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Friday, August 29th, 2003
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3:07a
I went to Jaya Malaysian Restaurant (90 Baxter, between Clavin Pl. and White) with Bria. The version of asam laksa that I tried at an Upper West Side restaurant was neither spicy nor particularly fishy, so I was sure I hadn't yet proven the Philadelphia waitress wrong. I did tonight though. The waitress at Jaya also tried to warn me against the soup, but this time I lied and confidently stated I had eaten it and loved it. I'm glad I did because now it is not a lie at all; I have tasted no better soup. I only had a twenty, so Bria paid for mine. I thus owed her a drink, so we went to this bar at Ludlow and Delancey called Motor City with, of all things, a Detroit theme. When I got home, I checked my messages, found out that  tazadebevita was back in New York. We got some wings at Pluck U. and some coffee at Kiev Café. It's been a very fun start to the weekend. Well, this is really not much of a weekend, since I work Friday and Saturday night, but I will have more genuine weekends starting next week when classes begin.
I'm thinking about starting a series of short essay entries on various places (starting with North America, because it has the most accessible demographic data) that have unexpected populations. Examples:
- McPherson County, SD and McIntosh County, ND: Still 35% German speaking after all these years. Great example to throw out when someone wants to claim that previous generations of immigrants to the US assimilated. Assimilation, to the degree that it did exist, was a worldwide post-World War I phenomenon that was caused by the drastic decline in migration and other economic activity worldwide the war caused. Such activity did not reach 1914 levels again until well after World War II.
- East Aleutians Borough, West Aleutians Borough, Kodiak Island Borough, AK. Like the above counties in the Dakotas, about 60% English speaking. Second place may surprise you though. It's not Aleut or any other Alaska Native language. It's Tagalog (at levels ranging from 12-27% across the region). Yes, Alaska has a significant Filipino population (with an origin as far back as the Spanish-American war).
- Ford County, KS. Home of Dodge City, Cowboy Capital, home of Wyatt Earp and the Santa Fe Trail. Almost as Hispanic as the Bronx.
- The Gujarati- and Maltese-speaking populations of Nunavut (OK, I'm stretching it here, they have 10 people each, and I won't be able to find anything more than the demography, but it's still amazing. Nunavut?)
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