Every few weeks I see a large kart filled with giant plush toys pulled through the streets of Shanghai. I realize many foreigners send these types of picture back to their friends at home, but even though the picture is not that original I still get a kick out of it.
Today at a small sandwich stand in Shanghai called Sarnies, the store employees unveiled Bryan’s Special. My sandwich is chicken breast, fresh vegetables, mustard, and hot sauce served on wheat bread. After reading the ingredients, you might ask “What’s so special?” So here is the story…
I am a frequent customer at Sarnies because it’s next to my office and provides healthy food at a good price. Even after constantly telling them no mayonnaise(méi yǒu dàn huáng jiàng), the sandwich artists would like second nature always be just about to add it before I scream out, “méi yǒu dàn huáng jiàng”. If I did not watch the sandwich production like a hawk, I would most likely get a sandwich with mayo. Then, I decided to name my order, “Bryan’s Special” to consistently get my sandwich without mayonnaise.
For months, I had joked with the manager at Sarnies about making the poster, and yesterday I finally gave them a 11×17(A3) poster for Bryan’s Special. I don’t know if it will stay up longer than a week , but I am curious to see how many people besides me order it. Even if it only stays up one day, I still think its pretty cool.
Yes, I live in China, but I do miss American Chinese, especially the Orange Chicken at Panda Express. It’s not something I eat too often, but I will always have a place my heart for Orange Chicken. Below is some background I got from watching the Ted Talk by Jennifer 8 Lee, reading an article she wrote on fortune cookies, and some other internet research.
Jennifer 8. Lee hunts for General Tso
Here are some interesting from her talk:
• There are more Chinese restaurants in the US than the combined number of Burger King, KFC, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s(over 40,000)
• The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved at a Chinese Restaurant in Washington D.C. called Yenching Palace(Assuming aspects of the statement are true)
• NASA offers Sweet and Sour Pork as a meal option in space
• Chinese Food is available on all seven continents including Antarctica (Monday night is Chinese at the McMurdo Station)
• 3 Billion Fortune Cookies are produced each year (mostly in the US)
• The Philadelphia Cheese Steak Egg Roll sounded pretty interesting
General Tsao’s Chicken
General Tsai’s Chicken started out in a Chinese Restaurant in the New York in the 1970s invented by a Taiwanese Chef. Funny enough the original chef cannot recognize way the dish is commonly is cooked today.
Orange Chicken
“Chopped, battered and fried chicken pieces coated in sweet orange flavored chili sauce” does not give the dish justice. After some research, most websites consider Orange Chicken a variant of General Tsao’s Chicken.
Fortune Cookies
Originally I used to think the fortune cookie was invented in Los Angeles because I saw it on a poster promoting the city,(I guess they didn’t get their facts straight or meant the current form). From Jennifer Lee’s video and article, I found out that fortune cookies originated in Kyoto, Japan made with miso and sesame paste and not the vanilla and butter popular today.
First evidence of the fortune cookie being from Japan is in 1878, and eventually immigrant bakers brought them to San Francisco and Los Angeles between 1907 and 1914. During World War II with many Japanese Americans forced into internment camps, Chinese Americans overtook fortune cookie production. Although Japanese in origins, Chinese Americans made the fortune cookie and brought it to it’s current fame in American culture .Here is the link to the article that written by Jennifer 8 Lee.
I have a bit of a problem… For a person who does not own a smart phone, I seem to talk about them and read blogs about the subject more than what would be considered normal. On January 5th, Google released their new phone the Nexus One. Not really surprise, since the media had all the specs and pictures available from the phone’s release to Google employees as a holiday gift.
I think Android is a good platform, but hurt by it’s own strengths with so many options and varied user experience. The iPhone has a closed platform and Apple fiercely controls the user experience. All three generations of iPhone have similar features and the same OS, while there are many Android phones with different functions. The closed system of the iPhone helped create the atmosphere to enable the iTunes App Store have over 100,000 apps and 3 billion downloads, but the restrictions still leave you wanting more options. In the coming months, we’ll see if how the flexibility of Android 2.1 and the power of the 1st Google phone will have on the further development of Android.
An interesting issue to watch is how Google is going into being a hardware retailer. Another concern is how their relationships with phone companies(that have supported their mobile platform) will be affected. Imagine if you were Motorola and you just released the Droid and now a competing phone arrives about a month after your release. A friend of mine made the point, that Google is not a hardware company and they do not have a customer service to fix hardware. Unlike software, to fix a phone you cannot just send a new code to patch the bug. A blog has indicated early adapters are having problems with troubleshooting, and it does not surprise me since Google is new to supporting hardware.
Besides pissing off their partners (aka the phone manufacturers), the arrival of the Nexus One might also be used to help other manufacturers build Android phones with the features more akin to the Nexus One. In a sense Google is saying this is the perfect phone option for Android and it legitimize the features so consumers might expect the same level of performance on upcoming Android phones .The last stir caused by the release of the Nexus One is the fact that you are not sold a locked phone. Even if you sign a contract to get a subsidized phone, it is given to you unlocked. This is not revolutionary, but so far this model has not worked well in the US market. I’ll make sure to see what develops of this model and if Google becomes more successful than Nokia at selling expensive unlocked phones with high upfront coasts) Sooner or later the blogosphere predicts subsidies will be given on phones based on opening your phone to targeted ads. I guess we will see when this ends up taking off. Some people m
I find it amazing how Apple has created such a captive audience and fan base. They have reinvented the cell phone and the mp3 player in the last decade, so I guess that’s rule #1 to create a legion of avid and loyal customers. The founder of macrumors.com is a doctor by training, and after a few years of running the site stopped practicing medicine to focus on the site because he made more money running the Apple rumors blog. I am an avid reader of macrumors.com and judging by his career switch many people just like me go to the site. I do not understand the full reason why I am so interested in something that might not even turn out to be true, but some how Apple has me and many others hooked to them and I might spend some time in the future deconstructing how they do this. Weird, how I am a droid(like the pun) in Apple’s marketing and branding scheme.
Although I have not completely finished my list of New Year Resolutions, one of the resolutions will be to write (at least) two entries a week on a blog. The hope is to write about topics I have insight or have strong opinions about my daily life, sports, travel, technology and international relations. Along the way, I imagine I it might stray change into something that else, but here we go….
My new year started by waking up at 7:30 am and going to the Rose Bowl with my family. Even though I graduated USC, I grew a Oregon fan and will keep up this affiliation throughout my life.
We arrived at the Rose Bowl at about 10:30, and pressed on to the alumni tailgate. The alumni tailgate included an all you can drink beverages as well as a barbecue lunch meal. With a few thousand people at the event, you would imagine there would be more than 10 portable toilets. I figured the restroom shortage controlled the alcohol consumption because 45 minutes is a long wait just to pee.
I really had a good feeling the Ducks were going to win, and Lee Corso and the ESPN College GameDay crew picked the Ducks. I get scared when too many people are picking the Ducks to win, because it’s much easier to under promise and over deliver. I guess the bad signs started from the beginning when the marching band played to the wrong side. The Ducks started the game slow and it was clear they were not playing their game. (I thought it looked like Masoli might have been slightly injured) Even though they were not playing their game (I have to give my props to the OSU defense as well),I think they would have pulled the game out without a late 3rd quarter fumble deep in OSU territory.
Oregon couldn’t pull it out, but my dad is definitely smiling happy about the Rose Bowl appearance. Next year there I much to look forward to with a team only losing a few starters, so who knows maybe they will be in the hunt to win their first Rose Bowl since 1917. The team has a nice nucleus and it will be exciting to see what next year brings and as well as the new jersey combination’s.
Side rant: While watching the Bowl Games on the TV, I never think about TV timeouts. As a live spectator, TV timeouts really suck the life out of the game and hurt any momentum gained and lost from both sides. Realistically speaking this will never because the commercials contribute to making college football and the BSC lots of money.
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Starting at a Quarter of a Century 