The Dragon Scroll

So I was sick yesterday, which meant we didn't go outside... which means we watched Kung fu Panda.
I don't know if it was because I didn't eat anything and drank very little all day long, but I got really emotional watching this movie for the umpteenth time. I cried when Master Shifu told Po not to cry. Now Kung Fu Panda 2 was tear jerking for me the first time I watched it. And I am sorry to say I couldn't find that DVD yesterday.
So are there really Dragon scrolls and secret Kung Fu books? There are. We have a story about one at our school. My Sifu had read one at one point. Then he had to burn it because that sort of thing was counter-revolutionary and he probably could have been shot for just owning something that was beyond bourgeious. Sifu survived that time in history but not unscathed. Anyway, a lot of these Dragon Scroll secrets are part of an oral tradition rather than being written down.
Of course nowadays you can by many such secret Kung Fu books on the internet and what not.
A lot of times these Kung Fu secrets seem to be common sense when they are finally revealed to you. Let's take the Dragon Scroll for example. If you are watching Kung Fu Panda, and you don't do Kung Fu, it is a nice story, a moral a fable. If you practice really hard, like Master Shifu, or Tai Lung (as I wrote this I just realized his name means big dragon) if you got the scroll, ceremoniously or unceremoniously you will look at it and think, "What the hell it's blank!" or maybe, "Yeah okay so I'm special I already knew that. This is not what I was expecting or what I worked so hard for."
Another example of blank scrolls is in the Journey to the West. The Tripitaka and his monkey kind crew finally get there finally get the scrolls and then somehow the scrolls fall in the river so they have to dry them out and find that they are blank. They go back to the Western Paradise and Monkey king berates them for cheating them. The Buddhist guards laugh and say that actually the true sutras are blank, but here are some ones with writing anyway if it will make you feel better.
Does mean the dragon scroll is fake? No. Po doesn't understand the scroll as is, because he is still a kung fu beginner (though well trained and full of awesomeness.) However, he is a noodle master. So when he here's the same secret revealed by his father. He gets it. That's right. It is only because Po spend so much time making noodles that he s able to understand the Kung Fu secret.
There is a Kung Fu novel like that too, where inside a cave is written a kung fu secret. All these master's go in and come out and learn nothing from what they read. Except one guy who comes out and becomes super powerful. How did he understand the secret? He didn't know how to read, so he just followed the movements he saw in the strokes.
At the end of Kung Fu Panda, there is a still scene with Po showing the dragon scroll to all these rabbit children he is teaching Kung Fu. Basically sharing the secret with everyone.
I have had exposure to my share of secrets. Some of them were just confirming what I already knew. Some of them were so obvious, and yet I never practiced that way before learning it. And I'm sorry to say, just because I learned something secret doesn't mean I necessarily achieved what the secret was supposed to help me achieve, definitely not to its full potential. Watching Kung Fu Panda yesterday made me realize something. I have been behaving as a business Sifu. Focusing on teaching and trying to get more students etc. Which has become too difficult with my two kids.
But when I first wanted to learn Kung Fu, it was not to teach. I was Po. I wanted to be full of awesomeness.
The training scenes inspired me and so did the Dragon scroll scenes. They made me, in my sickened, vomiting fasting state want to start taking Kung Fu seriously again. For myself. Not for some kids who didn't care or who just were doing it for fun. Sure I could show them the dragon scroll like Po too and inspire them to practice and all that. Then if they did or not was there business. But what I should be focusing on, is my own practice. My own horse stance forms, gung, and maybe even more physical stuff. Maybe I should really try to achieve stuff like finger pushups and pull ups. I already know Kung Fu. So why don't I start making myself a whole new level of awesome.

Bo Jai Yuen

Last night we had nice family outing to the Olive Garden. Oh the joys of eating out with two children who are screaming and trying to climb on the table. I had forgotten why we don't do it. The reason why we did this time was a gift card. But the meal ending up being way more expensive than take out from Royal Palace even with the gift card....
And then there was the added joy of me vomiting starting at 2am. Nobody else did, Thank God. But essentially the vomiting continued until 8:30 when diarrhea ensued and whenever I drink a liquid I vomit again. Oh how I wish I had had some Bo jai yuen. I cursed myself for the many times I passed by Nam Bak Hong in recent weeks and failed to go in and by the $3.00 case of around 12 viles of the red little pellets. I would have paid $10.00 for one vile then. Health really is th most important thing. Mor eimportant by far than wealth. If this is just a little something imagine what it feels to have an illness. Being poor and healthy is much less painful than being rich and ill
"Sun tai geen hong, sun tai geen hong" my inner mind chanted. That and some pub song lyrics, "I'll eat while I'm hungry and I'll drink when I am dry, and if Moon shine don't kill me I'll live till I die.."
I actually didn't have any alcohol, haven't for quite a while but I always associate this gut wretching, toilet bowl clutching, dry heaving feeling with alcohol, whether it is to blame or not.
Actually maybe if I did have alcohol it would have killed whatever bacteria has now incapacitated me.
Never again. I'm never eating out again. I swear.
So the kids are fine, and unruly, Grace has to work this weekend, so Angry Birds and many movies is what it is going to be. I will be feeding them, and probably fasting myself. They are definitely taking advantage of my weakness. They give a crap that I don't feel like moving, they still want to be picked up and dressed and to beat on each other and what have you.
I dpn't even have the strength to get mad. You guys get whatever you want. Good thing it is raining anyway and we couldn't go outside really, sick or not. I'm not dealing with that weight lifting workout today.
Tonight Grace will bring me home so Bo Jai Yuen, and I'll eat it whether I think I'm all better already or not.

Embarrassing car moments.

I do have a driver's license, but it is merely a piece of plastic because I do not and can not drive. I was reminded of this embarrassing fact recently when, someone visiting our house needed me to pull Grace's car up slightly so their giant Lexus Suburban was not hanging out partially on the sidewalk. I get in the car. Now which is the break and gas again? Yeah it's that bad. I switch  the stick thingy, thinking it is supposed to move forward on it's own when it is in the drive position... right?
"Is everything alright?" the visiting Taiwanese woman asks.
"Uhhh.. you know what I'll be honest I don't really drive." and this little moment eventually ends with me handing over the keys to this stranger so that we can move Grace's car up about three feet and park it again.
Now at some point I did actually take lessons and obviously passed a driver's test. When behind a wheel I either drive like a very old man.. or a character in grand theft auto.. there is simply no in between.
There was a tome of few months when Jing, my Si Hing, was in China, and I had use of his car (his permission) to run errands for Sifu. Let me tell you about the time when I went down the street to 88 Supermarket (walking distance) to pick up a case of Chinese rice wine to use in making teet da jao. The problem with being a pedestrian, is that you think you know where you are going in a car, not allowing for one way streets. I drive the way I usually walk and I'm like, "Hey nobody's even using this lane lucky me" as I go full speed down the Silver line Bus lane headed straight for an oncoming silver line bus. I guess that's why nobody was using that lane. I swerve, run over several orange cones and finally start driving vaguely where I am supposed to be. I swerve into the parking lot and parh diagonally in a way that takes up two parking spaces. Not just a little bit. Like a lot. The way Noah would scribble a lot on lined paper instead of writing a sentence.
I couldn't even fix it. I just ran in, bought my damn mai jiu and ran back out and drove somehow back the couple of easily walkable blocks to the Tai Tung Parking lot, where I spent where more time trying to park properly than it would have taken me to walk the whole trip and carry this wine back.
I also had the tendency to beep the horn... not out of impatience or anger, but by accident.
Once while running a red light at the pace of a snail and almost slowly running over a female college student, I beeped the horn as I hit the breaks.
The cop standing right there started chewing me out.
"You were the one that ran the red light! you were the one that is in a crosswalk! You.."
I didn't get defensive or mad, because unbeknownst to him I was not being an asshole, just an idiot. I had my glasses on so that I could make out the street signs and was wearing a collared shirt that would say "mainlander" on a chinese person but on me probably said "preppy."
"Sorry." I said. And he let me go. I don't even think I made to where I was going. I ended up driving back to Tai Tung, parking, and taking the subway.
Obviously at some point I should learn to drive again so that I can taxi my kids around to various places by automobile instead of by stroller. But for now, for the sake of their young lives and the lives of the people on the road sidewalk or anywhere near me, I stay away from the wheel.
So there is my confession for the day.
Embarrassing but true.

A Proper Bostonian

A while ago, long in the past, back when the sidewalks were passable by a double stroller, I was on the Orange Line. I stuffed the stroller by the doors of the train, the ones that don't open until Tufts Medical Center and I sat down next to them, tired, thinking my own thoughts on a crowded train. A woman on the other side was making smiles at my kids. The man she was with, I would say close to Sixty years old, fit muscularly but rough voiced and faced said to me, me who was minding my own business, "Your Kids aren't born here right?" It is not so much the question, but the accusatory tone of it that woke me from my blissful daydreaming frame of mind and began to awaken, ever so slightly, my belligerent nature. But I kept my belligerent self in check.
You see, my older son, the one that sat closer to them, looks more Asian. I do not. Just like my youngest son, who still has blond hair, as I did as a child. So I thought he was implying that my child was either adopted, or not mine.
"They were." I said.
"Yeah but you weren't." he said.
"I was." Making a confused face.
"Yeah but you didn't grow up here. Not in Boston."
"Yeah I did." I smiled but I was beginning to get annoyed. My children sat in their stroller between us though.
"Where were you born."
"I didn't want to answer that. But I answered. "Beth Israel, same as them."
"What neighborhood."
Where the hell was this going? "Why do you ask?"
He made a face as if to say he couldn't hear, cupping his hand over his ear.
"Why do you ask?" I said louder, smiling and annoyed.
"Nope. nope." he said repeatedly shaking his head back and forth vigorously with a smirk. I have seen this type of facial and head gestures in kids, and young arrogant men. Perhaps I made the same movements as a teenager. The type of movements that made me want to put my fist into his face just as vigorously as his head shook and repeat 100 times. But my kids were in between us. But then again, had my kids not been there, I don't think this conversation would have happened at all.
"I've been living here fifty years," He said to the woman, who started to give me looks that said, 'sorry about this' but the man continued.. and any true Bostonian, when I ask them answer immediately, "'South Boston!' no problem, 'JP' no problem, 'Charlestown' no problem..." I was glaring at him now, these were fighting words to me, and frankly, when I was a kid, I considered all the neighborhoods he mentioned to be out a little ways from Boston. South End, Chinatown, and Roxbury (pre-giant police station) were the only places I went on a regular basis for school or other extracurricular activity.
Now let me interrupt me story for a bit. Where am I from? When I grew up in the South End near Chinatown. And as an adolescent when as where I was from I would indeed say where, and it would sound like, "south end NEAR CHINATOWN" emphasis on Chinatown. Why?
Well I will tell you this. I am not a homophobe and I don't think that I ever was. I had a lot of role models growing up who were gay. But, I will say that despite never having really been a bigot towards gays, that after watching Glee and growing up, and changing with the way the coasts popular opinions have changed I would say that I am still less of a homophobe, now than when I was a a child and adolescent. What do I mean? Well, when I was younger it would definitely bother me to be called gay. I am not. But Now I would just correct you if you genuinely thought I was. I wouldn't get upset. I will also say that I used to use homophobic slurs in my youth, (like using the word gay in a negative context) and after many a gay speaker at school explaining why "harmless" slurs were harmful, I eventually dropped those too. So maybe I was a little bigoted back then, but not as much as most of the people around me, and I never actually had a fundamental issue with people being gay.
But I wasn't, going to shout "South End!" in battle cry way the way this guy on the train claimed a true Bostonian would. And even though in my youth I might have cried "Chinatown!" in a moment of foolishness, I won't now. And I am also suspicious of people asking me what neighborhood I am from to prove that I am from Boston. I am not willing to get into some neighborhood confrontation without at least first knowing what it is about. Hence the question, "Why do you ask?"
I will also add that neither the South End nor Chinatown are places where you will cultivate the "Boston accent" which is one of the reasons I don't have one. The other reason is my mother was from Philadelphia and I spent many summers and Christmas's there. I know nothing about Philadelphia except the house of my late grandmother and grandfather. But I do say wueter for water instead of saying wahter. Back to the story.
"You see" he said now at me "A Proper Bostonian like myself.." honestly I can't really remember the rest of the speech. But it had something to do with how he could spot people like me from ten miles a way and knew that I wasn't a real Bostonian.
Now I am not a sports fan, and I don't have the accent.... but hey if I'm not from here then where the hell am I from? Granted I've spent most of my time hanging out with people who weren't even born in this country. You could say that I don't act like someone from Boston. But I resent my hometown being completely taken away from me.
"They," (people like me) the man continued, "also say soda where I say tonic" (I say soda and haven't heard anyone under the age of 50 say tonic in my life) and with that he got of at his stop. The woman gave me a look and said, "Have a nice day."
Obviously he kind of ruined my day. Mainly because as stupid as it sounds, I would have liked to go to blows over this. Just fists. Nothing further than that. And really I shouldn't let crazy people get to me, but sometimes they do. Maybe because I don't have a neighborhood I can just use in battle cry like that.
I could say Chinatown but the truth is, even if I am half-chinese, I look white, and unless you know me, even if you do know me, the assumption is that I moved there, that I am not really from the neighborhood even though I am.
That's why I like JP. Because I do know where I stand. Because I did move there. I'm not from here. I just live here. I like the neighborhood but yes I am the gentrified person moving in to your neighborhood. Now I can help out at the library and in the community (when it is fun and in my interest)
Not like in Chinatown, when my hand is shaken when they think I am some gentrified white guy (you know the kind with power and money. People in Chinatown (who are really from the suburbs or someplace not in Chinatown) try to explain to me, an assumed outsider, about "their neighborhood." To show me around, where to watch out for, where to eat. Oh how disappointing it all is when it turns out I am from the projects on the border of Chinatown and my Chinese was not learned from China, but from the street and TVB.
Well I guess all these aspects of my character are usually funny to me. Just not when some crazy person is saying I am not a proper Bostonian on a crowded train.

A very American Chinese New Year

For our Vegetarian dish, Grace made jook with Taro fish balls, and various other ingredients all covered in Chicken fat. "That's as vegetarian as I get." She said. She has been cooking out of David Chang's cookbook (Korean American) and I have to say her Asian cooking had reached new levels of awesomeness. Ironically, in the past it was always her Western dishes that were better.
For decorations, other than the little lion head pictures I never took down from last year, I decided to write out the little Chinese words on red paper with Noah and Jonah. This means they scribbled in pencil (the ink and water went away after Jonah started dumping the water everywhere, and then I wrote the Chinese words over their scribbles in ink while they were distracted doing something else. We have a bunch of books, written for jook sings (by jook sings usually) which are supposed to be a guide for Chinese holidays. I thought such books would have all the words to write on one page. Well they had one character here and there but not the four in the row cool sounding ones. I had to scavenge and skim and find the easiest ones. Year year have fish I could write without looking. Happy New Year I had to look at sadly. I could not fing Gung Hei faht choy, but I did find an all inclusive one that I'll be using from now on. Five fortunes arrive at your door. Five. Wealth, Happiness, Longevity... I don't know there's five of them bam! all in a row saying just one word. That one went on paper.
Then I taped them up and let the kids tape up the little one word ones wherever they wanted, not caring about Fengshui placing or anything like that.
Hong Baos for the kids this morning. I feel like they didn't know what they were this year. That's weird cause last year they did.
Then we were going to go into to Chinatown at least today for a Lion Dance at a church. The plan was to take the Subway in. Well I would take Noah in and Jonah would stay home with Grace. But the subway is down. And actually as far as shoveling, we just pushed through, like just now. The problem with shoveling when you have little kids is you can't do too much at a time. And also, Noah was a great help with his little shovel, until we got closer to the street. I didn't want him to get him by the cars coming down the street, sliding really, and he simply would not just shovel the neighbors walkway that is enclosed and safe. So we went sledding down the sugar bowl a couple of times. Noah wouldn't walk for some reason so much carrying was involved then back inside while I helped shovel out again.
Supposedly we are supposed to get more Snow on Valentines day.
Well Gung Hei faht choi, sun tai geen hong! etc!