Cougars, queens and more on carbs

Finding a cougar equivalent

One of ICLP’s catch phrases is “Shuo hua, shuo hua,shuo hua.” Continually reinforcing the vocabulary and grammar structures during group class conversations and getting immediate suggestions/corrections from teachers has been an important part of my learning so far.

This semester (my third semester both learning Mandarin and at ICLP) my texts are Modern Chinese Conversation (新編會話), Practical Audio-Visual Chinese III (實用視聽華語(三)), and Taiwan Today (今日台灣). The third textbook is a series of readings around different everyday life in Taiwan topics. This can lead to some quite wide ranging conversations about cultural differences. In a class of three guys and one gal, a fly on the wall during the chapter on finding a husband or wife would have been well entertained.

During the current chapter, discussion wound its way to the completely unrelated topic of cougars. What is the significance of “cougar”, the teacher asked. In English, a cougar is typically thought of as either an adorable yet dangerous large feline, or a lady of a certain age who particularly seeks out the company of younger men. A short side debate on whether the cougar had spots, stripes or nothing later, the teacher thought the meaning might be equivalent to the local expression Bai4 Quan2 (敗 犬) – literally roughly meaning lost/lowly dog. After some further exploration, I thought “bai quan” might be closer to spinster or old maid.

Queen of the cougars

In any case, during the cougar – lost dog debate, my teacher in all her wisdom fed my Taiwan drama addiction by mentioning the phrase was used in the title of a new local drama: 敗犬女王 (Bai4 Quan2 Nu3 Wang2), roughly translating to lost queen. This drama stars the charismatic Cheryl Yang (楊謹華 / Yang Jin Hua) and the leading man of the moment, Ethan Ruan (阮經天 / Ruan Jing Tian). You may remember Ruan from Fated To Love You – he was the good looking guy with a lot of screen time who kept saying “Jia you Chen Xin Yi!” You remember? Good.

Yang plays Shan Wu Shuang, an almost 33-year old unmarried career woman who is trying to make her name in the media business by busting a local politician who has a wife and kids, plus a bit on the side. Ruan plays Lucas, a roughly 25-year-old odd job man; a younger man (oooooh!).

We quickly find out he is the heart throb martial art instructor at a local high school (some of the translation in that scene is a bit strong, surely attack would have been less cringe worthy than molest with the same dramatic effect!), and dresses in a Santa costume for rent money (the first scene is set on Christmas Eve). As a side note, these actors are playing roles that are the same or thereabouts as their real ages; a breath of fresh air from western dramas where 20-somethings will play high school roles.

Things get rolling when they of course have an encounter of the infuriating kind with each other. Although I’m only on the first episode, this is definitely finding a regular slot on my watch-list. Catch up on the first six episodes at my http://www.mysoju.com/my-queen/ then follow the drama as it unfolds on TTV/SETTV Sundays 22:00 - 23:30.

Carb Catch-up

For those who were interested in my previous post on low-carbing in Taiwan/Taipei, here’s a quick update: Boy is it hard to low-carb over holidays. Never you mind, I’m back in the saddle.

Jasons now has ground flax seed both at the location mentioned in the previous post, and in the health supplement section between the frozen fish/salmon and the toiletries at the back of the store. Also, I located at the top right hand shelf of the oils section virgin coconut oil, for those who like to (hopefully) kick the metabolism this way.

Weight Watchers drink flavour sachets are now available at Jasons. If you enter the store through the bakery, immediately as you exit the bakery into the store one of the aisles on the far upper left has them alongside lime flavouring sachets. Beware; they’re pricey and do have carbs which could easily add up!

Hot-pot as it turns out is not just for eating out. I am well into my exploration of turning out a just as yummy low-carb equivalent at home. This has been made very easy by the availability of low in carb frozen hot-pot soup bases at just about every grocery store I’ve seen so far. I like to pep up the soup base with a good handful of fresh coriander. So far duck and ginger has been my personal favourite packet base. This mutton and herbs base was also pretty good, and (according to the back of the packet, cross fingers it’s accurate) is particularly low in carbs:



For those who want to branch out into different kinds of mushrooms (I’ve been a traditionally timid button girl myself, although golden mushrooms as mentioned in a previous post have stolen my heart); pick up a pre-packed selection such as this ones which also came from Jasons:



Everything can be easily picked up from your local supermarket – thin sliced meats, seafood and veges of all descriptions. If you have others in the house who are not low-carbing, they can add noodles (near the end of the meal so that not too much leeched sugar is contaminating the soup base), and dumplings which can also be found in pre-packed hotpot selections, such as the one below:



There you have it – low-carb hotpot at home, it’s so so easy.