Chinese New year in Lexington, Kentucky

Jan
25
2009

Chinese New Year 2009 in Kentucky

: Elephant Mountain near Lijiang, China

Happy New Year. Again!

Tomorrow kicks off the Chinese Lunar New Year with a new moon and I fear the worst.

After two frustrating hours of consulting Google to find a place where I could torment some local Chinese with the worst my Mandarin has to offer, I had no luck finding a local celebration here in Lexington, Kentucky. It seems that few people are interested in where all that stuff in their Wal-mart shopping cart was born.

Sure, there are lots of Chinese people that live here, but most will probably be sitting at home in front of their televisions dreaming of home (or at least a city with enough culture to recognize that they are even here).

So I’m afraid I may be doomed to celebrating this new year of the Ox by ordering up some Chinese food in a local restaurant and praying that I can BS enough with them about my travels to China in order to get some proper, non-Californian style food put on my plate.

Most of the “Chinese” food that we eat (you know the big names on every menu) were excreted from Chinatowns in California and the average Chinese family wouldn’t wish it upon an enemy.

General Tso chicken

Try ordering up General Tso’s chicken in China and see what you get. If you get anything other than a blank stare (or random unrelated object such as a phone book) - I can assure you it won’t even be Chicken.

If anyone is interested, the infamous General Tso was from Hunan - where food is traditionally hot and spicy, not sweet or sticky. We couldn’t even give the slightest courtesy nod to their culture and find an accurate name for the dish!

I guess “gooey-chicken balls” just didn’t have a cool ring to it.

“Ji rou” is the Chinese word for chicken - and definitely a good one to know while traveling there…! Pronounced “Gee Row“.

If you do get chicken as you asked, don’t be expecting the prime cuts or solid, chunky white meat we eat at home. Why? My sifu explained one day that the nutrients are contained in the bones and marrow…so the dark meat was the only thing really worth eating on a chicken (aside from chewing on the preserved feet of course, which I tried and did not enjoy). Sometimes the pets get fed the white meat we would expect to see in a chicken sandwich in America. If you are eating chicken meat or soup, be honored when you find a dark, marrow-filled bone…..that’s a good thing and something to shoot the cook a smile for.

Chickens for sale in Deng Feng, China

So that gigantic food tangent was more or less just to show how different our cultures are situated and how we don’t even tend to take notice. Now that you are in the know, ask the average person tomorrow what their plans are for Chinese New Year.

There is a Chinese church not far from here….my one small hope…I may drive by in the evening and see if there is any activity. Who knows, maybe I’ll stumble into a gigantic Shaolin demonstration complimented with traditional music and an all-you-can eat traditional buffet.

Good things happen to those who wish for it (and then put themselves into the position for it to come true).

Now where is Mama Naxi from Lijiang barking orders and cooking one of her 8 course dinners with a smile when i need her?

If the church falls through, it looks like I’ve got a date for a Chinese related movie (maybe The Shaolin Temple, an epic classic) and some steamed jiao tse dumplings if I can find them.

…but if someone puts an eggroll in front of me tomorrow, its getting hurtled at the nearest person I see eating sweet-and-sour chicken. Dammit.

Posted in in: Ramblings | Tags: China, chinese food, chinese new year |

2 Comments »

davemc

hey did you find a place in Lexington?

Comment | February 16, 2009
Felicia

Just read this and find it pretty funny. If you make it to California for CNY 2010, I promise you some authentic Chinese food and festivities

Comment | September 24, 2009