The Remains of the Day (12/20/10, El Fin)

5 pm. That therrrs my first cousin once removed, Jing4Xing4, sitting at the glass covered coffee table writing her Chinese homework, the "be, pe, me, fe" of the pinyin system to eventually teach her the full-on, logo-graphic character.

(I've been watching lots of Justified lately--a show centered around Raylan Givens, a hot-tempered, lankily sexy Federal Marshal with preternatural gun-slingin' skills and an ability to stay calm in precarious situations, played by Timothy Olyphant, who previously played Seth Bullock, a hot-tempered, lankily sexy Marshal turned Sheriff with preternatural gun-slingin' skills and an ability to stay calm in precarious situations...hence the "therrrs".)

Anyhoo, your PSA of the day:

The pinyin system, aka the New Phonetic System, can be written romanized or with another set of "characters," like so:



I guess you can loosely describe pinyin as the Chinese "alphabet," but it's an alphabet that...doesn't combine to make up the actual characters--it's just there to sorta standardize the sounds.

Yeah, I don't really get it either.

Anyway, here's the little one fuxin' with an abacus, of all things. I didn't actually think folks still used 'em, let alone were still being taught it in schools...what is she, a first grader?

Holy shit! Magic sauce! Mythical martial art-ing, abacus-using, good-at-math, Asian creature!


I cannot even begin to understand the workings of an abacus, let alone explain it--so, here, check the wiki.

Or not.

Ladies and gentleman, what we've all been waiting for:


Clock-wise from noon: 1) some kinda seaweed, 2) some kinda soup, 3) sweet p'taters, 4) peeled chestnuts, 5) salt-fried belt fish, aka the largehead hairtail, which can grow up to 2 meters, 6) pickled radish, 7) picked...mustard greens? 8) stir-fried...vegetable matter, 9) lo ba bung, a toe-curlingly delicious braised ground pork with soy sauce, shallots, garlic, rice wine, etc., 10) and traditional (?) boiled corn.

I'm shittin' you--I don't know nothin' 'bout boiled corn.

My lil cuz, top left-hand corner, is eating a super organic egg--the egg yolk a bright marigold. More on that laaaatteerrr.