Our apartment is actually a house that got split in two, or the so-called “duplex.” Some duplexes are split in upper and lower halves, while ours is split into front and back halves. We live in the front half of the house, and recently after the bunch of post-college-youngsters-like-ourselves moved out in July, a French family with three kids moved in next door.

At first, I was just so excited about all the “French noise” happening when they came in and out of the house; I was really thinking of them like they are aliens descending from another planet (yeah, while I AM also an “alien” in this country). Although we live in a world that is more and more estranged all the time, I decided that it is not okay to not get to know our neighbors, especially if there is only a wall, a thin one that is, between us. We gave them an invitation to come over for dinner, and it was accepted.

Then it was panic time. They are French, I may be in for a rude awakening that in my whole life I do not know how to cook, eat or drink, I thought. Anything that is remotely western wouldn’t do, be it roast chicken, poached salmon, even mashed potatoes would just utterly reveal my lack of culinary skills. Okay, being Taiwanese, I do have a couple of dishes that are just hard to mess up, and it would be unlikely that the French would claim expert in some traditional Taiwanese dish. Just when I plotted this Chinese dinner, I heard that the French are going to bring wine and fruit salad for the dinner party, then one of our roommates offered to bring bread and cheeses. There was a train wreck in my brain. Yeah, stewed beef with ginger soy sauce is NOT going to be on the same table with red wine, bread and cheeses!

On the day of the dinner party, I scrambled to find something to make to feed 10 people that will not be laughed at by the French. Something Californian, local, unheard of was my hope. In the end, I gave up, and went for “chicken marbella” as the main( which I have tried in a couple of more casual dinner party situation and had not failed and I love this dish myself), sauteed onions and color bell peppers as the side. Cooking vegetables is just as hard as cooking meat, if not harder. To serve veggies at the right moment of doneness is very difficult, especially in a house party when I’m not sure when people are coming, or when people are sitting down and ready to eat. I need to make something that, even if it sits on the stove for 5 minutes longer it wouldn’t be all discolored and gross, and if it is slightly underdone it would still be pleasantly edible. Bell peppers fall into this category so I chose it to be the side.

Both the main and the side came out okay, and I did have my awakening moment. I was judging our neighbors by the stereotypical image of “French” that is constructed by our horrible mass media. No they did not point to the bread and cheese that we got from Berkeley Bowl and said ‘how can you eat this,’ in fact they like shopping in Berkeley Bowl. They also didn’t point to the chicken and tell me ‘next time you can try putting some white wine in there.’ In fact, they are very nice people, enjoying their new lives in the Bay Area, and getting to know their neighbors, us. The children are sweet, smart and funny. We played mouse trap after dinner. I found that with so many differences between us, and that they are from a different part of the world, there are even more similarities between us. And most importantly, we are all human beings.

Last week, we accepted their invitation to go over and have dinner. It was as if I didn’t learn from our last dinner, I started to panic again. It would be time for US to bring WINE! Oh my, I know nothing about wine since I don’t drink. The only brand I know is Charles Shaw and I probably shouldn’t bring that to the French. I went to a corner liquor store and saw a bunch of wine covered with dust that is only $5.99, and the shop keeper doesn’t even drink so couldn’t recommend anything for me. Then I went to WholeFoods, and asked for the wine department expert to help me pick out the wine that “is inexpensive but would not be embarrassing to bring to dinner party with French.” Between one French wine and one California wine that the guy recommended, I chose the Californian 2006 Stephen Vincent Crimson.

In the French part of the house, we saw the super creative “zoo”, “car” and “boat” that was made by the little kid out of Berkeley Bowl shopping bags, simple bedrooms that have the same Ikea stuff as ours do, and the small bright kitchen that has chairs surrounding a small dining table that is full of food. We had very tasty ratatouiile, a traditional French dish with slow cooked veal in sour cream sauce, rice, fruit salad, home made bread and of course, the wine.  I got three servings of the ratatouille, and was thoroughly enjoying the food, the conversation and company of the adorable French family and my roommates, and the wine just sort of blended in, tasty as everything else. It was a wonderful night.

After these two gatherings with our French neighbors, I found that they not only are just like us, there are subtle things that make each of them a different, unique person. The way the dad likes to say “in fact” in almost every sentence, the way the mom doesn’t like the idea of getting an iPhone, the way the daughter laughs at her mom’s English, and the way the little kid step by step walked into the kitchen with a costume made with grocery bags and scotch tape.

I first noticed the difference, then I noticed the similarities, then I notice the difference, and I’m just getting to know them all the time. I’m sure we are going to have a good year ahead of us.

Jay Chou is my favorite Taiwanese singer. No one EVER tops him! Even if he mumbles most of the time. He’s huge in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. For me, he is up there along with Oasis, Regina Spektor and Coldplay.

This song is one of my favorite of his, the video tells a beautiful story, although the moral of it is not clear, you have to interpret it yourself. As for the lyrics, it’s all lovey dovey so you don’t really need translation for that…or do you?

Personally, in this video, I like the red lady better than the white lady, she’s just too much of a victim. The red lady actively pursuit her happiness in life, although in an evil way. Plus I like red.

Through talking to other people and just living and observing myself, I found that I am a little paranoid. What about? About a lot of small things in life, to a degree that it protects me but not makes me crazy.

For example, every time I ride a bike I suppose that I could be hit by a car just on that day, therefore I never skip wearing my helmet. Every time I walk on the streets alone after sunset I suppose that there’d be some bad guy jumping out of the dark to attack me, therefore I always keep my eyes on my surrounding. Every time I carry a bike downstairs to the bart station I suppose I might just fall and break my neck, therefore I step with careful attention. Every time I bring along my wallet out the door I suppose it’d be stolen by some crafty thief, therefore I always keep an eye on my wallet, cell phone and keys when I go out and make sure that they’re with me. Every time a guy starts to say weird sounding things to me I suppose they’re trouble and turn on my “fuck you” face.

However, a lot of things people are afraid of I’m not worried about, because most of those things are out of my control. For example, plane crash, natural disasters, getting cancer (I do my best to live a healthy life, but if I still get cancer there’s really not too much I can do), getting fat (I simply do not get fat) or getting dumped (I can’t control someone else’ heart).

Just came back from the Chinese consulate in SF to apply for my visa to China, was quite an experience. Not that something spectacular happened, but I was able to observe how I interacted with the city through the trip there.

First, I got in the consulate about two minutes before they pulled down the metal scrolling door. It was unbelievable that I biked from civic center bart station all the way up the hills to the consulate within 10 minutes, if under usual circumstances I would’ve died half way. It wasn’t too difficult to find the door to the consulate because there were people protesting outside. I pulled out all the documents that I prepared according to the website’s intructions, and was mentally prepared to be screwed over and told “go home and try again” by consulate workers.

It was pretty noisy because the staff at every service window was talking through a microphone like they were selling movie tickets. Languages spoken: English with American accent, English with Chinese accent, Chinese with Cantonese accent, Chinese with Taiwanese accent, Chinese with Beijing accent. Of course when it was my turn I found out that I filled out the wrong form, but the lady who helped me was surprisingly nice. Not the second lady though after I filled out the correct form. Sort of your regular “China town lady” face, but I’m quite used to it already, and actually was glad that my application went through at all.

Taiwan has always been, I think, a mix of three cultures: Chinese, American and Japanese. The Chinese side is more rude but true, while the American and Japanese sides of it are glossier, cleaner but unreal. And of course in the end these three cultures blend into each other and form something that is just purely Taiwanese in an amusing form. Since I’ve gotten a good dosage of American culture by now, it’d be interesting to see how the other two have formed the country that I come from.

I’m just waiting to see which country is going to treat me better.

Fujiki Naohito 藤木直人. Don’t you think? Walt can have his Keira Knightly, I’ll like my Fujiki. Oh, maybe I’ll meet him when I’m in Tokyo, (*bouncing*) what do you think? what do you think? (＝⌒▽⌒＝)

This image was found on his facebook club.

Today I went to karate class like I usually do on Tuesday evenings. We practiced some basic moves and katas, and afterwards my classmates and I joked around with each other and practiced some drills on our own. There was a new guy that has been coming to class occasionally who has a pretty strong build, and I can see he probably has some previous fighting experience.

Anywho, I jokingly said to him and R, “why don’t you guys fight, I’ll watch!” Since after class we often just practice light fighting on our own, maybe review what was just learned in class, and for me it’s great to learn from watching seniors fight. I didn’t think twice about what I said, and it seemed like R was also ready to do some practice with him. To my surprise, this new guy had a very bizarre look on his face and said to me half seriously and half proudly, “Are you sure? You want me to fight? Do you want to see blood? Huh?”

Now I have to explain that I am a very visual person and that I associate every thought and memory with visual references, and often layer visual imagination with what I actually see through my eyes. When this guy said something about drawing blood from my beloved classmate R I could immediately see blood gushing out of R because of a light fighting practice after class with this guy. It may not have seemed like it from the outside, but I felt so disgusted, sad and angry because of what he said. If one understands even the most basic principals of martial arts and what it is to be a truly great fighter, he would never be so proud of himself just because he thinks he has the ability to threaten the life of another human being.

Granted I am definitely not the one who knows the most about martial arts or any kind of fighting, but since I started to learn karate I’ve met some pretty amazing fighters, karate or others, and none of them would even have the attitude that would accompany such conceited words. Now maybe this guy is a great street fighter, grew up in a ghetto and still fights for a living or for survival day in day out, honestly I don’t care. Just the fact that he was so proud of his ability to hurt his fellow classmate has made me lose all my respect for him, not that it matters to him, I figure.

He’d have to do something pretty big to earn back my respect, like, save a life.

Oh my my my, it’s been a month since I wrote the last post…what a month, I’m telling you, what a month.

First of all, Walt’s still not off his cast, which means that he’s using my bedroom (on the ground floor) and my computer all the time, which decreases my alone time, which led to my semi-breakdown about two weeks ago. Walt might argue otherwise but he’ll have to do it on his blog, not mine, hehe.

Anywho, I felt so awful for the first half of July, constantly going to places and taking care of things, cook breakfast, pack lunch, do dishes, go to work, go to karate, do grocery, cook dinner, do dishes, clean room, clean house, dump trash, go to hang outs…until one morning before I went to work, I just felt so tired all I wanted to do was to just take a deep breath and not think about the next thing I gotta do or next place I gotta be. At that time, I just finished reading the book Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch in which he talks about his films and meditation. I thought, I don’t care, I’m so late for work, but I really need some alone time for myself, even just 10 minutes. I went up to the other bedroom and shut the door, then sat on the bed with closed eyes. I tried to meditate, I didn’t really know how. Sitting there taking some deep breaths, there was a million things in my heads and I heard my “strong voice” telling me that I’d be okay in 10 minutes, I can handle everything. Then about 3 minutes later I had tears pouring down my cheeks, and all my “strong voice” became shells cracking on the surface of me. Then I heard something like a god voice, or something, telling me that I don’t need to be anything I’m actually not. I don’t need to pretend to be happy when I’m sad, I don’t need to pretend to be strong when I feel helpless,  I don’t need to be funny when I don’t have anything to say, I don’t need to smile if I actually feel like cursing, and I don’t need to pick up the dustbunnies at the corner if I feel like lying in bed instead of cleaning. I felt much better after that hideous and emotional 10 minutes, then I started to meditate whenever I can, especially on bart on the way to way or go home.

I’m sleepy, and go see the Batman: the Dark Knight, it is so very good, makes it onto my favorite 10 movies of all time.

I don’t know why, but I seem to have a tendency to show my bra or boobs when I don’t want to. The most embarrassing one was probably at my own wedding when my wedding dress bra paddings were peeking through the dress. My sister pulled me aside and told me about it, I adjusted them, but my strapless dress was so heavy that it kept slipping down and showing the bra paddings just by a bit. I really didn’t have energy to care about that when everyone wanted to talk to me. Then after the wedding I sure saw the bra paddings in a picture in which I was bending down to cut the cake.

I had a tremendous time at the karate event today. There was good food, good friends, good music, good kids, and I danced, and I forgot some of my moves that I was practicing for 9 hours yesterday, and I showed some of my bra through my tank top while I raised my arms for some of the moves, and I really don’t want to think about this any more and I really can’t stop thinking about this.

I showed my boobs while swimming one time, and another time wore a shirt that was way more transparent than I thought. Every time I do something like this, I think, there are so many other things that are in other people’s heads, and they sure are not thinking about my bra or my boobs, so I shouldn’t worry about this. I think it’s really because I’m so afraid of the cold that I’m wrapped under layers of clothes 95% of my life that I don’t really know how to dress in more revealing clothes and therefore make a fool of myself. But hey, when summer really comes, I will still wear whatever I like.

I’m so glad I’m married. It really helps keep my life simple, yet rich ^_^…