Box Hill and Chinese New Year

Happy New Year to all of my Asian friends.

The house in Mont Albert where I've been staying is about a 15 minute walk from an all-Asian suburb called Box Hill. Every sign in the shopping center is in Chinese or Korean (at least those are the languages I can recognize). It is the only substantial shopping centre within close walking distance, so I go there often. A section inside the shopping centre is a dedicated market--as in fresh fish stands, fresh chicken stands , vegetable stands-- all competing for customers. It smells awful to me, but I'm fascinated by the vendors trying to out-shout one another in alternating Chinese and Australian: "big sale fresh fish", "get your chicken here", "cauliflower only $5", "best papaya in town"

There is a whole section where you can get take-away sushi (sushi to go) or sit down and enjoy it. I ate a couple of California handrolls ($2.50 each) and they were absolutely delicious. Super fresh. With each handroll, one gets a miniature plastic fish about the size of your thumbnail, filled with soy sauce. You pour the soy sauce out of the fish's mouth after unscrewing the miniature red cap (a bit bigger than a pin head) closure. Really cute, but throwing those fish back in the water does nothing good for the environment.

I also like going to Box Hill because I am truly a minority there and it is such a bizarre experience. When I walk in the bank, tellers and personal bankers greet people by saying "nee how" (hello in Chinese). I expected that people might not be nice to me, but every time I've asked directions (it's a big center and my sense of direction is less than perfect) or needed help with something, people have literally turned around from where they were going and walked me to my destination. When I didn't have the right change, the person behind me in line simply gave it to me. When I needed help with getting my mobile phone pre-pay card re-charged, the girl was immensely patient; I had to keep asking her to repeat herself because of our different accents and the speed at which people here often talk (fast!). One other interesting point about the bank experience...On the train one day I asked an Asian girl about being greeted in Chinese and she said that she is Chinese and didn't like it at all when they greeted her that way because she doesn't speak Chinese and thought it was an inappropriate assumption that she did. Interesting cultural perspective.

After work the other night I walked to Box Hill to go grocery shopping and have some dinner. There is a strip of restaurants outside of the shopping centre: Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese. Because the weather is so wonderful here right now (sunny and 77F during the day / 68F in the evening) there are loads of cafe tables outside and they were all packed. I asked two women if it would be OK if I joined them and they welcomed me with big smiles. Both Cecilia and Iris were Chinese, former was an SAP consultant and the latter was Iris' niece who is studying at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), a top rated school in Australia. Both were drinking a cream colored beverage from straws that they had punched through the clear plastic seal that acted as the top for their drinks. I asked what they were drinking and they said "soy milk". I ordered a vegetables and tofu and while I waited for my food to arrive, their snacks arrived: deep fried turnovers (giant dumplings??) filled with scallions. They proceeded to tell me that they were on a diet. Anyway, we had a lovely dinner together and I walked happily back to my temporary home in Mont Albert. The end.

FUN FACTS
Restaurants and grocery stores are open after 5pm during the week, but the regular retail stores close at 5pm Monday to Friday. That means you actually have to think and plan ahead if you need something and it means that if you work 9a-5p , you have to wait until the weekend to do a lot of things.

WORD WONDERS
"reckon" = to figure, to suppose
Rine= Ryan
doynt= don't
Pay-d-f= .pdf
give me a hoy= holler at me/call me
eetz a goah= it's a goer= yes, let's do it/ all good
A-D= 80