Monday, April 07, 2008

when a white man cooks chicken adobo


(this is funny if you do speak filipino)

truth: i learned to cook filipino food only when i went to vietnam (mother would be so proud!) which is why hats off to this guy who does know how to cook chicken adobo. A for Effort on speaking filipino, but his accent's so funny i couldn't stop laughing (just like when one of my friends said his latest trip in life is to go to church), then a sobering thought, that's the same reaction i get khi toi noi tieng viet.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

luv in a land of xe may or sex on a xemay (or whatever, i said it, shoot me!)

(hi, ma!)

because i realized that a lot of views to this blog are from people searching for amadbrownwoman...

when commenting on a space as mediocre as a vietnamese condom, smile blogs, it's inevitable to make mistakes. although i do make sassy comments like this on a daily basis(meow!), i make a conscious effort not to blog in this manner. the reason is simple: i don't want to be penalized for my sexuality or my being a filipino. because if a man blogs in this manner, it's fine and just dandy. and when it's a woman, it's not so. i also don't want some snide shitty condescending comments like "hang on to your wallets, she's a filipina" like i'm out to get men's money when i'm blogging. but when i commented on thirsty thong, i realized i couldn't take it back, so duoc, duoc, i am che, i am amadbrownwoman, shoot me.

famous quotes that i made yesterday:

i dunno jimmy i see them lovers around the park near my house too,the park near the airport, vietnamese couples may not show affection in public but they sure can fuck in public. which leads me to this: no need for gymnastics in vietnam as flexibility is proven and the most important of all, no need for vibrators...

as my image of vietnamese couples is not the same as the picture of hanoian couples, saigon couples are in motorbikes (hence the flexibility and vibrator).....


just because i want to make it better, edit the gymnastics and replace it with pilates or yoga.

i will write more on this later, when i'm not watching tv.

and believe me, mother tried.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

in youtube is andrew lam's my journey home...



in which he talks about his return to vietnam. he is the son of a former general of the south vietnamese army and the author of perfumed dreams: reflections on the vietnamese diaspora. this video is just the first part.

...there was someone who looked at my face and he said, you know, yours is not a vietnamese face and i said why not, and he said, because it's a face that did not know suffering, i said, i see. he said, if i had escaped and gone to the United States, i would have transformed myself like you did...

a recipe for a Jungian dining

because when i'm in restaurants i observe and observe and observe and psychoanalyze ....

to start, you need a forty plus year old vietnamese man, you know, the ones with money and more often than not, married and also more often than not, has no vestige of physical attractiveness whatsoever (but oh well, that's me). next is a beautiful young vietnamese woman, often not older than thirty, not necessarily not educated, not necessarily not employed and evidently not the wife. the third is the woman's friend. often there for ___________________________ (fill in the blank, if it's me, it's for approval, a symbol of how blase and accepted this is in vietnamese society, but then again that's me).

now for the power dynamics, the woman taking on the role of the mother brings beauty and harmony. she divides the food, serves the friend and the man and herself, of course the man comes first. the friend taking on the role of the child brings joy and happiness to the otherwise boring conversation that's to ensue , basically most of the conversation is between her and the woman. the man taking on the role of the father, he is condescendingly bored of the women's chatter so he takes no part, but he is the one to whom the waiter or waitress caters to, for after all he plays a most important role, he pays, for everything.

this emphasizes just how different vietnamese women's expectations are from mine.

chao cac ban, like amadbrownwoman, the dancing inmates are back!



and the inmates are now dancing (supposedly) to air a political statement.