Moon Festival
Tommorow morning we are heading to Kenting for a long weekend. It's supposed to beautiful so I'm really looking forward to it! The city is cool and all, but a trip to see some green things would be super cool right now.
This Tuesday is Moon Festival, which is why we have the long weekend. So many people are going on the company trip that our branch is closed for Monday. According to Charlene, the coolest CT ever, Moon Festival is celebrated to honor a woman who long ago was married to an evil king. He got ahold of a potion that would grant him ever-lasting life. In order to save the world from his evil reign, she stole the potion and drank it herself, and then floated to the moon, where she lives to this day. To celebrate, they eat moon cakes (little round pastries filled with meat, vegetables, or sweet stuff), pumellos (I think that's what they are in English-youdza in Chinese), and have something like a barbeque.
The peel of the youdza is really weird. I peeled it with my hands, because we have no knives at the apartment (yet we have a bottle opener...hmmm, our priorities are interesting...) and then started to eat it. The first few bites were good, but then my lips started to go numb. And my tongue did a little bit too...so I put it down and waited for the numbness to go away. I found out later that the peel does that to the lips, and it also can be used for a refrigerator deodorant, *and* when you get the big ones, the peel can be cut a certain way to make a little hat for the kids! SO cool.
It's interesting how my standards for restaurant cleanliness have deteriorated since my arrival in Taiwan. It's not true of all restaurants, but the ones I can afford leave something to be desired in the area of cleanliness. Susan, Brian, and I discussed this the other night over a nice take-away dinner from "Uncle Greasepots'." Uncle Greasepots', as we have lovingly named it, is a little stand/restaurant that opens up at night and serves really good, really cheap food from several, unwashed bubbling cauldrons. The food is really greasy but amazingly tasty! It's possible to obtain a meal with 3-4 sides for 50 NT, or about $1.50 USD. One night as we stood drooling over the concoctions in the cauldrons and steaming bowls, a flying cockroach flew over from the street, landed on the counter dividing the customers from the cauldrons. The man serving the food stopped briefly, frowned at it, checked our reactions, when he saw we weren't freaked, he kept serving the food. The cockroach apparently wasn't interested, so it picked up and flew off. Now, I haven't had much experience with the roaches, but Taiwanese roaches are something altogether different. They are about 3 inches long and pretty fat. I've seen them just walking down the sidewalk, carrying briefcases, and inquiring about each others' families. Apparently Susan and Brian had a similar experience at an outdoor food stand, where as they sat down to eat, three baby cockroaches climbed across their table. In the States, they would have freaked out, but here, they just shrugged, flicked them off the table and dug back into their noodles. No ill effects thus far...
This Tuesday is Moon Festival, which is why we have the long weekend. So many people are going on the company trip that our branch is closed for Monday. According to Charlene, the coolest CT ever, Moon Festival is celebrated to honor a woman who long ago was married to an evil king. He got ahold of a potion that would grant him ever-lasting life. In order to save the world from his evil reign, she stole the potion and drank it herself, and then floated to the moon, where she lives to this day. To celebrate, they eat moon cakes (little round pastries filled with meat, vegetables, or sweet stuff), pumellos (I think that's what they are in English-youdza in Chinese), and have something like a barbeque.
The peel of the youdza is really weird. I peeled it with my hands, because we have no knives at the apartment (yet we have a bottle opener...hmmm, our priorities are interesting...) and then started to eat it. The first few bites were good, but then my lips started to go numb. And my tongue did a little bit too...so I put it down and waited for the numbness to go away. I found out later that the peel does that to the lips, and it also can be used for a refrigerator deodorant, *and* when you get the big ones, the peel can be cut a certain way to make a little hat for the kids! SO cool.
It's interesting how my standards for restaurant cleanliness have deteriorated since my arrival in Taiwan. It's not true of all restaurants, but the ones I can afford leave something to be desired in the area of cleanliness. Susan, Brian, and I discussed this the other night over a nice take-away dinner from "Uncle Greasepots'." Uncle Greasepots', as we have lovingly named it, is a little stand/restaurant that opens up at night and serves really good, really cheap food from several, unwashed bubbling cauldrons. The food is really greasy but amazingly tasty! It's possible to obtain a meal with 3-4 sides for 50 NT, or about $1.50 USD. One night as we stood drooling over the concoctions in the cauldrons and steaming bowls, a flying cockroach flew over from the street, landed on the counter dividing the customers from the cauldrons. The man serving the food stopped briefly, frowned at it, checked our reactions, when he saw we weren't freaked, he kept serving the food. The cockroach apparently wasn't interested, so it picked up and flew off. Now, I haven't had much experience with the roaches, but Taiwanese roaches are something altogether different. They are about 3 inches long and pretty fat. I've seen them just walking down the sidewalk, carrying briefcases, and inquiring about each others' families. Apparently Susan and Brian had a similar experience at an outdoor food stand, where as they sat down to eat, three baby cockroaches climbed across their table. In the States, they would have freaked out, but here, they just shrugged, flicked them off the table and dug back into their noodles. No ill effects thus far...
posted by CJ at 1:22 AM
1 Comments:
Hi Cass--it's Kris. By reading through your past few posts, I deduct that your life is continuing to make my life seem even more lame than usual. Here's my update: got some coffee, went to teach, procrastinated writing dissertation...went to bed...woke up...repeated! However, I am thinking of incorporating your "wild dancing" pedagogy into my IPC 205 class--tomorrow they could have a "case of the Mondays," so it just might do the trick ;) BTW, I am not envious of your necessary tolerance for roaches--yeach! Hugs--kmm
Post a Comment
<< Home