lost in translation

Came up with a new easy-to-prepare dish for dinner today!

Something of an equivalent to chicken claypot rice:

Dice chicken breast and marinate in sesame oil/light sauce/pepper for 20 min.

Wash a cup of rice and add dark sauce/light sauce (and salt if nec.)/sesame oil into the right amount of water for rice to cook in rice cooker.

Add 4 cloves of crushed garlic and the chicken to the rice.

Pop it into the rice cooker until rice cooks!

To serve:

Good garnishing - pepper and fried shallots.

Fei (he's from China) was in the kitchen eating when I went in to get the cooked meal. So I sat down to eat at the table with him (usually I prefer to go into my room to eat, the kitchen is only enough for 6 people to stand in, and we have 12). We were talking about work and study in UK, when he offered me some of the food he had cooked: lo and behold, it was kung pow duck! (oops, here's Mel talking about food again!). It was really yummy, and he said it was his first time preparing duck, having only started cooking 2 months ago when he arrived here. Really amazed by his cooking skills, and ashamed I myself hadn't been so daring! Also, he had come from China not knowing much English - I thought it was very admirable he decided to do a course here: it would be like me studying Chinese literature!

Another corridor-mate, Linda (also from China), came in and proceeded to tell us she had just come from her pole-dancing lesson. Fay choked on his food then. I didn't really understand her mandarin, so she went on to demonstrate a few moves. He had stopped chewing, eyes about to pop out of their sockets; I nearly fell off my chair laughing.

Then Darran (a Hong-Kong British) walked in. Fei wanted to know whether guys could join the pole-dancing class, and what they would wear. Since he didn't know the english word for underwear, he proceeded to ask Darran what he wore to sleep.

Needless to say, I was nearly in tears from laughter by then.

What a meal!