weekend review; brain riffs on White Castle

It was a pretty good weekend, all told, despite the humidity and threat of thunderstorms. I don't think it got over 90° all weekend, but with the humidity it was certainly hot enough (although certainly not an L.A. fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk hot) and certainly sticky. But I'll take the sunshine we got all Saturday. And the forecasted rain and thunderstorms that never materialized but nevertheless kept us from going climbing on Sunday didn't have any significant negative affects on the day.

Friday night we chilled at home and watched The Chinese Feast. "Study time" as it were, at least for me. The SOOTTAD is thinking that it'd probably be a good thing to try and pick up some Chinese as well, but she's a long ways off from me, and I couldn't follow 99% of the dialog. And it was probably a little more work than we had hoped for as we often tried in vain to read the small white subtitles (we won't even go into whether on not the translations were any good) as they were carefully placed in front of white tablecloths, white chef's uniforms, white ice scultures or just an overexposed outdoor set. We initially let some of it just wash over us, which made the story somewhat confusing, but we eventually were able to follow along with a few pauses and rewinds. Despite all the trouble, we both thought it was a great flick. Nice story that held together well, interesting characters, sprinkled with your typical Hong Kong comedic passages, plus cool cooking scenes. It also made God of Cookery make more sense. Afterwards, for lack of any special features on the DVD, we ended up rewatching a few scenes afterwards switching between Cantonese and Mandarin tracks. (well, I did while the SOOTTAD dozed) And I feel like I was catching more of the dialog on subsequent viewings.

I also have to say, the dialog and sound dubbing on these films is really odd. I swear it often looks like some of the actors are speaking Mandarin and others are speaking Cantonese, so no matter which voice track you pick, someone's voice is getting dubbed. We first noticed this in Tai Chi Master (Tai Chi San Feng) where it becomes clear that Michelle Yeoh is speaking in Cantonese the entire time while Jet Li is speaking Mandarin the entire time, so no matter which track you picked, someone's voice would be out of sync. (And as yet another side note, I should mention that I've disliked the Mandarin dubbing for Michelle Yeoh in all the movies we've seen so far, but unfortunately it's the one I have to listen to because it's the dialect I'm trying to learn) I suppose this all makes me feel less guilty watching them in Mandarin, but you can tell that the films are originally released in Cantonese because the quality of the soundtrack is so much better and the Mandarin dubbing just isn't as good -- or at least, it seems like there's a lot more Cantonese-to-Mandarin dubbing than the other way around. And really, dubbing just isn't that good in general.

Anyway, sidetracked.

Saturday my frisbee team played in a local mini-tournament with 3 other teams. Well, mostly my team. We've basically turned into that older, more experienced team with an average age over 30 and with the occasional baby on the sideline, which is cool because we're beating some of the younger, faster teams in the same way that we ourselves were being beaten only a few years ago. (They're old and slow, why are we losing?!) But it also means that we're more prone to injury, so right now we have at least 5 players that are, or should be (myself included), on the DL. That's almost a third of our full roster. Meaning that it was mostly my team, but with a few alumni, friends and family padding our numbers a bit. And we were still feeling like we might be a bit low on numbers by the end of the day.

On the whole, I think we were playing well; and I felt pretty good overall. Up until last week, I've really been feeling slow -- not comfortable making the hard cuts and getting open on offense, playing more conservatively and maybe getting a little lazy on defense. But in Thursday's game, I actually felt like I was finally running at full speed again. And on Saturday I felt like I could maintain it. Maybe I've finally turned a corner and I'm back in game shape. And I had my first layouts (both O and D) in a while, too.

But back to that old theme -- really sore (really sore) at the end of the 3rd game. I'm almost glad we lost the last point because my calves and hamstrings had started cramping up and I probably would have pulled something if I had to sprint the length of the field again.

So, sore. But it was good sore. Mostly. Well okay, it was good to be able to play hard enough that I felt sore afterwards, but the actually soreness kind of sucked. But it was a good day. Oh, and sunny with blue skies for most of the day. Windy too, now that I think about it. (Which made the games more challenging, too)

Sunday got to a slow start. It wasn't terribly hot, but it was muggy, and a bit uncomfortable in the house. The SOOTTAD cooked up one of the b'giant zucchinis (I swear, as big as your head) that she brought back from her parents' house (shredded and fried with eggs, onions, breadcrumbs, spices and perhaps some other stuff I didn't catch into a stack of frittery things not unlike potato pancakes. Except with zucchini. And less crispy.), and enjoyed a nice breakfast out on the deck. We otherwise spent the morning attempting to tidy up the house with only minor success.

Avoiding the outdoors because of the weather threats, we eventually decided to retreat to some A/C by catching a flick in town with some friends, ending up with Harold and Kumar go to White Castle at the Fenway. Funny. And yes, stupid. But oddly satisfying. It resonated in ways that I wouldn't expect from a silly "slapstick/gross-out/stoner comedy" (as described by JozJozJoz, where I first heard about it) or "feature-length fast-food commercial" as The Onion puts it. The movie may have been knee-deep in shovelled stereotypes, but the protagonists, at least, seemed genuine, even if their adventure and the characters they came across in their travels are pure Hollywood fairyland. Maybe something about an asian main character who's an American, but who at times can be made to feel acutely aware of the forces (both internal and external) that make him feel like he's on the outside... Uh, and did I mention that it was funny? (Even if it was "hit-or-miss by design." [Onion again])

Interlude. We grab drinks and snacks at Audubon; snacks including a beef quesadilla and "potstickers" which come complete with far too many water chestnuts in a Chinese cardboard takeout container. Afterwards, we retrieve the car with only minor hassle (and an extra eight bucks for overstaying our welcome in the theater parking lot). Say our goodbyes. And...

Hungry now. So our heroes decide, "hey, we're already in the city. Let's go to Chinatown!" And we end up at the Taiwan Cafe and order real potstickers. Which often go by "Peking Ravioli" (Ugh) but which I think of as pan-fried dumplings because I don't know what they're called in Chinese. Note about Taiwan Cafe -- all the good dumplings (the fried dumplings we ordered, the small steamed bun - xiao lung tang bao or just xiao lung bao and the like) take 20 minutes to prepare. (Sez so right on the menu.) Definitely worth the wait. But in the meantime, we decided to order an additional noodle dish so we went with the "Hearty noodle with pork and vegetables."

The item in Chinese is only three characters. The first is da (big) and we've deduced through some basic food vocabulary knowledge and pattern matching that the third is mian (noodle), but I haven't a clue what the second character is. So I take an unprecedented step after ordering and ask the waitress. It takes a moment for her to figure out what I want as I point to the character and ask what it is (it's what you ordered, you idiot. What the #@*%& is your problem?) and she helpfully says, pointing to each character: ta - lu - mi.

Oh right, Talu noodles. I know those. They used to have them at that place we used to go to for lunch (Tai Shiang Garden) near the office up in Chelmsford. Cool. I'm quite pleased with myself. Both for the new information, but also for actually asking for it in the first place. It's about overcoming the fear and embarassment of looking stupid. Point for me.

The da lu mian arrives quickly (we applaud our good planning since it's gonna be a while before the dumplings come) and we're mid-evaluation (hmmm, soupier than I was expecting, but the egg and mushrooms look right and...) when the waitress interrupts with something I don't understand.

"I'm sorry?" (It doesn't even occur to me to try duibuqi)

And she repeats, in english, "do you want small bowls?" (in my mind's eye I see her rolling her eyes as she asks this)

"Um, yeah."

At this point, I'm feeling pretty lame.

Actually, really lame.

Über-lame.

Lameness like I have not felt in years.

Well, no. It's just that it had a certain quality of lameness that has a kind of resonance frequency that amplifies it. It resonates, to coin a phrase. There is an experience, that I find quite common, of hearing a sea of voices that I don't quite understand, but feel like I should understand. Walking around Chinatown. Sitting in a restaurant. Attending a big family dinner where the conversation just goes over my head. But that's not quite it.

Almost 20 years ago. Los Angeles. High school. We're Juniors, so we're allowed to leave campus if we don't have class, and every Friday we have two free periods back-to-back that gives us just enough time to drive to Chinatown, get lunch, and drive back to school without being late for AP E&M.

And so we go get beef noodle.

Which was not just a tasty meal but, at four bucks a bowl, was a pretty sweet deal as well. (Cheaper than a lunch at Carney's or Micky D's, even then.) I didn't really speak Chinese, but I had learned how to order, in Mandarin, three beef noodle, one hot, two not hot for me and my two best friends. And so we went. And I ordered. And everything was great until the waitress/server/manager (she was the only one we ever saw in the shop) came over and asked me something. What, I don't really know. Because it was in Chinese. And I think it had something to do with how my parents were, or why they weren't there, or something. There was definitely something in there about my parents. I think. But even if my comprehension was there, there was no way I could reply. And boy, did I feel lame. Kind of like at Taiwan Cafe, except multiplied by teen angst and awkwardness.

It got the ball rolling, and I thought about feeling on the outside, on both sides of the fence. Born and raised in the US, I still notice the occasions when I'm at a bar or restaurant and I'm the only "slanty-eye" in a sea of white. But I'm strangely uncomfortable in ethnic pockets like Chinatown where I might blend a bit better, but I can barely make out a character or two on a storefront sign and certainly don't understand any of the conversations swirling around me. Feeling outside. We are all ultimately alone in our own skin, but it's not always so in your face. It's certainly not always like that -- sometimes there's peace being lost in the ocean. And sometimes it's just there, and that's just where you are, and it's fine. It's part of the character, the backstory.

I guess I was feeling a little bit like Harold. There was that bit in the movie where Harold talks about the threat of being called a "twinkie." And I can still remember being called a "banana" by a great uncle visiting from China. But, y'know? That's just a little bit of the backstory, a few threads of the fabric.

And hey, did I mention that the dumplings were awesome? (As were the noodles.)