(No) photos from Paraguay (yet)

I apologize for not posting any photos from Paraguay yet. The main reason I haven't is that my internet connection is very slow here, and I can't resize my photos to make them smaller in my new camera, like I could with my old camera. That makes posting photos online very difficult. If I can figure out a way to resize them -- or get a decent internet connection -- I will.

The project is coming along quite well here, I think. I've been able to follow several individuals and a family. Here are some sketches:

Mr. Yu is the owner of Dou Jiang Dian, or Soy Milk restaurant, which advertises vegetarian food and Paraguayan food. Mr. Yu came to Paraguay twenty-six years ago, spurred on by a failed business venture in Taiwan. He apparently tried to open up a business here in Paraguay, but that failed, and for the past ten years, has run Soy Milk Restaurant. The restaurant appears quite successful.

Soy Milk Restaurant is special and therefore successful, I think, for two reasons. Firstly it is the only Chinese restaurant that specializes in breakfast food and vegetarian food. I'd contend the former is more vital for business than the latter; although there are vegetarians here, there aren't many, while everyone needs a good breakfast, especially when you have to wake up at 4 or 5 am. Soy milk restaurant has tons of Chinese breakfast pastries, congee (rice porridge, delicious), oil sticks (also delicious...), and pretty much every other traditional Chinese breakfast food. The Chinese business community here loves it.

Secondly, Soy Milk Restaurant sells Paraguayan food as well. I'd argue that the restaurant is beginning a process of gastronomic syncretism (thanks to my liberal arts degree from Wesleyan, I am allowed to make up obnoxiously complicated phrases for simple concepts), that is, it is beginning to mix Chinese and Paraguayan food. Along Avenida Avay, there are five or seven (depending on how you count a restaurant...) Chinese restaurants, and as far as I can tell, the only one that regularly attracts non-Chinese customers is Soy Milk Restaurant. They sell Paraguay soups and mains, with a little Chinese ingredients and flavors added in.
I think this may be the first step toward a greater melding of cuisines that you'd see in Peruvian-Chinese chifa cuisine or American Chinese cuisine, such as chop suey.

Mr. Yu wakes up every day at 2:30 am to begin preparing breakfast by 3:00 am. I had the sleep-deprived pleasure of accompanying him last week at 3:00 am. For some reason I doubted he'd be punctual for our date, but then I realized that this was his job, whether some American was there to photograph him or not. He prepares the soy milk, the porridge, everything, until his workers start coming at around 4:30 am.

People start calling and placing orders as early as 5 am, and business is open by 5:30. Mr. Yu's wife comes in around 6, and Mr. Yu then retires home.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post some photos of Mr Yu, and continue the sketch, since there's more!