…so I deleted it. See you on Wednesday.
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The Hakka Round House
Survival to Kitsch
Me: I dunno. I think we might be bored. And it’s in the middle of nowhere.
Her: I think we should see it. You’ve always wanted to see one and now’s our chance. I’ll handle all the logistics.
Me: Well, ok, I guess…
One of the things that Sara did for our trip, because I’d mentioned wanting to visit a Hakka round house – called a tulou (土樓) – was to discover that there was a replica round house built in a town called Miaoli in Taiwan.
I mentioned us visiting it briefly and said that I’d tell you about it someday.
Seems like today’s the day.
This is me standing in front of the replica.
It’s not so much a house as it is more a round apartment complex with an open courtyard in the middle.
For the replica, they built a glass roof over what is usually the open roof.
You can see how there are rooms all along the side of it.
Now, the reason that these things were round was pretty simple: The Hakka were living in a world that just didn’t want them and was always trying to kill them.
So, the buildings were round so that archers could defend the home from all angles.
They had walls that were up to six feet thick at the base to prevent siege weapons from breaking in.
On mainland China, there’s a whole preserved village of them in Fujian – what we saw in Taiwan was merely a replica of one.
Again, they weren’t so much homes as they were mini-fortresses that were meant to keep the inhabitants – my people – from being murdered.
I mean, think about that for a second.
Even if you’re not told that you’re hated and despised, just looking around you – being in remote areas living in fortresses that were meant to be completely self-sufficient – how do you not grow up feeling like an outsider and unwanted?
This was the mindset of the Hakka for thousands of years and one has to think that this mindset permeated everything about us.
In some ways, the Hakka are truly like the Jewish community in that, like them, the Hakka really focused on education and vying for positions of power.
Because, like the Jewish community, the Hakka were tired of being powerless and persecuted, so we have been over-represented in the military and politics post-WW2.
In fact, post-Mao, the most powerful man in all of China was Deng Xiaoping, a Hakka.
He modernized China more than any other single human being, including Mao himself.
In other words, (and this is purely my opinion but I think I’m right) he made modern China more Hakka-like and this is why China is so powerful now.
And that is why I’ve said, so many times in the past, that the US is not prepared to go to war against a country like China.
America is not prepared to go against a society that has, because of Deng, a culture based on education, power, and survival.
The Hakka survive shit.
You don’t know what you’re up against.
This isn’t the China that the US carved up in the 1800s and Japan beat in the 30s and 40s. This is one that’s modern and has learned its lessons.
Now, the immediately preceeding two pictures are of more replica round houses, this time, built on top of a department store in my my mom’s hometown of Hsinchu in Taiwan.
I find it funny that these things created for survival and defense have now become cultural kitsch.
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And like I said in my last entry, I think the Hakka culture explains so much about why I am the way I am: Focused on knowledge and education but never forgetting that survival is as much an issue of physical ability as well as mental acuity.
The Hakka round house is a synecdoche of the Hakka people, in my opinion.
Me: I think I’m finally gonna write about the Hakka round house. Hey, thanks for insisting that we go [when we were in Taiwan]. That was really cool to see.
Her: Oh, sure! I’m glad we got a chance to go.
Location: my regular rectangular pad
Mood: ridic busy
Music: I learned my lesson young (Spotify)
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I’m not exactly Chinese
Travelers, safe at home
Me: (years ago) It’s hard to explain. Essentially, it’s kinda like how Jewish Europeans were looked at by other Europeans. [My people] mainly look like everyone else but everyone else hated us for how different we were from them.
Lea, my Irish friend: (in her Irish accent) Ah, you’re a traveler!
When I was a kid, I read the Diary of Anne Frank, and it really messed with me. I only ever read it that one time because it shook me so much.
Couldn’t wrap my kid brain around it; I had Jewish friends and they looked exactly like all the other Caucasian kids.
Remember that this was the 80s and, at that time, Asians were only starting to move into Queens so there weren’t a lotta us.
I remember thinking, “Man, white people are so weird. They hate and try to kill off an entire group of people just because they’re different.”
It wasn’t until way later that I discovered that this wasn’t limited to Jews and Europeans.
The Indians had their caste system, the Japanese had their Burakumin, and the Chinese – I later discovered – had…us.
You see, I’m not exactly Chinese in the same way that a Jewish citizen of France may or may not call themselves “French,” and/or “Jewish.”
My family – prior to my marrying Alison and then Sara – is 100% Hakka, which is what we called ourselves, for at least the last 700 years. This means that I’m genetically 100% Hakka.
Man, did I mess that up.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Just like the Irish called their itinerants “travelers,” the Hakka literally translates to “guest people.”
We were “guest people,” because no one wanted us, so we were essentially nomads
But we were called less savory things and treated even worse than that.
It was estimated that in during one reprisal, the Chinese killed 30,000 Hakka every single day for weeks.
That’s just a tiny bit of our story but essentially, people have been trying to kill or get rid of us for centuries.
That’s why so many Hakka are in Taiwan. There’s a dark explanation that I told for years and still tell.
We’re kinda like the Jews of China. No one wanted us and everyone was always trying to kill us. When there wasn’t any more China to escape to, we left the whole mainland and went to Taiwan. My parents went even further and came here.
But it’s true.
And it’s deeply imbedded into the psyche of many/most Hakka that the next reprisal could come at any day, so safety has always been a theme of this blog.
So too is embedded the concept of home, probably one of the top two or three recurring themes in this blog.
The place that this mindset shows up the most, though, is in our houses.
But, this entry’s getting long, so I’ll wrap it up in the next one.
Oh, but here are some pictures of classic Hakka food before I go.
Location: my little slice of the world
Mood: stressed
Music: I’ve been travellin’ a hard road (Spotify)
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Catching Celebrity Autobiography
Cringy
RE Mike shot us some tix to go see this Broadway show called Celebrity Autobiography, the other day.
Him: I heard it’s funny.
Me: Sweeeeet – Sat at 5PM works for us. You going?
Him: Let me check – I might go with you but [the wife and kid] are in Florida.
Sara loved the last three things that he sent us to – a private party, The Heart of Rock and Roll, and Once Upon a One More Time – so she was def up to see this one as well.
Me: You wanna go? From RE Mike, of course.
Her: Ooooooh! Fun!
The premise is clever; essentially, celebrities read excerpts of autobiographies from other celebrities – and most are pretty cringe.
I went mainly to see Eric McCormack from Will & Grace (he lived on my block so I have a story about him that I’ll tell you about one day), who’s the last person in the pic below, and Tony Shalhoub from Wings and Monk – two shows that I’ve seen pretty much every episode of, back in the day.
That first guy – Mario Cantone – was hilarious, as was Mikey Day from SNL.
Ralph Macchio was also there, as well as Nia Vardalos from My Big Fat Greek Wedding – she was also hilarious.
The others were good, but they were the stars of the show, in my opinion.
Having said that, the show was 90 minutes, and I definitely feel that it coulda been a faster, more interesting 60-minute show.
If nuthin else, I don’t think celebrities with no writing chops – at all – should hold themselves out to be authors. The poetry of Matthew McConaughey, the love story of Kenny Loggings, and the musings of Khloé Kardashian were particularly funny/cringy.
Then again, maybe in a few decades, people might find this blog and find everything I write cringy.
In any case, while I’m not sure I woulda seen it but for RE Mike sending us the tix, it was a nice change from our usual.
Afterward, we stepped out into the warm spring evening.
Her: It’s supposed to be the hottest summer on record this summer.
Me: No!
Her: (nodding) Yup.
Me: (shaking head) Why do you gotta ruin everything? (grumble)
Oddly, thinking about celebrities and their hidden talents – or lack thereof – got me to thinking about Scarlett Johansson’s song Relator, which was a song that I heard from a magazine I used to read to find new music – waaaaay before Spotify – called Paste Magazine.
I liked it before I found out it was her singing.
Here it is if you’ve never heard it before.
Location: midtown with the kid and his friends, looking for a kitchen and a party
Mood: heated already
Music: life’s for us to talk about (Spotify)
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The unexpected athlete
Couples Picnic Table Challenge
It’s funny – you know me as this peanut-butter, rum, and chili-obsessed dreamer but the world at large knows me more as Logan from Scenic Fights.
Which is definitely cool, don’t get me wrong.
But I find it humorous that most people know me as an athlete these days, something that I never woulda imagined in a million years growing up.
I literally played two games of base/stickball in my entire life.
And in high school, I doubt there was anyone in my entire school that was worse than me at basketball anything sports related.
And yet, somehow, along the way, I became exactly that.
Because we are what we constantly do and I’m as much at the gym as I am anywhere else.
The kid takes after Alison in that he not only loves to watch sports, something I have zero interest in, but also loves to play sports as well.
I think that she would be thrilled that he loves soccer and baseball, two things she always adored.
The kid unexpectedly got a chance to go with his school to catch a Yankees game the other night – he was out until 11PM – AND also got a chance to walk the field.
Plus, he came home with a ball from the dugout to boot.
Man, this kid’s face musta been sore the next day with the amount he was smiling.
Sara is pretty athletic herself – she played softball for years as a kid and tells me all about her childhood working with the track team in high school.
Seems everyone in her school was involved with athletics.
Plus, I marvel at her walking all the way to and from her office on the east side of Manhattan on the regular.
She also started coming with me to kali over a year ago, which is something that I really appreciate.
Which brings me to the videos below.
Before I messed up my back, Sara and I saw this video with couples doing the Couples Picnic Table Challenge.
Clearly, we had to try it.
The last time I did anything like this was with my buddy Lorin out in LA and he’s a professional. Ours was decidedly less refined.
In any case, the kid found it on his phone so I’m putting it up below (sound was awful so I just killed it).
This is not what I pictured my 50s to be like but, here we are.
Man, just watching this hurt my back…
Location: with the kids and my nephews having a sleepover
Mood: hungry
Music: We make it look easy, we make it look good (Spotify)
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Appreciating Anniversaries
My kid sis got hitched…a while ago
Me: Whoa, I just realized today is the 2nd – Happy anniversary to you two! How long has it been now?
Sister: Aw thank you! 19 years fly by…
Me: Wow!
Her: I know, right?
I almost forgot to wish my sister a happy anniversary.
She got married almost 20 years ago and I told you all about it when I went to it, if you can remember that far back.
It’s stuff like that that makes me appreciate this blog; I don’t think I woulda written anything down about my life but for this here blog, as it forces me to regularly update all the minutiae that makes up a random person’s life in this world.
In any case, so much is different about her life and mine since that day.
Some good, some bad, some horrific.
My anniversaries, like my luck, are generally the kind that no one wants; I remember all the dark days I lived through with Alison and my dad, thinking, It can’t get worse than this.
And yet, somehow, it always managed to get even worse than my worst fears.
Even things that should be happy anniversaries, like Alison and my father’s birthday, end up being painful events.
So, whenever I have a chance to celebrate something good, I go for it.
Me: What did you guys do today to celebrate almost 20 years!?
Sister: Ate at a greek restaurant near us – it pricey but was very good!
Me: So funny, I *JUST* made Greek lemon chicken and potatoes yesterday.
Because I know how lucky I am to have a good anniversary.
Although, sometimes, I have to be reminded.
Her: (out for a stroll with me) Well, November’s a great month, at least.
Me: Why is that?
Her: (stops, turns to me and glares)
Me: (remembering) Oh, yeah!
Her: You better remember that, Logan. If not that, then January.
Me: Meeting you? One of the best days of my life.
Her: (nodding) Good answer, Logan Lo, good answer.
Location: walking down Riverside to see my kid after a picnic
Mood: productive
Music: been down the darkest roads and up in the clouds (Spotify)
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The Knock-Offs
Seeing the moon
Me: (stepping outta the shower)
Her: (nods approvingly) Whoa!
Me: (grins)
Her: You are one good-looking old man.
Me: (frowns)
This weekend, Sara and I saw a movie for the second time with the kid.
The first film we all saw together was the black-and-white film The Mark of Zorro with Tyrone Powell and Basil Rathbone a few months ago.
In that film, when Basil Rathbone’s character was killed, the kid was super upset. I had to tell him it was just a film and the actor was fine.
This time around, we saw Project Hail Mary and – while it took the kid a little while to get into it – we all ended up enjoying it.
The thing is that the ending upset the kid because it was so poignant and well done. I think that’s a good thing because it’s good to have a kid that’s empathetic.
Despite what some people think, empathy is a very good thing that the world needs more of and not less.
Me: Hydrox was the original; Oreos was the knock-off.
Friend: That I knew.
Me: (thinking) Well, did you know that the Big Mac is a knock-off, even down to its name? It was a copy of the Big Boy Hamburger, by…Big Boy Restaurants.
Right now, JFK’s in the news a lot because of everything happening in the Kennedy Center.
But JFK wasn’t supposed to be the leader of the Kennedy clan, his older brother Joe Junior was supposed to be the leader. But Joseph was killed at only 29 years of age while trying to bomb some Nazis.
Their dad, Joseph Kennedy Sr., knew he wanted a son as president, so he turned to JFK and groomed him for leadership – with equally terrible results, at least for a father.
For me, I don’t need or want the kid to be president. I just want him to be happy and a productive member of society.
But, if the kid vastly outshines me – which, let’s face it, shouldn’t be terribly hard because I’m a D- celebrity at best – I feel I would have done an outstanding job as a parent.
And I hope that Alison would have been happy with how I’ve been raising our son.
She trusted him to me and that, plus the fact that he’s mine, makes me want to do a good job raising him.
Honestly, I just want the kid to be better than me.
He won’t be a knock-off, he’ll be something better than I ever was.
That’s the hope, anyway.
Him: Is he ok? (asking about an injured character from Project Hail Mary).
Me: I dunno, I hope so.
Him: I hope he’s ok too.
Me: (nodding) Let’s watch and find out. You always have to wait until to the end to find out.
We all have to wait until the story ends to find out what happened.
I hope before my story ends, I can find out, someday, if he’ll see the moon.
Location: Broadway with Sara, daydreaming about apartments and al fresco eating
Mood: tech-y
Music: things go a little bit better when you plan it (Spotify)
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An impromptu mid-weeknight out
…with hand-pulled noodles
Both boys needed a haircut, and Sara was hankering for some noodles the other day.
Me: Wait, they have tomorrow off right?
Her: Yup.
Me: You wanna just head down to Chinatown and we’ll let both boys get a haircut and you can have your hand pulled noodles?
Her: Sure!
I gave her some hand-pulled noodles a while back and she’s been enjoying them ever since.
She’s been wanting to go to this hole-in-the-wall joint in the video above for a while now and the weather was just beautiful so off we went.
In that video, the chef’s making a buncha different kinds of hand-pulled noodles, two of which we had below.
The knife-cut noodles at the end are probably the coolest in my book.
But first, the boys had to get their hair cut.
They each picked out their own style and showed it to the aunties.
After they finished, we just turned the corner and we were there. We grabbed some seats outside for food.
Normally, I hate eating outside – mainly because it’s usually in some shed on the street which is inherently dangerous, and pretty uncomfortable to boot.
But Doyers Street – which I should tell you about onea these days – is closed to cars now, so it’s a lot nicer an experience.
I accidentally ordered the wrong dish for Sara, which worked out fine because I could then indulge in my inner fatty-fat-fat.
The below pic is of the thicker, flatter hand-pulled noodles that are hand-ripped as well. That’s the kind I like the best.
I think, scientifically, carbs don’t impact the body if you eat them because you ordered the wrong food.
That’s what I tell myself, anywho.
The bowl below is of the thinner long-pulled and hand-cut noodles varity.
Me: Why are you cutting the noodles?!
Her: They’re so long!
Me: They’re supposed to be so long!
Afterwards, we took a nice (loooong) walk to the west side and hopped the train home.
The weather was just perfect.
Me: These kinda nights are my fave.
Her: Because they’re spontaenous?
Me: Yeah. I think these impromptu things we do are the most fun.
Her: Agreed.
Me: I hope the kids remember these things. I’m hoping I’m giving them some nice memories to look back on.
I think that’s why I miss my dad so much.
Because he used to do alla these small but really meaningful things for me.
And they inspire me to want the same for his grandson that he never really got to know.
I know that I’ll never have those experiences again. But they live on in my head.
Ah, shit.
I did it again.
Location: the kid’s new middle school, hoping I made the right decision
Mood: sigh
Music: It’s my feeling we’ll win in the end (Spotify)
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Fellas, at my pad last night…
Corny Sad Logan
Her: Well, I found your blog before I met you, so I was interested to see how much of your online persona matched you in real life.
Me: No kidding? What’d you think?
Her: You are exactly as you are in the blog. Even the corny things you say.
Me: Corny?!
Her: Like, you say, “fellas,” in the blog. And I was like, “Well, there’s no way he uses that in real life.” Nope, he does.
Me: CORNY?!
I wonder sometimes how I come across in this blog.
When I first started writing it, I remember that my buddy Nadi felt like I came across as a sad sack – but that was mainly because I thought my failures with women was far more entertaining than my successes.
Still, a number of people, including Sara, have said that this blog pretty accurately reflects the way I am in real life.
Sara does say that I’m happier in real life versus how I sound in the blog, but I think that this blog allows me to sit with my thoughts and sadness does occupy my mind a lot.
It’s not always like that.
But yeah, I glad that at least some people think that I’m not trying to pretend to be something that I’m not.
Her: And who says “pad,” for their apartment? The 1990s called. They want their word back
Me: Well, that’s more of a 70s thing…
Her: (interrupting) They still want their word back, Logan.
Speaking of the 70s, Sara and I had a fun time the other night reminiscing about things we loved from our past that are gone now.
For her, she loved Squeezits as a kid.
For me, I loved something called the Reggie Bar, which was named after famed baseball player Reggie Jackson.
I told her that the thing I loved the most as a little kid was cheese in a can, which was something that I could literally eat with a sleeve of saltine crackers for brekkie, lunch, and dinner.
No wonder that I such a fat kid.
I could go on and list a million more things, but I’ll relate a final story for this entry.
Told you in the last entry that Sara’s sister and BIL came over for dinner the other day and we got to talking about drinks.
Him: I definitely had a Zima before, I just don’t remember it.
Me: It looked like a bottle of vodka but tasted like…well, kinda like beer. (later) What about a Bartles and Jaymes?
Him: The coolers?
Me: Yeah, that was pretty huge when I was a kid and then it just…stopped.
Someone (I don’t remember who): That stopped being a thing by the time we were in college.
I wonder what memories of stuff happening right now the kid will bring with him into his future.
Man, I hope it’s a whole lotta good things.
I wish that more than you can imagine.
Location: Chinatown with everyone, having hand-pulled carbs
Mood: nostalgic
Music: Give me a paper and a pen so I can write about my life of sin (Spotify)
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Rained out
Plus a lotta baking
We had alla these Memorial Day plans that ended up getting washed out with the rain we had all weekend.
Mainly, I we were supposed to head out to see my college friends at their pool, which is what we’ve done for several years now.
But, with the weather unexpectedly cool these past few days, it was a good opportunity to do things that we needed to do around the pad that involved the oven, which we were dreading as it’s been pretty hot around here.
For me, I had to re-season my carbon steel pan because I, stupidly, forgot not to put an acid into it and I was making a quick sauce beurre citron and put in a full lemon, stripping out a lot of my pan’s seasoning.
The above is the post mistake fix.
And Sara used the time to bake a ton of stuff; she had recently started making sourdough breads with hard deli meats braided into it.
Amazeballs with cream cheese if you’ve never had.
It ended up being a fun weekend anywho because we got to have a game night and play Settlers of Catan with the kids and Sara’s sister and family came by for hot pot.
All-in-all, it ended up being a good – albeit wet – weekend.
No pictures from either the game night or the hot pot because I was too busy enjoying the actual event.
Hopefully, your weekend was just as good, if not better, than ours.
Location: my apartment, stuffed from hot pot
Mood: beyond full
Music: sugar don’t taste that bitter (Spotify)
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