Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada

::Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada::

My notes and my memories: sometimes about a mom - sometimes about a wife - sometimes about a woman - sometimes about our life

::Author::

Name::Andrea
From::Small city/town, B.C., Canada
I am a short girl from the west cost of BC, Canada and I am a proud Canadian. I went to Japan in 2000 because my Dad told me I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't. He was right. I lived a good life found my husband from the other side of the world and have a beautiful daughter. Basically we lead a pretty normal life filled with normal ups and downs. We both come from different cultures: me Canadian, him Chinese. Living in Japan was a real eye opener about who I am and about the people I associate myself with. I lived and loved in Japan but the time to move on came upon us and in May of 2006 we left and moved to Canada: a huge move for us all. We are now trying to start up again, remodel our lives and create our future for our family. I now feel like a tourist in the country of my birth, my eyes see different and my life will be forever changed. This blog is my notes and observations of our life, our changes, our adventures and new beginnings. Welcome.
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::Recent Entries::

::Personal Links::

My Japanese Culture Teaching Notes

::My Family's Sites::

Alisha - a site set up by friends and family of my little sis

Phrax - my step-brother

Blue Mountain Stable

::Index::

An Index of past posts - the Japan Years

::Archives::

::Image Event Album::

My Image Event Photo Album

::My FlickR Photos::

www.flickr.com

::Tech Sites::

Tech2all

Blog Flak

::Extra Internet Info::

Canadian Atlas

National Geographic

Wikipedia

World TimesZones - please check this BEFORE calling me!

Currency Converter

eigoNavi - a pretty good language converter

The Samurai Appliance Repair Man - a funny repair site for N

::World News::

Generation Woman

Japan Times

Counter Punch

Japanese General Union - a must! read before working in Japan

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Sunday, October 30, 2005

Sharp Friends

As we know, my husband LOVES to cook.
In fact, two of the three books he bought at the bookstore in Tokyo were cookbooks: one an English/Chinese dictionary of Chinese dishes, the other a book on the proper cutting techniques for a variety of foods and knives.

We have some fairly nice knives at home. I splurged on a couple of the cheaper Henkels (still expensive though) and we found a few other nice ones. I bought this one short blade Henkel only because it said ‘Meister Cut’ on it. Hehehe (family joke)
They are not great but they are pretty good. I need them to be professionally sharpened but other than that I personally have no complaints.

Li does, of course.

He wants some fancy ass knives that we cannot pretend to afford. He wants a VERY long bladed heavy knife, and one of those freaky butcher type knives. We decided long ago that he is just going to have to wait till we move and do our visit to China, and then he can buy his knives of choice at a price that will not make me sweat.

Last night Li went and visited his Chinese friends for a bit.
I categorize Li’s Chinese friends into three groups:
One: I hate them! They have no respect for the fact that Li is married and has a kid. They peer pressure him all the time and pull that ‘You are not Chinese’ shit on him. They do it subtly so that he cannot click in after a few drinks. I can and I hate them. They don’t like me either. Chinese woman are strong and expected to be strong in every way, but are to appear docile and subservient in front of friends. I am not and never will be. They have all moved farther away so now he only seems them a couple times a year. Thank god.
Two: I deal with them. Li is treated more as an older brother and I don’t think Li really calls any of them his friends, not in the way that I consider real friendship. The one guy was his friend even back in China. These mainly two guys are a bit better in that neither drink and are both slightly more level headed. They are not perfect though.
Now, I say that this group is not true friends in the sense that I believe friends are because, well for one, he doesn’t have any idea when their birthdays are and I don’t think any of them know his. But he is in a big brother roll mostly due to the fact that he is the oldest and the only one married with a kid. This brother roll involves him helping them out when they move apartments, introducing them to his boss when they need work and, due to the fact that Li’s Japanese has always been good, he does a lot of translating help for them. He has helped them with Visa problems and drivers tests. Because of it they always give him a gift during Chinese New Year. The one guy gave him a wicked ass nice ‘Crocodile’ leather coat this year. WOW nice!
But as he is not a friend in the real sense: as an example, he is the last person they call if they need a fourth man for the mahjong table, that and they know I wont let him stay out all night. He also tends to win. But due to the big brother in him, he wins all their money then stays long enough to politely loose at least half.
Third: One guy, Foo (pronounced Who) He is actually Malaysian of Chinese decent but a great guy. Dad met him and really liked him. He is JiXiang’s Uncle Foo and he would happily baby sit if I desperately needed him to. An all around good guy.

Well he went out to visit the Group two friends. He has gotten better since JiXiang came into his life and does not let them keep him up late anymore.
He got home at around 10:30ish last night and had a bag of goodies with him: three cans of beer and two beautiful knives.

Well these two guys work at a Hostess Bar as bartenders/overseers, and the bar was celebrating an anniversary (don’t know how long). The boss decided to do a lottery draw for the staff. The presents included beer, chocolates and a few other odds and ends. There were a couple of big prizes like these knives. Well both of them won a 6 pack of beer and a knife each. Neither drink beer (health reasons and basic policy) and neither can cook anything other than fried rice.
Both gave their prizes to Li.
YAA!
These knives are nice.
The one knife is a VERY heavy good-sized chopping knife. The other is a beautiful VERY long bladed, thin knife specially designed for cutting fish for sushi. Both are hand made with the makers names inscribed on them. They are made of that really wild cold cut metal that feels freezing when you touch it.

Li was all glowing when he showed them to me last night. He had not yet opened them as the guys could not really appreciate what a nice prize they were giving away. Li and I were pretty damn impressed.

We have to find a storage spot for them now. They are not the type of knives that you stick in the cutting block: they are the type that only comes out of the drawer on special occasions and can only be used by Li.

Hell, I would probably cut my fingers off if I used the sushi knife: they are soooo sharp!!

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Posted by (Top)Andrea::10/30/2005 :: 1 Comments:

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