Tag Archives: china

The Instagram Diary

There you go…

Oversharing on the road.

p.s. Will continue until I get home and start the long winding road of unpacking and adjusting to time zone and crying myself to sleep because I don’t want to go back to work…

 

[instapress tag=”oversharingontheroad” piccount=”24″ size=”90″ effect=”fancybox” title=”1″ paging=”1″]

Wordless Wednesday – Cliche

Pictures taken at Houhai Lake, Beijing.

You can see the pictures I’ve been taking while in Beijing here on Instagram.

It’s not what it’s cracked up to be.

I feel so naked without a working cellphone with me when I am out and about. Vulnerable. I did not know how dependent I have become, at least psychologically, on having instant access to the world.

They changed the configuration of the plane: I was able to get a window seat in the Economy Plus section. After I settled into my seat, I started Instagramming. I stopped when I saw a long string of rosaries dangling near my face. No way.

Way.

It was a real Sister. I don’t know why I was so surprised. Sisters fly. My Sister immediately took out her well-worn Bible, with margins filled with notes in neat handwritings, and started reading silently to herself. When she put the Book away, I thought, what’s she gonna do now? She took out her rosaries and a tiny book filled with pictures of saints (I assumed) and continued to pray.

I felt so safe on this flight. And so content.

Sister is not going to steal from my bag when I go use the bathroom. Sister is not going to judge that I have not one ounce of makeup on. Sister won’t care that I have an erupting pimple at the base of my nose. Sister probably won’t judge me. Period. Besides Sister is all skin and bones and she keeps to herself physically so I have both armrests! Sign me up from now on!

Maybe it was as a test for me that soon I found out that my seat did not recline at all. And the new personal screen I was so psyched about was broken. Somehow I was not agitated. I probably would have felt really embarrassed if I threw a tantrum over something trivial like this after overhearing that Sister was flying to China to work in an orphanage. #TrueStory

Sigh.

Luckily I’d packed every single electronic gadget I have: Android phone, Kindle, iPhone, iPad, and a Mac, even though what I really wanted to do on the flight was to sleep.

So far I have seen the airport and the hotel.

I broke my glasses so I am in trouble at night after I take out my contact lenses. I have no idea what I am going to do for my return flight as I cannot wear those dastardly things in my eyes for 13+ hours. My eyes will be like dried plums.

Anyway, it is almost 2 am, and I am supposed to be up 4 hours from now.

 

But before I jump into this,

 

I need to take advantage of this:

 

 

Oh lord.

 

Really, I should not be complaining. My original flight(s) to Beijing tomorrow had me leave the house at 4 am so I could catch the 6 am flight to SFO, with an almost 5-hour layover, and then on to my next flight to Beijing. I would have been in the back of the plane, in the middle seat, for both legs.

Last night as I was freaking out and crying inside about my 4 am EDT on Monday morning, I decided to see whether there would be a way for me to get on a later flight to SFO. What do you know? Up popped a non-stop flight to Beijing! Woohoo!

My original seat on this flight was 42F. After refreshing the page many many times, I moved up to 31F. Bulk seats do come with extra legrooms, yes. But they also come with increased chance of being seated next to a baby. (I am NO baby hater. But if I have a choice…)

More refresh. Refresh. Refresh. And now I am where I am.

I pray that 25E will be empty so I can fully recline (“Recline” in the cattle class is an exaggeration) without feeling guilty.

It is really sad that I will not be able to take advantage of free alcohol on international flights… (Drinking = Needing to “use the facility”)

 

Bring It On: The Can of Worms has been opened!

Tiger Moms. That’s all I hear/read about these past few days.

Ugh.

Yeah I hear you. But are you surprised that I need to talk about it?

In case you have not heard, the “Tiger Mom Controversy” refers to a WSJ article written by a Yale Law School professor, Amy Chua, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior?” In addition to the 6900+ comments on WSJ.com (and counting), the article (and the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother) has inspired (mostly out of anger and spite) numerous articles and discussions, and Chua was interviewed on NPR (and they took heat for that interview).

You can go and read about all that by googling. So much anger. It’s like Mommy War all over again. Perhaps this time we (i.e. SAHMs and Working Mothers) can all band together by hating one common enemy.

“At least we are NOT like that.”

“Yeah, High Five, sister!”

Or you can read the non-angry posts that do NOT dwell on whether her parenting style is right or wrong (or “evil” as so many commenters have declared without actually reading her book). Instead these posts pointed out a couple of interesting ways to look at this controversy:

Brilliant marketing! Amy Chua and her publisher are laughing all the way home. Cha ching cha ching. “Thumbs up to the writer”

This controversy provides opportunities for ourselves to discuss and examine our own parenting styles and philosophies. “Be A Better Parent Through Blogging”.

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Or, read a post by someone who has actually read the book — Gosh, what a novel concept, eh? Amy Chua: Tiger Mother without a Plan, and draw your own conclusion.

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Because I am a lazy blogger, I now hate Amy Chua with a passion, not because of her unattainable parenting style or the whole perpetuating the stereotype thing, but because I cannot stop thinking about it. I have drafted several completely different responses to this giant can of worms that she has opened, and I hate working on drafts. Drafts are for suckers who like to work hard, who practices piano or (or “AND”) violin two hours every day, who does everything to perfection.

Curse you, Amy Chua!

Ok. So below is my second reaction (and NOT the last) after I recovered from the initial, visceral reaction.

Disclaimer: This is one of the post-visceral reactions I’ve felt. I am conflicted. I have argued against myself and contradicted myself. In this post, I am telling one of my responses like it is. I will follow up with the rest because OH GOOD GRAVY my head hurts. I need to now go rub Tiger Balm on my temples and tummy.

I may just be jealous.

There. I said it.

I am not suggesting that I wish my children were better or different or somebody else; I swear on my life, I am very happy with and proud of their performances and accomplishments in everything that they are doing, including the failed attempt at learning Chinese. However, I will cop to the wild fantasy that my kids were somehow more obedient, better disciplined, less wise-ass-y, and more “convenient” when I want to go to a fancy restaurant with real napkins and nice crystals. A girl can dream, right?

I may just be jealous because Amy Chua’s children seem to have it made: They are not teen moms. They don’t do drugs. They are not bums. They did not turn Goth or Punk or Neo-Nazi. They did not rebel. They did not run away and end up turning tricks. They did not turn into Valley Girls either. (Yes, as you can see, my expectations are fairly low…)  They did not get with the wrong crowd. They are on their way to prestigious universities and presumably will end up with great jobs, and so on and so forth. I can see their bright futures, and as a mother, that is what I am worried about: my kids’ futures.

Raise your hand if your child’s class is full of the so-called Asian prodigies.

Raise your hand if you ever shake your head or wince at the prevalence of Asian-sounding names on the list of winners at Spelling Bees, Academic competitions, Lego Leagues, Science Fairs, concerts, recitals, and what not.

Raise your hand if you ever try to dismiss the conclusion that Asian cultures put a lot more emphasis on academic excellence by saying, “But it is NOT the American way, and maybe THESE people should become more American now that they are in America.”

Raise your hand if you comfort yourself by thinking, “But colleges look at MORE THAN just SAT scores. You need to be well-rounded.”

Raise your hand if you ever think to yourself, “But they suck at sports.”

Here is a Chinese American raised in “The Chinese Way” (different from the way I was raised and I am 100% “authentic” Chinese — I use “authentic” with quotation marks and I can show you a chapter from my dissertation dissecting this word so don’t sling mud at me, yet) spelling it all out, for all her American readers (and by god, did she get readers or what because of this controversy!), sharing the Ancient Secret Chinese recipe with all of us, and we got all pissed at her.

Because the truth is difficult to hear.

The truth is not whether HER parenting style (or anybody else’s for that matter) is better.

The truth is… I am going out on a limb here… we feel anxiety for our children’s future because the way the world has been changing.

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Here is a theory:

Raise your hand if you are ever concerned, or even outraged, by the state of the teenagers.

Raise your hand if, even though you do not believe in hovering or overprotecting, you still sometimes wonder whether what you are doing with your children is enough to prevent them from going astray.

Raise your hand if you are not sure what the correct balance is between discipline and freedom, between rules and independence.

Raise your hand if you ever worry about your kids not being able to get a job when they grow up because of the fierce competition. Not just in the U.S., but from all over the world.

Raise your hand if you are not sure about the outsourcing trend, worried about people in China and India taking the jobs away.

Raise your hand if you are convinced that social security is going to disappear by the time you retire.

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By now many have heard and probably been shaken by the much cited line from the documentary Waiting for Superman:

Out of 30 Industrialized Nations, our country’s children rank 25th in Math, 21st in Science & falling behind in every other category. The only thing our children seem to be ranked number 1. in is confidence.

Coupling that with the revelation and the fear that China is US’ biggest foreign creditor, with roughly $900 billion in Treasury Securities, and $1 trillion if you include Hong Kong. (Don’t think there is a mass hysteria over the “imminent” Chinese threat? Remember the “Chinese Professor” political ad running last October?)

I suspect what we have observed in the disproportionate outcry against Amy Chua’s short article is a perfect storm.

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WTF Wednesday: These boots are made for walking

These boots are nice, right? But I am not showing them because they are sexy. These boots were spotted 2 hours into a mountain climbing route...

This is what most of the paths on those mountains look like...

And this is what the mountain peak looks like...

The Legend of Kung Fu again: video of the curtain call performance… the actual show is 100 times better

From the curtain calls it is easy to see that why Chinese consider this show to be strictly for tourists: cheesy, gaudy, and full of Kung Fu cliches. But it is the same with all the Kung Fu (and Wuxia) movies that we love. So why not just admit that I thoroughly enjoyed this show? There is no shame in this…

The Legend of Kung Fu at Red Theatre. Turns out they are such a well-organized attraction that they have a nice website with preview clips.

FWIW, uploaded the curtain calls I videotaped as a proof that I was there…

The Great Wall of China was my great slide. WEAR GOOD SHOES! How come nobody tells you that?

These picture shows the slippery slope up the Great Wall. It was snowing and bitterly cold when we were up there. We couldn’t even walk up to the very top of this section of the Great Wall. My 6 yo ran up and couldn’t get down on his own. So I had to pull myself up along the railing, and then slid down the middle of the wall on my behind with my 6 yo doing the same ahead of me. It was so slippery that even sitting on the seat of my jeans, I still needed to try and grab the surface with my gloved hands and shoes as much as I could to stop myself from sliding all the way down to the landing.
People were laughing but probably also envying my courage in making a fool of myself. LOL.
So many people were wearing suits and dress shoes. And we even saw women in high heels. I cannot even imagine how they got where they were in those!