IT'S ALIIIIIVE!!!

I NOW RESURRECT THIS BLOG FROM THE DEAD!!!

Fucking hell, it's been more than two years since I've updated this thing? And after I had expressed regret over the last hiatus? I suppose I should offer some explanations:

1.) Clearly one of the primary preoccupations of this blog has been my love life, which means that it's really more fun for me to write (and for readers to read) when my love life is a shitshow. Sometime after my last post, I managed to fall in love with a dude who ended up becoming my boyfriend for a while. And while the ups and downs of a relationship can also make for fun blogging fodder, this boyfriend found out about the blog's existence through a friend who accidentally mentioned it, and so I didn't feel compelled to complicate the relationship by documenting it in real-time. I've made that mistake before, where you think you're being cute and reflective, or you're just working some shit out and operating under the assumption that you're free to be honest and open, and then one day the dude zones in on one stupid thing you wrote about appreciating a manicure on a man, and then he's like, "Why didn't you ever tell me that you think my hands are ugly?," and even though his calluses and hangnails are among the many peccadilloes that you've grown to love, you find yourself breaking up over a litany of complaints you both have been bottling up.

So while the boyfriend and I had avoided that situation, our relationship ended anyway, as relationships do. It's been about a year since the breakup, and I've been more than okay about it for some time now. And while I certainly did a lot of private journaling during the relationship and its aftermath, I don't know yet if I'll write about it here. Maybe, because, shit, it's my life material, and I'm sure he's not reading this. And even if he were, well, I really don't care.

2.) Life as an Asian Girl Professor just gets more and more fucked up. As in, getting-sexually-harassed-by-Old-White-Dude-senior-colleague fucked up. So around the time I stopped writing last, I was getting supremely paranoid about whether anyone would be able to figure out my identity, and whether any of my colleagues was reading this blog. So just to be safe, I unofficially retired it. This fear hasn't changed. But I guess my willingness to stay silent has, because, seriously, academia is one fucked up place for women of color, and someone needs to be writing about it.


So in honor of the lunar new year (which is the more fun new year anyway), I hereby resurrect this blog. May the gods bless me with the energy to live out new adventures and the inspiration to tell the tale!

Or I might just kill this blog again. Who knows.

(Mis)Adventures in Dating: What's the equivalent of blue-balling for blogging?

... So, I've been rather horrific about updating this blog, an offense made even worse by my last post, which promised all sorts of juicy stories about my dating (mis)adventures. I wish I could attribute my absence to being kidnapped by a viking named Bjorn who then strapped me on the back of his alpaca and took me away to live in his yurt, which, of course, has no internet and is beyond the reach of my AT&T 3G coverage. But alas, my life is never that exciting, and I can only say that after a series of bad dates that involved one guy rushing back to work after meeting me for 43 minutes, another guy purring while he was sexually aroused, and another guy trying just a little too hard to get me drunk, I decided that the piss in the dark that is internet dating might just not be the strategy for me. So, I took a new strategy called "Giving Up," and welcomed a summer break of helping my dad adjust to his new bionic hip, playing mah-jong with my mom and aunts, and watching Downton Abbey on Netflix streaming. I do have the impulse to be quite content in this spinsterish state, but a new academic year signals new goals and new aspirations. So the last couple of months have been devoted to fully enjoying the social circles I've cultivated in the past year.

Since coming back to Boston in August, I've been reconnecting with friends who then extend invitations to parties thrown by their friends, getting more involved in an community organization I volunteer for, and spending more time with people from my Taekwondo studio. I figure it only makes sense to meet people doing things that I'm already interested in doing. Even if I don't find myself a boyfriend or a guy who is remotely fuckable in these activities, I figure at the very least the men whom I do meet can introduce me their friends. (Because, frankly, spending all my time with single chicks isn't doing me any favors.) There's only one problem with this strategy: At my age, being out and about and doing athletic shit really results in me spending time with more married men.

And here's the thing with married men, that I had never before discovered: They're way easier to get along with.

Which makes sense, I suppose. A married guy can chat you up, flirt with you, make you feel special, knowing full well that he's always going to have his wife to go home to. Whereas single guys get all anxious about whether or not you find them attractive, whether they're saying or doing the right thing, whether you're interpreting their words or actions the wrong way, married guys can do whatever the fuck they want without putting their egos at risk. If the girl responds positively, talk about validation! And if not, it doesn't matter, because they can always count on wifey to give them a blow job when they get home. (Yes, I realize that was a very sexist thing for me to say, but to be frank, I'm around a lot of super heteronormative couples who, despite their liberal politics, have a strange tendency to replicate really old-school gender roles in their marriages.) Maybe it's for this reason that married men seem to exude a confidence that I rarely find in single men.

Sometimes this confidence is harmless. I have one friend whose husband always says things to me that I wish I had heard more often from my ex-boyfriends. He'll tell me I'm a catch, notice what I wear, and greet me with a "Hi, gorgeous." But since this is always done in front of his wife, I always take it as just platonic flirty flirtykins. While I know that his wife could very well be gritting her teeth at his behavior and ripping him a new one when they get home, I have no reason to believe that his flirtatious behavior indicates any intention on his part. Which, of course, brings its own frustration: DON'T FUCKING CALL ME GORGEOUS IF IT CAN'T MEAN ANYTHING TO ME.

And then there's this other married friend whose wife is never around, and who also interacts with me in ways that definitely cross the line between platonic and intimate. This, of course, is more problematic, because as a single woman who isn't his shrink, I really have no business knowing about his marital troubles. I definitely am in no place to be dealing with his playful jealousy when other guys hit on me or accepting his offers to buy me drinks. I admit that I should be better about turning on my cold bitch mode and walk away the second he pulls any of this, but I also admit that I have more fun hanging out with than I do on most dates I've been on. A part of the reason we get along is precisely because he's married. He can feel free to divulge his inner feelings and play the part of a charmer without risking anything except for maybe a little bit of guilt, and I can also act as I feel, whether that is flattered or flippant, simply because I know our interactions can't mean anything so long as he is married. In some ass-backwards way, it is precisely the illicit nature of our interactions that allows each of us to act more naturally than we would were we simply two single people dating. In fact, when I bluntly told him that a married guy shouldn't be telling a single girl that she's hot, his reply was, "Maybe it's because I'm married that I can be honest." Oh, the irony. And the grossness.

It's no wonder that extramarital affairs are so common.

I refuse to indulge in such a cliche, not so much because of any adherence to some lofty sense of morals, but because of my selfish need to budget my emotional investments. A second spent thinking about some married dude is a second wasted. And that, I suppose, is the lesson I can take away from my experiment with this social butterfly strategy of mine: There are endless ways to waste one's emotional energy without the help of online dating sites.

So that's it. I give up. I'm probably better off joining a mah-jong club.

AsianGirlProf's (Mis)Adventures in Dating

A few years ago, there was an emergence of Asian American chick lit, with the release of books such as Kim Wong Keltner's The Dim Sum of All Things, Blossom Kan's China Dolls, and Sonia Singh's Bollywood Confidential. These novels are modeled after Sex and the City and Bridget Jones's Diary, but with Asian female protagonists. They center on 30-something-year-old professional women who enjoy designer shoes and fancy martinis, and who create adventures for themselves dating a bevy of (mostly non-Asian) men. Not exactly an original formula, and as the titles indicate, these books are also generally poorly written. Several of my Asian American girlfriends told me that I should have ridden that wave and written my own chick lit novel as a way to vent my dating frustrations. Too bad I was busy writing my dissertation (pesky scholarly work of intellectual value) and missed that boat. I guess I'll have to settle for writing my own Tiger Mom novel before that storm passes.

Still, given that every other aspect of my life is hopelessly boring, I probably should write about my experiences circulating in the dating pool. That way, even the worst date won't turn out to be a total waste of time, so long as a good story comes out of it. I can't promise that my writing will be any good, either. I don't have that breezy writing voice that's most suited for this genre, and I'm perhaps too self-conscious about exploiting ethnic stereotypes for the sake of entertainment. But at the very least my stories will come from the perspective of a 30-something-year-old professional woman who can't afford the shoes she covets, who will often prefer a beer over a martini, and who tends to (either on purpose or not) date nerdy Asian men. Doesn't exactly sound like juicy blogging fodder, but might be a fun experiment anyway.

Once I figure out where I want to begin, I'll post Chapter One!

How Do Normal People Do It?

Yikes, has it really been four months since I've updated this blog? Blah blah, I've been busy, blah blah, being a professor is hard, blah blah... Everyone seems to belong to the Cult of Busy, so I don't think my life is any more special or important than anyone else's. But still, these last few months have got me asking, "How do people do it?"

And by "do it," I mean lead a normal and fulfilling life.

I think I've had a pretty productive first year on my tenure track. I've taught successful classes, did some department and university service, took on a few student advisees, revised and resubmitted an article, wrote a draft of another, applied to a few conferences, wrote papers for those conferences (the first new work since finishing my dissertation), got elected to the executive board of one of my academic associations, and participated in all those obligatory odds and ends meetings and things that are constantly happening on campus. My chair and primary evaluator gave me a positive evaluation, and my contract is still in tact.

And yet, though I should be entirely satisfied with how I've transitioned into this job, I can't help but hear the incessant ticking of the tenure clock. I really wish I could have done more: submitted the second article, got started on my book proposal, just did more plain ol' reading. I look at some of my colleagues around me and wonder how on earth they can be so damn prolific. For me, squeezing out a paper really does feel like pooping a watermelon most of the time.

There is the stereotype of the nutty professor whose entire life is his/her work. There could be some truth to that, especially for women. Several women whom I admire churn out book after book, article after article. They get invited to give guest lectures at universities halfway across the world. People travel halfway across the world to see them at conferences. They actually receive grants for the research they do. But these women are also single, have had to uproot themselves every few years, whenever another institution offers them a more lucrative position, and will never have children. At least from an outsider's perspective, these rock stars are only so because their work is their life.

I've gotten a lot of career advice over the years, but no one has ever been able to tell exactly what it takes to "make it" in this profession. Am I supposed to be putting every ounce of energy into this work? How many hours a day should I be devoting to my writing? How many books should I be reading in a week? Can I afford to do anything else?

I don't even want to be an academic rock star. I would be perfectly content working for the rest of my life at a lesser-known institution with tenure requirements that encourage faculty to strike a healthy balance between teaching, research, and service while also allowing them to have lives outside of the university. And by the looks of it, my current institution should be such a place, but I feel as though I'm already struggling to keep afloat. And I know for a fact that it's only going to get harder next year and the next, as I get asked to take on more responsibilities like sit on committees and start up programs on campus. I'm really starting to understand when people say that a professor's job never stops.

But I need it to stop once in a while. I need to be able to put work aside and go to my Taekwondo classes, choir rehearsals, volunteer activities. I need to be able to sit down at my electric piano and just bang out some Beethoven for an hour. I need to attend the parties that my friends throw. I need to help my friends when they need a favor. I need to visit my family. I need to host friends when they come to visit. I need to maintain my home so that it's not disgusting. I need to go on dates! (Dating, I've always thought, is practically a parttime job in and of itself, which is probably why I've never been very good at it.) I need to allow myself rest when I get sick (as I did for the whole friggin' month of March). I need to imagine that should I one day in the not so distant future get married and start a family, that I could do so without feeling as though I'm throwing away the career I worked so hard to attain.

Can I do it all? I know several female academics who have families and hobbies in addition to prosperous careers. And they seem like well adjusted individuals, and as far as I know they don't have secret coke habits. But maybe they're also out-of-this-world brilliant and are able to come up with ideas and produce them at a fraction of time it takes for me to do the same. Is that what it takes? Is that how they do it?

So yeah, long story short: I've been busy. It's been a good busy, but overwhelming nonetheless.

Blah.

Hardass Asian Parenting

In preparation for every new year, my mother does a thorough cleaning and clearing out of the house. She decided to take advantage of my time at home and asked me to purge my room of belongings I don’t want or need anymore. After dumping several garbage bags full of clothes I only wore a couple of times, arts and crafts kits I never used, useless souvenirs from family trips, toys I quickly outgrew, I felt ashamed of how excessive my parents clearly were in indulging me and of how disposable all these luxuries of my childhood have proven to be. I joked to my mom, should I ever have kids, they will own nothing. They will have very active imaginations because they will have imaginary toys. They will exert their creativity by playing with cardboard boxes. If they want trendy new outfits, they will learn to make them themselves. They will dream not of owning the latest video game system, but of a Bosendorfer piano. At this image of my parenting strategy, my own Hardass Asian Mama said, “Your children are going to hate you.”

This was before I read Amy Chua’s article, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” which, I was convinced, had to be (poorly executed) satire. Chua maxes out on the Hardass Asian Parent stereotype, declaring that her daughters are not allowed to have playdates, watch TV, or be anything less than the #1 student in their classes. Chua scoffs at “Western” notions of self-esteem, brags about calling her daughter “garbage,” and details a scene in which she forbade her daughter to eat or go to the bathroom until she learned a piano piece perfectly. This, Chua claims, is the key to raising successful children.

Whether or not Chua is being serious, her article is certainly problematic, and many in the blogosphere have leveled their criticism. Angry Asian Man claims that the piece perpetuates the stereotype of Asians as soulless automatons at the same time that it essentializes this so-called “Chinese” parenting as the reason for why Asians are the supposed “model minority.” Hugo Schwyzer offers a more sobering perspective, reminding us that not only are there plenty of Asian American students struggling with poor grades, drug and alcohol problems and learning disabilities, but that Asian Americans (and Chinese American women in particular) are also more likely to commit suicide than white teens.

I echo both of these assertions, and add one more point that I have yet to see any other critic make: Amy Chua should also acknowledge that her daughters, whose parents are both Yale Law School professors, have become “successes” in large part because of their class privilege. Chua’s children benefited not only from hours of tenacious practice and discipline, but also from the fact that Chua had the means to send them to good schools, give them piano lessons, enter them into contests, and take hours out of the day to attend to their studies and practices. A mother struggling to raise a family on a domestic servant’s salary would have a much harder time getting her daughter to Carnegie Hall, no matter how ruthlessly she believed in discipline and hard work.

And perhaps it is because I so see “success” as determined by class privilege that I have conflicted feelings about Chua’s article. Indeed, I am bothered by how it panders to stereotype and how it dismisses the psychological damage her strategies could inflict. But I also see its hard-boiled aspiration for glory as so utterly familiar. I would guess that Chua, a Harvard grad whose parents were Chinese immigrants from the Philippines, grew up with the pressure facing so many children, especially children of immigrants: to make good on your parents’ sacrifices by achieving more than they did. When Chua writes, “Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud,” I can’t help but be reminded of all the times I told myself that I had to achieve more than my father, who himself has two masters degrees. So while I certainly find Chua's cultural essentialism repugnant, I also read her confidence in how she has bred success in her children with, I daresay, a little bit of envy.

My parents couldn’t drill and mold me in Chua’s fashion, even if they wanted to. They were able to give me a comfortable middle-class upbringing, but not without a good deal of struggle. When they first bought the house I grew up in, their income only exceeded their mortgage by $100/month. Photos of my early childhood show an empty house in which our relatives would gather for my birthdays. My grandmother made the uniform I wore to Catholic school. But with hard work and smart planning, my parents gradually gained some sense of upward mobility. (I know they were able to because my dad is highly educated—No doubt that climb would have been harder without the educational capital.) When I was five, my parents started me on piano lessons. When I was eight, my parents started me on Chinese school. If there was ever a school choir concert, field trip, or summer program that required some extra money, they were usually glad to shell out the money. I wouldn’t say that my parents were particularly strict about my studies. I was always expected to get As and to take the most challenging of classes. But I didn’t have a legion of tutors to keep on the grindstone. Either because he couldn’t afford them or because he preferred to instill self-discipline, my dad would often make fun of the more intense Chinese parents and say, “If your kid is stupid, no amount of tutoring is going to help.” I think my parents set a healthy balance of nurturing, disciplining, and indulging me. I always knew they had high expectations for me, and they did their best to create the conditions that would help me meet them, at the same time that they let me watch TV, spoiled me with luxuries, and left me alone. I think my brother and I both turned out as successes because of this balance. Neither one of us is a slouch, neither one of us is an automaton, and we both have healthy relationships with our parents.

Still, precisely because I know that my parents would have gladly given us more opportunities if they could, a part of me wishes they could have been bigger hardasses, so that I could have given them more of a return on their investment. When I was 16, I decided to quit piano lessons, the last two years of which I was truly a slacker student. My parents didn’t put up a fight, and accepted my rationale that I was never going to use the piano professionally and that my first priority needed to be getting into college. (This failure of an Asian kid didn’t get into Stanford, so ended up going to UCLA.) But not a day goes by now that I don’t regret not putting in the 2-3 hours of practice a day that was required to be truly skilled, of taking advantage of the Vienna-trained teacher that my parents hired, of turning my back on 11 years of lessons. While I don’t think I ever would have been good enough to be a concert pianist, I also don’t think that I really knew at the age of 16 what the consequences of my choices would be. I certainly did not anticipate how much I would continue to love playing the piano, how painfully I would wish my fingers could move with more dexterity, how enviously I would eye the musicians lugging their instruments on the subway, and how the bleak job market would make me wish I was qualified to teach piano as a source of income. The piano, as well as all the other things I gave up in my childhood, now represents a big “What if?” that haunts me every day. So though I am disgusted by Chua’s piece, and though I suspect it would really suck to be one of her kids, I also envy the way in which she refuses to give up on her kids’ potential.

Which isn’t to say that my parents gave up on mine. They simply let me devote my energy to paths of success less familiar to them. Who knows? Had I not quit the piano, perhaps I wouldn’t have had the time to join the school play and the debate team. And had I not done these activities, perhaps I wouldn’t have found the confidence to cultivate my opinions and express them. And perhaps had I not done that, I wouldn’t have eventually become an English professor.

So maybe that’s what’s ultimately missing from Chua’s prescription for “success”: It is far too narrow in defining what success is, attributing it to status and competition. Perhaps Chua’s daughters will grow up to be Ivy League-degreed millionaires who developed the next wonder drug or something. I’m pretty sure Chua would see both me and my brother as failures. My parents, however, are very proud of my getting a degree in a language that still falls clumsily off their tongues, and of my brother, a designer, finding a career in the one subject that they never thought to put him through lessons in. Should I have kids one day, I hope that they will surprise me with their life choices, so long as those choices are made with integrity, commitment, and some sense of social consciousness. With my own success, I have afforded them that luxury.

But make no mistake; my kids are damn well going to be taking piano lessons. And Chinese school, too.

On Turning 30

I have been 30 years old for exactly one month now. I was never under any impression that being officially in my thirties would feel any different than being in my late-twenties, though I was preparing myself for the possibility of an emotional crisis. A google search for "30 year old women" pulls up pages on how 30 year old women feel about being single, 30 year old women and fertility, how 30 year old women should dress for their age, what kinds of beauty products 30 year old women should invest in. It's as if the world has somehow set 30 as the threshold for when a woman should start feeling anxious about getting old and undesirable.

Upon turning 30, I decided to jump into the dating pool and start online dating. And indeed, some of my experiences browsing profiles and chatting with men in the network have confirmed the kinds of anxieties that, as a 30-year-old woman, I'm made to feel. Time and again I see men my age who want to date younger women. One 30-old-dude specifically listed 18-19 as his preferred age range. (Gross.) And time and again men my age and older will list their preferred age range as 21-29: old enough to drink, but not as old as 30! Thinking about how search engines work, I figure that I must not even pop up in some men's search results, now that I belong to an entirely different age bracket. One guy I talked to even asked me point-blank, "So, why is a 30-year-old woman such as yourself still single?" (What I should have said: "Because 30-year-old men like you have not learned to appreciate a woman like me.")

I suppose I could just adopt a dozen cats, start taking Boniva and resign myself to my spinsterhood, but I've discovered one beauty in being 30: I am now the age when I really don't give a shit anymore.

The last time I tried online dating, I was 22, and, like now, just started a new phase of my life in a new place. Still informed by the absurdity of college dating-- hooking up with gross dudes at frat parties, falling into "friends with benefits" mode with a dormmate, being the prey of older men as the youngest girl at the bar-- I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do whenever a guy asked me out. I was nervous about what to write for my profile, what photo to select for my profile pic. I felt the need to be nice and answer every message I received. I went on many bad dates and didn't always recognize soon enough when a guy was a douchebag. The whole experience got so overwhelming that I quit before finding anyone special on the network.

I can't say that I like online dating any more now than I did then, or that I don't feel somewhat self-conscious about how I interact with the men I meet. But I am definitely better at not taking anything guys say or don't say too personally, at not trying so hard to be attractive, at not tolerating bullshit. Because the fact of the matter is, now that I'm 30, I am in such a good place right now. I have a PhD. I have a great job. I've had a couple of real relationships under my belt and have learned from heartbreak. I know what I believe in and what I want out of life and what kind of man I want to be part of the picture. My self-worth does not rest on the idea of a man sweeping me off my feet, because I enjoy the fact that my feet are firmly planted on the ground.

As a romantic at heart, I would like to fall head over heels in love with a man who thinks that I'm amazing. But I can now say that I am excited about the prospect of looking for him, precisely because I know that I'll be just fine should I never find him. When you've had the chance to build your life on your own, letting someone else into it becomes a lovely bonus rather than the condition of your happiness.

So bring on the 30s, I say! And good riddance to my 20s. What I have to look forward to in my 30s: getting tenure, making a name for myself, and knowing how to pick the men out of the boys. It's going to be awesome.

A Sane Radical

If there were such a thing as The Daily Show generation, I would be a member of it. Jon Stewart took over the late night show on Comedy Central when I was in college, the time in my life when I started to form my political outlook. The show got me through graduate school (or, I should say, George W. Bush’s presidency, which almost perfectly coincided with the eight years I spent getting my PhD), the time in my life when I learned how to articulate and substantiate my political outlook. As 9/11 happened, as the nation’s unity shifted into vitriolic division, as the Bush administration launched two wars using justification that proved to be unfounded, and as American political discourse became increasingly absurd, The Daily Show became a source of catharsis. Watching the show, I didn’t have to feel weird or crazy for getting upset when “you’re either with us or against us” got branded as patriotism, for observing the irony in Sarah Palin's admiration for her daughter's "choice" to have her baby, for cringing anytime anyone who's not a murderous dictator gets compared to Hitler. In a time when the most insane politicians and pundits seem to get the most power and attention, The Daily Show has been one of very few voices that articulated what I often felt alone in feeling and thinking.

So it's no surprise that I was one of the estimated 215,000 people who attended Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear this past Saturday. I wasn't sure if was going to turn into the progressive response to Glenn Beck's rally, if it was going to be an irony-fest for smug hipsters, or if it was just going to be one giant party. From where I was standing, it wasn't really any of these things. True, I got the sense that people in attendance identified themselves as liberal, since the overtly political signs largely poked fun at Christine O'Donnell, FOX News and the Tea Party. But people weren't there to push any particular political agenda. I didn't see anyone promoting any political candidates, in spite of the fact that the rally took place just three days before election day. I didn't even overhear any political discussions amongst the other attendees around me. I was pleasantly surprised by the age range of the people I saw. While my early morning bus to D.C. was full of college kids, I ended up sitting near a lot middle-aged folks, some of whom admitted that they didn't even watch The Daily Show. The energy was positive. People just seemed happy to be there, making room for each other, making sure that their signs weren't obstructing someone else's view, sharing snacks. This really was a gathering of reasonable people who wanted to make themselves visible as the non-insane majority of America.

I applaud Stewart's closing speech, his "moment of sincerity" in which he condemns both our political process and the "24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator" for projecting images of ourselves as angry, fear-mongering monsters incapable of compromise. Stewart was very careful in condemning extremists from both sides, saying at one point, "Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one's humanity but their own?"

This is where I think Stewart missed an opportunity to talk about the substance behind the rhetoric. While extremism on any end of any political spectrum is never a good thing, we need to acknowledge that it is not the extreme left that is currently holding the microphone. It is not the extreme left that is calling President Obama is a fascist, claiming that that health care reform is tantamount to a Bolshevik takeover, that all Muslims are out to destroy America. I can't think of a single Marxist who is actively subverting our Constitution (never mind that Marxism in and of itself is not extremism), but people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have made careers spewing racist and homophobic beliefs every day. Let us not forget, too, that our Congress still has room for former unabashed Klu Klux Klan members, such as Senator Robert Byrd, who died earlier this year. Our political terrain is so tilted to the right, that even "moderate" people are voting for laws that undermine a woman's right to an abortion, allow law enforcement officers to racially profile people, keep gay and lesbian Americans from getting married and serving in the military. Pundits and politicians from the left dare not suggest that we reduce defense spending, insist on a public health care option, grant citizenship to immigrants who have labored their whole lives in this country. There's no political payoff to stand by liberal policies, but it's politically safe to concede to conservative ones. No radical leftist party has gotten the kind of clout that the Tea Party has.

Stewart is right in saying, "When we amplify everything, we hear nothing." I would add that, right now, it seems like only one side is being amplified, and that's the only side we're hearing. Perhaps if there were an insane leftist ideological machine that was equally as influential as FOX News, we would get a better sense of where to locate the actual middle. Maybe people will realize that the liberal counterpart to FOX isn't NPR or even MSNBC. Maybe people will realize that Obama really is more of a centrist than he is a liberal. Maybe people will see that some reasonable and moderate people do dig the theories of Karl Marx, and some reasonable and moderate people are a little bit racist and homophobic.

The "Wall Street bailout" is one example of where right-wing fear-mongering has dictated what positions we're even allowed to take on any issue. Those hell-bent on taking down Obama and the Democrats have used it as an example of how "big government" is turning our country Socialist. There hasn't been a radical counterpart to this position, no prominent ideologue jumping for joy over the extent to which the government has to step in to solve our problems, nor any famous anarchist opposing the bailout with the belief that our financial system should collapse. The Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was actually signed into law by George W. Bush, not only prevented a complete collapse of our financial system, but has also been paid back in full and with interest. TARP was not at all a leftist conspiracy for a government takeover of Wall Street, but somehow it has been framed as one by the insane right. As a result, Obama gets no credit for following through on it, but John Boehner gets a lot of airplay decrying it and calling for it to be shut down. (Never mind that in 2008, when Bush was president, Boehner cried on the floor of Congress, begging his colleagues to vote for the bailout.)

Or, another example is the debate over the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. When the leftist position is one that is merely advocating for equal rights to all American serving in the armed forces, there isn't room in the political spectrum for someone like me, who is disturbed by the policy, but is even more disturbed by the fact the Department of Defense is the nation's largest employer. There isn't room in our political spectrum to even suggest a downsizing of our military industrial complex.

I can appreciate that the purpose of the rally wasn't to promote any particular political agenda. The rally may not have been as successful if it did. I just wish that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had spoken more about the substance behind the rhetoric in addition to rhetoric itself. The problem in this country isn't that insane people from both sides of the political spectrum are yelling too much and making it impossible for anyone to compromise. It's that insane people from the right are the only ones yelling while everyone else is staying quiet. And their yelling is also setting parameters of what everyone else is allowed to support or reject. I don't believe that the solution is to encourage the insane left to do some yelling, but I do think we need to readjust the barometer before we all agree to "take it down a notch." We need to restore not only sanity, but an idea of what "moderate" really means. In today's political terrain, I get lumped in with the insane radicals, simply because the middle bar is so skewed to the right. And while I have no problems with identifying myself as a radical, I have to insist that my concerns are entirely reasonable and that my ideas for what would be better for this country are governed by careful thought. I may be a radical, but I'm also a sane one.

How To Become A Professor (When You Don't Know What You Are Doing)-- Lesson 4: Know Your Audience

I'm gearing up for my third week teaching at my new job, and I'm quickly figuring out just how different my current students are from the ones I had taught at my previous institution. I got my PhD at a large and prestigious public university in California, where I had taught writing and Ethnic Studies courses. I had attended a school like that as an undergraduate as well, so that was the landscape most familiar to me: one where the students were diverse in a variety ways, from what they were choosing to major in to their level of preparedness walking into the university, from socioeconomic background to ethnicity. (Though I should say "diverse" really means "lots of Asian American kids" in this context.) My current institution is just the opposite. It's a small (about 5,000 students), private university that specializes in business-related fields. It costs $50,000 a year to study and live here, and since the school doesn't seem to brag about offering a ton of financial aid and scholarships, I'm guessing this means the students here are from distinctly middle-upper class backgrounds. Aside from the international students, the students are largely local, mostly from Massachusetts and the surrounding New England states. The first thought that crossed my mind when I met my first class was, "Man, this school is hella white."

I knew upon accepting this position that I would have to adjust to this unfamiliar environment, but I didn't anticipate the extent to which the environment could impact my teaching. After all, the English and Media Studies department hired me specifically for my Ethnic Studies and Asian American literature background. The professors and administrators all talk about wanting to diversify the student and staff population, as well as the curriculum. And my department chair is pretty much giving me free reign in how I want to design my courses. From what I can tell, the university wants me to teach the students about social justice, train them to think critically about the world and their place in it, and encourage them to be creative.

But mission and practice are two very different things, and impacting the culture of this university is going to be constant uphill climb. First off, I wonder if a specialized business school can ever be a place where a literature/cultural studies practitioner can thrive. In the short time that I've spent with my students, I can tell that they're generally uncreative and conservative in their thinking. They're not so interested in challenging the status quo. Their idea of "social justice" and "ethics" probably means "how to make a profit without being a total asshole." A word like "counterhegemony" is definitely not in their vocabulary. (Case in point: On the first day of my expository writing class, I had the students read a Michael Pollan essay, "We Are What We Eat," which isn't doesn't even promote any particular political agenda but simply describes the ways in which our food industry is entirely made up of corn. One of my students got really pissed and said, "Who cares so long as it makes money?") I suppose this shouldn't be at all surprising, because it probably takes a very particular kind of 17-year-old to commit to a major like Accountancy and close off all other options by attending a school where you can't major in much else. I just don't understand that kind of focused channelling. Aren't we supposed to float in "undeclared" land and figure out what we really like before we resign to being "practical"? I remember thinking the same thing about a girl I knew in college who said that she always wanted to be a dentist. I definitely found her scarier than the goth girl who majored in ethnomusicology and performed spoken word in the middle of the quad.

This isn't to say that my students aren't bright or inquisitive. On the contrary, my freshmen in my expository writing class pepper me with tons of questions and exhibit pretty sharp close-reading skills. Aside from a few knee-jerk reactions, they've been very willing to engage in discussion, however unfamiliar the topics may be. It's the juniors and seniors in my Asian American literature class that lend me to believe that their curriculum is doing such a good job and conditioning them for their chosen professions, that it's completely foreclosing them from any other types of thinking. They've been trained so well in tasks like estimating profit margins and understanding audit regulations, they aren't so good at seeing the bigger picture.

On the first day of my Asian American literature class, I introduced to the students some key issues that one really can't avoid talking about in an Asian American literature class: racism, immigration, citizenship, class, labor. I asked them to think of current debates related to these topics. I was dismayed to find out just how little they've heard about Arizona's SB 1070, how difficult it was for them to name one example of economic unfairness, how uneasy they are when they're asked to talk about race. And I don't think I even hit them all that hard. I introduced them to the class by playing a song entitled "We Belong" by Asian American hip-hop artists Magnetic North and Taiyo Na, figuring that they would enjoy some music by people not much older than themselves. The students seemed to enjoy the song well enough, and they were able to identify the themes of the song: the trials of being a migrant worker, racial stereotyping, poverty. But when asked to reflect on the themes (as well as the form in which these themes are being articulated), they exhibited resistance. One student, who is Asian American, declared that he had seen Magnetic North perform live and had decided that he "hated" them. When I asked him why, he initially said that he didn't understand why Asian Americans should perform "black" music, and then revealed that because he never experienced racism before in his life, he didn't understand why these artists would make a deal about it.

In my view, the student experiences racism regularly whether he notices or not, because the society in which he lives is one grounded on white privilege. But I can't fault him for not sharing this view, for growing up never having to doubt American meritocracy, for never experiencing the sting of a racial slur. But the refusal to see beyond his own experience and acknowledge validity of the experiences of others is what bothers me. What bothers me even more is the fact that none of his classmates contradicted him.

I certainly had plenty of students like him at my previous institution, but I could always count on other students to offer dissenting opinions to spark some productive discussion. And I think that's the main difference between the large state school and the small private one-- For every student who wanted nothing but to climb up the corporate ladder, there was one who organized labor strikes as an extracurricular activity. And the reason for this diversity isn't just because of size of the university or the fact that it's public; the university has also instituted departments and programs that foster different kinds of learning. While disciplines like Ethnic Studies are always being threatened at any institution, the legacy of their existence, at the very least, offers a space where students can question the very institution in which they are learning. So the aerospace engineering major may very well have to ask herself how she feels about learning how to build weapons used to blow up other countries.

I'm not so naive to say that the large public university churns out socially-conscious world-changers. Quite the contrary. But at the very least, I was able to stand firm in the belief that my expertise was legitimate, that it played a good and necessary role in my students' education. And perhaps that's even more true at my current job. Certainly, if I were to get my students to think in ways they aren't asked to in any of their other classes, that should be even more gratifying than teaching to those already in my corner. I guess I wish that I was working in a culture where I don't have to sell my class to my students and pitch it at a level suitable for students who never think about the sorts of issues I discuss. I wish that I was simply operating in a system that already has use for my work, rather than feeling as though I've been hired to start a system from scratch. I wish I was at a place where I can feel like a normal professor rather than a radical one. Oh well. I guess I'll just treat this new job as a challenge and a learning experience! I'm up for it.

Marriage, According to Mom and Dad

My dad's latest hobby is homemade karaoke. He takes an HDMI cable and connects his laptop to the 46'' television in the family room. My dad, who to this day has trouble operating a VCR, managed to figure out how to hook up his speakers and subwoofer to this setup as well. He goes onto YouTube and searches for karaoke videos of songs by artists he grew up listening to: the Ronettes, the Bee Gees, James Brown, Elvis, etc. My dad goes through this performance twice a day now: when he gets up in the morning and before he goes to bed at night.

My mother, of course, is not thrilled by my dad's hobby. She thinks he sounds awful. She's embarrassed by the idea that the neighbors may hear him. She's generally averse to any kind of behavior she finds absurd (of which my dad has plenty). So she'll retreat into the opposite end of the house, in the master bedroom, and watch her Taiwanese news programs and soap operas from the giant TV they have in there.

I called my parents tonight to see what they were up to. I happened to call when my dad was in the middle of a karaoke session.

Dad: Hello?

Me: Hi, Dad!

Dad: Oh hi!

Me: [hearing noise in the background] Whatcha up to?

Dad: Hold on a moment! I have to finish this song. I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes! And I fell out of bed! Hurting my head from things I'd said...

Dad, with Me singing along over the phone: Til I finally died! Which started the whole world living!! Oh, if I'd only SEEN! THAT THE JOKE WAS ON MEEEE!!!! [laughing]

Dad: Hehe, mom's finding sanctuary in the master bedroom.

Me: Poor mom.

Dad: Oh, and I found a really good video today that has applause in it! So I feel like Elvis entering the building! And when the song is done, I hear the applause and I bow in front of the TV. And that makes mom even more pissed. She asks me, "Why do they applaud? Why don't they say that you suck?" HAHA!

Me: You bow in front of the TV.

Dad: Yeah. And it would be even better if James could make me a nice outfit like Elvis. Because usually I'm just in my underwear. Haha! Or Elton John! Some nice glasses and a white suit and a bow tie. HAHAHA!

Me: Mom would love that.

Dad: Oh, you know, she asked me if we could go to Reno to see her favorite Taiwanese pop star perform...

Me: Yeah, she mentioned that to me.

Dad: So I said, sure, we can go. But only if she lets me do my karaoke everyday. So she said yes.

Me: Really? That doesn't seem to be an even exchange, Dad. You take her to one concert and she has to put up with your singing everyday?

Dad: Well, she has to put up with me everyday anyway, so singing or no singing, what's the difference? Hahaha!

END.

On Being a 30-Year-Old Child

My mom flew out with me to Boston about a month ago. Two weeks ago, my dad joined us to both check out my living arrangements and make sure that my brother was getting settled in smoothly. Today, both mom and dad flew back to California. Upon dropping them off at the airport, I was immediately struck with a feeling of loss. I don't know who started crying first, but I totally lost all composure when I saw my father, whom I've never once seen cry, get teary-eyed and speechless. I was in tears driving back home, and cried for about an hour after. I thankfully had plans to meet up with a friend tonight, so I didn't let myself sit in sadness all evening. But even now, I'm writing with a lump in my throat.

I feel slightly embarrassed at myself for feeling so emotional about saying bye to mom and dad. This is worse than when they dropped me off for college. Actually, even worse than when they first sent me to pre-school, because according to them, I skipped off to school without so much a glance backwards. Obviously, this is different. I'm now on the opposite side of the country, and will be living here indefinitely. For now, while I'm only starting my career, I can't assume that this move is only a temporary stopover. I really am setting out on my own for the first time in my life.

But the thing is, I'm actually really excited about starting my new job and living in my own place. As much as I enjoyed having mom and dad stay with me these last weeks, I was thinking how nice it would be to claim all of my space and determine my own routine. As if hosting my parents in my modest apartment were like an extended family road trip, I even found myself getting testy with my parents and welcoming functions at school just so I could get some me-time.

So the sadness I'm feeling isn't really about fear of being on my own. It's actually about just the opposite. I'm realizing that my being able to be on my own is largely because of all that my parents have given me. I could not buy my new home if it weren't for my father, who helped me with the downpayment. I could not settle into my new home if it weren't for my mother, who helped me paint my walls, assemble my furniture, and kept me company while I tried to figure out the city. And it is because of both of their patience and unconditional support that I was able to make it through my graduate program and allow myself the freedom to search nation-wide for my first tenure-track position. There are parents who, either consciously or not, prevent their children from fully pursuing their aspirations. I am exceedingly lucky to have parents who work every minute of their lives to ensure that my brother and I are able to pursue ours, even if that means that we won't be nearby enough to take care of them.

But it's not a sense of filial guilt that's making me weepy. I very simply like being near my parents. I love them as my parents and like them as people. I credit them for instilling in me attributes that I take the most pride in. So when I say that I will miss them, it really means simply that.

I suppose I should just remind myself that my family has always been superb at keeping in touch. Tonight, when I stepped out of South Station, I got a brilliant view of fireworks from downtown. I have no idea what the occasion was, but I can't wait to tell mom and dad about it.

Mashers!

My brother and I will each be living on our own for the first time in our lives. This is how we shared our feelings about it.

Bro: As much as I loved my roommates, I can't wait to have my own place.

Me: Yeah, I think it'll be alright in an apartment. But living alone in a house would freak me out. No matter how much a roommate could get on my nerves, I still preferred to have someone else in the house.

Bro: Yeah, that one time when mom and dad went out of town, and I thought it would be really fun to have the house to myself, I totally freaked out at any little noise. I turned on every light in every room, turned on every tv, and just stayed in bed in their room.

Me: Aww, why their room?

Bro: Because my room is at the front of the house, and I kept thinking someone would burst through the window!

Me: Yeah, I'd be afraid that the mashers would come out and get me.

Bro: The what?

Me: Mashers!

Bro: Huh?

Me: You know, bad guys who come in and mash you up...

Bro: Mash you up?

Me: Yeah, like with a meat tenderizer.

Bro: What? Why a meat tenderizer?

Me: Cuz that would be super painful! Like worse than a shanking.

Bro: Uh, I dunno about that. I mean, couldn't you defend yourself against a dinky little meat tenderizer?

Me: No, not one of those little wooden ones. A big ass metal one! With spikes! All your bones would get mashed into little bits!

Bro: Ohmygod, that's what you're saying? Mashers! I thought you were just saying "monster" in some weird accent. You fucking weirdo...

Me: Mashers!

Bro: But who the hell would carry around a big ass meat tenderizer?

Me: I dunno, a viking. With, like, a big hat with horns.

Bro: So that's your worst nightmare. A viking comes into your house in the middle of the night and mashes your legs with a giant meat tenderizer.

Me: MASHERS!

Bro: So there's more than one masher? There's like a clan of viking mashers?

Me: [laughing] I guess!

Bro: [laughing] Are they actual vikings or just dudes dressed as vikings?

Me: [laughing] Does it matter?

Bro: [laughing] I guess not...

Me: [laughing]

[Mom pokes her head in the room.]

Mom: [In Cantonese] Hey! Do you two know what time it is? Stop being so loud!

Me: [giggling]

Bro: Shhh!!

Me: [giggling]

[Mom leaves.]

Me: See, masher!

Bro: HAHAHA!! Can you imagine mom in a viking costume??

Me: HAHAHAHA!! But she actually would use the little wooden meat tenderizers! One in each hand!

Bro: HAHAHAHA!!! [mimicking mom yelling at us in Mandarin] "Wan Ba Dan!"

Me: HAHAHA, ohmygod...

Bro: Heeheehee...

Me: ...

Bro: Well, I guess that's sort of like that one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where Anya's cousin shows up and he's like, a big ogre viking.

Me: See, Joss Whedon understands my nightmares.

Bro: Joss Whedon is a genius.

Me: ...

Bro: ...

Me: Though I guess if a masher had a giant ass meat tenderizer, it would be pretty easy to dodge him. That thing would be heavy.

Bro: HAHAHAHA!!!

END.

Things I've Learned While Getting Settled Into the Northeast

1.) Moving companies can deliver your stuff whenever the hell they want. In spite of my checking in with Mayflower, the company I hired, about the status of my cargo, they ended up delivering my belongings an entire week later than I had requested. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with this practice, so long as they deliver within the time range they give themselves. When I complained to the moving agent about the costs and inconveniences of being stranded in an empty condo, she simply said, "Well, technically we could have delivered your things as late as August 6." My advice to those who are doing a big move: Pack or immediately buy upon your arrival an air mattress, toiletries, plenty of underwear, and something to boil water in.

2.) As much as I fancy myself a cosmopolitan person who supports small business and resists the homogenization of American society, I unapologetically admit to loving superstores. I was never so relieved to drive (thankfully the moving company delivered my car on time) outside of Boston to a town that had a Costco, Home Depot, and IKEA all in one place. One stop shopping, FTW.

3.) My mother is a powerhouse. While helping me get settled in, she has done heavy lifting, assembled furniture, navigated unknown roads, and with more energy than I'm able to muster. And she's twice my age. Either she's incredibly strong or I'm incredibly out of shape.

4.) New York City is crazy. I went there with my brother to look for his apartment. The process of finding a rental is absurd. Most landlords will only talk to a broker. No-fee apartments are usually more expensive anyway, so you'd might as well go through a broker who demands 15% of the price of rent. Place get snatched up right away, so you're pressured to sign on the first thing that looks remotely livable. And god, the prices. $1600/month is the standard for a tiny, run-down studio in Manhattan. The subway system is a puzzle. The weather during the summer is wretched. And people are cranky. But there's also always something magical about the city, about seeing in front of you landmarks that you've seen over and over again in movies, art, and television. That my brother gets to live in a city where he can go shopping in Times Square at 1 am and catch a Broadway show any night of the week does make me a bit envious. But still, New York City is crazy.

5.) People in the northeast don't wait for walk signals. Pedestrians just walk when they feel like it.

6.) There's a surprisingly large Chinese community in Boston and its surrounding areas. My mom and I drove out to Quincy, which feels like a small, very white, beach town. And yet, tucked within the historical sites and Irish pubs is a cluster of Chinese-run businesses. We found a huge Chinese supermarket and were able to get all the necessary ingredients for my mom's signature dishes, which I'm trying to learn to make.

7.) Shopping on Newbury Street will be my new temptation and weakness.

8.) Food is definitely more superior in California.

9.) The MBTA is great. And I like that I see people reading while riding it.

10.) I'm really loving owning my own place. And I'm really excited about building my life in this city.

No Goodbyes

I've spent the last eight years of my life in a town that I had always said would never be my home. Not only is it just a little too small and suburban for my taste, but I had always kept in mind that this town was just a stopover to something more permanent, that everyone I would meet during my time in graduate school would be dispersing eventually. But the problem with spending nearly a decade in one place is that you can't help but make a home out of it. If home is where the heart is, then my heart is definitely with the truly special people I've come to know in graduate school.

I've always known that I'm surrounded by really good people here, and these last couple of weeks have especially reminded me of that fact. I never gave much thought on how saying goodbyes would be, figuring that I would just sort of see people in the midst of packing for my move and then just flitter away. My friends, though, made sure that my departure was an event, not only for me, but also for them. My roommate of four years, who's also one of my closest friends, organized a bon voyage party. And because I love costume parties, she came up with the perfect theme for me: FOSSE. Given that Bob Fosse was a director/choreographer known for a style of dance emblematic in shows like Chicago and Cabaret and not a style of dress, I really didn't expect people to come in costume. But these friends of mine were totally game. In spite of having to first ask, "What the hell is Fosse?" they went out and purchased their bowler hats, corsets, fishnet stockings and bow ties. I'm sure dressing up was just fun for them anyway, but I also saw their effort as a gesture of camaraderie. They took the time and energy to make my last party here something memorable. I couldn't have asked for a better send-off.

And then in smaller, more intimate gatherings, I was able to enjoy what I love the most, which is dinner at home with my best friends. This year, we started calling it the "writing cave," because we would all gather at my place for a group writing session and then end the work day with a meal that we prepared together. In spite of the fact that all of my friends are busy writing their dissertations, teaching summer school, dealing with things like deaths in the family, they freed up their evenings just to spend time with me during my last days here. I felt really loved and supported all week (all year, really), which is exactly what I needed to get me through the harshness of this transition.

When it comes to goodbyes I've never been one for tears or even very many heartfelt words, which isn't to say that departing from people with whom I've come to admire, love and depend on isn't deeply sad for me. It is. But perhaps the rush of getting the job, finishing the degree, and buying the home has allowed me treat this big move as an adventure to look forward to rather than to fear. And that's another reason why I love my friends so much. I know these goodbyes are really sad for them (not because I'm egoistic enough to assume that I'll be missed, but because saying goodbye to friends last year was a lot harder than I had anticipated), but they've been so generous about making my departure a happy one. They've encouraged me to be excited about this move, and allowed me to treat it as a personal triumph. I think that's true selflessness-- Being available for a friend, helping her out by simply doing tasks that make her life easier, and creating the emotional atmosphere that she needs. I needed fanfare, not a funeral. My friends gave me that, and I am endlessly grateful.

I hope, though, that even with my stiff upper lip, my friends know how much I love them and how much I'll miss them. I hope they understand that when I say that I don't believe in goodbyes and that they should come visit and stay with me anytime, I mean to keep them close and make my new home theirs as well. After all, I intend to carry my friends with me wherever I go.

When An Anti-Jingoist Watches Sports

I don't really follow sports, and when I do, I don't ever swear allegiance to any one team. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I grew up in San Jose, CA, a city that really only has the Sharks to claim as its national sports team. (And, really, who the hell here gives a rat's ass about hockey?) I suppose there are always the San Francisco teams to get behind, and I remember the 49-er frenzy when I was a kid, back when Joe Montana was a star. But for the most part, the notion of feeling personally affiliated with a sports team, and loyally supporting it, has always been kind of foreign to me.

The funny thing is, the only sports events I ever did follow consistently were the Olympics and the World Cup, two events premised on competition between nations, and thus should inspire the most flag-waving, anthem-singing, allegiance-swearing fervor. My impulse has always been to root for the United States, because, of course, that is the country I call home. But since I was a kid, I always noticed when my parents would get excited about China's performance, and it never occurred to me that they, as American citizens, were being unpatriotic. And when it did occur to me that they weren't necessarily supporting China as a nation (for, after all, both sides of my family were kicked out of China after various revolutions generations ago, and no one has expressed any interest in returning to the homeland), I came to understand that my parents were feeling an affinity with a people and a common ancestry. One's loyalty or sense of belonging isn't always represented in terms of teams. So while my family certainly has a strong sense of home and origin, it has never been that interested in jingoism. I guess I haven't been, either.

My educational background and academic career have equipped me to intellectualize my inherent distrust of nation, and have also interfered with my watching of sports. I'm far more interested in what programs nations have in place that enable the strong performance of its athletes rather than the performances themselves. I'm always impressed when athletes from war-torn and impoverished countries manage to medal. The Beijing Olympics were particularly interesting for me, because it displayed China as a country once closed-off debut itself as a superpower. While I was certainly proud to see my ancestral nation host and compete so impressively, I was also quick to wonder how much money was going into "representing" the nation when so many of its people are dirt poor. I found it thrilling to see an Asian country give my true homeland, the big and powerful U.S., a run for its money, but I also felt fatigued by the cost of competition. In the end, rather than get caught up in the medals race between the United States and China, I found myself looking out for nations that were medaling for the first time.

So for this year's FIFA World Cup, I've been largely rooting for the underdogs. Yes, I rooted for North Korea, even if they're supposed be an evil dictatorship. I just thought it was cool that they were making it to the World Cup for the first time since 1966. Yes, I rooted for Ghana, even when they were playing the United States. I just wanted to see an African country make the final in the first World Cup to take place on the African continent. And now that we're reaching the final, I definitely don't want to see one between the Netherlands and Germany, two former colonizers of South Africa.

I suppose my cheering habits betray my politics and world-view. I'm clearly fiercely critical of colonialism (and its counterpart: globalization). I'm also an American through and through, right down to my awareness of American racial politics and the history of white supremacy in the United States, which somehow translates to an affinity with my Asian brethren and other folks of color when they manage to defy expectations that history dictates.

Obviously, I'm not much of a sports watcher.

---

UDPATE: I actually got my ass up at 7 am to watch the Germany vs. Argentina game. Gotta hand it to the Germans-- They were simply way better than Argentina defensively, and knew how to position themselves in order to finish off their attempted goals. Really strong, tight team. No wonder they've been slaughtering every team they've played. See, I do pay attention to the game!

I want to have this man's babies.

So that's Alex Wong, the standout contestant on this season's So You Think You Can Dance. The show first featured Wong when he auditioned for Season 5 and totally wowed the judges, including Ms. Debbie Allen (as in "You want FAME? Well FAME costs. And right here is where you start paying in SWEAT." Debbie Allen), who could only respond with a "Shut. Up." While Wong's contract with the Miami City Ballet kept him from competing that season, he's now returned to totally dominate Season 7.

The guy has an adorable face and killer abs. (Seriously, just look at those abs.) And he's a crazy skilled ballet dancer, as his win at the Prix de Lausanne clearly indicates. But what sealed the deal for me was this performance from this week's episode:

alex 9 @ Yahoo! Video

I. Cannot. Stop. Watching. This. He is hitting it so hard, and with so much commitment and abandon, that the audience goes completely batshit. And to expand on the judges' exaltations, the fact that this guy is primarily a ballet dancer makes this hip-hop performance all the more awesome. Even I, a total non-dancer, can spot when a hip-hop dancer isn't accustomed to the lines needed for lyrical dance, or when a tap dancer is missing the hip action needed for latin ballroom. Wong just kills a genre that's totally outside of his own. (It's really clever, too, on the part of choreographers Tabitha and Napoleon D'Umo, to highlight Wong's versatility by slipping in the ballet bits into this routine.) I cannot wait to see what Wong has in store for the rest of the season.

I realize that Alex Wong would probably be more interested in making out with his dance partner tWitch than with me (not to make prejudiced assumptions, of course), and his physical agility genes would probably be shamefully diluted if mixed with my flabby ass genes, but seriously, I would carry this man's child. Or many children, to produce a friggin' Von Trapp family of dancing Asian babies.

Sen. Daniel Inouye, Senate President Pro-Tempore

Not to undermine any honor due to Senator Robert Byrd, who passed away on Monday, but it is worth noting that his passing has created a void in the position of Senate president pro-tempore. This position is filled by the longest-serving member of the majority party, who is now Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).

This means that Sen. Inouye is now third in line of presidential succession. That is the closest an Asian American has ever come to the presidency.

To be clear, no part of me is wishing that Pres. Obama and Vice Pres. Biden get knocked off just so we get an Asian American president. (Besides, in my opinion, our president's Hawaiian upbringing, Indonesian step-dad and Chinese brother-in-law practically make him an honorary Asian anyway.) I'm just saying that this is a noteworthy moment in American history. Perhaps it is now somewhat imaginable that an Asian American could someday get the top job.

Sen. Inouye, 85 (damn, these senators are old), has been a U.S. senator since 1963. He fought in the Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II, and was awarded the Medal of Honor. As senator, Inouye was instrumental in securing reparations for Japanese Americans who were interned during WWII. He also voted against the Iraq War in 2002.

When Nerds Attempt to Hook Up

I know several people who met their significant others at a work-related conference. I suppose this makes sense, given that the conditions are ideal for a hook-up. You're at a hotel already. You get to meet people with similar interests as you do, and everyone is dressed up and looking nice. And after or in between all the conferencing stuff, every social and networking occasion involves alcohol. And you're there for only a few days, so you'd might as well have a little fun while you're working.

However, in regards to academic conferences, which are the only conferences I've been to, I find it hard to believe that much hooking up happens. Quite frankly, I rarely see anyone remotely fuckable at academic conferences. Professors are largely former speech and debate geeks and academic decathletes (no joke), so one can only imagine what kind of a meat market academic conferences might be.

At a recent conference I attended, I did manage to meet someone with hook-up potential. He wasn't a professor or a graduate student, but worked as a program coordinator at an institution that works in historical preservation. I'll just refer to him as Sriracha. Because I only remember that his name started with an S. And, well, because he was hot. Anyway, I met Sriracha with a group of graduate students who were having dinner and drinks at the end of the first day of the conference. As the night progressed, we got drunk, danced, flirted, and eventually found ourselves back at the hotel.

Now, I'm not one to do the one-night-stand thing, even in my drunkest and flirtiest state. So I was pretty careful about setting my boundaries and keeping things light. Sriracha, however, definitely wanted sex. A part of me was definitely tempted to throw caution to the wind and sleep with the guy. But then, the dude suddenly transformed into a pubescent boy. After going in for a kiss, he started talking like Screech from Saved By the Bell and exclaimed, "Woah, what happened there?" And then he told me he wanted to see my "boobies, " after which I burst out laughing and told him I had to call it a night. Any desire on my part to hook-up fizzled. I didn't see the guy again for the rest of the conference.

Anyway, because the academic world is absurdly small, it turns out that Sriracha knows a good friend of mine, who worked at the same institution he works for. She was quite shocked when I told her about our little almost-hook-up, because the dude is engaged to be married. And apparently, his fiancee is absolutely gorgeous. My friend is also very disappointed the fact that Sriracha would cheat on his fiancee, because he seems to be such a decent, intelligent, put-together guy.

I suppose I should be insulted by the fact that this guy was putting me in the position of Bombshell McGee, Divine Brown, or the however many women Tiger Woods managed to have affairs with. But mostly I just think the whole scenario is absurd. I'll bet Sriracha regularly has one night stands with women whenever he goes to conferences. Had he not chosen to make me his target, I'm sure he would have found someone else that night. He may have had a different woman each night he was at the conference. I think this might be the case for a lot of men in academia, especially in the humanities, where men are the distinct minority. Sriracha, who's attractive, but really is only a normal-looking dude in the normal world, must easily catch the attention of academic women, who either don't get to meet very many men at all or only meet friggin' weird and awkward men. (Again, academics really are just a bunch of nerds.) I've seen it time and again-- Guys who are really unexceptional-looking or even downright ugly getting way more ass than one would think they'd be able to get, or snagging women way out of their league and then cheating on them. I really don't get this behavior.

Jerks exist everywhere in and in all forms, of course. But put a guy in an environment where he feels entitled to be greedy, even the biggest nerd can be a playboy.

Good Friends/ Bad Friends

A few years ago, I was in a relationship with a guy who wasn't into me as much as I was into him. I only say this now, of course, in retrospect, because I'm able to recognize how much I feared facing the fact of his indifference. I had no problems being the initiator, planning out dates, thinking of ways to surprise him, making room in my life for him. It had occurred to me many times while we were together that I was putting more into our relationship than he was, but I never could bring myself to let him take the lead. Sometimes I would wait for him to make me dinner, plan a getaway, tickle my fancy. But I would usually cave and be the initiator once again. So long as he played along with my plans, I was able to ignore the glaring fact that I really should have confronted from the very beginning: Had I walked away from the relationship, he probably wouldn't have chased me. I was simply to afraid to put him to the test.

Largely because that relationship ended in exhaustive heartbreak for me, I've been much better about demanding more from men that I date. The relationship that came after was much healthier. I let him chase me, and then would reciprocate when I felt ready to. The relationship was a lot more equal, and I was able to rest assured that his actions would correspond to his feelings. I had expected that should that relationship end, it would be because one or both of us could not give anymore. And that's pretty much what happened. While I was deeply saddened by the end of that relationship, I didn't walk away feeling spent and stupid. I'd like to think that I'm now brave enough to walk away from any man who isn't into me, no matter how much I may be into him.

One would think that the expectation for reciprocity should be even easier to manage when it comes to non-romantic relationships. But these past several months have really made me consider what kinds of friendships I've maintained. It's always the worst and best of times that make me realize who my true friends are. And sure enough, these past several months have been at once the most exhilarating and the most exhausting for me. Some friends have been fantastic-- They've celebrated my graduating, getting a job, buying a home, at the same time that they've provided emotional support and companionship when I've felt just downright freaked out about all these sudden changes and transitions. Some other friends, however, have totally dropped the ball. They've not even sent a message of congrats or even acknowledged that this has been a really big year for me. Strangers have expressed more excitement over my accomplishments than some of these so-called friends have. Some of the very same friends who have been the recipients of my gifts and congrats when they've gotten married, graduated, had babies, bought houses, etc., have completely ignored my announcements. And even worse, some friends are even burdening me with their needs and problems at a time when dealing with my own life is already taking all of my energy.

I suppose everyone realizes at one point or another that some people simply suck. (I'm sure I've sucked, too.) I should be able to live with that realization, except that, as I did with my non-reciprocative ex-boyfriend, I think I'm bringing a lot of this sucky behavior onto myself. After all, it's not as if these sucky friends were ever really good friends in the first place. Through the years, I've been the one to round them up for our reunions during the winter holidays. I've been the one to send them birthday cards. I've been the one to fly across the country to their weddings. But if I never did, I think I would just never hear from some of these people. And, really, those friends who are laying their problems on me have always been better at taking than giving. I don't know why I haven't been better at setting my boundaries. I don't know why I haven't walked away from these friendships.

Actually, I know why. I keep holding onto these friends because it seems to be part of my nature to just shut up and do things that need to be done. Or, rather, I've been trained to do so by my parents. My mother will do it all for people-- She'll chauffeur, run errands, cook and clean up after. She'll do this for anyone who will ask, and only hopes that her efforts are appreciated. My father is more selective with whom he will serve, but when he does choose to do things for someone, he won't expect any reciprocity or even appreciation. He's been taking care of my greataunt, who regularly talks shit about him to other people and accuses him of stealing from her, simply because he knows she needs the help. He doesn't do this out of self-martyrdom or obligation or love. He just chooses to do it because he can.

So when I've complained to my parents about feeling slighted or burdened by some of my friends, my parents don't have a whole lot of sympathy to offer. My mother will say, "You should be a good friend simply because it's the good thing to do; Stop being so petty." And my father will say, "Just do what you are willing to do for your friends. Even if they don't acknowledge or appreciate it, just treat it as a favor to them." To my parents, friendship, love, marriage, family are all premised on simply doing things for people. And yes, oftentimes those people are going to take your kindness for granted, receive your help without offering anything in return. That's just a fact of life.

So maybe I need to figure out if that's how I want to conduct my friendships. That's certainly my first impulse, anyway. If a friend needs cheering up, I'll host a party. If a friend is stressed out about work, I'll turn my home into a workspace and make her dinner. If a friend is a hot mess, I'll do the dirty work. So long as I can do something, I'll try to. But unlike my parents, I get miffed if I don't feel sufficiently appreciated. And I get downright resentful if I feel that my efforts aren't being returned. I start thinking that that friend is simply stingy, lazy, selfish. I start wondering if he/she is a bad friend.

And the thing is, I know I'm being unfair in my resentment. First of all, I shouldn't get upset if I haven't even communicated to my friends that I am upset. And second, I may need to be better at recognizing the gestures of friendship my friends do offer, even if they're unlike mine. But still, conceding these two points doesn't make me any less disappointed.

Maybe there is something about this turning-point in my life that's making me ration out my emotional energy. And maybe I'm ready to only spend energy on my truly great friends, those who treat friendship as something to step up to, not just coast on.

Stuff White People Like: Chinese Parents' Edition

I was watching tv with my parents a few nights ago when we stumbled upon the Discovery Channel, which was broadcasting a marathon of Man Vs. Wild, starring Bear Grylls. Though I generally have no interest in the wilderness or how one would survive in it, I kinda love the show. I excitedly described to my parents some of Bear Grylls's nastiest antics: finding drinking water by squeezing it out of fresh elephant dung, hollowing out a camel carcass to use as shelter, and drinking turtle blood (pictured). Coincidentally, the episode we happened to catch was a countdown of Bear Grylls's 25 favorite moments, so my parents got a condensed helping of the show.

As they watched Bear Grylls (how awesome a name is that?) deliberately fall into a frozen lake, jump out of airplanes and eat giant exploding worms, they offered their commentary:

Mom: What is wrong with this crazy man? Why would he do these things? Does he want to die?

Dad: It's all fake! If he was actually risking death, they wouldn't show it on tv.

Me: Well, that Crocodile Hunter guy died, and I think they eventually showed it on tv.

Mom: That guy was stupid, too.

Dad: Why is it always stupid white men who like to do these stunts?

END.

My parents may have a point. Bear Grylls, Steve Irwin, the two guys on Dual Survival, just about every contestant on shows like Survivor-- It does seem like white people, and white dudes in particular, take delight in throwing themselves into environments in which humans aren't meant to exist, getting themselves injured, and eating lots of really gross things. Not to say that Asian folks don't have tendencies to do some crazy shit. Martial arts are pretty crazy, especially when taken to the level that THIS Chinese dude has. The Japanese have perfected the art of producing television shows featuring people who like to hurt themselves. And let's face it-- Half the "gross" stuff that white people eat on these stunt challenge shows like Fear Factor is probably standard cuisine in many Asian countries. (For the record, of that list, I've only had durian, stinky tofu, and fugu.)

But while all cultures may celebrate their own brands of crazy, I wonder if the type represented by Man Vs. Wild is a particularly white Anglo-American thing. Does the scenario of a lone dude combatting the hostile wilderness and defying death appeal to the standard frontier myth that has basically driven white men to "discover" new lands and conquer them? Does Bear Grylls satisfy some fantasy that white men have to maintain in order to feel powerful in this supposed post-feminist, post-racial, post-modern world?

I dunno. What I do know is that I love watching a white dude piss into a tube of snake skin and drink from it as a means to hydrate himself.