The Political Situation in Flushing

[mallorys_camera]

Summer took me on a tour of Flushing yesterday, which was great fun and highly educational.

Craving ovine afterbirth products? This is the place to find them:



Flushing is one of NYC’s oldest inhabited settlements, colonized by the Dutch in the early 17th century and, of course, occupied by the Matinecock Indians for millennia before that. (The Matinecock were all but wiped out by smallpox by the beginning of the 18th century and so, are mostly absent from European historical accounts.)

When I was growing up in NYC, the neighborhood was very white.

Starting in the 1970s, progressive waves of Asian immigrants tilted the demographic balance so that today, Flushing is as convincing a simulacrum of Chinese culture as you’ll find anywhere outside the mainland. Much more convincing than those little toy Chinatowns you find in San Francisco or lower Manhattan.

###

Summer and I met up at the Hall of Science, which is one of those buildings left over from the 1964 World’s Fair. It’s filled with many hands-on, experiential learning exhibits for children, and it was kind of fun watching Summer watch the kids: First time I’d ever seen her be broody. But, of course, she is that age.

After that, we trotted over to Flushing’s Main Street, which was as crowded as Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve.

“It’s the last day of Chinese New Year’s,” Summer told me. “Like Valentine’s Day is here. So people are going shopping for gifts and out for a meal.”

Summer took me to a mall that was kind of like the King's Cross Platform 9¾ in Harry Potter – Muggle that I am, I would have never noticed its entrance! A vast shopping complex, crammed with food shops, food courts, all sorts of retail stores. All the signage in Chinese characters; English sometimes added as an afterthought.





Then we went out to lunch. I asked Summer to order for me, and what she ordered tasted very unfamiliar to my Western tongue. A meatball dish made from crab and beef hoof meat, dumplings filled with crab and shrimp broths, turnip puffs, and a soy milk curd that tasted like tree sap. A very unusual flavor palette.



“So, tell me,” I said. “What does the Chinese community think about the Presidential race?”

“They do not care about it at all,” Summer said.

“Really?”

Summer shrugged. “In China, people do not vote. So even if they can vote here, they don’t. They don’t have the habit, and they think it is a little bit ridiculous that individual people think they can have an influence on what gets decided. Maybe people who own businesses care about it a little. They like Trump – he is successful at business, so he’ll bring good luck.

“There just was something, though, that was very odd. Not typically Chinese.”

“What?”

Summer frowned. “There were protests when the Chinese police who shot the black man by mistake was found guilty. Very unusual for Chinese to protest. But it was very unfair. The police was scared. His finger trembled; he hit the trigger by mistake. Of course, a lot of people in the community thought, That’s what he gets for becoming the police! But he is still one of us. So…” She shrugged.

###

Afterwards, we wandered around for an hour or so, peeking into stores



And took the obligatory selfie, which pleased me because I did not look like Atilla the Hun’s elderly grandmother in it. Recently, I’ve been obsessed with how much I look like Atilla the Hun's grandmother. Of course, I'm old, so I should look somebody's grandmother -- even though the offspring have not yet reproduced.. But vanity, vanity, vanity…



On the subway ride there and back, I read Michael Lewis’s The Big Short and had a mini-epiphany – no, not about the world economy, but about a topic that’s even nearer to my heart – ME.

Lewis was writing about Michael Burry, the one-eyed Aspergers ex-neurologist who founded Scion Capital. Burry always felt like a complete outsider, but he figured he was right, and the rest of the world was wrong.

I’ve always felt like a complete outsider, but I figure I'm wrong, and the rest of the world is right.

A failure of agency on a very deep psychological level.

Better parenting would have saved me from that.

Comments

[immemor.livejournal.com]

Looks like another fun adventure with Summer! Perhaps I over associate cultures to their foods - but sitting down and eating new things with people who are from a different culture has always been a positive experience for me. So long as someone isn't trying to get me to eat bugs on a sick like they do on the Travel Channel.

You're much prettier than Attila the Hun's grandmother.

You can't be wrong. We agree too often and I'm always right! ;)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

There ya go! :-)

[chochiyo-sama.livejournal.com]

What exactly is the woman on the box doing with the lamb placenta? Eating it? Washing her face with it?

I am confused. And a little horrified.

[fuzzilla.livejournal.com]

I think washing her face? If you took out the wording and just looked at the picture it just likes like 1,000 other kind of cleanser ads I've seen before. I kinda wonder if that's exactly what it is - a found picture Photoshopped onto the box.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Who knows? The misappropriations of American culture that both Chinese and Japanese marketers make is always pretty amusing.

And I'm sure that works both ways.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

What exactly is the woman on the box doing with the lamb placenta?

God, I don't know! And that's probably a good thing. :-)

[seakittym.livejournal.com]

That certainly does sound like an interesting meal. Also interesting view about the Chinese and voting. I never thought about what immigrants might think.