The Boy wanted a snack to take to his drama class, and being near the Chinese market on center street provided endless inspiration.
"Let's just go to Safeway or 7-11" he said, but I assured him that we'd find loads for him to snack on at the Chinese Market.
We started in the bakery, the bean-paste buns or the elaborate hot-dog pretzels. Nothing more suspicious than a Chinese hot-dog. He won't be persuaded.
So we go the the market, root through the aisles, they have dried cuttlefish, chilies, and hundreds of products that looks somewhat western, until you read the ingredients. We finally settle on a couple of things of Pocky, a mango juice and a bag of Octopus flavored crisps. He's not into the crisps, not really, not at all, but I tell him he'll look very cosmopolitan in Drama class ("who else will have brought Octopus flavored crisps for lunch, I ask you? Tell me one!...") and he doesn't have to eat any of them, he can just offer them around in trade for scraps of other peoples lunches and he gets all resigned and buys them finally to placate me.
Moments like this I tell myself, there is no better father in the world.