Lost in Chinatown

It was a nice evening. The kind that puts you into a happy daze where you wish blindly that things could stay as they were forever, despite the fact that you'd eventually get bored and they wouldn't seem so wonderful if you always had them. But it was nice, especially nice to spend pleasurable time with people who recently my relationships with have been so frought with disappointment. Namely, Dad and Lucien.

Scarlett doesn't count - she was there, but she's still a brat. Oh, in case you didn't realise.. she's his step-daughter, rather than his wife. His wife, Selena, has had to fly back to HK to finish up business before she transfers down to the Melbourne office.

Dad called me in the afternoon asking if I wanted to go to a lecture. Why not? Topic - peak oil consumption and how governments and individuals should respond. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I decided it was worth sitting through it to please my Dad. Lucien and I arrived late, sneaking in and taking seats apart from each other. Instead of dozing on his shoulder, I actually had to look interested which somehow transformed itself into actual interest.
One of the experts was asked a question on how rising fuel prices in response to the burgeoning oil shortage would affect industries that rely on it (i.e. aviation, product distribution, etc) in the long run, and was wondering what solutions might be in order. The answer ran somewhere along the lines of individuals having to pay extremely exorbitant prices for these 'luxuries' and going back to grassroots production; as in growing food in their back gardens and limiting travel dramatically.
Everybody was sort of nodding their heads in agreement, but I was secretly wondering how many of them actually realised how it would affect them. Would they be willing to give up their company cars and overseas vacations, or even down to smaller things like abstaining from any non-local fruit in their smoothies? I watched the Arts Centre glittering in the background and found myself thinking about how much longer an economy such as ours could really exist on such a rapidly disappearing resource, when everybody seemingly has the right attitude but nobody wants to make sacrifices.
I will be the first to admit that I don't want to make these sacrifices - I like travelling and drinking imported tea, as well as having the freedom to be able to buy things rather than have to grow them in my backyard. It's selfish when there are people who would feel as if all their Christmasses came at once if they could grow their own food, but this is the way I have become by conditioning. We don't appreciate how great our lives and our possibilities are - nor do will we admit how difficult it would be to give them up.
Too many thoughts.. to sum up, I dislike what capitalism does to huge groups of people, but I will recognise that it does some pretty nice things for me. I wish it could do these things for everybody, but if it did, then the system would cease to function. Therefore it is up to me, being in the advantaged group, to take care of and try to help the less advantaged!

Ok, enough of that strange serious deviation from the normal fluff of this journal. After the lecture, I was kind of quietly pondering as I was whisked along to Chinatown. I adore Chinatown, it reminds me of growing up in Taiwan. The smells of strange alleyways, the neon signs, the tanks full of fish staring grimly out at potential diners, the roaming gangs and occasional harajuku girls giggling on corners. It speaks to me, and I understand it. The four of us wandered into a restaurant called Kun Ming (I think) and proceeded to devour some truly awesome Cantonese food: sweet and sour pork, black bean beef, sauteed chicken in satay sauce and prawns with ginger and shallots. I chose the last dish, which was to die for - prawns cooked just enough to make them practically 'pop' juicily as you bite into them, complemented perfectly with the sharpness of the ginger and the subtle flavour of the shallots. We drank Jasmine tea and spoke to each other in broken Chinese for half the time.
The method of conversation got quite a few stares from the people at the table next to us. They weren't my favourite type of people - the man looked like the type who would visit Thailand simply to sample the women. His enormous belly bumped dangerously against the table each time he moved, and in the first five minutes of being there he managed to: a) speak very slowly to the English-speaking Maître d' as though he was a small child, b) glance none too subtly at my breasts on several occasions, and c) come up with the grossest mispronounciations of simple psuedo-Asian words (i.e. satay). The wife reminded me of a hen or a pigeon in her mannerisms and the way she spoke; sharp, inconsequential and fussy. They were clearly an absolute joy to be seated near.

We managed to enjoy ourselves despite the ogres - luckily they arrived just as we were finishing. As we were walking out, we stopped to take a gander at the poor fish awaiting their fate. My Dad pointed at the lobsters and said, "Look, they've made a little sign saying 'Try the fish!'"
My response: I peered into the tank with wide eyes, asking very serious, "Where?". It was a very 'self-inflicted slap to the forehead' moment.

It may seem like simply a nice night out, but there is one thing I deliberately left out - any kind of animosity between the members of our party. I left it out because there was none. In the past, my Dad has been rather vicious - I suppose it's part of coming to terms with the fact that his daughter is growing up. This has ranged from calling me a disappointment, to saying that my degree-in-progress won't be worth anything so I should give up now, to saying that I might as well just be a check-out chick forever because I won't amount to anything better. I think he's Bipolar sometimes. Seriously.
Lucien has also been a prime source of criticism lately. If I had relied on him for all of my self-esteem and my entire perception of myself... it wouldn't be good. I must take some pride in being a little more sturdy than usual.
But last night, they were both lovely.

We parted ways after that - Dad and Scarlett went back to their house Lucien and I wandering back home through arcades of Asian teens playing video games and munching on things on sticks. We walked silently, holding hands, and I felt as though I was walking alone. Not in a bad way, but in the type of way where you just take everything in and don't have share it with the person you are with. We just drifted receptively, I suppose.

Lovely, nice, great - such boring adjectives. But what else can you say? What other words really signifies that kind of contentedness? I imagine a kitten, dozing on a rug in front of a fire, sleepily batting a ball of yarn around - possibly the definition of this nice, lovely, great, contented feeling that seemed to permeate every aspect of that enchanted night.