Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Don't worry about it

There’s a fine Chinese tradition of fighting over the restaurant bill. Every Chinese kid has sat at the dim sum table while the parents argue with relatives on who gets the honor of paying the entire tab. When my parents meet up with their friends, there always has to be a discussion on who gets to treat who.

I am a fan of this culture. Breaking bread with others is probably the oldest bonding practice in the history of our species. Treating others to a meal is a show of tenderness and care. I do think our parents’ generation tend to go overboard with the arguing. (The smart and sly move is to go the front desk during the middle of the meal.) Sometimes they forget that it’s suppose to be kind gesture, and not about “winning”.

Money is tricky when it comes to relationships. For sure there are people that use treating others to food as a flex, a sort of “I am better than you” card. On the other hand, the person being treated to may feel somehow inferior. What is suppose to be heartwarming can easily turn into resentment.

As I grow older - and have money - I like to pay the whole tab for my people every so often. The problem is, our generation has technology. The ease of sending money to others (apps like Venmo) means even if I am first to grab the bill and pay it all, it’s stupidly easy for friends to pay me back. The only defense would be to block them on the money apps, which just isn’t feasible. So long as someone disagrees with your gesture, you cannot prevent them from paying you.

Might technology ruin this great Chinese tradition of fighting over the bill?

Bangkok, part 7

A negative about traveling solo is the inability to sample as much food as you would like. When traveling with others, you each get to pick a different item on the menu. Therefore you are able to taste a variety more food without wasting any. It is not feasible for me to order five things off a menu and eating only a portion of each. That is not how I was raised.

In the Chinese culture, we are taught to never ever waste food. Our parents and grandparents’ generation suffered through the disastrous Great Leap Forward and the subsequent Great Chinese Famine. Food scarcity is deeply embedded in our DNA. That is why Chinese people like to greet each other with: “Have you eaten?” The only time my father ate eggs when he was a child was on his birthday. Meanwhile, I am chowing down at least two eggs every single day. Hashtag protein.

Because of this upbringing, I did not sample as much variety as I would have liked in Bangkok. I buy only one menu item, I eat it entirely. The fridge back at the hotel is too filled with beverages they want to charge me money for to store any leftovers anyways.

It would be seriously remiss of you to go to Thailand and not eat the local tropical fruits. Fruits stands are everywhere. They’re cheap, buy a bag, get your daily fiber intake. As a lover of mango, I was practically in paradise. I particularly enjoyed eating mango sticky rice. For some reason, I never had it back in the States. It’s easily a top three dessert dish on my list now.

I just wish I ate more of it whilst in Bangkok. Traveling with others would have helped…

Pay our respects

In Chinese culture, it is the season of Ching Ming. April 5th of every year signals the time to pay respects to ancestors at their respective grave sites. Because the actual date can land on a weekday, people tend go during the weekends immediate, before, or after.

I’ve been told the proper way to do Ching Ming is go to the cemetery in the morning. The tombstones get cleaned, and so does the area surrounding. Family members then pay respects with three sticks of incense and three bows. Fake paper money gets burned, so ancestors in the afterlife will have money to use. (These days you can even burn paper houses and paper iPhones.) Various food items are laid in front of the tombstone as offerings, and rice wine is poured onto the ground.

After the ceremony, you have a meal with your (living) family members.

2024 is the first year I get to pay respects to both of my maternal grandparents. Thankfully, they wasted a ton of money for plots at the nearby Cypress Lawn cemetery (my own parents, instead of spending money for holes in the ground, will elect to have their ashes spread), so Ching Ming for me is a mere 10 minute drive away. The festival in China - where my dad’s side of the family resides - is comparatively more arduous logistically: the ancestral grounds are a two hour drive from Guangzhou.

Of which I am looking forward to next year, as I will be flying to China for Ching Ming 2025. I’ve never perform the rites (as an adult) for my paternal grandparents, so it’s time to check off that box.

Habits (stay clean)

At my age - a prime 36 years old - the difficulty in traveling is the breaking of my daily routine at home. Like James Clear, I am big on habits and consistency. Traveling does make a stop to that stuff. Take for example: when I am away from home for long periods, I can’t take the usual supplements. Another example: I can’t workout when I’m traveling. Is the temporary pause detrimental? Probably not. But it just feels weird, you know?

What’s also weird is being in hotels. Most of them - expensive or otherwise - do not match up to my standards of cleanliness. Especially so for hotels in America. The western culture of not taking off your shoes indoors means accommodations here in the States have a higher baseline of dirtiness. You can vacuum that carpet all you want, housekeeping. Doesn’t change the fact that many shoes have walked over that surface.

Things are slightly better in Asia, with our culture of taking shoes off before entering an abode. Even then, the level of cleanliness scales linearly with the amount-per-night cost of the hotel (in my experience, anyways). The only experience that lived up to my admittedly high standards is the ryokan around the Mount Fuji area in Japan. That cost $250 a night in 2019 money. Read: that is expensive for me.

If I am to stay in an accommodation for at least a few days, what I do is clean the floors myself (when possible). That might sound insane to you, but the peace of mind is worth it. Plus, I get to enjoy actually clean floors. Can’t beat that!

How often to wash?

I am thinking of a few weeks back when I was hanging out with a few classmates from improv class. The ice-breaking question (of which there were many) of “How often do you wash your bed sheets?” came to the table. I guess it’s a measure of how disgusting or clean a person is, depending on the answer.

My answer was once a month. That is caveated by the fact I shower before I go to sleep. That’s how I was raised. So much so that I cannot fathom going to bed without first showering before. How do you people do it? Those of you who showers in the morning, go through a whole day of work and grime, then climb into bed at night with only a change to pajamas. I would love to see a Venn diagram of people who shower in the morning, and people who wear shoes indoors.

It is because I always go to bed freshly cleaned that I can delay washing the bed sheets to once a month. If I were the type to not bathe before bed, I probably would switch the sheets out every few days. You know, just like they do in hotels. I always thought it was weird that hotels in America have a habit of changing out the bed sheets daily (Las Vegas sexy time notwithstanding). Then I realize it’s because of American culture of shower in the morning, not at night. Of course you have to change sheets more often if people go to bed all dirty and stuff from the day.

Other answers from my classmates: once a week, once every two weeks, and once every six months?! Granted, the last answer was from a guy who also showers before bed like I do. Still, six months of unchanging bed sheet is kind of… not that sanitary. We’re don’t live in college dorms anymore, you guys.

Mom's cooking

One of the things that comes with being Chinese is that even though you’ve moved out, your parents will still constantly give you food. Of course, that’s provided you didn’t move too far away from the house. The independent-minded you may think this goes against the meaning of truly being on your own, and on principle I’m inclined to agree. However, there are certain days that you are glad there’s food in the fridge ready to go.

I can see why take-out ordering is so popular with my generation. After a particular tough day at work, you really don’t want to spend the half hour or so cooking up dinner. It’s far easier to order something on DoorDash and have it deliveredr while you go on about something else. Or, you know, hang out on twitter until the food arrives. What I’m saying is, I get it: the will to actually cook dinner is inverse to how hard you’ve worked that day.

Which is why some days I am glad to have my mom’s cooking ready to go for the microwave. It’s certainly faster than ordering food, and I save a boatload of money not eating out. I definitely don’t make the level of income to sustain a take-out ordering habit, though I think I would totally do so if I earned more. Good thing there isn’t a Hong Kong style restaurant nearby, because I would totally patronize that for dinner every chance I get.

I don’t know how my friends with kids do it. Cooking for myself after a tiring day is difficult enough. To make enough food for more than one person? Kids that bitch about the variety of dinner deserves to get slapped. You have no idea how hard it is to cook dinner after work on a weekday until you move out on your own, and have to do it yourself.

Time to heat up the food my mom gave me this week.