…a taste of Singapore…

I miss Singapore…

I’m back from my trip down to beautiful Singapore, and I must say that I did NOT miss the freezing cold climate of Hong Kong. I had an incredibly wonderful weekend in Singapore and I’m definitely going back again before my time is over here in Hong Kong. In a word, it was simply AMAZING! The architecture, the people, the FOOD, the clubs, EVERYTHING was just awesome! Shirley and I got to stay at the beautiful Hotel Rendezvous and I got to meet some really cool people who were kind enough to show me some Singaporean hospitality. Here are some pictures that I’ve been able to get up thus far. I’ve learned my lesson from last time and have resized the photos to actually fit on a page this time, but yeah, I’ll post more pictures later once I have the time, but here are just a few of the highlights from this past weekend…

Me and Shirley on Cathay Pacific’s totally comfortable seats preparing for yet another adventure…

The Singapore Zoo: I felt like I was tossed into the pages of “Where The Wild Things Grow”

The night safari: this one got a bit too close!

At Mox with the whole gang: from left to right: Roy, me, Vinay, Brian, Heidi, Jenn, Nikie, Kevin, and Shirley

New friends and clubbing buddies: from left to right: Chris, Shirley, Roy, Sameer, and me

One of my totally cool tour guides and new found friend, Al

With my friend Ty at the posh Raffles Hotel

Me and Shirley JUMPING for joy that we’re in Singapore!!

As a final update, I won my postponed tennis match 6-1, but then the match that was scheduled for last night was postponed due to rain again. We’re currently tied for 1st place with Chung Chi College right now, but we face them tomorrow night. That’s gonna be a rough one, hopefully we’ll be able to pull it out. More to come later…

…rain, rain, go away…

Just a quick update before I head to bed…

Our first tennis match of the season was today, and it was sooooooo nerve-wracking! First of all, it was incredibly inefficient because there’s a lack of tennis courts. There were two tennis courts in all that we could use. There were 5 men’s, and 5 women’s matches that needed to be played. My match was last. Needless to say, I was totally bored for like 4 hours. There’s this stupid system where you only get to play one match the whole night. There are 3 singles players and 2 doubles teams. In order to win the whole match, 3 matches need to be won. The #1 and #2 singles player for New Asia College are both really good and on the University team with me. Our strategy was to put up our #2 and #3 singles players on them and stack our doubles to ensure that we at least win 2 matches. I would then be the tiebreaker in the last singles match, hopefully playing their #3 guy. Everything was working out as planned until…it rained! In addition to having to wait for 4 hours before my match, I almost didn’t even get to play because our second doubles team almost lost their match. Had they lost, I wouldn’t have even had a chance at breaking the tie with my singles match. They were able to pull it out though and I started my match. Five minutes into my match though, the freakin’ rain comes and doesn’t stop. They stop the match citing unsafe playing conditions. I’m irritated. They wait to see if it stops before they officially postpone the match. I’m mad. They re-schedule the match for Monday at 7pm. I’m hexa mad! The rain stops immediately after. UGH! SOOOOOOO NOT HAPPY!!! Now I have to wait until I get back from Singapore to finish this match, soooooo not cool!!!!

Speaking of Singapore. I’ll be there in LESS THAN 15 HOURS!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! I’m so excited. I still need to do laundry and pack though, but I’m totally jazzed! I also finalized all the hotel plans for Japan as well. Thank goodness all that stuff is out of the way. I still need to book my reservations for either Manila or Kuala Lumpur for next weekend though. Man, I love traveling!!!

Ok, I’ll post more later. Gotta catch some shut eye to rest up for Singapore…

hott bois + hott weather = happy ty!

…aaaaaargh…

damn it! Planning your travels can be such a frustrating and tedious task! Freakin’ Japan and their expensive hotels, and some of them don’t even do online reservations–aaaargh!!! I hate you Japan, you’d better be worth every penny and hours of research I’m spending on you!!!

UGH!! I HATE MOSQUITOES!!! I seriously do! It seems that no matter where I go in Asia, I get attacked by them. I had multiple bites in Thailand, and I got more here in Hong Kong. I have this one huge one on my right wrist that makes me look as if I have a tumor there, soooooo irritating, and itchy! I want to kill every mosquito there is! ARRRRGH!!!! I don’t get it; why were they created?! I’m pretty familiar with how the food chain works, and I just don’t see where they fit in. They aren’t crucial for the existence of any specific insect, so I don’t see why we can’t just undergo a massive effort to eradicate the whole damn species! Sure, scientists would argue that extinction would be bad, but really, who would miss a mosquito?! Not I!!!!

On a better note, it looks like I’ll be able to hit about 7 countries while I’m here in Asia. I love the centrality of Hong Kong, it makes traveling so much more inexpensive accessible. So here are my tentative travel plans:

Feb. 20: Shen Zhen, China
Feb. 25-28: Singapore
Mar. 5-6: class field trip to somewhere in Southern China
Mar. 11-12: maybe Philippines or Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Mar. 18-20: Guangzhou, China
Mar. 22-29: Japan
Apr. 13-17: Vietnam
May 1-7: Beijing/Shanghai, China

Man, I love traveling!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

I picked up my tennis team’s polo shirt today. One word…TACKY!!! It has this nasty design on it. Man, I so can’t believe I’m going to have to wear such a hideous garment. Oh well, at least it won’t be for long. We have our first match on Tuesday against New Asia College. Supposedly, I’ll be playing #1 singles , but I’m so freaked out because their #1 player is really good. I just hope I can at least win a couple of points off of him, heh. Speaking of tennis though, the coach still really irritates me. He had me play doubles with some guys without giving me any time to warm up. The other guys had been there for a while and I had to come in cold. Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty and I was so embarrassed. Ugh, I hate losing, I looked like an amateur. Whatever, I’ll let my game do the talking. I just wish there were better guys to practice with though. Most of the guys aren’t consistent or are just walls, so I don’t get much practice in. I’m just not accustomed to hitting with guys who just dink the ball back. It’ll be both a relief and a challenge when I play guys who can actually hit the ball back. On a brighter note though, I did get to see Allen again. Man, he just keeps getting hotter and hotter each time that I see him. It’s not that he has like model good looks or anything, rather, he’s got that intelligent, but totally sexy look instead. He’s my motivation for going to practice, hehe. On Tuesday, our first day of humid weather, he totally lifted up his shirt to wipe his sweat off and I saw ripples. OMG, he had some awesome abs, sooooo yummy!!! Yes, I love tennis, hehe…

My Cantonese is coming along well. I’m understanding more and can carry out a basic conversation with a stranger now. Yay for progress. Yesterday, when I was speaking to Mom, I started off in Mandarin, then slowly slipped into Cantonese and Teochiu, hehe. Man, too many languages, hehe. I’ve totally gotten into listening to Chinese music again though. Growing up, Mom used to play a lot of Mandarin songs, and they kind of stuck with me. Now that I’m here in Asia, I decided to try some local music, and it’s surprisingly good. I’m currently hooked on F4 and Harlem Yu…

The weather’s been really weird as of late. I’m not sure if it’s Hong Kong or if the weather has just been uncooperative. It was really humid the past couple of days, hence all the mosquito tumors I have now, but today was quite cold. Actually, it was really cold and wet, but it didn’t stop Shirley and me from exploring Fo Tan. We went to this hole in the wall noodle place. They didn’t have any pictures and neither of us could really read Chinese characters so we settled for ordering safe stuff. I got wonton soup with noodles and it was really good. I think I’ll explore more during my off days during the week. I still have to go to Stanley Market, Discovery Bay and Lantau Island, and so much more. Geez, there’s just not enough time, just sooooo much to see!!!

Last night, a big bunch of us went clubbing in Lan Kwai Fong. Despite the fact that it was completely straight, it was still good times. I hadn’t gone out in such a long time, so it was much needed. A lot of people got wasted, but to each his/her own. We went to C-Club first, but it was really dead, so we headed over to Club Nu where it was PACKED! It was a completely different atmosphere there. There were lots of thug-like guys there, and you could hardly move, but they bumped good music and I was with a cool bunch of friends. There was also this incredibly hott bartender there as well. Amy and I couldn’t figure out if he was gay or not, so she and Daisy straight up asked him what he was. I was so embarrassed for the guy. Anyhow, he said he was straight and that he was from New Zealand, but I still got vibes that he was gay, or at least bi; maybe he was just metro though. Ah well, at least he was pretty to look at…

Some people are starting to get homesick, but the bug hasn’t really caught me yet. It’s not that I don’t miss my family and friends back home, but I’m just having a great time here and really enjoying being away from all the drama and bullshit. Surprisingly, I haven’t really cared about bois all that much here. I’m just been enjoying my time exploring this new world and all that it has to offer. Every day is a new adventure, and I’m soaking up as much as I can…

…back to school…

Today was the first day back at school and I must say that the break was far too short…

Now that I’ve gotten the pictures and fun aspects of Thailand aside, there were some cultural observations that I wanted to address. Yes, it’s the Ethnic Studies side of me kicking in again…

GLOBALIZATION

So the shopping was great. Everything was incredibly cheap as the conversion rate totally favored the dollar. It’s about 38 bahts to US $1. Our buying power was incredible there, and every one of us exploited it. Obviously we’re supposed to bargain with the people, but when you step back and start putting things into perspective, you realize that you’re literally bickering over just a couple of cents. A case in point, we were trying to bargain a tuk tuk ride: 4 people for 80 bahts. That’s a little more than US $2. The driver wanted 100 baht. Hmm, another 20 baht–less than US $1. Obviously, the driver yielded to us, but why is that? As a citizen of a hegemonic power, I can’t help but feel a bit guilty that my buying power is so much greater than a person of a Third World country just because my country has the ability to manipulate and exploit Third World peoples. Yes, I shouldn’t complain because I stand to gain from these exploits, but as someone whose roots come from the Third World, my heart cries out to these people. I think I’m always humbled whenever I come to places like Thailand because it makes me appreciate my privileges so much more.

Question: How do you keep America a dominant and hegemonic power?
Answer: You step on and exploit people from all walks of life.

In terms of shopping, I paid about US $4 for each shirt that I bought in Thailand. In the States, I would pay anywhere from $16-60 for a shirt that was probably made in a place like Thailand. Is there something wrong here???

WHITE HEGEMONY

Deep within the social fabric of our society, there is a course thread that undergirds the whole infrastructure of our mind, of our concept of what beauty is. I was taught early on in my life that I was different. I was categorized into pre-determined sexual/social/racial/economic boxes that are supposed to help me determine what my identity is, all the while merely brainwashing me into thinking that I was less than what I really am. In other words: Different = Sub-human. I forget what day it was, but it was towards the end of my Thailand trip that we started up a conversation about what our types were (i.e. the characteristics that we found attractive). Suddenly, I felt as though I was living out my Ethnic Studies textbooks all over again. My Asian friends were saying that when they were growing up, and even now, they wish that they were White; they wish that they had blonde hair and blue eyes, that that was what beauty was. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This hearkens back to the studies they did in Brown v. Board of Education in which little black girls were asked to choose what they thought was the more beautiful of the two dolls: one black and one white. Each and every time, the black child chose the White doll. I don’t want to sit here and lecture about how White people have done such a good job at brainwashing people, so I won’t. I’ll just say that our world is a sad one if, in this day and age, people still can’t learn to love and appreciate themselves and the roots they come from…

My Valentine’s Day was pretty cool this year. We all decided to have a potluck to celebrate our singleness–be it forced due to our being abroad or by choice. There was a massive amount of food there and I was stuffed to my gills with food. Shirley made this huge dish of chicken pasta–sooooooooo good. I didn’t get enough mango sticky rice in Thailand, so that was my dish of choice. It was a total success and we were all quite bloated at the evening’s end. I should have walked back to the dorm instead of taking the bus though, I needed to walk all that food off. Needless to say, food coma set in and I totally crashed when I got home. They say that mango sticky rice induces sleep, I wonder if that’s true or if it was just regular food coma? Hmm…

…year of the bangCOCK…

WOW!!! Thailand was AMAZING!!! Where do I begin?!?!?! So because so much happened on this trip, I thought it best to add some pictures to help me describe the incredible time I had there. Here are the highlights…

We left on Saturday evening and flew on FinnAir.

We had all purchased a tour package through Hong Thai Travel, which included 5 days and 4 nights in Thailand. There were 9 of us going as a group, but we were all joined by about 30 other people, so it was a pretty big group. The tour was all in Cantonese, but two of the people in our tour group knew Cantonese, so they just translated some of the more important parts for us. It was a good opportunity to practice my listening skills though, and I understood most of what the tour guide was saying anyway. I also got to practice my Mandarin and Teochiu there as well, so that was awesome…

We got in rather late on Saturday night. I don’t think it hit me that I was in Thailand when I got off the plane, but I was starting to settle into the idea when we hit the wall of heat once we left the airport to board our tour bus. The mosquitoes also helped me settle into the idea by giving me 4 welcoming bites within less than 2 hours of getting into Thailand. Ugh! I soooo hate mosquitoes! Anyhow, we checked into our hotel in Bangkok and decided to spend the night in because we wanted to be rested for the next day. We didn’t wind up going to bed until like 3am though because we stayed up to play SPOONS and do card tricks, hehe. SPOONS, it’s everywhere! The following day, we went to a tacky and tourist infested pseudo-Great America called Dreamworld. This place was sooooo cheesy, but you just had to love it. I felt bad for some of the people who worked there though, mainly the ones who had to be in a full costume during the day. I’m sure they were burning up inside. Ah well, gotta make a living somehow right? So I got to ride an elephant for the first time.

It was pretty fun, although I don’t think I’d choose it as my primary mode of transportation. It was a bit rough and was untrained in terms of when it should handle its business.

It was a cool experience though and I thought it worthy of a banana, but boy was I scared of feeding him.

Dreamworld was also our first taste of Thai food in Thailand as well. We all filled up on pineapples and watermelon, the fruit there is sooooo good! They’re a bit explicit with their potties though.

Shirley and I couldn’t help but find some of the signs they had hilarious. This was one of our favorites. It looked like he was constipated, hehe.

Yeah, Dreamworld was fun, we all had a really good time just being dorks.

Here’s us being tourists.

So after Dreamworld, we headed to see the Four Faced Buddha. It was pretty interesting; we paid our respects and even got to see some traditional Thai dancers performing there as well.

Needless to say, the first day was quite tiring and I was ready to crash.

Monday: We went to see this awesome temple that had a really steep incline.

The steps were crazy–almost an 80 degree incline. I wonder how the old ladies did it, how’d they ever get to the top of some of these crazy temples?! Anyhow, this was my first day at getting to know how Thailand operates. So as a tourist, you’re always a sucker, they don’t see a tourist and think, “aww, look how dorky he looks.” No, they see a tourist and think, “MONEY!” How sad huh? Well, I guess you have to do what you have to do to make a living.

These girls were dressed up in their traditional garb waiting for us to come. They lured me in with the snake, then immediately came up behind me and started to pose. As soon as we were in our positions, someone had already snapped a picture, and the next thing I know, 3 open palms are out in front of me asking for their payment for posing with me for my picture. It all happened so fast that I didn’t realize that I was being scammed until it was too late. Ah well, such is life.

We decided to go out that night though. We went to this red light district called Mike’s Bars, or something like that. It was pretty cool just hanging out with some of the prostitutes there. They were all actually pretty nice. One of the bars didn’t know how to make mixed drinks, so they let me go in and mix my own drink, it was pretty awesome, hehe.

Some other memorable moments were:

Parasailing in Pattaya

Squattin’ my bizness

Can you believe these ladies are MEN?!?!?!

The Thai Crew workin’ it in front of Suan Lum Night Bazaar

Me and Matt at dinner in Bangkok

The Thai Crew after our tuk tuk adventure

Me and Mei Mei, our tour guide

Heading back to home sweet Hong Kong home

And we’re back…

Man, this was an awesome trip. I don’t think I could have had better company. I’ll expand more about the cultural observations I made in another entry later, but hopefully I’ll be able to add more pictures to my entries later on. They are a hassle though, lol, but a picture truly is worth a thousand words…

…adventures galore…

It’s 3am here and I’m still awake. I’m soooo gonna be dead tomorrow, but I just had to write an entry in before I leave for Bangkok tomorrow…

I had my first nervous breakdown last night. The day had been going wonderfully for me, but like all things in my life, it had to come to an end. I started the day off doing a full body workout with Don at 8am. I did a 5 minute mile to warm up, and then a 2 hour full body workout in which my muscles cried out from the pain, but it’s ok, no pain, no gain. Anyhow, after that, Don, Nikie, Katrina, Zach, and I all headed out to Tsim Sha Tsui for some dim sum that Katrina was raving about. It was really chichi, but it was also incredibly good! After that, Don and I went to Wan Chai to meet up with Shirley so we could pick up the tickets for our tour to Bangkok. We got all our stuff, then I headed over to the post office in Shatin to pick up my long-awaited external hard drive. I was sooooo excited because it’s a 500 gig hard drive, and I totally got a great deal on it , but I’ll continue. So I get home and I start to put it together and what not. I decide to move my music library, 20 gigs, to my new hard drive. Everything goes well, and it says that the transfer was successful. I noticed that only like 5 gigs had been used up, but I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Anyhow, I delete my whole music library from my local hard drive, and try to import the songs from the external drive only to find that only 500 songs show up. I was confused. I go back to the external hard drive and I find that only a couple of files actually transferred over, so it wasn’t complete, but I had already deleted my whole library. I WAS GOING FUCKIN’ NUTZ! I was freaking out BIG TIME! I was smart enough to have detached my iPod before that got wiped out, but then I was an even bigger idiot because I plugged it back into the computer thinking that iTunes would just sync with my iPod and retrieve all the songs from the iPod. I was soooooo wrong! My one chance to restore ALL of my songs–GONE just like my chances of ever being straight again! ARRRRGH! I was soooooo UPSET! I frantically read through all of the discussion forums on Apple’s website and discovered a data recovery program that could potentially recover most of my songs, so I gave it a try. It’s amazing how quickly you can learn technical stuff when you’ve something valuable on the line. Anyhow, long story short, I was only able to recover 8 out of the 20 gigs worth of music. Out of those 8 gigs though, only about 5 of them still had their information still in tact. I currently have 400 songs that I have to rename and retag with the correct information MANUALLY! Oh yeah, and about 150 of these songs have to be deleted because there are portions missing still. UGH! Sooooooo FRUSTRATING! Despite the disappointing results of my efforts, I was quite proud of myself in regards to how I dealt with the situation. Throughout the whole darn ordeal, I was trying to stay positive because I was the idiot, and there was no one to blame but myself. I think it was about the calmest and most positive I had ever been in a situation such as this. I think I’m making real progress with my temper. Yay for positivity! I was so dead tired from all that late night techie stuff that I wound up skipping Cantonese class so I could sleep in instead…

I didn’t sleep in all that much longer though. I was supposed to meet up with Zach for lunch at around 1pm, so I had to get up at noon anyway. He made us tuna sandwiches and then we watched The Aviator. I was actually quite impressed with the movie and Leonardo diCaprio’s acting. I wonder if Howard Hughes was really that eccentric though, what a horrible affliction to have in your life! Regardless, it was a good movie and I’d recommend it to anyone. Now onto the big stuff…

BANGKOK!!! IN 12 HOURS, 19 MINUTES, AND COUNTING!!! Yes, I will be hitting the swelteringly hott city of shopping and sin that is Bangkok in just a little more than half a day! I’m totally jazzed and have already prepared myself with the sufficient phrases necessary to survive in Thailand: mai peht–NO SPICY! Haha, yeah, I love Thai food, but I can’t stand the spicy flavor at all! Sorry, but I like my taste buds, and unfortunately, they just don’t like the flavor of fire, hehe. Ok, sleepy time! I’ll try to update this if I get a chance in Thailand, assuming that some hott Thai guy doesn’t keep me preoccupied that is, hehe, WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

…and everything was just good, it just was…

I feel good. There’s no real reason behind it; no boi, no incoming money, nothing really happened, I just feel good…

Last night, as I was listening to Soluna’s album and browsing through some friend’s profiles on downelink to see what’s been happening in my friend’s love lives and what not, something just happened and this incredibly good feeling just overwhelmed me. For the first time in a very long time, things were just really clear, drama-free, and it was just this nice feeling of being whole. I don’t know how to really explain it, but I felt as though I was in that stage in between R.E.M. and consciousness where things were just good. I didn’t feel pain, I didn’t feel lonely, I wasn’t worried about anything–nothing. I was in a state of pure and unadulterated goodness and it just totally took me by surprise. I was so afraid of losing it, I stayed up until 3am just so I could make it last longer, hehe. I’m still riding that feeling right now; hopefully it’ll last that much longer…

I think I’ve arrived at the next step in my growth cycle as a person…

After a break-up, your friends tell you to embrace your new-found freedom and singleness, but all you can think about is what you did wrong and how things could have been different if you had only done this or done that. Then you try to convince yourself that everything will be alright, but there’s a void in your life–in your heart, that you just can’t ignore or push aside. You’re in pain, you feel lonely, and so you reach. You reach out: for friends, for rebounds, for anyone who could possibly make the solitude go away, for anyone who can make you feel loved again, but it’s hard. You try to restrain yourself from looking so hard for something comparable to what you had before, but subconsciously, you never stop. You meet people, some good, some bad, some fantastic, and some not. You begin to develop feelings for some of them and you want to express some of these feelings to them, but you just don’t know how. You’re too afraid of putting yourself out on the line again, so instead, you shy away and try to be the best friend you possibly can–consoling them in their time of need, listening to them when they’re having their boi drama and secretly wishing that you could just come out and tell them how you feel about them, but you don’t, and another opportunity is gone. These crushes come and go like the rising and setting of the sun each day, and little by little, you feel your heart breaking just a little more each day. You wind up being a bit bitter and developing a distaste for the game, but you know you don’t really have much of a choice because playing the game is the only way to really find someone. You feel defeated, and so you move on. The cycle repeats itself again. All this time, you’re asking yourself, “What’s wrong with me?!” “Why am I still single?!” You see couples together, pictures capturing the sheer joy they get just from being with one another, and you wonder, “When will it be my turn?!” You hold on to the hope that one day, hopefully soon, something will turn up for you, but you keep waiting, all the while, your life is passing you by. Then one night, it hits you: you can spend the rest of your life waiting/wishing for something/someone, and trying to fit people into a pre-set mold of your ideal person, or you can actually make the most out of your life and start living it. I mentioned it in an earlier journal entry of mine, but I truly feel you can’t just fall in love with someone, I don’t believe in that. I’ve had to learn this lesson the hard way far too many times to ever believe that the former is true. Love is something that really has to be cultivated and nurtured. Real growth comes when both parties involved are willing and able to grow together through work, sacrifice, and really believing in one another, as well as the unitary identity of an “us”. That said, I realized that I don’t want to spend my life waiting, whether it’s for a boi, an opportunity, anything. I want to live my life. I want to do what makes me happy, and if someone happens to come into my life that wants to share that happiness with me, then great, but I don’t want to waste any more time contemplating what I need to do to not be single anymore. When the chemistry happens between myself and the right guy, then it’ll happen and I’ll be ready for it. I started my first relationship as a complete and whole person; I offered him nothing less, and I will offer the same to whoever else comes into my life next because he deserves nothing less…

Ah love, such a complex emotion, and yet such an incredibly necessary ingredient for the sustenance of life, of happiness. It’s taken a while to arrive at this particular perspective on things, but I know 3 things will always be true: I will live, I will love, and I will be whole throughout it all…yes, a new chapter begins…

…respect…

I’ve been a bit irritated as of late, so I thought I might dedicate this one entry to just addressing those irritations…

Tennis: so the coach has been making me play this one guy on our college team that isn’t quite that good, and I’m being nice here, over and over again. First off, let me just say that I’m no Pete Sampras or Andy Roddick, but I have been playing for quite some time and there is a reason why I was on my varsity squad for all 4 years in high school. That said, I’m frustrated because the guy doesn’t hit, he dinks. He plays moonball all of the time, meaning all he does is lob the ball back, and is essentially just a wall. Ok, I had to deal with this when I was in high school; I didn’t like it then, and I sure as hell don’t like it now. If I wanted to hit against a wall, I’d do so. What he’s doing is not playing tennis, it’s a poor excuse for it. Yes, I’m being a little harsh, but fuck it, I have better things to do with my time than waste it on the court playing a guy who isn’t even on the same level as me; it’s a freakin’ insult. I don’t mind playing guys who are on a lower skill level than myself, but not EVERY FREAKIN’ TIME! How am I supposed to learn from playing the same person over and over again, especially if he sucks?! On top of that, the coach has the audacity to criticize me as well after one of my matches with this guy. He was like, “what did you do wrong?” Um, I gave him 2 games?! Sorry, I don’t like my coach very much. After having an awesome coach in past years, this guy’s a joke. So my college team has practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6-8, then the University team practice is from 8-10. He expects me to be able to play at full energy at both practices, and then criticizes me at the University practice saying that I’m being lazy. WTF?! I’d like to see him bust his ass at 110% for 4 hours! UGH! Ridiculous!

Americans: I’ve noticed that the longer I’m here, the more I dislike Americans. It’s funny, when I was in Germany studying abroad 4 years ago, it was the complete opposite. I became incredibly defensive about America, but being here now, having learned what I’ve learned, and being aware of my ethnic/racial identity, I can’t help but feel ashamed to be from the US. Yesterday was my boiling point. We were on a tour to see the different facets of Hong Kong culture, and our tour guide was this totally cool Hong Kong woman who I thought spoke English rather well. Anyhow, we went to visit three places: a temple, an old resting site for students who were traveling to China to take their placement exams, and a cake factory. The temple was cool, except everyone was being a tourist again and taking pictures of the altars and shrines. If I wasn’t clear about this in one of my previous entries, let me make it perfectly clear now. YOU DO NOT TAKE PICTURES INSIDE A TEMPLE! IT IS RUDE, DISRESPECTFUL, AND INCREDIBLY INCONSIDERATE OF THE PEOPLE WHO WORSHIP THERE! :!@#$: It was worse this time though because one of the mainland students was offering some incense and prayers when everyone started snapping pictures of her just so they could take it back home and say to people, “look, this is how you pray in Asia.” Fucked up shit! I was so irritated with it all, I just went back to the bus; that was the first irritation of the day. The next one came when we were on our way to the cake factory. The tour guide lady was giving us some background information on what to do when we get to the cake factory, and one of the white American exchange students decided he’d be funny and tell the lady to save it for when we get to the cake factory because “we’re tired and we just want to sleep.” That sort of bugged me because he was basically telling her to shut up, but we were almost there, so I just brushed it off, but it only served to bolster his confidence because he wound up doing it again later. When we were done at the cake factory, the tour guide lady started to tell us about how the educational system works in Hong Kong, and again, the stupid American starts up, amidst some minor jibes of “what relevance does this have to us,” and tells the lady, “We’re really tired back here, we just want to sleep, can you just let us sleep?” WTF?! First of all, if you wanted to sleep, you shouldn’t have come you freakin’ rude, ignorant, and selfish bastard! Some of us came on this tour because we wanted to learn more about the culture and she’s providing us the insight into that culture–that’s why it’s relevant to us! Secondly, who the fuck is “we,” you sure as hell weren’t speaking for the whole bus! Maybe if you’d stop drinking once in a while you’d realize that some of us didn’t come here just so we can drown ourselves in alcoholic stupidity, but rather to immerse ourselves in a culture. You need to realize that you’re a freakin’ guest in this country, and just because you’re a white American doesn’t mean you can impose your cultural practices, your rude, inexcusable, arrogant, disrespectful, and immature behavior, and expect it to be accepted. People like you make me ashamed to say that I’m from the US. No wonder everyone in the world hates us. You’re from the US, the dollar’s good here, go try to buy yourself a clue! Better yet, use that money to buy yourself a new brain because the one you have now is useless and should just be donated to science, but I’m sure they’re not in short supply given how many stupid Americans there are out there…

Mosquitoes: I HATE MOSQUITOES! I’ve already been bit multiple times, NOT FUN! Note to self: must buy STRONG bug repellent!

…a view from the top…

…sometimes in our lives, we lose sight of just how lucky we are and how blessed with what we have…

So this week started off a bit rocky for me, what with having found out about my dad losing his job and all, but it’s not the end of the world, we’ll get through this together. I talked to my sister the next day and, if anything, this whole ordeal is bringing us closer together as a family. There’s nothing like an unexpected storm to help you see the rainbow after all is said and done. Anyhow, my sister has reassured me that she’s got everything under control, and that I should just enjoy myself and not worry about any of this, and they’re right. I’m here in Asia now, and I’m going to take full advantage of my time here and explore the world since it’s relatively cheap to do so given my centrality to everything. Once I get back to the states though, I’m gonna have to work hard to make up for all this playtime, but everything will be fine. Thanks to everyone for your prayers and concern, they really helped and worked …

One of my goals when I came here was to really immerse myself in the culture, the people, and I can’t say that it’s been easy, but I’m starting to take the first couple of steps towards doing so. My Cantonese is coming along pretty well and I’ve caught on to the accent, so that’s helpful. If only I could understand the answers to my questions now, hehe–in time I suppose. I’m also tutoring some kids in English over in Mong Kok. My first day was this past Wednesday, and let me just say that it wasn’t anything that I expected…

So before I proceed with my experience, let me just take a moment to provide some background information on the educational system here in Hong Kong. As we all know, education is not cheap, no matter where you are, and Hong Kong is certainly no exception. The government only provides free education up to about middle school/couple of years of high school, and then you have to take a test that ultimately determines your future–whether you get to go to college or not. Additionally, kids are heavily tracked and segregated here as well, just not along the lines of race, but rather intelligence/socio-economic status. The wealthier kids, as expected, go to better school that have lots of resources readily available to them (i.e. personal tutors, etc.). There are many kids though, that fall through the cracks and have essentially been pushed off the road. These are the kids I work with. Some of these kids have gone through life speaking Cantonese/broken English, but can’t read a licks worth of Chinese characters or English words. Some of them failed so many times that they’re my age now and still in high school because the system here just keeps making you repeat the grade if you fail it without really working with the student and their problems. I thought that I had seen the worse when I was working at Castlemont High in Oakland Unified, but this, by far takes the cookie! Here’s a taste of our discussion:

Me: So what do you guys plan to do after you graduate?
Students: (looking at each other, quite confused)
Me: Um, so are you guys planning to stay in Hong Kong for university or are you going to go out of the country?
Student A: University?
Me: Yeah, you know: HKU, HKUST, CUHK, which one?
Students: (looking at me weird, then laughing)
Student B: uh, we not go to university
Student C: yes, people like us cannot go
Me: What? Why would you say that?
Student A: Do you know what kind of school this is?
Student B: This school not for smart people, we not smart
Me: Don’t say that. In the US, it’s all about how hard you work. As long as you’re willing to put in the time to learn, then you can succeed. Everyone is capable of succeeding.

That conversation took place without prior knowledge of the system. Yeah, that stuff was really said, it’s not verbatim, but that was the gist of it though. Gosh, I felt like such an idiot. No wonder they were looking at me all funny. I couldn’t believe these kids were saying the things they were saying. How can a country support such a narrow-minded system that cultivates hopelessness and breeds futility?! Ugh! I’d never felt more horrible about how privileged I was until that point. I want to do so much, but I feel so helpless because, at the end of the day, I still get to hop on a train and head back to my bubble that is the university, and I don’t have to face this again until the following Wednesday–how is this fair? It’s not, but I’m certainly going to try to level the playing field for them…

School’s going well over here. I dropped one of my courses and I’m down to 15 units now. It’s definitely one of my lightest loads ever in college, but hey, I figure I can have my head stuck in a book anytime, now’s my time to actually LIVE!! There’s so much I want to do, but alas, there’s so little time. I picked up my visa for China today though. A couple of my friends and I are going to check out Shen Zhen this coming Sunday, then Bangkok here we come! I’ve also started to eat more healthily. I’ve totally gone on this health binge where I eat about 6 meals a day, a protein shake, lots and lots of fruits, work out about 3 times a week at the gym, and play tennis twice a week. I’m happy to report that I’ve gained 3 LBS!!! Yes, 130 lbs. here I come!

On the boi front, my dar still isn’t working yet, but apparently there are lots of gay bois here–I just have to find them, lol. It’s not easy though, I dare anyone out there to come to Hong Kong and try to distinguish between a gay Hong Kong boi and a straight one–not easy! I am seeing a lot of lesbians though. Today, on the KCR, I saw this one lesbian couple, they were so cute! Gosh, who knew that Hong Kong was so dykedelic?! Anyhow, I’m embracing my singleness here though, it’s nice to not be tied down in this land of exploration. I’m finally beginning to take hold of the advice my friends have been trying to force down my throat, which is to just have fun and not worry about what others think. Too many times, I’ve been apprehensive about approaching guys and saying what’s really on my mind because I’m so damn afraid of getting my feelings hurt. Well fuck it, as both my friends Karen and Adam put it, LIFE GOES ON! Also, I’ve been concerned with keeping up a facade of this non-sexual being, but fuck it, who really cares?! We’re all sexual beings, just with varying hormonal levels. I’m not going to say that I have been/am going to be a slut or anything, but hey, it’s my life and I’m going to do what I want to do with it, so let the good times roll…