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Authenticity
In Seattle, we'd go to Ocean City or The House of Hong, or Doong Lau. Here, it took me a couple of months to find a Cantonese restaurant serving the little servings of joy. I find Dim Sum to be addictive (as is Tappas) and after a few plates, I want to try everything in the restaurant and max out the credit card. My Taiwanese friend, Ranjana (who chooses to remain unphotographed) took me to a Cantonese restaurant in Kuankuang near Taiwan University. In travelling, one has fears that what was once familiar may become totally strange in comparison to the authentic original. This being Taiwan and these being Chinese people, I wanted to shock my taste buds with some truly bizarre fare. For instance, wonton soup here is very different from what we all see in the US. General Tso Chicken. Sweet and Sour Pork and Drunken Duck are all marketing terms for western menus, however, sitting in Ocean City (at King and 4th in The International District) is accurate to what I found here, though. The only thing I missed was that they did not bring food out on carts for us to select, we picted from a colorful menu full of pictures of fine food (like this Web site). |
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My camera died a tragic death recently and, until I get a new one, pictures of my new apartment, friends in Taipei and every shrine and temple I've visited will be unavailable. Next week I plan to buy a digital camera. I had bought a cheap one at CarreFour (the International equivalent of Target), but it was not compatible with my Macintosh computer. After some arguing in broken English and weak Mandarin, I got my money back and quickly spent it all on Japanese Barbeque and Taiwan Beer. It was Watermelon season, so I also bought a blender to make yummy Watermelon Daqueries. It's a rough life, but I guess someone has to lead it. I emailed my brother's best friend, Kenton. (K - if you are checking out the site and read this, kick ass!) I was so bored at one point, I entered people's names into search engines to see what web pages are associated with them, My sister? Her search found Communication Arts magazine's article about an advertising project she did, My brother (and Kenton) were on a site dedicated to their favorite sci-fi-esque game, War Hammer 40K. Paul Rinehart brought up the alumni site for his school in Denmark. Lori's found an article about library stuff from when she was in grad school. Maggie in Taichung is associated with a page she wrote in college discussing surrealist art in Spanish. Ryan Murphy, of course, is associated with Shamrock Design. (Contact them for all your 4-color printing and business card needs.) My friend, Dan, is associated with DTM Films. Rosemary Pettit is associated with a research program at the Univerisity of Maryland studying Chickens. And, Evan Piper is listed as the Tae Kwon Do champion for a martial arts school in the Southeast. I knew he was getting in good shape, but bicycling to South Carolina three times a week from Seattle to kick ass is VERY impressive. Take care all and have fun! -June 2, 2002 |
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For a while there was the dimsum posse in Seattle: Jerry & Jenn, Chrissy, Evan, Christian, Mark, and Brenda, Gary, Kristin, Patti, Gitai and the Quantum Crew -- even my brother and Pippa showed up at Ocean City when they visited. Dimsum is the Chinese version of Tappas or "Small Plates."
