SpanishPod::Behind the podcast

Enjoy the video!

Warm Shanghai Rain

It’s 66 degrees F in Shanghai, and it’s been raining hard most of the day.  It’s nice; I get a lot done on a rainy day.

Above is a quick two-minute tour of our new offices.  Of course, it’s nothing compared to Google Zurich, because goodness knows with the internet these days you can’t go an hour without your bubble being burst.

Rush Limbaugh told Republicans in Indiana to use their constitutional right to vote for some procedural strategy, meant to subvert the majority.  I guess they’re just not into the spirit of democracy….

Finally, Dr. B links to an article called Inventing Illegal Immigration.  Let’s all stop pretending fear of undocumented immigrants is not racism and xenophobia.

And here’s what I’m thinking about lately:  I’m so over Krashen.  I mean, input hypothesis, monitor theory, natural order, affective filter… it’s all nice, but is any of that quantifiable?  i + 1 is so linear.  How does he know it’s not i + 10 over time?  Oh well.

It’s been hella.

Ok, it’s 11pm on a Wednesday night. I haven’t blogged for real in, what weeks? And I know I’ve alienated all my readers and left some people hanging. Sorry everyone.

I’m surprisingly busy at work, even with L gone. After work today, I gave a Spanish lesson to D and J. Chinese people have it in their mind that Spanish is hard because of the /r/ and the /j/; yet they think Japanese is a breeze. It was slightly mind-blowing when I told them that the /r/ in “toro” was the same /r/ in “arigato.” Of course, they over-pronounced it [aligato] when trying to isolate the sound, but when they said the word at natural speed it was the same damn /r/. Right now I’m finding some verb pictures on the web, so we can really get down to business.

Tonight I went to the grocery store, had dinner at KFC (I was in a hurry!). MeiYou Pharmacy 没有药店 was closed. Came home, did a load of laundry, make one-night pickles, pork/beef adobo for lunch tomorrow. I still need to go to pharmacy, get a hair cut, etc. but that’s going to have to happen tomorrow. I had to skip trivia.

So I got back from Seattle on Saturday night, crashed, got my isht together on Sunday morning, and went into work in the afternoon. It has been bright and sunny lately, 75 degrees with a light breeze, and honestly, it’s been hard to concentrate; seattlititis.

Anyway, here’s what I brought back for pasalubong:  cancer hats, a baseball cap, coffee beans, dry erase markers, aplets & cotlets (the chocolate ones, too).

For myself, I bought some fat guy shirts, two pairs of shoes, three pairs of shorts, a bunch of books, and some blood pressure pills.  A bike lock.  An iPod boombox.  No big whoop.

Here’s what I failed to bring back:  sipit, tortillas, jazz fake book, magnetic white board eraser.

One thing I’ve picked up from my cowsins:  Three Sheets.  I only watched one episode (Taipei), but I was intrigued by the slick cultural presentations that were nestled between binge drinking segments.

test poll

yah yah, i know i haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve been meaning to, but so busy.

I promise I’ll post later. For now, take my test poll.

$3.59/gallon = cheap?

So I’m in Las Vegas, where gas is ten cents cheaper than in Seattle.  There’s at least one person saying that gas will eventually climb to $10/gallon, which has got to be the end of America’s automobile-centric lifestyle that Detroit has been selling us since World War II ended.  Still Seattle Times wants to stall on a vote to extend light rail.  Pathetic!   What are we going to do when stingy suburban voters finally are able to stamp out urban sustainability?  Sigh.

I’m going to use my economic stimulus check as a down payment on a condo in downtown Aberdeen, or something.  Bremerton.  Port Angeles, maybe.

Who am I kidding, I’m spending my money on ecco shoes and blood pressure medicine.  And Sharpies, because I can’t find sharpies in Shanghai.

Jetlagged in Vegas

So my sister and I are in Vegas now, hanging out with my parents. There was a roast leg of lamb waiting for us when we got home, and mama stir-fried some pea shoots with garlic. There was also fresh walnut bread, banana bread with walnuts, and a bite of Auntie L’s “sans rival,” which tasted very buttery. I was to hungry to take pictures.

So I feel like I slept for days, even though I’ve only slept five hours tonight (it’s 4:30 am) and I didn’t nap today, except for a few minutes during take off. I get sleepy during take off; I drift off, and then wake up ten minutes later feeling like I slept all night long.

That’s right, folks, who else do you know flies across the world to blog about sleep?

Anyway, I’m wide awake now, and I’m thinking about either sneaking into the kitchen and making myself a snack that I’m not hungry for, or reaching for the remote and watching some mindless American television.

I’ll keep you posted. Until then, check out this sweet link to SpanishPod from Men’s Health Magazine.  Not bad, eh?

Jiggety-jig

I’m home again! Yay! The flight was uneventful, customs was a breeze. I’ve had two meals so far, and there will be photos of what I’m eating. Weather here in Seattle is lovely; traffic is calm and orderly, everything seems very civilized and uncrowded. My schedule seems way out of whack. I bought a new bike lock that should baffle the bike thieves in Shanghai.

No place like home.

I watched the new episode of BSG, it was a trip, as always. I appreciate this guy’s take on the opening credits (maybe first watch the real ones here).

Farewell, Factory!

POD only knows from PraxisLanguage on Vimeo (higher quality video)

Never a dull moment

The past two weeks have been crazy.  It’s kind of been like finals week, staying up late trying to get your grading done for the deadline.

Two weeks ago I was working late every night, trying to publish lessons a month into the future.  It would have been a lot easier if we had had a reliable internet connection.  Lucky for me, the team was great, everybody was on board.  We worked until it fried our brains; by the time we got off work that Friday we were tired and sloppy.  It ended up being a great night for E’s surprise birthday party at the Basque society house.

Then last week was nuts as well; we filmed a lip dub video and packed up the office.  My cleaning lady, who was also the office cleaning lady, got in a trashy Shanghainese shouting match with C.  We all sat on our hands and watched it happen for a good 45 minutes, because that’s what we do in China.  At one point the trashy Shanghainese shouting match moved past my desk, and I was brought into it; C suggested to me that I fire her as well.  It took me a few minutes to realize C might have been tagging me in, so I got up and tried to shut the cleaning lady up by standing between them and yelling back at her.  She looked right through me.  I tried to push her out of the office, but she wasn’t going anywhere, so it was either escalate or sit down.  I chose to sit down, because I’m not going to fight the cleaning lady.  I was told later that a) she wanted to get paid for days she didn’t work, and b) I was not expected to intervene.

By noon we had packed up Studio Fiesta and we were sitting at the new office, waiting for the truck to arrive.  The new offices are much nicer than the old place, my desk overlooks Suzhou Creek, and I have to say it was a lovely, sunny day.  The skies were almost fully blue, even!

Later that day, as we were unpacking and setting up the new office, one of the movers starts screaming at one of the accountants.  And of course, because it’s China, we all go about our business, just ignore that man screaming his face off at that woman.  In the US if someone is screaming at a woman, we would immediately drop what we were doing and step in, but we went a good half an hour letting him go on.  At one point, C got so irritated, he turned to me and said, I’m going to throw him out the window.  He turned to the dude and said, hey, shut up!  Shut up!  in English.

That was all I needed.  I took off my jacket and we went over there.  C got in the guy’s face and said, you shut up, I’m going to throw you out the window.  I yelled at him from where I was standing a few tables over, you lower your voice ha!  (the ha! is a pangasinan threat particle, like “you hear me?”) I don’t want to hear your voice! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m loud.  I used to teach marching band.  Also, my family invented psychotic screaming intimidation.

The man did a micro-nod and then cowardly turned his back to us, and continued to plead his case to the accountant in a lower voice.

Later, when the movers left, the accountants and the movers came to some sort of agreement; there was payment, and the movers were about to leave.  C said something funny, and I laughed, which re-ignited the screamer, who thought I was laughing at him.  He started screaming at me, but as he walked out of the office, angrily gesturing toward me as he waited for the elevator.  I knew exactly what he was doing, he was trying to save face, look tough in front of his friends, because I had humiliated him.  Later I saw him still shouting and shaking his fist at me in the plaza as he walked out to the street.  What a joke. Later they told me he was angry because my company had sold our used office furniture to someone else, and not him, so he wanted us to give him money.  For not selling him.  Our garbage.

Saturday I bought a bike and rode all over the place.

Sunday morning I went riding around as well, and when I came back, the cleaning lady had done the dishes and was doing the laundry.  I said, oh, you’re here.  I washed the dust and pollen off my face, and she asked, are you sick?  I said, not sick.  And then I took out her pay for April and gave it to her.  She said, do you still want me to continue to work here?  And I said, not want.  And I left.

Hung out with A and H for a few hours, came back home, and found that the cleaning lady had just stopped what she was doing and had left.  Buh-bye.

Monday went to dinner after work with E; last night went to L’s new house.  L cooked choriqueso and fajitas and we all sat on the balcony talking about the economy and the company.

In three days I’ll be back in Seattle.

Pork Adobo Recipe

So my mama makes pork adobo her way, and I make it mine. Mine is a little more austere.

I buy a lean cut of pork, not too much fat, but not loin either, because that has so little fat that it would turn out tough. Cube it. Put it in a wok. Put in just enough Japanese soy sauce (Chinese soy sauce is too thick and sweet) so that every piece will get a little dressing of salty goodness. Pour in enough vinegar so that even the chunks on the top layer of the pork-crowded pan are soaking in it, but not covered. Turn the heat to a low simmer.

Crack some pepper corns with your mortar and pestle, throw them in. Smash some garlic with your knife and pull off the peel, and put those in… one or two cloves for every person that will be served; three cloves per person if you’re serving ilokanos, because no sense skimping on garlic. Throw in some bay leaves, and a half glass of whatever red wine you’re drinking.

Here’s where my mama would put worcestershire, bagoong alamang, and a squirt of ketchup, but I skip those steps. I’m a minimalist, and to me those are just three more flavors of salty.

Anyway, throw it all together, cover, let it simmer for as long as you can, at least 25 minutes. Stir occasionally. Do other stuff. Make rice. Dice tomatoes and dress them with raw garlic that has been crushed with kosher salt. The longer you let it simmer the better.

When it’s getting close to serving time, remove the lid, and let the liquid reduce to a thick sauce that coats the chunks of meat. There should be no soupiness; the garlic cloves may have disintegrated.

If you’ve chosen a fattier cut of pork, you can soak up some of the extra fat at this point with a paper towel. Me, I usually choose leaner cuts, so I usually skip this step.

Then, add a couple tablespoons of olive oil and sautee for a minute or two, so that the meat looks toasty.

Transfer to serving dish, set the table, serve with garlic tomatoes and steamed rice. And for goodness sakes, don’t let anyone try to eat the bay leaves.

Here’s mama’s version:

Just what I needed

Oh my goodness, I just checked my reader and I found that I got a big link from Unfogged.  Do I look ok?

It’s been a couple weeks since I posted, and it’s because I’ve been slammed, nay, slizzammed, at work.  Next week our office is moving, so we have to get ahead for that.  The following week, I’m traveling home to Seattle (and Las Vegas) for some family time, so we have to get ahead for that.  The week after that, L has the week off for T&N’s wedding, so we have to get ahead for that.

So do all the math, and basically we had five days to publish five weeks of lessons.  Oh, and I had to write some text for a grammar guide.  Oh, and I had to write some text for a placement test.  Oh, and let’s have a marketing meeting.  Anything else? Oh the backdrop:  internet is in and out every ten minutes.

Anyway, the result was that I’ve been pulling some long days, asking the team to work until they are crispy fried.  Actually, it kind of felt like having to grades in for a report card.

Anyway, forget that.  Last weekend N found a couple of tickets to his school’s fancy black-tie optional auction at a five star hotel, so A and I put on the best clothes and went for dinner.  I wouldn’t have gone under normal circumstances, as I always hated having to schmooze with my students’ filthy rich parents.  But A was excited about a night of glamor, and of course I wanted to see N, who was working as the auctioneer’s wing man.  N was great.  Dinner was great.  And since I don’t work there, the parents couldn’t schmooze me.  Best of all words.

This week was crispy fried week at work, as I described above.  After work on Friday I was worthless, but instead of the comfort eating and going to bed early that I would have done after turning in grades, I met the gang at Big Bamboo for a pint of Guinness and something called the chicken Cordon Bleu schnitzle.  I would not lie to you about that.  A and I went to a foot massage after that (my massage crush #68 was working on someone else when I walked in, and I had to remind myself not to be jealous), and after that we went to a cozy bar the size of a hallway for some cocktails made by some meticulous Japanese bartenders.  I am under orders not to give out information about this bar. So I won’t. Seriously.

So yesterday I went into work in the morning, got some stuff done, but not as much as I wanted, because seriously the internet is in and out every ten minutes.  My internet at home is not normal as well; I’m not sure whether to suspect crummy infrastructure or government meddling.

I went to my jazz ensemble; they’ve scheduled us for a recital on Saturday, but I’m not sure if we’ll be able to do it, due to people’s personal schedules, and at least one emergency visa run to HK.  We’ll see.

So for some reason the pharmacies are not giving me hydrochlorothyazide, they tell me I need a prescription.  That didn’t stop them last time, but I’ve been to three pharmacies now, and they all refuse to give it to me.  Go to a hospital and get a prescription, they say.  Do you want my American prescription?  No.  So I have to take a day off of work to pay for a doctor’s appointment who will want to run tests and ask me about diabetes and high blood pressure and focosegmental glomerular sclerosis and then, in a week or two when everything is done, they will issue me a script for a little bottle of pills that costs about a dollar.  Screw that.  I’d rather have high blood pressure than go through all that.  And what do the pharmacists say in response?  Meh.  They don’t care.  They stopped caring when I asked for the bottle in the first place.  I’ll have to run to the Philippines to get blood pressure pills.  Good excuse.

Yesterday was E’s surprise party.  We all dressed up in disguises and showed up at the Basque clubhouse.  My disguise was my fake mustache.  Oh yah.  There was tortilla de patata, tuna salad on crackers, little skewers of anchovies, green olives, and quail eggs; lox, a big paellera full of fideos and chopped squid, toped with aioli; and chuleta, which was beef tenderloin that was just seared on the outside and raw on the inside and delicious on a piece of bread.  There was dancing, fire crackers, and a crazy scene on the sidewalk of locals peering into the window, which later became a crazy amazing drunk carousel of languages.  I am not what it means yet, but I’ve been assured that I’m somebody’s tottero.

When I got home around 2am, I noticed that I had BSG season 4 episode 2 ready to watch.  Just what I needed.

Just so you all know, I am the final Cylon.

100 Lessons and Counting; more weekend decadence.

So we celebrated our 100th SpanishPod Lesson last Friday by launching our YouTube channel. There was also a delicious 6 o’clock bottle of Patrón given to us appropriately by our patrón, and there was all-you-can-eat/all-you-can-drink izakaya at Shirokiya, salsa dancing at Silver Moon, and then a couple of numbers at the big JZ Club.

Yesterday I woke up and went to the fabric market to meet my friends who had had tuxes made, and to pick up a few shirts that I had made for myself.  Well, I met my friends, but NO SHIRTS.  My 老朋友 apologized and asked me to come back tomorrow.  BOO.  So everyone went home with clothes except me.  Anyway, I introduced them to Bellagio, where they treated me to lunch (sweet!)

There was a few down hours between lunch and the FOOT MASSAGE OF THE CENTURY.  Maybe it’s because I was tired, or maybe my foot masseur was some kind of genius, but I have a total foot massage crush on #68.  It was mind-blowing, eye-crossing good.

After a serious debate about whether or not to go another hour, we left and got the laffa bread salad at Element Fresh.  Later hung out at A’s until it was time to go to a screening of the Flight of the Concords.   Some people had pirated the cd and were projecting three-episode sets in their studio loft in Taikang Lu.

This morning I went back to the ol’ fabric market to pick up my new linen shirts, stopped by work, went to the grocery, etc.  Tomorrow, back to work.

Decadence Saturday, and What I Want from the USA

Decadence Saturday:

• Took a cab to the fabric market, met my friends who were getting measured for tuxes for a black-tie auction they have in two weeks.  These tuxes are made-to-measure, for about the price it costs us to rent a tux in the US.  N got both a black tux jacket and a white dinner jacket.
• Cabbed back to my neighborhood, went to Davidico’s Cafe and ordered xiao long bao, sheng jiao, chao qing cai, chao he fen, hao you niurou tiebo fan, and three tall boys.  Lunch came out to about $6 USD.  Those jinqiao boys were shocked at how cheap it was.
• Went to the office, recorded a podcast.
• Walked down the street, got haircut, shampoo, blowdry; about $2.50 USD.
• Went to antique market, M bought a vase from his vase guy.
• Later, I got a foot massage at Yide.  Could my day have been more metrosexual?

I’m starting a list of things I want to do when I come home to the US this month.

• Buy one (or two!) pairs of new ecco shoes.
• Buy a jazz fake book; and guitar sight-reading book
• Buy a box of my favorite green ink pens
• Stock up on GUM floss picks
• Eat at the Pig Iron
• Eat at el asadero, the tacobus.

Besides that, hanging out with family and friends.  The schedule is going to be tight.

The 2008 San Patricio Limerick Festival….

… has moved!

Please bring your best original limericks to fluency!

Aw hell, bring your worst original limericks, too, it’s a festival, baby!

It’s going on now! now! now!   So get over there!

Or, check out my new belt.

Some notes before the limericks start.

Yah yah, I’ll start the limerick festival in the next post.  You all better spread the word in your own blogs!

Just some quick notes:

• Friday night:  cheese fondue.  Saturday:  foot massage and then all you can eat/drink Japanese food.  Today, dinner in Pudong with friends.  I should leave the house soon to buy my requisite bottle of wine from Trader Zhou’s.
• Went back to the Fabric Market today, ordered three pairs of jeans (copies of my Levi’s), one pair of linen pants to match the jacket I already bought, and another linen suit.
• The cash machine at the Fabric Market wasn’t working, so I walked down the street and stumbled into the fabric neighborhood, where you go to buy your fabric by the yard (except metric) off the bolt, and all of the separate businesses that make up the clothes-made-to-order industry.  I bought me a black belt, finally; it is a crazy belt with no holes.  The buckle actually has a mechanism that cinches the belt, and then releases with a secret level.  Cool!  The buckles to choose from were all designer logos made into metal; i.e., ugly.  So I chose a buckle with a small kangaroo on it.  It’s probably a Chinese brand name, but whatever.  we’ll see.

Limerick Festival?

I’m probably going to start it tomorrow.  Would anyone even notice if I didn’t hold one this year?

Today I picked up my clothes at the fabric market:  pants, linen jacket, velvet corduroy  jacket.  I might go back tomorrow and order more linen… and maybe jeans.  After that, I went to work for four hours, got a lot done.  Then there was rehearsal, a foot massage that was a little too hard, and then all you can eat/drink teppanyaki.  A suggested that I go out and hang with her and A, which would be totally fun, but i was looking forward to being home and doing nothing.  So that’s what I’m doing, and it’s wonderful.

Quick notes…

…. before I crash into bed

• Apparently Bjork played Shanghai recently, and her final song was about an independent Tibet.  Safe bet she’s no longer in China.
• China Merchant’s Bank is a giant steaming pile of shit.  Today they wouldn’t give L his replacement card because he didn’t have a 10 kuai receipt.  Because that’s the key to secure accounting.
• Went to see David Beckham at the LA Galaxy game last night, vs, Shanghai/Hong Kong United.  This morning my 老师summed up the state of Chinese soccer: 特别特别特别特别特别特别的差。
• I’m officially looking for tickets to Seattle for last week of April/first week of May.  Can’t wait.

Mama vs. 1/2 Crab (repost)

So don’t watch this video if you’re a crab rights activist.  I originally took this video in the summer of 2005, but didn’t get around to posting it until December of 2005.  Now it’s February 2008, and I just discovered I had for some reason set this video to private.  Whoops.  I’ve reset it to public, and to celebrate, I’m reposting it here.

So the story is that my cowsins and I bought a bunch of seafood for a seafood boil, and it was cowsin C’s job to buy a crab.  She showed up with a big crab, and since it was already steamed, we were going to leave it for last to go in the pot.  Well, we filled the pots and finally it was time for the crab, so we opened the package, and that’s when we realized, the crab wasn’t steamed at all; it was alive.

Since the pots were mostly full and already cooking, the only way that crab was going into the pot was in pieces.  All of us were pretty squeamish, but we managed to talk the guest of honor, my mama, into doing the honors.  She was reluctant to come out of retirement, but really, we were all too scared to do the deed.   And as you can see in the video, the crab didn’t like being chopped in half.

If I had known it was alive, and had an empty pot, I would have steamed it whole first, instead of chopping it up.  Just in case you’re wondering, it was delicious.

Chega De Saudade

So the new chart at jazz ensemble yesterday was No More Blues (Chega De Saudade).

So the original is Brazilian Portuguese; click here for the lyrics with their English equivalent. It’s a charming song about the woman that got away, wishing you had her back. Like most bossa nova songs, the simplicity of its presentation masks a minefield of sophisticated jazz chords… i.e., accidentals. Oh, A section is minor, B and C are major.

There are English lyrics, but they’ve kind of got an anti-travel, give-up-on-your-adventures, everything-is-better-back-home, domestic-bliss type theme to them. I’ll be singing the Portuguese lyrics…

No more blues, I’m going back home
No more blues , I promise no more to roam
Home is where the heart is; the funny part is
My heart’s been right there all along

No more fears, and no more sighs
No more tears , I’ve said my last good-byes
If travel beckons me I swear I’m going to refuse
I’m going to settle down, and there’ll be no more blues

Everyday when I am far away
My thoughts turn homeward, forever homeward
I’ve travelled round this world in search of happiness
But all the happiness I found was in my hometown

No more blues, I’m going back home
No more blues, I’m through with all my wanderings
Now I’ll settle down and live my life
And build a home and find a wife
When we settle down, there’ll be no more blues
Nothing but happiness
When we settle down, there’ll be no more blues.

 

Food Porn

Food porn. Thanks, Vanessa at Accidental Hedonist.

Meanwhile, JP is eating kimchi fried rice with tuna.

My mama is a riot!

She makes pork adobo. She makes low-definition YouTube videos. Donald Trump reminds her of a chicken anus. Her dog has a myspace page.

Happy birthday, Mama! You are the coolest! I love you!

Also, happy birthday, AJ. Hope you’re staying out of trouble!

Touched A Nerve

So the response to Stuff White People Like has been tremendous, and highly entertaining. As I said in the previous post, I found the site through Unfogged, which has subsequently published two more related posts: My Thought On Whiteness, and God Hates You All, each of which themselves are worth hours and hours of fun reading. Love it.

Maybe the blog is mean-spirited; maybe white folks would be reaching for high-fives if it were presented by Jeff Foxworthy. Some people are claiming that SWPL is showing liberals in a bad light, and will make people vote Republican (ha!). But let’s face it, no hate crimes will arise from this, no white person is going to lose opportunities for employment, housing, or education because of it. So why has this SWPL getting such a huge response?

Must have touched a nerve. You know, I’ve been living among the Chinese now for five months, and I do find Chinese culture (with a little /c/) baffling sometimes. I’d love to know a) why they can’t let people off the subway? b) why is there only one cashier at the bank? c) why won’t they take back the bad wine? d) why don’t they walk in a straight line when I’m walking behind them?

But I’ve lived among White Americans most of my life, and there are many many honest questions I have about them that still baffle me, like a) how can they drink so much dairy? b) why do they leave shit in my car? c) why do they clap on the 1 and the 3? d) what exactly do they get out of parties where you stand around for hours holding a beer? Couldn’t you achieve all those same goals without the standing around for hours part?

So here’s a question: If I started a website in China, wrote it in Chinese, and I listed things that Chinese people like, for example, dogs, recycling, or only having one employee at a bank who is qualified to accept money, do you think Chinese people would give a rat’s ass? Neither do I.

Bright and Sunny

It’s bright and sunny in Shanghai; I slept in as long as I could, but I had to get up when I heard the cleaning lady.

We just had a long, hilarious, and frustrating conversation about 红豆饼，

 

so right now, the Great Fire Wall is preventing me from seeing and downloading respectable-sized pictures of hong dou bing, so what you see is what you get. So these little sandwiches of pancake batter and filling are baked off in an electric griddle in the shape of hockey pucks….  My question for the cleaning lady was, “what are these called in Chinese.”  The little card I took from the shop calls them 红豆饼 (red bean cakes) and then says there are other flavors as well; custard cream, peanut butter, taro, blacks sesame seed… and tuna.

Anyway, I tried to ask what these particular pancake pucks are called in Chinese, and all I got was “red bean cake.”  I asked, what if it’s filled with custard cream?  “Custard cream cake.”  Peanut butter?  “Peanut butter cream cake.”

Is there one name for this whole class of pancake puck?   Yes, she answered.  Yes.  There is one name for each flavor, red bean cake, custard cream cake….

But is there a single word that describes all these kinds of cakes?   Yes, she said.  Each flavor has a separate name.

So if I told my friend, I said, if I told my friend that I was going out to get “red bean cakes” and ask him what flavor he wants…. No, she interrupts, red bean is red bean.

So… what if I’m going out for “red bean cakes” and want to ask my friend what flavor he likes?  Don’t ask him, she said, just by the kind you like.   Custard cream is good. Be careful, because tuna is not sweet.

So I’ll just call all of them 饼 (cakes).  Yes.

But there are many kinds of 饼!  Fried 饼, steamed 饼, baked 饼… what do you call this specific kind of 饼?

Well, she says, this one is red bean, this one is custard cream, this one is tuna…

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I’m asking the landlord to take his two massive TV sets and the ugly ass desks he has them sitting on, as well as the stereo/vcr cabinet with separate floor speakers, which don’t work.  Na zou le!  Get it out of here!

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Unfogged linked to a blog called Stuff White People Like, and I subsequently read it from cover to cover (so to speak).  It’s so funny how resistant white americans are to being addressed as a cultural group (Zero-culture hypotheses; they think that they’re just “normal”).  What’s also funny is how defensive some of the commenters are about the crimes of ‘generalization’ and ‘innacuracy.’  Hurts, don’t it!  Ha ha, suckers, do you think America is some equality party where everyone gets to live their entire life without critically examining their own cultural tendencies?  Shut up and eat your fusion cuisine.

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The cleaning lady gifted me a big packet of pistachios and some candied Mandarin oranges.  Gong xi fa cai!  According to custom, I claimed I was too embarrassed, tried refuse, and then accepted the gift.  I didn’t get her anything from the Philippines, whoops.

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Praxis Language founder and visionary Ken Carroll was interviewed for a New York Times article on internet language learning today, and gave SpanishPod a shout out.  I will post my thoughts over at fluency.

I miss the 90s

After watching this episode of the Simpsons (season 33, episode 11)  I wish I could go back to the 90s, when I was young and broke and believed in things like friendship and America.  And Seattle was the center of the music world.

Since I graduated from high school in the Class of 1990, this song was an unofficial theme song (hands in the air during the chorus):

Oh backwards baseball cap, why did I ever stop wearing you?

When I was a high school teacher, the kids used to dress up for Spirit Week.  The kids used to get after me for not dressing up, and I usually told them, flatly, that I didn’t have any school spirit.  Because I didn’t.  But one time the asked me why I didn’t dress up for Decades Day.  I told them, children, I dress up every day; for me, every day is the 90s.

The one day they did have 90s day, it was awesome, for once the kids looked NORMAL.  Except they had to go out and buy brand new clothes to be “grungy” and the truth is, it was really more 90s stereotype day than actual 90s day, but seriously, for once they didn’t dress like Dumb Ass and Slutty McSlutterson.

Anyway, the 90s are over, hell the 00’s are almost over.  Now I work in the corporate world, in a corporate town.  Here’s a publicity shot (thanks Frank Fradella and Bazza).

You will be assimilated.  Resistance is futile.   SpanishPod.com.

A Gay-Friendly Stand-off.

So I’ve always been a musician, and in my last job, there was a big fat musical component.  In my current job, there isn’t much, so I decided to enroll in the JZ School, a spin-off of the JZ Club, whose mission is to bring the Shanghai back to the glittering glory days it once enjoyed as a jazz hot spot back before the war and the cultural revolution came in and wrecked everything.

It’s awesome, and I’ve been placed as a singer in an ensemble; piano, guitar, drums, sax; and our instructor plays bass.   And me, the singer.  Yes, I pay a fee to be in it, but I’m meeting a lot of great people, so hopefully gigs will follow.

Anyway, today was the second rehearsal for me, and we were all coming back from an extended break due to Chinese New Year.  So our instructor N passed out some new charts, and among them was “Loverman,” where the singer prays for her (or his) loverman to come make love to her (or him).

So I looked at the chart and said, oh yah, I’m gonna be singin’ about makin’ love to a man!

N said, if you have a problem with it, you can change it to “Lover Gal,” (which we all know would not only be preposterous, but also a crime against jazz).

No, I said, I don’t have a problem.  I’m going to sing about makin’ love to a man, and that’s that!  Maybe I’ll wear a dress!

N said, we can all wear dresses, if that makes you feel more comfortable.

Thank you, I said, that would be nice of you all.  We can go shopping together.

/end slightly tense gay-friendly stand off.

I’ve sung worse at karaoke.