Gaki N Me If you love to talk about the world, love Asian idols, this is the place.

Today I was driving the two boys to swimming lessons and in the car, my middle one took off his socks so that he wouldn't have to struggle to put them on after swimming.  Suddenly I heard a high pitched girly scream - Eeeeaaaaaahhhhh! Eeeeaaaaaahhhhh! from the middle one.

Me: What's wrong?
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These days, my daughter really wants to speak in Cantonese, not just understand it.  At her school, there is only one other Vietnamese in the 10th grade and the rest are all Koreans, Filipinos, Hispanics, and some Caucasians.  Out of her class, there are 2 who are Cantonese one of whom can't speak a word of Cantonese and 2 who are Mandarin speakers. She desperately wants to talk with them in Cantonese at least. So at our usual dinner time when the father is not around, I teach them all the basics. And here is a sample telephone conversation.

Daughter: Moshi moshi

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Tonight at dinner time, I put out a few questions for the kids to check their thinking process as we do everyday. The yet again unappetizing topics in front of the tasty fare of satay chicken and tomato sauced fish with cucumbers was whether a cockcroach would die if it is decapitated. My youngest asked what is decapitated...haha...and what is a cockroach.  We laughed. Ever since we moved to Washington, the kids have not seen a cockroach and of course, the youngest couldn't remember the occasional Californian cockroach.  The older kids say it will die but the youngest says no, it won't die. The youngest won but he couldn't give an explanation. So I went on to explain how cockroaches are cold blooded, breathes through its skin and does not need much pressure to pump blood around the body. As long as the scientist seals the opening with wax from infection, the cockroach which could make one meal last for days would last for just that, whereas a human would not survive since the brain is detached and all functions collapse.  The next question to stop them from eating is what about the head. Would it survive? The kids groaned....I laughed so hard when my daughter thought there's got to be something about the feelers in this question.  The other two didn't think the head would survive. But it would. At least for a few hours and I motioned my arms to imitate the feelers flailing around. My daughter turned a bit pale thinking about it...haha...OMG, I don't know why I always do this at dinner time but my husband loves it....(Well, he finished his last bowl of soup already.)

Then we talked about my youngest's favorite subject - T-rex.  He lives and breathes dinosaur and so I asked him if a T-rex falls down, could it get back up since its arms are so useless. He insisted it could and quickly demonstrated a push up....haha...the two chastised him for believing whatever was shown on the videos. My middle one laughed and said the T-rex will roll back up like grandma from Vietnam...OMG....what an apt description! 

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It's Spring Break and the Blueberry Robber has struck. Watch this self filmed video of my three kids, edited by my daughter. And yep, that is their father my daughter kept climbing over with almost 15 NG's...from the time he was resting to getting fed up and had to wake up with all that noise. The house was in kids' state since term break. And yeah, I love the guards chasing and being knocked down...

You must think I'm crazy to make a wallpaper of my meal with Bovril in the front but I have to.  I have not been able to buy this product in the US for the last 10 years and have been dying for a taste of it. My mom promised me she would send me some and half a year later, they finally came encased along with the trophies she mailed me.  When we were young, my father showed us how to put butter to rice and a dollop of this beef tasting extract into the rice as shown in this pix. But my mom bought a vegetarian version. I suppose since it is a UK product and there must be concerns of mad cow disease, they don't make the beef variety anymore. In the past, we call it 牛肉汁.  But now that it is not a meat extract but just a yeast, rice flour, maize extract, it is simply called 保衛爾.  On winter days, I used to put two teaspoonsful of it in hot water with white pepper and drink it. During pregnancy, when I yearned for home cooking of my childhood days, this was the first thing I reached for when I could eat again. I wonder how long will these four bottles last.

My 8 year old and I played by the side of the kitchen with his herd of herbivores and carnivores. As he explained each animal with their habits and abilities, I was to photograph them. He positioned the attacks and the kills to his great excitement and just before dinner, he chose the music and I slotted them all in a slideshow. You could also watch the 93 seconds video here.


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My youngest was telling me all I needed to know about whales for a few days already and when it came to babies, I asked him if he knew how long it takes for baby whales to come out. He said, "I don't know...hmmm...3 months, I think...."  Then I asked him if he knew that elephants takes the longest to give birth to babies. He looked at me waiting for me to supply the answer. I said, "Almost 2 years, I'm pretty sure of it." (It's 22 months.) He said, "Wow, mom, that's a long honeymoon."

 I was laughing so much.... Where does he have such ideas????
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Today around lunch time, just as I was stuffing my mouth full of a banana cookie I baked last night, a call came in. "Hello, this is the ___ ____ Health Room. May I speak to Mrs. __." My mouth could only manage a mumble.  I didn't want to listen to another salespitch on a lady's gym. "Could you speak English?" I mumbled through my cookie..." Ng...ng..(the universal language for no)." "Is there anyone here who speaks English?" "Ng...ng..." That's my usual ploy for not answering questions from these soliciting calls.  "I'd better call ____ ____. " Wait, that's my designated emergency contact if my kids are sick.  I hurriedly asked what it was about.  A few minutes later, I was at my kids' school to see my son hyperventing and holding onto his stomach sobbing...no, make that wailing quite loudly. I thought he was going to lose his breathe any moment. I drove him to the hospital and I could have listened to less of his wheezing if it weren't for the 35 mph limit.  

This is one thing I like about this state that I live in. The medical service is superb. Two nurses attended to him and it's not even the emergency room. Just the doctor's office in a hospital facility. And they quickly brought in a doctor to see my youngest, send him to X-rays and back. In California, we generally have to wait for 4 hours at the emergency room before we are attended to, and if you have an appointment, they make you wait for 90 mins at least.
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My kids were happily eating their snacks on the way home after a huge dim sum lunch and my youngest passed out fortune cookies from his big bag to his siblings.  My daughter complained why she kept getting short term benefits on these fortune slips. Then my youngest triumphantly said, "Ha...this one is just perfect for me!" We were all ears and he announced proudly, "You will never know hunger." OMG, that's the funniest thing he said because he loves eating and eats more than the father or anyone in the house. My husband chuckled, "We should have this framed for you."

Then he offered to read more fortunes for his sister. "Sis, this one is just perfect for you!! Listen, listen..." So he happily announced, "You have a deep approaching of the arts and music." "What?", we all asked.  "Let me read it, " the middle one snatched it from him and said, " You have a deep appropriation of the arts and music." We laughed so hard.  The sister snatched it back, " You have a deep appreciation of the arts and music.  Appreciation!! Not appopriation!"  
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This week we are celebrating my husband's and my daughter's birthday and so we are in especially good mood. For the father, we have been celebrating with different types of sirloin steaks over the week. The snow stopped our celebration for four days but as soon as the roads were clear, he was out and about to stock up on more celebration for the week! 

For my daughter, first I started the day with fixing green tea Japanese noodles sprinkled with sesame seed, Japanese black sesame oil, American Kikkoman soya sauce and American home smoked ham to celebrate long life for her at lunch time. It's one of the favorite cold lunches my kids love, except my youngest who gets teased by uncultured peers who couldn't tell what he is eating all the time.  He begs me, "Mom, can't I just have a simple sandwich?" Nope...! He has to learn to stand up for his food.  The other two has classmates drooling over my oriental concoctions.

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This is gaki 'n me's daughter again. She is yet unable to post again because she read the last entry. As a result she has trouble breathing, and appears to be laughing. Excuse us while we stuff her in the refrigerator,  she needs to chill for a while.

Alright, my mentally challenged seven year old brother has something to say:
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Hello! Mom is currently unable to update right now, and therefore, I, her daughter, shall do it for her. As soon as this annoying seven year old gets away FROM ME! AHEM.

Thank you.
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I have so influenced my daughter that she now has a severe case of Japanitis. It started off one night when dad was not home, (as usual, our joking always takes place in his absence) and she gave me an idea of what I should be like.  "Mom, you should really wear kimono and Japanese clogs and then prepare bento lunches for dad.  You walk to the door to hand him this bento wrapped in a pink cloth and he would glare at the pink color and frown. Just then, you would trip on your clog and fall, bento flying and he would catch it." "OMG, dad would never go for it. He's Vietnamese, he's not Japanese," I said.

Then a week or so ago, I was asking her schoolmate from the Philippines if their ancestors married for love or had arranged marriages.  Then I went on to tell how the Chinese used to have arranged marriages for the longest time.  When we were driving home alone, my daughter got worried.  "Mom, what if I get stuck with a crazy guy?" "Eh?" "You know, what if you make me marry a guy I don't like?" hahahahaha...she took it literally. "Who are you going to make me marry, mom?" she asked, totally concerned.   I said, "Chinese!" She went, "AAAARRRGGGHHHH! No!"  "Eh? Why not?"  She said with all earnesty, "I want to marry a Japanese!" OMG.....
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When my middle son was around two, I bought around 50 small sized Old Master Q comics for him to read. Even though he didn't know how to read Chinese, he and his sister would stay quietly in their room all day long reading them over and over again.  When he became more talkative at around 4 or 5, I realized how deadly Old Master Q was.  He actually took Old Master Q as his hero  *faint* and whenever he got excited, he would relate a page of what Old Master Q would have done. OMG, what did I do. Old Master Q was the worst person in the world to imitate. He is selfish, greedy and mean.  Then his brother followed suit...haha. This was before they even knew about Superman, Batman and Spiderman and so my attempt of ingraining them with Asian culture went a bit too successful.   Now they laugh over it, but yes, they still read them over and over again every night. A few of the copies have fallen apart and they have been asking for new issues.   If only they understood the Chinese writings in it. *faint*


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I have a middle son who is rather battle ready. In the morning when I drill him as we walk to school in spelling, I ask him to spell machinery, he would change it to machine gun. I ask him to spell forehead, he changes it to warhead.  Socket becomes rocket launcher, lemonade becomes grenade. So last night at dinner time, as he dutifully raised a topic of scientific interest to keep the dinner talk lively and worthy of his father's interest, he wondered aloud why in Jet Li's Once Upon a Time in China, Wong Fei Hung's kick is called No Shadow Kick. 

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