far cathay
I'm still pretty high from Chinese New Year. The prolonged break from the frustrations of ladypose moil, combined with the fact that I'm reading The Travels of Marco Polo, a mostly-true catalog of Marky Marc's impressions of unfamiliar provinces, has my soul incandescing daily with delight at the myriad subtle ways in which the Chinese mode of life differs from the Western. The lady in the street, trotting after me with my dropped glove, shouts, "Big sister! Big sister!"; the grocery store cashier yells to the old lady who abandoned her basket and went back for a bunch of spring onions, "Grandmother! Hurry up!" This pastry, served up alongside peanut and coconut shortbread, was flavored with sugar and ground seaweed, musty and dusty and oceany, unlike anything I'd ever tasted before, but so delicious and perfect. Sorry. I've been sitting here trying to think of how to put my good feelings into words without venturing into Mawksville or the trite latitudes. It's hard! The world is full of people, life is sweet, and my dispo this evening is sunny. I guess that's all.
Anywayz, wanna look at some dogs being publicly humiliated?
Sponsored by Camel.
I'm normally not much of a noodler, but I tried some today at a Muslim restaurant. It was 6RMB (=US$0.88) for that huge mess of miàn, a bowl of mutton broth to wash it down, and at the end, a bowl of hot water (drink it? or wash hands with it? I didn't know; I drank it). Also, every table had a ceramic dish full of garlic; the other diners were all holding toes of garlic in one hand, chopsticks in the other, alternating bites of food with bites of raw garlic. I ate three cloves; I can't smell myself, but I MUST be sporting an invisible aurora of stink lines right now. Cancel my scheduled afternoon makeouts.
Shoyu = soy sauce. Didn't buy (presumed loathsome).
Anywayz, wanna look at some dogs being publicly humiliated?
Sponsored by Camel.
I'm normally not much of a noodler, but I tried some today at a Muslim restaurant. It was 6RMB (=US$0.88) for that huge mess of miàn, a bowl of mutton broth to wash it down, and at the end, a bowl of hot water (drink it? or wash hands with it? I didn't know; I drank it). Also, every table had a ceramic dish full of garlic; the other diners were all holding toes of garlic in one hand, chopsticks in the other, alternating bites of food with bites of raw garlic. I ate three cloves; I can't smell myself, but I MUST be sporting an invisible aurora of stink lines right now. Cancel my scheduled afternoon makeouts.
Shoyu = soy sauce. Didn't buy (presumed loathsome).