FRM goes on a vacation. FRM is surrounded by Chinese family friends. The various teenagers decide to watch a movie. They watch The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. FRM has read the books, and FRM does not like the movie. The others do not know there are books. They watch Chicken Little. They watch New York Minute. They complain that FRM does not like happy movies. FRM is fine with happy movies. FRM does not like Hitchhiker’s, Chicken Little or New York Minute. FRM is reading National Geographic in the guest room. Korean Girl is going through the host family’s things. Korean Girl finds the daughter’s kindergarten books. The daughter is learning Japanese. “God,” says Korean Girl. “Why do the kids have to learn Jap?” Korean girl is not actually Korean, but wants to be. Korean girl hates Japanese people.
FRM does not hate Japanese people. FRM has argued with KG over this before. But they were not very satisfying arguments, because Korean Girl’s main reason for hating the Japanese is “Because they’re Japs.” FRM has given up on arguing. They watch the live-action Initial D. Korean Girl hates anime. Korean Girl doesn’t not know Initial D is based on anime. FRM is feeling pissed off at KG so she tells her.
FRM is sitting with the teenagers. They talk about Jay Chow. FRM does not really give a rat’s ass about Jay Chow. They talk about accordion. Accordion Girl plays the accordion stradella. Accordion Girl is left-handed. Left-handed people are smarter because they use their entire brain, sez Korean Girl. Bullshit, says FRM. EVERYONE uses their entire brain. No, says Dolphin Boy. They only use 10%. FRM bangs her head against the closet door. So then they move on and talk about how KFC chicken isn’t really chicken, and McDonald’s hamburgers are made of worms, and the average person swallows an impossible number of spiders in their sleep each year, and if you flash your headlights at someone driving with theirs off they will hunt you down and kill you.
FRM considers joining in the adult conversation. But FRM doesn’t like the adult conversation. The adults talk about Chinese politics and Korean soap operas. FRM wants to talk about movies nobody watches, and opera singers and art and Nethack and any of her other interests that nobody shares. FRM tells herself she needs to learn to compromise. But it doesn’t seem fair, when everyone else is enjoying themselves. FRM is not interested is sharing, for the nth time, what she is going to do in university or what her TER was. The one time they had a discussion involving her it was about gay marriage. “I don’t think it will be good for society,” says Accordion Girl’s mother. “Yes,” says Korean Girl. “What if their kids turn gay?” “The human race will die out,” says Dolphin Boy. “Society will collapse.” “Don’t forget the nazis riding dinosaurs,” says FRM. Nobody has a clue what she is talking about. There is a slight pause in the conversation and they continue on without her.
So FRM watches Chicken Little and listens to Jay Chow’s mediocre music and smiles and nods and repeats her university preferences to everyone at every one of the households they stay with followed by an apologetic smile and “No, I’m not doing med/law/commerce/engineering/pharmacy/dentistry” and wonders if anyone in this circle of Chinese friends will ever understand what she is about before deciding no, no they won’t. A few weeks later she is back at home with her own friends but the feeling from the trip lingers.
One of us. One of us. We accept you. One of us.
(Now, name three sources for that quote, in chronological order)
Firstly, welcome to being a geek. And master of the universe, in potential.
Secondly, don’t worry. Yet. Try bringing interesting stuff with you, and say it’ll be next year’s hot thing. About half the time it will be. You can handle one of their movies for one of yours, right? Same thing for conversation. Don’t contradict everything. Just every so often, when they get at that, tell them you don’t think it’s true, but you know where to look. You know where to look, right?
Oh, and try hacking the adult conversation. Go step by logical step until you reach the nazis riding dinosaurs. It’s possible. You can even get them to agree with you most of the way. Don’t go too far in one leap. Remember, politics is the oldest game of them all, and it makes nethack look like chickenfood.
But yeah, we’ve all been there. It’s not a bad place to be, later. But while you’re there, it sucks.
I’ve just spent a couple of weeks with some credulous people - not all of them, but some, and one in particular - and I was biting my tongue like crazy. I accidentally spoke up when said person told me that a heavy person jumping off a cliff would fall faster than a light person of the same size. This earned nothing but approbation and glowering looks. I think I called the same person a few times on other nonsense, and when I left, I don’t think I was her favourite friend. I wonder was it really worth it?
I get it. My family is similar, without the asian parts. I recently realized (in therapy) that the reason it stresses me out so bad to hang out with my mom’s family is that none of them “get” me and none of them even care to. I am forced to hang out with people (relatives) that pretty much pretend I’m not the person that I am. Which explains a lot why I get so stressed out even though the main activities are eating and drinking. And talking about movies/actors/famous people. No one wants to talk about politics beyond “I hate Bush” and no one cares about science or wants to discuss anything at all. It’s just endless chit chat and it DRIVES ME INSANE (thus the therapy). So yeah, I get it.
Sorry, but your diatribe comes off as self-centered and petulant to me. Don’t like Jay Chow? Say so. Annoyed at oft-repeated urban legends? Say so. Don’t want to talk about university? Talk about something else. You are not a shadow. You are not alone (so, so ALONE!) You, to your self-effacing emotear credit, acknowledged how pouty and childish you sound.
You’re in a group of people, whom you’ve cast in this post as completely two-dimensional and shallow. In my experience, this type of thinking is 1) extremely immature, 2) arrogant beyond belief, and 3) almost always wrong.
This is coming from a giant black sheep of the family, by the way. I’m a liberal atheist, which puts me pretty firmly in the darkest part of the umbra of my family’s worldview, and many things they say and do drive me crazy, but they’re decent, complex people, just like most everybody else…and they have their hidden depths just like you do.
Be the bigger person. Strive to “get” them, beyond the shallow, cynical level of understanding you display here (course, this being an MPSIMS thread, I’m prepared to admit IK may be taking it a little too seriously,) and they will respond in kind. They won’t be able to help it. Of course, by doing so, you expose yourself to scrutiny and questions, which may be difficult, but if you want to be understood, you have to try to understand.
Uh, that may have been a bit preachy, but I’m in a mood.
Negatory. I think it started with Freaks.
Simpsons also used it in the first season.
BTW, if that was a woosh, I accept it and am prepared to own it.
FRM, I’m going to say Yeah, we’ve been there and felt like that, but in a sense Ogre is right – harden yourself up. The whole world is like that in great measure & the sooner you steel yourself to that fact and accept it and move on, the more prepared and successful you’ll be in University and beyond.
You’ve lost me here. Is she caucasian, but wishes she was an ethnic Korean? Or is she an ethnic Korean raised in America but trying to “get back to her roots”? Or what?
And where is this set? Is the host family in the states? I’m guessing either Korea or China, but it’s impossible to tell from the narrative. Is Korean Girl a high school student or in college?
Without the context, your post reads like The Crying of Lot 49 without the laughs. Let’s get some proper nouns and a general direction into the stream of consciousness here.
My roomate in Uni was Chinese and we are best friends still 20 yrs later. She lives in an entirely other culture, 10,000 miles away. All her letters from home enquired about law school/dentistry/etc,etc., I laughed out loud at that part.
Nobody in her own culture, ‘got her’, she really didn’t fit in. I was the same way in my own culture perhaps that why we became such fast friends.
We travelled together to yet other cultures that were foreign to us both and it served to make us at ease, in some way, with that not fitting in feeling.
Of course, it’s more than just not fitting in. It’s really the sensation that what seems to motivate the rest of the mainstream world leaves you cold, it’s hard to find your way. Every body and everything is pointing one way, and telling you to move towards something you don’t really feel any draw to.
As a traveller you really do, especially as a visible minority, grow into being comfortable and at ease being outside of the mainstream, you are your own stream.
When we returned, each to our own cultures, alone, (so, so alone) it seemed. But really we had both grown and were more at ease with being driven by a different beat.
Monstrous one, sounds like Chinese New Year around here! If you like offbeat Sino-Anglo discussion (though rather middle-aged on the whole - which may put you off), this HK-based blog is rather fun: http://fumier.typepad.com/fumier/
Jjimm, you’re back! Was the Irish air getting you down? Oxford’s air is so much more, how shall I say, invigorating, especially when the Isis and Cherwell are shrouded in fog.
I wasn’t trying to be particularly funny, man. We were hopping from city to city on the east coast of Australia. Korean girl is Chinese and a little bit younger than me. Does that help any?
“I hate Jay Chow. I demand we listen to someone else even though you’re all quite happy listening to him.”
“I don’t want to watch Chicken Little.”
“I don’t want to watch A Cinderella Story.”
“I don’t want to watch Legally Blonde 2.”
“I don’t want to watch Ella Enchanted.”
“I don’t want to watch Miss Congeniality.”
“That’s not true.”
“That’s not true.”
“That’s not true.”
“That’s not true.”
“Margarine is not naturally black, and not one molecule away from being plastic.”
“It doesn’t matter. Water is one atom away from hydrogen peroxide.”
“We don’t even HAVE kosher labelling in Australia.”
“That’s wrong.”
“That’s wrong.”
“There’s no reason to believe that.”
“There’s no reason to believe that.”
“There’s no reason to believe that.”
“Just because you read it on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“That was an Onion article.”
“You’re wrong.”
“You’re stupid.”
“That’s not true.”
“I don’t want to watch Harry Potter.”
“Your conversation bores me. Let’s talk about what I’m interested in.”
“I don’t like Jay Chow.”
“I don’t like Korean soap operas.”
“I don’t like your taste in music.”
“Who’s up for a game of go?”
No thanks. I know what you’re saying but I don’t think it’s possible. You can’t expect everyone else to adapt to suit you. This is why you pick your friends, and if you can’t be with your friends then you whine about it to strangers on the internets. I mean it’s not like I didn’t try to join in. I tried slipping into adult conversation when I was younger. They had this thing they liked to do when I talked, where they suddenly started talking to someone else leaving me talking at nobody in particular. It was fun… not.
You can tell this from that list of movies? New York Minute? The rest of the Hollywood schlock listed in her other post? None of those movies were any good (I didn’t really hate Hitchhiker but I just can’t say it was good), and I like all kinds of movies. But not those.
I thought the OP was dryly humorous. Obviously “emotear” was self-deprecating humor. Sure it’s petulant, but that seemed acknowledged to me. Or else I’m giving FRM credit for being smarter or more self aware than she is.
