more online shopping!

I just heard about AmazonFresh and I'm jealous. (It's only available in the Seattle area so far.)

I used to love ordering from HomeRuns back when I lived in Cambridge...until they went out of business. Safeway supposedly offers grocery delivery but it costs money and I hear they have horrible customer service and a sucky website, whereas Amazon is just awesomeness wrapped up in a big shiny bow.

Hey Amazon! We need free grocery delivery here in the Bay Area too!

dual purpose

This conversation took place at work awhile ago, but I'd forgotten about it until tonight, when I heard an infant screaming somewhere downstairs, around dinnertime.

me:	Dude, I just saw a woman in the hallway feeding her baby.
coworker:	With her boobs??
me:	Duh, I wouldn't have mentioned it if she'd been using a bottle.
coworker:	It's so funny that boobs are like, for food, too.
me:	Um...yeah.

yay power tools

Late last week, I was sitting at my desk typing, when the keyboard tray suddenly ripped out of my desk and fell to the ground, along with my fancy Kinesis keyboard, mouse, and Ratpadz GS. I guess I was lucky that I was sitting cross-legged so the tray didn't fall on my feet. (It's quite heavy and the corners are very sharp.)

Yesterday night, my wrists finally started to hurt enough that I decided to see what I could do about fixing it. I got out my handy power drill, charged it just enough to poke three new holes in the attachment part of the table, and screwed on the tray. Voila, back to normal. I do like power tools.

French Laundry, take 2

I am not a fan of Valentine's Day. It seems like the most Hallmark-y of all Hallmark holidays. Everything is pink and red and covered in lace, perfectly reasonable people are reduced to rampant sexism, and everyone seems to think it's their business to ask you what you're doing to celebrate. It almost seems like a massive national (global?) conspiracy to make single people feel broken and/or desperate. I much prefer Halloween, when everyone gets to eat candy, dress up in weird costumes, and throw eggs at mean people('s houses).

On the day itself, I tend to avoid restaurants like the plague; the food is generally overpriced, the waitstaff overworked, and people are spending money at upscale restaurants not because they appreciate the food, but because they're out to prove how "romantic" they are.

So then, this year, how did I find myself eating at a very nice restaurant on Valentine's Day?

My dad's birthday is in late February, and my sister's birthday is in early March. A few weeks ago, my mom and I started to look for a suitable venue for us to celebrate their birthdays jointly, since my sister is going back to Taiwan in a week or so. We debated a variety of restaurants, and settled on Michael Mina, since my sister had never been there before. Unfortunately, it turned out that Michael Mina was closed on Sundays, as were several of the other restaurants that we had been contemplating. Between my schedule and my sister's schedule and my parents' schedule, we were having a terrible time finding a reservation at a time that everyone could make. Finally I did an enormously broad OpenTable search on all of the proposed dates, and amazingly, I turned up a Saturday lunchtime reservation at French Laundry! I quickly sent an email to my parents and sister asking them to confirm their availability for lunch on February 14th, and never thought twice about the date.

Later, when we realized what day that was, my sister was enormously amused that I had managed to get a reservation at French Laundry for Valentine's Day. We speculated that perhaps tables for more than two people were not in high demand that day, or that the down economy had affected their business more severely than other restaurants. We finally decided to go anyway, figuring that the price and menu would be just the same as usual, and the service couldn't be worse, given that there are a finite number of tables and they are used to serving a full house.

In the end, we had a great meal, and even had time to stop by the Bouchon Bakery afterwards for baguettes and French macaroons to go. In fact, I quite enjoyed seeing Yountville by daylight. Also, my food photos came out much better than last time; the camera quality really does make a huge difference.

The day's menu (with no repeats from last time):


My favorite salmon cones (a repeat, but not on the menu, and well worth repeating):


A very excellent half-bottle ordered by my dad:


(Skipping the caviar on cauliflower panna cotta, which was delicious but not that interesting visually...)

A beautifully presented artichoke salad:


The other starter, foie gras "au torchon" with oranges:


I chose the tuna tartare fish course (of course):


My mother had the Atlantic striped bass:


Everyone had butter poached lobster (with brussel sprouts and apples):


Onto the meat! I had the duck breast (with a couple bits of candied garlic, and some other veggies):


I was skeptical of the "confit de coeur veau" and had to verify with the waiter that it was in fact, veal heart, but the bit that I tried was actually quite good:


Although it didn't sound all that exciting, the ribeye turned out to be one of my favorites:


The Idiazabel cheese was quite sharp (or "tasty", as the Kiwis say). I enjoyed it until several people tried to give me their portions too:


The sorbet and scone dish that we had as a palate cleanser was kind of bland, even with the kumquat in there, but I suppose that was the point:


My dessert included bits of roasted pineapple, spiced rice beignets, and pepper sherbert:


I also got to try a bite of the chocolate mousse with banana ice cream (but decided I liked my own dessert better):


There were only supposed to be two dessert options, but my sister cleverly asked for one of the desserts from the vegetarian menu. Hers was a piece of Fuji apple with a bit of pastry:


Of course, we wound up the meal with lots of sweets:



We took some goodies home, too. In addition to the normal shortbread cookies, our waiter was kind enough to let us take the leftover chocolates that we hadn't been able to finish. He also gave the birthday people little bags of chocolate bars, and then he distributed special chocolate heart boxes to all of the women, in honor of Valentine's Day. Sigh. It's just too hard to say no to sexism when it's waving large amounts of free chocolate in your face. (They were huge; I ate maybe a fourth of one for breakfast with part of a baguette. It was delicious.)

singing while eating

A friend recently discovered a Japanese restaurant called Ninkimono in Newark which has private karaoke rooms. They allow you to order food and drink in the rooms, so you can sing and eat at the same time. This works pretty well most of the time (people who aren't singing can eat, so they're not bored) but not so well when you have a mouthful of sushi and your song comes up.

Anyway, we had a pretty good time there on a rainy Sunday night, although the song selection is not as good as Gamba (I guess no one's is). I also realized again (for the first time since...maybe college?) that I am not a fan of sake bombs. I mean, why spoil perfectly good sake?

almost time

Today is 1234567890 day...Unix second 1234567890 will occur at 2:31 PST. It's also Friday the 13th. That is all.

motivation

I'd been debating signing up for this year's Bay to Breakers all week, ever since a friend asked me to join him.

Today, I found out that my spinning instructor is turning 50 this year. 50!! I would have guessed she was maybe 40, except that she'd mentioned her "15-year-old" a few times before, so at some point I'd revised my mental estimate to "early 40s". This woman teaches multiple spinning and pilates classes every day, has two teenagers and a husband who does triathlons, seems to be in Tahoe every other weekend, and regularly bikes and runs on weekends as well.

Anyway, I decided to sign up for the race. I figured I better get started now on the being-in-shape-when-I'm-50 thing.

catching up on movies

I recently watched several movies. It was quite unusual for me, as I usually watch maybe 1-2 movies a month, which makes my Netflix subscription pretty useless except for convenience.

Two weeks ago I finally saw The Dark Knight, which on the while I liked very much. Unfortunately, every time I saw Aaron Eckhart, I thought of his character in No Reservations, so I couldn't take the whole crazed-from-grief thing seriously. Also, I didn't like Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel.

A friend threw a movie night last week, and we watched Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay. It was kind of amusing but not as good as the first. Plus, for the first twenty minutes I kept trying to remember if the character of Vanessa had been in the first movie and/or if we were supposed to know who she was. Although I don't watch many movies, I must watch too much TV: I immediately recognized Rob Corddry from The Daily Show, Roger Bart from Desperate Housewives, and Eric Winter from Brothers and Sisters. It was interesting to see the latter two play completely different roles from their TV characters.

Last Friday, a friend organized a girls' night to watch He's Just Not That Into You. The setup was kind of interesting, with a bunch of loosely connected men and women who were in various stages of relationships, but I thought the movie's supposed "insights" were pretty stereotypical and most of the women characters were too desperate and not that likable. I also didn't like that the happy ending for Jennifer Aniston's character negated all of her character growth throughout the movie. Oh well, it was a fun night hanging out with friends.

25 random things

Copying from my Facebook post...

1. I'm weird about personal data security. I refuse to give out my address and phone number when I shop at malls, I create a new "junk" e-mail address every year, I don't save passwords in my browser, and I flush cookies on exit. In fact, writing this list makes me a little uncomfortable.

2. I talk really fast. I also like TV shows where people talk really fast, like in all of Aaron Sorkin's shows (especially The West Wing). One time I gave a presentation at work to a large group and got asked to slow down twice. Afterwards I asked a friend if I had really been talking that fast, and he said no, I'd been talking at my normal speed, but that that was probably still too fast for anyone who wasn't used to talking to me. Unfortunately I can't help it; if I slow down I lose my train of thought.

3. I've never actually lived in Taiwan for longer than 3 months at a time, but I have an obsessive interest in Taiwanese history and politics. In seventh grade I wrote a report on Taiwanese history. It was required to be at least ten pages, but I seem to remember mine was nearly 25 pages long.

4. I was a coffee addict in high school. I would drink a cup of coffee every morning, and usually another cup in the afternoon. One day I had five cups of coffee before lunch, got really jittery and hysterical at a McDonald's, and swore off coffee. Now I only drink coffee at nice restaurants, with dinner.

5. I really enjoy travelling, as it takes me out of my normal routine and forces me to think and make choices and see things differently. I am not a fan of tours and avoid them when at all possible. I find that when I plan a trip I get a lot more out of the actual experience, so I spend a lot of time researching and deciding where to go and what to see and do. As of 2008, I have been to (I think) 35 countries in my lifetime.

6. My grandfather taught me how to ski in Tahoe (at Boreal Ridge) when I was ten. He was over 70 then, but still hitting the blue slopes. He was a good teacher, too.

7. In college, toilet paper was free, so we used it for everything. For every floor birthday, we would bake a cake, cut it up, and serve it on TP. I once set a piece of TP on fire trying to extract a burnt Pop-Tart from a toaster oven. We also liked to throw soaked wads of TP at windows on the other side of the courtyard. (Maintenance was generally unhappy with our floor, especially after we knocked down a wall and a bathroom stall during a birthday "showering".)

8. I spend a lot of time researching credit cards, hunting down online coupons, tracking plane ticket fares, comparison shopping, and doing other things that help me save teeny bits of money.

9. I was born in San Francisco (Kaiser, 4th floor, c-section, 30 days late) and raised in Marin County. I like fog. I even like the chilly Bay Area summers, and I love the beautiful autumn weather. I hate spring, mostly because of horrible pollen allergies.

10. I love sushi, and have pretty much loved it all my life. When I was four years old, I once horrified a local sushi chef by eating eight pieces of ikura (salmon roe) after a swimming lesson.

11. I am a big fan of red meat. I like many kinds of beef, including prime rib, ribeye, Korean BBQ, Vietnamese 7-course beef dinners, smoked tri-tip, beef carpaccio, and steak tartare. I also like venison, lamb, wild boar, buffalo, elk, and goat. I do not like raw horse, at least not as prepared by sushi restaurants in Taiwan. My sister and I, along with our two girl cousins, would regularly out-eat my brother and our three guy cousins at Korean BBQ, even though they cumulatively had 12 years and probably a couple hundred pounds on us.

12. Continuing the food theme: I like good food in general and eat most things (except cooked fish...why spoil good fish??). I feel like eating mediocre food is a waste of calories. My definition of good food includes cheap eats like ramen, pho, and BBQ, as well as expensive tasting menus and kaiseki sets. I used to think I could eat Japanese food every day forever, but I've become spoiled since returning to the Bay Area after college. Now I will randomly decide that I just must have Greek/Korean/Moroccan/Hawaiian/Afghan/Peruvian/Jamaican/whatever for dinner, and drive 30 minutes to get it.

13. In high school, I could not figure out how to light a bunsen burner with the scrape-y metal thing. I managed to get through regular chemistry without having to do so, but one day in AP Chem my teacher made me stay for 30 minutes trying to light my bunsen burner. I finally got my friend to light it for me with his lighter, when the teacher wasn't paying attention. Ironically I'm kind of a pyro, but I use matches. For instance, I used to like putting out matches with my fingers.

14. I used to go to bed in the clothes that I expected to wear the next day (usually jeans and a t-shirt). I developed this habit in high school because I commuted from Marin to San Francisco. By sleeping in my clothes I could get up at 6:30am and be out the door at 6:50am. I continued to do this through freshman year at MIT, until I realized I could probably wear pajamas to class anyway.

15. When I got to college I had never done dishes or laundry before. After about a month I took a big bag down to the laundry room and asked a random guy what to do. He was surprisingly helpful, although eventually I learned to ignore his directions regarding "'darks" and "lights", since nearly all my clothes (including socks) were black. I still hate housework, especially laundry. It just never ends.

16. I have bad vision (-7.0+ in both eyes). I started wearing glasses when I was eight, and contacts when I was eleven. I started to show symptoms of corneal oxygen deprivation, and have had to wear RGP contacts since college. I really really hate the glaucoma test they always do at the optometrist's where they blow a little pouf of air into your eye. It always takes me like five tries because somehow I can hear when the machine's about to shoot the air out, and I close my eyes just before it does.

17. I used to be obsessed with driving and cars, probably because I used to race my fellow commuters from Marin to San Francisco every day while driving to high school. Later on I realized that fast cars are expensive. I still enjoy driving my '98 Subaru Impreza.

18. One of my favorite authors of all time is Madeleine L'Engle, even though she has some pretty strong Christian/spiritual themes and I'm neither Christian nor spiritual. I've read every one of her non-religious books, and I spent 15 years tracking down a copy of "Ilsa", her 1946 novel which was never reprinted. After six years of eBay alerts, I finally secured a copy last year for the low low price of $188.28. Crazy, I know.

19. I read really fast in general. In fifth grade we had a reading challenge, and I read over 250,000 pages during the school year. My teacher accused me of cheating, and proceeded to quiz me, but since I'd actually read all the books, she got really frustrated trying to trip me up. I was not fond of that teacher. I compulsively read anything that's put in front of me, including Nutrition Facts on cereal boxes and trashy magazines at doctor's offices.

20. I have a tendency to spend lots of money on things that I then keep forever. For instance, I bought a top-of-the-line Pentium Pro 200 my freshman year, which I proceeded to use for the next 8.5 years. My Latitude C600 laptop which I bought in 2000 is still in service. I used two cell phones until they physically stopped working (granted I accidentally ran one of them through the washer).

21. My first boyfriend died of a drug overdose. We broke up when we both headed off to college, and this was during his Ph.D program (biophysics), so we hadn't been close for a long time, but we were still friends, and I was pretty creeped out when I heard the news. That was over four years ago.

22. I was the oldest of a group of eight cousins who all grew up in the Bay Area, and so I ended up "being in charge" a lot. I often got blamed when the other kids were "bad" or broke things, for not watching them closely enough. One time when I was 12, my 8-year-old sister and I babysat for my 2-year-old cousin and her 10-month old brother. My 6-year-old brother was there too, but he pretty much took care of himself. In retrospect, I am amazed that nothing too bad ever happened, probably because I was horribly strict and not above spanking. I also made up a lot of projects and games to keep everyone entertained.

23. I have been a huge 49ers fan since before I can remember. This was a lot easier in the '80s when they were really, really good. I still have semi-wearable sweatshirts and t-shirts from their last Super Bowl win in 1994, because after they won my mom and I ran out to the nearest gas station and bought a whole carful of "49ers Super Bowl Champions" paraphernalia.

24. I'm not good at sports but I enjoy playing them. In high school I played softball and in college I played ice hockey, both very badly. Now I play basketball, also badly. I actually managed to be okay at tennis for a few years in high school but I lost it entirely when I went to college.

25. I like stuffed animals and am always running out of places to put them. When I was a kid my parents would take us to Reno and while my dad gambled, my mom would take my brother and sister and me to the midway. We got really, really good. My sister was the expert at the bowling ball roll, while my brother mastered the horse racing game and the quarter toss, I played the rubber ball shooting games, and my mom cleaned up at the metal claw machines. My sister could also play Skee-ball without rolling the balls (she would toss them directly into the holes). We often got banned from games but would come back after shift changes.

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.

Wakuriya

Last week I finally went to Wakuriya, a Japanese restaurant about two miles from my house.

The menu is pretty simple; there's an eight-course kaiseki, and there's a six-course subset. Of course, I opted for the full eight courses. There was no way I was going to remember everything, so I took a photo of the menu:


Everything was good, and I enjoyed the meal very much, but I don't feel like going course-by-course so I'm just going to highlight a few:

- The appetizer course was nicely plated, and I liked the hotate salad and the kurobuta pork very much. The celery root and mushroom salad was too mayonnaise-y and I'm not a fan of unagi so I redistributed the rolls.


- I really liked the sake gelee. It was very simple but very tasty. At first I thought the serving was pretty big for what I thought was a glorified palate cleanser, but in the end I was happy to eat it all.


- The snow crab donburi was very good, and I suspect I would have liked it even more if I liked the taste of egg yolk. The chunks of crab were hearty and fresh and delicious.


- Surprise, surprise, I liked the dessert. Actually I wasn't that excited reading the menu, because as much as I like green tea, I'm getting a little bit tired of it. And, honestly speaking, the green tea mousse part wasn't all that exciting, but the black sugar sauce was really interesting and yummy, and the strawberry mochi was creative and well-executed, as well.


The service was excellent; really attentive and the server was constantly asking if everything was good and if we were enjoying it. It was almost a little too attentive; I sometimes feel guilty when I feel like people are waiting on me too much. Also, everyone else in the (tiny, four-table) restaurant was Japanese, and I was very amused by the extensive bowing scenes that took place whenever the Japanese customers finished their meals and departed the restaurant.

The waitress told us that the menu changes every month, so we should come back in February. I somehow doubt that I'll make it back so soon, especially given the price, but maybe later in the year, if the opportunity arises...

driving stick, take 4

Before Sunday, I'd attempted to drive stick three times before.

The first time, I was interning in California and a coworker volunteered to teach me. He had recently broken up with his girlfriend and she had chosen the make, model, and color (a pinky-purple shade) of his car, so understandably he was not too fond of it at that moment. I only managed to shift a few times in the company parking lot before getting frustrated and heading to lunch.

The second time, I was in Taipei, and I asked my parents to sign me up for driving school, figuring that since all driving classes in Taiwan are taught using stick shifts, it was a great way to learn. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that my limited Chinese vocabulary did not include the words for "clutch", "accelerator", and other important terms, so the instructor thought I was retarded and overall the lesson went quite badly.

The third time, I was in France. We had a rental car which was a stick shift, and I figured I could pick it up as we went along. Unfortunately the people in the back seat got a little nervous about the idea after I accidentally got into reverse in the parking lot, and I was quickly relieved of driving duty.

On Sunday, I coerced a friend who recently inherited a new BMW into teaching me (and two other friends) on his old Jetta. Due to some combination of circumstances (maybe he was just a better teacher, or maybe the car was easier to drive, or maybe it was less pressure to have three people learning at once), we all managed to do respectably well. We drove around in circles on Oracle Parkway for nearly two hours, stopping at stop signs and shifting up and down gears, before yielding the driver's seat in order to head home (I live on a pretty big hill).

Anyway, I'm pretty psyched right now about the whole driving stick thing, but we'll see if it lasts.

feeling gleeful

About a year and a half ago I moved from an area with lots of high speed internet choices to an area with far fewer choices. Originally I had Speakeasy DSL which was awesome and amazing and recommended by me to everyone. After the move, I was stuck with Comcast cable internet, which made me very unhappy, because I hate Comcast with a passion. Not only do they have horrible and clueless phone support, they charge $50 every time a technician comes to visit, they have sketchy bait-and-switch pricing schemes, and one time when the Comcast guy came to "fix" our internet service he "accidentally" broke our satellite TV connection. Yeah, right.

Sometime last December, we received a letter from Comcast saying that the rate on our internet service ($42/month) was a "mistake" and that it would be changed to the "correct" price of $58/month, effective in January. The letter was printed, with color graphics. I sincerely doubt that we were the only customers to receive it. Anyway, it went on to say that we could elect to add cable TV service, and if we did so, instead of being charged $58/month for just internet, we would pay $52/month for both internet and TV. Of course, the catch was that the $52/month rate would only apply for a year.

That was motivation enough for me to start researching ISP alternatives again, and I was surprised and happy to find that AT&T DSL was available in our area. I promptly ordered AT&T service, and the technician enabled our line, but my old Speakeasy/Covad DSL modem unfortunately didn't work with AT&T's service, so I had to wait another few days until AT&T could send me a new modem (which, incidentally, was free with a 1-year contract).

The modem arrived yesterday afternoon, and after dinner and games with some friends, I started configuring the new connection around midnight. After going through the installation process (which unfortunately required a Windows machine and Internet Explorer, so I had to dig up a laptop), and debugging the PPPoE settings for a bit, I finally got everything working around 1am. This made me ridiculously happy. I felt like I was finally free! I didn't get to bed until 2am because I was aimlessly surfing the web, just reveling in our new faster, Comcast-less internet. Yeah, I'm a huge geek.

We got Comcast cancelled the next morning. Yay!! Take that, stupid Comcast policies!

changes

From my sister's chat status today:

"Take the evil out the people they'll be acting right
'cause both black and white is smokin' crack tonight
and only time we chill is when we kill each other
it takes skill to be real, time to heal each other
And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President..."
-- 2pac

I remember that being one of my favorite songs at some point. I guess it was a long time ago.

Here's to more changes, over the next four years, and beyond!

don't wanna grow up

There's been a outbreak of 1st birthday invites recently, and they are conspiring to make me feel old. Perhaps as a result, I had a particularly good time two weekends ago at a 30th birthday party which was designed to make us feel like kids again.

We started at LOL Parties, at Silver Creek Sportsplex in San Jose. I think between 20-30 people showed up to tackle an inflatable obstacle course, followed by a basketball game inside of a bouncy castle, and then several games of high-intensity dodgeball. My favorite was the basketball game, but all three events were fun and exhausting, and only a few people got noticeable plastic-burns. At this point I was pretty sweaty and gross, but managed to get into a Gold's Gym with a free one-day pass to shower and change. (As an aside, the guys at Gold's seem to be pretty lax about visitors, or maybe just with women.)

Next, we descended on Oakridge Mall to participate in a scavenger hunt. It was quite impressively organized, with each team getting matching sunglasses, play-doh (to build a doll representing the "birthday boy"), and a list of clues indicating certain photos/videos which we were supposed to acquire. After being mistaken for teenagers by one saleslady (woo-hoo!) and nearly being thrown out of Macy's by security (boo!), we wrapped up the hunt and headed over to Buca di Beppo's for dinner. That turned out to be an excellent choice as we were all starving, and managed to finish nearly of the food, which is pretty much unheard of at Buca's. We also had cake and prizes, and generally had a great time all around. Yay for 30th birthdays!

runs in the family

As you may have noticed by now, I am slightly obsessive about food. Well, it runs in the family...we all appreciate good food and love to eat, and sometimes when we go out to dinner it's a bit of a scene with all the cameras at the table.

Anyway, on Saturday, my sister and I met up with two of our cousins (one local, one in town from NYC) at Foreign Cinema for brunch. We were tempted by the fresh oysters but decided to pass in favor of splitting two appetizers. The first was a house made "pop tart" with kumquat filling, dusted with powdered sugar (which for once I managed not to inhale). It was light and flaky and delicious, and easily split amongst the four of us. Next we had a beef carpaccio which had some kind of thin fried onions or potatoes on top. I think each of us could have eaten the whole plate, but we resisted. Finally, as my entree, I had the "baguette french toast". Normally I am not a big fan of egg-y breakfast food, but this french toast managed to be egg-y and yummy at the same time, and I ended up licking the plate clean.

After brunch we managed to shop all afternoon with only a coffee break, so we were pretty hungry by dinnertime. We met up with our aunt and uncle in Belmont and ate at a small Vietnamese place called Chez Saigon, on El Camino near Ralston. I had heard of it somewhere before, so although the Yelp reviews were mixed, we decided to give it a chance (partially because Red Lantern was crazy busy that night). We were very happy with that decision. I believe we ordered two appetizers, five main dishes, and two side dishes, and they were all good, but my favorites were the shaken beef, the lemon beef, the fried calamari appetizer, and the side of garlic noodles (of which we had two). Given its location (maybe a couple of miles from my house?) I think I'll definitely stop by again.

obsession of the week

Last night I had some people over to watch 海角七號 (aka Cape No. 7), a Taiwanese movie by new director Wei Te-Sheng.

The plot follows two tracks: The present day storyline involves a musician who failed to make it big in Taipei and is returning home to Hengchun (in southern Taiwan) to replace the local mailman. He is recruited into a local band formed specifically to serve as an opening act for a visiting Japanese singer, and eventually strikes up a relationship with the band's manager, a Japanese former model. At the same time, he discovers a packet of love letters which were written 60 years ago by a Japanese man to a Taiwanese woman, during the Japanese surrender of Taiwan to the KMT.

The movie came out in Taiwan last summer and promptly became the second-highest grossing movie there in history (behind Titanic). The DVD was released in December, just in time for me to buy it during my annual visit.

I must admit that my curiosity was piqued partially because the movie was banned in China due to its semi-positive depiction of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, but it also won several Golden Horse awards and has been submitted to the Academy Awards as Taiwan's entry for Best Foreign Film.

Anyway, a couple post-viewing comments follow.

Of the group that watched the movie yesterday, everyone understood Mandarin fairly well. Most understood Taiwanese, and a few understood bits of Japanese. The movie was subtitled (not too horribly) in English, but I felt like understanding Taiwanese definitely contributed to greater enjoyment of the movie. Sometimes the Taiwanese expressions were significantly more colorful than the English translations, and some local flavor was lost even between Taiwanese and Mandarin. The dialogue rang true to me; even when it was crass it was authentically so.

I liked that the movie demonstrated the fluent Japanese of the older generation in Taiwan. My own grandparents are a perfect example; they all have cute Japanese nicknames and when they are together with their brothers and sisters, they speak mixed Japanese and Taiwanese. Their Mandarin is passable but awkward. That's Taiwan.

I thought the music in the movie was good. I did some research and found that the main character Aga was played by an actual musician, and several of the other actors also had real musical backgrounds, including the Japanese singer Atari. During the movie, I realized I had actually heard the last song already, while at karaoke in Taipei with my cousins, and I had liked it then too. I enjoyed the other (more upbeat) piece as well.

The movie was funny, but not in a slapstick way, and the characters were engaging. The 80-year old retired mailman was hilarious, and Aga's stepfather was also amusing (although he reminded me of some of my own annoying relatives, so sometimes it was harder to laugh). Often, modern Taiwanese movies take themselves too seriously, and this one did not.

My biggest complaint was that the backstory involving the love letters wasn't well developed and I wasn't sympathetic to the writer of those letters. I also disliked the cheesy music that played whenever the letters were read. The relationship between Aga and the Japanese manager Tomoko kind of came out of nowhere as well, but the two actors did a pretty good job of selling it towards the end, so that particular flaw wasn't as distracting.

The nicest surprise was the cinematography. Parts of Taiwan are really gorgeous but I never get to see them because I'm always in Taipei. Watching this movie made me want to make an effort to explore other parts of the island (while not being dragged there by my parents). I'm hoping that motivating effect lasts until next year.

real journalism

Yesterday I clicked on a link in a friend's chat status, and found an unexpectedly thought-provoking article. It was written by Lasantha Wickramatunge, a leading Sri Lankan journalist, predicting his own death. Three days later, he was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen.

In reading his article and reading about his life, I was reminded of how important good journalism is, in establishing and maintaining a free society. TIME reports that "His death has galvanized the growing anger among the press and other civil-society groups in Sri Lanka about restrictions on free expression in the country and intimidation of the media." I hope they are correct.

And, I hope that similarly courageous and talented journalists exist in Taiwan. They are sorely (and increasingly) needed, to keep the government in check during these tumultuous times.

still need more sleep?

I was kinda tired after a nice dinner with friends on Friday night (at The Village Pub in Woodside; yummy crab salad and duck breast, decidedly mediocre dessert), so I went to sleep around 12:30am. On Saturday morning, I was woken up at 11:30am and told that I was about to be late for a birthday party. That caused a bit of scrambling on my part, but I managed to get out the door quickly and everything worked out in the end.

So yeah...every so often I forget to set my alarm clock and then I realize I really, really do need it. Sigh.

too late!

Speaking of Taiwan, while visiting Yeh-Liu last week, I came across this sign which I found amusing:


It's very Asian of the stick figure to have already fallen off the edge.