My decision to give up trying to learn Chinese a year or so ago felt wrong in some ways as one should really make an effort to communicate in the language of the place they're living in as it is the right thing to do, but this language is so hard to grasp and was more frustrated than inspired. I feel more justified in that decision in light of the G-20 summit that just went down in China last week where the big scandal in China was Premier Xi's stepping all over his Mandarin. To quote from a Hong Kong rag..."In a speech Saturday to the Business 20 (B20) summit, which advises the G-20 leaders on policy decisions, Xi talked about the global economy and quoted an ancient Chinese phrase: "Make the tariff light and the road smooth, promote trade and ease agricultural policy." But because the last character in the phrase for agriculture is very similar to the one for clothes, he ended up saying “taking one’s clothes off” instead of "ease agricultural policy". If the most powerful man in China can't understand it, how is a white boy from the Valley supposed to speak it without starting an international incident. It is funny that in the aftermath of the above faux pas, the Chinese censors have been busy scrubbing their Internet to remove all traces of the misstatement. Nothing to see here.
Hosted a cooking class the other day...don't usually get together with the ladies groups cause frankly, they don't invite me often and kinda feels awkward, but organized this one as one of my friends is from Singapore and makes a mean Chili Shrimp and she offered to show us how. Chili shrimp is similar to Chili crab and if you know it, you know how amazing it is. Can't recall ever seeing it in the States but it is worth searching out. Anyhoo, had 6 ladies over and the process was laborious but think I'll be able to recreate it in the future. One of the best things about living overseas in an expat enclave is that you are constantly in contact with people from other cultures and in this group we had a Singaporean, another Yank, a Taiwanese and three Koreans. After a couple hours cooking, we were all friends and the ladies started opening up. Talking about one of the new teachers and how cute he was, stuff like that. Two of the Korean ladies had known each other a long time and one says to the other, do you still have that crush on Al Gore? Al Gore? Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, and am self-aware enough to know that I am a big beneficiary of that, but that one hit my funny bone. Saw this lady in the school lobby a couple days later and from across the crowded I yells "Hey...Al Gore". Hope I get invited to the curry cooking class in October. To be fair, he was pretty hot and is a documented tongue sucker.
Wrapped up the US travelogue thing last time, but had a couple of other notes to clean up. One thing I love about the States is the Game Show Network. Any opportunity I had to vegetate in the hotel, I scanned the dial for it and was rarely disappointed. Richard Dawson set the standard, but Steve Harvey does an admirable job hosting the Family Feud. He doesn't get all pervy with the ladies and seems uncomfortable/confused with the sexual innuendos, but exudes a joy that is hard to deny. Always up for playing along and is a great game to play with friends and family. Match Game is another that plays on a loop on GSN...the old Gene Rayburn ones. I remember the TV babysitting me and watching Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly and (again) Richard Dawson teaching me how to joke about sex at the age of 9 or 10. They were so effin' funny. There is a new Match Game with Alec Baldwin of all people hosting. Not as good as the 70's version, but has a ton of potential.
The Boy is searching for a hair cut that works. It'll look OK for a few weeks, but he has this part that just won't behave like the rest of his hair. We 'lovingly' goof on it as we are wont to do and he says that a barber/hairdresser told him once that his skull is misshapen and that is the cause for his unruly locks. That's the kind of full service one has come to expect at Supercuts. We then had the ammo we needed to goof on it some more, with this additional "lobe" being cited for all of life's maladies with the main theme being that he had a twin in the womb but he absorbed it and that his lobe was the residual proteins and enzymes from his sibling. Ultimately got a second opinion from his pediatrician who advised he did not have an superfluous lobe and she was quite horrified by our theories on it
Another day, the Boy and I are sharing a meal at El Camion and we are talking about Mormons. Had just been to Utah and he has several school chums that are of that denomination and we realized we didn't have any Mormon jokes. A quick google search came up with many but none that made me laugh until we got to one that went, How many Mormons does it take to eat a possum? Three, one to eat it and two to watch out for cars. Most people thought it stupid, and it obviously is a joke about rednecks grafted into the Mormon joke section, but it cracked me up Was telling it often when someone said that it makes no sense as you never see Mormons traveling in groups of more than two. Fair point.
If you remember about this time last year, I shared a story about a deaf lady hitting on me at the Safeway. This summer found my sexy stock rising with another demographic. All across this great nation of ours I was chatted up/hit on by aging motorcycle mamas. None of their flirtations passed the twirling of their hay like hair, raspy voice 'hello there' stage, but it was strange how many of them initiated interaction. I know that you are thinking that I am seeing things but have been around long enough to know a come on when I see one. This group was late 40ish types but could pass for 60, leathery, long time smokers and while not meth addicts, looked like they were familiar with it. I figured that my look of a relatively clean, but not Wall Street tight ass looking type was appealing and attainable and that after a lifetime chasing biker dudes that had left them alone, they are looking for some stability in life. That or just somewhere warm and dry to crash.
If you remember, made a proclamation earlier this year that I was going to try and eliminate the word "very" from my vocabulary and think I've done a bang up job so far. Took this position after hearing someone somewhere say that it was a lazy word and that you can always replace it with something more descriptive and interesting. I guess this is something a both self described and viciously accused liberal elite has time to do, but think it is worthwhile. By doing this, you notice it when others use the word. I hear it a lot from people whose first language isn't English and that makes total sense as they don't have the depth of vocabulary and I absolutely do the same with my poor Spanish and guttural Mandarin. Think about this listening to (every) Trump speech as he says 'very' a lot. Not only that, but he'll double down in the next sentence by repeating the sentence only saying whatever is 'very very' great/huge/etc. Petty I know, but is emblematic of a lazy mind and think he fits the bill. And if you have any thoughts that he might be a good idea leading the country, I dare you to watch this whole clip and still think that way.
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