Monthly Archives: December 2013

New tastes in Chinatown

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A look at the changing restaurant scene in Pihladelphia’s Chinatown

By Qingyi Gong                                                                                                                    

Philadelphia’s Chinatown is a popular dining area in the Center City. Search “Chinatown restaurants near Philadelphia, PA” on Yelp, more than 200 entries will appear, along with thousands of food reviews from Chinatown diners.

Philadelphia’s Chinatown is small. Its core area spans roughly from North 9th to North 11th Street and from Arch to Vine Street, with banks, barber shops, Asian supermarkets, clinics and a mix of other community facilities.

But it’s the food that accounts for most tourists’ enthusiasm. The small neighborhood lays claim to some of the nation’s best Chinese restaurants and is traditionally seen as a paradise for Cantonese and Hong Kong cuisines.

“Dining in Chinatown kind of reminds me of the Hong Kong movies I watched,” said Shuyu Meng, a freshman at Bryn Mawr College. “I once went to Joy Tsin Lau with my friends to drink early breakfast tea. I’d say the Cantonese food there was fairly authentic. The choices of dim sum were also not bad compared to what I ate in Hong Kong.”

Hailing from a northern province in China, Shuyu said she personally liked Hong Kong food. The only thing she complained about was that there were fewer choices of congee, a rice porridge, available in Chinatown.

The first Chinatown restaurants were opened by immigrants from the southern region of China. The legacy continues till today. A lot of restaurants, such as Siu Kee Duck House, Ting Wong Restaurant and David’s Mai Lai Wah, still use traditional Cantonese spellings on their signboards and sell mostly Cantonese style food.

However, a new trend has taken place in Chinatown in recent years, as many budding restaurant owners started to sell Sichuan, Shanghai, Lanzhou and other regional foods of China. While Taiwanese, Cantonese and Fujianese flavors are still dominant, Sichuan and northern China cuisines have become real hits in Chinatown.

Hong Kong Wonton Soup, Beef Chow Fun and Roast Pork Congee, which are common Cantonese dishes,  have disappeared on the menus of some new restaurants. Instead, trendier eateries offer Shanghai Crabmeat and Pork Juicy Buns, Dan-dan Noodles and Ma La Hot Pot at acceptable prices.

The Shanghai Xiao Long Bao sold at the Dim Sum Garden has a wondrous taste. Topped with tiny spots of yellow crab powder, the eight flour-made buns form an exquisite circle in a bamboo container. Every bite is a delight, for the buns contain a lot of meat soup inside. And customers can drink soup while eating the yummy pork stuffed inside the buns. Another restaurant, Sakura Mandarin, just steps away from Dim Sum Garden, also sells authentic Shanghai food.

The boom of Chinese regional foods in Philadelphia’s Chinatown began more than a decade ago. Most notably, the number of Sichuan restaurants has increased significantly and Sichuan food has been in vogue in the neigborhood.

But the popularization of Sichuan food has been gradual. Most people in Philadelphia came to know Sichuan food through a restaurant called Han Dynasty, owned by Han Chiang.

“Almost everyone becomes familiar with Sichuan food through Han Dynasty. The restaurant opens a door for people to know about this type of food,” said Craig LaBan, restaurant critic and columnist of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

LaBan said the wide popularity and success of the Han Dynasty restaurant may have “created a ripple effect in the region of Chinatown”, inspiring people there to open their own Sichuan food restaurants.

ChinatownSzechuan Tasty House and the Four Rivers are among the oldest Sichuan restaurants in Chinatown. But newer restaurants have also been opened over the past few years. E Mei Restaurant, located at 915 Arch Street, is one of the largest Sichuan restaurants in the area. It was opened three years ago and occupies the original site of a Chongqing restaurant.

The restaurant is jointly owned by two immigrant families. One of the owners comes from Sichuan Province.

E Mei sells classic types of Sichuan food. Famous appetizers on the menu include Sliced Chicken in Hot Sauce, Sliced Beef and Tripe with Chili Sauce, Sliced Pork with Garlic Soy Sauce and Hot and Spicy Shredded Pork. For entrees, the restaurant offers Dan-dan Noodles, Cold Noodles, dumplings and wontons, or Chaoshou in Sichuan dialect. Fried dishes like Ma Lai Fragrant Pot and Piao Xiang Tripe are also extremely popular. The restaurant’s menu is dotted with small red dried chili symbols, which denote “hot and spicy” for specific dishes.

The chief chef of the restaurant comes from Chongqing, according to the staff at E Mei Restaurant, according to Xuejian Yang, the manager. “The chef has previously worked in a five-star restaurant in China and makes sauces for the dishes by himself,” Xuejian said.

E Mei has a main lobby with 18 tables and one private room with two tables. It has hired four chefs, an appetizer preparer and several waiters. There are six to seven people in total on their staff list.

Business gets a lot busier on weekends. “Most customers come on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, and we close later on Friday and Saturday nights at 11 p.m.,” Xuejian said.

E Mei Restaurant has created several new dishes for the winter season, including a braised lamb stew dish, which is made from special soup stock. Xuejian especially recommended the hotpots in his restaurant, which have spicy flavors and are said to be popular among students and tourists.

E Mei has been successful in advertising the spicy Sichuan food in Chinatown. And many new restaurants followed its path. Tango, another restaurant on Arch Street, now has a chef from E Mei to cook the spicy Sichuan dishes for its customers.

Lan Zhou Noodles, a famous dish in the northwest region of China, has also found its way to Philadelphia’s Chinatown. There are at least two noodle houses open in the neighborhood, one on North 10th Street, the other on Race Street. Jenny Zhang, 36, works at the Nan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle House on 1022 Race Street. She said the restaurant opened almost 11 years ago and sells mostly noodle dishes, which are very different from Cantonese food. Another noodle house, called the Yummy Lan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle House opened in 2009, at a date much later than the first one but seems to be equally popular. Continue reading →

A life in music

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Heidi Jacob has carved out an interesting life as a mother, teacher and musician

By Shreepriya Poudel

It is seven p.m. and the sound of violins and cellos fills the Goodhart Theater’s music room. Members of a string quintet, one of the several chamber music groups at BrynMawrCollege, are rehearsing their final piece. The students stare at the sheet music before them and then occasionally at each other, communicating non-verbally, musically.

Their instructor, Heidi Jacob, an associate professor of music at Haverford college, stands at a distance. She watches over them practicing like a protective mother, ready to correct mistakes and come to the rescue, if needed. After a lifetime of listening to, playing and performing music, her ears are sensitive to every note.

“No, pause. Let us do this again. This part right here”, she says signaling a bar in the notation.

The students turn their pages back and play it again. Still is does not sound right. Heidi signals them to try again. Then one more time. This time the violins stop at the right beat. Finally, the dramatic pause that the composer

Heidi Jacob conducting

Heidi Jacob conducting

was aiming for is achieved. Jacob smiles a wide smile.

“I remember sight reading this piece many years ago, when I was 15,” she says later. “I played it with my brother. It was one of those revelatory pieces.”

The nearly 60-year-old Jacob has played the cello for more than five decades. She started playing the when she was eight and completed her dissertation in composition in 2011. At age 17, her performances in California and Germany won critical acclaim. She has toured as a part of a trio and as a solo artist. She has composed, conducted, performed and recorded. Hers is the life of the everyday musician — not a rock star or a celebrated musical genius — but the teacher who coaches our kids, the volunteer who conducts community orchestras or the neighbor who is always playing classical music.

A Childhood in music

“I just wanted to play the cello when I was eight because I loved it. I loved the Cello”.

With a father who loved classical music and a mother who was an amateur cellist, Jacob was quickly introduced to the cello.  She had started doing ballet when she was young and took up cello when she was eight. By the time she was 12, she had decided that she wanted to take cello a lot more seriously and quit ballet.  When she was 14, she decided that she really did not care about academics either. What she y wanted to do was become a musician. Her parents were not too keen on the idea. They had to be convinced with the help of her teachers.

After graduating early from high school, she joined the University of Indiana at Bloomington, taking lessons at the conservatory there. Deciding that she did not like her cello teacher, she auditioned for a place in the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She was accepted at the highly competitive school that offers free tuition, room and board to all accepted. Graduating in 1977 with a Bachelor’s in Music, she later joined the equally selective JulliardSchool in New York to gain a Master’s degree in Cello Performance.

Recalling her time in Curtis, she relates how it was a small school with around 100 students. Most wanted to be solo performers and were supportive of each other. From her time as a student to her life as a teacher and conductor, the Jacob has been on a musical journey that has had many intermediate destinations, with her playing different roles.

Chamber music

“In a smaller group, you have to listen more and work better”

Jacob started playing for chamber music groups when she was in high school and also played with youth orchestras. During her time at the Curtis institute, she gained more experience with chamber music groups. She fondly remembers being taught by member of the Budapest String Quartet. She was a part of a chamber music trio with her husband and a violinist for 10 years and the group toured the United States together. For a while, she thought it was what she wanted to do.

Making a living out of being a musician is easy. Jacob notes that even though most students at Curtis wanted to become solo artists or perform as a part of Chamber music groups, it has now become harder and harder to make it as a musician. When she decided to start a family, she wanted to look for different jobs that would be more stable.

For the same reason, she found it hard to have a solo career, although she did tour with her husband, a pianist, for a few concerts. When it comes to making a solo career, cellists have a harder time than violinists or pianists. Orchestras are more likely to hire violins or violas rather than cellos.

She still believes that it is important for a musician to learn to play in small ensembles. She likes being able to make her own musical decisions and lets her students do the same.

When she is teaching, it is interesting to see her life in chamber music come full circle. She challenges herself by trying to find new repertoire for interesting combinations for instruments, such as a bassoon, oboe and piano playing together. Coordinating a dozen chamber music groups each semester, coaching them, seeing them through to the last performance can be a taxing job. Yet she starts speaking with a rush of energy and passion as she begins to recount all the different kinds of music that the different groups are playing this semester. Continue reading →

Snack attack

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A food diary kept by college students reveals their eating habits

By Alyssa Kaden                                                                                                                     

College students will eat whatever you put in front of them.

College students eat five meals a day.

College students work out like crazy to combat the “freshman fifteen” or the “sophomore slump”.

College students are too lazy to go to class, much less to the gym.

All of these generalizations are made about college students by college students and their parents. The freedom experienced at college does not only just expand to what classes you can take but also to an all-you-can-eat buffet three times a day.  Dessert flows at every meal with at least two options — not including the ice cream, the soft-serve ice cream, and the different ice cream bars are staples of the HaverfordCollegeDiningCenter — more affectionately known as the DC.

Bit these stereotypes true? To put them to a the test, I did an admittedly random and small sample of students (three of my friends) and asked them to keep a food diary for a week.  The rules were: they would eat as they normally do, then at the end of each day, they texted me with what they ate, how much they ate, and when they ate. As an add-on, I compiled a list of my eating habits for the same period.  This story is about the results of this junk-food-pile-400x400experiment in observed eating.

Students can eat whatever they want during meal times.  However, most the college students I tested did not stuff themselves.  While they may eat a slice of pizza and two breadsticks, they don’t often eat nine cookies at every meal.

Take Amanda Lee, for example.  Lee is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania.  A possible biology major, she also plays for the Women’s Club Ice Hockey Team at Penn.

“The myth of the college-15 is real,” says Lee, “Now I’m really careful about what I eat.”  And she is.  Over the course of a week, Lee did not eat more than 1,200 calories a day.  She also worked out every day.

Lee’s diet consisted of mostly egg white omelets and Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast and lunch.  In her room, she has a flow chart with the title “What Do You Want to Eat?”  The first question of the flow chart is “Are you really hungry?”

On Penn’s campus, they have an Insomnia Cookies (a late-night cookie delivery store), a burrito place, a pizza place, and a Chinese buffet in their dining center.  Lee avoided these except for crunch times.

“I have Insomnia Cookies when I want Insomnia Cookies,” Lee says, “But I also know that I should save when I want them for when I really need them.”  Lee has admitted to eating four cookies one night.  “It was a tough night,” she said.

Lee does not usually have desserts.  She reserves those for special occasions.

Lee does not look at the food offered to her on campus as everyday food, which most people would agree with.  Would you let your kid have pizza every day?  Or even sometimes twice a day?

Is Lee an exception to the rule?  Or does she represent the new age of college students?  Are college students more aware than ever about the dangers of unhealthy foods?  Or does Lee simply know what her body needs and respects it?

Which brings us to subject No. 2.

Emily Berlin is a sophomore philosophy major.  As a math minor and a member of the Haverford College Women’s Squash team, Berlin spends much of her time either studying or playing squash.  However, she lives in the apartments at Haverford and is not on the full meal plan.  She often has to make her own dinners, even when she doesn’t have the time.  In addition, Berlin is a vegetarian which limits the food she can prepare herself.

For breakfast, Berlin ate yogurt or toast daily.  A quick and easy meal (not to mention cheap) for a college student.  Also very healthy.  For lunch, she varied from salads to sandwiches to pizza.  It is really dinner where she tries to spend her time, but doesn’t always get around to it.  Over the course of seven days, she skipped dinner once and had toast for dinner another time.

“When I’m not busy,” Berlin says, “It’s much better.”  When she has the time to cook, she stir fries tofu with some fried rice or makes vegan tofurkey, though she is not a vegan.

“I love being off the meal plans,” Berlin says, “I can make my own meals and am not forced to eat whatever the DC offers.  They don’t have a lot of good vegetarian options.”

Berlin classifies herself as a healthy eater.  She takes great notice of her diet and how it affects her body and her mood.  She walks into the squash locker rooms one day and declares, “I eat too much sugar.  Twenty-two grams a day is too much.”

Berlin does not skip dessert, but instead has fruit for dessert often.  Half a grapefruit, apples, and strawberries are often eaten after dinner as a sweet ending.  She also tries not to eat after dinner.

Berlin goes to bed at 10 p.m. every night and wakes up at 7 a.m.  She sticks to this schedule religiously,often going to bed with more homework to do and finishing it in the morning.  However on days that she does stay up past 10 p.m. she admits to snacking on candy.

“I love candy,” Berlin says, “I eat way too much of it.”

Berlin tries to take good care of herself.  She focuses on what she eats and what she puts in her body.  It is important to her to work out daily and monitor the amount of food, but more importantly what is in the food that goes into her body.

“It’s not really about the amount,” Berlin says, “But it is more what the food is.”

Both Berlin and Lee are careful about the food they consume, but admit to eating more unhealthy food at night.  They also are religious about working out and often run in addition to their respective sports.  Is this an athlete mentality?  Is this normal for college students?  Or is this a female mentality?

Enter Subject No. 3 Continue reading →

Are these men dumb jocks?

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A survey of Haverford College athletes explores the stereotype

Haverford Cricket Team, circa 1900

Haverford Cricket Team, circa 1900

                                                                

By Geoff Hartmann       

The “dumb jock.”  It’s one of the oldest stereotypes in the book.  They’re the kids who rule high school and end up as the big men on campus in college.  They’re weak in the classroom, don’t work very hard, and are only friendly to their own kind, often bullying anyone who is an outsider.

You wouldn’t expect to find many of these dumb jocks at Haverford College, one of the best academic schools in the country.  Because Haverford’s athletic teams compete on the Division 3 level, they aren’t allowed to offer any scholarships or financial aid to athletes based on their athletic performance.  As a result, all athletes must go through the same stringent admissions process as every other student.

Since athletes aren’t given any special treatment in the admissions process, you wouldn’t think that the same sorts of stereotypes about athletes would prevail at Haverford.

You would be wrong.

A survey was recently sent out to the Haverford athletic community to gauge their feelings about their experiences as student-athletes.  The poll, which garnered 46 responses, highlighted a few interesting trends in the athletic community, as did subsequent one-on-one interviews with athletes..

For starters, a surprisingly large number of athletes feel non-athletes at Haverford view them negatively.  Over one quarter of the athletes surveyed felt that non-athletes think of them as being “unintelligent” and “unfriendly.”  Additionally, nearly 20% of the athletes said that they thought non-athletes think of them as “slackers” and 10% said that they thought non-athletes consider them to be “lazy.”

When asked to choose which term best describes how they feel non-athletes view them, nearly one quarter of the athletes chose a negative term – either “unintelligent,” “lazy,” or “unfriendly.”

Though there are a large percentage of athletes who feel they are viewed negatively by fellow students, there are differing views about the extent to which it’s a problem.

“I wouldn’t say that people say I’m dumb, just because I’m a math major, but people definitely wouldn’t go out of their way to say I’m smart in the same way they might for a non-athlete,” said senior baseball player Brett Cohen.

“I think the majority of non-athletes, and I realize this is a pretty big generalization, but I feel like a majority of them would at most see an athlete as being average academically,” said senior basketball captain Louis Cipriano.  “While they might not think of athletes as stupid, they definitely don’t think of athletes in a positive way.”

So while “unintelligent” may be too strong of a word to describe how non-athletes view athletes at Haverford, it’s clear that there is a difference between how athletes and non-athletes are thought of academically.

What’s unclear is why this difference exists, even at a school like Haverford.  Not surprisingly, non-athletes aren’t eager to open up about this subject.  However, Cohen, who’s known on campus for being eager to speak about issues in the athletic community, has a few explanations for why athletes have they academic reputation that they do from the rest of the student body.

“I think a lot of non-athletes think athletes are dumb for two reasons,” said Cohen.   “First, they think a lot of athletes just take easier courses.  So while a non-athlete might take an extremely heavy course load because they have more time to devote to school, an athlete may try and choose one or two easier classes just because they don’t have as much time to dedicate to studying.  The second thing is that athletes usually have less academic kinds of conversations outside of class than non-athletes.  So, for example, when kids are in the Dining Center, a lot of times you hear athletes talking about sports or pop culture or social gossip, as opposed to ‘academic talk.’  And so people interpret this to mean that athletes are less academic and, therefore, less smart.”

Cohen brings up an interesting point in his extremely blunt take on this subject.  This idea that athletes take easier courses than non-athletes should be looked at more in-depth.  At Haverford, there are certain courses and certain professors that are known for being “easy.”  In general, a lot of the students who take these classes are athletes. 

However, the fact that these “easy” classes have a large number of athletes doesn’t mean as much as it might appear.  First, most of these “easy” classes are entry-level classes and, therefore, are larger classes.  Because athletes make up 37% of the student body, per the Haverford admissions’ website, the fact that there are a lot of athletes in large classes shouldn’t come as a surprise and doesn’t necessarily mean much.

Second, as Cohen points out, a lot of the differences in schedule difficulties has to do with the amount of time that athletes have to devote to school, an issue that we will look at further shortly.

Despite the way they feel non-athletes perceive them, athletes still view themselves as being just as intelligent as the broader student body.

“I don’t notice any difference between athletes and non-athletes when it comes to academics,” said Cipriano. Continue reading →

A doctor’s life

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busy_hospital_corridorDr. Onyeka Okonkwo is a long way from her home in Nigeria

By Sila Ogidi

 What day is it?

-Thursday.

And the month?

-12

What about the year? What year is it?

-13       `

 That is one of many simple mental status tests Dr. Onyeka Okonkwo, a 31-year-old Nigerian, performs on patients such as the 82-year-old man she attended to on her rounds yesterday at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Right before her rounds she arrives at 8:30 a.m., late to her regular morning debriefing from the overnight staff. She stands out in the crowd of white laboratory coats and blue scrubs in her green and white color-block dress and smart blazer. Her pager is attached to her left boot and her legs are shifting –she is restless and eager to begin the day.

 Four months is a short time to have many of the managerial responsibilities Dr. Okonkwo has at the teaching hospital. In addition to seeing patients, she manages the daily routines of the staff, organizes the curriculum for residents, coordinates faculty research and is currently in the process of recruiting new members of staff. She doesn’t hate it, but it is different.  She is comfortable getting to work using taxicabs, trains and buses- means of transportation that a middle class family living in Nigeria rarely use.

In a tiny, tucked away bar and restaurant near the Philadelphia Museum of Art Okonkwo orders an amaretto sour and begins to casually stroll through memory lane and how she came to find herself in this city 10 miles away from her previous home and 7,000 miles away from the country of her birth. Life happens differently in Philadelphia. Then again, few things can be said to have any similarity to living and working in New York City.

Working in New York City as a faculty member at New York University and a doctor in the Veterans Affairs Hospital, she prided herself on having become accustomed to the cramped spaces and fast-paced life that only a place such as New York City can offer.

Between the fancy restaurants and the $1,000-a-month apartments for rent, Okonkwo had no problems fitting in and even carrying on a long distance relationship with current husband, Francis Chiejine who lived in Philadelphia. Before NYU, Okonkwo had been a student at Columbia Medical School after her graduation from Howard University in Washington D.C. in 2003.

“I was so angry that the first year of medical school was pass/fail,” said Okonkwo “I really wanted to show how smart I was.” That was a statement she came to regret very quickly into her first year. It amazed her to see all the other people who graduated from their various institutions and considered themselves to be the best. She often recalls one of her peers whom she described to “simply roll out of bed and know everything.” It was people like that who showed her just how success happens differently, as she struggled countless nights to read and memorize medical books and concepts.

“I’m so surprised you’re a doctor,” she recalled her mother saying “I always thought you would end up a journalist or something.

At a co-ed college

Being biology major and classical studies minor at Howard meant that medical school was really all Okonkwo saw as the end goal after college. One of her greatest regrets in college was not knowing that she could major in anything and still go to medical school. However, if she didn’t study biology she wouldn’t have spent many days in the computer lab and in turn she wouldn’t have met her college boyfriend  — a strapping young Nigerian, Uche Nwamara who was a combined classical studies and history major. It didn’t necessarily help that her older brother also attended Howard at that time and lived in the same dorm as her and her boyfriend.

“Where were you last night?” her brother yelled, “I came looking for you at 1a.m.!”

It never occurred to Okonkwo that leaving her room to watch movies till they fell asleep in her boyfriend’s room could look suspicious to an older brother who still thought his sister innocent. The reality was that she was indeed innocent.

“Our awkwardness brought us together,” admitted Okonkwo because attending Howard University alongside her older brother was the first of many things in her life.

When she was four years old her parents talked of traveling to England for a short holiday and since nobody told her otherwise, Okonkwo assumed she was going with them. She played hide-and-seek with her three brothers and one sister while making mental notes of all the things she needed to get ready for the trip. Okonkwo had never been outside of Lagos state in Nigeria before, aside from the bi-annual trips to her local village in Delta state located in the south east of the country and only an eight-hour drive from home.  She was excited and thrilled at the chance to experience something new. Alas, with nowhere left to hide during her game, she found herself hiding behind a curtain, which got stepped on a little too hard. The iron rod supporting the curtain crashed down on her small frame and immediately medical attention was needed.

Moments later the situation is calm and her mother comes into the room to inform her of a change in plans. Continue reading →

Profiles & Trends

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We offer six pieces, beginning with a trend.

Shreepriya Poudel, whose beat is music, writes about the revival of the ukulele.  Yes, the ukulele.

Quingyi Gong, whose beat is Philadelphia’s Chinatown, profiles the colorful chef, Joseph Poon.

David Roza, who covers haunted places, writes about the day in the life of a tour guide at a historic prison.

Katie Greifeld, whose beat is campus life, follows the Haverford Cross Country teams to Indiana for the national finals.

Sila Ogidi, who covers the region’s African community, profiles the trials and triumphs of a Zimbabwean student running a fashion show.

Alyssa Kayden, who covers health issues, writes about people’s love-hate relationship with donating blood, though it’s mostly hate.

A ukulele revival

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The ukulele is back as a popular instrument

By Shreepriya Poudel

Hawaii is five thousand miles away from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Yet, the soft sound of the Hawaiian ukulele echoes in the hallways of the college’s dormitories. Moving away from the usually popular guitar, violin or the piano, students today have embraced the ukulele. For a small wooden instrument developed on an island and barely a hundred years old, the ukulele is gaining popularity,fast.  And it looks like it is here to stay.

Sheena Gopal is a junior at Bryn Mawr college. She has been playing the Ukulele for two years now. After a busy day filled with homework and classes, she likes to sit on her bed, relax and strum the ukulele. She started playing this instrument after her friend taught her a few chords. She liked it so much that she decided to teach herself more.

“It is so easy to play that I have taught myself a lot of songs just through Youtube”, says Gopal. Most people find it easy to learn the simple four-stringed instrument. Unlike violins or pianos, ukuleles are inexpensive to buy index_ukuleletoo; you could buy a good one for anything from $20 to $100. Since the instrument is so easy to learn, there is no added cost for lessons. It might just become the new favorite for parents.

Hannah Nacheman, another junior, agrees that the ukulele is intuitive and easy to play. She thinks that it is a “fun” instrument and plays it whenever she needs a “break” from schoolwork. The portability of the instrument and the ease of handling are what makes it a favorite with her.  Both Nacheman and Gopal have friends who also play the instrument because of the low cost of buying one and learning to play it. “Fun, cheaper and easier than the guitar”, is how Sarina Shrestha, another student, describes it.

Nacheman occasionally goes to ukulele jam sessions on campus. This is where she gets to hang out with fellow ukulele enthusiasts and jam. For a relatively unconventional instrument, the ukuele has found many college students ready to try it. The popularity of this humble instrument might soon rival that of the guitar.

It is not just the students at Bryn Mawr who have discovered the wonders of the “Uke” as it is affectionately called. According to the National Association of Music Merchants, sales of the Ukulele in the US jumped 16% in 2010. From New York to Wisconsin, ukulele groups have sprung up all over the country.  The Central PA Ukulele club in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, meets once a month to sing and play together.

The Uke has clearly fit into a niche. It suits perfectly people who are musically inclined but do not have much time to spend learning an instrument. The ukulele has jumped into their lives like a savior. It is also popular with students who have grown to dislike more mainstream instruments and are on the lookout for something fun and exotic.

Popular artists clearly harbor similar feelings for the ukulele. It is featured prominently in the popular song “I’m yours “ by Jason Mraz, which spent 76 weeks on the billboard charts. “Hey, soul sister,” by the rock band Train was the top-selling song in the itunes store for 2010. Wikipedia quotes Pat Monahan, the songwriter, “It made my words dance. It made sense. These words were meant to dance with the Ukulele and not with the guitar.”

It may lack the glamour of an electronic guitar or a set of drums, but the ukulele has still managed to quietly slip into popular culture. Its affordability and easiness have made their mark upon youngsters today. The uke seems to possess all the traits that made the guitar so popular in the 70s. Perhaps the next band to reach the stature of the Beatles will do it with ukuleles!

 

Showtime in Chinatown

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For chef Joseph Poon cooking is a performance art

 By Quingyi Gong

It was a chilly Friday afternoon in November, six days before Thanksgiving. The leaves of trees on the other side of Vine Street Expressway had already turned into a bright red color. The winds were blowing vehemently and

Joseph Poon

Joseph Poon

three trucks rushed out from the firehouse located at North10th and Cherry Streets, their sirens ringing piercingly before the trucks disappeared at the corner of Market East Station.

The sky was bleak and gray. It might not be an ideal day in Chinatown for tourists, except some adventurous foodies, who might be lurking somewhere in restaurants, searching for authentic Asian food.

It was almost three o’clock. Chef Joseph Poon, 67, was waiting impatiently in an upstairs room at 1010 Cherry Street, a few steps away from the firehouse. The building lay in a quiet alley, facing Jiyuan Produce Market across the street. Outside the building, the signage read: Joseph Poon Chef Kitchen.

Walk past a glass door on the first floor, and a narrow, steeping staircase with plastic covers will lead visitors to the second floor, where Poon was pacing around. The room was cluttered with tables, chairs and shelves. Near the staircase, two metal tables were put together to form a long one. On the table were some cutting boards and knives. Further inside was a kitchen. Plates and cans were closely packed and a sink was churning hot foams up to the surface.

Poon wore a white shirt and a dark green sweater, which appeared even darker due to the dim light. He wore a pair of off-white pants and black work shoes. A pair of old-fashioned, shaded eyeglasses with round frames perched on his nose. Poon looked tough and had a weather-beaten face. A little bald, deep wrinkles spread on his forehead when he talked. Now he was talking with his assistant in Hong Kong dialect, in a thundering voice that made their conversations sound like a quarrel.

Suddenly, Poon paused and turned his head towards the staircase. “You are late. I’m gonna to punish that. You can go home, because you are late.” Poon’s voice was hoarse and uncompromising.

A group of young students had just come in the room. They were from Penn. Some were juniors and some were sophomores. They were going to hold a small party at Poon’s kitchen on the night to learn cooking Chinese dishes.

Music was turned on. Here were nine diners, along with Poon and the assistant. Poon stood at one end of the table and made a short greeting speech: “Thanksgiving is almost here. Number one, I didn’t know English. And now I teach students in English. So, if you didn’t know, you can learn it, right?”

Poon spoke English with heavy accent. But he was exuberant.

“And I teach, work and learn English. I didn’t know English. I graduated from college 35 years ago. And now I lead restaurant tours, international restaurant tours. And also I volunteer——300 to 500 hours of community

service.”

Poon talked about how different American and Asian cultures are. “The funny guys in China, when they make jokes in New Jersey, no one laughing. When Americans make jokes in China, nobody laugh in China. Different cultures.”

“Good morning, America!” he yelled suddenly.

The group burst into laughter.

“See, you guys know. But Chinese don’t know what I mean by “Good morning, America”. Completely different cultures. If I say “Good morning, America” in China or Hong Kong TV, nobody laughing, because they don’t see the movie ‘Good Morning, Vietnam’.” Continue reading →

The Prison Guard

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Gary Freeman knows his  historic prison inside out

By David Roza

He stands before the crowd at the prison’s gated entrance, beneath high stone walls and grey cloudy skies.  His feet are spaced shoulder-width apart in black New Balance sneakers.  An Honest Tea bottle sticks out from one of the pouches on his army green cargo pants.  Keys jangle from his belt as he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his grey snow parka and he clears his throat before speaking out through the still, crisp November air from beneath a black watch cap.  “All right folks, let’s get started.”

His name is Gary Freeman, and he is a tour guide at Eastern State Penitentiary.  Before him stands a gaggle of 20 tourists here to explore the centuries-old prison, whose high walls and towers dominate the domestic landscape of Fairmount, Philadelphia.  The tourists come from all over the country.  Some are clad in Oakland Raiders caps, others in red designer jeans and Michael Kors purses.  Two are teenagers, one is a baby held in her mother’s arms.  All are here to visit prison, but not to stay, and Freeman is here to show them the way around for the 2:00 p.m. tour.

“My name is Gary, I’ve worked here forever,” He says to the crowd.  “This is a public tour, and if for any reason you want to wander off on your own, I can understand that.  Just give me a little wave.”

Stopping beneath a guard tower in one corner of the walls, the 49-year-old Freeman introduces himself and the building he serves.  “I first started working here about seven years ago.  When I started I had no idea there was a difference between jails and penitentiaries.  Does anyone know the difference?” The crowd is silent.  “Jails in the 18th century were really just holding pens for criminals, and there wasn’t any effort to try to make them into better people.  Most jails nowadays are penitentiaries.  You can get an education behind bars, job skills, they really they try to help people.  EasternState was the first penitentiary in the world.  Built in 1829, it was in

service for 142 years, during which over 80,000 inmates passed through these walls.  It’s the ultimate, ‘if these walls could talk’ kind of scenario.”

Speaking of talking, it appears that the inmates today are a little less obedient than their predecessors under the eyes of this humble prison guard.

“EasternState was founded on a policy of solitary confinement,” Freeman continues. “There really was only one rule; you weren’t allowed to make noise.”  The baby in the group makes a squeaking noise.

Gary Freeman

Gary Freeman

“No talking,” he says.  The baby coos.

“No whistling.”  The baby giggles.

“No singing.” The baby squeals.  Freeman smiles.

Freeman first visited EasternState as a teacher with his high school art students from New Jersey.  “I wasn’t happy as a schoolteacher, I felt confined in a classroom and this was a different kind of classroom.”  It’s surprising that a person who felt confined in his previous job would choose to work at a prison, but Freeman says the building itself motivated him to become a tour guide.  “I didn’t know about modern corrections or any of that stuff, I was inspired by the building.  Just the sheer size and the creepy beauty and grand scale and the amount of work and effort that went into building this place and the amount of taxpayer money they spent building it…I’m really intrigued by ‘the healing powers of God,’ you know, concepts that nowadays people might scoff at, but back then that was the cutting-edge thinking.  Trying to help people.”

Freeman points with a big, meaty hand towards the battlements on the building’s front towers.  “In a real castle, archers would hide behind them for protection, but at Eastern, everything’s fake,” says Freeman.  “If you stood on those battlements, they would come up to about your ankles.  Not good for protection.  It’s just for show, to scare people.”  The crowd chuckles.

As the tour moves into the first cellblock, one visitor named Miguel asks, “How many people died here?”

“I get that question all day every day,” Freeman says.  “The answer is roughly 1,200 inmates died.  Over 50% were because of tuberculosis, contagious diseases swept quickly.” Sickness may have run rampant through the penitentiary then, but sound seems to be the main contaminant of the museum now.  A group of loud teenagers in hoodies and sweatpants come barreling down the cellblock.  Freeman turns immediately towards them and says, respectfully but firmly, “Guys you have to go back that way, there’s a tour going on here.”  The teenagers turn back like a retreating gang of small-time crooks, their noise fading down the corridor with them as Freeman goes right back to his lecture, showing visitors through prisoner cells and the passing years of history. Continue reading →

The long van ride

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 Haverford’s Cross Country team goes a long way

By Katie Greifeld

It’s 11 a.m. on a Friday. Most HaverfordCollege students are sitting in class, awaiting the weekend. However, for a group of nine Haverford cross country runners, the weekend has already started.

Unlike most of their peers, they won’t be spending it studying and catching up on sleep. Instead, they’ll spend 22 of the next 40 hours crammed in a van, traveling to and from Indiana. Members from the women’s team, known as the Bees, and the men’s team, known as the Goats, are journeying to the midwest this weekend.

A handful of Goats and Bees wait outside the Haverford campus center for the van to arrive, gearing up to battle for the best seats. Sophomore Molly Allen, 19, tightly hugs a stuffed bee as the late November wind picks up, and shifts her weight from foot to foot.

The van pulls into view, carrying Goat seniors Brian Sokas, 21, and Elliot Schwartz, 21. Sokas, wearing a captain’s hat, lays down the trip’s ground rules as his teammates pile into the van.

“You will refer to me as Captain Robocop at all times, and Lampshade (Schwartz) as Commodore Lampshade,” Sokas told his shivering troops. “Also, if you touch this hat, you’re walking there.”

Once everyone is settled and buckled in, the van embarks on the 11 hour journey to Bloomington, Ind. The crew will spend the night at a 2012 Goat alumnus’ house, before driving an addition two hours to Hanover, Ind.

The event that these runners are traveling across the country to see is the NCAA Division III Cross Country National Championships. Seven runners from the Haverford men’s and women’s teams respectively will compete against the best Division III runners in the nation, a showdown that they have all been training for since June.

Excited chatter fills the van, while people pass up the mixed CDs that Sokas requested they make.

“Play my mix first!” Allen requested.

“Ugh, I don’t know how much Kesha I can stomach,” Sokas replied, choosing to instead play Bruce Springsteen.

With only nine people fit into the 12 person van, this ride will be luxurious compared to the vans departing in the afternoon. Two more full-capacity vans will depart from campus at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., each containing a mixture of current and alumni Goats and Bees.

 * * *

 

For the Bees, this year’s Nationals trip is particularly important – the opportunity to run at this race did not come easily. This year, the Bees did not place high enough at Regionals, held the previous weekend, to guarantee them a spot at Nationals. Instead, the Bees had to rely on an at-large bid to secure them a place on the starting line.

It was the luck of the draw that got them here, and every member of the team knows it. It has been a long, hard season.

The Bees’ problems started in June, when top returner Fiona Hendry, class of 2016, announced that she was transferring to SyracuseUniversity. To make matters worse, the Bees’ second top runner, Katie Balmer, class of 2015, told the team that she was going abroad to Germany during the fall semester.

Including the seniors who had graduated in 2013, the Bees had lost four of their top runners, making Nationals prospects look bleak.

Despite the rocky road that got them there, the Bees were in Indiana and ready to run. The varsity squad had flown to Indiana on Thursday, to make sure that they knew every inch of the championship course.

 * * *

 It’s moments before 11 a.m. on Saturday, and the frigid Hanover air is completely still. Suddenly, the starting gun fires, and the crowd of cross country die-hards erupts as 280 sprint away from the starting line. Hundreds of

Haverford Girls Cross Country Team

Haverford Girls Cross Country Team

screaming fans decked out in their teams’ colors already line the 6,000 meter course, paying little mind to the blue-jacketed race officials trying to push them back.

Among the numbers are the Haverford Bees, spread out along the course in a pre-planned cheering strategy. The girls are wearing bumble bee costumes over thick winter jackets, necessary for the bite of the 35°F Indiana morning. Continue reading →