My heart really skipped a beat when I read such a stunning discovery as I leafed through a local newspapers leisurely just the other day.
Against all odds, a scholar in China has, after 2 years of searching and digging and, equally lengthy time of Mr. Sarkozy's presidency, come to the conclusion that Mr. Sarkozy, the 23rd President of the French Republic, is in fact a man of Chinese ancestry.
To begin with, the acclaimed scholar points out the fact that Sarkozy is the son of Nagy Bocsay Sarkozy Pal, who's no less a Hungarian aristocrat himself. This one is easy, as our ace historian reckoned: Nagy means big and Pal means Paul in Hungarian, whereas Bocsay means the clan of Bocs in Jurchen (whose link to Hungarian as Tungusic people is strong), which means altogether it sums up Paul of Sarkozy family of the big Bocs clan. To keep up with the Joneses, the scholar goes further to say that such style of naming kids bears no difference to what we do in China -- say, the third son of the Zhang's family of Xidan Hutong.
As if the discretion level of his oddball elaboration isn't already high enough, the scholar goes on to unveil the background of Sarkozy's granny. The Chinese root of Ms. Csafordi Toth Katalin, he says, can't be more visibly apparent. Not only is there a piece of entry for Toth in Jinshi, the History of Jin as a family name, but also is there a significant nomadic people called Xianbei of whom the Csafordi tribe was belonged to once upon a time. So authentic is Sarkozy as a common last name back in the good o'days of China that he even asserts that Sarkozy family could have emigrated to Hungary from China as recent as the Qing dynasty.
And if all this stands accurate, then there's only one thing left for Sarkozy to prove that he's not a prodigal son. He should remember the saying about returning home clothed in glory (on Airbus rather than Boeing of course). The way I see it, the only way for Sarkozy to fulfill his filial duties is to return home on the Ching Ming Festival to offer obeisance at his family temple, attend to the ancestral graves and make acquaintances with local notables.
But before I order my posses to sound the drums and gongs to welcome Sarko boy's homecoming, I'm struck by a pounding question myself, which is, where shall he go to, given the vastness of China as a country?
Dang, where the hell is the root for the Sarkozys' in the Middle Kingdom? The last thing I want is to let the President of France navigating for his root in China on the off chance.
Muddleheaded, I pick up the takeaway menu of my favorite chachaanteng, of where I learned much of the geography about China from.
The first dish I notice is Fujian fried rice. Could the Sarkozys' be the descendent of Fujianese? Yet, my limited culinary knowledge tells me that there's no such thing as Fujian fried rice in Fujian. People living in Fujian knows nothing about Fujian fried rice just the same way alike Bill Clinton was totally in the dark about there's already an authorized translation of his biography selling in China before it was officially released in his home country.
Next up is a dish called Yangzhou fried rice. Mmm, who's to say the Sarkozys' can't be spawned in Yangzhou in the first place? I have no sooner illustrate this point further than my less than cuddly waitress gives a big scoff at it. Check out the chaxiu (BBQ pork) in it. Yangzhou fried rice was invented here in Hong Kong for sure, and you call yourself a foodie?!
No matter. I go deeper at the menu and flaunt the last entry of page, the Hainan chicken rice to my waitress. Bitch this, bitch! The Sarkozys' might as well come from Hainan. But which style of Hainan chicken rice you're talking about? The ones by Singaporean, Thai or Malay? Once (I) have the best Hainan chicken rice of my life in Bangkok. Yum yum.
Though I'm this close to a breakdown, I somehow start to get her point. I mean, what's the point of evocative name if it has gotten nothing to do with the place it engaged? To make matters worse, I have had a Hainan chicken rice in Hainan not that long ago (last month to be exact) and it was absolutely one of the worst Hainan chicken rices I've ever had in my life. Even the Hainanese reckons the same. They have with them what they called the four famous dishes of Hainan and guess what -- none of them is Hainan chicken rice.
The lesson is simple I think: who cares where it comes from as long as it rules?
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