My Italian ex

I was just surfing the net and I was reading kennysia's blog on his trip to Copenhagen and it was the last part which caught my attention between Kenny and a Danish guy on how to impress a girl on a date.

Danish Dude: What type of restaurant would you bring a girl to if you want to have a good night out in Malaysia?


Kenny Sia: Italian. Not necessarily because we like Italian food, but that's just where we're expected to take girls out to if we wanna impress them.

Danish Dude: Italian? See that's the difference. Over here, if we want to impress somebody, we'd take them out to a really nice Asian restaurant. Chinese, Thai, whatever. As long as it's Asian.


The grass is always greener on the other side init? This brought back memories of my Italian ex. He made me wonder if past lives existed coz he must've been Asian before. May as well have called himself an egg. White on the outside. Yellow on the inside. Seriously! He was totally into Asian culture from Japanese tattoos, chinese dragons, the works!

His bedroom was like a chinese temple down to the burning incense. He was trained in kung fu (of course, it couldn't be boxing or anything too Western! ;) Every tattoo on his body was either Chinese or Japanese and he had SEVERAL. Of course there was a Bruce Lee poster on the bedroom wall, chinese ornaments like the fuk luk sao. My goodness, he even had a bagua on the window sill which he placed on his window ledge to ward off "evil"


The irony is the family was as Catholic as it got. There were crosses on the wall in the house, they go to Church, the whole works! His Mum was even afraid of the ornaments in his room because it was simply not her culture and she didn't understand his obsession. She actually requested he keep his bedroom door shut.

This guy was more Chinese than anyone I knew. He read up on it, was really into his martial arts and he ate with chopsticks at meal times while I used normal cutlery. When I was first invited over to his house for dinner, I wasn't sure how it would go. I wondered if his Mum would be ok with me. Naturally, I would be viewed as an extension of his Oriental obsession right? And who could blame her? I mean his bedroom was full-on. Even the calender was in Chinese characters. I don't think he could read it. All that mattered was that it was in Chinese! ;)

Photo by Jothi

Anyhow, I was really looking forward to his Mum's famous lasagna. I had heard so much about her cooking. Apparently, people were trying to get her to open her own restaurant. She was THAT good and totally authentic just the way Italians do it! No short cuts.

Photo by Jothi

She made pasta from absolute scratch. She also grew her own olive trees to make fresh olive oil and she had tomato trees in her garden to make her own tomato based sauces. Wow! I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to dinner with his Italian family.

I liked his mother the moment I met her and she was so warm. She bustled me into the kitchen where she was preparing dinner and I seriously wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when she said kindly "I'm really not that good at it but I've made you some Chinese fried rice"


OMG and it was made especially for me! She was making an effort because she was told he was bringing back his new Asian girlfriend. Oh dear. She then asked me what my favourite food was and I didn't know how to tell her it was Italian! Too funny!! :)