beans and kings

Me: "There's a chinese story of a king who was envious of his brother. He ordered that his brother be brought to him. Then the king said, "I heard you've been boasting about your poetry ability. You must walk seven steps at a normal pace in front of me right now. You need to come up with a poem and recite it on the seventh step. If the poem isn't good, then I'll have you executed."

Aff: "Is that the punishment for boasting?"

Me: "Apparently."

Aff: "Let's hear the poem."

Me: 

煮豆燃豆萁	Boiling beans by burning the beanstalk
豆在釜中泣	The bean is crying in the pot
本是同根生	We were birthed by the same root
相煎何太急?	Why the rush to burn each other?

Aff: "Wow, it rhymes. So is the king supposed to be like the bean?"

Me: "No, the king is the beanstalk. He's hurting his brother, like how the beanstalk is burned to cook the bean."

Aff: "Ok."

Me: "When the king heard this beautiful poem, he wept."

Aff: "He wept like a bean?"

Me: [lol]

Aff: "Plot twist: they were both beans."

Me: 

😂

yummers (Parts Unknown)

Aff, my mom, and I started watching "Parts Unknown" starring Anthony Bourdain. We watch one episode per evening, after dinner.

So far, we've watched five episodes. My mom liked Quebec the most. 

Aff likes Tangier, Morocco. He says the chicken stuffed with olives and spices looks amazing. 

I also liked the Quebec episode. So many desserts! So much foie gras. 

Watching "Parts Unknown" together has cheered up all of us!

Sad about ICE's latest evildoing

 I am very upset and sad about this news:

‘Like an Experimental Concentration Camp’: Whistleblower Complaint Alleges Mass Hysterectomies at ICE Detention Center

Multiple women came forward to tell Project South about what they perceived to be the inordinate rate at which women in ICDC were subjected to hysterectomies – a surgical operation in which all or part of the uterus is removed. Additionally, many of the immigrant women who underwent the procedure were reportedly “confused” when asked to explain why they had the surgery, with one detainee likening their treatment to prisoners in concentration camps.

The complaint details several accounts from detainees, including one woman who was not properly anesthetized during the procedure and heard the aforementioned doctor tell the nurse he had mistakenly removed the wrong ovary, resulting in her losing all reproductive ability. Another said she was scheduled for the procedure but when she questioned why it was necessary, she was given at least three completely different answers.

“She was originally told by the doctor that she had an ovarian cyst and was going to have a small twenty-minute procedure done drilling three small holes in her stomach to drain the cyst,” according to the complaint. “The officer who was transporting her to the hospital told her that she was receiving a hysterectomy to have her womb removed. When the hospital refused to operate on her because her COVID-19 test came back positive for antibodies, she was transferred back to ICDC where the ICDC nurse said that the procedure she was going to have done entailed dilating her vagina and scraping tissue off. “

Another nurse then told her the procedure was to mitigate her heavy menstrual bleeding, which the woman had never experienced. When she explained that, the nurse “responded by getting angry and agitated and began yelling at her.”