The end of the year

I had something to say, I really did, for the last three days, i had at least 3 different topics in mind, but I didn't do it cuz of WoW.

That's why i need mobile blog, damn it!

Donated some money to the Asian Tsunami relief, not much at all but if spent correctly, it should be able to keep a person alive for a few weeks in that condition.

Oh, another thing, 1994 ~ 2004, it has been 10 years. .. ...

In Austin

There are going to be two different things in this entry, so here I go.

I spoke with a close friend yesterday and we were talking about another girl who is also a close friend of mine. We will call the friend I spoke to D and the friend we spoke about S. Anyway, here are some background info ( I am not sure why i am giving bg info since no one is gonna be reading this), S is one of my closest friend, and she is one of the few people whom I have total trust in. D is my good friend but she is not as close as D. So the subject came up about S and D told me she doesn't think S is very nice from the few times they have met. What makes this interesting to me is that it's not the first time I have heard comments like that about S. People who don't know S very well seem to think she is some type of 'bitch' and not very friendly. But if you ask me, i would consider her to be fiercely loyal to her friends but she may come out to be unfriendly to other people. It's a rare quality, and I place high value on that quality and her as a friend so sometime I feel kinda weird when people say things like that about her. I am sure if someone attacks her personally, I would stand up and defend her, the conversation I had yesterday didn't involve anything like that, it was merely an observation, but I just want to say, thank you S, for your friendship, and you are a nice girl.

Second item
I am in Austin right now, trying to relive my college days. I went to GRE and played some basketball just like the old days, of course the basketball skill may never come back again, but other things seem to stay the same way. People associate feelings and emotion with physical places and item. Some people love chocolate because it makes them feel loved, which is caused by a type of chemical produced by your brain while you are eating chocolate. With Austin, I associated many many different type of memories and feelings with it. This place represents possibly, but hopefully not, the best days of my life. I never really felt at home in Houston, I don't really feel at home in Dallas right now, but Austin is a place that feels like home to me. However, when I was at GRE playing basketball, I can't helped it but to feel a sense of sadness and loneliness. I realized something at that point, I am not really in love with Austin (but it's one of the best cities in U.S.), I am really in love with my old memories and the people in Austin. Since now most of the people here are gone, and we all have moved on from the stage of college students, those feelings I had here may never come back again, and it fills me with much sorrow.

I am Chinese

Being Chinese is difficult, the outsiders see us as a race of super smart computing machines. We are naturally gifted in all things academic and all other minority should use us as role models. But being Chinese, I tend to be very critical toward my own people.

There is this book, The Ugly Chinese, by one of my favorite Chinese writers. Of course it was banned in China and very difficult to find in Taiwan or most of the Chinese speaking community. Some people claim it to be self hating and it's just a way to copy the American book, The Ugly American.

My beef with Chinese culture is the strange psychological condition that I like to call "Inferiority Complex". I am not a psychology major so don't flame me for not knowing what I am talking about. Basically, we are tough against our own people, we are good at infighting but when outside force starts to intrude, we crumble like card castle. Chinese people like to beat up on the weak but fear the strong, we don't triumph; we follow the flow. When things go well, we run and claim the glory and when things go bad, we simply run away.

You can see it all over America. Asian girls openly talk about how White guys are better than Asian guys because white guys are more 'muscular' AND 'sensitive' and are willing to settle for less just because of the skin color. Asian guys cry about being abandoned and betrayed by Asian women while secretly eyeing every white women walking by. Chinese shop owners who treat Asian customers like crap but put on their best face and manner when white customers walk into the shop. Students from Taiwan and China feel that they are superior to their counterparts back home just because they are in America. And the examples just go on and on.

I can't say I don't make the mistake so many of my brothers and sisters make, I am as much Chinese as the next FOB in my class. When they look bad, I look bad; I can't separate myself from the rest of the race and culture. I can't, it's a part of me, it's my heritage, and even if it is flawed, I am still proud of who I am.

I can't control the rest of Chinese people, but I can control what I do and who I am. I have this image of how Chinese should be in this day and age and the only thing I can do is to try my best to be that image.