being inappropriate in chinatown

 

I love Chinatown (any Chinatown in any American city) for so many reasons. Since I'm patently NOT Asian (seriously, I'm so white it's alarming), it's a way to escape to a place that feels terribly exotic but is only a shirt bus hop away. I love Chinatown for the flavors and the unbelievably cheap food (hellooo 80-cent bakery items) and the doors that magically open when you're accompanied by a friend who speaks Chinese. For example, how else would I have known that when I walked into the Mong Kok Station bakery, in addition to the myriad delightful airy bread buns stuffed with various pastes (always go for the mystery flavor...), I could also have a deep, steaming bowl of noodle soup, spiked with five-spice powder and full of meltingly tender bits of beef

.

Ohhhh. It was good. Thank you Grace, for being a soup ambassador.

I also love Chinatown for the unintended ridiculousness of Chinese-to-English translations that crop up all over the place (see first picture above). Maybe it's terrible of me to point and laugh at this kind of thing, but I'll just put it out there that I am completely okay with being mocked for being a whitey-mc-whiteypants whenever it's an option. That having been said, check these out:

Wilford Brimley would definitely approve.

Well at least they're not sugarcoating it.

Ah. I see we're going for the painfully obvious product name.

Here too. Except here I wish they hadn't.

Boy oh boy, I sure do love Chinatown. Excuse me while I go make out with a bowl of soup and then stock up on some sugar and semen.