OT: Chinese (& the Pearl Drink Invasion)

In a message dated 2004:01:15 03:35:01 PM, treborjung@FREE.FR writes:

>What is Durian Pearl Drink?
    Durian fruit mash/mush with tea (usually sweet green tea), tapioca pearls
and tapioca milk [or almond milk or similarly lactose-free milk], very finely
shredded ice, & perhaps other sweet fruit bits (i.e. usually lychee and
jackfruit) and even perhaps a few bing cherries.
    Pearl drinks - of many more "palatable" flavours besides Durian - are
very very popular in Chinatowns nowadays...and spreadin' to shopping malls near
you...

    Like most our mothers encouraged us to do, try a pearl drink or two... ya
just might like it ;) [if durian, just hold ya nose... tight ... and have
adequate ventilation. .. after consumption bear in mind talking to people without
freshening your breath with ultra-strong breath odure methods may cause
wide-spread panic]

    One English wag (and obvious Durian fanatic) commented that though Durian
fruit has the distinct offal smell of a fermenting open sewer [and the
dismaying  consistency of the contents of said sewer], the golden sweet taste of the
gods' nectar more than makes up for the smell. Another Brit dryly commented
that the first evidently had leave of his English senses and had gone
absolutely "bloody bonkers native."

    On the other shoe, many South East Asians can't see what is so freeakin'
great about tea with [dairy] milk or what is the big deal with cream crackers
or artichokes or caviar...
    Now marmalade and marmite are another thing tho' ::salivatin' bigtime::
{No no, not together... I am not _that_ ravenous or sick in the braincase...
tho' it may be workable...hmmm}

---
Hanuman Zhang, _Gomi no sensei_ [Master of junk]

    "To live is to scrounge, taking what you can in order to survive. So,
since living is scrounging, the result of our efforts is to amass a pile of
rubbish."  - Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi, China, 4th Century BCE

"The most beautiful order is a heap of sweepings piled up at random." -
Heraclitus, Greece, 5th Century BCE

    "...So what is life for? Life is for beauty and substance and sound and
colour; and even those are often forbidden by law [socio-cultural conventions].
. .Why not be free and live your own life? Why follow other people's rules
and live to please others?..." ~Lieh-Tzu/Liezi, Taoist Sage (c. 450- 375 BCE)

    "Taoism in a nutshell: Shit Happens. Roll with the Punches. Hang 10 - Go
with the Flow!" - anon. California surferBeatnik, c.1950's/1960's

    Voices of the Past:
http://advancement.uark.edu/pubs/Research_Frontiers/fall_2001/05_Feature1.html


    At its peak, the Tang Dynasty (618-906 CE) of China a mixture of cultural
influences were reflected in the music of the times.People traveled from
other countries, including Japan, Mongolia, India, Korea & Turkey, to learn about
the Tang culture.But the multi-racial, multi-cultural era waned at the end of
the Tang.China,one of the greatest cultural & military powers in history,
began to close in on itself, the rulers closed the country's borders - fearing the
destruction of their civilization.The rich, diverse music of the Tang, along
with that of the surrounding cultures, was lost or destroyed. Bits have been
found & the rest is theory & re-construction...
    "The whole world of musics and instruments lives around us....I am
interested in a 'transethnic,' a planetary music."  - Lou Harrison ("...Europe is a
region he called Northwest Asia...")
    The power of education & culture to transcend social and political
differences is still largely untapped...

Ars sine scientia nihil est. Ars imitatur Naturam in sua operatione.

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