This year, I ventured to Chicago 芝加哥, where I got to catch up on all kinds of things. Drug deals, non-binary teen groping on CTA platforms, drunken cub fans on trains, and a crash course of what colors not to wear in various gang-infested neighborhoods. Fashion tip: Red and black not is not to be worn in Uptown.
Catch up 追上 zhuīshàng
Hanoi
The only thing hotter than the weather is the food in Hanoi.
Viet-Yumm!
You got to like a country that offers beer to their Deities. Vietnam is a country of fiery kitchens, each with its own flair from the tip of the north to the fresh sea food and mi six bull frogs of the south.
Fat Kitty, Meth Kitty
The cat curse followed me to China. Are all single females of a certain age destined to become crazy cat ladies?
Twenty Thousand Zì
If a picture is worth a thousand words (Zì), what Chinese hand gestures do you give these twenty photos?
Roses méi
A rose by any other name is still a rose, unless, of course, it’s a patented variety in Kunming, China.
Pingba
It’s not any particular dish, spice, or occasional parasite that makes Chinese cuisine unbootleg-able (unlike phones, movies, or fashion). It’s the ingredients you can’t put in a recipe.
Nóng jiā lè Farm Restaurants
Colonel Sanders, move over. If you want chicken, visit a Nóng jiā lè 農家樂 or farmhouse restaurant in rural Yunnan.
Year of the Octopus
Do students spend more time researching an animal for a report than they do a prospective school?
Guǐ 鬼 Town
instead of wearing traditional Chinese clothing and a silver colander on my head, I would want one where Father Time believed in Daylight Saving Time–make that Daylight Saving Year–Ok, Decade– turning back the clock to when a muffin top was my breakfast choice, not my middle.