|
YOU’RE not getting flour-coated deep-fried chicken when you watch
the Olympics in Beijing this August, but kung pao chicken—diced
chicken fried with pepper and nuts that go very well with steamed
rice.
Reuters has reported that the Chinese
authorities have made kung pao chicken the official Olympics dish
for the thousands of athletes, officials and spectators who will
crow for their teams at the giant Beijing stadium and other
playgrounds.
Filipino cheering fans would be at home with
siopao and mami, or any version of siomai. They could also enjoy the
games with their favorite, the old reliable instant noodles.
The Reuters story says that to help visitors for
the August Games, Beijing has offered restaurants an official
translation of local dishes whose exotic names and “alarming
translations” can leave foreigners starving and frustrated.
For example, instead of ordering the dish
locally named “husband and wife’s lung slice,” customers will
be able to order “beef and ox tripe in chili sauce.”
Would you order the dish “chicken without
sexual life?” You wouldn’t eat an ascetic chicken, but
“steamed pullet” sounds delicious and nourishing.
A Beijing daily has named a hot Sichuan dish
“bean curd made by a pockmarked woman,” but the English experts
prefer to call it “mapo tofu” to make visitors feel at ease.
Sometimes the English-named dishes are badly
spelled, like” stewed bean crud” or poorly explained like
“badly cooked starched cubes,” according to an Asian Wall Street
Journal article. One restaurant offered “fish in first
position.” “Thrice-cooked pork in bean paste” sounds highly
suspicious.
The Beijing tourism bureau has told the city’s
4,000 restaurants to come and pick up the book with the suggested
translations. But some of the owners find the translations
unappetizing.
These local dishes have been with us for
centuries, one owner said, and many have a story behind them.
We wonder if that would include a favorite soup
of former Presidents Cory Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos. We remember
reading a story that they had shared a bowl of soup called something
like “sacred monk climbing over the fence.” Sounds like a CBCP
bishop climbing over the Palace gates.
Beijing has also launched a serious campaign to
correct or improve English signs on the streets, hotels, parks,
airports, restaurants, taxis, train stations and recreation places
in time for the Olympic Games.
The city has organized several
language-improvement committees, made up of American and Chinese
language experts, to clean up Chinglish, a version of our Taglish,
that has amused visitors and embarrassed some locals.
They have changed “show mercy to the slender
grass” on park lawns and “reception of alien” at the national
airport, reports the WS Journal. The drive complements
character-improvement campaigns, such as teaching residents to stop
spitting in public, refrain from smoking, jumping lines and pushing
one’s way into trains.
The Forbidden City considers the Olympics a
historic coming-out party. It wants to win medals not only in sports
but in manners, too. Next time you eat at a restaurant, you should
hear very little slurping and less burping. Toothpicks will be
shelved for the moment.
Seats with absurd fees
IF you arrive a bit late next time at your
destination yet your flight left on time, don’t blame pilot error
or poor tailwind. Your plane may have deliberately slowed its
flight.
Your aircraft may have followed Southwest
Airlines which, according to Associated Press, started flying slower
three months ago by one to three minutes to save millions in fuel.
On one flight in May from Paris to Minneapolis,
Northwest added eight minutes to the flight and saved the airline
$535 for 162 gallons of fuel. And you thought only cars could get
more miles to the gallon by slowing down on the road.
But that’s no big deal, because JetBlue
started flying slower two years ago, according to the story.
Extending each flight saved the airline $13.6 million a year in jet
fuel.
We suppose airlines would stop boasting they
could “get you there faster.” No wonder they ended the
transatlantic supersonic flights several years ago.
Airlines are doing everything to save on costly
fuel these days. To reduce load on each flight from Manila to the
US, Philippine Airlines will limit free baggage starting August. Air
Canada has added fuel surcharges to fares.
On American Airlines, passengers pay $15 for
checking a single bag. A second bag will cost another $25. That
service has always been included in the airfare.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted travel
expert Tom Parsons saying more service fees could come. Discount
carrier Spirit Airlines, according to Parsons, now charges $5 for
middle seats, $10 for window and aisle seats and $15 for exit-row
seats. He expects the major airlines to follow Spirit’s lead.
What extra fees can we expect? Since statistics
have shown that passengers on the last seats at the back have good
chances of surviving a crash, we could expect a $50-charge for them.
Requests for upgrading from economy to
business-class will no longer be entertained by PAL. We may have to
share earphones, blankets and hot towels with out seatmates. Baggage
loss will be explained as abstrusely as Meralco’s systems loss.
|
