Tea For Me

I really should have listened to ol' C.S. Lewis that one day back in 1955 when he sat down beside me and told me, "tea should be taken in solitude." Since childhood, I've been straining, tricking and lying to myself that tea is a waste if not taken socially.  Unfortunately, tea for two is as awkward to me as wearing heels three times my foot size while holding a plush cat and having an adult conversation with my cousin at ten years old. 

 

Camellia sinensis and her fellow herbal friends (rooibos and yerba mate to name a few) have been a magical addition to my body's diet. I crave tea. I love it so much I want to marry it. But until recently, I had the wrong perception of tea drinking. I wanted to share my love of tea with others in a misty plantation somewhere far away in China, or in a fancy tea room with a side of tea cakes. I wanted worldly music to be playing while pouring countless, teeny cups of tea and having a sophisticated conversation with a clean-shaven man with a thick, sexy accent and a thick, black scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. I wanted a perfect setting with the perfect company to add to my perfect cup of tea. Little did I know, this dramatic cliché of a setting led to forgetting the most important part of the scene; the tea. 

Let's backtrack to one failed attempt to create a magical tea setting in Long Beach, California, in a little tea house, Vintage Tea Leaf. I dragged my little brother by the hair and threw him into this quaint place, where we chose a tea cup with a matching saucer from a shelf of a plethora of choices, and I dressed us up in feather scarves and fancy old lady hats from the back closet. And as we sipped our milky tea, Chopin was playing and I was chatting to my brother about how delightful the tea was. He didn't look very pleased. Not with the tea talk and not with the flowery hat on his head. And when we left, I found he was even less satisfied with the curdled milk they gave him along with the tea.

Maybe bringing my young brother to a tea house wasn't the best idea...

Vintage Tea Leaf in Long Beach

But I pressed on to find that perfect someone to have a spot with, inside that perfect tea house. I joined an online Meetup site and took a two hour bus ride to Seal Beach to spend an afternoon with the Orange County Tea Meetup Group at Fairy Tea Cottage. Here, a twenty-something year old girl sat around a table of fifty-something year old ladies. While listening to Chopin. Although we shared some commonalities of being females, loving tea and, well, loving the tea cups, truth be told the tea was the best part of the afternoon.

Fairy Tea Cottage at Seal Beach

I decided to try my luck outside California and outside the USA. I headed to China to have a cup of tea! Well, I actually went to Beijing primarily to teach English, but the tea field adventure was a major plus...er...major hit. I lured my friend into a six hour high speed train ride, 1,012 miles (1,630 km) out of Beijing and into the Hangzhou countryside, the heart of Dragon Well (Longjing, 龙井茶) tea. Misty were the hilltops! Green were the tea fields! Where tea tasting was magical and free, and fresh leaves were abundant. I would buy a bazillion pounds to take home with me! I would drink tea all day at the edge of a tea plantation! 

But I came to a realization that this was all but a façade. Smog hovered over the hilltops, not mist. Due to visiting during summertime, when Dragon Well tea isn't grown, any leaves they carried in the village were as old as half a year or older. Once picked, green Dragon Well tea stays fresh for maybe a week's time. 

I was still intent on having my tea, fresh or not fresh. I entered a lady's "tea shop" to have a taste and possibly buy a bit. The beautiful sound of Peking Opera was playing from a tiny radio. The old lady sat down to pour us a tiny cup each. The scent was nice, the music was nice, but unfortunately my friend found the tea foul, and I sensed something odd brewing in the air...and it wasn't the tea! In the end, she tried charging us an outrageous amount for what was supposed to be a free taste, locked us in her "shop" and yelled at us in Chinese with her fists in the air after busting ourselves out. This village looked at foreigners as idiots with money. Fortunately for me, I had no money, and I wasn't about to claim the dumb tourist stamp! I drank warm, 20 cent bottled beer on the side of the road, bought a little sample of cheap and dry Dragon Well tea in the city, and called it a day.

Vital Tea Leaf, San Francisco, CA

These days, tea drinking with others is okay. I'll do it if I must. 

Although, I've found that drinking tea on a cool, quiet morning on my backyard porch makes my cup of tea taste perfect, and it makes my heart beat to a Chopin tune. 

Gingerbread Homes (and Alamos), Minus The Ginger

I loathe ginger. The mere smell makes me sick. I'd be more willing to stuff my face with apples, strawberries and almonds, a few things I'm allergic to, than a teaspoon of ginger. But this year, I decided to clamp my nose and taste buds shut, and make some gingerbread houses. Little did I know, gingerbread houses made from scratch include an entire day of creativity, much more than just a few bucks worth of ingredients at the grocery store, and absolutely no ginger! (Unless you plan on eating the gingerbread house, which I opted out of doing after baking it a week prior to Christmas day. Nibbling on a stale gingerbread house? Nah.)

The preparation.

Since I'll be in San Antonio on Christmas, why would I not visit with an Alamo gingerbread house?! The idea of an Alamo gingerbread house came while singing some random Texas song in the shower, but the template to the front side of the Alamo came from Lisa Fain's blog, Homesick Texan (http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2009/12/gingerbread-alamo-recipe.html).  

Most easy-to-make recipes are found through simple Google searches. I just chose the websites with recipes that best fit my kitchenware..or so I thought. I quickly learned not to make royal frosting in the blender after it smoked and died on me! I now need to buy a new blender and the correct kitchen baking supplies.

As it was my first time creating a gingerbread house, I merrily skipped on down to the the store and...drew a complete blank. Note to self: keep a mental picture of your gingerbread house before shopping. Make a list! And don't buy candy that you will eventually eat before gluing it to your house. Woops!

Setting all the ingredients on the table and throwing all the candy and cookies into bowls makes for a more visual and organized display.

A full day's work. 

By the end of the day, my body, clothes and hair were covered in flour, confectioner's sugar and royal frosting. Creating a masterpiece house is not easy peasy. It takes a perfect amount of all necessary ingredients, strong hands to knead the dough, patience while cutting the template out, and lots of creativity when intricately placing each candy piece in its place. The dough needs to be thick enough to bake in the oven and not burn, the frosting needs to hold the correct consistency to glue the house together and refrain from collapsing, and the candy must not be eaten throughout the day or you will find a shortage on red and orange Sour Dots, or not enough blueberry Dum Dums to melt into an icy lake! Also, keep in mind that not everybody is as super duper excited about making a gingerbread house as you are, so make sure to keep the music flowing as company may leave throughout the day! ^^

A masterpiece. 

Once you begin the gingerbread house, you've basically signed a contract to finish it. An unfinished gingerbread house is a very sad house! You may hate the smell of candy and frosting by the end of the day, but you will wake up the next morning to find a happy and frosty little house (or Alamo) awaiting your accomplished smile. :) 

The Christmas Decorator Hater

War on Christmas? Is the media really rallying in all the Christmas experts, politicians and religious groups to fight about Christmas?! Is this yearly battle really worth the fight while the world is filled with wars on drugs, terror, freedom, and poverty? America and our war on Christmas...can't we just keep our bah humbugs to ourselves and move on our merry Christmas (or not so Christmas) way?


  Well, while the Christmas war is up and running with holiday spirit ornament bombs, I'm whistling about, decorating trees and stockings, making Alamo gingerbread houses, and preparing for a spiked eggnoggie Christmas day. I'm not doing this for any reason besides the fact that I love what Christmas is made of: family and shiny Christmas decor. 

Due to the hundreds of songs, movies, stories, and books out there on what Christmas is truly about, I don't want to go over that same redundant story...for the sake of redundancy. But seriously, even the Grinch grasped the meaning of Christmas! "What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." If a green and hideous Dr. Seuss cartoon character can get it, so can the rest of America.

Take a deeper look into Christmas. Take away the religious aspect, the son of God's birthday. Throw out the Santa Claus and the Rudolf and the elves. Take back to the store the masses of useless gifts and put back into your wallet all that unnecessarily wasted money. Strip Christmas down to its bare meaning, detaching the Christ or the X from their friend and dear suffix, mas. In fact, erase the mas...we clearly don't need more of anything.


Zoom in and strip away even more, to the bare butt essentials. All that's left?
The decor. The lights to dazzle your eyes and warm your soul. The pine tree to fill your nose with holiday scent. The glittery ornaments and the comfort of your family while decorating together on a gushy, fun-loving, tingly feeling December night. Or the night after Thanksgiving, for those impatient holiday lovers. Even if you're a Grinch, a Stooge, a Bad Santa, or a Bill O'Reilly, you can't say you don't like all those pretty Christmas lights quietly twinkling up and down your neighborhood.


Unfortunately, there seems to be a shortage of Christmas decorations this December in Austin, Texas. In the recent past, Christmas shone across the Austin city limits with bright lights of every color and size. The Trail of Lights carried you across Zilker park with thousands of lights to gasp and awe you over and over again. The trail took you on a massive, spectacular light extravaganza, and ended at the Zilker Tree, where spinning under Austin's original Moonlight Tower has been a long standing Austinite tradition. Today, all that's left is the tree. Big and beautiful as it is, the death of the Trail of Lights is heartbreaking. 

 The Trail of Lights is not the only traditional city Christmas decoration to be unplugged and thrown into the Christmas tree box. Due to lack of funds, Christmas lights that ran all the way down to the Capitol on Congress Avenue, a tradition that began decades ago, are gone. 37th Street (at Guadalupe) was a full block covered in Christmas decorations and lit up by night, shining true to the Austin weirdness. Today? My neighborhood in Pflugerville, Texas, has more to show! New neighborhood residents didn't catch on to the nearly 30 years of Christmas traditional lighting on 37th Street, and it's turned into a pitiful sight compared to previous years. 

Come on, Austin! Even Little Rock's Capitol building has got some Christmas spirit!

War on Christmas? The depletion of Austin's Christmas magic? Can't we all gather around and fix this Charlie Brown Christmas? All I'm asking for is a little decor. Some colorful bulbs. A few more shiny ornaments.  Brighten Austin, warm our wintry souls. I'm not asking to hold hands and sing "Fahoo fores, Dahoo dores!"

Happy Christmas, everybody ^^   -NANA

China and the Public Squat

One of my fondest Chinese memories is squatting in a public restroom with no stalls for privacy, directly across from another squatter with a lit ciggie in her mouth, a strained wrinkle on her brow and grunts which bounced around the four walls we shared. Females going to the restroom together was taken to a completely different level. Or, merely the idea of going to the restroom was taken to a level in which a Westerner, such as myself, found it momentarily challenging to grasp. That mental book of socially acceptable restroom etiquette is meaningless the second you touch ground in China.

The Toilet Paper Mystery
The Chinese invented the toilet paper 1,422 years ago. After doing my business in a Chinese public restroom, I'm left squatting over a stainless steel hole with not a single square of toilet paper in sight. At this point, I don't care if my bottom isn't pampered by Charmin's Ultra Soft tissue; A leaf would suffice! One may think that those innovative ancient Chinese genes would carry down to today's Chinese minds. But all I see is a sad failure in the toilet department after their ground breaking toilet paper invention many, many years ago.
Although scarce, there are places where you can find a roll of toilet paper nearby. They tend to be in Western restaurants such as KFC and McDonalds, or fancy restaurants and hotels. Unfortunately the Chinese restroom patrons, not used to the comfort of a roll of tissue beside them, have crazy toilet paper parties while using the facilities. And there aren't enough fúwùyuán (服务员, attendant) ladies that are willing to clean a tissue mess each hour. In conclusion, I learned to take with me my own personal supply of tissue paper. I returned home with a greater understanding and appreciation of the value of the toilet paper.

Cute Poop
China has a different view on poo and seems to be openly infatuated with it. You'll see poop piles cutely placed around the streets and sidewalks of China, drawn on English lesson activity sheets or plopped on the title of their favorite cartoon series Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf (喜羊羊与灰太狼). Poo is literally everywhere, so I quickly learned to dodge the cute little piles...I don't find them to be very cute, especially when under my shoe!

The Bottom Slit

I'm sitting at a very low table on the side of the road, eating street food when I catch a whiff of something fresh and unappetizing. I turn my head to the direction of the wind to find the culprit squatting directly behind me, making a baby poo pile. As I'd been living in Beijing for nearly two months, I turned back around to finish my chicken on a stick and boiled soy beans. An entire summer of zig-zagging around pooing babies while walking along the sidewalks, it just didn't seem to faze me. Over in China most babies rock the "assless" chaps. Diapers? They don't wear them. Why not? There's a massive list of reasons. For example, diapers can get expensive, cause rashes and other health issues, and turn China into a used diaper rubbish pile if all children in China wore disposable Huggies. As a foreigner who watches children sit on the dirty Beijing sidewalks with everything hanging out from front to back, and walks around piles everywhere and anywhere, I personally find it a bit unhealthy and...well...did I mention that I don't find poop to be cute in any shape or form? 

Now that I'm home and far away from public squatters, I sometimes miss just sitting in that bent knee position. Long gone are my squatting days and long gone are baby poo piles. Although...I still bring my personal stash of toilet paper out of habit. ^^

For a bit of insight on Korean toilets, visit my South Korean blog!    South Korea Toilet Variety

Indecisive Goals On A Beer-Stained Bar Napkin

Back in the US of America after years of traveling here, living there and chilling out somewhere way over yonder, I've come to a daunting realization that I have absolutely, positively, hauntingly no clue what the f&%$ I'm going to do with myself. As of this moment, I'm merely a waste of space on this planet of 7 billion well-minded humans who clearly have a game plan and are progressing while I'm procrastinating here in not-so-pfun Plugerville, Texas. Insert sarcastic emoticon here.

In all sincerity, though, a few moments (aka days...actually, months) after returning to my quiet, confided, monotonous abode, filled with consistent tear-drenched eyes and gas-induced stress, I decided to do what I should have done before that melancholy journey home from China; drink cheap beer at a bar.

Alone. 

And write goals. 

On a napkin.

Everybody has their own personal way of getting their life in order and setting life goals.
This is mine. Don't judge.  

Lined paper makes for a structured disaster. Notebooks hold too many pages. Microsoft Word is too clean and easily editable. A4 and 8x11 paper is too large. Keeping a list in mind without writing it down is just bad organization skills. A spreadsheet with bars and graphs and percentages is cause for a brain explosion.

But bar napkins. Bar napkins are the way to go. 

Every written word holds meaning as these goals are limited to a 9x9 serviette border at most. Each idea is intricately placed under a category, beside a bullet point or scribbled near a drawn stick figure exemplifying the goals. Alone at the bar, I strain my eyes under the dim lights to zoom in on the scribbled goals: some tangible, some easy to accomplish, some far fetched and challenging to master. I write what I love, what I hate and what I fear. I write where I want to visit, be it Abu Dhabi or Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee. I write pros and cons for every goal in order to choose a path with the most positive prospects. I draw a timeline between one week and ten years to give these goals an unofficial yet reachable deadline.

Head over to your neighborhood bar where nobody knows your name and never will. Drink a pint of beer or two to loosen your strained and confused brain. Take the bar napkin from under your pint glass, grab a pen from the bartender, forget where you are and pay no attention to the few confused stares from other bar patrons. You are now in the goal-setting zone.

There isn't a template or a formula or a set of instructions that goes along with bar napkin goal sheets. That's the magic; the ease of a heavy mind when using this fantastic and easy-peasy goal generator. Anybody can do it. And everybody should try it! Are you sold yet?

After snapping my neck up from arching over a small, square napkin for over an hour, I have another gulp of beer. Life now looks less confusing, less empty. My path to a successful future is clearer. I have options and I have tangible goals.

If you leave with a completed napkin in hand and Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" in mind, then you've succeeded in creating a new and exciting future prospective. Whether you decide to make this bar napkin a reality or just keep it as an indecisive thought to ponder on until a revision is necessary, you will at least have something to wipe your mouth with after finishing your beer. 

Pumpkinlicious Inside Out

Ah, October. The month of orange. 

Orange sunsets lazily lowering their obese bodies under the sky and into the night 

Orange leaves falling and scattering about

 Orange slices dipped in a harvest-filled wheat beer

Orange glow radiating from our skin, extracting the last drops of summer

...

and

Delectable orange pumpkins.

Pumpkins

The edible and carvable and glowable fruit. This massive squash head, filled with delicious beta carotene antioxidants, is a central theme of October. And just as the Chinese don't let any bit of the duck go to waste (yup, they even eat the head), I use every bit of the pumpkin, from stem to guts.  

Jackie-Oh!

You don't need that trip to Target and that extra money for arts and crafts supplies. You don't need a special "Do It Yourself" Jack-O-Lantern kit. Just get a knife from your kitchen. (Though, use caution when carving around kids.) We all have some special creative talent within us. Sketch a face on the pumpkin with a sharpie and stab at it! 

Prior to prodding out the eye sockets or mouth and nose, carve a hat at the top and scoop out all the guts and seeds with your bare hands. Yes, your bare hands! Scrape any excess gut strings, plop it all in a bowl, and put the bowl in the fridge for later use. 

When creating your super awesome personalized pumpkin, consider what you want this big orange head to look like. Carve a glowing mustache below a ridiculously ugly nose. Or a Stephen King's sci-fi Langolier mouth with glowing lips. Tribal tattoo and tramp stamp uncertainties can be explored on a pumpkin, too. Or carve your ex's face to later throw at his window. Either way, just create and carve. There is nothing to lose, and a great amount of creepy Jack to gain.
And by the way, while creating your personalized Jack, I highly recommend sipping on a pumpkin ale for the full-bodied pumpkin experience.  

Pumpkin Belly

When considering extra vitamin A and zinc intake, take a long and thoughtful look at all those pumpkin guts you're about to toss into the trash. Squashing warm orange slop through your fingers is disturbingly fun, but so is creating something delicious out of those guts. 

Recipes coming from the inside of a pumpkin are infinite. 

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin Ale

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Cookies

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin Curry

Pumpkin Pancakes

etc, etc, etc!

Do you get the picture of how amazing pumpkins are at this point??

My first two rounds of October pumpkin fun consisted of seeds and pie. I'm not a baker, and if you're not either, no worries. Google "Easy pumpkin pie recipe" and BAM. You are an instant pro. 

The seeds. Throw seasoned salt on the seeds, and a bit of oil on the pan. Chuck it in the oven at 350, and begin the pie! 

The pie. Blend some eggs, evaporated milk, spices and real sugar together until it's a puree. Pour the puree into a crusted pie tray. Toss it in the oven next to the seeds. 

Drink some more pumpkin ale while you wait for these delicacies to brown, and listen to the Monster Mash...over and over again...

And then, when the pumpkin pie is settled nicely in your belly, and nights pass on, filled with an orange, creepy glow outside at your front porch, the Jack-O-Lantern loses his grip on life. He becomes lazy and hairy. His hard shell softens and weakens. His bottom becomes juicy and his smile wrinkles and folds. Jack unfortunately goes downhill, taking a bad turn in life.

So when your Jack is sent away to the compost pile, don't be sad. It's just time to move on and buy a replacement. Sorry, Jack #1, but Jack #2 has more pulp, more seeds, and more fun to offer.

Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right B, A, STOP!

I'm fond of my childhood memories, or the little that is left of them. Those precious moments I'm holding on to for as long as my brain cells will allow, are the same moments I wonder whether they were reality or merely snippets of dreams. Through time, my distinct childhood memories have blurred, pixelated . Months depleted to a few seconds of distorted memory. And sometimes I think, did that really occur? 

There are some memories I have of laughing for hours and days and weeks and years about a single sentence said, or a line from a movie from which I have no idea of the title. There are moments in life I found fascinating. And moments I wished to toss into the ocean. Life was massive, and so was time. And I sometimes wish I could go back to these memories...just for one more moment of time. Just for a tiny minute...

But then I opened up some of these mystical memories...and all this did was scare, literally SCARE me. I was horrified. This caused nightmares. 

Killing Jaws on Nintendo was as exciting as eating a stale Great Value cookie. 

Watching myself hitting a piñata on a dusty VHS was humiliating, even watching it alone. 

Reading my childhood diary was even more mortifying. 

Finding on Facebook that wise somebody I looked up to? Crushing.

Searching on YouTube for my favorite movies and shows I thought were captivating, fascinating. How did Hugga Bunch not traumatize me as a child? Mister Rogers wasn't my neighbor. He was Family Guy's Herbert, the old creeper neighbor.

My momentary leap into land of nostalgia backfired from reminiscence to repercussion. Devastation. Sweet memory fail. 

In order to cherish rather than taint certain, though not all, memories I prefer to just leave them as they are. Cherished memories.