Categories
dining out funny My San Francisco Chronicles restaurant

Curbs and such in San Francisco

Seen on a Korean menu today:

“Bean curb soup.”

Mm, I never knew that curbs had different flavors.

Also, seen on a Chinese daycare center:

Dong Dong Pre-School.”

That was the school’s name; I know, “Dong” in the Chinese language does not mean anything bad, but transliterated/phonetically translating it to English makes it sound too wrong.

Categories
American Culture Facebook Internet memories Who I Am

Flight from Facebook

At the moment, pretty much anyone knows what the word “Facebook” means. One of the first majorly popular social networking sites, what used to be only a college networking place has turned to a free-for-all, hullabaloo.

It’s what the young, cool (and uncool) people talk about these days. Band kids on the MUNI bus yesterday–

“I’m going to post this on Facebook and you’ll be so embarrassed! You watch!”

“Nuh uh!”

“Yeah!”

What’s the point in having Facebook, one may ask.

For me, when I did have it, I felt it was a good tool for keeping in touch with people that I had met during school and such. My university was one of the first to be “invited” into the Facebook network when it started in 2004, so I signed up for it since it was something new and intriguing. Immediately, I found myself amused at how I could find former high school classmates, and add them to my list to keep in touch somehow. The novelty of how easily we could now keep track of each other (for free, unlike using websites like classmates.com at the time) was simply, yes, a novelty.

I found myself drudging up memories of people from my past, good and bad. Over the years, my list accumulated and I found more and more people from my high school, and also proceeded to add people I had briefly been acquainted with in college. It felt nice to have “so many friends” and be able to keep in touch with them all through Facebook.

Well, then, after awhile, after graduating from college, Facebook began to be something of a nuisance/painful point for me. Keeping tabs on people from my past (and vice versa), I felt like I was constantly being judged for what I was (and was not) doing with my life. Sure, I had only just graduated college, but I found myself feeling envious and upset when I would peruse through others’ pages and see what they were up to in life. I found myself judging them, which made me also feel like, “If I am judging them, who knows how much they’re judging me?”

It’s only the Internet, after all, but I found myself getting too hung over such a thing. I would sit by my computer and sometimes waste several hours clicking around my Facebook list, checking up on people and just becoming too engrossed into people’s lives who I didn’t care about anymore (or so I thought).

It was only in due time that I finally decided I needed to disconnect from the website. It was no longer useful to me in the sense that it was holding me behind in my past and trapping me in fear of being judged for not being “successful enough”. The mini-feed caused for me to feel like my own privacy on the site was no longer something I could enjoy. With every little update, of who’s going out with who or who did this and that–it became too much for me.

So, I left Facebook quietly this past June.

The few friends I did want to keep in touch with understood my reasoning; after all, if they were true friends/people I wanted to keep in touch with, they had other methods of keeping in contact with me, like via email or a phone call. It was unnecessary to have Facebook as another outlet for us to keep in contact anymore anyway.

————————————————————-

In the end, do people dote on Facebook a little too seriously? I was discussing this with one of my co-workers yesterday after he mentioned how he was going back to his hometown soon for his 10-year high school reunion. He said he never had much interest in Facebook in the first place, but one of his roommates wanted him to sign up so they could keep in touch somehow. He, however, has been clever in manipulating his information on there and showing how gullible people have become in terms of information on Facebook:

“I change around little things on my profile every day just to mess with people’s minds. One moment, I’ll say I’m ‘engaged’, then I’ll change it really quickly to ‘married’, then the next day change it immediately to ‘single’ again. It’s amazing how many people pay attention to that stuff and keep dropping me ‘Congratulations!’ messages.”

I’ll just leave it at that, since it speaks for itself.

Categories
death family life love memories mistake reflection Who I Am

When one takes another for granted;

Disclaimer: Today’s entry touches upon a more personal issue than usual entries. Please read with an open mind.

Too often, I read stories (real life, no doubt) about how people had neglected their relationships with loved ones, only to have their loved ones pass away/die suddenly in the end. The people who neglected the relationships, they were taking the relationships for granted, thinking “I’m too busy, but they’ll always be there when I’m not busy.”

It’s sad to say, it happens a lot, since I continue to find stories like this strewn across the magazines I read and on the Internet.

We, as humans, are all guilty of this feeling. Even I am, with the death of my paternal grandmother almost ten years ago. Even though so much time has passed, I still feel guilt over how I was acting on the very last day she was alive. I was just a young teenager, sure; just wanted to spend more time with my friends, all of whom I don’t even talk to in the present time. My mother had to practically drag me to my grandparents’ house that day so I could pay a visit to my ailing grandmother. It wasn’t that I disliked my grandmother; I loved her very dearly. Yet, seeing her sick, bed-ridden–it was a pain that I wanted to try to avoid, to try to mask myself from.

So, on that day, even though I was there to visit her, I was in denial of her health, the preciousness of her life. I wanted to avoid the thought. I thought to myself, “She’ll be better soon.” And I took for granted the time that I had left with her.

The next morning, my father told me how my grandmother had passed away the previous night, after having another stroke.

At that point, I tried so hard in vain to make up for the time that was lost between my grandmother and I. In the final months of her life, I spent little time with her due to my denial, but also due to my being “too busy” with marching band, school, etc. Even though I was only a young teenager at that point, I was still thinking then–“I’m too busy.”

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What goes around, comes around.

I find myself these days, feeling worse and worse about a lot of things in my life. I fear my health is failing in many ways, and I try to reach out for help. However, over the years, I have pushed away many friendships, many people who wanted to help me. But I kept saying, “I’m okay” and let the people go their way.

The few friends I have kept around, we, in turn, have taken each other for granted. Right now, I feel thoroughly neglected by the few I had thought were my closest friends. The other day, after feeling a horribly emotional low, I tried contacting those friends to seek comfort, solace.

Nobody answered, and even though one did, they said they could not talk, because they were “too busy”.

It was like a knife through my already bleeding heart. Here, I find myself left alone, with nobody to lean upon. And the thought continues to eat away at me–what if, suddenly, something happened to me? Would anyone care? Would anyone regret?

“I’m too busy.”

Saying this to someone in need is essentially an emotional murder. How come we, as humans, continue to do such a thing to one another? We say we love, we say we care, yet when the ones we love need us the most, we say “No” and go on with our own lives. Why?

Categories
#foodie health Japanese culture Japanese food list

100 Japanese Foods to Try

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a blog called Just Hungry, written by a Japanese expatriate living in Switzerland. I found her blog while searching for a recipe for 中華そば (Chinese Cold Noodle); anyway, today Maki has posted a long, interesting, and delicious-sounding list of Japanese foods that people should try. The list includes foods widely available throughout Japan with various price ranges. I thought I’d share the list here, but also link you guys to her blog as well. The blog is really handy in terms of Japanese food explanations and healthily adapted recipes.

Enjoy!

P.S. I’ve highlighted the ones that I have tried so far, although there are a few I’m not sure about since I don’t have the kanji/explanations available.

A List of 100 Japanese Foods To Try At Least Once

  1. Properly washed and cooked, top quality new harvest white rice (shinmai)
  2. Freshly made tofu, as hiyayakko or yudofu
  3. Properly made misoshiru and osumashi
  4. Properly made homemade nukazuke
  5. Very fresh sanma (saury), sizzling hot from the grill, eaten with a drizzle of soy sauce and a mound of grated daikon radish
  6. Homemade umeboshi
  7. Freshly made, piping hot crispy tempura. I prefer vegetable tempura like shiso leaves, eggplant and sweet potato.
  8. A whole grilled wild matsutake
  9. Freshly made sobagaki with sobayu
  10. Mentaiko from Fukuoka, or tarako
  11. Onigiri with the three classic fillings: umeboshi, okaka, shiozaki
  12. Assorted fresh-as-possible sashimi
  13. Saba oshizushi
  14. Mugicha
  15. Kakifurai
  16. Morinaga High-Chew candy, grape flavor
  17. Karasumi
  18. A pot of oden, preferably with homemade components especially ganmodoki, boiled eggs and daikon radish
  19. Ika no shiokara
  20. Calpis
  21. Ankou nabe
  22. Unadon
  23. Komochi kombu or kazunoko
  24. Yamakake, either with maguro (red tuna) cubes or a raw egg
  25. Properly made gyokuro shincha
  26. Milky Candy
  27. Wanko soba
  28. Omuraisu with demi-glace sauce
  29. Handmade katayaki senbei
  30. Yohkan (yokan) from Toraya
  31. Ishi yakiimo – sweet potatoes cooked in hot stones, available from street vendor carts
  32. Natto
  33. Fresh seaweed sunomono (can also have some tako in it)
  34. Ikura or sujiko
  35. Tonkatsu
  36. Goma dofu
  37. Chawan mushi or tamago dofu – the same dish either piping hot or ice cold
  38. Freshly made mochi, with kinako and sugar, grated daikon and soy sauce or natto
  39. Gindara no kasuzuke
  40. Hoshigaki
  41. Inarizushi
  42. Chikuzen-ni
  43. Surume
  44. Yakinasu with grated ginger
  45. Tamago kake gohan
  46. Kabuki-age
  47. Nikujaga
  48. Spinach gomaae
  49. Fuki no tou
  50. Okonomiyaki
  51. Yakitori
  52. Ohagi
  53. Japanese style curry, with rakkyo and fukujinzuke as condiments
  54. Kenchinjiru
  55. Yakult
  56. Kakipea
  57. Takoyaki
  58. Sakura mochi
  59. Buta no kakuni
  60. Daigaku imo
  61. Kappa Ebisen
  62. Chicken tsukune
  63. Hakusaizuke
  64. Hayashi rice
  65. Goya champuruu
  66. Dorayaki
  67. Ochazuke
  68. Sakuma Drops
  69. Stewed kiriboshi daikon
  70. Takenoko gohan (or in fall, kuri gohan)
  71. Cream or potato korokke
  72. Fresh yuba
  73. Real ramen
  74. Monaka
  75. Ekiben of all kinds
  76. Edamame
  77. Chicken karaage
  78. Kuzumochi
  79. Mitarashi dango
  80. Konnyaku no dengaku
  81. Yukimi Daifuku
  82. Sukiyaki
  83. Nama yatsuhashi
  84. Panfried hanpen
  85. Nozawanazuke or Takanazuke
  86. Kiritanpo
  87. Amanatto
  88. Narazuke
  89. Aji no himono
  90. Baby Ramen
  91. Kobucha
  92. Kasutera
  93. Tazukuri
  94. Karintou
  95. Sauce Yakisoba
  96. Kamaboko
  97. Oyako donburi
  98. Atsuyaki tamago
  99. Kuri kinton
  100. Japanese potato salad

(Source: Just Hungry)

Categories
American Culture Busride Observations observation rant transportation

Is it hard to show courtesy to others these days?

It seems like, every time I am on the bus and it becomes crowded, I notice this one thing: everyone expects for someone else to do what they’re told to do, rather than being initiators and following suit with orders. Recently, the buses have been installed with “new” bus announcements, telling people to “move to the back of the bus for others’ convenience” and also to “clear the front seats for seniors and disabled persons”. I know the bus drivers are able to press these buttons when they need to, because I hear these announcements only when the situations arise.

And unfortunately, nobody else seems to pay attention to them. People stand in the doorways, in the front of the bus, trying to ignore the announcements about moving to the rear of the bus so others could board. Is it so hard to show courtesy? Does it make THAT much of a difference of where you are standing?

It’s annoying for me to watch while I am seated; whenever I do end up being one of the people standing up, I do try my best to move to the back of the bus, even if it’s not entirely necessary. There’s no point in bunching up at the front when it’s inevitable that the bus would get crowded. But it seems like rarely anyone thinks the same way as I do about this. I’m not saying that I’m the only one who pays attention, but, really, if you could observe the situation on the bus, you would notice that rarely anyone actually does what they’re supposed to do–because they expect for someone else to do it.

I’ve seen people trying to gently nudge their neighbor to move to the back of the bus, but the neighbor just stands stubbornly, hanging onto “their” spot. It’s really unnecessary, and it’s no wonder that the bus drivers feel so frustrated sometimes.

To add on, when it comes to the front seats being reserved for elderly and disabled, it truly angers me to see young people sitting there when there are obviously others who need the seats more. In turn, these young people won’t move unless they’re forced to, even with the bus announcement blaring off. I don’t feel sorry for these young people when an elderly citizen yells at them to move, because I feel they have the right to do so–young people should give up their seats for the elderly, since young people are very capable of standing up and using their leg muscles.

Granted, there are some senior citizens who refuse to go with that title of “elderly”, who refuse to admit that they are “old” and need the front seats. Those are far and few though–most of the time I do see any elderly person, no matter how fit they look, take the front seats when available. They’ve lived long lives, so they deserve to sit where they are given the priviledge.

In the end, people are just selfish.