Junkie

I must be building up a tolerance. 250 grams used to last days. Now I'm doing 500 grams in an evening yet still thirst for more.

My name's Cooper, and I'm a strawb addict. Perhaps it was not eating a single strawb for a whole year, or perhaps this winter has produced a particularly fine, juicy, succulent bunch of strawbs. Either way, I'm hooked. It's probably the best thing about being in Brisbane right now.

So the word for strawberry in Chinese, 草莓 caomei, is literally straw berry. This is a bit much to be sheer coincidence, so I figured that strawberries probably aren't native to China. Seeking a China-centric answer, I looked up Chinese Wikipedia. I found out in Cantonese it is 士多啤梨, which I found out is pronounced sih do be leih, a transliteration from the English without meaning, as such, but does finish with the character for pear.

It was a good way to learn a bunch of words I'd never learn otherwise (which I'll probably forget in a few hours, but if I look up enough entries on fruit after a while...I'll be fluent in er, fruity language...ba-doom-tish). Apparently the part we eat is not actually strawberry fruit, but a part of the outer floral envelope created after the pollen has disseminated. The real strawberries are the little yellow things covering the surface of the strawberry. Or something like that.

I need another hit, but my supply is running low...