Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Fresh

I am quite displeased about the fact that the kimchi stall in the Festival Walk Taste has disappeared. Just like that! One day it’s there, next day it’s gone! Life just isn’t quite the same since. I do recall there are some Korean shops in TST, somewhere around Pratt avenue or thereabouts, where there are lots of Korean restaurants. Perhaps I should investigate.

I should have done it today, since I was in TST anyway. But I didn’t, because I was afraid. I feared the rush hour crowd on the train, and if I were to go look for a Korean shop selling kimchi, surely I would have to be part of that crowd. So I got some in City Super instead.

Played another two hours of tennis this morning, my right shoulder feeling sore, strained and stiff towards the end of the session. I am playing again tomorrow night, and I plan to pop a couple of nurofen 400s before I start.

I was in TST this afternoon to meet a geography professor who is writing a book about freshness, and she is in HK researching specifically on fresh fish – its supply, its demand, its shape and form. She came across my work on foreign domestic workers and wanted to have a chat with me about the role these workers have in sustaining a diet that contains plenty of fresh fish. It is always flattering, for me, to know that other people are interested in my work. Now of course, when someone approaches you like that, you expect them to be armed with a bundle of questions. But this woman, she was not like that. She asked me a couple of questions, and then she would just stare at me, with an expression suggesting that she was expecting me to ask her a question. This is social interaction at one of its very worst, I think. When the rapport you expected is not there! And I’m sure the feeling was mutual. Anyhow, things got better when eventually I did ask her about her work, and she got a bit more animated, and my need for another double espresso decreased.

Right now, I am supervising O's work – work that he should have done at school today, but didn’t even manage to get a bloody START. I’m not that pissed off with him really, although I try to act as if I am. He has got some very good ideas and he is an amazing writer for his age, but he is so …. distracted… but only when he has to do work he is not interested in doing. Not entirely unlike his parents, really.

No comments: