It's like racial harmony day....just with better food

This weekend was like a multicultural food fest. It started on Friday with a Singaporean's birthday dinner at a chinatown restaurant, Harbour City. After walking back 29 blocks to campus, i found out that the dance performance i was suppose to go to in an hours time was back in Chinatown. So back to Chinatown I went to watch Strictly Funk, a Upenn dance group perform in some club. If i could sumarise the dance into 2 words, it would be bondage homosexuality. Ed said that didn't sound too nice. He rather we call it girl-on-girl action. I really didn't expect them to all kiss onstage and then spank each other. The guys got their money's worth. Shock was a pretty emotive word to describe how i felt. Especially since i come from a country that would suspend you from school if you put that up for Teacher's Day concert.

Saturday was the first time I taste-tested jamaican food at Jamaican Jerk-hut down on South Street. Yup thats the place they filmed the wedding scene in In Her Shoes. Had spicy Jerk Chicken Platter with rice and beans, Jamaican cabbage and plantain. And they have roti on their menu too! Wandered down to a second hand vintage store and got a small suitcase and two dresses. When i opened the suitcase, i found an old party toy thing, you know those you blow into and the paper unrolls itself with a "poof" sound. Yeah.....i hope that wasn't a dead kid's toy.

Went on to my Hong Kong friend's birthday dinner at Bao Bao Hao. There were 50 Hong kongers in that room. This was the most chinese i ever felt in my life. Everyone was speaking cantonese and singing karaoke. I just love their culture. Everyone was so polite and hospitable. Total strangers served you before themselves, everytime I turn around my teacup gets filled, and friends really look out for their friends, to the point of going out of their way to make sure their friends get fed before the food gets cold. Singapore culture on a whole is never this hospitable and polite. We hardly try to make polite small talk, we are always late for appointments and we are quite blunt in our remarks. Plus besides my older family members and your boyfriend/girlfriend, when was the last time I served food to the person sitting next to me. It's always "Bloody hell, took my last piece of chicken!"

I tried to converse in my broken cantonese. Tried being the operative word here. When they gave my friend Dickson a cap with the word "Dick" on it, I also tried to point out that that's just wrong. But they all were oohing at how cute the cap looked, so i just left it as that. I'll remind him when i next meet him to never wear that cap in america.

And now since I went through Singapore, American, Jamaican and Hong Kong cultures, we completed the night by heading down to a European party at Gigi, with a group of Japanese girls. Every European i met contemplated my asian existence at a European party. Jonas just asked me to recite dead baby jokes. Again. I spent most of the night standing against the wall and yawning while my friends get hit on by guys. Being a true wallpaper is an art. It was a pretty decent party, with beautiful tall people and good music. But it was too crowded. I can officially identify everyone's deodorant. Both wee siong and i stood at the corner and contemplated our existence there. Then we went home.