Loving someone

I saw a different side to my other half last night. It suddenly made me wonder what really makes relationships work. Is it just a matter of communication? Do people have to be alike for a relationship work? If so, how alike? And what are the essential components that need to be in our relationship for us to want to make it work? 


Relationships are difficult. It's the coming together of two entities with entirely different coping mechanisms, habits, definitions of words and actions. Sometimes, it can feel like a clashing of two entirely different planets from entirely different galaxies! And you wonder, "What was I thinking of?", "Why am I putting myself through this?"!


What are relationships ultimately about? I think it's this: It's about wanting to be with someone whom you feel connected to somehow. Someone who makes you feel good about yourself because in his eyes, you're the one. Someone you know you want to be there for when things are difficult for them. Someone who appreciates you for who you are and not what they want you to be.  Sometimes, it's all about the right timing. Someone who has a common goal in life. The bottom line is knowing that we prefer to be together rather than without each other in our lives despite it all. And sometimes, that puts things in perspective and it makes everything alright.

Black Power

Someone once told me that white sesame seeds are good but black sesame is better. Black foods are always better. I wasn't quite sure why but today I just read this interesting article about black foods like japanese eggplant, black vinegar, black rice, silkie chicken (the one used for chinese herbal soups) shiitake mushrooms, blackberry, black tea and black sesame seems. Most of them contain antioxidants which help prevent cancer, coronary heart disease and altitude sickness. They're also rich in calcium, magnesium and iron which is good for the kidneys, blood circulation and bad cholesterol. Since I come from a family with many with high cholesterol, lost every grandparent to heart attack, and an aunt who has survived cancer twice and lost an uncle to cancer, I'll be trying to add these superfoods to my diet.

Tuna, Hamachi and All Things Fishy

Fish is so fresh in Hawaii. Or maybe I lived too long in a place where they thought that fish only tasted good when it smelled rotten and stale. Hence, my affinity for anything else other than fish whilst living in Beijing. Here, my islander beau has taught me the appreciation for fresh slices of fish in the form of battered and deep fried mahi mahi, the sweetness of fatty raw hamachi sushi and last night, Poké. It's a local dish here made up of cubes of fresh sushi tuna sprinkled with slices of onion, green onion and sesame seed, drizzled with soy sauce (which here is call by its Japanese name ‘shoyu’), sesame oil and hawaiian sea salt. We topped dinner off with a glass of malbec - Elsa Bianchi from Argentina. It  was my first malbec. Won't be my last.

Locomoco

Makes you want to run around the house pretending to be a choo choo train yelling out Kylie Minogue's 'Locomotion' song "Do the loc do the loc do the loco loco motion!!!..." 

It's a local meal in Hawaii - a layering of gravy on eggs over easy, meat patty and rice from top to bottom. Jesse made this patty with his personal mix of carrots, celery, breadcrumbs, turkey and onions. In addition, he added a layer of provolone cheese between the patty and the egg. It's a pretty heavy meal but delicious. 


I discovered a bad word today. Tryptophan. It's a amino acid in turkey ( and in lesser amounts in pork, chicken and eggs) that creates a sleep inducing effect and lethargy. I always thought meat was just too heavy for the body to process. Didn't realize it also contains natural chemicals that caused sluggishness in human body! I had a hard time keeping my eyes open after that turkey patty. Not a big fan of meat now that I started on my raw food diet. Hope to learn more about it.

Going Raw

My friend Jennifer McClelland introduced me to raw foods in the last 4 months of my stay in Beijing just before coming to Hawaii.  Not only was she the first raw food chef I've met personally, she's also completely revolutionized my thinking about nutrition and the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. I'm getting turned on to living food as the way to live.

A visit to the local Whole Foods Store downtown this weekend was a good start but I found the crowd to be a little overbearing. Yesterday, we went to this little store called Down To Earth just down the road. All their produce are fresh up to four days from farm to shelf and support 400 local farmers and growers. It's got pretty much everything I need to go on a raw food diet. Got my seeds and nuts for making nut milk, raspberry n' cream granola, hemp honey granola and my grains for my smoothies. Got my veggies in the local grocery store here which are the Safeway, Times or Sack n' Save chains. Total damage only came up to US$22. In Beijing, I would've had to spend at least three times more. Can't wait to make my chocolate smoothies! This time I got pumpkin, apricot,  sunflower, flax and white sesame.

In China, there's so many kinds of honey. I've learnt to read the KINDS of sources as well as read the labels for the contents because there's a lot of 'fake' honey where local farmers add sugars to the honey to cheat in cost savings. I love China but the fact is, you have to be a little more streetwise about cheating as it's a fact of life there, not a ethically moral issue. 

So it was a little funny when I was looking for the label of contents and was told that all the bottles here are stamped with the words 'Pure Honey'. Pure and simple. In Beijing, I would've had to search the entire supermarket shelf to weed out fruit honey (example loquat honey), flower honey (chrysanthemum honey, orange blossom honey), grain honey (buckwheat honey, jujube honey) etc. I got the Lehua Honey which comes from the flowers of a native hardwood tree called Ohi'a. Just for kicks, I found online that China is the world largest maker of honey - 256,000 tons followed by 100,000 tons in the US as of 2001. 

Food is expensive here

Quickly propelled into the reality of how expensive it is to live here in the US again compared to China. Got a little pampered by how far money stretches in Beijing! It’s a little unsettling. Sometimes, downright alarming. Simple groceries came up to $80 in a matter of a few hours in chinatown of all places. Bought a few things in Whole Food Market which came up to a whopping $47 (goose pate, crackers, cacao nibs, garlic, red wine, raw food energy bars and gouda cheese). Something else that really hits home is how big food is. This is really the land of bigger-is-better though not necessarily better. Tomatoes are case in point. Big and succulent looking but almost tasteless compared to their Chinese counterparts which are so juicy and sweet, you can eat them like a fruit. The only nice thing about being back in the States was seeing that organic foods here are almost half the price in Beijing and wines are cheap! Bought a delicious Cabernet Sauvignon for $2.99! We thought it was such a good buy we went back and bought a whole carton of 12 bottles for just $38!

Little Hawaiian nuances

Nice to be able to flush toilet paper down the toilet bowl and not have to divert my eyes from the garbage bin full of tissues and other grosser things. It’s also bizarre to walk down the neighborhoods for several kilometers without seeing a single soul on the streets or drive the highways for tens of kilometres with hardly any cars . Almost feels like I’m in the apocalypse or some weird Tom Cruise movie. Maybe not as weird as ‘Vanillla Sky’ but still, weird. 

Jesse was reprimanding Kaile the other night and said, "I don't like the way you're talking. You're being sassy. Come back here." I guess I've only ever used it in a positive term of describing a beautiful woman with a little bit of edge but not as an adjective for kids being impertinent. I like it though!  


Also, was joking around with Elton the other day and he said, "Whoa. You're salty!". I didn't quite know if it was a compliment or an insult. Here it's used as a adjective to describe someone who's bitter.

The population here seems to be the 180º opposite of that on the mainland (of USA). The majority population here are the Asians - Japanese, Filipinos, Chinese and Koreans in addition to many mixed blood Asians. Sort of the equivalent of the inter-marriage of european hereditary line across the Anglo-Saxons on the mainland. Here in Hawaii, there's hardly any Mexicans or African Americans. Not meaning to sound racist in any way but it is an interesting contrast to what I'm used to seeing on the mainland.

Besides calling people who are of Hawaiian descent Hawaiians, the term is used very discrimately. Whenever I say, "Is that a Hawaiian thing?" or "Is that a Hawaiian meal?" or "Hawaiians are so friendly." Elton growls, "You can't say that.". The proper way is to say or call them 'locals' since 'Hawaiian'  refers to the bloodline race. 

The locals here also love eating dried fruits as snacks from what they call 'crack seed stores' (funny!) which only sell hundreds of these dried fruits. Either salty, sour or sweet, they give a punch of flavor in the mouth. I think in this sense, the local tastebuds are adapted to the southern chinese. These ones are Li hing sweet mui (sweet dried plums) and lime balls (sour). 

Fresh fruits

I love the way fruit trees are so plentiful around every street corner here. Every home seems to have a mango lemon or orange tree in their yard. Living in Chicago and Beijing have given me a huge appreciation for planting fruits, veggies and herbs in one's own backyard and eating the juicy tasty produce for free! God's gift to mankind in the purest sense - sun, soil and water. 

I picked some oranges off of the orange tree in our yard. Biting into it, I swear I've never tasted any orange juicier. Juices flowed all over my fingers and squirted all over my hands and clothes. Also tasted different, sort of like a tangy woody tangerine. 

Thank God for the weather!

I am in paradise...literally. Weather here hits a high of 27ºC during the day and a low of 20ºC in the night. Very temperate. No sweating. I almost feel guilty for literally being here enjoying the sun in my face when I think of the unseasonably freezing cold that has encapsulated all of Europe, the US Northeast and Midwest regions including my beloved Chicagoland. It even SNOWED 4 inches in Shanghai today resulting in flights cancelled and vegetable prices doubling as a result of transportation issues.


Here I am, cruising around Tantalus - a gorgeous mountain road winding through a dreamy tropical rainforest spotted with hiking trails; watching a man doing a relatively new thing called 'stand up paddle boarding' on Sandy Beach near Makapu'u and watching people cliff jumping at Port Lock on the island of O'ahu. Life doesn't seem quite fair, does it? Feel like stopping and kissing the ground I'm walking on.

Leaving my Beijing Hutong home

Today, I’m sharing about the end of one chapter of my life in Beijing - my traditional Beijing style ‘hutong’ home. After a whole year of living in this fashion I have to say, I will miss it. I’m proud to say that I fulfilled one of my deepest wishes - to have a taste of a totally ground level Chinese experience living among the locals. Something I will never experience anywhere else in the world. However, it also entails having survived the coldest winters I have ever experienced in my life. That says a lot for someone who came from Chicago where it actually snows during winter. Having said that, the uninsulated thick brick walls and tiled floors are truly about my only gripe about the place.


There are a whole lot more things I can think of, things that I will miss about this place.


I’ll miss my bike across town through the thick lush canopy of trees in the older parts of town near Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Jingshan park and the National Center of Performing Arts that I've become accustomed to, every trip I make to work or to see friends who live on the other side of town. It’s always a welcome refuge from the hard grey concrete jungle of the newer parts of Beijing.


I'll miss the extreme friendliness of my neighbors. Starting with the two older couples living beside me who watch my place and seem strangely aware of my comings or goings. ( I was staying over at a friends’ place for 3 days in a row recently, when my 50-something year old grandma neighbor was quick to point out in a casual conversation a few days later that she thought I had moved because I hadn’t been around for a few days!!) Then there’s the guy who lives right across from me who flirts with smiles and those lingering gazes each time he sees me…despite the fact he lives there with another young girl whom I presume to be an ‘other half’ in some capacity! So typically Chinese! (that's a topic for another day) There is a certain lack of privacy with their over-friendliness that looking back is quite funny if taken with a pinch of salt. Like when he stands outside his door pretending to talk on his phone when I have my window open while cooking. The good thing is he’s quite easy on the eyes but still, there’s the creepy factor. I don’t like being watched when I’m cooking no matter how good my stir fry eggplant and french bean smells!


I’ll miss the peaceful quietness of the evenings. The way everything goes silent after 9pm.


I will miss the friendly smiles and easy going nature of people in the neighborhood in the mornings or in the evenings when people stand or sit around to chat or people watch. It's a relaxed, higher quality pace of life compared to the hurried going-ons in the commercial side of town.


I will miss being invited over next door to have dinner every once in a while and lingering to just chat about anything under the sun, including bad bowel movements as of late…yup, no need to be shy about things here. People take everything with stride. Anything goes.


I’ll miss being able to stay up late night with friends, being somewhat noisy, my windows open and no neighbors knocking on my door to tell me to, “Keep the music down or go to bed!”


I'll miss never hearing any English spoken within a 100 meter perimeter of my living space. True 'Lao Beijing' ___ Old Beijing lifestyle.


I’ll miss just walking a few steps around the corner to get a couple bottles of beers back for RMB2 ($US0.20) each. Or in the other direction to get some watermelon, peaches or bananas. Or across for some Chinese vegetable or meat pancakes for a meal costing me barely RMB2.


I’ll miss telling my neighbors to keep a watch on my house while I leave for an extended vacation and knowing they will guard it like it was their own home and listen for the smallest unfamiliar squeak my door makes.


The upside of freezing to death behind these concrete walls in the winter is that it keeps about 10 degrees cooler in the summer. No matter how hot it is outside, it remains sinfully cool inside my ice-box refuge. I love it. This, I know I will reminisce to no end if I'm still here in Beijing next boiling hot summer.


I’ll miss the busy chatter of neighbors outside my window throughout the day starting with the sound of the crisp chirping of the birds at 6am in the morning, a pretty unusual sound to hear in the middle of the city.


I'll miss a million other indescribable things. My familiarity with all the little winding streets and knowing certain parts of this neighborhood like the back of my hand. All the familiar faces; the street scenes and sounds at the turn of each corner.


I’ve always felt safe in my little old neighborhood. Everyone knows everyone. It is not at all uncommon for total strangers to start a conversation with, “How much do you pay for rent?”. I've come to realize it's not because they're purposely nosy like the suburban wars which go on between the desperate housewives in suburban America. These are the local people who live day to day, struggling to make a living where questions like that are as necessary as "Do you have enough to eat?". Whether you agree with it or not, it's a whole different mentality no matter how you slice it. Most of it, quite incomprehensible to us foreigners. Nevertheless, it's an amazing experience to have been this close to it all.


The truth is, I can see the neighborhood changing just in the past year that I’ve lived here. And I'm not sure I welcome it. Lately, people moving in are opening stores, rather than using the space as a primary residence. It’s slowly losing the quaint little neighborhood feel. It's becoming a mish-mash of 'wai di' __ transient migrant population residence. Unlike some who think it unsafe, I have no problem with it. It's just different. Will I be coming back for a visit every once in a while? Yes. Will I feel the nostalgia each time I’m near? You bet I’ll be smiling from ear to ear. Do I wonder about riding by and seeing everything demolished in place of new highrise apts one day? Yes.


For now, it's time to close this chapter and move on. Asta la vista baby. 'Till next time, you'll always be a defining momento of my 'real' Beijing experience.