Finally finished reading the Iris Chang book. hm. her overarching message is "We are Americans too".
I remember my freshman year at Hopkins. When I got back home ppl asked me whether it was hard to adapt to America. I told them it wasn't the Caucasians that I was surprised by. I've seen too many Hollywood movies not to be prepared for White America and its college life. The thing that shocked me most was that the ABCs were American, not Chinese. I guess I had expected that everyone who looked like me would think like me and talk like me, but I realised that it wasn't true at all.
but then again, i guess people in China might be surprised that I look Chinese but don't think nor talk like them either. And when I watch the Olympics or whatever, it never strikes me to support China more than I would any other team (apart frm S'pore). And I would definately root for S'pore over China. even though they clearly trash us in everything.
so yar. pretty ironic that ABCs and other Asian Americans have to fight to be recognised as American. up to now I still have trouble thinking of my chinese friends as American, or Canadian, or German, etc. In contrast, one never suspects that the African Americans harbor secret loyalties and will steal nuclear secrets for Africa.
I think the way to change this perception is definately via the mass media. ABCs are supremely underrepresented in Hollywood, broadway, TV, etc. they are really not being portrayed as normal Americans. if there's an Asian in the movie, it's almost always a role written specifically for an Asian. Like Harold in Harold and Kumar. or Jackie Chan. or Jet Li. and somehow the Asian characters are always superbly irritating. U usually end up hoping that in the next scene the Asian is gonna get hit by a bus, and the movie can move on. Why can't the normal, non-irritating guy/gal-next-door just happen to be Asian?
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Goodbyes
tis the season for goodbyes, it seems. so many friends graduated this year, just sent wushu frens off to the airport (but will see them in 12 days!!), Kenneth n Peiyee are moving to NYC, will only see Cheryl for 3 days in S'pore.... sigh. I think Kenneth n Peiyee's move was the biggest surprise. Thought that they would be working in SF for the foreseeable future. i guess not, huh? n with Howesiang going home too.... no more mountains for me?
i think i'm getting old, man. making new frens every year is tiring. cannot seem to muster enthusiasm for next year.
on the bright side, Peiyee introduced me to the wild and wonderful world of food blogs. Apparently, there are all these online foodies that write about their restuarant, cooking, random eating, cookbook etc experiences, frm all over the world. quite cool. I very very briefly entertained the thought of blogging about food too (since I'm actually somewhat obsessed with it), but trashed the idea immediately. No one will want to read about my leftovers-freefood-failed instant noodles-mango gummy-cereal diet. it'll get boring Really Quickly. But I just want to make a quick tribute to the inventors of cereal and chocolate. You guys (or gals) ROCK. without these innovations, I would waste away into nothingness.
just read 'Ender's Game'. It's really cool!! Not that plausible though. but hey, that's why it's Science Fiction, yar? makes u think. can we really manipulate children like that? hhhmmmm.... *evil grin*...... now I know what kind of cult I need to form..... need to target genuis kids. then can rule the world.
i think i'm getting old, man. making new frens every year is tiring. cannot seem to muster enthusiasm for next year.
on the bright side, Peiyee introduced me to the wild and wonderful world of food blogs. Apparently, there are all these online foodies that write about their restuarant, cooking, random eating, cookbook etc experiences, frm all over the world. quite cool. I very very briefly entertained the thought of blogging about food too (since I'm actually somewhat obsessed with it), but trashed the idea immediately. No one will want to read about my leftovers-freefood-failed instant noodles-mango gummy-cereal diet. it'll get boring Really Quickly. But I just want to make a quick tribute to the inventors of cereal and chocolate. You guys (or gals) ROCK. without these innovations, I would waste away into nothingness.
just read 'Ender's Game'. It's really cool!! Not that plausible though. but hey, that's why it's Science Fiction, yar? makes u think. can we really manipulate children like that? hhhmmmm.... *evil grin*...... now I know what kind of cult I need to form..... need to target genuis kids. then can rule the world.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
my poor butt
Pulled some kind of butt muscle last friday. A fren was helping me with a side stretch, when I heard this 'RIP', felt something tearing, and then it became Much easier to stretch. OH HOLY SHIT. I have been hobbling ard for the past week, the first 2 days couldn't sleep, and I still can't really do much wushu. =(. on a brighter note, injuring my right leg is strengthening my left leg! so mebbe i'll have balanced legs after this.
Tonight I discovered injured butt-bliss. sitting on a tennis ball placed at a strategic position is better than 2 million OSIM massage chairs. better than chocolate. even better than durian gelato.
Am reading 'The Chinese in America' by Iris Chang (who wrote the Rape of Nanking, and killed herself after writing the Chinese in America). It's a pretty interesting read, about (DUH) the Chinese in America-- how they first came, their place in American society, later waves of immigration etc. So, interesting tidbit: when the Chinese first started marketing Chinatowns as tourist attractions, they played upon the then-sterotypical view of Chinatown as a hovel of Chinese gangsters, opium dens, secret underground societies etc. In reality, much of this was already cleaned up. So the tour guides hired people to enact gang fights, act as opium addicts etc, and also decorated basements to look like secret temples and opium dens. Just for the tourists.
hhm. so. potential tourism idea? we could have a "S'pore Heritage Museum". Like Tang Dynasty, but smaller. Hire actors to be coolies and samsui women, recreate an opium den (and charge the tourists to smoke) etc.
For free, tourists get to
1) carry loads balanced on bamboo poles
2) build an attap hut
3) learn how to play chatek
4) pound their own belachan
5) use an abacus
6) do the bamboo dance
For an extra fee, they can
1) smoke something from an opium pipe (give them some laughing gas? for yet more money, they can keep the pipe)
2) get their 8 characters read by a fortune teller
3) get a rickshaw (not trishaw) ride around the museum
The museum cafe will be like a pasar malaam. There shd also be wax figures of Raffles and Farquhar.
JOMO: YES!! I want to play warcraft!!! do u have it installed? and the frozen throne expansion pack? and patched to the latest version? then drop me an msn msg with ur (n Tommy's?) IP address and I'll see if I can hook us up.
Tonight I discovered injured butt-bliss. sitting on a tennis ball placed at a strategic position is better than 2 million OSIM massage chairs. better than chocolate. even better than durian gelato.
Am reading 'The Chinese in America' by Iris Chang (who wrote the Rape of Nanking, and killed herself after writing the Chinese in America). It's a pretty interesting read, about (DUH) the Chinese in America-- how they first came, their place in American society, later waves of immigration etc. So, interesting tidbit: when the Chinese first started marketing Chinatowns as tourist attractions, they played upon the then-sterotypical view of Chinatown as a hovel of Chinese gangsters, opium dens, secret underground societies etc. In reality, much of this was already cleaned up. So the tour guides hired people to enact gang fights, act as opium addicts etc, and also decorated basements to look like secret temples and opium dens. Just for the tourists.
hhm. so. potential tourism idea? we could have a "S'pore Heritage Museum". Like Tang Dynasty, but smaller. Hire actors to be coolies and samsui women, recreate an opium den (and charge the tourists to smoke) etc.
For free, tourists get to
1) carry loads balanced on bamboo poles
2) build an attap hut
3) learn how to play chatek
4) pound their own belachan
5) use an abacus
6) do the bamboo dance
For an extra fee, they can
1) smoke something from an opium pipe (give them some laughing gas? for yet more money, they can keep the pipe)
2) get their 8 characters read by a fortune teller
3) get a rickshaw (not trishaw) ride around the museum
The museum cafe will be like a pasar malaam. There shd also be wax figures of Raffles and Farquhar.
JOMO: YES!! I want to play warcraft!!! do u have it installed? and the frozen throne expansion pack? and patched to the latest version? then drop me an msn msg with ur (n Tommy's?) IP address and I'll see if I can hook us up.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Busy busy busy
AARGH! so busy in lab. am running 2 expts at once, and the lab is moving, and I had a coffee n doughnut this morning so my nerves are shot AND I'm having a sugar high.
am now trying to lower my breathing and heart rate so that I won't screw up my expts and lose my work. mebbe I should count sheep.
in 3 mins I have to load my gel, in 20mins I have to wash my cells and run them on the cytometer, in 80mins I have to blot the gel, and somehow in the meantime I have to find some lunch and eat it.
ok gotta go.
am now trying to lower my breathing and heart rate so that I won't screw up my expts and lose my work. mebbe I should count sheep.
in 3 mins I have to load my gel, in 20mins I have to wash my cells and run them on the cytometer, in 80mins I have to blot the gel, and somehow in the meantime I have to find some lunch and eat it.
ok gotta go.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Fountainhead
My Sony DVD RW drive (DRU-530A) has stopped working!!!! AARGH. dunno what happened. it was fine b4. i tried uninstalling and restarting but it still doesn't work. When u put in a CD or DVD it whirrs for a while then stops. The screen that used to pop up and ask u what to do with the CD doesn't pop up anymore. Windows explorer doesn't show any files on the drive (like i have an empty disk), but doesn't tell u that the drive is empty. Device manager sez the device is working properly. When I try to burn a DVD it sez 'The device is not ready'. I tried using the 'Force ASPI' program but that didn't work either. HHOOOOWWWW??? *howl*..... I am using WinXP, have an AMD 64bit processor. I want to die.....
on a side note. Have just read 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand. This book is evil. You have to fight every nerve in ur body and brain to stop reading it and go eat and take baths and whatever else normal ppl do. It really disturbed me too. All these things are churning ard in my head and I don't really wanna give away the whole plot. It's a book about power. Power over other people. and how to get it. Only I don't think everyone can be quite so easily manipulated? the book makes it sound so simple. I would like to think that people are not like that, or at least, that I'm not like that. But then I know that most times I just wanna be faceless within the crowd, and that the common opinion is useful because the best chinese restuarants usually have the most people eating inside. (This however, is not true of El Salvadorean restuarants in SF.)
I'm so glad I'm not a salesman. happy that I don't have to push products that people don't really want or need. that I don't have to cater to public opinion, not yet. when I push products, it's gonna be because they save lives. *sigh*...... how arrogant and moralistic is that? Such lofty aims when right now I still dunno if any of my expts are gonna work.
ok, fine. The Fountainhead is not actually a book about power. Ayn Rand used it to showcase her philosophy of the importance of the individual. but the part that most disturbed me was the power part.
The Dalai Lama is coming to Stanford in November. I wonder if he ever gets tired of life. It must be pretty irritating, needing to be reborn every couple decades. Especially when you're like, the most enlightened one we've got. does he think to himself: "Ok, this has GOT to be the last time. Surely I'll acheive enlightenment after THIS life."
i need sleep. I need to shower. I ME MY MINE. was thinking that this is a very self-centred blog. all about ME. but then, this is MY BLOG PAGE. so obviously it shd be about me, right? but is my universe so limited that all I can write about is myself? ugh. I think I'm just cranky because jomo has gone home to S'pore, my expts are once again NOT working, and I can't burn my DVDs.
on a side note. Have just read 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand. This book is evil. You have to fight every nerve in ur body and brain to stop reading it and go eat and take baths and whatever else normal ppl do. It really disturbed me too. All these things are churning ard in my head and I don't really wanna give away the whole plot. It's a book about power. Power over other people. and how to get it. Only I don't think everyone can be quite so easily manipulated? the book makes it sound so simple. I would like to think that people are not like that, or at least, that I'm not like that. But then I know that most times I just wanna be faceless within the crowd, and that the common opinion is useful because the best chinese restuarants usually have the most people eating inside. (This however, is not true of El Salvadorean restuarants in SF.)
I'm so glad I'm not a salesman. happy that I don't have to push products that people don't really want or need. that I don't have to cater to public opinion, not yet. when I push products, it's gonna be because they save lives. *sigh*...... how arrogant and moralistic is that? Such lofty aims when right now I still dunno if any of my expts are gonna work.
ok, fine. The Fountainhead is not actually a book about power. Ayn Rand used it to showcase her philosophy of the importance of the individual. but the part that most disturbed me was the power part.
The Dalai Lama is coming to Stanford in November. I wonder if he ever gets tired of life. It must be pretty irritating, needing to be reborn every couple decades. Especially when you're like, the most enlightened one we've got. does he think to himself: "Ok, this has GOT to be the last time. Surely I'll acheive enlightenment after THIS life."
i need sleep. I need to shower. I ME MY MINE. was thinking that this is a very self-centred blog. all about ME. but then, this is MY BLOG PAGE. so obviously it shd be about me, right? but is my universe so limited that all I can write about is myself? ugh. I think I'm just cranky because jomo has gone home to S'pore, my expts are once again NOT working, and I can't burn my DVDs.
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