mom's 粽子

Originally I wanted to plan a 端午節 party this year with friends, where we could wrap 粽子 together. We did that a couple of years ago and it was really fun. Things got busy what with trip planning and all, so that idea fell by the wayside. But, my mom made a bunch over the weekend and gave me a bag, so at least I could have fresh 粽子, even if I hadn't made them myself.

After eating some yesterday night, I have to say my mom's 粽子 are noticeably better than mine. They were very delicious. Must figure out what I'm doing wrong...

eek

I realized something yesterday...this year is the "Year of the Ox", which means my baby brother is turning 24 this year. Damn I'm old.

asian parents

Someone sent me these links last week but I didn't get a chance to look at them until today. They've been cracking me up all morning.

sexism causes decreased birthrate?

For some reason or another, there's been a lot of press recently about people deciding to have kids (or not).

In the gym yesterday, I ran across an article in last month's New York Times Magazine entitled No Babies?, that examines some possible causes for Europe's super-low birth rate. Apparently European birthrates recently dropped below 1.3. If that rate is sustained, the population will halved in 45 years (faster if the rate drops lower).

Without having read the article, my guess for the low birthrate would have been that Europeans are deciding they were happier without (or with fewer) children. The answer the article provides is more nuanced, but is not far from that. It points out those European countries that have "greater gender equality...better social commitment to day care and other institutional support for working women" have higher birthrates. I bet the women in patriarchal societies have one child, discover their life now sucks, and decide not to have any more, whereas women in egalitarian societies discover hey, not so bad, and choose to have second or third children.

A quote from the article about the countries with more chauvinistic cultures:
"All of these are societies still rooted in the tradition where the husband earned all the money. Things have changed, not only in Italy and Spain but also in Japan and Korea, but those societies have not yet adjusted. The relationships within households have not adjusted yet.” Western Europe, then, is not the isolated case that some make it out to be. It is simply the first region of the world to record extremely low birthrates.

I guess they better adjust, pronto. Japan and Korea both currently have fertility rates around 1.1, and they may still be dropping.

Another article, in Newsweek, examines the question of whether having kids increases or decreases happiness. A recentl study found that parents "definitely experienced more depression" and "parental depression increases along with the number of children parents have". Of course the researcher got tons of hate mail from parents saying that she must hate her children and so on, but there were some more considered (and more interesting) responses, too.

One blogger wrote:
I like the amateur marathoner metaphor: survey a marathoner in the midst of the race and they'll complain about their legs and that rash and how the race seems like it's taking forever. But when the running is over they are always incredibly proud of their accomplishment. Having kids, then, is like a marathon that lasts 18 years.

Finally, a few days ago I read an article about how guys have a biological clock, too. Apparently older men (starting from mid-to-late 30s) are more likely to produce sperm with damaged DNA, which lowers the rate of conception and raises the rate of miscarriage. So, I guess the moral of the story is, women who want to postpone having children should pick younger guys, to increase their eventual chances of conceiving? Or something.

reality check

I was a bridesmaid in a wedding yesterday. The bride rented out a gorgeous ranch in Glen Ellen for her extended family, and also invited us (the bridesmaids) to have our hair and makeup done there on the morning of the wedding.

I was quite amused by the following exchange between the (Taiwanese) bride and her mother, which occurred just after we finished getting ready...

Mother: You look beautiful! Like a Japanese princess.
Daughter: (annoyed) Mom! You're supposed to say I look like a Taiwanese princess.
Mother: But, there are no princesses in Taiwan. We have a president.

happy new year!

Happy year of the pig! I spent the weekend eating lots of New Year's foods, at my parents' house and at a family friend's house. Then, I actually managed to deep fry some sweet nein gau of my own at a friend's house yesterday night. That is, I took pre-made nein gau and fried it; I didn't make it from scratch. Small steps.

massive cultural gap

I was talking to a friend the other day about why I get along better with my grandfather than my grandmother.

The average conversation between me and my grandfather goes something like this (in Taiwanese, of course):

me:	Hi Grandpa, I'm glad to hear that your hip is better.
gf:	Yes, but my eyes are still not very good. How about you, how's work? Are you very busy this month?
me:	No, it's not bad right now, I just had a deadline last week.
gf:	What are you doing for exercise these days?
me:	I've been playing in a basketball league once a week, and my team practices once a week, also.
gf:	Do you have any fun upcoming plans?
me:	Yes, I'm going to Hawaii with my friends, and we are going to hike and kayak and maybe go windsurfing.
gf:	Maybe it's best if you don't go windsurfing; it's dangerous.

The average conversation between me and my grandmother goes something like this (again, in Taiwanese):

me:	Hi Grandma, how is everything?
gm:	Good. Are you getting married soon?

Okay, I exaggerate. But it's not far off, I swear.

My friend was saying that she has a similar problem with her older female relatives as well; they tend to be concerned primarily with whether we have boyfriends, when we're going to be married, and whether we're planning to have children soon. In contrast, our older male relatives are interested in our careers, our hobbies, and our daily lives.

We concluded that the cultural gap between American 21st century women and Taiwanese early 20th century women is much, much larger than the typical gap between grandparents and their grandchildren. Having that realization made me a little sad, but it doesn't stop me from feeling irritated when talking to my grandmother.

Chou time

It's been a very Jay Chou-centric weekend.

The original plan for Friday was to see Curse of the Golden Flower at the AMC Mercado, but when the movie showtimes came out for this week, we discovered that Golden Flower had been yanked already. The next closest showing (in both time and place) was the 10:45pm showing the the Metreon.

So, Friday after work, a bunch of us headed up to the city, got some tapas at Thirsty Bear, tried to get dessert at Beard Papa's only to discover that they'd closed at 8pm, and snuck some Just Desserts into the theatre instead.

I had pretty low expectations going in, since Golden Flower had gotten some bad reviews and was being yanked so quickly, so I actually enjoyed the movie quite a bit. The visuals were stunning, and the acting wasn't bad (it's nice seeing Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat speaking Chinese instead of English). Of course, my roommate most enjoyed watching Jay Chou in his role as Prince Jai.

For dinner on Saturday, we'd planned a group outing to Sushi House in Alameda. I'd never heard so many recommendations for the same restaurant from so many different people before, so we had to try it. The rolls were yummy and the portion sizes were super generous, but it was the tempura ice cream that I liked the best; it was huge, well made, with a cake-y batter, and had raspberry sauce on the side (which sounds strange, but was delicious).

Since we were already in the East Bay, we then headed over to Music Tunnel in Richmond, which is likely, after all these years, still the best KTV in the Bay Area. Usually when I go to karaoke, we sing mostly English songs, because most people don't read other languages very well, but this time, I had invited my cousin to join us, and she's fluent in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese. As a result, we not only sang more Chinese songs than ever before (including at least ten Jay Chou songs), but we actually had some Japanese songs on the program as well.

mmm...dumplings

There are lots of yummy things to eat in Taiwan, and I've had many of them over the last few days, but I never leave without having gone to Din Tai Fong. Can't beat their dumplings...



We always horrify the waitstaff with our American-sized appetites; this is the third consecutive year that our waitress has tried to convince us our order was too large, and it's the third consecutive year that we've finished everything that we've ordered.

This year, after we sat down, they brought out a little contraption that consisted of cloth stretched over a folding metal frame:



The waitress set it up at the corner of the table between my sister and me, and looked at us expectantly. We gave her a blank look, and she explained it was for our purses.

I thought this was absolute genius. I'm always slinging my purse over the back of my chair (where it often falls because the chair is curved or someone has bumped it), or wedging it between my back and the chair (where it pokes me while I eat), or holding it uncomfortably on my lap (where I proceed to drop food on it). Why don't we have these things in the US yet?

hero worship

My mother tells me that every time the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang picks up a win, one of the Taiwanese newspapers dedicates a full page to Wang, to celebrate the achievement. (Wang is the only successful MLB player to come out of Taiwan so far.) This makes that newspaper hugely popular on the days after his wins, and people (my cousin among them) run out to the newspaper stands in the mornings to buy copies before they're gone.

Here's one from his 18th win:

Hines Ward

Hines Ward has been one of my favorite receivers since three years ago, when I picked him up from free agency in my fantasy football league, but I never realized that he was half-Asian.

From the Korea Times:

Steelers receiver Hines Ward, who was born in Seoul to a Korean woman and an African-American GI 29 years ago, caught five passes and a touchdown in the game against the Denver Broncos, contributing to the team’s 34-17 triumph.

Looking around a bit online, I ran across this interview by SI.com from last week. It sounds like he has an interesting personal history:

I was born in Seoul. My mom's Korean. My dad [Hines Ward Sr.] was in the military. We moved to the U.S. when I was one, and my parents got divorced. My dad remarried, and the courts wouldn't let me live with my mom. They said she was an unfit parent because she couldn't speak English and had no way to support us. So early on I lived with my dad and stepmom.

I went to live with [my mom] when I was in second grade. She was amazing. She had three jobs. Cleaned dishes at the Atlanta airport. Cleaned hotels. Was a grocery-store cashier. She'd work till two in the morning, then get up to make me breakfast before her airport job. She'd come home from that, and before she left for her next job, she'd have lunch on the table for me when I came home from school. I could never, ever repay my mother for everything she did for me.

mamemomoko love story

Courtesy of joclin and kstroke: a mamemomoko love story

The noises that the girl doll makes when she's trying to get at the beer are especially cute.

Korean soap operas

My mom recently discovered Korean soap operas, so now when my dad comes back from Taipei, he brings home a new series (on DVD) for her to watch. Lately, she's been watching All About Eve, which focuses on the stories of two Korean girls, and has (as far as I can tell) nothing to do with the American movie All About Eve. From what I hear, the Korean soap opera craze has spread all over Taiwan, and maybe Hong Kong and Japan. I wonder when the Taiwanese TV producers are finally going to realize people are sick of Chinese historical dramas.

commercials as cultural barometers?

I arrived in Taipei yesterday, only to discover that it's over 20 degrees Celsius here, and humid. At least I was somewhat intelligent and brought layers, so only half of my clothes are useless.

Anyway, I was watching TV this afternoon and made a couple of observations about the commercials. First, more than half of them are in Taiwanese (as opposed to Mandarin Chinese). I don't remember exactly, but I'm fairly certain that this was not the case, five or ten years ago.

Also, the commercials here seem to rely a lot less on putting young, good-looking people on the air. For example, I saw several ads for cold medicines, featuring very average-looking, middle-aged women, telling some (only moderately attractive) young adults that a particular product would cure their colds. To me, it was quite a contrast, compared with American cold commercials, which typically feature impossibly young and attractive mothers ministering to their cute-as-a-button kids.

women in Asia

Numbers and facts extracted from various news articles and websites:

- In China, the gender imbalance for newborns is currently at about 117 to 100, and as high as 130 to 100 in Guangdong and Hainan. That means, in 20 years, when these babies become adults, there will be 117 men for every 100 women. Japan Times

- Japan's estimated 2004 fertility rate is 1.38 children per woman. CIA Factbook

- Around 40 percent of South Korean women are single at 30, compared to 14 percent twenty years ago. SFGate.com

- In Taiwan, the divorce rate is estimated at 25-30%, which is twice as much as it was 10 years ago. Interestingly, divorce laws in Taiwan were changed in 1985; previously, men had exclusive rights to their wives' property and personal belongings. MercuryNews.com

feature request for PayPal

This insight came in an email from a friend this morning:

"PayPal is un-Chinese because it doesn't let you refuse money."

not cute at all

I was going to write a post about how Taiwan's President Chen has his own line of clothing and accessories, branded with a cute cartoon of his face, and how maybe that said something about the Asian take on democracy.



Then, I woke up to find this all over the AP news:

Taiwan's President, Vice President Wounded in Shooting
Both Were Released From Hospital Following Treatment

TAIPEI, Taiwan, Mar. 19 - Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian and his vice president were wounded Friday after at least one bullet was fired at them while campaigning on the eve of an election that has deeply divided the island and angered authorities in mainland China.

I'm deeply saddened. Taiwan does not have a history of gun violence, it would be a shame for one to be begun at this critical time.

Lunar New Year == food

Oof...it's the Lunar New Year today, and already I can barely fit in my jeans. Why? I had hotpot with a few friends on Tuesday in Redwood City. Then, on New Year's Eve we had lots of yummy food at home (including desserts, mmm). Today at work, the chefs put together a kickass New Year's banquet, complete with roast pig, roast duck, and dim sum. Tonight, it's a dumpling party in Sunnyvale, and more desserts. I've heard that in Taiwan, people just eat and eat all week, since they're on vacation anyway...and people ask me why I think going to Taiwan is all about food.