05/09/2020
We were listening to Jazz on Saturday in the morning while tidying up the cabin, one reason was for photo taking of the interior so I could continue making the PDF brochure, the other reason was Bob coming over for dinner tonight – had to make some space for him to sit at least. After that we went on shore and had a look at the Saturday market. I thought there would be lots of farm produce, but it was more like a tourist market. Then we went to the supermarket and bought 800g of banana prawns and some vegetables. It would be windy the following couple days, so we moved the boat to the west side of the bay in the afternoon, which was calmer.
In the afternoon, Bob came and brought some photos and newspaper clippings for show and tell: stories of him and the many boats he once owned. I had to go and prepare dinner so I couldn’t see all his photos.
The prawns I cooked tonight were very successful and well received. The secret is to save the prawn head for making sauce. I’d better write down the recipe:
800g prawns, remove the head but leave the shell, cut the back to remove the intestines, add two spoons of cooking wine to marinate for half an hour, and add a spoonful of soy sauce before panfrying. Panfry the shrimp heads first, then add some water. After boiling, drain the sauce in a bowl and add some chili, pepper, soy sauce, mirin and corn starch for later use. Heat oil in a pan, add minced garlic, fry a bit, add prawns, panfry on one side and then fry on the other side. At the end, pour in the sauce we prepared before. After boiling, thicken the sauce and ready to serve.
After meal, we talked about the epidemic and the severe restrictions in Victoria. Bob reckoned that the virus was just like a common flu with even lower death rate. The government was exaggerating things to test how quickly it could take control over people on a large scale. I couldn’t agree at all. I told him how horrible it was when the virus first broke out in Wuhan, that caused too many deaths and broken families. I also told doctor Li Wenliang’s story. They shouldn’t be forgotten. Bob didn’t know these at all. He didn’t even know whether Wuhan was a big city or a small village. It seems that Fangfang’s ‘Wuhan diary’ is really necessary to be published overseas. These personal recordings are more convincing than official media reports.
And Bob seemed to believe in conspiracy theories that the manipulators behind the scenes, such as Freemasons and super rich, want to make new world order. Perhaps for some people, this kind of behind-the-scenes ruling theory is the easiest way to understand how the world works, but they completely ignored or didn’t understand “complexity” and “contingency”, which make the world chaotic as it is and can never be restored by any models.
Sea Journal 