Movie & Chinese

Of Christmas traditions, movie and Chinese restaurant are latecomers, perhaps now too much of a calendar cliche nearing the end of its run.  I'm not a movie devotee, though I like last year's West Side Story reprise and this year's The Fablemans, both Spielberg creations of high visual quality.  One a classic story, the other perhaps a little too autobiographical.  The experience of going to the cinema has changed, in some ways for the better, in some ways a deterioration.  I remember something of an auditorium with a lot of people.  You paid your ticket, picked any open seat, watched a few previews of upcoming films and a few ads to induce you to purchase something of high markup from the snack bar, then waited for the feature, or for those of us old enough to remember, a cartoon or Three Stooges short movie before the feature.

It's much more stage now.  Far fewer people, multiplex format that gives a choice of smaller theaters with different movies playing at staggered times.  The seats are reserved.  Our row and the one behind us was filled, most of the theater was unoccupied.  Seats resembled high-end living room loungers that fully reclined, with a tray in front for the snacks.  Endless previews, no short feature introduction, and seating much more spread out.  Certainly better acoustics.  Lobby and snack bar empty.  No functioning ticket office.  Everyone reserves and prints their tickets from their devices.  In effect, you go to see what is on the screen, not to be among your classmates and neighbors as in days of yore.  People have good lounging recliners at home, reasonably big flat screens though not on the scale of the cinema or with comparable acoustics, microwaves that make decent pop-corn, two liter soda bottles with ice cubes in the freezer.  If being among friends or crowds doesn't add to the experience as it once did, then home viewing has a lot of advantages.  The marketplace may be expressing that personal preference for a lot of people, as the relative reduction in the number of fellow Jews who went out this freezing Christmas may indicate.

Chinese restaurants seem less plentiful than they once were.  The Covid-19 pandemic may have inflicted a mortal wound to some.  A few have become more Asian than dedicated American adaptation of Chinese.  Most are now small storefront takeout.  Ambience once required Oriental waiters, probably hard to find as the younger generation excels in STEM which draws many to some very lucrative opportunities that their parent's businesses could not match.  And restaurant staffing expenses have gone up, as has the price of food.  Our default Chinese restaurant must have had staffing limitations, as they shifted to takeout only this Christmas weekend.  Poor experience at a more upscale place last year.  I really didn't want to extend to more upscale Eastern Asian.  Indochina and Japan and Korea just aren't what Jews seek on Christmas.  We settled for a buffet around the corner, once cheap, now less so.  Once a Jewish destination on Christmas.  This year a mixture of many ethnicities, all looking for a place that's open primarily.  Wide variety of options, none excel.  Not all that hungry.  The real Chinese restaurant on Christmas really isn't that of dabbling from a buffet, a good deal of which I could make at home.  It is selecting something vegetarian that I would never make at home for lack of ingredients and patience.  One selection by my wife, one by me, a big bowl of rice, some tea in a pot with small porcelain cups that have no ear to grasp.  Some offer cocktails or beer from China.  And a Beckoning Cat at the front register, even though that really may be of Japanese origin.  Buffet just isn't really the Jewish Christmas cuisine or experience.  This may be my last year to seek it out

The real Christmas experience for Jewish doctors like me really isn't movies and Chinese.  It's being on call.  Giving colleagues special family time.  Reassuring patients in the hospital, if not making key decisions while services are less than full scale.  Bantering with nurses, cafeteria attendants, and housekeepers who would rather be home celebrating Christmas but either lack seniority or have empty households, yielding the special day to colleagues who have children or more plentiful extended families.  Petting the antler wearing German Shepherds that make security rounds with the hospital's Constables.  That's a much better Christmas experience than anything a Spielberg extravaganza or Wing Wah can offer.