguists. Derived from an older stratum of Sinitic speech than many other branches of the family, divided into a number of dialect groups and regionally dominant forms, such as Amoy (廈門話; standard in a bastardized variant among the Chinese in the Philippines), Hokchiu (福州話; Eastern Fujian), Teochow (潮州話、潮汕話; from Swatow in northern Guangdong), Taiwanese Hokkien (臺灣閩南語; widely understood by others), Quanzhou, et autres. Not as many speakers as Cantonese, nor as delightfully eloquent either.
And sometimes impossibly barbaric.
I used to speak a little Jakarta Hokkien.
Forgotten nearly all of it.
No practice.
POST SCRIPTUM
There are indications that mainland undercover officers are already involved in countering protesters. This can only be with the knowledge, and likely complete co-operation and approval, of the HK authorities and police.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Quote:
"Tensions remained high in North Point, a potentially dangerous hotspot where hundreds from the city’s close-knit Fujianese community, bolstered by clan reinforcements from mainland China and the Philippines, waited to confront any protester arriving in their neighbourhood."
End quote.
Source: Hong Kong police ramp up force, firing tear gas inside Kwai Fong MTR station, as city rocked by more anti-government protest violence - SCMP.
"Protesters continue hit-and-run tactics – police respond to bricks and petrol bombs with tear gas and baton charges"
One suspects that after this is all over, speaking the Fujianese languages in public may not be wise. Except in Fujian, Beijing, Manila, and New York. But especially not in Hong Kong. The other thing that's striking is the word "petrol bombs", which indicates a level of insanity which was previously unimaginable -- well, to anyone not familiar with the Cantonese, who despite their very many admirable and even lovable qualities have always had an edge of batshit crazy that is almost de rigeur for their stubborness and keen spirit of enterprise -- that demands a response from the authorities. More baton charges, more teargas grenades, more water cannons.
And possibly armoured vehicles and actual bullets.
Slight sidetrack about the increasing chance of police violence: Staging a threatening riot on Muk Lun Street (睦鄰街) at the Wong Tai Sin Disciplined Services Quarters (黃大仙紀律部隊宿舍), where families of the police are housed, will not have contributed anything positive, and might well have been the all-time most bone-headed thing to do.
Ten weeks is a slow ramp-up to utter madness.
香港北角嘅臭死福建人
I am disturbed by the mention of "clan reinforcements from mainland China and the Philippines". How the hell did those violent scum get in?
And who is enabling and funding this?
Quote:
"More than 1 million people from Fujian province, in southeast China, live in Hong Kong and there is a large and close-knit community of Fujianese living in North Point. During an address to the federation in October, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said the Fujianese in the city had always been patriotic and supported the government."
End quote.
Source: Fujianese community rally in support of Hong Kong police, call for end to violence - SCMP
"Federation general secretary dismisses report that some clans had joined forces with the 14K triad gang in plan to attack protesters ... "
This blogger is perfectly fine with putting all Fujianese, from whatever region or country, on a no-fly list until all of this gets sorted out.
BTW: There are a lot of Fujianese in Manhattan.
Perhaps too many.
AFTER WORD
The Fujianese languages represent a fascinating subject for linguists. Derived from an older stratum of Sinitic speech than many other branches of the family, divided into a number of dialect groups and regionally dominant forms, such as Amoy (廈門話; standard in a bastardized variant among the Chinese in the Philippines), Hokchiu (福州話; Eastern Fujian), Teochow (潮州話、潮汕話; from Swatow in northern Guangdong), Taiwanese Hokkien (臺灣閩南語; widely understood by others), Quanzhou, et autres. Not as many speakers as Cantonese, nor as delightfully eloquent either.
And sometimes impossibly barbaric.
I used to speak a little Jakarta Hokkien.
Forgotten nearly all of it.
No practice.
POST SCRIPTUM
There are indications that mainland undercover officers are already involved in countering protesters. This can only be with the knowledge, and likely complete co-operation and approval, of the HK authorities and police.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
THE RIGHT PRIORITIES
Off two days, Tuesday and Wednesday. Regular schedule. Which means two days of recuperation, milk tea, and watching funny cat videos.
A lot of reading. Snacks in Chinatown. Laundry.
Smoking my pipe while walking.
It's vitamin 'R'.
Rest.
Did I mention the cat videos? They're very important. Baby rhinoceroses are also cute, but there are far more cat videos.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
A lot of reading. Snacks in Chinatown. Laundry.
Smoking my pipe while walking.
It's vitamin 'R'.
Rest.
Did I mention the cat videos? They're very important. Baby rhinoceroses are also cute, but there are far more cat videos.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, August 12, 2019
CLEAR THE SMOKE
The situation that protests have created in Hong Kong is bizarre. If that were happening here in San Francisco, we'd have martial law, and the California National Guard would be using live ammo. This entire place would reek of teargas.
The demands of the demonstrators have good reasons, but the chaos is untenable. It is hard to see this ending well. Hong Kongers might do well to reflect on the indefensibility of their little paradise if the tanks start rolling across the border.
Whether or not there are sufficient legal niceties if someone is extradited may be utterly immaterial when someone wearing PLA green is barking orders at you in Mandarin.
And speaking of which, Mainlanders are easily identified in San Francisco and Berkeley, so gloating by those people might prove dangerous for them. This isn't directly relevant to the nominal subject of this essay, but it is germane.
Accent, language, behaviour, manners, attitudes ......
嘿，你的口音......
All sides need to carefully consider where they go from here.
So do vulnerable Mainlanders in the Bay Area.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The demands of the demonstrators have good reasons, but the chaos is untenable. It is hard to see this ending well. Hong Kongers might do well to reflect on the indefensibility of their little paradise if the tanks start rolling across the border.
Whether or not there are sufficient legal niceties if someone is extradited may be utterly immaterial when someone wearing PLA green is barking orders at you in Mandarin.
And speaking of which, Mainlanders are easily identified in San Francisco and Berkeley, so gloating by those people might prove dangerous for them. This isn't directly relevant to the nominal subject of this essay, but it is germane.
Accent, language, behaviour, manners, attitudes ......
嘿，你的口音......
All sides need to carefully consider where they go from here.
So do vulnerable Mainlanders in the Bay Area.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
WE KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE
From Mr. Bender, who occasionally reads to the senile old fossils in his care if they cannot sleep and he's tired of hosing them down after they've dribbled their nutritious porridge, I received information about a political party once active in Eastern Europe. Which, had I been there at the time, I would likely have joined.
"The Svatopluk Čech Bridge was not built overnight. First Svatopluk Čech had to be born, become a famous poet, die, then there had to be an urban renewal, and only then was the Svatopluk Čech Bridge built."
[1911. From the 'Manifest der Partei des maßvollen Fortschritts in den Grenzen der Gesetze (Manifesto of the PMPWBL).]
Note: Svatopluk Čech
I might have even learned Czech and Volapük in order to participate fully in party activities, and argue in favour of the seven point plan in the platform of the candidate for the Vinorhady election district.
Weil wie alle vernünftigen menschen, ich fest davon überzeugt bin, dass es in Cisleithanien nur mäßiger fortschritte im rahmen des gesetzes muss sein.
I too see the admirable qualities of kontusovka and minor-size aquariums.
I am a political animal.
Pet me.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
"The Svatopluk Čech Bridge was not built overnight. First Svatopluk Čech had to be born, become a famous poet, die, then there had to be an urban renewal, and only then was the Svatopluk Čech Bridge built."
[1911. From the 'Manifest der Partei des maßvollen Fortschritts in den Grenzen der Gesetze (Manifesto of the PMPWBL).]
Note: Svatopluk Čech
I might have even learned Czech and Volapük in order to participate fully in party activities, and argue in favour of the seven point plan in the platform of the candidate for the Vinorhady election district.
Weil wie alle vernünftigen menschen, ich fest davon überzeugt bin, dass es in Cisleithanien nur mäßiger fortschritte im rahmen des gesetzes muss sein.
I too see the admirable qualities of kontusovka and minor-size aquariums.
I am a political animal.
Pet me.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, August 11, 2019
HAVE YOU EATEN YET?
A few months ago, as advised by my regular care physician, I had a talk with a nutritionist. Which was right near her lunch time. In Chinatown. At the Chinese Hospital. Our conversation was partly in Cantonese. I quite enjoyed it, but it may have been less pleasant for her. Not because I have a horrid habit of derailing discussion -- which I do -- but because I dwelt lovingly upon all the good things to eat within two or three blocks of her workplace, which she probably avoided most of the time. Two places with stellar roast duck (燒鴨 'siu ngaap'), three where you can get a porkchop baked over rice with sauce and cheese (焗豬扒飯 'guk chyu baa faan'), three lovely bakeries for egg tarts (蛋撻 'daan taat'), charsiu turnovers (叉燒酥 'chaa siu sou'), or curry puffs (咖哩角 'ka-lei kok' ), several stores where you can get the fixings for streaky fatty pork (五花腩 'ng faa naam'; pork belly) steamed or simmered with salty additional ingredients, a shop with live lobsters (生猛龍蝦 'saang maang lung haa'). Hot Hong Kong Milk Tea (熱港式奶茶 'yit gong sik naai chaa') coming out of your ears. Malaysian style chicken curry (馬來西亞式咖哩雞 'maa loi sai ya sik kaa lei kai'). Dimsum (點心).
Hong Kong style French Toast (港式西多士 'gong sik sai do si'). And so many other things.
Knowing how to eat is not knowing how to eat healthy, but how to eat well.
All medical appointments should be scheduled near meal times.
The nutritionist has her work cut out for her.
Most of her clients know food.
你食咗飯未？
Whenever I am near the hospital I automatically think of lunch or a teatime snack, followed by a pipefull of good tobacco. It's almost Pavlovian.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Knowing how to eat is not knowing how to eat healthy, but how to eat well.
All medical appointments should be scheduled near meal times.
The nutritionist has her work cut out for her.
Most of her clients know food.
你食咗飯未？
Whenever I am near the hospital I automatically think of lunch or a teatime snack, followed by a pipefull of good tobacco. It's almost Pavlovian.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
HE LOOKS REASONABLY SAFE ...
When my apartment mate picked me up at the hospital, one of the staff assumed she was my "caregiver". Which is, in some ways, quite an improvement over the automatic guess from a few years ago that I was a dirty old man taking advantage of a sweet young thing. We aren't that widely separated in age -- she's eight years younger -- but I must have looked too wrecked to be dangerous (much improved now, thank you, evil twinkle back in eye) and she looked serious, and like an adult. Not an adult of very many years, but grown-up. Finally.
Still youthful, but you might think she finished college by now.
Cantonese women, of whatever age, will always look younger than a shifty white dude of an equivalent age or less. That's just how things are. I could be walking down the street next to a woman twenty years older than myself, and a witness would probably exclaim "oh you poor young thing, is the mean old Caucasian fellow forcing you to do stuff?"
I'll have to change my story. Telling people we first met in college strongly suggests that I went back to college with base intentions. "Why hellooo, little miss!"
And obviously I cannot claim that she is my daughter.
But what do I change the story to? Coworker?
Business consultant? Life coach?
Tax accountant?
She's a research scientist studying me.
Are white guys trainable?
She's my grandchild's grammar school teacher.
She came from outer space.
She's religious.
A nun.
Actually, I probably don't look like a skeevy old guy.
Just a friendly fellow, and a little bit gaunt.
Who might like to be "skeevy".
But too clean.
Evil twinkle.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Still youthful, but you might think she finished college by now.
Cantonese women, of whatever age, will always look younger than a shifty white dude of an equivalent age or less. That's just how things are. I could be walking down the street next to a woman twenty years older than myself, and a witness would probably exclaim "oh you poor young thing, is the mean old Caucasian fellow forcing you to do stuff?"
I'll have to change my story. Telling people we first met in college strongly suggests that I went back to college with base intentions. "Why hellooo, little miss!"
And obviously I cannot claim that she is my daughter.
But what do I change the story to? Coworker?
Business consultant? Life coach?
Tax accountant?
She's a research scientist studying me.
Are white guys trainable?
She's my grandchild's grammar school teacher.
She came from outer space.
She's religious.
A nun.
Actually, I probably don't look like a skeevy old guy.
Just a friendly fellow, and a little bit gaunt.
Who might like to be "skeevy".
But too clean.
Evil twinkle.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, August 10, 2019
MANDARIN SPEAKERS
Largely I avoid dealing with Mandarin-speaking Mainlanders these days, because I assume, and rightly, that they are mostly supercilious sneering snobs who despise the local settled population. As their behaviour far too often proves. And the evidence shows that of the mainland students over here, not an insubstantial number are keeping tabs on the local Cantonese students, at the behest of the consulate. Much like all foreigners visiting China are tracked and have security files.
It's just a fact of life.
So, have I ever visited Mainland China? No, nor do I wish to do so. Whenever I hear Mandarin my skin tightens and I turn grumbly. Whether it's "native" or "Hong Konger trying to communicate with a turd".
Corrupt officials, gangsters, thieves, and eunuchs, talk Mandarin.
As do all party members.
Basically, any Mandarin-speaking student at Stanford University or U.C. Berkeley who drives an expensive car paid for it because his well-connected relatives raped and robbed an entire village. Or several villages.
Same holds for many Taiwanese, btw.
Honest people go to City College or San Francisco State.
And frequently work their way through school.
English and Cantonese speakers.
Three Mandarin-speaking twenty somethings were in a local chachanteng the other day, loudly sneering at nearly all dishes on the menu. Which reflects Hong Kong food tastes, and one has to wonder why on earth they were there, seeing as they disapproved of everything the kitchen did.
This ain't effing Peking, folks. It's Chinatown, populated by hardworking people, who aren't stinking rich, many of whom are Toishanese, almost all of whom can speak Cantonese. They eat differently from the blasted north, and almost NO local restaurants offer mantou (饅頭) as a starch option. Noodles are usually fried, in soup, or braised with savoury meats.
Seldom just plain boiled.
Please speak English if you can't manage Cantonese.
The restaurant staff understand both languages.
斯文人講廣州話，聽唔明就翻鄉下。
[Google-Translate can't do this. Sorry.]
Nice folks don't use Putonghua.
Jerks.
AFTER WORD
This does not hold true for all Mandarin speakers. There are several among my circle of friends and acquaintances who are not only decent people, but splendid folks whom it is a sheer pleasure to know. And if you're familiar with the movies made in Shanghai and elsewhere up until the early fifties, you will undoubtedly realize that this is true for others as well.
So, to present a far more positive image of Mandarin speakers in general, here's a lovely tune from the age of running dogs and imperialists, absolutely chock-full of the bourgeois sensibilities of that time.
玫瑰玫瑰我愛你
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-vv-tgoab0]
Sprightly, melodious, nightclub-ish.
And such a nice dulcet voice.
Excellent diction, too.
Very charming.
1940.
Yao Lee (姚莉 'yiu lei'), the artist who recorded the song above, was born in Shanghai in 1922. Her career spanned decades. She passed away in Hong Kong on July 19th. of this year.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It's just a fact of life.
So, have I ever visited Mainland China? No, nor do I wish to do so. Whenever I hear Mandarin my skin tightens and I turn grumbly. Whether it's "native" or "Hong Konger trying to communicate with a turd".
Corrupt officials, gangsters, thieves, and eunuchs, talk Mandarin.
As do all party members.
Basically, any Mandarin-speaking student at Stanford University or U.C. Berkeley who drives an expensive car paid for it because his well-connected relatives raped and robbed an entire village. Or several villages.
Same holds for many Taiwanese, btw.
Honest people go to City College or San Francisco State.
And frequently work their way through school.
English and Cantonese speakers.
Three Mandarin-speaking twenty somethings were in a local chachanteng the other day, loudly sneering at nearly all dishes on the menu. Which reflects Hong Kong food tastes, and one has to wonder why on earth they were there, seeing as they disapproved of everything the kitchen did.
This ain't effing Peking, folks. It's Chinatown, populated by hardworking people, who aren't stinking rich, many of whom are Toishanese, almost all of whom can speak Cantonese. They eat differently from the blasted north, and almost NO local restaurants offer mantou (饅頭) as a starch option. Noodles are usually fried, in soup, or braised with savoury meats.
Seldom just plain boiled.
Please speak English if you can't manage Cantonese.
The restaurant staff understand both languages.
斯文人講廣州話，聽唔明就翻鄉下。
[Google-Translate can't do this. Sorry.]
Nice folks don't use Putonghua.
Jerks.
AFTER WORD
This does not hold true for all Mandarin speakers. There are several among my circle of friends and acquaintances who are not only decent people, but splendid folks whom it is a sheer pleasure to know. And if you're familiar with the movies made in Shanghai and elsewhere up until the early fifties, you will undoubtedly realize that this is true for others as well.
So, to present a far more positive image of Mandarin speakers in general, here's a lovely tune from the age of running dogs and imperialists, absolutely chock-full of the bourgeois sensibilities of that time.
玫瑰玫瑰我愛你
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-vv-tgoab0]
Sprightly, melodious, nightclub-ish.
And such a nice dulcet voice.
Excellent diction, too.
Very charming.
1940.
Yao Lee (姚莉 'yiu lei'), the artist who recorded the song above, was born in Shanghai in 1922. Her career spanned decades. She passed away in Hong Kong on July 19th. of this year.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, August 09, 2019
GREASY CRUNCHY SUGAR
For someone who doesn't eat breakfast, I know an awful lot about it. It's kind of unavoidable, and almost everywhere most people will consider it normal to eat something. When one is barely awake. And both physical co-ordination, AND dexterity, are at their lowest ebb. My apartment mate, for instance, sometimes prepares a porkchop for herself, or flapjacks, or both. Or has a toasted bread product either with creamcheese and smoked fish, or jam, or Gouda cheese. Or a slice of cake.
At that hour I'm lying in bed listening to her clanging about in the kitchen and running water for a hot beverage and wondering if I should go pee.
She's of Cantonese stock. So wide awake and full of beans from the git-go.
It's one of those baffling survival instincts they have.
Ready to riot at the crack of dawn.
Many Cantonese people have congee and a fried dough stick for breakfast, plus something nibbly and savoury, though Hong Kong people tend towards noodle soup with Spam, a fried egg, toast, sometimes pork chops or fried chicken, and either milk tea or even hot Coca Cola with lemon.
Chive and pork dumplings are also a popular option.
Plus pork offal in noodle soup.
And bakery items.
Filipinos, especially in the Bay Area, tend toward good fun solid food. Their breakfasts, especially at eateries near the house, will be garlic fried rice and eggs (sinangag at itlog, silog for short), pork, garlic vinegar for sourness, and a big mug of hot chocolate.
Plus champorado, which is confusing; sticky rice chocolate porridge.
Bangsilog: egg, rice, and garlicky marinated fried milk fish (bangus).
Longsilog: egg, rice, and longanisa sausage.
Tapsilog: egg, rice, tapa (cured meat, barely fried).
Tocilog: egg, rice, and sugar cured fatty pork (tocino).
Itlog, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, is egg.
There will also be pandesal (buns) on the table, sometimes with coconut jam, bibingka (glutinous rice cake), puto (rice muffins) and as an absolute essential substance for Filipinos, almost mother's milk, vinegar.
A Japanese breakfast has rice, miso soup, grilled or fried fish, plus pickles (tsukemono), seaweed (nori), and nasty fermented soybeans (natto).
I cannot emphasize enough how acquired a taste that natto is.
BUT ELSEWHERE
Dutch breakfasts are boring and solid; bread, and whatever goes on top of bread. Ham, cheese, smoked meat. Eels. Plus coffee or tea. Or, if you are a student at the Technische Hooge School, instant noodles and last night's leftover Indonesian food bunged into the microwave. But the coffee is good. Not that American or English slop, but quality beans, and strong.
The English are berserk. Bacon, black pudding and fried tomatoes.
The French and other Europeans do coffee, cocoa, buns, and jam.
An American breakfast, of course, is an ugly disgusting nightmare. Often sugary cereal (why do you people eat that horrid stuff?), accompanied by fried bacon, fried pancakes, fried potatoes, fried egg, fried luncheon meat, fried sugar sausages, and pepto bismol. And donuts.
That said, a plate of rice, sausages and an egg, doused with hot sauce, is a great occasional lunch with the Sunday paper at a diner. Plus lots of coffee.
It absolutely requires a smoke afterwards.
For me personally, it's coffee, a cigarillo out on the front steps (because my apartment mate has not yet left for work) and eight pills. Remarkably the medication does not bother my digestion. I am made of stern stuff.
Reading the news at some point is essential.
Maybe in a few hours I'll have a snack.
Don't ever ask me to make you breakfast in bed.
Here's coffee, the paper, and a cigar.
Enjoy them quietly.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
At that hour I'm lying in bed listening to her clanging about in the kitchen and running water for a hot beverage and wondering if I should go pee.
She's of Cantonese stock. So wide awake and full of beans from the git-go.
It's one of those baffling survival instincts they have.
Ready to riot at the crack of dawn.
Many Cantonese people have congee and a fried dough stick for breakfast, plus something nibbly and savoury, though Hong Kong people tend towards noodle soup with Spam, a fried egg, toast, sometimes pork chops or fried chicken, and either milk tea or even hot Coca Cola with lemon.
Chive and pork dumplings are also a popular option.
Plus pork offal in noodle soup.
And bakery items.
Filipinos, especially in the Bay Area, tend toward good fun solid food. Their breakfasts, especially at eateries near the house, will be garlic fried rice and eggs (sinangag at itlog, silog for short), pork, garlic vinegar for sourness, and a big mug of hot chocolate.
Plus champorado, which is confusing; sticky rice chocolate porridge.
Bangsilog: egg, rice, and garlicky marinated fried milk fish (bangus).
Longsilog: egg, rice, and longanisa sausage.
Tapsilog: egg, rice, tapa (cured meat, barely fried).
Tocilog: egg, rice, and sugar cured fatty pork (tocino).
Itlog, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, is egg.
There will also be pandesal (buns) on the table, sometimes with coconut jam, bibingka (glutinous rice cake), puto (rice muffins) and as an absolute essential substance for Filipinos, almost mother's milk, vinegar.
A Japanese breakfast has rice, miso soup, grilled or fried fish, plus pickles (tsukemono), seaweed (nori), and nasty fermented soybeans (natto).
I cannot emphasize enough how acquired a taste that natto is.
BUT ELSEWHERE
Dutch breakfasts are boring and solid; bread, and whatever goes on top of bread. Ham, cheese, smoked meat. Eels. Plus coffee or tea. Or, if you are a student at the Technische Hooge School, instant noodles and last night's leftover Indonesian food bunged into the microwave. But the coffee is good. Not that American or English slop, but quality beans, and strong.
The English are berserk. Bacon, black pudding and fried tomatoes.
The French and other Europeans do coffee, cocoa, buns, and jam.
An American breakfast, of course, is an ugly disgusting nightmare. Often sugary cereal (why do you people eat that horrid stuff?), accompanied by fried bacon, fried pancakes, fried potatoes, fried egg, fried luncheon meat, fried sugar sausages, and pepto bismol. And donuts.
That said, a plate of rice, sausages and an egg, doused with hot sauce, is a great occasional lunch with the Sunday paper at a diner. Plus lots of coffee.
It absolutely requires a smoke afterwards.
For me personally, it's coffee, a cigarillo out on the front steps (because my apartment mate has not yet left for work) and eight pills. Remarkably the medication does not bother my digestion. I am made of stern stuff.
Reading the news at some point is essential.
Maybe in a few hours I'll have a snack.
Don't ever ask me to make you breakfast in bed.
Here's coffee, the paper, and a cigar.
Enjoy them quietly.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, August 08, 2019
THAT CLEAN FEELING
This blogger should have known better. After a long day at work, made much longer by the fact that I am still weakened from my recent appendectal mis-adventure, I was desperate for news.
On my days off I devour it, but abstain while on the job.
So of course I cruised into a favourite news site.
In consequence of which, I now know more about "vaginal steaming" and "vulva facials" than is healthy for anyone. Let alone a man of delicate sensibilities such as myself.
Not even half an hour of reading recipes for zesty mutton curry could wipe my mind clean of the horror.
Some people are entirely dumber than a fireplace log.
Good-fricking-lord.
Ladies, your private parts are NOT a pork patty with salt fish (鹹魚蒸肉餅 'haam yü jing yiuk beng'). No matter what you've been told.
Was it in high-school?
What on earth is wrong with you?
Look, the only thing that you need to do is use clean neutral soap and lukewarm water, precisely like men do. At least I presume most men, and no, I haven't asked (nor will I) any of the people I know, for all I care some of them treat their privates as a long lost dog that's been rolling in carrion, with industrial hand soap, thorough shampoo, conditioner, and fragrant oils and shit, I don't care, but normal people, sensible people, do NOT squat over a basin of boiling water, no matter what their shaman or Iron John tell them.
This is California, so I suppose I do know people who "yoni cleanse" or "thingy condition", of several different genders. Trust me, I do not seek them out, I don't ask the pertinent questions, and they can damage themselves "privately" all they want. But even if it looks like a food-stained seventies shag rug down there, it won't ever require deep cleansing with steam.
And men, cut out the fragrant oils.
It's not a scented candle.
Soap and water.
Rinse.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
On my days off I devour it, but abstain while on the job.
So of course I cruised into a favourite news site.
In consequence of which, I now know more about "vaginal steaming" and "vulva facials" than is healthy for anyone. Let alone a man of delicate sensibilities such as myself.
Not even half an hour of reading recipes for zesty mutton curry could wipe my mind clean of the horror.
Some people are entirely dumber than a fireplace log.
Good-fricking-lord.
Ladies, your private parts are NOT a pork patty with salt fish (鹹魚蒸肉餅 'haam yü jing yiuk beng'). No matter what you've been told.
Was it in high-school?
What on earth is wrong with you?
Look, the only thing that you need to do is use clean neutral soap and lukewarm water, precisely like men do. At least I presume most men, and no, I haven't asked (nor will I) any of the people I know, for all I care some of them treat their privates as a long lost dog that's been rolling in carrion, with industrial hand soap, thorough shampoo, conditioner, and fragrant oils and shit, I don't care, but normal people, sensible people, do NOT squat over a basin of boiling water, no matter what their shaman or Iron John tell them.
This is California, so I suppose I do know people who "yoni cleanse" or "thingy condition", of several different genders. Trust me, I do not seek them out, I don't ask the pertinent questions, and they can damage themselves "privately" all they want. But even if it looks like a food-stained seventies shag rug down there, it won't ever require deep cleansing with steam.
And men, cut out the fragrant oils.
It's not a scented candle.
Soap and water.
Rinse.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
IT'S DELICIOUS!
The apartment mate stayed home yesterday because she felt unwell.
I could have mentioned that I too felt unwell -- still more or less regularly, as I am only slowly recovering from my appendectomy -- but actually doing that would have been ungentlemanly. Playing one-upmanship regarding physical ailments also seems like something old-farts engage in, and I am still young, full of piss and vinegar, and having lost an additional ten pounds during appendix week, I finally have my trim youthful figure back.
Which I am sure has not escaped her notice, and probably isn't good for her. Women tend to be conscious of their own perceived failings in the matter of weight and body mass more than men.
And stress out about it on occassion.
I had placed one of the stuffed Totoros on her keyboard, with a box of chocolate cookies. In consequence of which, when she came into the teevee room where the computers are, I got to hear all about the yummy snackipoos that small Japanese trolls like. Jigalos, Butter Bozos, Spleen Wafers. No, those are not mistranslations of foreign brand names, but, according to Totoro-chan, dee-licious! He insists that these are available from purveyors of dee-licious foods. Such as are well known to his kind.
And why don't the rest of us know about this?!?
Is there something wrong with us?
What the hell is wrong with us?!?
At one point a soft furry voice asked "what is this shithole?!"
It's probably just a rhetorical question, I'm sure.
He knows his treats can't be found.
Jigalos. Butter Bozos. Spleen Wafers.
Often the small roomies mention things they absolutely need, which the plastic rectangles that live in my wallet would surely help them find on the internet.
A request for which I always answer with a firm "no". Which is one of the many reasons that I am evil and ungentlemanly.
Or, in their words, "mean old dude".
On days when I am the only human in this apartment during the day, the small roomies keep quiet. Probably because I am pissy and will argue.
I am indeed a 'mean old dude'.
When asked what the signal characteristics of jigalos or Butter Bozos or Spleen Wafers are, Totoro-chan responds by happily exclaiming "Dee-licious!" What do they look like? "Dee-licious!" How about their texture? "Dee-licious!" Then what is their flavour? "Dee-licious!" Everything about them is "dee-licious!"
That description really doesn't help.
AFTER WORD
This morning, the furball is attacking the cookies that were meant for my apartment mate, with gusto. He's a hypocrite.
Dee-licious!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I could have mentioned that I too felt unwell -- still more or less regularly, as I am only slowly recovering from my appendectomy -- but actually doing that would have been ungentlemanly. Playing one-upmanship regarding physical ailments also seems like something old-farts engage in, and I am still young, full of piss and vinegar, and having lost an additional ten pounds during appendix week, I finally have my trim youthful figure back.
Which I am sure has not escaped her notice, and probably isn't good for her. Women tend to be conscious of their own perceived failings in the matter of weight and body mass more than men.
And stress out about it on occassion.
I had placed one of the stuffed Totoros on her keyboard, with a box of chocolate cookies. In consequence of which, when she came into the teevee room where the computers are, I got to hear all about the yummy snackipoos that small Japanese trolls like. Jigalos, Butter Bozos, Spleen Wafers. No, those are not mistranslations of foreign brand names, but, according to Totoro-chan, dee-licious! He insists that these are available from purveyors of dee-licious foods. Such as are well known to his kind.
And why don't the rest of us know about this?!?
Is there something wrong with us?
What the hell is wrong with us?!?
At one point a soft furry voice asked "what is this shithole?!"
It's probably just a rhetorical question, I'm sure.
He knows his treats can't be found.
Jigalos. Butter Bozos. Spleen Wafers.
Often the small roomies mention things they absolutely need, which the plastic rectangles that live in my wallet would surely help them find on the internet.
A request for which I always answer with a firm "no". Which is one of the many reasons that I am evil and ungentlemanly.
Or, in their words, "mean old dude".
On days when I am the only human in this apartment during the day, the small roomies keep quiet. Probably because I am pissy and will argue.
I am indeed a 'mean old dude'.
When asked what the signal characteristics of jigalos or Butter Bozos or Spleen Wafers are, Totoro-chan responds by happily exclaiming "Dee-licious!" What do they look like? "Dee-licious!" How about their texture? "Dee-licious!" Then what is their flavour? "Dee-licious!" Everything about them is "dee-licious!"
That description really doesn't help.
AFTER WORD
This morning, the furball is attacking the cookies that were meant for my apartment mate, with gusto. He's a hypocrite.
Dee-licious!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, August 07, 2019
DO YOU DISAGREE WITH YOURSELF?
According to a pop cultural meme, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Which, if true, means that I am 20% Chinese American, 20% Italian American, 40% Old Fart.
And 20% Lesbian.
But I identify as a Dutch American Honey Badger.
There may also be an element of Filipino in the mix. Early yesterday evening I had just finished a plate of coconut keema pullao, when my Cantonese apartment mate returned home with dinner.
Despite being full I beetled into the kitchen happily exclaiming 'anong itu?'. Which is Tagalog for "what (then) is this?"
A pork dish, a garlicky vegetable dish, and roast duck. Plus rice.
I've also had conversations in Taglish several times recently.
With actual 'people'. Not just myself.
My apartment mate, very Cantonese, thinks a lot about food.
Three weeks ago when the hospital let me go she brought home food to assist my recovery. Two meat dishes, and rice. I vaguely remember that there was also a vegetable, because she knows that we white people are neurotic about a balanced diet.
To a Cantonese American, a balanced diet is one that doesn't tip over.
It's simple mechanics. Meat here, and meat there. See?
That I mention her ethnicity is deliberate. It's a key part of her personality, despite the fact that she thinks entirely in English, which is her native tongue. As a Dutch American, I cannot say that I think entirely in anything, but that's rather accidental; I've been exposed to several languages, and will lazily grab whatever word or sentence seems a handy tool for that moment. Obviously more so when I'm talking to myself, which is not necessarily aloud, most of the time it's internal.
The monologue intérieur is often best kept strictly intérieur; last night on Grant Avenue two people within the block where I was smoking my pipe did not grasp that. One of them was deeply, personally, furiously, insulting one of her luggage items, and another one was disquisitioning on the subject of 'bitches', for which he had his own definition, and about which seemed to know an awful lot. Both of those "conversations" would have been better kept within the head.
How you talk to yourself, and how much you do so, are a large element of your identity and what you self-identify as. The Chinese American twenty percent is sane, though often identifying as one of the stuffed animals. The Italian twenty percent is varied and enormous, consisting of separate sane individuals. The lesbian element is professional. Sane too.
The Old Farts (plural) and the Honey Badger are only borderline sane.
The two people on Grant Avenue are batshit crazy.
And probably identify as artists.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And 20% Lesbian.
But I identify as a Dutch American Honey Badger.
There may also be an element of Filipino in the mix. Early yesterday evening I had just finished a plate of coconut keema pullao, when my Cantonese apartment mate returned home with dinner.
Despite being full I beetled into the kitchen happily exclaiming 'anong itu?'. Which is Tagalog for "what (then) is this?"
A pork dish, a garlicky vegetable dish, and roast duck. Plus rice.
I've also had conversations in Taglish several times recently.
With actual 'people'. Not just myself.
My apartment mate, very Cantonese, thinks a lot about food.
Three weeks ago when the hospital let me go she brought home food to assist my recovery. Two meat dishes, and rice. I vaguely remember that there was also a vegetable, because she knows that we white people are neurotic about a balanced diet.
To a Cantonese American, a balanced diet is one that doesn't tip over.
It's simple mechanics. Meat here, and meat there. See?
That I mention her ethnicity is deliberate. It's a key part of her personality, despite the fact that she thinks entirely in English, which is her native tongue. As a Dutch American, I cannot say that I think entirely in anything, but that's rather accidental; I've been exposed to several languages, and will lazily grab whatever word or sentence seems a handy tool for that moment. Obviously more so when I'm talking to myself, which is not necessarily aloud, most of the time it's internal.
The monologue intérieur is often best kept strictly intérieur; last night on Grant Avenue two people within the block where I was smoking my pipe did not grasp that. One of them was deeply, personally, furiously, insulting one of her luggage items, and another one was disquisitioning on the subject of 'bitches', for which he had his own definition, and about which seemed to know an awful lot. Both of those "conversations" would have been better kept within the head.
How you talk to yourself, and how much you do so, are a large element of your identity and what you self-identify as. The Chinese American twenty percent is sane, though often identifying as one of the stuffed animals. The Italian twenty percent is varied and enormous, consisting of separate sane individuals. The lesbian element is professional. Sane too.
The Old Farts (plural) and the Honey Badger are only borderline sane.
The two people on Grant Avenue are batshit crazy.
And probably identify as artists.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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INTO THE JUDGEMENTAL WOODS
A number of the people with whom I have to associate in Marin County have, at this point, gone full freaking fascist, damned well nazi, and ...
