Uncle Dan’s Blog - Randomnity

Posted by Uncle Dan on February 11th, 2008 | Categorized as Blog | 198 views and 13 Comments

I know I’m writing this when I should be working on other things, but… Well, Blogs are useful for procrastination.

Besides, I got in a skiing accident a couple of days ago, so I’m still feeling the “Work? Now? Nooo, I’m still hurting” vibe.

Just so you know, it was a minor concussion, and some rough bruising up and down. The concussion wasn’t a big deal. I think I was just knocked out cold for a while, which is why I don’t remember anything about the actual fall… but the nurses at the hospital kept asking if I remembered where I was.

As it is, my left arm is bruised to heck, and it didn’t help that they did blood pressure tests on it, so that pad thingie kept on squeezing. My left leg hurts in random positions. The right side of my chest hurts in random positions. X-Rays showed no breaks, so it should be all good.

The experience reminded me of a couple of friends I had living in Jakarta though. One was a friend who passed away last February from Cancer. The other is a friend who spends her summers working in a disability ward in her mother’s hometown in Wales.

Hospitals aren’t that pleasant. After a while, you’re bored as hell, and the bed is smelling of your own sweat. But it’s nice to be served and catered to. And the food wasn’t bad.

On that note, people come up with the weirdest things to complain about, or even just to notice.

I used to help run the Student Committee here in my college. You only really do it for 2 terms, then it’s another team’s chance to try things. I have a few friends in the new committee, and they said that there were complaints about portion size in the cafeteria, and that the chefs use too much garlic. As for the former, you can ask for second service, and some people get away with third service, if they’re that hungry. The portions aren’t exactly small, but the reason they’re not bigger is because they have to make enough for everyone. Besides, some people eat like birds, and some eat like gluttons. How do you know who to please? As for the garlic… I’m willing to BET that complaint was made by Northern/Western Europeans, most likely Germans/Scandinavians, because that’s who I hear it most from. They complain that the spinach, or the broccoli dishes, have too much garlic in them. They complain with it on their plates that “I can’t eat this.”

In Asia, we use garlic with EVERYTHING. But it’s such a subjective complaint, and Germans and Scandinavians love to volunteer for positions of responsibility, such as the Student Committee, that suddenly they’re putting words in the mouths of the whole student body. It’s so silly.

Of course, if anyone’s familiar with chefs, you know what the response will be. The last time people made complaints, the head chef gave them the finger and sent them merrily on their way.

I thought about this as I ate the hospital food. Which honestly wasn’t bad, you know? Though there was one dish which was a chicken breast, overbaked with (get this) slices of pear, and cheese, served with risotto. Now I know some people personally who will complain about the food which isn’t how they had it at home for the rest of their lives, but I’m willing to bet that quite a few people I know would find FRUIT in their SAVORY food normal. I can accept that, even if it’s weird to me.

But I would shoot the man who came up with “Rice Casimir”. Just because it’s Asian, and it’s a Curry, doesn’t mean you can put bloody berries, and bits of apple and orange in it, and say it’s still an INDIAN DISH.

On the note of funny things to notice, I have one friend who gets hung up on the weirdest, little things. She came to visit me in the hospital, and I asked her to bring me a book, next time she came. When she brought it, she noticed that my boxers were red. And spent about a minute or two revelling in the idea that one would wear red-colored boxer shorts.

Uh huh.

Daniel Nguyen-Phuoc

Vietnamese in ethnicity, born in Houston, Texas. Lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for 14 years while going to a British International School to finish with the International Baccalaureate. Survived only two years in the University of Michigan before ending up in Switzerland. Graduated from an international (and that's meant in every word) hospitality college. Interesting life, to be sure. But not the only one.