In Order to Form a More Perfect Union

Posted on 4 July 2013 by christao408

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These words begin the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, in which 237 years ago this day, the thirteen American colonies announced that they considered themselves states independent of Britain. This long experiment with democracy has had its ups and downs. The downs have always coincided with efforts to limit the rights of members of society. The ups have always coincided with the triumph of these rights over attempts to limit, stifle, or deny them.

As has been said, the United States is a great nation. Definitely not as great as we sometimes think we are, but still a great nation. Let us use this Independence Day as an opportunity to appreciate the many positive attributes of our democracy and to rededicate ourselves to the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and that we are only equal when our unalienable rights are available to all.

Happy Fourth of July!

Down-home American Cuisine

Posted on 22 June 2013 by christao408

Two weeks ago, Chow suggested we invite friends over to her house and cook a dinner that relied on a new cookbook she had received. The cookbook contained only “down-home” classic American dishes, organized on a state-by-state basis. Of course, I’m up for trying to cook almost anything in the kitchen, especially if it is someone else’s kitchen!

The main course of the meal was “Kansas Fried Chicken”. Having a lot of relatives in Kansas and having lived there a year before moving to Thailand, I can’t rightly say what distinguished fried chicken as “Kansas” fried chicken. This was only my second time trying to make fried chicken and I have to say, keeping the oil temperature consistent around the 350 F target is a pain in the neck.

The end result turned out pretty well. The chicken isn’t brined or marinated. Simply pat it dry, sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, and paprika, and then dredge in a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, and I added some chile powder. The result was super. The chicken remained moist and with sufficient salt, very flavorful. Afterwards, I used a few tablespoons of the oil to make the best gravy I’ve ever made.

If you have gravy, you might as well have some biscuits, right? These were another recipe from the cookbook and, oddly, they used vegetable oil rather than a solid fat such as butter or Crisco. The texture was tender although I think my biscuit recipe (from my mother) is better. The Crisco in the recipe gives it a flakier texture.

Side dishes included a baked spinach casserole. The bread crumbs Chow used were panko, the Japanese bread crumbs used in tempura. The dish was very dry; not sure if something more was meant to be added to the greens. It was tasty, though.

The asparagus side dish was fantastic. It used cream of mushroom soup straight from the can, spread in alternating layers with the asparagus and then baked. On the top are crushed Cheese-It crackers.

Used this opportunity to break out a jar of the pickled green tomatoes and shallots that I made a month ago. These were great. I need to figure out somewhere to get a larger quantity of green cherry tomatoes so I can pickle more.

Dessert was a cherry and blackberry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Nice and simple, keeping with our Americana theme.

Kansas City to Los Angeles

Posted on 24 December 2011 by christao408

After about eleven days in Kansas City, it was time to begin the return trip, a lengthy journey that would take me more than 56 hours from door to door. The first leg was from Kansas City to Los Angeles, cashing in some credit card points I had for a one way ticket on American Airlines.

It has been nearly a decade since I’ve flown American. Now that they are in bankruptcy, the last of the major carriers (other than Southwest) to have gone through that process, I was curious to see if there was a perceptible air of distress among the employees.

I have to say, while none of the employees were spectacularly friendly, they didn’t seem to be any worse for wear than the employees of any other major US airline. They did their jobs, tried to smile from time to time and be pleasant, and got me safely from point A to point B. Knowing many people in the airline industry, and being a former employee myself, my sympathy extends to them during this uncertain time. The only thing that is certain is that they’ll not make it through bankruptcy without some amount of pain. Most likely, this will include losing a large portion of their pensions.

There was some holiday spirit in the air, though, despite the bankruptcy. This gate at Kansas City was decorated for the season, ready for a charity flight they do for disadvantaged children. I’m not sure if it is an actual flight – that’s become quite expensive to do anymore – but they board the children on the plane, let them visit the cockpit, have them sit down and enjoy snacks and a drink, etc. All in all, a nice treat for children who may otherwise never get such an experience.

Flying into the greater Los Angeles area, we were treated to clear skies and great visibility. Here’s a shot of the city of Riverside and, smack in the center (to the right of the freeway), the University of California, Riverside campus. I actually attended UCR for six months in the first half of 1990, before moving back up to Santa Clara University to finish my studies.

Video of our landing in Los Angeles.

A shot of my plane after arrival in Los Angeles. The construction for the expansion of the Tom Bradley International Terminal is in the background, the new saw-tooth roof clearly visible. Also, two Boeing 747s, the one on the left from Fiji Air and the the one on the right from China Airlines.

My cousin Jackie, Alex’s younger sister, picked me up and helped me kill several hours. We ran errands to Trader Joe’s and a few other stores. We stopped for In-n-Out burgers, where we saw a family of three who had dragged their suitcases all the way from the airport to get a burger. That’s about a two-mile walk, depending on which terminal they came from.

In the evening, we met Gary and William for dinner at Lukshon. I’ll share pictures from that fantastic dinner tomorrow.

Proposed Changes to Politcal Terms

Posted on 26 July 2011 by christao408

The thought occurred to me the other day that maybe the problem of the never-ending campaign, in which it seems America has no sooner finished one election season than another begins, would be to change the length of terms to which politicians are elected.

Currently, the President is elected to a four-year term with a maximum of two terms. Senators are elected for six-year terms, with approximately a third of the Senators up for election every two years. Representatives are elected for two-year terms with the entire House of Representatives up for election at the same time.

What, then, if we changed the President to a single, six-year term with no chance for re-election? Senators could remain a six-year term, but modify it so half the body changes every three years. Representatives could be increased to three-year terms.

It would seem that the upshot would be a bit more time between election seasons, allowing for more opportunity to govern. Especially for the President, since he or she could not be re-elected, there would be more freedom to govern based on one’s positions rather than the poll results.

What do you think? Would there be any pros or cons to this plan?

Buying Girls from Behind Glass

Posted on 24 July 2011 by christao408

Wikipedia

While in Los Angeles last month, Tawn and I slipped up to The Grove, a shopping and entertainment center near the Farmers’ Market located at Third and Fairfax Streets near CBS Studios. While there, we met with a pair of Xangans who were down in LA for the weekend, and also observed first-hand the disturbing trend known as the American Girl Doll.

The Grove is another of these recent developments built to approximate the feel of a real downtown, except with a Disney-esque sense of artifice. An electric tram runs down the middle of the “street” past big box stores that, if it weren’t for their elaborate façades, would look like any other strip mall. It is a nice space, much in the same way that Main Street, U.S.A. is a nice place, but I think I’d prefer to stroll down a real main street rather than a recently built recreation.

Borrowed from someone on the internet for non-commercial use.

Prominently placed on the main shopping thoroughfare is the American Girl Doll store. Have you heard of this trend? It simultaneously fascinates and disturbs me.

The roots of the American Girl Doll are generally impressive. Originally released in the mid-1980s, these 18-inch dolls represented 10-year old girls from a variety of periods in American history. They were dressed in period-appropriate costume and were accompanied by a series of books targeted to 8-13 year olds that brought the characters to life while addressing (in an age-appropriate manner) subjects such as poverty, racism, child labor, etc. In short, a compelling way for young people to identify with and learn about history.

American Girl website

In the mid-1990s, though, a “Just Like You” line was released, with dolls representing a wide range of skin tones and eye and hair colors, so that you could purchase a doll that looked just like you. A variety of accessories are available including matching outfits. (See the picture above.) The dolls, sans accessories, cost $100, a price that strikes me as ridiculously expensive for a toy targeted at pre-teens.

On the one hand, I can see a lot of positives about a doll that reflects the wide diversity that exists in our world. Certainly, any number of women of color have shared stories about not being able to find dolls when they were children that looked like them. At the same time, especially when you can even wear the same clothes as your doll, this seems to be furthering the growth of unhealthy narcissism. Not only are we gazing more at our own navels, but now we can have a dolls whose navels look like ours.

What was even more disturbing, though, was walking into the store and seeing two display cases containing rows of the identically-dressed dolls wearing numbers. Maybe this is just a sensitivity to the too-visible sex trade that exists in Thailand, but this image of women lined up behind a glass wall, wearing numbers and waiting for you to choose them, is especially disturbing.

I don’t know what to make of the whole thing. As I mentioned early, it is both fascinating and disturbing. Reading more about the American Girl Doll phenomenon, the company (now owned by Mattel) seems to do a lot of philanthropy and there are many opportunities for young girls to learn important lessons about the world and about issues they may not often hear about. The messages on the walls of the store – “A confident girl believes in herself!” – are potentially empowering. That said, I’m still a bit disturbed.

Courtesy Sheening

The best thing that came out of the experience was the opportunity to finally meet Piyapong, one of those Xangans who doesn’t blog often but whose posts are still interesting. Also met Sheening again, but he hasn’t blogged in so long on Xanga that I’m not even sure what his user name is anymore.

American Exceptionalism

Posted on 5 January 2011 by christao408

While waiting in a hotel lobby to meet a friend for lunch, I read a front-page article from USA Today: “Obama and America’s Place in the World.” The article talks about the way President Obama addresses questions of American exceptionalism and Republican attempts to capitalize on this in order to paint the President as un-American, without having to use those words.

American exceptionalism, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a belief that the country is unique and exceptional in comparison to other countries. Historically, it did not mean that America was better than other countries, but in the past few years the term has been coopted by those who would like to give that meaning to the phrase.

British writer G.K. Chesterton noted in a 1922 essay, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence…” The Declaration’s introduction defines this ideology as liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire.

The ammunition used by those who believe that President Obama is un-American doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, is his response in April 2009 (his opponents have to go back twenty months to dig up dirt on him, it seems) to a question by a British journalist about whether America is uniquely qualified to lead the world:

“I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

This strikes me, a passport-holding American who has traveled widely and has spent more than five years living overseas, as a tremendously reasonable, level-headed statement.

What also strikes me, as an American who has seen the way many countries in the world are rapidly moving from “developing nation” to “developed nation” status, is that no amount of arguing how exceptional we are or aren’t is going to help us compete in the 21st century.

Discussing the growth of China with a friend who recently spent two years working in Shanghai, he noted that in just the past few years, China has built the world’s largest high-speed rail network (already some 4,600 miles), and they are on track to have as much as 16,000 miles built by 2020. Compare this to America’s infrastructure, which the American Society of Civil Engineers currently grades as a “D” and will require more than $2 trillion to repair.

Is America exceptional? No doubt it is. But the issue isn’t whether we are exceptional or not, it’s whether we are willing to do the work necessary to remain exceptional in the century to come.

I think all of our mothers taught us that it is immodest to brag. We may well be the smartest kid in class (or at least want to think we are), but announcing it to our peers rather than spending our time studying for the next test is the surest way to become the schoolyard dummy. That’s a form of exceptionalism, too, but not one that I suspect any of us want to bequeath to our future generations.

What say you?

Related to this: do you remember the bruhaha surrounding a photo of President Obama reading a copy of the very insightful book “The Post-American World?” Blog entry from September 2009 about it.

Thanksgiving Day 2007

Posted on 22 November 2007 by christao408

In most any big city on earth, the vestiges of your own foreign culture and traditions can be found. From the little Ethiopian enclaves in Los Angeles to the Bangladeshi community in Stuttgart to the remaining bits of the French in Laos, we bring a bit of ourselves and our cultures wherever we go.

Yesterday evening our bit of American culture in Khrungthep was found in a restaurant located down a scrappy soi behind a theatre with a marquee proclaiming it as “the best female impersonator show in Bangkok”. That was where our slice of Thanksgiving Day was located.

Left: Roka and Jhone, after she told Jhone (who is in sales) that she would never buy anything from him.

As Roka, Markus and I walked from the Skytrain station to join the ten other people in our party, I was thinking about how exciting my blog entry the next morning would be: a play by play account of the experience of a Cajun/Creole Thanksgiving Dinner at the Bourbon Street restaurant.

Sitting down to write this morning, there are certainly plenty of things to tell:

I could tell you how disappointed I was that Tawn couldn’t be there, since he was at the airport picking up his partents. I could tell you about the chaotic mess and disorganization that left our group waiting, even though we had reservations, for a half-hour before we were split into two tables and, eventually, reunited to one table. Or I could tell you about the buffet which, while the food was tasty, was constantly running out – especially of turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin and pecan pies, the staples of a Thanksgiving dinner.

But before we arrived at the restaurant last night, as we walked by Benjasiri Park, there was a beggar in the middle of the sidewalk, legless, pulling himself by his hands and holding a plastic cup in his teeth. A man crawling like a worm.

So as I sit down to write this morning, as those of you in the United States are just finishing up your turkey dinners, let me instead tell you this about last night’s little slice of Thanksgiving in Khrungthep:

I am thankful for the health I and my friends and loved ones enjoy, giving us the means to earn a living, enjoy our lives, and walk upright in this world. I am thankful for the bountiful food we had and the means by which to eat so well. And not least, I am thankful for the pleasant company and the six new friends I met, the opportunity to visit and talk and laugh and learn about different lives and different experiences that brought us all to the same table.

Whatever your worries, whatever your ills, remember to count your blessings and be thankful for them. For if you have the means to access a computer and the leisure time to read or write a weblog, you most likely are among the fortunate.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From Left around the table: Marc, Piyawat, Stuart, (a friend of Doug’s whose name I did not catch), Steve, Markus, Roka, Jhone, Nicha, Doug, Brian, and Tri.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

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