Fly away!

Thanksgiving is coming up, a holiday we never celebrated in the US because it simply doesn’t mean anything to us. It is not our tradition, we didn’t have family close by and to cook a whole turkey for four people is simply a waste. Here, I long for Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s the weather, maybe I just feel more thankful this year or maybe it would just be nice to do something nice, I don’t know. But I’m looking forward to Saturday, cooking all afternoon and enjoying a nice meal with new friends.

Therefore Christine and I headed to San yuan li market to find a turkey. San yuan li is a real market-market; indoors but not heated, small stalls selling everything under the sun related to food and cooking. A huge fruit section, vegetables of every kind, nuts, spices, noodles, tofu, meat – some still almost alive, fish and seafood – beautiful scallops; every kind of crustacean, teeny tiny mussels  and huge razor clams. This is the place where the embassy chefs go shopping, or so I’ve heard, and I understand why.

Amidst all the food stalls there are also tiny stalls selling pots and pans, plastic buckets and silver ware, cooking utensils, kettles – anything and everything imaginable.

Christine has had a few flies in her house refusing to die a normal death. They are probably just like any living creature trying to escape the bitter cold outside and like the environment in the deMuro household. She’s been looking for a fly swapper for some time now but to no avail, simply impossible to find. This should be the place.

“Bzzzzzzzz”, I tell him making a swapping gesture with my hand.

“Aaahhh!” he exclaims excitedly and gets a huge hammer from under a counter.

“Nonononono, bzzzzzzzz, xiaode (small) bzzzzzzz”, I continue.

“Aaahaaaa!” more excitement follows and he bends down and gets a smaller hammer.

“Nooooo”, ok, now it’s time to get the dictionary out and find the right word for fly or mosquito.

Amazingly enough, he finally gets it (and gets it) from under a pile of stuff, a variety of fly swatters in hot pink and baby blue.

Now if we can only find some background sound of a football game, the American kind.