Monthly Archives: August 2010

Making new friends is mentally exhausting even if you love them at first sight (#BlogHer10 Day 2)

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10:05:09 AM: Now @marymac session. Was able to get ready in 20 minutes because I never blowdry my hair & I don’t need to shave my legs. #YouHateM eNow?!

10:11:07 AM: sayz: Making new friends is mentally exhausting even if you love them at first sight… http://goo.gl/fb/aSIjV

10:13:19 AM: Love this! “We may just need to own this: Your shitty writing is better than most people’s good writing!” Paraphrasing @avengingophelia

10:35:14 AM: @ #BlogHer10 we deal w the collision b/w “fantasy” & reality. It takes a lot to reconcile inner images of someone w the person in front of u

12:08:00 PM: @WickedShawn haz 2 work TODAY. “My boss just asked what I would like for lunch. My response: To stab all of you. He just nodded.” U tell him

12:45:03 PM: Anissa talked about her experience & support coming fr Internet after the tragedy & she managed to make us laugh. How amazing is that woman?

12:55:14 PM: Awesome @AnissaMayhew said “Ppl who say blogging is not important can kiss my ass!” Right on! It’s amazing how she makes us LOL #BlogHer10

1:30:01 PM: A speaker said ppl r generally kind. Ppl r really not assholes. @AnissaMayhew added “Some ppl ARE assholes!” She totally rocks! #BlogHer10

2:17:16 PM: Walking towards Bryant Park in my sundress & higgh heel, meeting w my bitches, typing on my phone, feeling all Sex and the City-y. NYC rox!

2:51:45 PM: There are 2500 people here #BlogHer10! It's amazing we haven't broken up in cat fights all over! http://twitpic.com/2cjwx4

3:00:07 PM: The food is surprisingly good. Look! Desert SHELVES. NOT table! In fact, this is kind of evil. http://twitpic.com/2cjzvp

3:07:16 PM: @marymac has a surprisingly youthful voice, like bells. She is personable, adorable. Lk her blog http://twitpic.com/2ck2ff

3:10:00 PM: Empire State Building peeking out of Bryant Park. It's a gorgeous day for real. I'm in heaven http://twitpic.com/2ck3b5

3:19:50 PM: Chilling @ Bryant Park w sexy ladies. Here r @pattypunker @BrilliantSulk @pugalistatrest http://twitpic.com/2ck6fv

3:27:39 PM: This is truly an oasis in NYC inside Bryant Park. Beautiful day. Surrounded by beautiful friends. http://twitpic.com/2ck8wo

5:01:47 PM: I truly am in luv w NYC. Even the ppl are better looking here. Doesn't hurt the weather is gorgeous http://twitpic.com/2cl1ry

5:10:35 PM: Time Square fuckyeah! There were a lot of half nekkid hot men w nice abs walking around. I luv NYC!! http://twitpic.com/2cl4ho

7:17:03 PM: Sushi & sake @ Kodoma for dinner. Now searching 4 a BlogHer10 party to get on w our bad selves! http://twitpic.com/2cm8mp

8:32:23 PM: @ Sparklecom party. This is what I'm talking about! Oh yeah baby! http://twitpic.com/2cmyrc

11:08:27 PM: So I am like lying in bed Tweeting for you bitches at a fancy party in public. You r welcome. #blogher10

11:12:42 PM: @knowmeloveme at Cheeseburger party! She looks hot!! Check her out Chantelligence.com http://twitpic.com/2con6y

12:54:15 AM: sayz: Making new friends is mentally exhausting even if you love them at first sight (#BlogHer10 Day 2) http://bit.ly/d1V64F

12:54:16 AM: sayz: I Blog Therefore I Am. Corny yet true. http://bit.ly/95bN6R

2:47:17 AM: Apparently I danced w eyes wide shut like a maniac who’s never been out of the house. I did get a few ladies to own their sexiness. I rock

2:49:09 AM: What kind of fancy party shut down @ 1 pm? Hotel bar stopped serving @ 1 too. We had to go to some random bar & I had my 10th & 11th vodka

2:50:38 AM: Woohoo I guess I AM drunk. The bar closes @ 1 am. Not 1 pm. That’s be totally suck…

2:51:27 AM: Ok. Bad grammar! I am now confirmed drunk.

2:53:25 AM: Can you find hot pizza @ 3 am?! Fuckyeah you can in NYC! This one is 4 my husb who requested pizza http://twitpic.com/2cqnim

2:56:59 AM: @avapidblonde @pattypunker eating hot pizza in sexy party dresses @ 3am. I saw gawkers. #Noshit http://twitpic.com/2cqog6

3:00:42 AM: Hot chicks having New York Pizza @ 3am in Time Square. We were like a performance. Tourists stopped. http://twitpic.com/2cqpho

3:02:31 AM: Random guy in street: Look! Sexy ladies! Me: see? How awesome is New York? Guy: actually I’m from England. Me: You speak English well! LOL

3:04:28 AM: Random British guy: How dare you? Me: You speak American well? (Hit his behind w my pocket book) Off u go get some w your hot lady 2nite!

3:06:17 AM: Yeah. You really don’t want me to be all drunky & be “myself” & release me to the wild. I cackle. I flirt w every living thing, even grandpa

3:09:48 AM: It's 4 am. My flt is @ 8:30am. I'm not going 2 bed now am I? Thanks 4 putting up w #BlogHer10 tweets http://twitpic.com/2cqrza

5:39:33 AM: My favorite moment @ Blogher10? @BugginWord left a session early to fetch me 2 lunch w the gang. I was almost in tears when she appeared

5:41:05 AM: As I congratulate myself 4 handling this getting up early 4 the 8:30am flt so well, I dropped the ziploc bag w my cream etc into the toilet

5:45:26 AM: As I packed up this, my fuck-me shoes & my ho dress, I felt as if I were packing up my cape. Goodbye Land Where I Get 2 Pretend 2 b Awesome!

5:48:29 AM: THIS. Goodbye my secret identity aka ME! We had fun. It was nice spending time w you. Hello reality! http://twitpic.com/2cs14a

BlogHer, fuckyeah! (live blogging through tweets)

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1:51:24 AM: Seeing how it is almost 3 am and my flight is at 7. How I haven’t even started packing. Methinks I should just stay up & go straight to ORD

1:54:29 AM: Do you think it’s excessive to pack 5 pairs of shoes & my whole closet for 1.5 days? So I don’t have to decide now? And my toothbrush

1:57:23 AM: Husb: This party u r going 2 will b very boring. Me: Why? He: Every time someone says something or do something, 100s ppl will tweet abt it!

1:58:11 AM: Me: Can I tweet about this now? (He has no idea. I totally plan to tweet my way through BlogHer10 so I do not have to actually talk to ppl)
6:16:37 AM: Less than 10 hours I’m back @ airport again. Dejavu b/c I’m wearing same outfit as last night AFTER I washed them. Yes, I’m wearing wet bras

6:24:04 AM: Blonde lady is wearing jacket w fur, the famous Hermes purse, matching Cartier bracelet, watch & ring. I hope she’s not going 2 BlogHer10…

9:38:04 AM: Ah NYC! Every time I arrived, I got disoriented b/c it felt so familiar. Parts of it remind me much of parts in Taipei. The chaos. The smell

10:13:20 AM: This city is full of buzz. I feel my whole being is vibrating as soon as the plane flew into it http://twitpic.com/2c4syx

10:16:32 AM: I am here @ blogher10 after waiting 1 year. I am having panic attack. I just want to hide in my room. http://twitpic.com/2c4tym

10:18:23 AM: I’ve been holding my breath since I registered last year, half expecting something to happen to prevent this trip. Now I’m here I’m scared.

10:20:43 AM: Great time for my personna #3 Closeted Introvert to show up now. Ugh. You never outgrow social anxiety do you? Feels lk going 2 a new school

10:22:08 AM: I wonder whether I could just stay in my comfy room and just tweet to connect to the outside world. I should unpack now I guess…

11:09:21 AM: @BugginWord @avapidblonde @BrilliantSulk @forthebirdsblog came to my room to rescue me! I luv my ladies! Got my badge & heading 2 lunch now

12:33:14 PM: This panel is gorgeous. @mommywantsvodka want u to send her picture of your rash. Ok maybe not. http://twitpic.com/2c5ysl

2:05:43 PM: Even surrounded by ladies I luv online & now IRL, BlogHer still intimidates me. Not everybody is friendly & it’s awkward 2 explain who I am

2:07:25 PM: It’s different from other conferences where ppl tend to have more in common. There r all different kinds of ppl here, hard 2 keep my bearing

2:09:37 PM: The hardest was when someone gave the person standing right next 2 u her biz card but not you. I’m not offended. Just awkward. Need a drink!

2:14:21 PM: Eden Fantasys table outside of Sex panel. Free swag bag! My hub can't say I never bring him anything http://twitpic.com/2c6rol

2:25:46 PM: Blogher can be educational! @bugginword & @avapidblonde teaching us how to use the tool properly. http://twitpic.com/2c6v04

4:34:26 PM: Hanging with the ladies. Priceless! @BugginWord @avapidblonde @forthebirdsblog @BrilliantSulk luv u! http://twitpic.com/2c7uzn

7:10:51 PM: @bugginword @prgraffiti @ lunch today. bloggers who only write about vaginas http://twitpic.com/2c9551

7:10:54 PM: @ the vagina table w @bugginword & @prgraffiti. This is called Twatting apparently http://twitpic.com/2c955k

7:11:05 PM: @ Smores suite. Marshmallows w my besties. Those look lk balls? http://twitpic.com/2c957t

8:05:54 PM: All dressed up for the BlogHer gala. Woohoo! I'm so lucky 2 b surrounded by beautiful ppl inside out http://twitpic.com/2c9nba

8:07:56 PM: Yes. Women do check out each other's shoes. @avapidblonde @BrilliantSulk are rocking hot shoes http://twitpic.com/2c9o16

8:11:41 PM: I'll be honest… Well, you can tell fr the picture yourself. The gala weirdly turns into a karaoke? http://twitpic.com/2c9pak

9:26:43 PM: Balloons! We got balloons!! @theweirdgirl @BrilliantSulk @ #BlogHer10 Better than alcohol?! http://twitpic.com/2cafcv

9:28:14 PM: You know what balloons do to yur hair? Yup. Static! Let @BugginWord demonstrate for you #BlogHer10 http://twitpic.com/2cafxc

9:32:53 PM: After a year wait I finally met @TheBloggess in person. Even better that she stuck her tongue out http://twitpic.com/2cahlo

9:36:46 PM: You are not going to believe how gorgeous @TheBloggess & @avapidblonde look. Ok, you knew already… http://twitpic.com/2caj10

9:47:06 PM: I'm sure it's not normal for me to have such a crush on @TheBloggess. Suck it ppl. I'm tweeting mor http://twitpic.com/2camqf

9:58:22 PM: @TheBloggess read our aura & typing out things according to it. She looked so tired. She's so nice! http://twitpic.com/2caqs8

11:08:00 PM: We are trying to figure out how to use We Vibe @toywithme gave us. We have tried it on our head, neck, feet & hands. Great vibration!

12:28:08 AM: We are finally wrapping up the night. Here is @avapidblonde figuring out the bar bill 😉 #bloher10 http://twitpic.com/2cc7yk

1:02:13 AM: Walking @BrilliantSulk back 2 her hotel. The city is still alive. Problem is we r all walking around w We Vibe.

1:06:19 AM: This is at 2 fucking am! We are all dressed up & nobody gives us a second look.I luv new york city. http://twitpic.com/2ccjxa

I Blog Therefore I Am. Corny yet true.

27 Replies

Moo Mini Cards

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I have been chosen to be one of the employees featured on the recruiting page for my company’s website. Not to be cynical, but I do believe that they intend to show the diversity within the company and that’s the main reason why I have been chosen: Asian, female, liberal arts.

So I had to write a short bio in the form of answering standard questions such as “Why did you decide to work for XXX?” (The answer I would have given if I were being 100% frank: Eh, because they hired me?) “What do you like the most of XXX?” (Eh, the fact that they did not fire me? In this economic climate, are you kidding me? Nobody should be complaining abut their company right now!)

I have standard responses to these standard questions of formality, naturally. However, there is ONE standard question that always throws me into a reality check and thereafter an identity crisis:

“What activities/hobbies are you involved in outside of work?”

I have no hobby.

Ok. That’s not completely true.

I have never had a hobby in my life. Other than reading and listening to music and watching movies. Yawn!

I don’t run.

I don’t sing or play any musical instrument.

I don’t cook.

I can’t sew for my life.

I don’t even scrapbook.

Anything that involves fingers I am bad at. Yes, smart ass, that includes giving a hand job to myself and others.

I sat down and took stock of my life, how I spent my free time. (Not) surprisingly, I have been devoting my free (and not so free) time to Social Media. Twitter and blogging.

In the beginning it did concern me: what am I trying to get out of this blogging thing? It naturally bothered my husband as well since the time I sat in front of the computer meant the time I was not spending with him and the kids. But he came to realize, as I did, that writing my heart out is a great way for me to self-medicate. It is a wonderful way for me to release to pent-up tensions. The bottled-up need for this closeted drama queen to say, “Look at me!”

For what it’s worth, at the risk of sounding like an egomaniac, this is also my “craft”. It is something that I created. Every time I rattle out these words and hit the “Publish” button, I “made” something. These words, for better or worse, are mine. And mine alone. It feels good. I have also learned to do this for myself. Me alone. It feels liberating once I drill that into my blogging soul.

As you are probably tired of hearing, I will be flying to BlogHer, a conference for women who blog. I am a blogger. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

For the next few days I will be live blogging here through my tweets: You can find the live blogging posts below right above this one. I thought it would be fun to share what I am seeing, feeling and thinking at this crazy crazy event. I hope to meet you if you are going to be there; I hope to meet all of you, if you would like to be met that is, one way or the other sometime. You never know. This is a small small world. And insane too.

Wanted: Crazy Bitches to Party With at BlogHer

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Warning: The following is BUI – Blogging Under the Influence. Like, now.

I went to a company shindig tonight. Great people. Fun people. People that I have worked with for five years and with whom I have been through a lot. The company is celebrating a wonderful event and everybody is in a good mood. We feel that we have finally got to the point where we can say: This. This makes it all worth it.

The event was open bar. That means yours truly started drinking as soon as she set foot in the room and by 6:30 pm, I have already downed four glasses of cranberry with Grey Goose vodka. (Yes, I am fortunate enough to work for a very generous company…)  This woman who happened to be by my side the whole time started saying, “Is that your fourth drink?” “That’s your fourth drink, isn’t it?” And she looked at me the way people look at you when they think you are drunk. (Come on, you know what I mean!) I reassured her that I was absolutely not drunk. That what she was seeing was the REAL ME. A little bit crazy. A little bit sassy. Very very friendly. Very very very flirty. Very very very very funny. And LOUD. She was not convinced the way people think you are definitely drunk when you protest and say “I am NOT drunk.”

No offense. But how the fuck did I get stuck with women? Young women. Women who are still on the market and therefore need to maintain a ladylike presence and continue to exclaim at my “bad” behaviors.

ETA (The morning after…) I have to tell you what happened just now (The morning after the company shindig) because it’s just priceless: I showed up at 8:30 am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for action (work-related).  So the same woman who counted how many drink I’d had 30 minutes into the party? “Good morning! How are you feeling today?” In a way, you know, how people say it when they think you are having a massive hangover (For the record: I was not even drunk. Scout’s Honor. I drank 2 bottles of water and took 4 Advils before I went to bed. No hangover). Then she commented, “You have two kids right? You must not get out much.” Seriously? WTF?

All the men I work with know that I can hold my liquor very well. They may not want to admit it but I know they are impressed. They may be secretly pissed that I can drink more than they, but hey, they know it is the truth. And they don’t make a big deal out of it.

Can I tell you something? I love being one of the guys. I do. I love hanging out with them drinking. In college, I was never treated as a “girl”. I was their buddy. And I enjoyed every second of it.

At the end of the company shindig, the original plan was to continue the merrymaking somewhere else. The plan suffered a drastic blow when some guy who does not know me very well said, “Well, we are going some place to drink whiskey and stuff and probably do some ‘sexist’ things.” I had no idea what that meant but I was intrigued. Then one of the guys that I am pretty close to said, “It’s just a bunch of guys holding their penises and drinking whiskey!” You know what? I don’t care! I want to see them hold their penises and I’ll grow a penis and I’ll go!

But no. The womenfolk decided to go hang out at a different bar because we’d let men do what men do.

Huh?

So I ended up at a post-party party that’s not really a party and I was so fucking bored. Unfortunately for yours truly, I was also the oldest person there and I could not be interested in whatever they’re talking about. Half way through the torture of sitting at the table and nursing my seventh drink for the night, I went to the lady’s room to brush my hair. I was there for half an hour and I was happy.  When I came out, I found that my “girlfriend” decided to play pool. In my mind, you only play pool when you are trying to impress guys with your nice behind when you stick it up in the air. Since I am happily married, I have no fucking interest in playing pool. So I left. I came back to the office and I am just sitting here, wishing fervently that I had a penis.

I will be heading to New York City on Friday morning to partake in the madness that is BlogHer. It strikes me as hilariously ironic that right before my trip to BlogHer, aka WOMEN GALORE, I am sitting here, hating myself for succumbing to the female peer pressure and staying with the “girls”. I wish I had said, “Sorry ladies. I am going with the guys because you ladies have some images to uphold and are not crazy enough for me!” Especially since it turned out that the invitation to go hold penises and drink whiskey was actually extended to me.

Instead I am sitting here in the deserted, dark office, blogging.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. Give me some crazy women to party with at BlogHer. Women who don’t care how they look to the others. Women who don’t tsk tsk at you because you are not being “proper”. Women who are not secretly embarrassed to be seen with you and are not doing a good job hiding it. Women who don’t count the number of your drinks.

I need some crazy biatches to party with me in New York City. ARE YOU LADIES CRAZY ENOUGH?!

By the way, in case you are wondering whether I am a traitor to my sex. No ladies. It’s really just a vent above really. I don’t really want a penis. And I love shoes. In fact, I freak out about shoes once in a while. And like most, if not all, of you, I went overboard on the “shoe planning” front last week when I realized BlogHer is THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY!

What boxes? You mean these? Oh don't worry. I am returning most of them...

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Fine. I will NOT be keeping them all. Party pooper!

Lost in Translation

21 Replies

The comment by Justin from Here where I Have Landed on my earlier post Things I Missed echoed my experience and feeling:

… when I tell people that I wasn’t born here, and that I came here to go to college, they’re consistently surprised, “What? But your English is so good!” like it’s completely unnatural that I can string my words together cohesively and not say “Engrish”.

I won’t lie. I have always prided myself on my “good English”. It is a skill that I have mastered on my own and therefore I believe I have earned the right to be proud of it. You know, the same way you’d be proud of your ability to speak, say, French just like the natives. Many many years ago, while I was working on my dissertation which focused on Asian Americans (both American-born and immigrants of Asian descent), I noticed and was troubled by the gap created by the (in)ability to command “good English”. Those who cannot communicate well in English are perceived as foreign, bizarre, lacking in humanity. People tend to write them off as “There is little, if not nothing, in common between us”. Stupid even. (Talking louder and slower. You know what I mean…)

<<Digression: Of course, interestingly, the above does not seem to apply to someone who speaks only French, or German. Or Spanish, depending on what the person looks like.>>

Against my advisor’s strong protest, I insisted on ending my dissertation with a rather personal essay because I believe in presenting a story from as many valid perspectives as possible, especially by people who somehow cannot “speak for themselves”, even if doing so might have negated some of the theorization I was trying to accomplish through my thesis. Since it’s been eating me alive how only 5 people have read my dissertation which represented 5 years of my life, I am going to share an abridged version of the last chapter of my dissertation here on this soapbox (aka my blog). After all, recycling is good for the earth.

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The field for one’s ethnographic study is full of ‘surprises’ and ‘exceptions.’ Every time I theorized a statement or a performative moment, something else would come up that threw my analysis off balance. My theories and analyses cannot account for all individual occurrences. There is always the ‘unexpected’ that makes me think more, that makes me care more. Such is the story of Zhang, a Chinese musician who works frequently with the local theatres.

Zhang came from Mainland China. He had been studying and working in Beijing for almost forty years before he came to the United States in 1993. Zhang has to work at five jobs just to make ends meet. Other than the occasional gigs for performance and composing, he also works at a Chinese restaurant for six hours every day, and he works as a masseur/accupressurist. When Zhang was hired to perform at dinner parties and in Chinese restaurants, by the Chinese standard, it was a fall from grace. He was the master musician in China, and now in the United States he has to peddle his music in front of dinner guests who pay no attention to his existence, let alone his art.

Zhang has tremendous difficulty adjusting to life here because he knows little English, and he has neither the time nor energy to learn a foreign language. He told me that when he gets a job offer, he asks people to send him information in writing. He then looks up new words in the dictionary and only in this way does he know when and where he is supposed to show up and what, to perform. The day before the performance, he has to drive to the place, like a drill, to make sure he knows the directions. When he works with the local theatres, he needs an interpreter to help him understand what their needs are and what the performance is about. People have neither the time nor the funds to translate the whole script for him. A lot of times he has to go home and look up most of the words in the script one by one. He told me he has never had an actual conversation with people in those theatres he works with because he can’t.

“Then why don’t you go back?” I could imagine people asking him.  So I did, and he explained,

“The material life is not as good for me in this country because I was provided with an apartment and a nice salary when I was in China, as ‘First Class Composer.’  In contrast, I have to work several jobs here just to pay my rent. I can’t function normally here because I don’t have an adequate command of English. I can’t even answer the phone myself… But what makes me stay is the liberation I feel here. The freedom to create music in my own way. Nobody can tell me what to do or what not to do.”

Zhang, like many artists, would like to believe in the universality of art. He needs to believe his artistic creation can be shared by all people, and his art can bridge the differences and bring out the commonalities between people.  However, this kind of theorization does not help Zhang’s situation. The discrepancy between his belief and his reality in the United States is painfully obvious.

The language barrier looms large.

Learning English somehow has become the primary goal of Zhang’s life in the United States, a goal he does not expect to achieve because he has to work most of the time in order to survive. With his limited English, he can find work that pays only the minimum wage. A vicious cycle was started as soon as he landed here.

Zhang surmises his own predicament, “I am crippled because I don’t understand English. There is no way I can get out of this bind with my limited command of English.”

It is curious how little has been theorized about the English language as an important factor in building “Asian American”  communities/identities and, at the same time, marginalizing the non-English speaking population. There are practical and urgent issues of immigrant subjectivity regarding language skills and economic class. Just because they do not speak English does not mean their subjectivities do not exist. Nevertheless, the boundaries set up by language barriers are real and difficult to cross despite all the talks of figurative boundary-crossing. It was luck that I happen to be a native Chinese speaker, that I could talk to Zhang and, as much as I dislike this term, ‘speak for’ him.

Towards the end of our interview, I asked Zhang the question I ask every one of my interviewees: “Where is home? Is it here in the United States or is it China?” Zhang was greatly affected by this question. The tears welled up in his eyes. I was stunned. I was not prepared to deal with this situation. A great sense of guilt overwhelmed me. Here I was, in a noisy and crowded Chinese restaurant, facing a 60-year-old Chinese man in tears. I made him cry. I felt as though I had made my father cry in public.

“I am sorry.” I did not know what else to say. “I am sorry.” My voice sounded helpless. Impotent. There is nothing I could do. And there I was, with a perfect “ethnographic” subject — one with a heart-wrenching story. One who is obviously a victim of national boundaries and political upheaval and cultural alienation and economic inequality. One who cannot speak for himself in the United States. I did not know what to do but say over and over again, “I am sorry.”

Wiping his eyes, Zhang said, “It’s not your fault. It’s just that nobody has ever asked me this question all these years when I am here. Home? Exactly. Where is home for me? I think I was brought here by Fate. Fate made me come here and stay… I don’t have friends here. I don’t have anybody that I can talk ‘heart to heart.’ In China, I have buddies. Here, nobody.”

When scholars analyze and document hardships that immigrants have to go through, they forget to mention loneliness. Right after I turned off my tape recorder, Zhang sighed and said, “You know, I have been here for so long and nobody has ever bothered to ask me that question. THAT is America.” He fell into a silence.