Since this is series J, today's topic will be regarding Jerry, and all about. Let's get started:
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So this post is gonna sound super rambly, because it is. Lots of things in my mind, lots of things to talk about.
So I dragged my housemate to the premiere of GODZILLA: KING OF MONSTERS, because heck, I was super excited about the movie. My goodness, was the movie great. Well, the story sucks, but it doesn't matter. Watching Godzilla for the story is like watching Pacific Rim for the story; It's kind of there just to give the universe a reason for x to fight y. Except this time, people really got "offended" by the story of Godzilla, because the events and situations are so contrived that if it was a proper drama, you won't stop rolling your eyes; but personally, I know that all of these have a reason, so we can have the monsters duke it out in different areas of the world. The science doesn't make sense, the super elite US Army doesn't make much sense either considering that they hit 0% of the shots they fired, but hell, those doesn't matter, what matters is that we get to see a three headed dragon fire it's lightning breath at Godzilla, and it was gloooorioussssssssssssss.
After the movie, my housemate wasn't too thrilled about it. He said: "yeah the fights is cool and all, but the story doesn't make sense." You see, this line confuses me, because this is the same guy who enjoyed the hell out of John Wick and Pacific Rim (and maybe Fast and Furious, I dunno), so to me, for him to say that line just feels like I don't know him anymore. Heck, there was this one scene (not really a spoiler, cause it's in the trailer and is used in promotional materials) where King Ghidorah (the three headed lightning breathing dragon) shot lightning out of its wings. That scene was just OAGGHHHHHHHH, but my roommate went like "oh yeah I guess its cool, but I think its too edgy". From that point on, I think he already went into the movie wanting to hate it, so I guess I stopped talking to him about the movie and just went on with our night.
Speaking about roommates, I feel like we're (slowly) having a disconnect. During my free time, I play board games or table top role playing games with people, and these people are usually like late 20s, 30+ years old folks, heck, or even family people with kids. Most of the time, I am the only university (or fresh graduate) around the table. There's only one other dude who is still studying in uni, but he's older than me, and I think he pursued a diploma in his home town of somewhere-else-in-Canada before deciding he wanted a degree and came to MUN. So basically, the people I hang out with are usually geeks that have been working for awhile (from the odd jobs to the professional programmers and video editors etc.). My roommates still hangs out with students, or more specifically, dudes who drinks and parties, y'kno, the kool kidz. With this, I feel like my relationship with the rest of the house is... widening... I feel like my eccentricities is no longer welcomed around them, and I'm not close enough with the boardgame/TTRPG group to... uhhh... for lack of a better word, act out?
I guess they are also slowly getting fed up with me. One of the things that I introduced to the house was recycling. I brought recycling bags and all those things and I hope to start a habit of recycling. I mean, they do now... but not properly. Somethings cannot be recycled (like greased up cardboard), but they put it in anyway (pizza boxes are the biggest culprit). I tried to tell them but they just get annoyed by it. The other thing that they don't do is that they don't separate. The same bag is filled with aluminium cans, plastic stuff, and paper stuff. Sometimes I use up my free time and sit down in front of the bins and recycle. They just couldn't be arsed. One of the arguments was that "I introduced recycling when the house doesn't give a shit, so what do you expect?". The other argument is one of those "oh so you think you're better than me just cause you recycle?" and I believe I said this in the other blog post, but I fucking hate it when someone says "you're not saving any turtles with this". Heck, even the line "save the turtles" pisses me off because so far, everyone I know that uses that line use it sarcastically, as though as it is a futile effort of sorts.
The other joke I hate is that every time we see an Asian girl now, they would just point at them and say "hey you should date her, then your mom will be happy". It started out as a haha joke, but it slowly is getting to me. Heck, the same fella, when my ex updated her relationship status, literally texted me going "hey Jerry, it seems like she has a type eh?". We weren't even in the same goddamn city at the time, and you texted me that out of the blue just to tell me that? Perhaps he was trying to strike up some conversation and that was his opening line, but I didn't take it that way. I ignored that text and basically we didn't text until after a few weeks, where he had a legitimate question. I think he got my message.
Speaking about that, there was this one day where I pretty much have this panic attack of sorts. It was like 1am or 2am that time and I couldn't sleep, but was kinda just angry and sad and sort of crying. Called my parents, because that's what one would usually do at the time yeah? Yeah probably never doing it again. I told them about my woes, and the thing I got back was "have you tried doing z", in which I said I did, because z is pretty much their default solution to almost everything even since before I left for Canada. Then they said, "well, try z again, but harder". And I just went ???
At the time my voice was pretty much breaking and its super obvious I'm crying of sorts. I told them that if it did work this call wouldn't be happening. I can tell from the call that my dad also picked up on my sorrow, but he just didn't know how to respond (not surprised about that, I was raised by him anyway, so I'm kinda shit and responding to situations like this too, but I'm slowly learning I guess). His other advice was to just ignore it, basically "fake it till you make it"; internalize that shit. Thing is, I've been internalizing everything since the dawn of time, since that's pretty much what the males in our culture do, but I eventually am gonna hit a cap. Well, the cap was hit.
And when my mom chimed in, oh my goodness. One of the thing that I always say that my mom's style and my style is completely different (and I don't mean fashion). I think the final seal to my hypothesis was our euro-trip, that was truly a clash of styles. Anyway, so here I am, calling in the middle of the night, sobbing occasionally (some habits die hard), and my mom basically gave the same advice as my dad, but her tone was different. Her tone was more... smug and condescending... At one point she even said "Why are you sensitive?" in that tone. Like I get it, that's how she is, and that's how she would also usually answer when we're joking around or arguing (there seem to be fine line between these two), but at the moment I was literally sobbing my eyes out during witching hour, while literally pouring my heart out (stuttering and all), and some of the things I poured out was also about my parents, but while my dad pretty spoke his mind (albeit somewhat robotic, but I understood), my mom just went full aggro (and I don't mean it in the angry way, but just like... if as though she's playing facehunter). Heck, when I realised that the conversation ain't going anywhere but in fact it's making me more sad, I just said my goodbyes and told them ok I want to sleep now, and my mom signed off by saying this line: Well, I guess you'll be calling us more often now~ in that smug tone.
Like I get it, they're my parents, and I'm my mother's son. But despite them being my parents, sometimes I don't like the approach my mom takes (and my mom ain't very happy about it). I understand she means well, but that doesn't mean I have to take it even if I don't like it. Odds are is that I'll probably not talk about it even when they want to.
So at work, although everyone interacts with each other (cause well, we're colleagues), there is a clear divide between the Chinese speakers and the English speakers when it comes to like... casual conversations at the work place of sorts. One of them noticed that I seemed to be able to gel with the Canadians pretty okay, while also being able to mix with the Chinese speaking group, and so she asked me basically, what gives?
So, the funny thing about this is that there used to be two guys (me included) who speaks Chinese, the other one being our former supervisor, lets call him G. G left for Ottawa very recently and we had a farewell lunch and it was super sad and all. So right now, I'm the only Chinese speaking dude while the rest are dudettes, and the dudettes love playing matchmaking. So basically, the conversation basically boils down to more attempts of matchmaking (with me and the other Korean guy as guinea pigs) (Korean guy is from Korea and can speak Korean and English, but not Chinese, so he's kind of in-between when it comes to social group in the work place, although when it comes to culture norms, he definitely feels much more comfy with us, but when we all starts speaking Chinese, then well he goes to the English speaking group. Can't blame him for that).
Anyway, we conversate. And then there's always the thought among the Chinese community, and that is that when you can gel with Westerners, it means you have surrendered your Asian-ness in favour of Westerners (and in this case, Canadians). I understand why they think like this though, because at least when in university, it's very common to see certain Asians stripped off their original identity in favour of a Western one. This happens to Westerners too, and it comes in the shape of "going backpacking in India or South East Asia or Africa and basically turn into a hippie of sorts", you know, the "man the Indians totally get it, with the chakra and karma maannn". Heck, my downstairs neighbour that's from China is one of those kind. He constantly talks shits about Chinese people but "it's okay, because I'm Chinese too", and constantly goes "I only date white girls, Asian girls don't look pretty to me" >:P bleh bleh bleh (one of my friend knows him from badminton club. He said he's extremely good in badminton, like one of the best players in St John's right now, but everything else about him sucks; so every time he talks shit about him, he always ends it with "but the problem is, he's so damn good in badminton").
She asked (in Chinese, this is important, because it works sort of like a litmus test) on my interest in Asian people. I feel like most of the Asians that went abroad, either stayed conservative, or they completely change their identity of sort, or at least they act as though as they have surrendered their Asian-ness. Although I do notice one thing: that lots of these folks are usually the token East Asian immigrant in the group full of white people. They always tell jokes about them being Asians while not behaving like one around them. I know this because I've seen friends who did this and basically came to us crying about it, and how it sucks, that one have to strip off their identity in order to be accepted by the locals here. The general reasoning I guess is also "If I want to be in a group full of people the same nationality as me, why did I study abroad then?". While on the other hand, the people that stayed true to their cultural identity, tends to stick together in this foreign place. They found their intrinsic comfort zone is an area outside their physical comfort zone, and they are very wary of people like them traversing outside that zone, like a social vagabond. And there's uh.... what I would call "the inbetweeners" (totally original, I know). In-between is not exactly a good term for it, but its the best I can think of right now. These "inbetweeners" (which I consider myself to be in) are pretty much kind of exiled from both of these major groups. I think the issue with these major groups is that they have a "you're either with us or you're in the other group" kind of thing. If you're not white, you're black, if you're not black, you're white ;they didn't consider that if they're not white they could be.... green! or blue! or whatevs. So basically if you don't conform, you get kicked out, thinking that the other group would accept you; and this goes for the other group.
(Authors note: Group in this context is not a physical group, but the concept of one. I know my mom will eventually read this, so I have to doubly point it out, that most of the things I've been talking about are concepts, and not an actual literal physical thing)
This happens a lot in our Malaysian Society. Every semester, there's always that one guy who kinda gets "exiled" from the Society because he didn't seemed to be "Malaysian" enough. I still see that guy from time to time, and I think I'll be jamming with him. We met each other while we were both renting instruments. We were both thinking of picking up a new instrument. He will be fiddling with an accordion while I'll be accordion-ing a violin (badum tsss).
Anyway, I told her (going back to the actual story) (sometimes, I think my writing style truly reflects the way I speak and it can drive someone crazy) that yeah totes. But there's also this other thing that I have to specify to her, in that yes, we do speak the same language, yes we both have similar cultures, and yes we both are yellow skin, which means foreigners view us as the same. Butttt, I'm not from China, I'm from Malaysia. Things are different, and the nuances can really separate us. Not only that, even back in Malaysia, I've been kind of not your usual city boy. I was not a popular kid in secondary school so I hang out with the geeks (which is not cool back in 2008-2012). While in college, my main social group only has like 3 Chinese people (including me) out of 10 people. On paper, its totally expected. In fact, if based it off our race proportions (30% of Malaysians are Chinese), it fits. BUTTTTTTTT, if you know Malaysian metropolitan life, that's like... super rare. Like, really really rare. Usually it's either the entire group is the same race with token a race members, or the other way around. So even back in Malaysia, I was already kind of an anomaly, what of now that I'm abroad?
With that, I think its to say that I adapt. I adapt to whatever, I learn and what not. However, it feels like the Asians abroad have this "No true Scotsman" fallacy with them. While still being able to converse with Canadians, I am still undoubtedly from the East, so there's still that.
So I just recently finished reading American Gods. One of the parts talked about how this ancient God that a tribe worships came down to warn it's worshipers, that if you stay at the same spot, you will all die; but if you move to a place where I tell you to, the believers will survive, while the nonbelievers will die during the journey. So they did move, and I think right after they moved, a volcano erupted or something and basically destroyed the area. So the tribe moved to a new area (with the nonbeliever dying halfway in the journey), and in this new area has other tribes to, and these tribes worships their own gods. So once they arrive in their new area, they set up a shrine for the god that saved their lives. But as generation goes on, as the tribe coexists, the gods that they originally worshiped was forgotten, as the coexistent meant that the groups kinda created their own brand new culture, and new gods to worship. And then, the old god faded off, in favour of the new gods.
To me, this story makes me wonder about my identity too. It kind of have a Ship of Theseus kind of deal to me. Aaandddd this post is getting a bit too long. I still have lots to talk about, so probably a part 2? I spent days writing this and it doesn't seem to end. Too much in my mind.
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| Middle paragraph maybe relevant |
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