Nothing makes you feel whiter than sitting in a Chinese restaurant, eating Chinese family style with a couple of Chinese families.

M.’s aunt is in the Bay Area with his uncle and their daughter. They are staying with a friend of the uncle’s from way back when in Penang high school. We met up with them for dinner in some place in the East Bay that I would never have heard of in a million fucking years.

Family-style dining in an “authentic” Chinese place (I fucking love calling stuff authentic. I’m Margaret fucking Mead keeping an eye on the “natives.”), anyway it involves a big table, a giant lazy susan, and a phenomenal amount of food.

You know the whole cliche about Asians all eating healthy and light and all that shit? It’s a stereotype that leaves out the 1 billion plus Chinese wandering the planet. Those people will eat anything and are damn proud of it. When we were in Malaysia, we passed a Chinese seafood restaurant with a neon sign, “If it swims, we eat it.” Sure the Japanese are munching on seaweed, rice, fish and soybeans, but the Chinee are piling on the sauce and staying open minded.

So, we ate.

My favorite moment at dinner might have been provided by the high school friend’s not young dad. (There’s a cliche about Asians that holds true — When the fam goes out to dinner, you don’t know how many generations might be representin’.) At some point, he announced “My son-in-law’s white, too.”

Awesome. I fucking love when shit happens that could have been in my whitey-white Boston suburban childhood, but the races are reversed. No doubt, Pat would have announced something similar had I been with M. and she came across another Asian/White couple.

So, granddad then whipped out the photo section of his wallet and, indeed, his son-in-law was whiter looking than me.

The other thing making me self-conscious about diversity was the gigantic bag of goodies and treasures Aunt Fay brought from the homeland. My fucking god, I am intimidated.

Here’re a couple of shots.

That second shot is about nine different packets of curries to cook up authentic style. Holy shit. In my culture, salt and pepper are a little out there in the spice line.

Here’s a quick, typical snippet of a conversation regarding the bounty with the aunt: “So, when you are cooking the chicken, maybe just cut the chicken in half, and take just half of the packet. You can put the other half in the freezer.” Then sprinkle a little of this, do this other thing I can’t remember and you’re done.

I didn’t have the heart to explain M. and I live a life where defrosting something from Trader Joe’s is a home-cooked meal.

Goddamnit, though, I am nothing but an overachiever at heart. The gauntlet has been thrown down and cook I will. The up and downsides of living with a dude born in the “Spice Islands.”

A couple of other things about the humongous back of South Sea treasures. One item is a jar labeled with Chinese characters. The Roman alphabet about says “jigonghoubao.” A Google search brings up not even a full-page of hits, and almost none in non-Asian characters. From the weblog entry of someone out there in the universe, I gather that the product is also available in Venezuala at Chinese markets. (Leading me to conclude they have Chinese markets in Venezuela.)

The major ingredient of the product is “Buddha’s hand.” Apparently, again via Google, I discover something of which I have never fucking heard.

I guess we got us some spicy, candied citrus treat.

The last item of note (or at least that I am noting right now) is a box of “Plain crackers.” They look to be your basic, square saltine. I cannot adequately describe my warmth and amusement at this item. Pat, bless her soul if we all have them, would most definitely have herself packed in a treasure like that.

It is not just my mother who would send off or cart around the mundane, the common, the readily available around the world just because she knows she like them.