Celebrity Death rant

So Heath Ledger died today. And Christopher Bowman and Brad Renfro died this year. So far it has been a pretty dismal year for famous people, either on the up or on the down. All three have allegedly died because of drug overdose. Two of them had young kids! I realize that this can be labeled a tragedy by some, but I think that these guys (assuming that they all died from overdoses) were just plain self-absorbed.



My opinion has changed since I was younger. I remember when River Phoenix died – I was so saddened, like I had grown UP with him. This was around 1997 and I was in a less physically stable then, moving around quite a bit even though I was finishing up college. I have always been drawn to these young actor types. I was really kind of down about it. “Why him?” I would ask, as if he was a friend or even someone I knew.



But time passes and perspectives change. Now I am in a really stable place, both physically and emotionally. I have an emotionally steadfast partner who could give less of a shit about what is going on in celebrityville (or any of the Joneses, for that matter). Thankfully some of this perspective has rubbed off on me and I realize it is sort of silly to obsess over celebrities, like their shit doesn’t stink. So now I think about these three adult men and how they didn’t take responsibility for their lives and instead took their lives with their own expensive habits. These guys had serious cash flow – could they not have hired world-class therapists to help them cope with all of their “pain”? Life is a bitch when you are rich and famous – I suspect in all reality it somewhat is as it isolates your friends and I am sure everyday you question whether you are a fraud or worthy and if you can maintain this ride forever and not die a has-been at aged 30. It is quite strange because if I knew a user who wasn’t famous who died of an overdose, there would be no parades or song and dance, just some sympathy for the family and an idle cry out for why they didn’t get help sooner.



And this is how I care to think of these three dead men. As selfish souls.

Grocery Shopping

I am always grocery shopping in Macau. I think that this confounds M to no end but he certainly doesn't complain about the end result. I am hopeful that someone here will begin to carry shortening because I went to Hong Kong this past weekend looking for it and citySuper was out of stock. Christ. Grocery shopping is an ordeal, it is not just going to one superstore to buy everything. Because I a cook on the healthy side it is a bit more complicated. Lower fat peanut butter is available in HK but not Macau, but I can find lower fat mayonnaise in Macau. Rolos are nowhere to be found in the Pearl River Delta period. I went to Park'n'Shop today (the closest semblance to a superstore) and forgot to pick up whole wheat flour. This means that I will have to go back there tomorrow (which I hate as Park'n'Shop is so friggin' crowded on Sundays) so that I can buy flour to make bread. I leave the house with an empty backpack and always come back with several bags in hand and the backpack filled to the brim. Today I stopped at 2 stores, 1 drugstore (that oddly sells very few drugs), a houseware store, and a fruit/vegetable store. Two hours with my slow ass walking. This is typical. I used to try to go with M but he grew so impatient with my browsing that I realized it is more relaxing to break my back with an overstuffed backpack than to deal with his shopping impatience. This should be refreshing in that he is truly a guy's guy, not fussy about food details or the end product so much. But sometimes I sure would like a ride...

Cleaning ladies

I work in a construction compound. It is the tidiest building I have ever worked in, except maybe for the other construction compound that I worked in a year ago. Although we are on a construction site there is seldom any dirt anywhere to be found. The floors are so clean you can eat off of them.

There are cleaning ladies (not to be wholly confused with tea ladies). They are sweet, Cantonese speaking. We acknowledge each other with friendly smiles but our exchanges end there. The cleaning ladies whose responsibility is to clean the toilet (the women’s anyways) and the adjacent pantry. I am in the toilet quite a bit throughout the course of the day because, well, I drink a lot of water and tea (green tea, my now replacement to teeth staining coffee). There is a window in the construction compound toilet that looks out into…dirt and muck that is soon to be a beautiful casino. Every time I go in the toilet after lunch I see the 2 cleaning ladies. Sometimes they drink hot tea overlooking the window. Today they were eating crackers.

But do they really need to eat in the toilet? I mean, seriously, the pantry is 10 feet away.

If I have a long visit in the toilet, I really cannot be thinking about these poor ladies having their tea and crackers and really concentrate at the task at hand – and certainly that has got to be uncomfortable for them.

Perhaps this is their domain, their office if you will. Their sanctuary in a bleak, dirty world. I can respect that.

But I would really like it more if they would have their afternoon tea in the pantry.

I have a love/hate relationship with coffee. I have been conditioned by Folger’s ads to have a Pavlovian response of, well, heightened alertness when I smell the stuff brewing. I would like to believe I am a coffee snob (only Peets or Coffee Bean when I was in coffee culture mecca LA) but the reality is if it is more coffee flavor than burned out water taste then I am all in. My consumption is hardly pathological – it is typically one cup in the morning with milk and Splenda. All part of my routine, the master plan of my day.

I visited the dentist in December. He was a new guy. From Macau. Chinese in the face but when a Portuguese accent. As is de rigeur with these biannual visits I was told to floss more and to lay off the coffee. I looked at my teeth in the mirror prior to going to the dentist that day. They were the most yellow that they have been. I would like to attribute it to the coffee (an easy scapegoat) but my consumption has remained consistent. I realize it is because of the water. I know that my teeth have gotten more yellow since moving to Asia and now was unbearable. Dentist salt washed my teeth and got out the stains – but I realized that it was time for a change.

So relatively cold turkey I gave up my coffee. And I have lived to tell about it. It is relative because I was vacationing in Laos and Vietnam and had the local coffee there (especially in Vietnam where coffee is mixed with condensed milk). Towards the end of the trip I was getting a bit sick and subsequently slept the entire next day after my arrival in Macau. I think this aided to get me off of my headache inducing caffeine addiction as I essentially started over with a clean, refreshed slate a day later.

What have I learned from this? That the nebulous claims of coffee being bad for you are not enough for me to kick the habit. Yet vanity, as a means or an end, IS enough of a motivator.

Blah. Enough navel gazing for now.

Sweater

I own this sweater. It is a Ralph Lauren cashmere gray cable knit turtleneck. I don’t think it could be any more conservative. It is a good sweater – I have owned it for probably about eight months and I can only wear it when the weather is being, well, colder than I would like (on an aside it is not that I don’t like the cold weather. When else can I wear my amazing coat collection? I just don’t like that it isn’t consistently cold. A week can go by and it will only be cold here in Macau for 3 of the days, and not consecutive ones). Anyway – back to the sweater. I like it. It doesn’t pill at the underarms. I can wear it several times and it not get smelly. I bought this sweater at my favorite designer dud store in Hong Kong who claim to have authentic pieces (it is a high end ‘fall-off-the-truck store). At any rate, this sweater does not have a tag anywhere on its underside. Not even a care tag – nothing. As a result- I have no idea which way is front on this sweater. Because I am small breasted (finally – this comes in handy) there are no telltale lumps which show which way I wore it the last time. Whenever I wear this sweater it makes me laugh as a physical testament that I have a boy’s body.

On Beauty

I just finished this book by Zadie Smith last night. I really started strong with it, very much liking it. I thought the ending was a bit blah. It is a very long book at nearly 400 pages. Most of the book centers around Howard, a white British man who is very much in the middle of a midlife crisis. Part of the book frustrated me when he has embarked on his second affair with a rival colleague's daughter. He is resigned that he has a future of divorce and chasing younger skirts ahead of him, as if this is his inevitable fate. I think that this mindset was really off the mark. I don't think people have affairs and then divorce and are resigned about their fates so early on. I think that there is a lot of denial about it, a lot of anger and 'how did I get here' - going down the spiral of self-hatred and all that. To be so resigned so early (prior to a separation even) seemed rather naive - as if this is what the author thought (she is my age so early 30's) and was channeling this to the protagonist. Overall it was a good book but it all wrapped up in the last twenty pages. With so much going on at then end, I was sad that it didn't have a more resolved ending.

F*ing Tea Lady

So I work in an office where we have a full time tea lady (as you can see, I am not in America anymore). The tea lady is maybe from China? Macau? I don't know as I do not communicate with her with anything that isn't sign language or friendly smiles or grunts. I noticed the other day that she gives water to one of my co-workers as he comes back to his desk (conveniently Confucian). I ask M if get gets water at his desk given by the tea lady. "Yeah," he responded rather nonchalantly.

I walk around the office; everyone gets water or tea from the tea lady except me (that I can see anyway). I feel like saying something to her - in my demand-equity-as-an-American sort of way - but then I think better of it. Try not to let this damn tea lady ruin my day.

Maybe she thinks a girl in the office is weird and can get her own tea. But it makes me feel inadequate somehow, like I should somehow convince her to get me some water. I have even thought of asking the original guy who I first saw get water from her say something to her.

But it is not worth it. Her constitution in unmalleable. I know my Americanism can come off as being boorish and evangelical in Asia, especially with my not-at-all corresponding Asian face that goes alone with the gusto.

At the moment I get my own tea. Begrudgingly.

Grandparents

I did not know my grandparents well.

This wasn’t because of a lack of desire. Perhaps I was a bit indifferent. My parents, as strange as it may sound, were not super interested in us having a close relationship with them, as they haven’t really been for any member of our family, for some reason.

So for a short period of time my dad’s mom and dad lived in Atlanta. It seemed ok. They got their own apartment not far from us. I was not involved in the politics of why they were even there. Much later it was discovered there was some falling out between my dad and his older brother. But this was not news, as my father was falling into and out of favor with all of his siblings.

I remember that we would visit them and sometimes they would visit us. Nobody in either party except my father could really drive so it was a lot of chauffeuring on his part. I remember their apartment being sparse. Maybe there was a bed? I am not even sure, though in my mind they slept on the floor with thick, faux mink Korean blankets.

My father was the spit and image of his father. My grandfather was unusually tall – perhaps even 5 foot 5 inches, which was even a shrunken version of what he must have been when he was younger. His hair line receded, but not into anything unattractive. He seemed like the more docile of the pair. I remember that his house clothes consisted of a white wife beater and long shorts. He had emphysema but still enjoyed smoking. He was not one to wear joy on his face, yet I do not remember he looking particularly sad either. I suppose he lived a hard life, living through the Korean War, having to relocate his family from and to Seoul again. Yet his face was a picture of pleasant resignation.

My grandmother had the spitfire personality that she passed along to my father. The spitfire part I learned from my parents later-- she was nothing but mellow to her granddaughters in her seventies. When I saw her in her place in Atlanta, she was maybe four foot nine. Her posture was horrendous and she walked with a cane but was hunched over, making her appear even smaller. God had made her breasts disproportionately large for her petite size, probably causing her back problems her whole life. There were lines on her face that were deeply etched grooves. I used to tell my mother that she had the face of a raisin. Her face wore every heartbreak and disappointment like a ring inside a tree stump.

Min and my Korean was not good, but we could say hello and bow and talk about how good the food was and how well we slept the night before. Usually my parents did most of the talking. If we were left alone with our grandparents there was a lot of idle smiling and looking at each other and nodding of our heads. But usually we would just sit on the floor and skewer fruit that my mother carefully selected and cut with toothpick swords and eat raisins and dried cuttlefish and just listen to my parents talk to each other and my dad’s parents in Korean. There was little acknowledgment of Min or I, but that was ok. We were used to that being around my parents and their friends.

The Cure

M and I went to HK on Monday night and saw the Cure. I am a fan of the Cure, but by no means a die-hard. I was disappointed to learn that I know even less songs that I thought I did. I also realized that, like most bands, The Cure essentially sing the same song over and over again. The nuance with The Cure is that song drones on for about 10 minutes before any vocals get chimed in. Speaking of vocals, Robert Smith is the only vocalist. There isn't even a microphone wired up to the other band members. Robert has seen better days of his svelte (but never quite heroin chic) figure. Luckily he wears black and it is slimming. He dresses like all of my alternative friends did in junior high but never grew out of it, I guess.

Robert doesn't work the crowd (a sleek contrast to will.i.am's "HOOONNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG KKOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG"). He could have been in Pittsburgh for all he cared. There was also a notable absence of any keyboard or keyboardist. I suppose the reverb on the guitars were on hyper over drive.

The audience was pleasantly benign and the over 40 crowd dancing wildly to songs that my old friend Pete Williams would deem to be completely undanceable.

Robert's voice was his salvation as he still sounds exactly like his [then] records.

I think M was nonplussed, just as I had predicted.

Stream of consciousness post

I am really tired. I am running myself ragged during the week to get it all done and crashing on the weekend. I feel my immune system is coming to a screeching halt.
Tomorrow I am in Hong Kong for part of the day. I loathe intraday travel as it is such a time suck. Immigration is a chore, my passport is busting at the seams. I just wish Macau and Hong Kong were twin cities. I was up at 6 this morning to get my morning run in. I am running most mornings and am really tired of my music but am too lazy to do anything about it. I miss mellow music. I am either listening to hard core running music but never the soft chill out music. It is a noticeable void. I am off to bed and fighting a runny nose. My head, my feet, and my nose are all running today….

Grocery shopping

At the insistence of minjenah I am updating my blog to a topic that is slightly more... uplifting.

I love to grocery shop. I didn't so much in the US (except Trader Joes! I was totally tingly just walking through my old Manhattan Beach store in December!). But I also used to go thrift store shopping in the States which is virtually non-existent in the Pearl River Delta [this must be an Asian thing. My mom used to think it was so bizarre that I bought and wore used clothes! I guess if you grew up in war torn Korea where you were lucky to have your older brother's leftover threadbare clothes on your back it would be a bit ironic). So going grocery shopping is a bit of the hunt of the treasure that thrift store shopping was.

Matt thinks that this propensity of mine to grocery shop continually is a bit eccentric. But you really don't know what you will find here, particularly in Macau. I am a lifetime Weight Watcher (which is generally boring but I have seemed to maintain some sort of gusto towards it these days) and it is difficult to find some items - like low fat brownie mix (which I get at Gateway in Sheung Wan HK) or steel cut oatmeal (which Matt just found at Oliver's in Central HK). Strangely, there are other things that I think are niche that are readily available here - like bulgur or unprocessed wheat bran. This I attribute to the Portuguese influence. A couple of months back all of Macau was out of salsa - so Matt and I made an emergency run to HK and stocked up. Now whenever we see salsa (anywhere in the world - most recently Singapore and Melbourne) we buy it. It is uncertain times that we live in and salsa is a staple for our equilibrium...

A typical week involves 4 grocery stores - Park 'n' Shop for 98% fat free soup and Fifty 50 oatmeal (and generally horrendous lines), the fruit market 4 doors down, the grocery store by McDonald's that has proper Australian milk, dill pickles, and a (comparatively) impressive Mexican food section, and the French market down the road for day-of needs like broccoli and garbanzo beans. Once a month I will go to Hong Kong to get whole wheat flour and canned pumpkiin.

My piece de resistance this past week was Hormel Turkey Pepperoni at the market near McDonald's for a mere $42 MOP ($5 USD). At CitySuper in Hong Kong, this easily goes for $75 HKD (roughly $10USD).

I would easily win some sort of Western food version of The Price Is Right here in Macau...

Rant about the shooting f*er

Ok - so it is hard not to be fascinated by this psychopath VT student because he was like me - a Korean American who grew up in the South. Over the Slingbox I am watching local Baltimore news trying to deconstruct the killer - what was going through his mind, etc. A dialogue that was happening between two rather white bread (bred) newscasters. I think that there is something that is unique about being an immigrant that you just cannot explain to someone who hasn't LIVED it - it is a visceral experience that I know Matt will never fully comprehend. I am not saying that Cho wasn't unstable - as he certainly unquestionably was - but let us be real - he exhibited warning signs long before he started stalking girls on the VT campus. Some people suggest abuse in his childhood. But I think people don't realize that the abuse was probably far more psychological than physical. Why didn't his parents do anything when he was growing up? I can tell you that my parents never cared whether I had friends or assimilated - that wasn't their priority. I am sure his were the same. His parents were (the prototypical) dry cleaners. I am sure that there was some guilt with the sacrifices they made for him to succeed in America (generally an Asian immigrant mentality). His sister had recently graduated from Princeton - I cannot imagine that there wasn't some 'why didn't you get into Yale' crap that was happening behind closed doors.

Of course, all of this is projected conjecture, but I do think that the Korean culture could do a better job acknowledging mental illness so that it can be diagnosed and treated. I get so over the 'showing a good face' all the time crap that I have a well-calibrated bullshit meter. I cannot stand people who only live inauthentically just to look good.

Hypochondriac Part 2

In Malaysia Matt and I were eaten alive by sandflies (these gory photos show the evidence). Up until yesterday I was itching like mad, even drawing blood through my khakis on Saturday (eww). These exotic Southeast Asian bugs tend to leave me bruised for some reason. I feel fine even though I look like I was knocked out by a shadowboxer. At dinner on last Thursday, the discussion migrated to flesh eating diseases, which I was certain I was then plagued with (I have since crawled down from that fatalistic ledge).

Sandflies are evil because you can't see them biting you at 2 inch intervals. I even feel like I am Pig Pen - mosquitoes tend to swarm me because I have other bug bites, I think. Or I am just paranoid (and mosquitos liking me would certainly not be news).

Hypochondriac Part 1

I have been doing a lot of websurfing recently - these days it is about various things that ail me. I am not 100% obsessive compulsive but I think being sick brings out this side of me more. I had a kidney infection 3 years ago that required a weeklong visit to the hospital and now I think everything is afflicting me. I dropped an ice skate on my toe almost six weeks ago (causing what is appropriately named toe trauma) and I am debating going to the doctor so they can drain blood from under my nail (it is still green and the greenness does not seem to be growing out). I cleverly disguise my ailment with bright red polish that never leaves my nails except for my bi-weekly pedicures. Some nutty websites actually suggest a DIY solution of taking a drill bit and a steady hand and DRILLING A HOLE IN YOUR TOENAIL to drain the blood yourself. Oddly, Matt suggested the identical solution independent of my exhausting internet research. Are these people mad? I cannot be trusted with putting a car in reverse, so how could I be trusted with putting a drill in my nailbed?

My pedicurist also lamented that my toenail will likely fall off. This is distressing to me, as I learned from my x-rays when I first experienced the trauma just how crooked my feet are. Their saving grace is well groomed nails (cut square at my insistence [I swear the default toe nail style here is rounded and long and red, sort of dragonlady toes based on what I see on the street]). If I am without a toenail, I would (a) be grossed out and (b) be without the my neutralizing trait that counteracts the effects of my bunion driven crookedness.

Looking on the bright side (which I seldom do in medical matters) it is at least not broken.

Now I need to find some wood to knock on and not knock into.

Engagement

Well, I have been on Matt about us getting engaged for a while now. Nothing like the steady, deliberate pressure from the likes of me. We went to Malaysia this past weekend - to Kota Kinabalu. I actually had a bit of a commitment in Taiwan the day before so I was a bit out of sorts and focus on my usual pressuring ways (indeed one of my less endearing qualities). We had been at the Shangri-La for 22 hours, the sun was setting and we took cute couple pictures in the golden glow of the twilight. Typical Matt arm length face shots where my moon-face is wholly magnified. After some of this Matt suggests we walk to the water to watch the cloudless sunset, which was stunning in a Key West caliber way, surprisingly. I had a quest to sort out my Sony camera's settings and right the sun in its memory. Matt wanted me to sit on a bench but I was committed to the camera. Matt then suggested we head back to the terrace of our room (we were on the first level so we could walk to the water). He asked me to sit down but I was restless and hungry, so I got a snack to eat on the terrace (a Golden Grahams cereal bar imported from Portugal). He told me he loved me and he wanted to be with me and got down on one knee (not a trivial feat as he is down one foot at the moment) and asked me to marry him! I hesitated for a second because I didn't see it coming (and I always thought I would see it coming) and asked if he was kidding. I then said yes and we hugged and kissed and I put my ring on my finger and were excited in the now darkness.

We then dined on a seafood grilled dinner along the water. I let Matt eat most of the steak and I wrestled away the larger prawn. I insisted that we have 2 glasses of champagne at dinner and was quickly tipsy thereafter. We then walked over to the surprisingly cool bar of the hotel, where I had a riveting cranberry juice and a fun Canadian cover band sang our favorite Black Eyed Peas tunes.

This was April 5. I called my sister and parents upon my return to Macau. Minjenah was appropriately excited and Mom was too in her typical conversationally-absent demeanor. My mom suggested that she just let Dad know because he was on the can. She certainly knew how to let the wind out of my sails! But I wouldn't let her completely deflate me. Not during MY engagement.

Juicy

I was living in LA when the whole Juicy Couture thing hit its hayday. Leave it to America (and Los Angeles) to attempt to add style to what is the quintessentially amorphous sweatsuit. I suppose that during Flo Jo's days (may she and her bling nails rest in peace) it was the running suit that women everywhere would wear on their weekly grocery errands. But thanks to that no-name wife of John Taylor (God I love Duran Duran) - we had an update - a low rise, flared, psuedo velour sweatpants in a variety of fashion forward colors. Juicy was outrageously expensive to me (during my Nordstrom shopping days) and I found the gold lamme "Juicy Couture" in a baroque font to be, well, dangerous to my more Ann Taylor / Banana Republic days.

So it never struck me how entirely too casual these togs were until I arrived in Hong Kong in mid 2003. Juicy was no where to be found among the skinny jean Converse high top sea of humanity that greeted me in Asia. So over time I adopted - not too the style of my fellow HK people, but to be a little less LA casual (in my myriad of monkey faced T-shirts) when I was not working.

Earlier this week I was in Hong Kong riding an escalator at a train station when I was behind a thirtysomething Asian lady who was wearing a full-on purple Juicy outfit. And at that very moment, I understood. It is what my sister has succintly deemed as AOA - Absence of Ass. This trait plagues many of us Asians. Fortunately low rise jeans seem to help this issue for me, but there needs to be some form to the fabric for this cut to work. The Juicy style has no formed it and therefore does a a disservice to the ass challenged.

Practically speaking I am glad that this style never hit in Hong Kong. Thank goodness for prevalent mirrors!

Cocktail Bun

When I used to live in the States (I say this as if this was a fleeting time instead of 27 years of my life), I used to like going to Asian bakeries with my mom. I reveled in how not sweet the confections were. Mom would find these tasty coffee rolls with cream that tasted like fresh churned butter swirled throughout. She also got these great peanut flavored topped golden rolls which I am certain had no ingredients vaguely resembling an actual peanut.

Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that these bakeries were a dime a dozen here in Asia . The cocktail buns (as they are called, and they do resemble larger versions of the pigs in a blanket served at cocktail parties) are served in small produce bags. And they do serve a large version of the pig in a blanket – except the hot dog has criss crossed mayonnaise on top. The Asian version of hot crossed buns (and a testament to the absolute overuse of mayonnaise here, as it is also prominently featured in… fruit salad!). I often wondered the cases of salmonella poisoning not reported from these buns made in the morning and bought and consumed at tea time.

Wieners are not the only savory filling (savory seems to outnumber sweet here, although there is a tasty coconut cream one I have had that has the sweetness of something Hostess like). Imagine Chicken. Or Pork Floss.

I was often awestruck how my colleagues at my previous job could eat these at their desk for breakfast. How that GI raising, bleached white bread bomb could somehow be satisfying with its measly half-ounce of protein. There I would be, eating my Fiber One out of a Dixie cup, hoping for a filling fibrous meal that left me hungry at 10:30. I never saw these bun eating freaks ever snack before lunch.

Maybe there is something in them that keeps you full. The antithesis of MSG perhaps. I should give one a try some morning. Maybe not the hot dog one.

Reflections on Singapore

We have just returned from Singapore. It was idyllic in that frenetic way that a city break can be.

Singapore has a reputation for being regimented. I thought it was less so than in Japan. People talked on the cell phones on the train in Signapore. Speaking of trains, they do not run really efficiently. They run every 10 minutes or so in the shoulder periods. Things are...slower than in Hong Kong. People even walk slower. I even passed people!

It is really a beautiful city in a way that a master planned city should be beautiful. Trees line the streets and the horticulture is lush as you leave the airport (not unlike Orlando). There are trees and parks and lovely spaces that are the interstitials between the lovely colonial buildings (that they make an effort to uplight the windows in at night - quite stunning) and the nouveau architecture that punctuates the rather aberrant skyline.

The sky is clean and crisp and there is no evidence of factory dredge anywhere. It is a metropolitan utopia.

It is an interesting place because they (the mysterious and ubiquitous they) have sanitized their reputuation while still maintaining the history. The opposite of Hong Kong really - whereas HK has sanitized the architecture but allowed its citizens some autonomy, Singapore allows their people little autonomy but has a mind to juxtapose the old and new aesthetic (and keep them both clean).

The government seems to prescribe to a Scared Straight philosophy. There was a constant loop on the train of various train bombings around the world and how you! A private citizen! Could help stop these crimes. Blood and gore - the imagery spared no details of these previous rail tragedies.

And the cigarettes! I do not even smoke but I was struck by the packaging. The boxes have these irremovable images of gangrene. Dead fetuses. Men who have holes for where their cheeks should be. Every possible visually abhorrent ramification of smoking permanently affixed to the boxes.

The images around Singapore (at least on the trains and the fags) are not for the faint of heart.

I would live there in a heartbeat.

Calamityville

It is official. Matt's foot is broken. The fifth metatarsil to be exact on his right (driving) foot. I have learned that bones are brittle. Matt has played hockey forever and has not broken a bone during play. This is especially ironic because I thought I had broken my toe after I dropped an ice skate squarely on the center of my big right toe (bloody right feet). So I went to the doctor last Wednesday and got an X-ray on Thursday. Matt had his accident on Sunday, which resulted in a visit to the ER. He went to two doctors on Monday, the second doctor being at the clinic where they gave me my initial referral for the X-ray. So Matt went in to get a referral to a HK orthopaedic specialist (to the Cantopop stars of Hong Kong apparently) and I went in to review the X-ray from a week before. My toe was indeed not broken! My feet are really screwed up looking though and crooked.

In 7 days we had gone to 6 medical service centers between us!

Maybe it is bad luck now for Rabbits. Or we are just clumsy...

Needless to say he has been minimally on his feet. It is a good thing he only goes to the toilet once during the workday.

Where you from ?

It is funny being Asian sometimes (well actually, it is funny all the time). I didn’t grow up in a place like Los Angeles or Chicago where there were lots of other Asians. The city of Atlanta was my home, and also happens to be home to quite a lot of (non-Asian) racial history. Needless to say, race is a pretty hot topic there, whether it is discussed overtly (and it seldom was when I was there) or in the privacy of one’s surburban sprawled home that is far from the city center.

People would often ask me where I was from growing up. I had quite a sarcastic attitude about me, far before I realized that it was actually a bit rude to be so aloof. I would often answer Dayton, Ohio, which is where I was born.

“No, where are you Fruh-uhm?” they would implore.

Of course I knew what they were asking. Where were my parents from. Clearly no one could conceive that I would be Midwestern.

Sometimes people were more direct.

“Are you Chinese or Japanese?”

Well, at least this wasn’t a question about which of the lower 48 states I was from.

Sometimes I would say I was Korean. That is, when I was in the mood to be engaged in idle, meaningless conversation.

I am not saying that my culture is meaningless. Often times people had not even heard of Korea (bear in mind that American troops fought in Korea in the 1950’s). So finally when I got around to where I was from, it was such a letdown to be from a place that was so obscure.

If the inquiring party HAD heard of Korea, there would often be a follow up of an asinine comment.

“Do you know the Parks? They live in South Georgia.”
“I just love that kim chee. Oooh, it’s so spicy.”

There is always that reference to kim chee.

I know people are trying to be nice and conversational, but it was always a frustrating conversation because being Korean just was never accepted at face value. And sometimes I just wanted to be accepted at that superficial face value.