Don't you know what I have found? Maybe you've found it too

[austin_dern]

My elder niece, you might recall, is adopted. The agency which teamed her up with her parents arranged a festival of ... well, I'm not sure precisely what it was called, because I learned about it when my mother asked if I wanted to come along for something the next day, and someone swiped the program I'd gotten there. But it was a celebration of origins for the mostly China- or Mexico-born kids placed. I figured if nothing else it'd be a chance to see my niece, which I don't do often enough, even if we did have to drive to Delaware for it.

It was a pageant, though, with exhibitions like a lion dance, and a tai chi demonstration, and singing. And there was a 'fashion show', kids walking around a path in outfits of their birth countries. This my niece participated in, showing off a very nice silk dress and adding several twirls to the straightforward walking she was supposed to do. I don't know if she'll ever contract stage fright, but the indicates at ages three and four are no.

There was a tiny kitchen service selling what the organizers called ``traditional'' American food, which I imagined meant hot dogs. I was right. They also sold bowls of chili, which wouldn't have been in my top few choices, but wasn't too surprising.

Around the other edges of the room they were selling crafts, as well as holding a silent auction for prize packages. Besides doughnuts I also spotted a little, very stylized, metal-inlaid squirrel which I bought thinking it would make a lovely little complement to bunny_hugger's collection of miscellaneous little animal figures.

The only downside was with the organized program and my niece's participation in it I barely had the chance to talk to her, much less to baffle her. I still need to get around to her place more.

Trivia: The Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious [ reigned 813 - 840 ] had minted around 820 the last gold coins made in the West for centuries, although these triens were apparently not seen in circulation. Source: Gold and Spices: The Rise Of Commerce In The Middle Ages, Jean Favier.

Currently Reading: The Age Of Reform, Richard Hofstadter.

PS: At Least One Daughter Exists, a bit of musing more than anything else about teaching probability.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Chili qualifies as American food; its origins are in Texas and the old West, and while there's Hispanic influence on it, it's more Tex than Mex.

More classic 'American food' choices would be clam chowder, hot dogs, apple pie, all that. That said, I take it they weren't trying for ethnicity, they were trying for 'what we can sell to parents and kids'.

--Chi

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't think they were going for ethnicity, apart from promising wary parents that they weren't going to be forced to eat that exotic, you know, Chinese or Mexican food or whatever foods represent the lands their adopted kids came from. Just that it'd be food in that general group of, ah, you won't need to wonder what goes into this because you already know you don't want to know what goes into a hot dog.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* Noted.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they had mayonnaise sandwiches.