(no subject)

Last night, I dreamt I was watching a sitcom where someone made a Philippine dish of roasted duck tails (actually the fatty knob known as the "Pope's nose" on a chicken) and steamed bread. It was called (wait for it...) "patapán".

Also, while leaving Rosehill yesterday evening, I passed a tombstone engraved "BINMORE" and immediately wondered if the rest of the name was "Daniel Everbee".

Edit: Incidentally, "Pope's nose" isn't a word I'd ever used--or even heard of--until I picked it up from Nuphy (that godless Hollywoodite of indeterminate Protestant heritage).

Hungry like a ghost

As far as I can tell, the Ullambana Festival is a purely East Asian affair, ultimately deriving as it does from a Chinese Mahayana scripture. We actually studied the sutra in Stir-Fry Civ because it represents an early attempt to reconcile the ideals of Buddhist non-attachments and Confucian filial piety. The incarnation of the festival most widely recognised in the West is probably O-bon; I think many have also heard of the Chinese (Hungry) Ghost Festival even if they are unclear on when it is observed. (I know it always sneaks up on me.) But the Korean Baekjung (백중--the hanja used are variously 百中, 百種, or 白中) and the Vietnamese Vu-lan-bồn are so obscure that they're only known to me from books. I suppose that's not surprising since these are much more thoroughly religious festivals than holidays like New Year's or the Autumn Moon Festival, primarily observed out of the public eye in Buddhist temples.

As I mentioned before, the only Chinese cemetery I know about is located in the southwest corner of Rosehill Cemetery, near the intersection of Western and Balmoral. It's relatively new (I can't remember if it was there when I moved to Chicago) and divided into roughly four sections. Approaching from the east, one first passes an even newer, Jewish section called הר ורד or Har Vered--"Rose Hill" in Hebrew. (The older Jewish section has been located at the south end for a long time, and it is gorgeous.) On the other side of the hedge is the Teochew section, followed by the Korean section, a landscaped pond, and finally, on a bit of raised ground across an access road, another Chinese section.

Two things struck me about each of these areas: First, the orientation of the graves varies from section to section. In both the Chinese sections, they face east, but the Korean headstones are oriented toward the south. Near the pond, there isn't any consistency; the smattering of graves on the east side face out over the water, but the walled-off sections to the south have orientations both to the south and the north. Second, each section seems to be identified by a particular marker.

( The Teochew Section )

( The Korean Section )

( By the pond )

( The main Chinese section )

For the most part, I didn't come across any remarkable names, though two did stand out. One is "Ear Khim", whose Chinese name isn't anything that could remotely be romanised that way. (I suspect that he adopted a Cambodian name that bore no direct phonetic relationship to his Chinese name, in much the way that Chef Jeff uses a Thai name that has no obvious resemblance to his Teochew one.) And then in the Teochew section there was a "Vivathnea Thor". Again, the rendering looks Khmer-influenced (I'm assuming a relationship to the Thai name commonly romanised Vivathana), but there was no Chinese on the stone for purposes of comparison. Edit: Oh, and there was one stone with the curious words "Pháp danh: Thiên-trí". Turns out pháp danh is the equivalent of 法名 fámíng--i.e. "dharma name" or (Buddhist) "name in religion".

PSA

Nobody get into any bar fights with febrile!

(Prompted by this post from danbearnyc.)

Indolence is bliss

One more thing I want to remember about last night: How lovely things were from the moment I left Rosehill on. I was a little worn out waiting for the Peterson bus to wisk me back to Sheridan, but there was also a certain endorphin factor to having spent the last three hours or so tramping about. I forget sometimes how much my spirit needs doses of nature. When I called monshu to let him know I'd be late for dinner, he was very understanding.

Sometimes we're both so tired on Sunday evening that getting together seems almost counterproductive. Christianity's day of rest is his chores day; twelve hours or more of that can leave him dour and hard-to-amuse. I have a terrible habit of staying up too late on Saturday night and failing to make it up Sunday morning (bzw. afternoon) which makes me want to be Left A Lawn. More than once, it's felt like a duty to put aside my book, head over, and be social. On top of that, if we've already spent Friday evening and most of Saturday together, we've exhausted our news, which can make getting a convo started challenging.

But, of course, this time I had my afternoon's adventures to fill him in on. For his part, he'd kicked off a couple hours to come down to the deck and read Jonathan Spence, so he was better rested than usual. Plus we got to compare notes on Chinese agrarian history, woo hoo! It was wonderful on the deck--cool and breezy--and the grilled chicken with sour orange juice and fenugreek was scrummy, particularly when washed down with a lovely Naia. And then, on top of it all, we caught a beautiful moonrise. (It will most likely be even lovelier tonight, so we're both going to try to make it somewhere where we can see it.)

Afterwards, exhaustion began to catch up, so we collapsed on the couch and cuddled while watching Return of the King on WTBS, the Channel of Ten Billion Commercials. I'm still hoping that Nuphy will host his insane all-day viewing of the trilogy one of these days.