TulaneLSU’s Top 10 memorable painted plywood signs in Seattle’s Chinatown

Dear Friends,

Mother raised us all Calvinists, even if we were Episcopalian, because she understood that we are all selfish sinners in need of grace, lest we enter the death of Hell. There are no good guys in this world, and all alliances are temporary and self-serving. That line of reasoning makes sense because everyone is a sinner and is capable of no good outside the good through grace.

Today’s friend was yesterday’s enemy. Yesterday’s enemy may well become tomorrow’s friend. History is replete with such examples: John Rambo’s friendship with the mujahideen of the 1980s no doubt would enter a new phase had Rambo IV been made in 2003. Southern small government conservatives recently have taken up the mantle, or rather, coat, of a Manhattan billionaire whose profit came from working the system and casinos is to me just as queer.

The boundary lines of friendship are forever shifting in the sands of sin. SJWs are friends with other SJWs based on a few principles of varying significance. SQWs ally with other SQWs based on just as shaky a foundation. Whereas I once interpreted such alliances and divisions through a lens of virtue and grace, today I am left reading them only through the lens of total depravity, the likes of which Calvin described as the “hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul.”

Mother and I left Seattle this week after a marvelous trip to Mount Rainier. We spent a final day in Seattle, a city to which I was previously lukewarm at best. This trip has turned that relationship hiemal. I have tried to understand , but I am left in utter confusion.



My favorite part of Seattle is the International Town, which has a distinctly Eastern bent to it. Most of that neighborhood’s restaurants serve Chinese food, and the one to which I took a particular fondness was Harbor City. The dining room was open, but I am not eating indoors except at home at this time. One requirement to enter, though, is having an oral temperature below 98.7, which would please a modern Draco.



If you ever have the opportunity to eat there, I suggest the shrimp dumplings. They come three per order, and I found the ones with cilantro to be particularly good. I had eight orders of them, and I wish I had ordered more. My walk that afternoon was a solo walk, and I found a nice park a block down called Hing Hay Park. It was a pleasant corner and, for Seattle, relatively clean. Two older gentleman dueled on the outdoor pingpong table. Had one of them challenged me, I would have had a dilemma. I am still trying to physically distance, but I also believe in the ping pong honor code that when challenged, one does great dishonor not to accept. Instead, I finished my dumplings.



Another dish I devoured was the honeycomb beef. I did not know what it was, but I like honey and I like beef. It was not as expected, especially its very chewy texture. A piece entered the space between two of my lower teeth and remained there for two days despite my tongue’s futile attempts to fling it. The flavor was really tasty. It was only after I talked to Mother about the dish that she told me the dish was reticulum of the gastrointestinal tract. All that texture comes from the layers of tissue used to separate the digested food in your stomach.



Once my power reserves were filled, I was off again to explore through this older part of Seattle. Like the rest of the city, it seemed largely abandoned of street traffic and life typical of a big city. Most of the restaurants remained open, but there were no diners. All of the restaurants, like most of the city, is covered in plywood, as though a hurricane were approaching. The hurricane Seattle business owners fear is that of the looter and vandal.

The plywood in the International District, as opposed to the expressionless plywood covering the rest of the city, is bold and filled with paint. It was the most American of plywood structures in town. It is filled with art, icons, and social and political statements. The past generation used the unsightly T-shirt to make public its individual opinions. In Seattle’s Chinatown, the plywood does the talking or soothing.

I did not expect to see the Asian American community there so staunchly in favor of the BLM movement. Some may claim owners had their wood painted this way to curry favor with protestors to prevent vandalism against their shops. I did not get that impression, however, and that explanation is too easy and too comfortable to explain this phenomenon. I will leave the commentary to you.