I had an awesome day. Pavee Lackeen was amazing. It was shot as though following the family around during their daily activities, which included the kid getting booted out of school for fighting, visiting her brother in jail, gas-sniffing, shoplifting, and filling the kettle for tea, from a tap near the side of a road. Her mom was illiterate. It wasn't playing on your emotions, it was just pretty stark. The family is part of the Irish population who were booted off their land I dunno how many years ago, maybe 100, 200? I don't know, and have been living on the side of the road ever since. They tend not to get an education, and they don't work as much as they hustle for a living. Ireland's social services are trying to get them housing, and so forth, but this family's mom was getting hung up on not living in the neighborhood she wanted, etc. (I had to switch high schools and move around a lot as a kid, so I had no sympathy for them on that part!) Anyhow it was really good and my mom and dad enjoyed it. One dude sounded EXACTLY like a guy from Newfoundland would.
A bonus was that my brother showed up and saw it with us. He had gotten my email about it, but I had already shut off my cell phone so was unaware that he was going to hang out with us.
After the movie, my parents took off for their long trip home, but my brother and I went to Chinatown to eat dinner. Now THAT was hilarious, because he speaks Mandarin, and here's what happened: I got entranced by a store that sells, among other things, stone pigs, so I went in and bought one, because my chinese horoscope sign is the boar, and this is the year of the boar, so I need all the luck I can get, the lucky money I got last year didn't work, etc. etc. etc. While I was paying, my brother demonstrated his Mandarin speaking skills to a surprised fellow near the cash register, and some conversation ensued about whatever, I caught "Toronto" and "Ireland" - I know some cities and countries in Cantonese. When asked about his language skills, he was explaining to them that we were Irish, and then that Ireland had its own language, though we don't speak it. My brother told me the guy was likely a native Cantonese speaker, because he'd start in Cantonese by mistake and switch to Mandarin. The conversation looked lively enough, but there was some confusion on this fellow's part - my brother told him "my wife is Taiwanese" then the dude asked my brother if I was his wife. I wanted to try out my Cantonese skills on them but all I could remember was "yao mo gao shooah" which isn't polite - "do you know what you're DOING?" Besides I think that and being able to count to 10 don't matter much beside a dude who speaks the whole language.
Then we went to a restaurant that my brother and his wife go to. It was Northern Chinese cuisine, and our server was a chatty Mandarin speaking lady. She was also entertained by my brother's Mandarin skills. They engaged in quite a bit of conversation, and Ireland came up again. She said I was pretty, then later, that I looked French. He was explaining at some point that he had gone to McMaster, and I chimed in with "Hoymingdon" which is Cantonese for Hamilton (where McMaster U is) and she quickly told me how you would pronounce Hamilton in Mandarin (it escapes me at the moment) and I think they proceeded to make fun of Hamilton but I don't know that for a fact. Our food was good, I had some tofu that was deep fried and had some sauce on it. We had corn soup (seemed easy to make, chicken stock, eggs dropped in, corn, green onions) and we ordered too much food but some was stuff my brother wanted me to try, so you only live once, eh? I had tofu once that was deep fried with a coating like spicy fries, I like tofu.
Going to Chinatown with my brother is like going there with a special passport into a different world.
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