It's Chinatown, Jake

[malsperanza]

America is always boasting about being the Melting Pot, blahblah, but most of the time America puts immigrants through a giant ethnicity-blending machine that converts everyone into mall-shopping, fast-food-eating bland Normal People.

Not New York. And this is why I love New York: because every time I go to Chinatown it has gotten even stranger. Yes, the piano-playing chicken is gone; but the rest just gets better and better.

1) Man on Canal St. subway platform playing "Moon River" on koto. This is even better than the duo of samisen and Hungarian accordion who used to play "Amazing Grace" on the Times Square uptown #1,2,3 platform.

2) Non-Hispanic black man having disagreement with Chinese cashier in Kam Man Foods:

Customer: You overcharging me because I'm black? Huh?
Cashier: No, no, is price. Is price!
Customer: I think this is discrimination! Dis-crim-in-a-tion! Comprende?
Cashier: Hah! Chinga tu madre!

3) Chinatown is only neighborhood in New York where I can buy CDM coffee with chicory imported from New Orleans, because the Vietnamese restaurants use it to makeThai-French-style ice coffee (with condensed milk)

The Melting Pot, yes.

Meanwhile, am veryverybad.



Things I bought in Chinatown today:

Small potted mock-orange plant in bloom
10 lbs. peaches at 5 lbs./$1.00
4 small padded silk boxes
1 padded silk pincushion in form of ball surrounded by wee puffy silk babies (gift for mother)
Overnight case in green and brown embroidered silk
2 lbs fresh lychees (now in season, yay)
Tiny blue cloisonne enamel box, size of nickel (gift for niece)
1 bag chocolate fortune cookies, because I have never seen chocolate ones before;
however, they tasted like charred bark and had stupid fortunes
1 package 6 assorted fruit puddings in scary neon colors: mango, lychee, kiwi, strawberry,
something that might be orange, to judge by the picture, and something in brilliant pink with no
name or picture; ate the lychee one; horrible; threw others away
Small good-luck bauble made of iridescent milk glass
5 meters silk brocade in black dragonfly pattern; on order; have now learned how to say
"dragonfly" in Chinese, which might even be useful someday

Am whore for Chinese silk




Things I resisted buying in Chinatown today:
12 lb. live carp
Bag of pig's blood from shop where bought bag of pig's blood last winter when N. and I made
sausage
Egg-cakes from the Egg-cake Lady
Art supplies from Pearl Paint
Winter melon cookies (not appropriate, as is not Harvest Moon Festival)
Other overnight case in embroidered silk (red and black)
Massive steel cleaver from Chinese kitchen-supply shop; but only because I already have a
massive steel cleaver, a German one
Tiny green turtles; it should be against the law to sell them, but buying them and releasing them in
Central Park Reservoir would only encourage shops to sell more of them
Small snails of the kind that are delicious sauteed with garlic and herbs Sicilian style, and eaten with coarse spaghetti; only because I cannot remember how to make this dish (curious: I feel sorry for turtles, but not snails)
Sandalwood soap wrapped in silver teachest paper
Green tea ice cream
Red bean ice cream
Ginger ice cream
Barbecue whole peking duck (they are always greasier than they look)

Comments

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Not the reservoir! The turtle pond, please. (You know, by the castle.)

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Aw, the wee ickle pond with the ducks and turkles. Already full of Chinatown escapees, as the trees are full of errant parakeets.