I have the best parents in the world, they do anything and everything they can to provide for me and my sister. They are the best parents in the world...however, we disagree a lot. My mother and I basically disagree on everything. I told her that I am taking the 7:30pm bus back to Boston the weekend of Chinese New Years and she flipped the shit. Well, maybe not flipped the shit but we disagreed.
Yes, they do still treat me like a 13 year old telling me staying out late is dangerous. If 11pm arrives and I am not home, I will get phone calls every 15 minutes on the dot until the front door opens. I am used to the freedom that I get when I am at school going out whenever I want if its going out out or just to the store to get a drink.
She was lecturing me that it is dangerous to be going back that late, and we don't communicate really well due to the language barrier. My words sometimes can be mixed up in Chinese and be really hurtful. I have decided that I cannot live at home once I graduate because I want to save the relationship between me and my mother. Sounds like a marriage and yes it is that dramatic. We disagree too much and I know it is hurtful when I say "I don't want to live at home" in Chinese but what I mean is "I can't live at home because we would argue." Maybe it is the Pisces in me and the Capricorn in her. I just want to enjoy my freedom, I would love to live at home for a bit but I just can't take the nagging about my baggy sweatpants or coming home late. Yes, she is right in regards of worrying about my safety but when does it end?
She is a great mother, that's what mothers do but I just want her to understand that it makes me feel bad when shes staying up or she's worrying about me. It hurts me more that tonight she went to bed mad and I did not do much to diffuse the situation.
Through it all, she's still my best friends but if she found out some of the things that I did would kill her. She raised me well and I want her to know but like my cousin says "girl, i can't live with you."
As far as my dad goes, we've been getting along fine ever since I went away for school. He left China when I was little and I did not start living with him until I was 7 when I moved to the States. After 13 years, we did not get over that 7 years absence. I always blamed him for it and not until recently, I realized that he did what he did because it was for the betterment of me. I never got a chance to say "thank you." I had never given my dad a hug in my life and I hope that comes soon because he deserves it. However, he does not understand as well...he has this big dream where an extension will be built in our backyard. My mother and him would retire and live in that part of the house while the house itself will be past on to me and my sister. It is a great plan but its not what I want.
Ultimately, I just want to make my parents proud and make them happy. They have given their life to me at age 26 and that's a little more than 5 years til I am 26. I want to give everything that I have back to them as soon as I am able to. I am fed up with watching them work 6 days a week and struggle the way they have to. But I have to live my own life and live out my dreams, and they have to understand that.
Until that day comes...
p.s. they are still the best parents in the world and I want them to know that.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Sal's Sports is next...
Sal Marchiano retired from his sports anchoring job on Channel 11's 10 o'clock news last week. I am sad because Sal was my favorite sports anchor and for a period of time, I wanted to be like him. He gave 40 years to the business and ever since I was in elementary school I would stay up to 11 just so I can watch and listen to him speak. After listening to his calm and soothing voice talking about the Giants, Knicks, Mets, Yankees and Rangers, I would be able to go to sleep.
I am glad that I got a chance to watch one of the segments when I came home this break but I didn't know that it will be the last time that I would see him on air. I caught one of his many famous phrases "toodle-ooo ta ta and see ya" and knowing that I would be able to sleep well tonight.
Enjoy your retirement Sal, nightime Sports broadcasting will never be the same in NY without you.
Sal's Sports is next if you keep it where it is.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
I HAVE BEEF WITH...
school and how everyone is in it to not gain an education but to gain a grade that gives you anything BUT an education
vegetarians and Christians, please don't judge me while I don't judge you
lung cancer for taking away my grandfather
rappers who are killing the essence of hip-hop
Jonas Brothers and Miley Cryus, please go away
Republicans for polarizing society
Capitalism for creating competition for necessities
my parents for letting me disrespect them as a teenager
GENTRIFICATION
the FOX NEWS CHANNEL and the creation of the most hated woman in America, Michelle Malkin
the war in Iraq
Boston for selling their food mad expensive
time because your ass don't wait for nobody
love because I can't figure you out yet
people who charge 5 dollars for their party
WHITE PEOPLE who run the world
Asians who don't give enough of a FUCK to stand up
people who preach "get involve" but do it for the wrong reasons
the word "leader" and how it is used loosely
my debt
APPLE because their computers are mad expensive and Lord knows I want them
public schools for not teaching kids about their own culture but rather everyone else other than their own
"the master narrative"
how religion was spread globally
my sister for acting just like me when I was her age
garment factories who treat their workers like shit
the after-school programs who take those workers money because they promise to tutor their kids when they really don't
pro-athletes who don't deserve all that money
ME for writing this during the time of giving.
vegetarians and Christians, please don't judge me while I don't judge you
lung cancer for taking away my grandfather
rappers who are killing the essence of hip-hop
Jonas Brothers and Miley Cryus, please go away
Republicans for polarizing society
Capitalism for creating competition for necessities
my parents for letting me disrespect them as a teenager
GENTRIFICATION
the FOX NEWS CHANNEL and the creation of the most hated woman in America, Michelle Malkin
the war in Iraq
Boston for selling their food mad expensive
time because your ass don't wait for nobody
love because I can't figure you out yet
people who charge 5 dollars for their party
WHITE PEOPLE who run the world
Asians who don't give enough of a FUCK to stand up
people who preach "get involve" but do it for the wrong reasons
the word "leader" and how it is used loosely
my debt
APPLE because their computers are mad expensive and Lord knows I want them
public schools for not teaching kids about their own culture but rather everyone else other than their own
"the master narrative"
how religion was spread globally
my sister for acting just like me when I was her age
garment factories who treat their workers like shit
the after-school programs who take those workers money because they promise to tutor their kids when they really don't
pro-athletes who don't deserve all that money
ME for writing this during the time of giving.
you taste like cigaretts...
I caught the writing bug and just wanted to write...
about Chinatown. Other than Brooklyn, Chinatown has been in a way a second home for me. My parents have always worked there, I've worked there, my friends still work there...hell I still work there. Something just ain't right this time around. I see Chinatown changing, and I know it has been for the past 10 years but this time around...something is not sitting with me well. At night when I walk around Chinatown, I see more and more white people on the streets. They jogging, walking their dogs, on dates, in the stores buying food...
WHEN DO YOU EVER SEE SOMEONE JOG IN CHINATOWN AT NIGHT?!
Even though I joke about it with my friends, I feel sad and hurt at the same time because I know gentrification is happening. It is SUCH a dirty word. One may say that Chinatown is changing for the better but who is moving out? who is moving out the affordable housing and rent control units? Who is being threatened at night to get out so the landlord can make more money?
Hopeless is a way to describe what I feel like at times when I walk down Grant Street. I see shops and restaurants closing, buildings gutted it out for one purpose and less and less elderly walking on the streets in their neighborhood because who knows where they were banish to?
The saying is right..."you see more problems in your neighbor's backyard." All this time, I've been trying to raise awareness in the wrong doings in Boston's Chinatown and forgot about my own. It is also sad to see that we have so many youths in Chinatown yet no know seem to care because it's not an issue in their world of being "fresh" or that someone is trying their hardest to make it out of New York like I did.
Chinatown is dying...in front of our eyes and no one seems to care
about Chinatown. Other than Brooklyn, Chinatown has been in a way a second home for me. My parents have always worked there, I've worked there, my friends still work there...hell I still work there. Something just ain't right this time around. I see Chinatown changing, and I know it has been for the past 10 years but this time around...something is not sitting with me well. At night when I walk around Chinatown, I see more and more white people on the streets. They jogging, walking their dogs, on dates, in the stores buying food...
WHEN DO YOU EVER SEE SOMEONE JOG IN CHINATOWN AT NIGHT?!
Even though I joke about it with my friends, I feel sad and hurt at the same time because I know gentrification is happening. It is SUCH a dirty word. One may say that Chinatown is changing for the better but who is moving out? who is moving out the affordable housing and rent control units? Who is being threatened at night to get out so the landlord can make more money?
Hopeless is a way to describe what I feel like at times when I walk down Grant Street. I see shops and restaurants closing, buildings gutted it out for one purpose and less and less elderly walking on the streets in their neighborhood because who knows where they were banish to?
The saying is right..."you see more problems in your neighbor's backyard." All this time, I've been trying to raise awareness in the wrong doings in Boston's Chinatown and forgot about my own. It is also sad to see that we have so many youths in Chinatown yet no know seem to care because it's not an issue in their world of being "fresh" or that someone is trying their hardest to make it out of New York like I did.
Chinatown is dying...in front of our eyes and no one seems to care
NAAScon Day 2&3
yeah...
So it's been more than two months since my last post about NAAScon. I just got caught up with school, life and everything in between.
Atlanta was just dope. I've met some cool people who share the same interest, fire and desire about Asian America. They were my kind of people who I can chill with and as them activist say, "fight along side in this revolution." Big shouts to my cousin, TOBY WU who was one of the coordinators. He did an amazing job igniting the spark which our generation of Asian American youths should have, because everything is "not okay" as my Louie would say.
To summarize everything, the workshops for NAAScon was very different as oppose to workshops I've gone before in conferences I will not name. I felt the workshops do mean something from Asian Americans in media, to gentrification, to the 39 Confederate soldiers who fought in the Civil War. Where is our history, how can we obtain these information? It is so vital for us to know about these things yet no one seem to give two shits about it. I am glad I had the opportunity to share my time with people who cared.
Big ups to Kevin Kao who drove us around Atlanta, my ODU peoples who were "hella" cool as them West Coast people would say, of course the organizations of NAAScon.
Goodnight Altanta, I will be back someday...thanks of the hospitality.
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