Author: Pearl L

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u know, it’s easy to

u know, it’s easy to delude yourself into thinking that life is simpler than it actually is. I think I’ve been in an oversimplification mindset as of late… willing to wall things off because it would be easier that way. the thing is, people don’t lead simple lives, and it’s important to take that into account. I keep forgetting…

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so I was talking to

so I was talking to chris from brown about dating, etc, and we got to talking about being asian. it’s a topic I haven’t spent much time thinking about for a little while, and talking to him got me thinking about it again.

(on a side note, A magazine really did merge with Click2Asia. grrr.)

I am a 21 year-old Chinese-American woman. I have dark eyes, dark hair (with blond highlights), and a “yellow” complexion. I’m relatively short — about 5’1.5″, and I weigh about 115 lbs, give or take a few (haven’t weighed myself in a while, so I really have no idea.) I wear glasses. I speak mandarin. I eat my food with chopsticks. eating tripe is no big deal to me. my parents tell me stories of their childhood, and I’ll chuckle along with them. i can understand the way they think, why they think the way they do, and to some degree, share those opinions as well. It’s strange… it even extends to food preferences. in a lot of ways, my sister just doesn’t “get it.” my sister is 15 years old. she’s a normal american teenager, and because of this, she clashes with my parents more than I did when I was growing up. she complains about the food we eat, preferring pizza to pepper/salt squid (I’ve no idea how to translate this. sorry.) We are on different wavelengths in many many ways.

So what’s this “Asian” business about? maybe I’m just disjointed, or I come from a stranger background than most people. What does it mean to be Asian? to be an Asian American? I can’t get past the business that being “asianized” is as simple of bobbing one’s head to spacey techno music while sipping boba through thick straws at relaxtation. it’s just not so simple. and does that sort of activity really justify people segregating themselves off from other cultures? doesn’t that just perpetuate those stereotypes of asians? and what are these “Asians” banding together anyway? to be honest, there’s a wide spectrum of how asian a person is/can be. I’m sure a bunch of them are just too far removed from their asianness that they band together with similarly culturally de-asianized people, and redefine asianness for everyone else. is that what it’s about?

we have at least 4 different student groups comprised of “chinese” students. we have the Association of Chinese Americans, Chinese Student Association, another for Taiwanese students, one for people from Hong Kong.

.. more on this later.

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THE BRONZE MEDAL It felt

THE BRONZE MEDAL

It felt cold inside, so we threw the radio onto the fire
It felt good to watch it, burn away to nothing

You said you felt weak
I hope its got nothing to do
With the things you told me

Nothing but your eyes
Looking down on the third place
You’ve got nothing but determination
To come in third

You were always going to be like this
If it’s somewhere that’s as cold as this
You were always meant to be like this
In the cold

It felt warm inside, so we threw the television on the fire
It wasn’t frustration, because I had nothing to throw away

When there’s nothing but your eyes
Looking down on the third place
When there’s nothing but determination
To come in third

You were always going to be like this
When you’re somewhere that’s as cold as this
It was always meant to be like this

In the cold

You’ve got nothing but your eyes
Looking down on the third place
You’ve got nothing but determination
To come in third

You know that you always meant to be like this
You know that I’m always meant to be like this
You know that you always meant to be like this
You know that you’re always meant to be

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to those of you looking

to those of you looking for a place to live next year, say it with me: apartment hunting is a bitch!

i spent yesterday in a totally delirious state (you know, like the song silence by delirium.. mm, that’s a good song!) since I had only gotten about an hour and a half of sleep the night before, and i started panicking about what i was going to do for housing next year.

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Computer games don’t affect kids;

Computer games don’t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.”
-Kristian Wilson,
Nintendo Inc. 1989.
[quote from the profile of maximumace]

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and maybe I resent being

and maybe I resent being changed. If I’m going to change, I change on my terms. why should I for any other reason?

I look at this person now, and I see myself about a year ago, when I lost sight of what generous love entails. I had become possessive and petty, this whole other animal that came out of me because I was scared and insecure. I started trying to base my love on tokens of love, and not seeing it for what it was. but tokens aren’t anything.. just scraps of paper, or long distance conversations. you can’t base a love on bits of paper. you’ve got to base it on the feeling, and that trust that yes, that other person really does care…

but maybe.. when you clearly aren’t connecting, and you can’t love each other in the way they need to be loved.. what happens then? I guess you just have to let it go…?

so yeah, I’m still trying to figure all this out. I don’t know if any of this makes any sense.. I’ve been feeling slightly bare to the world with this blog.. part of me wants to be brutally honest, but then again.. I don’t know who’s reading this… and since I’ve been feeling misunderstood as a person in general, I don’t really expect people to get it from reading this blog anyway. -throws arms up in the air.-