1.  Bring a list.  If you have poor impulse control, Costco is not the place for you. 

2.  That five-gallon econo-pak of Tabbouleh Salad will probably go bad unless you have your one-hundred closest Mediterranean friends over for a party THIS weekend.  Throwing out food is a waste of money.  You will only do this once.  If you have any brains. 

3.  Go ahead and spend the extra $3 on the Charmin.

4.  That 90-inch flat screen looks cool in the warehouse, but it will not fit on the living room wall of your studio apartment. 

5.  Keep your cart and yourself out of the middle of the dadgum aisle.  The manner in which you have strategically positioned your cart shows me that you have no self-awareness.

6.  What’s with the family conference in Aisle 12?  It’s trail mix.  It’s not complex.

7.  Some of us are not like you.  We haven’t made this our family fun outing.  We want to get in and get out as quickly as possible.  Please keep your brood under control.

8.  A three-year supply of paper towels, Ziploc bags, cleaning supplies, Tide and Pentel pens are probably worth it, but it will still cost you about $300 at the register.  A three-year supply of blueberries (or any food item) is not a good idea.

9.  Products rotate in and rotate out.  That particular brand of schoolhouse cookies you can’t find?  Just let em go, man, they’re gone.

10.  If you order a cake from the lady who barely speaks English, do not, I repeat, do not expect perfection. 

Japanese culture and pain medication don’t mix.  After my surgery, I learned that pain medication needs to be taken early on when pain is first being experienced.  It’s illustrated by this graph:

If you take your medication at point A, it can work while the pain level is still minimal, thus lowering the pain.

Now if you’ve been raised by an overseas-born Japanese parent, you know the concept of gaman.  Gaman is the Japanese word meaning to tolerate, to grin and bear it.  So when pain strikes, you gaman.  You bear it until the pain is overwhelmingly popping your eyeballs out of your head.  I suspect that other cultures have a similar concept.  The gaman model looks like this:

As you can see, the problem with the gaman approach to pain management is that it simply doesn’t work.  On this second graph, Point A is shown to be later on the time continuum.  This means that you’ve said to yourself, “Oh, I can handle it.  It probably won’t get worse than this.  When I gave birth, the pain was ten times worse.  I think I can last through the next spasm.” 

But now, because of all the macho (and feminino) BS, you’ve given the pain a chance to spike and further escalate.  At this point in the trajectory, the pain is now out of control, unmanageable and cannot be alleviated without a larger shot of alcohol or a stronger hammer to your hard head. 

The moral of the story:  Gaman?  Oh, heck no!  Sometimes the doctor knows best when he prescribes those things!  When it gets to 5 (click), get PJ his pills!

 

So how does uni (sea urchin) go from the California kelp beds . . .

Let’s follow the trail . . .

(Uni boat at anchor off the Channel Islands, preparing for a dive)

I thought it was odd when I first heard it. “Please press one to continue in English.” What? Then I saw this poster.

I actually agree with the sentiment.  I mean the root language of the phone voice messaging system in the USA isn’t Cantonese as far as I know. 

But I am having a problem with the juxtaposition of that statement with the American flag.  The poster conveys an expression of a subtle and sublimal kind of xenophobia that many could find disturbing. 

The fact remains that we are a country composed of men and women from differing national origins and cultures.  But what does the depiction of the flag, associated together with the English language imply?

My grandparents were immigrants.  And they loved their newly adopted country, even if their new home didn’t love them so much.  They were deprived of the opportunity to become citizens due to the Naturalization Act of 1790 which denied citizenship to Asian immigrants until the passage of the McCarran Bill of 1952.  The 1920 Alien Land Law prevented them from owning a home in their new country.  They were detained by Executive Order 9066 and unconstitutionally incarcerated as ”enemy aliens” during the second World War. 

And yet, they loved America!  They settled down and had their family here.  They sent one son to Cal while the other siblings would root for Stanford during the annual Stanford-Cal football classic.  I doubt that my grandparents understood the nuances of the game, but they were all about Cardinal red, white and Cal blue and gold. 

And they loved the red, white and blue too.

By the time I came along, the 4th of July meant buying the most expensive box of fireworks and, together with our European American neighbors, celebrating their country’s day of independence.  My grandpa could barbecue with the best of them!

English?  It wasn’t their first language.  But they got by, shopping at the Co-op and at Sears on San Antonio Road and El Camino Real in Los Altos.  They conversed and interacted with their English speaking employers and neighbors.  But did their lack of English proficiency equate to a lack of pride in their adopted homeland?  Or should they be considered unpatriotic or un-American because English was their second language.  I don’t think so.

Yes.  It’s irritating and annoying to have the “press one for English” option in America.  But let’s not feel like we need to raise a flag over it. 

k34′s trip to Taiwan and her observations about food reminded me of my own dining adventures in Brazil.

Armed with a food per diem of about $15 a day, I would spend a week scrimping and saving for the nice dinner I would have with our arriving or departing teams.  That dinner was at one of two all-you-eat steak houses called South’s Place (click) near Morumbi Shopping or Grill Hall (click) near Congonhas Airport.     

But my regular, daily meals would normally be taken along the streets and alleyways of Liberdade or Bosque da Saúde in São Paulo.  Gaudily placed signs advertising good prices were generally enough to draw me in.   

Usually for between $3 and $4, one could get a plate of salad, black beans, rice, fries and stewed beef or chicken milanesa that would keep you satisfied for most of the day. 

The national dish of Brazil was called feijoada.  I could occasionally find a place that would serve it by the plate (feijoada completa). 

Or if the budget was lean, there was always the prato feito or “made plate” (plate of the day) which could be had for under two bucks.  They were usually advertised with handmade signs like these.

Even during my overnight travels by bus, a midnight snack was part of the routine.  During a nine-hour trip a traveler could expect three stops along the route to stretch, freshen up, and grab a bite to eat.  These stops, at bus company rodoviárias, would generally have anything from a full service restaurant to a snack stand.  The snack stands were usually the way to go as the stop would be no more than 20 minutes and I didn’t want to learn to gobble my food in that short of a time. 

My favorite was the coxinha de galinha.  It was a flour and manioc mixture shaped in the form of a chicken leg and stuffed with shredded chicken and deep-fried.  Oh, so healthy!

Wherever you chose to eat, whether in a bakery, fruit juice stand, bus station, or a lanchonete (snack stand) in the city, you could expect friendly and courteous service from people like this guy. 

Acknowledgements:  Muito obrigado to Thomas Locke Hobbs.  These photos were used with his kind permission.