The drive to make Italians eat Italian, which was described by the Left and leading chefs as gastronomic racism, began in the town of Lucca this week, where the council banned any new ethnic food outlets from opening within the ancient city walls.
Fantastic, isn't it? Anyone who loves food, would find this very over the top. I would support them if they banned fast food, actually, the article did not say anything about Mc Donald's, Burger King and so on. I suppose these fast food restaurants are not really ethnic, loop hole, or not wanting to piss-off big corporate investors?
Oh, this is the funny part, when Minister of Agriculture was asked on his support for this he said after asked "if he had ever eaten a kebab":
“No – and I defy anyone to prove the contrary. I prefer the dishes of my native Veneto. I even refuse to eat pineapple.”
So, I thought Irish people were bad, even though they have improved and are more adventurous. There was an intern (in first company I worked for, big US corporate company) from Kerry and he would not eat anything bar potatoes and chicken. He would not even touch pineapple, even though he never tried it before. So one day, we snuck some in his lunch and he said what it was, and we made up something, he ate it and loved it.
Food is food, everybody, even in Italy, people will eat their own ethnic food, but don't stop them eating other ethnic dishes. Life is too short to be ignorant of one's little pleasures.
(Source: Times online)
I found renting pets, partners, etc. in Japan astonishing, but it happens in China as well. Well, the renting partner bit, mainly for meeting the parents when they go home for Chinese New Year.
Young Chinese from smaller towns and villages still face withering parental pressure to marry in their early 20s, and some pay good money to hire the right type to bring home and please anxious parents, at least for a few vacation days.
(Source: Irish Times online)
Wow, this looks over the top. Ok, I should stop posting CNY-related stuff from HK up now, but this just caught my eye.
Saw my uncle on TVB main evening news yesterday, talking about developments in Lam Tsuen near the Wishing Tree. Since I am on the subject of the wishing tree, just saw this in BBC News online piccies section.
More about Wishing Tree in Lam Tsuen here
By the way, there is another wishing tree (I think know as lovers tree). My aunt told me to make a wish regarding my love life, as in, I want to get married soon. Guess what, I was engaged soon after that back in Ireland. I know, it's all just coincidence, but it's a nice story to tell.
And not even a firecracker in sight. I saw on the TVB coverage of HK's CNY today, they were setting off fire crackers lasting 45 minutes. BTW, use of fireworks is illegal in HK, yet it was on national t.v., it was just after showing the floats, the wishing tree in Lam Tsuen (they set up a plastic one allowing people to throw bean bags instead of oranges). Wish I can find a vid, photos, news about it online. As I said, only saw it on TVB-Europe there tonight.
Toughness of an ox needed to brave new year carnival. See, I wasn't kidding about the weather in my earlier post.
Some piccies from BBC News online of Lunar New Year celebrations.
"Gung hai fat choi", as most of us would say. I'm heading down home for a Lunar New Year dinner today. Now I have to remember to brink my "Lai sees" or red packets (stuffed with money) to my siblings and cousins.
So I attended The Silk and Bamboo Trio's concert at the Hugh Lane Gallery and I enjoyed it immensely. The happy and joyous sounds of the Chinese instruments consisting of traditional wind and stringed instruments to romantic and celebratory tunes left me breathless at times. In my mind, it was bringing up images of old China, images I would have seen on t.v., pictures from books. It was definitely a great experience to listen to these three musicians, no amps or anything. The room filled up fast. With a quick glance, around a half dozen or so of Asians were amongst the many Irish attending the concert.
Content with the concert, we headed to the green by The Church beside the Jervis centre. It was getting cold, so we headed into The Church for a bite to eat, and the wind and rain began with gusto. Therefore we pretty much missed the opening ceremony, lion dance and all. Although after our lunch and some drinks, we headed outside, and caught the Silk and Bamboo Trio again, but playing outdoors on stage did not sound as good as it was in the Hugh Lane.
The stands around the area were few, and half were empty. The Asian Market was prominent, another stand selling fans, Western Union giving away freebies, Meteor and another on Living in Ireland. No food stalls or anything. Very disappointing.
One thing though, I found out that An Post has release the year of the ox stamps, tempted to buy one.
Anyway, I felt overall, the concert was fantastic, the carnival, shall I say, a wash-out.
[UPDATE] RTE News mentioned it - Chinese welcome in Year of the Ox, tepid mention at that.
Yes, for the 15th year in a row. Followed "by Singapore, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand".
(Source: The Associated Press)
Like many, she came to improve her English language, then fell in love with Ireland. She even opened a restaurant by the coast in Bettystown.
(Source: Irish Independent online)
An architect, Gary Chang, in Hong Kong renovated his old 334 sq. ft. flat he and his family use to live in, from a cramped multi-roomed space into 24 functional rooms with the use of sliding partiitions. Ingenious, and he's been through four renovations and the current one will not be his last, as he admits that it's an "ongoing experiment". Read more...
(Source: The New York Times online)
It's Jackie Chan as Mr Miyagi. I would like to re-iterate, HK stars plus Hollywood does not equal good movie. It really reinforces the stereotypes of how people in the West view these types of roles played by talented Chinese actors and actresses. No more crappy Hollywood roles, pur-lease, for the sake of what happy memories we have, no more!
Since I booked British Airways online before, I get the usual spam, this one is very specific. It's a nice one though, because now I miss Hong Kong!
Coincidence, or am I corrupted? Probably the latter. I'm not the only one who noticed this, given that I found it on this particular site: University of Hong Kong Offers CLIT Courses . Now the acronyms maybe easy to file and order courses, but maybe they should have passed it through other people's eyes before sticking with "CLIT". The courses are relatively tame to what we may think it is, "Ways of Reading: Film, Literature and Culture" and "Questioning Difference: Gender, Postcolonialism and Culture". Seriously, come on. Imagine having to note down the course ids on your resume, of course, in real life, it's just the degree/course name. It made me smile, Chinglish in a different light.
On Saturday night (10th January), the bus driver of the 54A (Tallaght to Eden Quay) route was assaulted by two people who wanted to get off early before a stop.
After the driver told them to wait he was spat at. When he stopped the bus and left his cabin to go and contact gardai he was viciously attacked as the row spilled onto the street.
Two men who were upstairs in the bus, went to help the driver. One of the assailants jumped back on the bus and drove it at a slow speed for a very short distance and jumped out of the bus. Then one of the men helping the bus driver jumped on the bus and managed to stop it.
The gardaí arrived and arrested those involved. The latest on this incident, one of the men has been charged with assault.
(Source: Irish Independent Online)
HK received five sturgeons in celebrations of the Olympics, but three died and the two others are not faring well, and are to be returned to China. The five sturgeons were in the care of Hong Kong Ocean Park. Beijing even presented another five to HK after an apology from HK's leader. I've been to Ocean Park, the aquarium is a nice change from the humid outdoors of HK's summer time. It's a pity that care in HK was not enough to keep some of the precious breed alive. Maybe I would get a glimpse next time I'm in HK.
Source: BBC News online (HK returns sick sturgeon to China)
More information:
Well, I did not realise that the forum feed was broken as the side links in the main page was fine. I was adding the forum feed to my Facebook profile and I realised it hasn't be automatically updated since August!?!
Now the tecchie part, for those interested... Anyhow, after some help from my hubby, we suss that Python2.4 was b0rked on my account on the remote server. Ran latest virtualenv and installed Python2.4, Elementtree and SQLAlchemy. There were some migration issues that were ironed out re. SQLAlchemy. Once that was done, all was hunky dory again. I'll have to keep an eye on it the next couple of days.
So apologies for those who think that nothing is happening, it's cos the forum feed was broken and I did not realise for a long time.
It's 2009, happy new year to one and all! No new year's resolution for me, I'm just putting my head down and working like a maniac on my personal projects. Ok, maybe that is my resolution! o.O
