All you really need to know, you learned it in kindergarten......Part 3

Always show your appreciation. One looks more beautiful when you always remember the good sides of others.

The Dentist -- Part 2 and more to come

I visited another dentist, who is a relative of a friend, yesterday.

This 2nd dentist is more experienced and the nurses are more fun. I also took an x-ray. The dentist explained to me the root problem of my teeth and how every problem springs from there.

So, the conclusion is, I don't need to extract the wisdom tooth at the moment but need to have an "endodontic treatment" (pulp treatment) for the problem tooth. (That's exactly why I was hesitated to take out my wisdom tooth last week. The other dentist asked me to extract a wisdom tooth which I don't feel anything wrong, but leave the one that's killing me for days untouched!)

I still need to go several more times before the treatment is done, and more scaling is needed! (Sooner or later, the dentists will scale out all of my teeth!) Then the dentist also asked me to brush my teeth with the small brushes in the picture. It can go all the way through the teeth spacings. Very scary.

P.S. Stuck at home because of Typhoon Fengshen (God of Wind, what a name for a typhoon). And also salute to those keep working under bad weather to keep the city running.

The Dentist

I'd been to the dentist three times on the last four consecutive Saturdays. There's an extra one cause the clince was drowned by the heavy rain and couldn't be recovered till the following Monday.

So, what had I done? I'd had two tooth fillings and had my teeth scaled. Spacings between my teeth were wide to begin with and now, after some very substantial scaling, it's even more spacious. I can even feel the water running between my teeth and have some difficulty to speak properly :( For a while, I think I will need to stay on an "old people diet" (i.e. fish, tofu, egg, minced meat, etc.) before I am used to it.

The dentist suggested me to extract a wisdom tooth (which I now have three). I am a bit hesitated. What do you think?

P.S. Couple of months ago when I watched Babies of Our Times of BBC, the small group of six or seven years old kids all thought Tooth Fairy was real while Superman was fictional. Interesting. I can't remember if they thought Santa was real or not.

差幾多唐英年就要死？

For my international readers, the title reads "for how much more that Henry Tang will need to die?"

Background

Henry Tang is the current Chief Secretary for Adminstration of the HKSAR Government. When he first became the Financial Secretary in 2003 (which was almost the worst economic downturn in HK history) he had once mentioned that the unemployment rate in HK would never get back down to 2.2% as long as he stayed alive (有生之年，失業率都不會回落到2.2%). No doubt he's being critized as mean (or "black heart"), and he also considered it as one of his most serious mistakes in his political life.

Latest Progress

Today, the unemployment rate of the previous quarter was annouced. The newest number is 3.3%, lowest in the decade. The title is what a FB friend sent me after learning the news.

Jobless rate stays level at 3.3%
http://www.news.gov.hk/en/category/atschool/080617/html/080617en02002.htm

雙方似並行直線，從交叉角度相遇

Again, no special meaning. Just that this song got stuck in my head these few days, and the lines are beautiful.

But then, the next lines sing "曾經交錯但離去後，不會再遇".

Isn't it life all about?

P.S. I thought of translating the lines, but not successful.

The Most Delicious Dragon Boat Dumplings

The other day a colleague asked if I had eaten any Dragon Boat dumplings this year.

I said no, cause my Grandma made the most delicious Dragon Boat dumplings in the world that I didn't eat anything else.

I am not being exaggerated. I tried one mouthful of dumpling that was made outside the family, and I had never tried another ever since. My mom and aunts learned how to make Dragon Boat dumplings from Grandma, but none was as pretty and as delicious as Grandma's (no offense, just telling the truth :)

It's our tradition to make Dragon Boat dumplings during Dragon Boat Festival (very obvious), and, interestingly, during Chinese New Year (don't ask me why). Grandma only made a small amount of Dragon Boat dumplings before CNY for some traditional ritual. However, making Dragon Boat dumplings before Dragon Boat Festival was a serious matter. It took Grandma weeks of preparation -- to soak the leaves, pick the best ingredients (they were all over the place), boil the dumplings, etc. It took long time to boil the dumplings. The fire in the kitchen heated up the whole house, and the entire apartment smelled like Dragon Boat dumplings :)

Grandma's dumplings were simple in one way, but not that simple in another. They were simple cause there're only salty ones, no sweet dumplings ever. They were not that simple cause there were a lot of ingredients -- salty egg yolk, peanuts, fat pork, dried Chinese mushroom, dried scallop, etc. and the sticky rice was stirred with salty egg white before hand, so even the sticky rice was very delicious. Grandma would make tonnes of dumplings for the Dragon Boat Festival that they easily became my nightmare every year -- dumplings for breakfast and weekend lunch at least for another month :(

However, the most amazing part of Grandma's dumplings is that she tailor-made for our picky stomach. For example, the one I and Ed ate had only lean pork and dried scallop (I didn't eat the other ingredients). Those that Aunts 8 and 9 ate didn't have peanuts. Grandma would tie different knot to identify the dumplings but usually it's only she who could decode the knots.

As Grandma's getting old, she hadn't made any dumplings or other traditional festive food for a number of years. I heard that Aunt 7 is making Dragon Boat dumplings in Grandma's style as well and they taste "almost" the same. May be someday I will try some.

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《天安門母親的呼喚》