:: reflections of a madman ::

:: Thursday, February 27, 2003 ::

Your Attention Please...

The white zone is for loading and unloading only. All unattended vehicles will be towed. =P

Lol...always wanted to say that. Anyway, I'm going to try and use another site...Xanga! Ok...so I have no idea why. I've had it for a bit and perhaps I want a change...change can be good. =)

:: mikey 14:33 [+] ::
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Any Ideas?

Ok...so a friend of mine was asking the other day what should he do about a girl that he likes. Apparently, he is interested in some gal and has made a couple of attempts to get to know her. According to him, they've talked and such and he's called her to go to lunch. He knows a bit about her, and by all accounts, seems like a nice enuf gal. For some reason, she hasn't responded, either positively or negatively. So, he's asked me for advice about what to do. Lol...that would be like the blind leading the blind. Hehehe...so, I pose that question to you, my dear readers...any ideas? Let me know and I'll pass along the advice. =)

:: mikey 13:21 [+] ::
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Interesting

Ok...back in my day, to be called a "geek" was bad, but to be called a "dork" was worse. Apparently, today's youth think that being a dork is better than a geek. I dunno...about that. According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:

Dork: Etymology: perhaps alteration of dick
Slang : NERD; also : JERK

Nerd: Etymology: perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
1 : an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits

Geek: Etymology: probably from English dialect geek, geck fool, from Low German geck, from Middle Low German
1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of

Hmmm...so it would appear that being a geek is better than being a dork, especially in light of what the dictionary says. I prolly would prefer to be a geek, well, except for the Ozzy Ozbourne definition. =) I think I was rather a geek in my day. I'll take being called a geek b/c I am oft disapproved of and perhaps a bit intellectual. But, I am in no way the dictionary definition of a dork/nerd. Lol...so there. I'm a geek, and proud of it! =D

:: mikey 14:12 [+] ::
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Another article to chew on...

Ok...so I'm a slow reader. Here's another article that I found in Asianweek, in their Chinese New Year edition. It's a good article. It actually made me stop and think about alot of things. After reading this story, I now [mis]quote someone very special to me (although I'll deny it in person):

"I know that wherever you are, you are thinking about/watching over/looking after me, and I thank you for that. I realize that while you were here, I never articulated how grateful I was for all of your love and support through all of the years. I kinda took for granted everything I had and have only now started to come to realize it. For that I am truly sorry. I miss you. Hopefully, through all of my actions and accomplishments, I have made you proud of me and have lived the way you would have wanted me to. I promise that I will continue to try and make you proud."

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Remembering ‘Gung Gung’ and ‘Po Po’: One San Francisco native recalls Chinese New Year with her grandparents
Asianweek - Thursday, 13 February 2003

Chinese New Year is synonymous with family and food. For me, the Lunar New Year has always meant a mixing of old world and new world Chinese culture — the grandeur of old China in the early 1900s meeting funky San Francisco Chinatown.

Until my early teens in the mid-70s, mom and dad, my sister and two brothers, and some aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered at my maternal grandparent’s European-constructed Telegraph Hill flat — a home filled with Chinese relics, colorful decorations of spring and aromatic special holiday food preparations. We would gather for a number of days over the 15-day celebration to feast, laugh and compare how much money we had racked up from married relatives and family friends who gave us lai see, red envelopes of lucky money, shiny new coins or crispy bills. Cute youngsters willing to have their chubby cheeks pinched fared especially well.

My maternal grandparents were an eclectic couple. Grandfather George Si Choy Young, or Gung Gung in Cantonese, was born in San Francisco in 1892 and fancied hamburgers until age 13, when his parents took him to China to finish his education and meet a future bride. If they had journeyed a few months later, they may have faced quite a different fate in the 1906 earthquake.

Grandmother Quai Hing Fung Young, our beloved Po Po, was a refined wealthy young woman who shared the same ancestral lines, in the rich coastal region of Shun Tuck in Guangdong Province. They married when Po Po was in her early teens and made their life in San Francisco just before the Roaring ‘20s began, building the only Chinese-owned fur business — that lasted some 40 years — and rearing six children.

With Gung Gung more than six years Po Po’s senior, young pictures of them — she in her fur coats and fine jewelry — made the handsome pair look like the quintessential young Hollywood starlet with her producer. Their differing backgrounds lent to lively conversation and fun at family gatherings: Gung Gung — the entertaining practical jokester — and Po Po — the strong-minded independent woman who carried the cultural traditions. Gung gung was a gentle teetotaler who listened to eight-track tapes of Chinese opera but Po Po was known to slug back a shot of whiskey now and then and puff her Chesterfields from an ivory cigarette holder while playing dominoes or Keno.

Grandmother would spend weeks before Chinese New Year shopping for the best imported ingredients to feed her family. She would prepare some special holiday snack foods in addition to the main fare: fried taro cakes with sesame seeds and aromatic cilantro; fried sweet sesame seed balls made of an orangy yam and rice flour dough with a melted chip of Chinese brown brick sugar inside; and “cakes” — mah tai go, a slightly sweet gelatinous steamed water chestnut cake, and loh bok go or woo go, savory steamed turnip or taro cakes filled with diced meat, sausage, mushrooms, green onion and peanuts.

The main family feast was on New Year’s Eve, also known as tuen nien, a day of togetherness. We were enticed with a delicious banquet, including a special soup, chicken, duck, fish, my mother’s specialty dish of pungent black Chinese mushrooms, and a dish called jai, a Buddhist monk stew.

Another highly memorable gathering day during the new year fell on the seventh day, called yun yut, “people’s day” or “everybody’s birthday.” On this day, the meal consisted of Grandfather’s special raw fish salad and congee, a thick rice porridge. Guests participated in making the fish salad or yu saang, using chopsticks to communally toss the salad. Fish represents abundance, and tossing the salad ingredients signified each guest creating wealth. Because this meal was lighter and everyone seemed to have more time, Grandfather had time to play with his grandchildren. He would give a big group squeeze and make us squeal with laughter. He would tease us in Cantonese and English, often using the same recycled Chinese-English pun: Knowing that Grandmother had plied us with an ample supply of tangerines or gut in Cantonese, he would ask, “Do you guys have any guts? Who has guts?” And, if we were especially well-behaved, Grandfather would take us to the basement room of the flat, where we could play with old furs that he had kept after he retired and closed down his shop.

I will be a first-time aunt in this Year of the Ram. Baby Soo won’t be born in San Francisco but in Honolulu. Nonetheless, I hope to share the rich memories of growing up Chinese in America and carry on the family traditions imparted by Gung Gung and Po Po to the fifth generation Chinese American.

By Julie Soo
Special to AsianWeek

:: mikey 16:19 [+] ::
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Keep dreaming...

Ok...so I've gotten a couple of emails asking whether or not my last 2 posts were to show my availability. Huh? Dood...my last 2 posts were to bemoan the feelings that have been circulating around the Asian community for years. It's sad that these views and articles get posted in national publications for everyone to read. The worst part about it is that the ppl that do what was written about don't even know it or are consciously doing it (albeit for the wrong, or mistaken, reasons).

Am I sad about this? You bet...it breaks my heart to see my brothers not getting a 'fair' shake. Does it matter to me? No. Am I trying to find a date by showing this? No. I am happily single by choice...when I find the right one, I will no longer be single. However, I am ambivalent to the fact that I am single.

Sigh...does this make me a racist? No. My intention is just to call attention to the fact that this is happening and alot of ppl in the Asian community are wondering about this. I personally don't mind as my family has multi-racial elements to it, but I do have to look out for the plight of my fellow brothers.

:: mikey 12:56 [+] ::
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