A programming note. Next week is Chinese New Year and we are heading out of town so there will be no post next week. This trip is to New Zealand and we are gonna spend most of it tooling around the north island in an RV. Should be a hoot and a half.
Chinese New year is a time to clean things up and today's entry is an effort to clear the diary docket so I can start Pig Year with a blank slate.
Our monthly coffee morning this month was about CNY and its traditions. Before I get into the stuff we learned during coffee talk, a dude came up to me before the show started wanting to know what the Center was all about. I told him what the deal was and he thought this event was one for "entrepreneurs". He volunteered at this point that he was a 'Jewish lawyer'. I told him he should stick around anyway cause it should be fun and then he proceeds to say he may but turns around and says there are a lot of women here, 'which would have been good in the past but with 'Me Too', maybe he shouldn't'. We get into a discussion about it and I make the case that if you are worried about getting in trouble for inappropriate behavior towards women, perhaps that should tell you something. I relate that I worked at a place for 18 years that was overwhelmingly female and have worked with women as both my bosses and direct reportees and never was there a question about inappropriate behavior. And if you know me at all, I will push the boundaries of good taste. Have always felt that women are pretty good about letting men know when it is OK to touch them on the shoulder, or if they want you inside them, and when they want nothing to do with you. He said that might have been the case in the past but it is different in the last two years. As I've been out of the workplace for almost 7 years now, that might be true, but am pretty sure that the ones that need to worry now were the ones doing the shit that was over the line 'back in the day'. Seems I'm not the only one with these thoughts as right after typing the above, saw this article positing the same thing.
A couple more PC call outs this week. This article is from a few weeks back, but perhaps you read about police in Houston arresting a guy that killed a little girl in a drive-by shooting. What stuck out to me like a Klieg light was the first sentence.
Activists praised Houston area law enforcement for pursuing a tip that led to the arrest of an African American man in the fatal drive-by shooting of a 7-year-old Black girl
So we are now using the terms African American and Black to describe people in the same sentence? This is from the AP and you'd think they would have landed on one or the other at this point. Have never been a fan of African American as a way to describe people, and do we even need to point out race in this case, but I get why people get all twisted when they get called out on what words they use cause whiplash in figuring out what's right is making my whole body hurt.
Here is one term that I think we can all agree is being used improperly: Conservative pundit Ann Coulter. I will concede that pundit can be used to describe her as long as we agree her expertise is in making inflammatory statements to push her books. But conservative? Unless the definition of that word has changed somehow, she is hardly that. Really, it is hard to find a conservative in the bunch over at GOP headquarters these days. I am as conservative a person that there is and these guys left that station a couple decades ago. Kind of buried in the insane news diarrhea of the last few weeks was Mitch McConnell's Op Ed in the Washington Post about the Voting Rights bills the Dems are pushing. I don't buy the Post online but you can link to it from this Splinter article that does a pretty fair take down of his position. I get that politics are about power, but to even hint that the current incarnation of the GOP gives a single rat's ass about you or me is laughable. Oh yeah, I wasn't even a huge Sonics fan and have consumed a couple tankers filled with his glorious coffee, but fuck you Howard Schultz.
Back to the coffee klatch...we do this Chinese New Year one annually but try to have new speakers to keep it fresh for repeat customers. We had a couple of high school kids from the European school come in to give their perspective and they were lovely in the way they prepared a script in advance and in their earnestness of delivery. I learned a couple of new things. For instance, it never caught my attention but there are bats on a lot of the decorations around this time of year. Seems the word for bat sounds identical to the word luck, so having bats on things is auspicious. You can Wikipedia 'Wufu' to learn more. Auspicious is always a great word and one that I try to use often.
Also heard about a favorite Chinese New Year food thing to try...Buddha Jumps Over the Wall soup. It's got everything in it and is a popular dish to serve on this holiday. It is impossible for people to make it at home unless they are true chefs as the amount of ingredients and time it takes are massive, so they sell it at the stores for big dollars. I'd like to take a taste mainly for the name of it, which was derived for this soup being so good that even big fat Buddha would jump over a wall to get his lips on some. Pretty sure it'll be awful cause these foods are way more miss than hit. For example, someone brought in these traditional cookies to share. Sadly, did not ask what they were called but if I had to guess, would say something along the lines of Angel's Pillows would be in line with their naming conventions.
Should have known better but got suckered into eating one.
Also learned a bit about the horoscope animals. This coming year is that of the Pig. Pigs are said to be the Mother Theresa of the zodiac and you can always count on them to help out. I'm a snake and our coffee morning guests identified them as being the psychics of the realm. I think that is true as I am always saying things that are initially dismissed but almost always come true. A current prediction I have is that body hair will make a roaring comeback and be sexy again by the end of the next decade. Nostrajohnus.
One area that is a black hole as far as prognosticating is sports. That said, the Patriots are definitely winning on Sunday and will surely cover the 2.5 point spread.
On the subject of hair, the crusade to grow mine out continues (head, not body) It is as long now as it has ever been in my life and it is not pretty as it keeps going out instead of laying down. It is becoming a bit too noticeable as many of my acquaintances are asking me 'what's the deal' with it. Have had to explain my lifetime of having bad psoriasis on my scalp and that keeping my hair short was a way of combating it, but a year or so ago, it magically went away and since I have always wanted to know what will happen if left to itself, am giving it a go. My mom had the same scalp condition and it went away for her about my age, but its departure on my head also coincided with a treatment I got from an ayurvedic medicine dealer in Sri Lanka two years ago. Anyhoo, here's a selfie from right now. Getting into Garfunkel territory.
I like horoscope talk of all kinds, and not just the astronomical kinds, but insights into personalities in general. Went off last year about a Myers-Briggs test I took that showed the obvious as to how I am a judgmental personality. A new one of these type of tests is out, and reviewers in the know scoff at the Myers Briggs methodology and claim this one gives a more accurate insight. It was created by the number junkies at Five Thirty-Eight
If you like to do these things, here is a link to the 30 question quiz on the 538 site. I scored pretty average with regards to 'openness to experience', 'extraversion' and 'agreeableness'. I know what you are saying about that last one, but it is true. Mine skewed hard in the other two areas. Being 88 out of 100 on 'conscientiousness' isn't too surprising as I am a bit on the spectrum when it comes to organization and while obnoxious, am a hard worker. The other one that was unsurprisingly tilted hard was the 13 out of 100 for 'negative emotionality'. You'll like this test as it spins positive no matter what you score, but this one hit home as I get called out for not being sentimental or being cold when it comes to emotions like birthdays or death. Betty and I get into heated debates about holding onto stuff. Happened just the other day when we were talking about moving back to the States and I was excited to get into the stuff in storage and 'Marie Kondo-ing' the shit out of it. Betty started to get all bent about me not throwing out any of her things. Nothing flips my switch like going on a organizing spree that includes a bunch of runs to the Goodwill, and nothing flips hers like me throwing away something that she treasures (which is everything as far as I can tell). Heard a funny quote by someone that went something like...being married for a long time and having an argument is like being in a classic rock band in concert. It starts out with the new stuff but you end up playing all the old hits.
One more Betty note...when I meet her work people that she travels with, they inevitably give me a look like 'so this is the guy'? I wonder what she tells them and think I got a little insight the other night at dinner when we are with a friend and are talking about chickens. Specifically, that the chickens one buys in Taiwan, like the rotisserie Costco kind, all come with the head still attached. We all get that this is cultural, is done to prove the freshness of the bird, blah blah blah, but it still throws off us Americans. Betty says, "I know, when Gomez brought the first Costco chicken home with the head, he freaked and thought the head was a penis!" I absolutely did not think it was a penis as not only was I aware of this cultural curiosity, but think that I know a chicken doesn't have an 8 inch penis with a beak at the end of it. If this is the retelling of a story that is common when I'm not around, no wonder these folks think I am some kind of...God only knows what they think.
A Taiwan happening to share for this week. Something that happens to most people many times a week in the States happened to me for the first time here the other day. Am on the Metro/Subway heading downtown on a Saturday evening and the train car is pretty full. A woman that I would say was in her 20's/30's sidles up to me and asks if I speak English. I nod and she goes onto say she is hungry and wants some money to get something to eat. While this would be the norm many places on the planet, I was caught aback. Think we all have feelings on people asking for money and probably like me, have a lot of simultaneous conflicting feelings about it. You want to help people, fear they will use it for drugs or booze, it is the 10th time you've been asked today and have had it with society, etc. I would think it is common, but I make an instant value judgment (a specialty as previously noted) and determine if this person really needs help or is using. This lady gave me the vibe that she had some mental health issues and just by being the first to ever ask, gave her NT$100.
Have shared some Facebook posts in the past of a certain acquaintance that is comedic gold in its lack of self awareness.. It is not quite as epic as the sweatshirt post, but we all got a chuckle with it over dinner during a dramatic reading. Enjoy.
I was touched and surprised by (person's name redacted) invitation to meet her mom and for homemade samosas and chai as she invited mostly close friends. I only met her a few times in her 1.5 years she’s been here but I guess she is grateful that when she arrived I tried to help her find jobs in social work counseling and supporting women who had been victims of domestic violence as I knew she would have a tough time as she didn’t speak Chinese and other little things like helping her bring back her favorite eyeliner from Korea when I was there. So grateful for friends like her who appreciate the little things I do.
Finally for today, here are a couple of classics from the family archive. These surfaced when we were moving my mom out of her apartment and have been wanting to get them scanned for a while, but found them in some old file and must have taken a picture of them along the line.
First is a photo of my folks with Tony Bennett (including signature). Check out the hip coat mom is sporting.
Xinnian kuaile.
Xīnnián kuàilè
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