Saturday, June 30, 2007

Home Town

I stayed in my hometown for 2 weeks.


It is such an interesting place. It will always have a special place in my heart and yet I will never want to go back and live there, ever, again.

The reason I am still trying to go back is because my 82 years old grandma is still kicking and well. She is awesome. Despite the fact that she had a stroke 3 years ago, and became half paralyzed, she is in fine shape. She eats three times a day, and poops at least once a day. Doctor said she has a heart of a 30 year old and all other vital organs are always working properly. Her skin is good too. At age of 82, her face is tight and no sagging whatsoever. Oh the irony. I mean she barely uses lotion and the only means of clean her face is to use a hand towel. Yet, compared to my friends who are in their 20s her skin is like a flawless jade. She lost her ability to speak already and she is too embarrassed to even try. I actually think that if she really tries, she can get it back again. Ah grandma, she is so sweet.

I have to mention my aunt too. She is probably the best daughter anyone can have. She cooks the three meals a day that my grandma eats and every meal is different. In addition my grandma is a faithful Buddhist so she can't eat any meat. Despite the difficulty of cooking up different recipes, my aunt keeps the menu fairly diverse. Also, my grandma needs to pee, a lot. So my aunt can never leaves the house. During the day she has to take her to the bathroom numerious times and it doesn't stop at night either. For that reason, my aunt has to wake up 3-5 times a night to help my grandma pee. Luckily there are two other aunts who assist her to take care of my grandma. They do it in turns, like the old traditional family would for their elderly members. It touched me tremendously and definitely made an impact on my behavior as well.

On the other hand, my other grandma, my mom's mom, has become insane. I mean medically insane. She became insane when my mom was young but luckily her condition was stable. She wasn't going around stabbing people, rather, she just walked and sang weird songs a lot. My favorite uncle and my mom would hold my grandma's hand and walk with her, you know, to just make sure she doesn't wonder off to far away or kill herself. She was known as the crazy in the community, ah, my poor mom and uncle. Even though people would know that she is the crazy person in the neighborhood, no one was afraid of her since she only does her own thing. However, this time I realized that she is much more than just a bit crazy and her "own thing" affects tons of people in the family. For some reason, she feels that she can die at any moment and believes that my mom and my uncle have infinity amount of money. In her own words, "my son prints money!" So, she goes to hospital whenever she has one of those panic episodes. Everytime she goes, she demands to stay there in observation. Of course since it is China and it is my hometown, where hospitals are like hotels, and some doctors are no better than butchers, they are more than glad to admit my grandma till they hit the capacity of beds, only then they kick her out. She, on the other hand, without realizing her own craziness, is so grateful that those doctors are saving her life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are wasted like this and my mom is so helpless. After closely examine her, my grandma in fact is a healthy person. She has diabetes but only to a small extend. Doctors already prescribed her insolent and other medicines to keep her blood sugar level in check. She is much healthier than her children in some aspects. So, my mom has talked to my uncle and decided that they can't fuel her bank account as if they are printing money. The funny thing is if she doesn't have money she will demand it from her children. Soon enough she has figured out who really has money. Then she will focus on that person, using irrational shouting, calm guilty attacks and some tears and hysterical non-sense talking to make the richer children to give in. See, even a crazy mother can master these conventional means to make their children's life miserable. Oh mothers, we love and aren't we helpless. She has four children and only my mom and my first uncle gave in a long time ago. My grandma, with this information has seized asking money from her other two children altogether. If the per month payment to her bank account is slow or little, she will give a verbal beat down with a long distance phone call whenever she can. Isn't she sweet. But the nanny told us that despite the fact that she is crazy, she is not stupid. If the bank account doesn't have enough money in it, she will not go to the hospital. So now my mom and uncle decided to limit her per month allowance and spend that money on insurance because you know the real expensive expenditures will come later, when she is ACTUALLY sick.
See, isn't my hometown just the best place haha.

Also this place has so many memories. Good and bad of course. I had the most fun when I was little here. In the winter, which lasts more than 5 months a year, snow will cover just about everything. Ground will be frozen and form an inch thick icy shell. Cars are forced to wear chains to operate and salt trucks will never stop working during that time. Back then people's living standards weren't high so we didn't have the snowboard and ski resorts. So all we could do was ice slides, sleds, skate, and making snowman everywhere. It was simple yet it was the best as I know it. Compared to how I am today, I am always amazed how easily kids could back satisfied back then.

On the other hand, hometown is also the place where I started to realize that I love the cock. I actually taught a friend of mine how to jack off and then we would have jackoff sessions. Then I proceeded to suck his balls, hmm.. as an eleven year old kids and I was already not that innocent lol. He was clueless though. He is straight and I kind feel bad now. When I visited two years ago he was supposed to come to my dinner party. I actually thought, oh man, awkward... But he never showed. I guess it was a bit awkward. haha.

Hometown is also a place where I got critically sick. That was the darkest time of my life. It was an autoimmune disease which still lingers today. The disease hit fast and hard and made my body a permanent host. I was sick then dying and it developed extremely fast. My parents didn't realize its severity and that made me hate them for a long time. Especially my dad. But everything is ok now.

Everytime I go back, regardless for what reason, all the memories would find their way back to my heart. It is the little detail that makes my mind tingling all over. I would sometimes smirk, flush, or laugh out loud without myself even knowing it. I guess something can never be forgotten.

For those of you who can barely see snow in your life, this is how my hometown looks like in the winter. It is peaceful, quiet and yet the calm whiteness that envelopes city comes with a bang every year. I love it.










Friday, June 29, 2007

Brokeback lamb


One thing that we Chinese do really well is food. If we could, we would eat our way to world conquer. If it is possible, we would cook rocks and make them tasty. If the resource permits, we would make eating a celebrated natural sport. Well, actually that has already happened, lol. The freaking crazy food that I had was absolutely insane.

The restaurant we went serves some kind of delicacy from southwestern china and the main scheme is BBQ. It differs from American BBQ. What they do is to chop off an entire chunk of raw meat and roast it on an open fire. Basically they cook everything the way they make rotisserie chicken, but with a much stronger open flame and the finished product would inherit the quality of the wild animal and untamed flame. It is incredibly masculine and it feels raw and wild. It is very sensational and it makes my mind wander off to the highland deep in the southwestern region, dream about herding, humping, and eating like an animal. Lol, a bit brokeback mountain. Well, maybe that is why I like the food so much!! hahaha.

Because of our late arrival, we had to order the back section of a lamb. The more common leg and chest meat are gone. The waitress told us that the meat is manageable, basically small enough for three even though it means that we are pushing it a little bit for us. I thought pssh, whatever, I could eat 1.5 lb prime ribs I could eat the back of a lamb. I swear that it looked small on the picture too.

Was I wrong. The thing was carted out by the chef and the whole thing spread more than 2 feet wide. It looked like a B2 bomber model made by lamb meat. It was definitely a sight to behold. Apparently, this feast item was usually ordered by a party of six. The waitress tricked us!!! So they have a special little something for this item. Before we realized what exactly it was, a singing crew of 4 people came out of nowhere in traditional southwestern Chinese costume. Forget the girls, I mean they were cute, but the dudes, apparently they were southwestern natives. Their muscles were bulging out from their little white open chest leather vest. Their voice was thick and masculine. Even though the long lasted like only 1 minute, I was mesmerized. Anyways, the food was good but overwhelming. I mean for people who indulge lamb before, you should know that lamb fat tissue crystallize on the surface very fast and it becomes extremely greasy, so half way through, we were literally battling with this piece of meat, fighting a lost battle against the fat tissue and never ending meat and bones.

I don’t think I would ever eat this again, at least not in this fashion. It was good nevertheless and I wish that LA eatery could be a bit more daring in this direction.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Omg I am finally back

The trip was pretty long. In fact it lasted much longer than I expected. Lots of things have been handled, private and business. There is a lot to write about hehe. But as for now I am just gonna take a break because I am so tired and everything feels so swollen on me beh....