Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Dim Sum

Yesterday, I had a long chat with PoPo in the morning. While she was talking, my eyes got droopy, so I took a nap. When I got up, we went out for lunch together, as originally planned. We just went across the street to Brother Hotel, walked up to the second level, where there is a Cantonese style dim sum restaurant. She used to go there with my uncle. We tried to order only soft things since Popo's teeth aren't so great. We got 3 kinds of dumplings, some lo buo gao (radish/turnip pancakes), shrimp noodles, and xiao long bao.

I battled through the meal to get PoPo to eat - she enjoys talking so much, she can go on and on and forget there is food in front of her. It's clear to me now that she doesn't eat enough. By the time I had eaten 12 items, she had only eaten 3, and was claiming being full already (that along with the 10 cups of cha/tea). I think it's so much work for her to chew meat, she wasn't enjoying it as much as she wanted. I convinced her to eat most of the noodles and luo buo gao, since those were the softest.

On our way home, we stopped by the Ting Bu La place and she ordered a bing. The owner asked me if she wasn't supposed to have sweets - I couldn't say no, but I did warn her that she likes to eat it too much. The series of events made me late for class, but it was just test time in the beginning, so I was able to catch up.

Afterwards, I walked down Heping, past a botanical garden and then up Kunming - passing by 2 of the niu rou mian places I want to try. Unfortunately, Dan was late getting to the area, so I didn't have any. But he showed me a good fried muachi place. I got a hei zhi ma (black sesame) and hua sheng (peanut). The black sesame is the best. $25 NT a piece. It's on the same road as where I got the noodles last time off to the side in a small alley.

We watched another movie in the Animation Festival. The Best of Annecy. I don't think I enjoyed it as much as the Monsters series. It was a bit more serious, depressing, and realistic. There were a few good ones though - including Premier Voyage by Gregoire Sivan (a first time father takes his daughter on the TGV to go meet mom - delightful, claymation), Charlie and Lola: I Will Be Especially, Very Careful by Kitty Taylor (7 year old Lola is enamored with her friend Lotta's white coat, reminding me so much of Maddie and Izzy and the red clicky-clacks - the film really captures the world of little girls and their funny short term obsessions, and a short curtain raiser in the beginning of a man in a time travel machine (wanting to go in the future, the machine malfunctions and ends up in the past in 1927 - and his surroundings are comic). Meme Les Pigeons Vont Au Paradis by Samuel Tourneux was another good story. Everyone seemed to be enjoying Bloot "Seks" by Mischa Kamp, but the Chinese subtitles were put right on top of the English subtitles - making it impossible for me to follow along.

I also finished reading Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis by Eric Berne M.D. It was an interesting read about patterns in human interaction. Berne uses three Ego States to discuss what's driving people - Adult, Child and Parent. Each one is a necessary and healthy part of us, though in some situations, one can go into overdrive and cause problems for self or others. Particularly interesting, considering my current state of life, is chapter 16's discussion of Autonomy. He discusses a case of a person late to work - I used to be category 3, but at some point during my travels have switched to category 4. I no longer rush about the way I used to and find myself much more relaxed. Of course, I still go back to the other categories sometimes, but for the most part, continue to find myself living life differently from the past 10 years...and it's a good thing.

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