Today is the holiday celebrating the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (or as monosyllabic people like the Chinese call her, Guan Yin). Since I was visiting New York this weekend for my mom’s birthday, we went temple-hopping to pay our respects. Now unlike Buddhist temples in Asia with their exotic and very ethnic architecture, those in the city are often converted row houses or apartments with scant interior furnishings, a few bronze statues for worship, and billions of incense sticks spewing near-asphixiating plumes of smoke into the air. But to my surprise, the dingy basement of the two temples I went to also served up some of the best vegetarian dishes I’ve encountered. At both the Chua Thap Phuong and Chieu Kien Buddhist centers in the Bronx, we chowed down on bowls of vegetarian pho (yes, no beef), bun bo hue (again, no beef), and at least 5 different types of xoi (sticky rice desserts). Good vegetarian food is hard to come by, and good Vietnamese vegetarian food is even harder to find – and for free? To round out my fobby weekend, I also learned to play MJ for the first time. And by MJ I’m not alluding to the Sweet Mary Jane. MJ is for Mahjong – not the computer game for loners who have graduated from solitaire, but the 4-player gambling addiction enjoyed by Chinese housewives worldwide. After blowing 3 hours with my parents at the blink of an eye, I now know why devotees are so drawn to it. Apparently, the Japanese have designed a mahjong table that automatically shuffles the tiles so you can lose your money twice as fast! Watch the video – I especially enjoyed the part where the Cantonese people all go “wah!” at the same time.