![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Feb. 4th, 2005 11:50 am
My other village comes through
I'm not sure why I was feeling so out of sorts last night, but I was. I considered popping into Big Chicks for a beer, a burger, and some company, but I wanted to get to bed early, having been up too late on Wednesday, and the Great Equivocator interferes with that for me. I didn't even feel like getting off at my stop when it came up and ended up disembarking at Lawrence, thinking I might pop into the local independent used book store. It was closed, of course.
I didn't want to go home and do the things I had to do, but I also didn't want to waste a lot of money on another dinner out, so I popped into tasty Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall Đong Ky and ordered a bowl of mì Quảng. It came quickly, and it was delicious. I was in full sight of the t.v., trying to not to be distracted by the Happy Days 30 Year Reunion, when one of the staff popped in a Vietnamese-language video. I soon gathered that it dealt with preparations for Tết, the Vietnamese version of Chinese New Year (falling on Ash Wednesday of all days this year, which must be an interesting challenge for East Asian Christians).
I watched with fascination scene after scene of skinny workers old and young involved in the production of bánh. These are much like zong4zi, which I've been know to call "Chinese tamales" for the uninitiated. The most usual form is sticky rice with a savoury filling (often soybean mash and pork) wrapped in banana leaves. Almost every Vietnamese restaurant in my area, no matter how small, has at least a few (usually made elsewhere, since they're even more time-consuming to make than tamales) sitting on the counter to sell to customers. But the video had every variation, from sweetened versions with coloured rice to massive square bánh the size of a landmine.
While I was watching, I ended up eavesdropping on the trio to my right: An older man, a younger man, and a young woman who were--to my surprise--all speaking Mandarin. I couldn't catch much--"have you eaten...", "three months", "this is..."--but it was rewarding to try. After they left, the small girl with the massive overbite who was the only waitress started clearing their soup bowls. The bespectacled boss came over to give her a hand, but he hadn't made it three feet before he dropped everything in a spectacular explosion of leftover broth and noodles that soaked the front of his pants and spread across the floor. Everyone--the two men at the next table, the two elderly Asian women across from them, the whey-faced trio in front of the television--turned to look as he made a wry face and two middle-aged busboys appeared from the back with mops. Both he and the waitress required assurance that I--as the patron closest to the mess--was fine and hadn't been splattered. It was all I could do, however, not to chuckle.
It dawned on me that I was in fantastic mood. Something in the combination of the food and the company had worked magic on my psyche and left me feeling relaxed and content. I began the face the fact that one of the chief reasons I don't stay in and prepare my own meals more often is that I simply hate to be alone. It doesn't matter than these people are all strangers; they're at least warm human bodies who respond to my needs. I like to think that I'm okay with living on my own, but I'm really not. I grew up in a household were it was an unusual thing indeed to be the only one around and went from there to a noisy, friendly, dorm environment. I may have spent about ten years of my life, off and on, living alone, but without ever coming to terms with it.
After a few minutes, though, the conversation drifting over from the two men was beginning to grate on me. One of them was talking about the SotU and mocking injured veterans and the families of fallen soldiers who supported the War. I decided to leave before his smugness ruined my mood. Halfway home, though, I realised that the certainty that it would fade was one of the things that made such emotions so overwhelmingly enjoyable.
I didn't want to go home and do the things I had to do, but I also didn't want to waste a lot of money on another dinner out, so I popped into tasty Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall Đong Ky and ordered a bowl of mì Quảng. It came quickly, and it was delicious. I was in full sight of the t.v., trying to not to be distracted by the Happy Days 30 Year Reunion, when one of the staff popped in a Vietnamese-language video. I soon gathered that it dealt with preparations for Tết, the Vietnamese version of Chinese New Year (falling on Ash Wednesday of all days this year, which must be an interesting challenge for East Asian Christians).
I watched with fascination scene after scene of skinny workers old and young involved in the production of bánh. These are much like zong4zi, which I've been know to call "Chinese tamales" for the uninitiated. The most usual form is sticky rice with a savoury filling (often soybean mash and pork) wrapped in banana leaves. Almost every Vietnamese restaurant in my area, no matter how small, has at least a few (usually made elsewhere, since they're even more time-consuming to make than tamales) sitting on the counter to sell to customers. But the video had every variation, from sweetened versions with coloured rice to massive square bánh the size of a landmine.
While I was watching, I ended up eavesdropping on the trio to my right: An older man, a younger man, and a young woman who were--to my surprise--all speaking Mandarin. I couldn't catch much--"have you eaten...", "three months", "this is..."--but it was rewarding to try. After they left, the small girl with the massive overbite who was the only waitress started clearing their soup bowls. The bespectacled boss came over to give her a hand, but he hadn't made it three feet before he dropped everything in a spectacular explosion of leftover broth and noodles that soaked the front of his pants and spread across the floor. Everyone--the two men at the next table, the two elderly Asian women across from them, the whey-faced trio in front of the television--turned to look as he made a wry face and two middle-aged busboys appeared from the back with mops. Both he and the waitress required assurance that I--as the patron closest to the mess--was fine and hadn't been splattered. It was all I could do, however, not to chuckle.
It dawned on me that I was in fantastic mood. Something in the combination of the food and the company had worked magic on my psyche and left me feeling relaxed and content. I began the face the fact that one of the chief reasons I don't stay in and prepare my own meals more often is that I simply hate to be alone. It doesn't matter than these people are all strangers; they're at least warm human bodies who respond to my needs. I like to think that I'm okay with living on my own, but I'm really not. I grew up in a household were it was an unusual thing indeed to be the only one around and went from there to a noisy, friendly, dorm environment. I may have spent about ten years of my life, off and on, living alone, but without ever coming to terms with it.
After a few minutes, though, the conversation drifting over from the two men was beginning to grate on me. One of them was talking about the SotU and mocking injured veterans and the families of fallen soldiers who supported the War. I decided to leave before his smugness ruined my mood. Halfway home, though, I realised that the certainty that it would fade was one of the things that made such emotions so overwhelmingly enjoyable.