New Year's Eve at home

Well I didn't bring the kids out to First Night. We did our little Panda run, and played around at Moh Goon and Jonah fell asleep in the wagon. By the time we got home we would have had to leave again to catch the parade. I was going to do the fireworks with Noah, but Grace got stuck at Dumpling House because everyone was ordering Chinese Take Out for New Years. I guess ordering Nasty American Chinese food is no longer acceptable to so many Americans who have gotten used to good Chinese food. Basically everyone had the same idea Grace did.

Me and Noah played several games of Chess and then Chinese Chess and he started flipping out. On the one hand I'm sad that I didn't get to bring Noah to the parade. On the other hand I am glad that during his little tirade I was already at home, in a warm house and that I wouldn't have to chase after the two of them going in separate directions, in the dark, and then somehow drag them to the train station, and then drag them home from the T. That would have been a nightmare.

Last year we did the Lion Dance in the parade, and that was fun.

Somehow I made time to organize that last year, but that meant that Grace had to watch the children.

I realize that this year, even if I had pushed to do this I just wouldn't have been able to. So it's good that I just took it easy.

As for things I didn't get finished in 2014... my book is still unpublished. I just have to format it and put it out, which will take more time than it sounds like.

But mostly I need to do this because the ideas for my next project are bubbling to the surface. Basically the creative mental stimulation part of the book is over and done with. What's left is the packaging of it, which an author who made money, would pay someone else to do I think.

(Grace said she do it for me.)

Well time for Baths.

The missing Pawn

Noah was playing chess with my relatives. He played my cousin, who beat him quickly. And then he played my aunt. Then Jonah trashed the game. My whole extended family searched high an low for the missing piece they could not find. It was a pawn. It bothered me that it was missing even though I hadn't checked all the pieces but instead put the chess set away for the rest of the family reunion. I didn't want to risk losing more pieces.
"Where is the missing piece Dai Dai?" I asked him.
"I don't know. It's gone forever." he would say.

Arriving back home I decided it was no big deal. After all, I could just use a toy to be the pawn. But Lo and behold as I set up the board all the pieces were there!

Interesting that something that is insignificant and not even true, could have bothered me at all.

Korean BBQ

We went to explore some place in New Jersey that has the highest concentration of Koreans in the country yesterday. It wasn't like being in Korea. It was like being in Korean America. The stores and everything were stil spread out like American businesses, as opposed to the way everything is crammed together in a Chinatown. Among the places that seemed to have a lot of parked cars was a giant Karaoke place and a driving range.

We went to a Korean BBQ place last night. Jonah got really excited everytime a waitress came by and said something in Korean and proceeded to give us more Kim Chee or fuss with the meat. He would start yelling "Yay!" smiling and excitedly. I think it was because the tone of the waitresses was pretty much the same so he figured that's what he was supposed to do. The first time I went to such a place was last year in Korea town in New York. I didn't know what I supposed to do with various foods or whatever. This time I didn't care. I just started devouring Kim Chee. It's weird. Kim Chee is free, and they keep giving it to you like they used to do with bread at Italian restaurants. But if you were to buy Kim Chee Buy itself, it would be pretty expensive. I guess they really make the most money off of alcohol. Which the food did make me feel like drinking. But we decided not to drink because neither of us have very high tolerance to begin with, and ever since I started fasting I feel like my tolerance for alcohol has gone down even further if you could believe it.

We then got some Korean Baos and then Grace got some Korean Make up. It was a wonderland of magical cuteness for her. I guess that's a good ending to our Christmas adventure. Something's wrong with the car though and she is getting it checked out. Which is weird because the car is new.

Anyway, I stiffed myself with various types of Kim Chee and it will be baos for eberyone else's breakfast. Today I am going to start my monthly three day fast for the second time. Then after I come back onto food for one day it will be New Year. Is the Federation doing First Night this year If yes, then I'll do that. If not, then I may bring Noah down there to check out the parade. Or maybe not.

That means we are actually set for food for a while what with the Christmas dinner leftovers we still have.

Time to get back into my Boston routine.

Chinese Food Karma

The house we are staying in is the house my mother had the second part of her childhood in. When she arrived there were no other houses around. there were no streets, just a dirt road, and the part in the back where there is now a bank was just woods.
My mother was always interested in Asian Culture and when she got older she traveled the world,  crossing the Sahara desert twice in camel going up through the middle east and India and even Tibet (back when people were not allowed in China but there weren't real borders there.) and Laos (during the Vietnam war.) She lived in Hong Kong, Indonesia and Japan. She came back to the States and met my Father in Cape Cod.

My childhood was the dichotomy of Chinese (Boston's Chinatown) and my white side (Philadelphia, the house we slept in. I have memories spending Christmas and Summer in this house with extended family. This was the whitest neighborhood I had ever been in.

Last year, while leaving we noticed a cluster of Chinese stores about a mile from the house. This year we noticed it wasn't just businesses but there was a Wu Yi association as well.

Grace decided to go out for Chinese Food. How good could the place be? I was cautiously optimistic because of the presence of an Association.

I stayed home because Jonah had clonked out and Noah and I were playing chess.

Grace arrived at the cluster where all the parking spaces for a block were taken up. There was a line of Chinese people waiting outside one of the restarunts. "Hmm that's weird." She thought.

She chose that one.

Inside, Cantonese was being yelled rapid fire and the waiters were RUNNING around on Monday at 7pm. The place was packed. She said if I went with her, I would have been the only white person there. She thought she saw a black guy but then realized he was actually just a dark Chinese man. Everyone looked like restaurant people. In fact, it even had a gambling hall vibe. It seemed to be as yet undiscovered by non-Chinese customers. There was nothing on the menu like "chicken Fingers." This was bold. This was not Chinese American food. Even the Chinese people in there did not look Jook Sing.

Grace doesn't speak Chinese.

She started to order in English and the manager said, "Don't worry, I know what you want."

We had shrimp and snap peas, rib eye steak and onions and peppers, and pea pod stems. Which is hard for Grace to order. Like the manager said, he knew what she wanted. Rice was free, Desert was free (not fortune cookies but Tong sui, sai mai lo to be exact,  and you could taste the taro and the feel the thickness of the soup.) The price was 20% less than in Boston, no skimping on ingredients and for real it beat the hell out of anything in Boston. How could this be? What Twilight Zone am I living in? I looked outside to make sure I was in the same house.

You could equate this to the phenomenon of Quincy and Kam Man popping up near Boston. But Quincy's food is still not as good as Chinatown. And I didn't see any Associations.

This food was on par with New York Chinatown. A mile from the house where I spent my summers and where my mother brought Chinese cooking she had learned from my father into the house as a foreign thing to be tasted. These two blocks, which will only grow, are more Chinese than the shrinking Chinatown in Boston.

When we first arrived in the house, a rabbit ran across the street as if it had been waiting for us. Grace turned to me and pointed out that Rabbits are  usually a symbol for my mother and that she knew she would see one.

I could not get over, that my mother would have found that two block neighborhood a mile away fascinating. That she would have wanted it. That Philadelphia's Chinatown used to be not as good as Boston's and when we had gone there once when I was a baby, my dad kept on bumping into people from Boston, but that Boston was the area where it was safer and more comfortable for my Dad. That we sort of stayed in Boston for the schools, but also for the Chinese Community, for Kwong Kow, and later, I stayed there to be with the Kung Fu School.

This is just a good kind of bizarre.

There is a dollar store down there called "Grace's Dollar Store." I think we will check that out before we leave too.

Tree Ceremony

We went to Macy's in Center City to see the Tree Lighting show where the Eagle is. I guess it is a thing. We got teir early so we went around terminal market and the kids looked at the trains. We had a Philly Cheese steak, an authentic one. I just had a taste because I felt like I needed to fast after all those noodles. Grace was mad at me for this.
The taste I had was really good actually.

We then traveled back to the tree lighting show which wasn't all that in terms of the show. It was a ritual based much on Episcopalian Church, including organ playing to usher us out. It was the world biggest playing organ.

Grace said they should just to the show more often.

Though what I knew while partaking in the ritual was that the big draw was not the show itself, but the crowd. Where religion has declined, big companies have taken their place, and we naturally need a Giant Temple to do something at.

I thought of how Jesus got all mad because of vending in a Temple (which was common practice.)
But today's Temples have the templing as a part time attraction and it is the commerce that is the central function.

Macy's not only made some money off of us at the parking, and some shopping, (this cash takes the place of a sacrifice or incense) but if you believe in this, they reaped in a ton of THOUGHT for good luck as well.  This type of thinking is less out in the open in the West. But in Feng Shui, for instance, you would place steps and a doorway in such a way that someone coming in would have to bow to your businesses sign out of convenience, and the believe is that the idea or thought of making them bow (even if not intentionally out of respect or worship) will make your business have a higher chance of success.

Well I'm actually glad we did the Tree Ceremony thing. Not that I would do it again, but it was nice, and I had the Christmas song from the organ stuck in my head. Good will and Joy to everyone and all that.

On the way back we went to Chuck E. Cheeses. I think the kids enjoyed that more, and it came out to be the same price as our journey into the city.

Philly Nan Zhou noodles

Boston's Chinatown is supposed to be decent. New York's is supposed to be better. And when I was a little kid, Philly's Chinatown was smaller than Boston's/ Well while Boston's Chinatown is declining Philly's seems to be coming up. The land is cheap which means there is no need to cut corners with ingredients.

Maybe my memory is failing me, as I haven't been to Asia in quite a while, but while eating Nan Zhou hand pulled noodles in Philadelphia I tried really hard to think of a bowl of noodles that was better, and I couldn't. It wasn't just the noodles. The vegetables in the soup were fresh and had more vegetable taste than you usually have at a restaurant. We had just eaten lunch in New York earlier today and that bowl of noodles was on par with New York for sure.

While  we were preparing to leave, two people sat next to us who were obviously deep into the current movement against police brutality. From their conversations I could tell they had been to several protests. I haven't met anyone that into it that seemed to well represent the movement more eloquently as well as be active. So I decided to quickly talk to them before leaving. Yes they were both black. 

I just wanted to see how they would react to my community policing idea. They said it was probably a good idea but what really needed to be done was simple policy. Simply make a rule that you can't shoot unarmed people dead. I pointed out that theoretically that should be against the rules. But if you think about it, in practice, it isn't. 

Is all this really that simple? A more well hashed out law? If it is, that would be nice. And if that all it takes, then the protests could work.  

They also talked with each other about the possibility of the whole thing escalating into violence. 

"I'm not worried about anything on our side. I think we are pretty clear about being nonviolent and distancing ourselves from any individuals who are going in that direction. We aren't against Police. We are against Police brutality and I think we are pretty clear about that. But I am worried about it turning violent on the other side. (meaning the police) this just got real." he said in a calm and eloquent way.

The other man pointed out that he wasn't sure how deeply he wanted to commit. He talked about being at a protest with the Police lined up in barricade style and thought how the whole thing just seemed odd. Surreal.

"I wouldn't want to be in New York right now." Agreed the first man. And talked about the possibility of a mounting reactive protest. 

The mentioned an upcoming march, tonight. 

I think even if I didn't have children, I probably would not go to such a march, because like the more apprehensive man, I feel that the whole thing could get ugly fast. After all, people die in crowds that form for Red Sox games when tear gas is fired at people instead of up, let alone something directly seen as a challenge to the Police (and nuance about being against Police Brutality and not police tends to be lost at night in a crowd.) Not only that, but even though the crazy guy that just killed two officers in New York might have been an individual, it easy to lump all the other protesters into that camp in your mind, especially if you are a cop in that same City.

Well, while I talked to them briefly Noah would suddenly show his stone Chinese Chess piece we had bought and shout, "Chinese Chess!" which made them laugh. 

Well I hope the more outspoken man was right, and that the issue can be solved simply through policy and that the protests can push this to happen more quickly. I mean the counter argument for the police having down the right thing is that the shootings of Michael Brown and all the others were lawful. Even if you didn't make it murder, but simply made it a rule that any officer who does that will automatically be off the force and perhaps serve some other sort of penalty would that fix it? Or let's go further and just call it murder or at least manslaughter. Shouldn't that fix it?

I happen to doubt it.

One thing we all agreed on was that these noodles were some of the best in town. 

Chess

Noah is really into Chess. Too bad I am not a better player. For me board games were always for children. And after I started doing Kung Fu seriously, I sort of dropped everything else. Well I still enjoyed playing music and painting. But it was almost as if I HAD to do those things. Or those things were doing me.
I realize now that I was wrong to not play Chess with friends in High school and College, or at least watch more games. Especially since there were was one particularly good player in High school and also on in College. My College friend put on a demonstration where he basically played the whole school in several simultaneous games. I participated sort of to show support. I knew he would beat me easily. But I was still amazed at how stupid some of my moves were. Because I had not played I made moves worse than what Noah would do now. For instance. I behaved as if my queen could not be killed if I approached to kill another piece. Why? I have no idea.

I have moved beyond that level recently just because I realized I would actually have to teach Noah something other than how the pieces moved. I am still better than he is (for now) but actually if I try to play Noah at Chess and Jonah at checkers, while moving quickly, Noah actually. This has more to do with how bad I am and less to do with how good he is. My neighbor said he will be willing to play Noah.

I also taught him Chinese Chess and even playing him a lone I made quick and stupid moves and he beat me. (Which was good. Since he gets pretty upset when I win.) I wonder how those great players I knew and never even really talked about Chess with would teach their kids?

I have also started trying to learn Go. I made a board and made pieces out of rocks and play dough. I usually play some strange childish version of that with Jonah. I don't think we even take turns properly. I still don't completely understand how to count up points. But we enjoy putting stones down and capturing each others pieces.

We also started reading Hikaru no Go. Even after reading these I have very little understanding of the game. I went to some websites but part of the point of these games for me, is to do something that is mentally challenging but also off of the computer.