On the First Day of Christmas, My True Love...

Christmas was pretty pared down from the normal pomp and circumstance and inundation of gifts this year, due to the untimely death of my grandfather only one week prior. Under the stresses of travel and whatnot, my mother simply didn't have the time to go all-out with the decorating the house and the tree. The simplicity was nice, in a way. There weren't a lot of gifts and guilt going around, and instead we focused on spending quality time with one another doing truly enjoyable activities for the better part of the week (in our case, it was eating squid snacks while watching Hong Kong soap operas in our pajamas). I wish all vacations could be so relaxing.

On Christmas morning, my brother, mother, and I gathered around the "tree" (which in actuality was a pine branch stuck in a pot that my brother had purchased from the "trimmings" pile at the Boy Scout tree lot for a whopping $5 - it was a truly ghetto-Christmas), and we took stock of our gifts. I got 3 small things and a red envelope this year - more than enough to be happy. One of the small things was a children's storybook we ran across whilst in the local Chinese bookstore several days before.

My mother knew that I'd been collecting Chinese children's fairytales to practice my reading, and though this one book in particular was in Taiwanese Pinyin and English (which unfortunately meant I couldn't really use it to learn my Mandarin pinyin), she found the title much too tempting to pass up. It was one in a series along with other children's fairytales like Cinderella, the 3 Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, and the like. Only this one was called "The Fragrant Smell."

Here's an excerpt from this precious little gem (click to enlarge the text to a readable size):



It's one of those "special" Chinese fairytales that somehow loses its charm in translation... or something. In any case, it's no wonder so few Chinese-American kids these days seem to know the tale of The Little Boy Who Sold Perfumed Farts.

Anyhow. You'd think this gift would be a story in and of itself, but this is the Bubonic Plague Luncheonette, and I am Ubernerd. Of course it gets better.

Flash forward a week to the first time I ever meet M's parents. I was a nervous wreck; I wanted so badly to make a good first impression. I agonized for hours over what kind of gifts to bring before deciding on a selection of Chinese pastries. After all, nothing says "Hi, I'm the girl who adores your son and would really love to date him, but I don't know how he feels about me. Say, maybe you could help me out with a little insight on that" like fresh lotus cakes and red bean pies from the Sheng Kee bakery lovingly hand-packed in a bright red box with imperial yellow tissue folded carefully inside. Martha Stewart would have approved.

Suffice to say, my efforts were not altogether lost. His mother and father turned out to be warm, lovely, and genuinely interesting folks with a love of learning about new cultures. I really enjoyed talking with them, and I dare say they probably did not find my company altogether loathsome. In fact, dinner conversation on the second night came around to a discussion of a young Taiwanese relative of theirs possibly coming to the States for a visit to work on his English, their concerns regarding the associated challenges they would have with communication and difference in culture, and perhaps would I be able to provide any cultural insight into the matter?

So, you know how in those adventure games you pick up an item and you carry it along with you until you *know* it's just the right time to use them?

Best. Re-gift. Ever.

Further bulletins as events warrant.