Awesome! Thank you!

Wow, that looks fantastic! Do you have the recipes?

So it has taken me years and years to realize that people often don't like to be seen in terms of their ethnicity. When that happens they're immediately "othered" and pointedly different. If they're just trying to fit in and get along like everyone else, pointing out their difference can cause self-consciousness or be insulting. I'm on the spectrum and I made so many people uncomfortable just by trying to be familiar with them on what I saw as their own terms. It's best to just ignore any differences and treat them like everyone else. Let them fit in without being "different".

You don't really mean 8 Tablespoons of sugar, right? Looks great!

Could you tell her you just had a drunken moment and to just ignore all that?

I don't know. Sounds like he has anger issues to me.

Wow!

The Spanish Inquisition!

Pretty-sure that's a mis-strike from the minting process. Might be worth a little.

He would have been a great Mork.

I actually have no idea. But that's a really good question. In Hong Kong probably not since English is (or was) one of the official languages. I couldn't even guess about the rest of China.

All of my Chinese friends except one have given themselves Western names. They say it just makes things easier.

You're absolutely right. I have consciously blended Daoism and Zen. I have never been a member of a Daoist group. And all I have ever done is read Laozi and Zhuangzi. However, I had quite the mystical experience one day that lasted for more than two years. That came directly from reading Laozi. But, the only explanation I could find for what happened to me came straight out of Zen. Very perceptive on your part. Not too long ago I shifted back toward Daoism, but only the Laozi/Zhuangzi version. I couldn't care less about Internal Alchemy and all that. I studied with a Daoist priest and after two days I left because it was nothing like what I was after. It was then that I started looking at Zen.

The World is always going to be involved only with itself. The World (the ten-thousand things) can't see anything outside of itself, and probably never will. The Razor's Edge (1984) is an excellent film about exactly this. Worldly people see the movie as a string of tragedies, but what they're really seeing are the results of Worldly attachments. The one unattached person is the only person who becomes enlightened and makes it out. Imho, attempting to teach the attached about wu wei and the pathless path is pointless. The World is only ever going to see the world. In this case, wu wei is probably the way.

Thanks for that article.

Frankly, it would the Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu. But for a novel, I would choose Stranger in a Strange Land.