10 Olympic commandments

As recounted in the ny times and posted on the Xinhau website, it’s time for Chinese people to clean up their respective acts:

奥运将临，无数中国人怀着兴奋的心情期 待 着这一盛会，都希望能为奥运出一份力, 为国争一份光。可是，一些国人的不文明 行为，实在令人担忧。新华网评选取十种栯?较典型的社会现象，进行点评。希望每丠?个中国人都能成为文明的奥运东道主，让 奥运带来中华文明的新高度。

Here’s the translation:

The Olympics is coming. Countless Chinese people are waiting with eagerness and excitement for this grand gathering. Everyone hopes to contribute to the Olympic effort and help China win glory. However, there are some uncivilized behaviors of Chinese people that are real causes for concern. We have selected 10 typical phenomena to comment on. Let’s hope that every Chinese can become a civilized host, and the Olympics will elevate Chinese civilization to a new height.

The list:

十议奥运礼仪之一：朋友，国旗可不是坐 垫
(One: Friends, National Flag Is Not a Seat Cushion)

十议奥运礼仪之二：大声说话的毛病要改 一 改
(Two: The Bad Habit of Speaking Loudly Should Be Corrected)

十议奥运礼仪之三：下课声、口哨声不是 奥 运之声
(Three: Unruly Noises Are Not Olympic Sounds)

十议奥运礼仪之四：比赛结束垃圾成堆, 不 是 中国特色
(Four: Garbage Pileup After Sport Event, Not a Chinese Strong Point)

十议奥运礼仪之五：做文明人排个队有多 难？
(Five: How Hard Is It to Stand in Line in a Civilized Way?)

十议奥运礼仪之六：温饱有余，陋习何存
 (Six: When There’s a Big Meal, There’s a Lingering Problem)

十议奥运礼仪之七：做一个热情谦让的中 国 人
(Seven: Be an Enthusiastic and Polite Chinese)

十议奥运礼仪之八：奥运来了，网络不要 “ⅩⅩⅩ”
(Eight: Olympics Is Coming, Don’t Pollute the Internet)

十议奥运礼仪之九：现场看比赛要 “懂规 矩”
(Nine: When Watching Sport Event, Behave Well)

Now, what exactly is the lingering problem after a big meal? hmm…

farewell to the shore

Oh jersey shore, your sketchy yet somewhat relaxing ways will be missed. Last week was a quick getaway to wildwood and cape may. Amidst gorging on sundaes and funnel cake, (though to be honest, I did most of the gorging) we found time to fit in all of the standard beach-related activities. And, just as an observation, we are now officially too old to hang out at the boardwalk. Yes, that’s right mr. foreign t-shirt vendor, I am niether an official naked partier nor on the Irish drinking team.

But, the fudge was good and the beach eventually fun. I’ll probably even miss the sketch.

the beach montage:

 

Fun with cam, sad sad chelsea market

So, since the countdown to leaving has dwindled to a month and counting, I thought I should try to fit in all those places I’ve been meaning to go to (and test out my new mini cam). For awhile now, I’ve had my eye on chelsea market, but I was wary of it too. Who knows, maybe rachael ray would jump out from behind amy’s bread and hit me with a bottle of evoo, maybe my interest would backfire and I’ll be spurned (yep, it’s the latter).  Still, I took the risk and decided to enter the dark dungeon of the food network.

Besides the faux (or is it not faux?) industrial setting, the market was firmly on the eh side of the scale. A few shops, couple eateries, a handful of bakeries, all along a couple hallways. In fact, I was so beaten down by the drabness of it all, that I submitted myself to this nine dollar panini, which I could’ve gotten at joe schmoe deli. Really, I walked all the way from union square for this? that’s like, four whole avenues.

My pictures are lousy, but it’s not mini-cam’s fault. I just didn’t feel right snapping pics in there with all of the tourists; maybe I needed a sign that said, “No really, I’m from here, honest.”

To make myself feel better, I bought a cannoli and a jam cookie from Carlo’s in Hoboken. Both were pretty good, but I’m hoping that my next trip in la ciudad will turn out better.

oh and I forgot to mention in my last post; my parents went into a videostore to rent more of their hong kong shows while in flushing, and I was standing around, trying to pretent that I could read the titles, when cole says, “oh, that’s some asian porn hanging” and she was right, all along the ceiling were these little covers of various types of asian porn. It was more than a little strange. I wonder if communist porn is going to be all up in our faces when we get over there…

Father’s Day, a trial run in Flushing

On Father’s Day, cole and I went out to lunch in Flushing, Queens with my family. I don’t really get out to Flushing all that often, but every time I go there, I notice how it seems like an authentic Chinese city, even more so than Chinatown, which has become more of a tourist destination. The whole time I was thinking that this would be a perfect lead-up for the year in Shanghai. Basically in Flushing, it would be easy to live an entire life only speaking Chinese, and the non-Chinese faces are few and far between (don’t worry, cole represented). I had my parents with me, so they took care of all the speaking on this trip, but cole and I might head back to test ourselves out.

Before we went out, I met up with moms, pops, and bro at my parents’ new house in Douglaston. There, on my parents’ walkway, cole and I spotted this little slimy fellow, which we named slugger

I carried him out of the way with a leaf and placed him back in some dirt underneath the bushes (is that where slugs like to hang out?). Poor slugger will probably get eaten, but maybe that’s better than getting stepped on.

In the house, my mom showed me these gold coins she received for opening a new bank account.

They’re meant to commemorate the Beijing Olympics, but I couldn’t get over how the coin combined these cutesy silly figures on one side, and the Great Wall on the other. What was the message they were trying to get across? We’re cute, and we’re also willing to build a huge structure to keep Mongolians out?

Anyway, my dad settled on Vietnamese while driving over to Flushing, and I was pretty excited. For some reason or another, I just don’t get as much pho in as I would like. So I took this opportunity to go all out. I had a large bowl of noodles in beef broth, accompanied with sliced rib-eye, flank, tendon, and tripe (yum, intestine-y). Cole had a more basic noodle and rib-eye combo. (Ah, sorry, I forgot to bring the cam with me for pics, left it in the car). The noodles were great, but there was even more. For the table, we also ordered a braised pork-chop (tasty), summer rolls (containing shrimp and veggies, not as tasty), and fried egg rolls with lettuce wrap (amazing).

Although I was stuffed, I wanted to pick up a few bakery items. The five of us went over to the Tai Pan Bakery a few blocks away. It was crowded, and I didn’t have time to think, so I went with old standards: a pork bun, a pineapple bun, coconut bun, and two egg tarts.

As you can see, the two egg tarts are slightly different. One has a burnt sugar glaze, a creme brulee tart I suppose, and the other is a standard tart, neither lasted long since we ate them right when we got home.

Though we didn’t get to try everything, the Flushing outing was a nice reminder of things to come.

And everything starts

At some point or another I felt the need to leave home. Home is in the general direction of new york city and new jersey. But the leaving took awhile, stalled by silly things like schools and jobs, but it’s finally here.

First will be a short trip to England, then a few weeks in Japan, and then the big one: a year or more in teaching in Shanghai, China.

Along for the ride will be wifey-aka cole.

So, the two of us will be trying to figure out what happens on the other side of the world. Not sure how it will go or quite what to expect.

I’ll make sure to post the interesting bits.