How I love me some southern barbeque

The surrogate kid

2009-08-07T03:44:00.000-07:00

Being a dog owner is a lot like being a mother, so I hear anyway. We have had our dog for over 5 months now, and in the rare moments that I am feeling self-reflective, I realize that I am as neurotic as my own parents. Bucky is cute in this eternal-puppy sort of way (it also helps that he is 'short' for a lab and even our friend's one year old towers over him). But when he is presented with food, he pulls forward his ears and exercises his Darwinism with his 'food face.' Combined with a slight cock of the head, he is seriously the cutest dog EVAH. I noticed the other day (likely in the middle of a rare chicken meal at home) that when Bucky's food face is on that he has a furrowed forehead. A couple of "V" wrinkles above his eyebrows. Without thinking, I told him to stop or his forehead would be frozen that way. Seriously, who does that? This along with the fact that I will take Bucky to the vet for any minor reason leads me to believe I am a neurotic hypochondriac mother in the making. One with some self-awareness at least.

Thunder and Lightning

2009-05-11T06:44:00.000-07:00

When we first got Bucky we admired him for his ability to withstand rainstorms with their loud thunder and bright lightning. I realize he was on his good behavior and in reality he is quite the chicken shit. Two nights this weekend we spent with him in our bed. He followed either Matt or I upstairs after we let him in when it started raining. He jumped up on our bed - no small undertaking given the fact he is frightened of descending anything, let alone that distance which spans all of eighteen inches. Matt lay him down between us, which was the only time his tail wagged with unabated glee at the comfort of his parents. Matt eventually carried him off the bed where he slept on our bathmat just off of Matt's sleepside.

In the mornings Matt would carry him down the stairs and I would take him for a walk.

Some could say that this is pathetic but I think he is just showing his quirkiness a bit more every day.

Silly Ass Dog

2009-04-19T07:08:00.001-07:00

It is 10 PM and I am defeated. Today was a day full of negotiations with Bucky. Despite his easygoing nature, he can be finicky and strong willed, and he is very difficult to convince to do anything. Earlier this evening I was lifting weights and invited Bucky upstairs to join me in the air-conditioning. After some brief paranoia of flying weights I opened the door and let him go downstairs if he wanted to. Well...he didn't want to. A couple of weeks ago I let him sleep upstairs before Matt came to bed (again in the air-conditioning; poor boy pants an awful lot. When Matt came upstairs to retrieve him for his final nightly walk, somehow Bucky started down the stairs and fell, paw and face first (Matt said he was imitating Superman), into our 2nd floor landing. I was mostly asleep but heard a loud thud and the bellow of Matt's laughter. I think ever since that episode Bucky has been gunshy to descend stairs. I even tried to trick him with a treat that was slightly out of reach for him to come down. He dipped his toe as if he was testing the temperature of the pool, but otherwise no dice. Ten minutes later Matt carried him down, but there was a pool of drool on the top stair.

The second negotiation was trying to get him to eat his immunization pills (we went to the vet today). I tried to make a beef liver peanut butter sandwich which was too big for his mouth. He did manage to eat 2/3 of the pills. Then I asked Matt to put the rest of the pills down his throat (efficient but not the most pleasant thing to watch), but Bucky kept hucking the pills up! Matt, Imee, and I realized that the horse pills smelled like penicillin and Bucky was having none of it. We then put it in chicken stock (his Achilles heel as far as we know so far) and he drank the stock but avoided the pills. Finally, I pulverized the suckers with a hammer and then mixed it with more chicken stock but that smell never went away and he just wouldn't have any of it. So I gave up. The last third of the medicine is just not to be. I hope that he isn't struck down with... Measles? Rubella? Bloody hell, I don't even know what he is being immunized for.

On Dating

2009-04-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Growing up, I was only attracted to white guys. Growing up in decidedly not-diverse Stone Mountain and watching too many Matt Dillon movies (or do I mean drooling over Matt Dillon in BOP magazine? I forgot, I wasn’t REALLY watching movies when I was younger) I felt like the programming was complete. I was going to find my own white guy.
Fast forward to moving to Hong Kong in 2003. Never before had I been around so many Asian people. By and large I still felt the same. But I realized over time that Asian guys raised in westernized countries were ok. Cool. Irreverent even. Something intangible about funky glasses and a deadpan funny t-shirt.
Although I ended up with a white guy I am happy to know that I am not so closed minded as I once was (oh self-realization! Emotional evolution!)
But there is sort of an intangible icky feeling of looking at Asian men in a sexualized way. Even when I fly back to the States for a short trip, for some reason a chip on my shoulder emerges for being Asian. I am really self-conscious about it. Especially in Atlanta. And I cringe at the idea of being self-conscious. So I think if I was still living in Atlanta I would seek out a white guy (trophy boyfriend if you will). Because I would not want to be doubly self-conscious with another Asian. Isn’t that weird? I don’t think I would feel that way at all in Asia. I think I carry too much baggage still in the ATL.

Diet rant and Adrien Brody

2009-04-06T02:15:00.001-07:00

Being on a diet sucks.
Right now it is 4:31 and I have been so hungry that I want to eat my left arm off.
Over the last couple of months I have succumbed to these cravings – as I am recently off of the wedding wagon and no longer have a need to fit into any specific piece of clothing (although thankfully the wedding dress was empire waisted and likely forgiving – but needless to say I was so strict last year with my eating I think my innards are conspiring a mutiny). But my face is a tad plumper than I would like, and my skinny pants are growing a flat tire at the top – so it is time to take action (or inaction).

5:08 update – my hunger has passed! I have always contended that hunger is a bell curve – and it is. I was officially hungry at 4:19 and it is now almost an hour later and I am not. Yippee!

On a totally unrelated note, I just saw Cadillac Records last night and Beyonce is really beautiful as a ‘50’s/’60’s doo-wop singer and I think she looks way better as Etta James (e.g. a proper weight) versus the Diana Ross-like character from Dreamgirls. Etta makes me want to wear fake eyelashes everyday (if, you know, I even had the energy to blow my hair dry properly everyday). Also, I absolutely adore Adrien Brody. I love that he is not a classically good looking guy but just has bravado and confidence and can kiss Halle Berry on Oscar night. Guys like Adrien will be appealing forever, long after their looks fade…

He Barks!

2009-03-31T21:45:00.001-07:00

I am happy to report that Bucky has found an arch nemesis in our otherwise Pleasantville neighborhood. It is Large White Siberian Husky! I was walking Bucky through our park yesterday and he saw LWSH from a distance of 20 feet. He stood in repose and then ran towards LWSH and barked! 3 times from what I remember. I held onto him (barely as I didn't see this coming) and appropriately berated him for his boorish behavior. I thought that he had no vocal cords as I haven't heard anything from him before. I had never seen Bucky so agitated and I dare say, I was pleased.

New Dog

2009-03-26T06:24:00.000-07:00

So we have a new dog. He is new to us but not new to the world. He came to us as Dumpy, but we thought his self-esteem might suffer being a reference for trash, so we held an online informal survey via Facebook (we have such a love-hate relationship with that site) and we ended up with Bucky. Bucky is the name of University of Wisconsin's affable's mascot and maybe our vocally loyal Wisconsin friends wholly outnumber our mascot-apathetic Georgia Tech ones. No matter - all the non-Americans we know think we are weird to name him this.

Bucky is a chocolate lab. He is 4ish (or thirtysomething in dog years). His hair is more coarse than typical labs. He is kinda shrimpy for a lab (he is half the size of Matt's other dog Garrett). Speaking of Garrett, I tried very hard on my own accord to find a dog markedly different than Garrett so that Matt wasn't reminded so much of his beloved first dog. Alas, I falied miserably as Bucky is the spit and image of Garrett, except littler (I like to call him "Asianized").

We picked him up from a private dog shelter on March 1, and Bucky is absolutely a dream dog so far. He doesn't bark! We wondered for a while whether he had vocal cords (we hear that some owners have them removed - oh the horror!) but sometimes he groans in his slept, much to our happiness! He doesn't jump up on the furniture, he has never gone in the house, he doesn't bite - he is (if a dog could be described as such) idyllic!

The quirky things about Bucky is that he is distracted when he eats (not like other foodie dogs), doesn't seem to like to drink water (like doggie like father perhaps?), and he doesn't retrieve. At all. Our attempts to throw any object for him to retrieve have been met with icy stares of disdain. Perhaps he had a tragic retrieving episode in the past...

I am such a cruddy blogger but I thought I would try again with Bucky as my muse. We will see how it goes.

Greetings from Singapore - and yet another Tea Lady rant

2008-09-06T06:56:00.000-07:00

So - I have moved to Singapore - yet another city/state country that I now call home. If I could describe Singapore in one word it would be... idyllic. Truly. Sort of a utopian existance to raise kids and dogs. A veritable Discovery Bay on super strength steroids. People say Singapore doesn't have the buzz of Hong Kong. My answer to that is... who cares. I lived in a city with buzz (LA) and it was too tiring for me. Same as Hong Kong - maybe I am just too slow of a walker to keep up with the pace of these fast cities. So, at this point, I am not into the clubs, I am barely into the bars. So if the closest I get to a buzz is my company issued green tea in the morning then so be it.

Speaking of tea, I really loathe the tea lady in the office. Perhaps I have bad tea lady karma? She is a total wench when she is cleaning the toilet, just really despicably inhospitable. The other day the water went out (ahem - the glamorous life of a temporary construction compound) and there was a communal bucket placed in the restroom with a typed sign that read "For Washing Hands." No separate mechanism to neutrally pour the water over your hands. Just a bucket to swish around in. Are you kidding me? How freakin' gross is that?

So I went outside where there is a communal sink and I used a pitcher filled with water to wash my hands. And wenchy tea lady lectures me that this pitcher water is for drinking. I sassily retort that I am NOT washing my hands in a communal bucket. Blah - who would?

I made a comment today that people in Singapore are collectively less cordial than they are in Hong Kong. But I don't care. I still love it here - despite the wenchy tea ladies.

Rebuff on Cyberspace

2008-04-14T01:04:00.000-07:00

So I have joined Linkedin. I was linked out for a while (for no real reason I suppose). I had reached out to a guy I worked with and just figured out today how to find who has yet to respond to my inquiries to join my virtual 'network.' Well it turns out old colleague guy said that he doesn't know me! Hmmph. Did I mention I went to his wedding?

I am not sure if this is a bona fide re-buff or just a result of a trigger happy finger, but needless to say, I am a bit miffed that someone I haven't spoken to in 4 years has (perhaps inadvertently) treated me this way!

O well, I sent him another note. I will see how that goes or I will delete him forever...

Celebrity Death rant

2008-01-23T07:20:00.000-08:00

So Heath Ledger died today. And Christopher Bowman and Brad Renfro died this year. So far it has been a pretty dismal year for famous people, either on the up or on the down. All three have allegedly died because of drug overdose. Two of them had young kids! I realize that this can be labeled a tragedy by some, but I think that these guys (assuming that they all died from overdoses) were just plain self-absorbed.

My opinion has changed since I was younger. I remember when River Phoenix died – I was so saddened, like I had grown UP with him. This was around 1997 and I was in a less physically stable then, moving around quite a bit even though I was finishing up college. I have always been drawn to these young actor types. I was really kind of down about it. “Why him?” I would ask, as if he was a friend or even someone I knew.

But time passes and perspectives change. Now I am in a really stable place, both physically and emotionally. I have an emotionally steadfast partner who could give less of a shit about what is going on in celebrityville (or any of the Joneses, for that matter). Thankfully some of this perspective has rubbed off on me and I realize it is sort of silly to obsess over celebrities, like their shit doesn’t stink. So now I think about these three adult men and how they didn’t take responsibility for their lives and instead took their lives with their own expensive habits. These guys had serious cash flow – could they not have hired world-class therapists to help them cope with all of their “pain”? Life is a bitch when you are rich and famous – I suspect in all reality it somewhat is as it isolates your friends and I am sure everyday you question whether you are a fraud or worthy and if you can maintain this ride forever and not die a has-been at aged 30. It is quite strange because if I knew a user who wasn’t famous who died of an overdose, there would be no parades or song and dance, just some sympathy for the family and an idle cry out for why they didn’t get help sooner.

And this is how I care to think of these three dead men. As selfish souls.

Grocery Shopping

2008-01-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

I am always grocery shopping in Macau. I think that this confounds M to no end but he certainly doesn't complain about the end result. I am hopeful that someone here will begin to carry shortening because I went to Hong Kong this past weekend looking for it and citySuper was out of stock. Christ. Grocery shopping is an ordeal, it is not just going to one superstore to buy everything. Because I a cook on the healthy side it is a bit more complicated. Lower fat peanut butter is available in HK but not Macau, but I can find lower fat mayonnaise in Macau. Rolos are nowhere to be found in the Pearl River Delta period. I went to Park'n'Shop today (the closest semblance to a superstore) and forgot to pick up whole wheat flour. This means that I will have to go back there tomorrow (which I hate as Park'n'Shop is so friggin' crowded on Sundays) so that I can buy flour to make bread. I leave the house with an empty backpack and always come back with several bags in hand and the backpack filled to the brim. Today I stopped at 2 stores, 1 drugstore (that oddly sells very few drugs), a houseware store, and a fruit/vegetable store. Two hours with my slow ass walking. This is typical. I used to try to go with M but he grew so impatient with my browsing that I realized it is more relaxing to break my back with an overstuffed backpack than to deal with his shopping impatience. This should be refreshing in that he is truly a guy's guy, not fussy about food details or the end product so much. But sometimes I sure would like a ride...

Cleaning ladies

2008-01-17T05:45:00.000-08:00

I work in a construction compound. It is the tidiest building I have ever worked in, except maybe for the other construction compound that I worked in a year ago. Although we are on a construction site there is seldom any dirt anywhere to be found. The floors are so clean you can eat off of them.

There are cleaning ladies (not to be wholly confused with tea ladies). They are sweet, Cantonese speaking. We acknowledge each other with friendly smiles but our exchanges end there. The cleaning ladies whose responsibility is to clean the toilet (the women’s anyways) and the adjacent pantry. I am in the toilet quite a bit throughout the course of the day because, well, I drink a lot of water and tea (green tea, my now replacement to teeth staining coffee). There is a window in the construction compound toilet that looks out into…dirt and muck that is soon to be a beautiful casino. Every time I go in the toilet after lunch I see the 2 cleaning ladies. Sometimes they drink hot tea overlooking the window. Today they were eating crackers.

But do they really need to eat in the toilet? I mean, seriously, the pantry is 10 feet away.

If I have a long visit in the toilet, I really cannot be thinking about these poor ladies having their tea and crackers and really concentrate at the task at hand – and certainly that has got to be uncomfortable for them.

Perhaps this is their domain, their office if you will. Their sanctuary in a bleak, dirty world. I can respect that.

But I would really like it more if they would have their afternoon tea in the pantry.

2008-01-17T05:43:00.000-08:00

I have a love/hate relationship with coffee. I have been conditioned by Folger’s ads to have a Pavlovian response of, well, heightened alertness when I smell the stuff brewing. I would like to believe I am a coffee snob (only Peets or Coffee Bean when I was in coffee culture mecca LA) but the reality is if it is more coffee flavor than burned out water taste then I am all in. My consumption is hardly pathological – it is typically one cup in the morning with milk and Splenda. All part of my routine, the master plan of my day.

I visited the dentist in December. He was a new guy. From Macau. Chinese in the face but when a Portuguese accent. As is de rigeur with these biannual visits I was told to floss more and to lay off the coffee. I looked at my teeth in the mirror prior to going to the dentist that day. They were the most yellow that they have been. I would like to attribute it to the coffee (an easy scapegoat) but my consumption has remained consistent. I realize it is because of the water. I know that my teeth have gotten more yellow since moving to Asia and now was unbearable. Dentist salt washed my teeth and got out the stains – but I realized that it was time for a change.

So relatively cold turkey I gave up my coffee. And I have lived to tell about it. It is relative because I was vacationing in Laos and Vietnam and had the local coffee there (especially in Vietnam where coffee is mixed with condensed milk). Towards the end of the trip I was getting a bit sick and subsequently slept the entire next day after my arrival in Macau. I think this aided to get me off of my headache inducing caffeine addiction as I essentially started over with a clean, refreshed slate a day later.

What have I learned from this? That the nebulous claims of coffee being bad for you are not enough for me to kick the habit. Yet vanity, as a means or an end, IS enough of a motivator.

Blah. Enough navel gazing for now.

Sweater

2008-01-16T07:20:00.003-08:00

I own this sweater. It is a Ralph Lauren cashmere gray cable knit turtleneck. I don’t think it could be any more conservative. It is a good sweater – I have owned it for probably about eight months and I can only wear it when the weather is being, well, colder than I would like (on an aside it is not that I don’t like the cold weather. When else can I wear my amazing coat collection? I just don’t like that it isn’t consistently cold. A week can go by and it will only be cold here in Macau for 3 of the days, and not consecutive ones). Anyway – back to the sweater. I like it. It doesn’t pill at the underarms. I can wear it several times and it not get smelly. I bought this sweater at my favorite designer dud store in Hong Kong who claim to have authentic pieces (it is a high end ‘fall-off-the-truck store). At any rate, this sweater does not have a tag anywhere on its underside. Not even a care tag – nothing. As a result- I have no idea which way is front on this sweater. Because I am small breasted (finally – this comes in handy) there are no telltale lumps which show which way I wore it the last time. Whenever I wear this sweater it makes me laugh as a physical testament that I have a boy’s body.

On Beauty

2008-01-01T20:30:00.000-08:00

I just finished this book by Zadie Smith last night. I really started strong with it, very much liking it. I thought the ending was a bit blah. It is a very long book at nearly 400 pages. Most of the book centers around Howard, a white British man who is very much in the middle of a midlife crisis. Part of the book frustrated me when he has embarked on his second affair with a rival colleague's daughter. He is resigned that he has a future of divorce and chasing younger skirts ahead of him, as if this is his inevitable fate. I think that this mindset was really off the mark. I don't think people have affairs and then divorce and are resigned about their fates so early on. I think that there is a lot of denial about it, a lot of anger and 'how did I get here' - going down the spiral of self-hatred and all that. To be so resigned so early (prior to a separation even) seemed rather naive - as if this is what the author thought (she is my age so early 30's) and was channeling this to the protagonist. Overall it was a good book but it all wrapped up in the last twenty pages. With so much going on at then end, I was sad that it didn't have a more resolved ending.

F*ing Tea Lady

2007-12-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

So I work in an office where we have a full time tea lady (as you can see, I am not in America anymore). The tea lady is maybe from China? Macau? I don't know as I do not communicate with her with anything that isn't sign language or friendly smiles or grunts. I noticed the other day that she gives water to one of my co-workers as he comes back to his desk (conveniently Confucian). I ask M if get gets water at his desk given by the tea lady. "Yeah," he responded rather nonchalantly.

I walk around the office; everyone gets water or tea from the tea lady except me (that I can see anyway). I feel like saying something to her - in my demand-equity-as-an-American sort of way - but then I think better of it. Try not to let this damn tea lady ruin my day.

Maybe she thinks a girl in the office is weird and can get her own tea. But it makes me feel inadequate somehow, like I should somehow convince her to get me some water. I have even thought of asking the original guy who I first saw get water from her say something to her.

But it is not worth it. Her constitution in unmalleable. I know my Americanism can come off as being boorish and evangelical in Asia, especially with my not-at-all corresponding Asian face that goes alone with the gusto.

At the moment I get my own tea. Begrudgingly.

Grandparents

2007-10-24T06:20:00.001-07:00

I did not know my grandparents well.

This wasn’t because of a lack of desire. Perhaps I was a bit indifferent. My parents, as strange as it may sound, were not super interested in us having a close relationship with them, as they haven’t really been for any member of our family, for some reason.

So for a short period of time my dad’s mom and dad lived in Atlanta. It seemed ok. They got their own apartment not far from us. I was not involved in the politics of why they were even there. Much later it was discovered there was some falling out between my dad and his older brother. But this was not news, as my father was falling into and out of favor with all of his siblings.

I remember that we would visit them and sometimes they would visit us. Nobody in either party except my father could really drive so it was a lot of chauffeuring on his part. I remember their apartment being sparse. Maybe there was a bed? I am not even sure, though in my mind they slept on the floor with thick, faux mink Korean blankets.

My father was the spit and image of his father. My grandfather was unusually tall – perhaps even 5 foot 5 inches, which was even a shrunken version of what he must have been when he was younger. His hair line receded, but not into anything unattractive. He seemed like the more docile of the pair. I remember that his house clothes consisted of a white wife beater and long shorts. He had emphysema but still enjoyed smoking. He was not one to wear joy on his face, yet I do not remember he looking particularly sad either. I suppose he lived a hard life, living through the Korean War, having to relocate his family from and to Seoul again. Yet his face was a picture of pleasant resignation.

My grandmother had the spitfire personality that she passed along to my father. The spitfire part I learned from my parents later-- she was nothing but mellow to her granddaughters in her seventies. When I saw her in her place in Atlanta, she was maybe four foot nine. Her posture was horrendous and she walked with a cane but was hunched over, making her appear even smaller. God had made her breasts disproportionately large for her petite size, probably causing her back problems her whole life. There were lines on her face that were deeply etched grooves. I used to tell my mother that she had the face of a raisin. Her face wore every heartbreak and disappointment like a ring inside a tree stump.

Min and my Korean was not good, but we could say hello and bow and talk about how good the food was and how well we slept the night before. Usually my parents did most of the talking. If we were left alone with our grandparents there was a lot of idle smiling and looking at each other and nodding of our heads. But usually we would just sit on the floor and skewer fruit that my mother carefully selected and cut with toothpick swords and eat raisins and dried cuttlefish and just listen to my parents talk to each other and my dad’s parents in Korean. There was little acknowledgment of Min or I, but that was ok. We were used to that being around my parents and their friends.

The Cure

2007-08-01T04:28:00.000-07:00

M and I went to HK on Monday night and saw the Cure. I am a fan of the Cure, but by no means a die-hard. I was disappointed to learn that I know even less songs that I thought I did. I also realized that, like most bands, The Cure essentially sing the same song over and over again. The nuance with The Cure is that song drones on for about 10 minutes before any vocals get chimed in. Speaking of vocals, Robert Smith is the only vocalist. There isn't even a microphone wired up to the other band members. Robert has seen better days of his svelte (but never quite heroin chic) figure. Luckily he wears black and it is slimming. He dresses like all of my alternative friends did in junior high but never grew out of it, I guess.

Robert doesn't work the crowd (a sleek contrast to will.i.am's "HOOONNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG KKOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG"). He could have been in Pittsburgh for all he cared. There was also a notable absence of any keyboard or keyboardist. I suppose the reverb on the guitars were on hyper over drive.

The audience was pleasantly benign and the over 40 crowd dancing wildly to songs that my old friend Pete Williams would deem to be completely undanceable.

Robert's voice was his salvation as he still sounds exactly like his [then] records.

I think M was nonplussed, just as I had predicted.

Stream of consciousness post

2007-05-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

I am really tired. I am running myself ragged during the week to get it all done and crashing on the weekend. I feel my immune system is coming to a screeching halt.
Tomorrow I am in Hong Kong for part of the day. I loathe intraday travel as it is such a time suck. Immigration is a chore, my passport is busting at the seams. I just wish Macau and Hong Kong were twin cities. I was up at 6 this morning to get my morning run in. I am running most mornings and am really tired of my music but am too lazy to do anything about it. I miss mellow music. I am either listening to hard core running music but never the soft chill out music. It is a noticeable void. I am off to bed and fighting a runny nose. My head, my feet, and my nose are all running today….

Grocery shopping

2007-05-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

At the insistence of minjenah I am updating my blog to a topic that is slightly more... uplifting.

I love to grocery shop. I didn't so much in the US (except Trader Joes! I was totally tingly just walking through my old Manhattan Beach store in December!). But I also used to go thrift store shopping in the States which is virtually non-existent in the Pearl River Delta [this must be an Asian thing. My mom used to think it was so bizarre that I bought and wore used clothes! I guess if you grew up in war torn Korea where you were lucky to have your older brother's leftover threadbare clothes on your back it would be a bit ironic). So going grocery shopping is a bit of the hunt of the treasure that thrift store shopping was.

Matt thinks that this propensity of mine to grocery shop continually is a bit eccentric. But you really don't know what you will find here, particularly in Macau. I am a lifetime Weight Watcher (which is generally boring but I have seemed to maintain some sort of gusto towards it these days) and it is difficult to find some items - like low fat brownie mix (which I get at Gateway in Sheung Wan HK) or steel cut oatmeal (which Matt just found at Oliver's in Central HK). Strangely, there are other things that I think are niche that are readily available here - like bulgur or unprocessed wheat bran. This I attribute to the Portuguese influence. A couple of months back all of Macau was out of salsa - so Matt and I made an emergency run to HK and stocked up. Now whenever we see salsa (anywhere in the world - most recently Singapore and Melbourne) we buy it. It is uncertain times that we live in and salsa is a staple for our equilibrium...

A typical week involves 4 grocery stores - Park 'n' Shop for 98% fat free soup and Fifty 50 oatmeal (and generally horrendous lines), the fruit market 4 doors down, the grocery store by McDonald's that has proper Australian milk, dill pickles, and a (comparatively) impressive Mexican food section, and the French market down the road for day-of needs like broccoli and garbanzo beans. Once a month I will go to Hong Kong to get whole wheat flour and canned pumpkiin.

My piece de resistance this past week was Hormel Turkey Pepperoni at the market near McDonald's for a mere $42 MOP ($5 USD). At CitySuper in Hong Kong, this easily goes for $75 HKD (roughly $10USD).

I would easily win some sort of Western food version of The Price Is Right here in Macau...

Rant about the shooting f*er

2007-04-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

Ok - so it is hard not to be fascinated by this psychopath VT student because he was like me - a Korean American who grew up in the South. Over the Slingbox I am watching local Baltimore news trying to deconstruct the killer - what was going through his mind, etc. A dialogue that was happening between two rather white bread (bred) newscasters. I think that there is something that is unique about being an immigrant that you just cannot explain to someone who hasn't LIVED it - it is a visceral experience that I know Matt will never fully comprehend. I am not saying that Cho wasn't unstable - as he certainly unquestionably was - but let us be real - he exhibited warning signs long before he started stalking girls on the VT campus. Some people suggest abuse in his childhood. But I think people don't realize that the abuse was probably far more psychological than physical. Why didn't his parents do anything when he was growing up? I can tell you that my parents never cared whether I had friends or assimilated - that wasn't their priority. I am sure his were the same. His parents were (the prototypical) dry cleaners. I am sure that there was some guilt with the sacrifices they made for him to succeed in America (generally an Asian immigrant mentality). His sister had recently graduated from Princeton - I cannot imagine that there wasn't some 'why didn't you get into Yale' crap that was happening behind closed doors.

Of course, all of this is projected conjecture, but I do think that the Korean culture could do a better job acknowledging mental illness so that it can be diagnosed and treated. I get so over the 'showing a good face' all the time crap that I have a well-calibrated bullshit meter. I cannot stand people who only live inauthentically just to look good.

Hypochondriac Part 2

2007-04-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

In Malaysia Matt and I were eaten alive by sandflies (these gory photos show the evidence). Up until yesterday I was itching like mad, even drawing blood through my khakis on Saturday (eww). These exotic Southeast Asian bugs tend to leave me bruised for some reason. I feel fine even though I look like I was knocked out by a shadowboxer. At dinner on last Thursday, the discussion migrated to flesh eating diseases, which I was certain I was then plagued with (I have since crawled down from that fatalistic ledge).

Sandflies are evil because you can't see them biting you at 2 inch intervals. I even feel like I am Pig Pen - mosquitoes tend to swarm me because I have other bug bites, I think. Or I am just paranoid (and mosquitos liking me would certainly not be news).

Hypochondriac Part 1

2007-04-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

I have been doing a lot of websurfing recently - these days it is about various things that ail me. I am not 100% obsessive compulsive but I think being sick brings out this side of me more. I had a kidney infection 3 years ago that required a weeklong visit to the hospital and now I think everything is afflicting me. I dropped an ice skate on my toe almost six weeks ago (causing what is appropriately named toe trauma) and I am debating going to the doctor so they can drain blood from under my nail (it is still green and the greenness does not seem to be growing out). I cleverly disguise my ailment with bright red polish that never leaves my nails except for my bi-weekly pedicures. Some nutty websites actually suggest a DIY solution of taking a drill bit and a steady hand and DRILLING A HOLE IN YOUR TOENAIL to drain the blood yourself. Oddly, Matt suggested the identical solution independent of my exhausting internet research. Are these people mad? I cannot be trusted with putting a car in reverse, so how could I be trusted with putting a drill in my nailbed?

My pedicurist also lamented that my toenail will likely fall off. This is distressing to me, as I learned from my x-rays when I first experienced the trauma just how crooked my feet are. Their saving grace is well groomed nails (cut square at my insistence [I swear the default toe nail style here is rounded and long and red, sort of dragonlady toes based on what I see on the street]). If I am without a toenail, I would (a) be grossed out and (b) be without the my neutralizing trait that counteracts the effects of my bunion driven crookedness.

Looking on the bright side (which I seldom do in medical matters) it is at least not broken.

Now I need to find some wood to knock on and not knock into.

Engagement

2007-04-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been on Matt about us getting engaged for a while now. Nothing like the steady, deliberate pressure from the likes of me. We went to Malaysia this past weekend - to Kota Kinabalu. I actually had a bit of a commitment in Taiwan the day before so I was a bit out of sorts and focus on my usual pressuring ways (indeed one of my less endearing qualities). We had been at the Shangri-La for 22 hours, the sun was setting and we took cute couple pictures in the golden glow of the twilight. Typical Matt arm length face shots where my moon-face is wholly magnified. After some of this Matt suggests we walk to the water to watch the cloudless sunset, which was stunning in a Key West caliber way, surprisingly. I had a quest to sort out my Sony camera's settings and right the sun in its memory. Matt wanted me to sit on a bench but I was committed to the camera. Matt then suggested we head back to the terrace of our room (we were on the first level so we could walk to the water). He asked me to sit down but I was restless and hungry, so I got a snack to eat on the terrace (a Golden Grahams cereal bar imported from Portugal). He told me he loved me and he wanted to be with me and got down on one knee (not a trivial feat as he is down one foot at the moment) and asked me to marry him! I hesitated for a second because I didn't see it coming (and I always thought I would see it coming) and asked if he was kidding. I then said yes and we hugged and kissed and I put my ring on my finger and were excited in the now darkness.

We then dined on a seafood grilled dinner along the water. I let Matt eat most of the steak and I wrestled away the larger prawn. I insisted that we have 2 glasses of champagne at dinner and was quickly tipsy thereafter. We then walked over to the surprisingly cool bar of the hotel, where I had a riveting cranberry juice and a fun Canadian cover band sang our favorite Black Eyed Peas tunes.

This was April 5. I called my sister and parents upon my return to Macau. Minjenah was appropriately excited and Mom was too in her typical conversationally-absent demeanor. My mom suggested that she just let Dad know because he was on the can. She certainly knew how to let the wind out of my sails! But I wouldn't let her completely deflate me. Not during MY engagement.

Juicy

2007-03-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

I was living in LA when the whole Juicy Couture thing hit its hayday. Leave it to America (and Los Angeles) to attempt to add style to what is the quintessentially amorphous sweatsuit. I suppose that during Flo Jo's days (may she and her bling nails rest in peace) it was the running suit that women everywhere would wear on their weekly grocery errands. But thanks to that no-name wife of John Taylor (God I love Duran Duran) - we had an update - a low rise, flared, psuedo velour sweatpants in a variety of fashion forward colors. Juicy was outrageously expensive to me (during my Nordstrom shopping days) and I found the gold lamme "Juicy Couture" in a baroque font to be, well, dangerous to my more Ann Taylor / Banana Republic days.

So it never struck me how entirely too casual these togs were until I arrived in Hong Kong in mid 2003. Juicy was no where to be found among the skinny jean Converse high top sea of humanity that greeted me in Asia. So over time I adopted - not too the style of my fellow HK people, but to be a little less LA casual (in my myriad of monkey faced T-shirts) when I was not working.

Earlier this week I was in Hong Kong riding an escalator at a train station when I was behind a thirtysomething Asian lady who was wearing a full-on purple Juicy outfit. And at that very moment, I understood. It is what my sister has succintly deemed as AOA - Absence of Ass. This trait plagues many of us Asians. Fortunately low rise jeans seem to help this issue for me, but there needs to be some form to the fabric for this cut to work. The Juicy style has no formed it and therefore does a a disservice to the ass challenged.

Practically speaking I am glad that this style never hit in Hong Kong. Thank goodness for prevalent mirrors!

Cocktail Bun

2007-03-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

When I used to live in the States (I say this as if this was a fleeting time instead of 27 years of my life), I used to like going to Asian bakeries with my mom. I reveled in how not sweet the confections were. Mom would find these tasty coffee rolls with cream that tasted like fresh churned butter swirled throughout. She also got these great peanut flavored topped golden rolls which I am certain had no ingredients vaguely resembling an actual peanut.

Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that these bakeries were a dime a dozen here in Asia . The cocktail buns (as they are called, and they do resemble larger versions of the pigs in a blanket served at cocktail parties) are served in small produce bags. And they do serve a large version of the pig in a blanket – except the hot dog has criss crossed mayonnaise on top. The Asian version of hot crossed buns (and a testament to the absolute overuse of mayonnaise here, as it is also prominently featured in… fruit salad!). I often wondered the cases of salmonella poisoning not reported from these buns made in the morning and bought and consumed at tea time.

Wieners are not the only savory filling (savory seems to outnumber sweet here, although there is a tasty coconut cream one I have had that has the sweetness of something Hostess like). Imagine Chicken. Or Pork Floss.

I was often awestruck how my colleagues at my previous job could eat these at their desk for breakfast. How that GI raising, bleached white bread bomb could somehow be satisfying with its measly half-ounce of protein. There I would be, eating my Fiber One out of a Dixie cup, hoping for a filling fibrous meal that left me hungry at 10:30. I never saw these bun eating freaks ever snack before lunch.

Maybe there is something in them that keeps you full. The antithesis of MSG perhaps. I should give one a try some morning. Maybe not the hot dog one.

Reflections on Singapore

2007-03-13T04:03:00.000-07:00

We have just returned from Singapore. It was idyllic in that frenetic way that a city break can be.

Singapore has a reputation for being regimented. I thought it was less so than in Japan. People talked on the cell phones on the train in Signapore. Speaking of trains, they do not run really efficiently. They run every 10 minutes or so in the shoulder periods. Things are...slower than in Hong Kong. People even walk slower. I even passed people!

It is really a beautiful city in a way that a master planned city should be beautiful. Trees line the streets and the horticulture is lush as you leave the airport (not unlike Orlando). There are trees and parks and lovely spaces that are the interstitials between the lovely colonial buildings (that they make an effort to uplight the windows in at night - quite stunning) and the nouveau architecture that punctuates the rather aberrant skyline.

The sky is clean and crisp and there is no evidence of factory dredge anywhere. It is a metropolitan utopia.

It is an interesting place because they (the mysterious and ubiquitous they) have sanitized their reputuation while still maintaining the history. The opposite of Hong Kong really - whereas HK has sanitized the architecture but allowed its citizens some autonomy, Singapore allows their people little autonomy but has a mind to juxtapose the old and new aesthetic (and keep them both clean).

The government seems to prescribe to a Scared Straight philosophy. There was a constant loop on the train of various train bombings around the world and how you! A private citizen! Could help stop these crimes. Blood and gore - the imagery spared no details of these previous rail tragedies.

And the cigarettes! I do not even smoke but I was struck by the packaging. The boxes have these irremovable images of gangrene. Dead fetuses. Men who have holes for where their cheeks should be. Every possible visually abhorrent ramification of smoking permanently affixed to the boxes.

The images around Singapore (at least on the trains and the fags) are not for the faint of heart.

I would live there in a heartbeat.

Calamityville

2007-03-08T05:48:00.000-08:00

It is official. Matt's foot is broken. The fifth metatarsil to be exact on his right (driving) foot. I have learned that bones are brittle. Matt has played hockey forever and has not broken a bone during play. This is especially ironic because I thought I had broken my toe after I dropped an ice skate squarely on the center of my big right toe (bloody right feet). So I went to the doctor last Wednesday and got an X-ray on Thursday. Matt had his accident on Sunday, which resulted in a visit to the ER. He went to two doctors on Monday, the second doctor being at the clinic where they gave me my initial referral for the X-ray. So Matt went in to get a referral to a HK orthopaedic specialist (to the Cantopop stars of Hong Kong apparently) and I went in to review the X-ray from a week before. My toe was indeed not broken! My feet are really screwed up looking though and crooked.

In 7 days we had gone to 6 medical service centers between us!

Maybe it is bad luck now for Rabbits. Or we are just clumsy...

Needless to say he has been minimally on his feet. It is a good thing he only goes to the toilet once during the workday.

Where you from ?

2007-02-26T06:43:00.000-08:00

It is funny being Asian sometimes (well actually, it is funny all the time). I didn’t grow up in a place like Los Angeles or Chicago where there were lots of other Asians. The city of Atlanta was my home, and also happens to be home to quite a lot of (non-Asian) racial history. Needless to say, race is a pretty hot topic there, whether it is discussed overtly (and it seldom was when I was there) or in the privacy of one’s surburban sprawled home that is far from the city center.

People would often ask me where I was from growing up. I had quite a sarcastic attitude about me, far before I realized that it was actually a bit rude to be so aloof. I would often answer Dayton, Ohio, which is where I was born.

“No, where are you Fruh-uhm?” they would implore.

Of course I knew what they were asking. Where were my parents from. Clearly no one could conceive that I would be Midwestern.

Sometimes people were more direct.

“Are you Chinese or Japanese?”

Well, at least this wasn’t a question about which of the lower 48 states I was from.

Sometimes I would say I was Korean. That is, when I was in the mood to be engaged in idle, meaningless conversation.

I am not saying that my culture is meaningless. Often times people had not even heard of Korea (bear in mind that American troops fought in Korea in the 1950’s). So finally when I got around to where I was from, it was such a letdown to be from a place that was so obscure.

If the inquiring party HAD heard of Korea, there would often be a follow up of an asinine comment.

“Do you know the Parks? They live in South Georgia.”
“I just love that kim chee. Oooh, it’s so spicy.”

There is always that reference to kim chee.

I know people are trying to be nice and conversational, but it was always a frustrating conversation because being Korean just was never accepted at face value. And sometimes I just wanted to be accepted at that superficial face value.

Finally!

2007-02-25T07:59:00.000-08:00

After about 10 years, here is the song minjenah and I have been looking for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEwfACDeVtM

Dear Ava

2007-02-25T06:30:00.000-08:00

Hi Ava. This is your Aunt. I am your only aunt (that is related to you by blood anyway). Welcome to the world. Unlike other members of our esteemed family, you are large at the start of your life. I am certain your mother (my sister) looks forward to the day that you will exceed her in height. Do not think that you can outsmart your diMINuitive mother when this happens. She can bring men twice her size to their knees.

We are all very excited you are here. I am sorry that I am far away. I will try to make it home as soon as I can. You look a lot like me actually (your eyes! Your cheeks!). Your mother and I have discussed this – at this point your Asian side is dominating your features. You are, of course, cuter than I was at your age. You did not go through that awkward-ugly-newborn stage like so many other babies do, except for that one bloody picture post surgery that your mom sent to me (what was she thinking?). You also did have an advantage by being born via Cesarian. Plus your nose doesn’t look like you were beaten by a boxer like mine did. Be thankful that you will be spared the hours of discussion about whether your nose would ‘pop out’ into something normal. I am thankful to Grandma and Grandpa for my neurosis.

Your parents love you very much. Every few hours I look on your mother’s blog to see if there are new pictures of you. This is a new-fangled technology that lets me feel like I am close to you. Once you are old enough to understand this letter, blogs will be a thing of the past, to be replaced with teleportation or some other thing that has yet to be conceived.

These days it looks like you sleep a lot. You get to wear a number of different hats (literally). Many of them are pink. You are also sweating quite a bit in your photos. You are like me in this respect. I have a tremendous disdain for hats actually, as the sensation of heat on my head is absolutely unbearable to me. Hopefully you will not have this trait, as I think I could have looked better on many days wearing a hat.

I fear that you will have a hot-bloodedness about you. This tends to run on our side of the family. Hopefully you can harness it by turning that energy into something positive, instead of just turning purple like Grandpa does.

Your mom is a really clever person. Don’t let her dupe you into making her bed and then giving her your Rolos. She is a great mom to you already, I think she has been training for you her whole life. She knows how to stretch a dollar and can make a mean cookie. She is going to be hard on you, but only because she has unrelentingly high expectations of you. Do not attempt to derive pleasure by crossing her. She will not let you get away with it (and she has an infinite memory).

I am very much looking forward to seeing you smile. Your mom says that you aren’t due for that for another couple of weeks, but I hope (like she) that you are a bit of an overachiever.

Don’t give your mom and dad too much trouble – you have many more years for those kind of shenanigans.

Be good, and please try to sleep to at least 5.

Love,
Auntie

Happy Birthday Ava!

2007-02-13T00:43:00.000-08:00

Happy 0th Birthday Ava!

Filter

2007-02-04T06:26:00.000-08:00

I appreciate reading my sister's blog. She has an uncanny ability to be unfiltered. I live in a state of greater paranoia than that. I am scared that someone will find me and try to use the information against me. I am constantly amazed by people who can post their personal information and pictures, like Heather from Dooce.com. I am much more restrained, wanting to only write about things that are non-traceable. Nothing emotional or too ranty.

I have a personal blog that no one sees. This is the public one.

I was in HK this weekend, and I was fraught with party narcolepsy, a condition that has afflicted me over the past couple of years. Have I lost my mojo? I simply do not have the stamina to stay out without being tired, and I can fall asleep in bars and clubs on a dime. This is amusing to my friends and questionably amusing to Matt, who I think would prefer that I stay up later and not seems like such a chump.

I was pumped to see a favorite Filipino band, and I was so sleepy. We left after they sang that California song at From Dusk Till Dawn. Christian's twin is the singer in the band. The singer likes to wear crocodile shoes. We joke that he has an American passport because Christian's got stolen some time back. And singer dude is as close to spit and image as they come...

Tired Haze

2007-02-04T06:24:00.001-08:00

At the moment I am in the tired weekend haze and fog that is recovery. I am very structured during the week these days - up around 7, jog for 40 minutes, fight Matt over shower time, negotiate setting my moisturizer and finding my clothes, putting my breakfast and lunch together and trying to dry my hair so Matt doesn't get mad at us leaving late for work. Then it is work, cooking some dinner, watching some Slingbox and reading or surfing the 'net. I am (hopefully) asleep by 11PM to do it all over again the next day. The weekends are wholly unstructured. This is of course good but it also allows me to think about how tired I am and I am often stammering about in this haze, as I am now.

I have updated the look of my blog because I needed something new.

Min has turned me on the www.kimchimamas.typepad.com and I think it is fabulous. I need to find the webring of young Asians educated in the West singletons. Where are all of you? Because I could use some friends who understand where I am coming from here in Macau .

Moving House

2006-12-09T02:53:00.000-08:00

We are in the process of moving house. Never a fun ordeal having to come face-to-face with all of the crap that one has accumulated all these years. Our apartment is nice - wholly geared towards 'gullible' foreigners.

http://www.novacity.com.mo/en/sec2a.html

Here is a great shot of a girl who is scantily clad (thankfully Asian) who is cavorting around the construction site that is our apartment complex. She is not nearly as dusty as we were by day's end today.

One more week and we will be fully moved in. Praise the lord as I am tired of moving this year.

The N Word

2006-11-20T07:39:00.000-08:00

Apparently Michael Richards is in some (deserved) heat for essentially using the N word at a comedy club in LA. That happened recently in Macau. A Brit fellow (nameless because I do not know his name) was watching a boxing match on TV and said "I love this sport. Where else can you watch 2 N's kick the shit out of each other?" My word, who _says_ that these days? It was straight out of Gone With The Wind. I loathe that guy whenever I see him around in Macau. He also has the most unfortunate Erik Estrada windblown 'do you have ever seen. Anachronistic prick.

Back on line

2006-11-19T06:50:00.000-08:00

The above is a misnomer as I do not know if I can commit to staying online. I think ever since I got a scathing note about my blog (a longwinded story) I have been gunshy to post. That was 3 years ago - I suppose I am not good about letting shit go. I will give it a whirl.

I have moved to Macau. Where is Macau? It is the gaming enclave of China. It is not the mainland but another SAR (special administrative region). I am a member of the underworld gaming industry. Haha. At least helping to build one seems one step removed from all of the shady dealings. I have been here for 2 months now. I like it. It is slow. Slower than Hong Kong anyway. It is New jersey. Kowloon. Orange County.

I cook. A lot. It is my hobby, my passion. Haha. That isn't entirely true but I do like it. It is especially challenging because I am searching for healthy western food which is nearly impossible to find. Fat free cream cheese is only available in Hong Kong (City Super) for about four US dollars. I schlep across grocery stores all over the Pearl River Delta. I think this is one of my less endearing qualities in Matt's eyes.

Recently I have been into smoothies. Today I made a green one with spinach. It was pretty tasty; I would rate it an 8 out of 10. It had a frozen banana, orange juice, and frozen raspberries. It was the color of muck, reminiscient of the scene where Rene Russo drinks that green pulpy beverage at the start of the Thomas Crown Affair.

Surprisingly, frozen raspberries are abundant here. About $3.50 USD for 2 cups. Matt contends cooking is more expensive than eating out. This may be true but I doubt it. I think the set up costs for cooking are high - getting all of the ingredients on hand. I have so many sauces and spices I think it blows Matt's mind (and the capacity of the kitchen).

A recent hobby of mine has also been playing with Photoshop. To the left is Garrett (Matt's dog in Florida) stuck in a tranced, disco-balled world.

Surgery

2006-06-07T05:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had an infected sebaceous cyst removed from my neck. It was painful, and it still continues to be post-op. My doctor (a urologist and surgeon) removed the bugger with the help of a knife (I think - some goggles were covering my eyes) and a laser. The local anathesia didn't ever kick in to the same degree of uber numbness that I was expecting, so I could feel the knife(?) and the laser. Imagine feeling your own skin burning. Ewww. I am ok overall, traumatized by the pain and the experience. My doctor pointed out the obvious - I have a very low threshold for pain. Call me a wuss. Go ahead. I am just hopeful for some minimal scarring after my stitches are removed. My first need for stitches. Too bad the back story is so....clinical.

New website found!

2006-04-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

I admit that the internet caters to my sometimes OCD tendencies. Every year or so I am in desperate need to find this song called "Grow Up and Blow Away" by Metric. It used to be in a Polaroid commercial about 10 years ago. It has that melancholy but beautiful oversynthesized feel that I have always been drawn to. I found this site http://hype.non-standard.net in the process. It is an aggregator of what bloggers are publishing and is a great window into music here from my (musical) dank hole that is Hong Kong. They have a top 50 list of songs from 2005 - it is populated with covers I didn't even realize where made - Radiohead doing Oasis, Johnny Cash doing Depeche Mode, Coldplay doing Echo and the Bunnymen. I am now in the market to locate a Sugababes song.... unfortunately I cannot decipher the lyrics and they don't seem to have 'hit' well enough in the US to warrant some decent song sampling off of Amazon. iTunes is futile as well. It is something that is in semi-regular rotation on MTV Asia. I may have to march over to HMV to sort it out. Or turn on my TV...

Lola

2006-03-11T19:04:00.000-08:00

My sister Min has a dog that she has had for 4 years or so. Her name is Lola. She is not a showgirl but a bitch nonetheless. Lola is a lovely black lab / chow mix, though she appears more lab than chow. Min thinks she is French because of her name (which was inherited but not given by Min) and also because she eats cheese that is wrapped in red wax. Lola is not motivated by people food or dog biscuits, going so far as to collect the biscuits in a neat pile instead of consuming them shamelessly. She loves to play and run around instead, which I think confuses Min and everything that she deems is truth in life. Lola can be construed as somewhat delicate and barks infrequently. She is quiet as a mouse. She doesn't domineer the room or the conversation as other dogs (like Sheba or Garrett) and I think Min sometimes misses that boisterous presence. Min has a Jackie Kennedy dog.

Sugar low

2006-02-25T22:27:00.000-08:00

Recently (the last 2 days) I have been experiencing the concept of sugar low. I have eaten sugary snacks (ordinarily kept to a minimum on school days) and have subsequently passed out shortly thereafter. For my own health I am going to minimize my sugar lows, although these same sugary substances evidently provide Matt energy. He is a metabolic anomaly.

Ang Lee

2006-02-20T05:05:00.000-08:00

I think Ang Lee is my hero. Certainly not a very obvious or ostentatious choice. He is not flashy - he has a wife and 2 sons and lives his dream. I was reading an article about him in SCMP - certainly he has the buzz to win an Oscar. I think the part that resonates the most with me was that he broke away to study film in the US at Illinois, much to the chagrin of his prominent Taiwanese father. I ache for that, I suppose - the ability to knowingly disappoint my parents to assume who I am. He has 7 years on me yet. He also mentions how the Asian culture is where you are judged for being good to your elders and being a good student. There are no other dimensions. That is so true. I always felt bad for my counterparts who may not have done as well at school - probably hell to pay at home or even worse - sheer apathy. It was always so quantifiable - the feeling of worth via grades. I recall a point in life where I thought that was it - I had lived because I did well academically. I am constantly amazed at schools of Western thought - how children are little people with minds and imaginations and able to contribute meaningful conversation at a dinner table. The last idea is so counter-Confucian.

Magnolia dining room

2006-02-18T08:25:00.000-08:00

Friday I invited Joe and Pu and Matt to Magnolia, a place I have read about and was dying to try. It is a private kitchen (no restaurant license?) in a nowhere street in Sheung Wan. There were 8 people total (including Matt) and the other 4 were so OBNOXIOUS. They were totally snobby expatriates - with multiple helpers for their 'little princess'. They were dissing our hotels - so cheap - and grateful that they were staying in the suite on the Disney Cruise, because (I am letting you in on a secret) we are high-end travellers. And generally hateable assholes, apparently.

The food was the best despite our lame company. Cajun and creole food. Of note was the cornbread, the salad with a killer mustard dressing, the sweet potatoes - my lord, these potatoes were divine. And the dessert. PeCAN pie. My stomach ached when I got home 2 hours later. Matt had to convince me to get ready to bed, because I was near explosion, Monty Python style. At least if that happened, I would have died happy and larded.

No go Sogo

2006-02-07T06:27:00.000-08:00

I just went to run a quick errand....that took 45 minutes. God I hate service in HK sometimes. It is so much process, much paper, so many company chops. I went to return and even exchange and argyle sweater. Well the new sweater (same pattern but different color and smaller size) was actually 32 dollars cheaper (HK money). Brilliant. So after taking 20 minutes to locate a supervisor (and having lost my patience to the poor part-time sales lady) they return my money (which I even question, the good samaritan I sometimes am). As I walk attempt to walk out of the store, the ladies stop me as they realize that they need to refund my credit card instead of giving me cash. For 4 US dollars! This takes another 25 minutes and I am so irritated at this point I just wanted to forget the whole thing. Sogo is a Japanese department store that incidentally no longer exists in Japan. Sadly it is one of the better 'service' stores here in return-unfriendly HK.

Matty

2006-02-07T05:07:00.000-08:00

Matt is here. I am all warm and fuzzy and tired. He makes me tired- not like a rat in a cage - but because I am so comfortable around him. I almost fell asleep on the ride home from the airport today. He just arrived tonight from Las Vegas. He is crashing in HK tonight.

I am trying to study up on my Korean, and frankly I am so not into it. I forget how much I have a distaste for school or school like elements. I am trying, calling on Kwang for help, I am not convinced that he knows all the differences between the participles either.

Daily Exercise

2006-02-05T21:12:00.000-08:00

So I am trying to exercise everyday... and it is working! I always forget how good it FEELS to be active. I always get derailed somehow and forget the euphoria of just moving. I ran for 6+ miles this morning and I do feel like a million bucks. I wanted to write it down because I keep forgetting that this is the feeling to live for.