Hu Nan

I went to visit my grandparents in San Jose today. I particularly like visiting my paternal grandparents because my grandpa always acts like it is a big deal when I come home. Anyways he called me yesterday because he wanted me to drive them to a BBQ an association was hosting. The association is made up of people who were originally from Hu-nan province and now live in the San Jose area. Apparently 我是湖南人. The BBQ is comprised of a lot of random people, however, I am quite familiar with how these Chinese get-togethers made up of strangers work. I've been to a few in the past.

Now let me tell you something about Chinese people in large groups, especially old Chinese people in large groups. They don't really like to wait in line for food and they really will crowd you if you give them the chance. Personal space is not a big deal. So I was standing there with a plastic plate waiting my turn while people kept passing me up. I'm cool with it because I don't want to seem really eager to eat and when you let someone go in front of you everyone will go in front of you. You can't show any weakness with these people. Haha just kidding. On another note about Chinese BBQs, the last Chinese BBQ I attended was for my father's school reunion. It was similar to this one, just that they had a keg. So basically... Chinese people cant drink... and they also like free shit... I think its easy to guess what happend at the end of the BBQ. The keg was still full and people were crowding around and filling up water bottles with beer so they can take them home. No, I am not making this up.

Anyways, eventually I got to the food and was mainly interested in the meat. They had a whole plate of BBQ chicken legs but every single piece was black as shit. They were so incredibly burnt I actually started laughing out loud. Everyone was walking around with a burnt ass piece of meat on their plate. It was incredibly funny. So after I ate my burnt drumstick I went over to the people who were bar-be-que-ing and waited for some Korean BBQ ribs. Watching them cook was kind of painful. One guy kept flipping the thing like every 30 seconds and I watched like three of them burn while I was next in line. Anyways, I got my meat and went back and sat with my grandparents. My grandma insisted I wore her straw sun hat becasue I was sitting in the sun. She took off her own hat and put it on my head and then she got out a little wooden thing which was like a lot of wooden pieces attached to a hinge which turns into a hat. So now the three of us are sitting at the picnic table eating korean bbq and wearing sun hats.

The meat is hard to eat with just a plastic fork. My grandma goes into her purse, pulls out a paper envelope, opens it and then pulls out a piece of wood and a metal knife and begins to cut the meat using the wood as a cutting board. I thought this was hilarious. Apparently she has been to a few bbqs in the past also. She says her teeth are not good enough to tear the meat. We eat the meat and my grandma talks about how bad the people who were cooking the meat were. I agreed. I thought it was really funny because usually when I talk to my grandma we have two separate conversations because she is hard of hearing. I would say something to her and she would say something totally different and then I would try to tell her again and she would respond as if I had said something else. Eventually it would be so far off I would just nod and smile to her. Later my grandma surprised me again when the Hu-nan Chinese Association moved onto the next part of their picnic celebration. The entertainment. So they had this lady up there singing some song in the old Chinese style with a megaphone. My god it was fucking horrible. Not only that, the song lasted like 10 minutes. My grandma came up behind me and whispered in my ear something which roughly translates into "Wow she fucking sucks!" Just kidding, she just said that she sings really bad, but I thought it was funny that she had even said that. Hanging out with my grandparents was actually really fun. It was funny seeing how excited my grandpa got when he got lei'd for being one of the oldest members there. He got over excited and went up before they even got to his age bracket. All and all, it was a good Sunday.

So while I was writing this post, I was watching TV and someone lost my remote and it is stuck on MTV. I think "Daddy's Girls" is the only show where I look forward to when the commercials come on.