Bad Bunny's Infectious Music Crosses the Pacific

Bad Bunny dancing the salsa with Lady Gaga

All the talk today is about how Bad Bunny killed it yesterday at the Super Bowl Half Time Show. Latinos, and in particular Puerto Ricans are so proud that Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio made them feel seen and in a thoughtful, energetic, cultural way, from the sugar cane fields, to the old men playing dominos, freshly-made tacos, a real wedding party, the electricity poles, and on and on.

Yes there are actually MAGA people on social media who panned the show, saying it was "boring." How could anyone resist such happy beats?

He called on people to believe in themselves and his final message, "The only thing more powerful than hate is love" is what we really need right now.

He smiled at hearing he is No. 1 in China

But what's super cool is that Bad Bunny hasn't just touched people in the Americas (including CanaDA), but also across the Pacific in China!

He is the first Latin music artist to rank No. 1 in China, thanks to college students turning to the likes of Bad Bunny and J Balvin to learn Spanish.

According to a study from Barcelona's Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the number of Chinese students taking translation and language science classes has increased 37 percent from five years ago, though the learning materials aren't as developed as they are for learning English.

The UPF study, which was published last year in the journal "Language and Intercultural Communication," says these amateur translators collaborate with Latin music lovers on NetEase Cloud Music to make it easier for the Chinese to understand some of reggaeton's idiomatic Spanish cultural references that don't have Chinese equivalents.

During an Apple Music preview days before the Super Bowl, Bad Bunny found out he was No. 1 in China and he bowled over with a massive smile, incredulous at the news.

The "64" is a nod to his uncle's birth year

Meanwhile many of us watching Bad Bunny's show, featuring Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, wondered what the "64" reference was on his shirt. 

It turns out is was the birth year of his uncle, who passed away.

Bad Bunny had wanted to take his uncle to the Super Bowl, but this was his way to dedicate the show to him.

However, the Chinese censors didn't get the memo and started deleting his pictures with "64," worried it was a reference to 1989...

Ancient Mexican Fare Near Chinatown

Food before the Spanish arrived in Mexico

There's a lot of buzz about Mexico these days, with many people traveling to the country for holidays as an alternative to the United States, and most recently many bars on the North America Best 50 Bars list were from there, in particular Mexico City.

On Saturday afternoon a foodie friend and I were in Chinatown and as we walked to his car, he suggested we have a snack in a Mexican restaurant.

Salad with pumpkin flower, lettuce and sour cream

Where was that? 

A place called Machete -- pronounced ma-chet-teh, unlike the sharp knifed weapon, and it serves Mexican food that was made before the Spanish arrived. So the ingredients are mostly corn, blue corn, cacao, and yucca to name a few. Apparently this is the only restaurant of its kind in Vancouver.

Cecilia Aguayo is the chef and owner, and she cooks up dishes inspired by her grandmother who ate a healthy diet.

We tried the itacates, which means food for a journey, which are usually packed into triangles of tortillas. But at Machete, it was like an open-faced salad, and the one we had was called flor de calabaza, featuring pumpkin flower, white onions, garlic, and epazote, or Mexican tea which is a leafy plant.

It was a refreshing, light salad that was topped with lettuce, sour cream, cheese, guacamole and pumpkin seeds.

Chocolate drink with hint of orange and vanilla

Then we had the machete, a long quesadilla in blue corn tortillas, filled with vegetables and Oaxaca cheese. It came with a long serrated knife for us to cut it! Inside was mostly roasted peppers, mushrooms, refried beans and the melted cheese. 

By this point I was getting full; it was after 3pm and I would be eating dinner in a few hours!

However besides our snacks, the drinks were very interesting. Machete has a cacao bar with various drinks made from chocolate. This is not like hot chocolate served elsewhere where it is thick and rich, quickly spiking your sugar levels and leaving you feeling full.

Instead these drinks are light and foamy with the drink emphasising the chocolate flavour without the heaviness.

A vegetarian machete, or quesadilla

I tried the recommendation of meztli ice latte, a concoction of cacao nibs, orange, vanilla, cinnamon, almond milk and ice, while my friend had the nahualli ice latte, mixing cacao with coffee, milk, vanilla and cinnamon panela sugar.

Both drinks were served in giant hollowed out coconut shells and balanced on a small ring. We had to hold the cups with both hands and sip from the coconut shell. 

What an interesting experience!

Machete

1007 Main Street

Vancouver, BC

778 302 4795

Review: La Marcha

Seafood paella was the highlight of the dinner at La Marcha

On our last night in San Francisco we had dinner in a hopping Spanish restaurant in Berkeley called La Marcha. It was easy to get a reservation online, but we when we arrived, we were surprised to see the place was packed with diners. It even felt warm inside so we waited outside for our table to be cleared.

Less than 10 minutes later we were seated in the cosy restaurant with high ceilings and exposed brick walls, an impressive-looking bar with two legs of jamon or ham hanging in the corner, while servers were pretty attentive in the dining room, that was busy for the first hour and then slowly diners had their fill and disappeared.

Cauliflower (left) and mushroom croquettes

The menu is quite extensive, with a lot of tapas to choose from, followed by salads, jamon, and some paella. Even though we had four people, we were conservative with the number of dishes we ordered and it was just about right: four tapas and a paella.

Soon after we ordered the tapas began to arrive. First the mushroom and manchego croquettes (US$11) that reminded us of Chinese deep-fried taro puffs at dim sum but better, thanks to the umami of the cheese and mushrooms, finely blended.

We also had the blistered cauliflower with mornay sauce and bits of bacon lardons (US$13) that had a subtle spicy kick. The cauliflower was slightly undercooked, and seasoned with the salty bacon bits. 

Next came grilled octopus with fennel, pollen, sunchoke puree, and garbanzos (US$20). The meaty octopus was tender with a slight char and hint of smokiness. This dish was cleared quite quickly.

White bean stew, pork belly, chorizo, creme fraiche

Our last tapas was white bean stew with morcilla, chorizo, pork belly, and chermoula creme fraiche (US$15), a hearty comfort dish with chunks of meat that would have been better if they were diced to make it easier to share. There was even a slice of black pudding in the bowl.

Next came our paella marinera (US$56), a photogenic colourful dish that was carefully styled by the kitchen. On top of the thick layer of rice were mussels, prawns, and clams, as well as peas and diced peppers along with a sprig of rosemary and half a charred lemon.

We quickly pronounced the paella better than the one we had in Barcelona's Las Ramblas, the touristy food market. The rice here was not dry, though the bottom was a bit burned. Nevertheless the seafood cooked just right and we enjoyed every bite -- even cleaning up the pan.

Although we were full, we wanted to squeeze in dessert. The blackberry cabernet sauvignon sorbet (US$9) looked intriguing and we wanted to try the olive oil citrus cake (US$14) but it was sold out. The waiter suggested the chocolate cake (US$12) so we did. 

Chocolate cake, blackberry sorbet

The wine-coloured sorbet really did have a hint of wine in it, and two large scoops were refreshing. Meanwhile the flourless chocolate cake was so intense in flavour, I kept saying, "Wow" after each bite. The chocolate cake was very smooth in flavour, speckled with cocoa nibs for a bit of crunch, and was paired with a scoop of chocolate mousse! The latter could have been a dessert of its own. 

As we were eating we discovered a crumped US$5 bill under our table and we used that towards paying our bill. A delicious dinner and the bonus of $5 made it a double treat.

La Marcha

2026 San Pablo Avenue

Berkeley, CA

(510) 288 9997

Kindergarten Numbers Continue to Fall in HK

Kindergarten schools are competing for fewer students

Kindergartens in Hong Kong and desperate for students, as the number of applications is one-third less than last year, due to emigration and the falling birth rate.

Parents need to submit a "Registration Certificate for Kindergarten Admission" in order to get government subsidies, and the number of applications for this designation has also fallen by more than 20 percent in five years according to official data.

Lam says the birth rate continues to fall

Nancy Lam Chui-ling, vice-chairwoman of the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers and a kindergarten principal says the actual number of kindergarten students is actually even smaller.

"This is because parents will sign up for a few kindergartens to pick from, so the actual number of registrations will definitely be even lower than the number of offers we give out to the applicants," she said. 

"The number will keep falling as people emigrate and tend not to give birth. I do not think the emigration wave will stop."

For example, the number of births began dropping in 2017, from 56,500 to a record low of 32,500 in 2022.

In the first 10 months of last year, the number of registered births fell slightly from 27,823 to 27,293. The final figure will be revealed in February.

A few months ago the government announced it would offer a HK$20,000 bonus to eligible parents with newborns. The authorities project a 20 percent increased birthrate to around 39,000, but that's well short of the more than 50,000 recorded in 2020.

Many young families have emigrated overseas

Lam suggested kindergarten schools offer full-day classes, but are kids ready for that? For some just going to school is traumatic already... That said full-day classes would allow both parents to work.

Nevertheless, kindergartens are trying to entice parents to sign up with them by offering to teach their children other languages, such as Spanish, French and Japanese on top of English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

As if kids don't have enough to learn already!