Do you get offended when people refer to you based on your skin color?

K

AHAHAHAHAHA. I

For example:

“Those white people don’t know what yeet hay means.”

I never hear Asians being referred to as the “yellow people” though. In fact, all Asian ethnicities are sometimes referred to as “orientals” or just plain old “Chinese.” I don’t get offended because I am oriental and I am Chinese but I’d be annoyed if I was Korean and someone just called me Chinese. It’d be like me calling all “white” people Scottish.

What about South-Asian Indians who are referred to as “brown people?” Aren’t they Asian as well? I rarely hear them being referred to as “Asian” especially living and being around so many East-Asians. Why do we call ourselves Asians but not them?

Just so I don’t leave the “red people” out; growing up in Saskatchewan, I’ve been taught since Kindergarten to call them “First Nations” instead of Natives or Indians as a sign of respect because one of my best friends back then was one. She didn’t have red skin though. First Nations history use to fascinate me and I remember wanting to be one because I thought that living in a tipi, hunting buffalo and eating pemmican would be so awesome despite the fact that none of those things really happen anymore.

I’m guilty of sometimes calling “white” and “black” people based on their skin color if I was referring to the entire race. I wouldn’t be offended (even if you call me a YELLOW) but since race is such a touchy subject, I’ve been trying to stop the habit. Even when I blog, I try to say African-Americans when referring to “black people” … but that sounds awkward because not all Africans are Americans and vice versa. But would I be offending them if I just say black people? Should I just say Africans? Or people from Africa?

Edit – here’s another thought since there’s been so much discussion about the “black” issue. I believe in evolution and that we all originated from Africa (or the land that was…) so that means we’re all Africans. Just a funny thought. Kidding. ;) But anyway, I wish race wasn’t such a controversial subject because we all originated from the same place whether you believe in evolution or creation and we live on the same planet anyway.

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Friday, September 11, 2009

The Saddest Thought.

Books, Thoughts & Insights

Technology replacing books.

Gypsy Morph by Terry Brooks

Fun and light read: one of my favorite post-apocalyptic books, The Gypsy Morph by Terry Brooks.

Can you imagine if all schools and libraries replaced their books with a digital archive (a “book-free library“)? What if a visit to a bookstore meant standing in front of a computer, browsing through titles and downloading them into your Kindle? What if bookstores won’t even exist anymore because all you’d have to do is download an e-book from your computer?

I don’t think books will ever disappear from the world but doesn’t the thought of it make you sad?

In Terry Brooks’ The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy, [Spoiler Alert!] they are searching for a relic of the old world (Shannara is magic-filled, fantasy world that was created after the our current earth and it’s people died from an apocalyptic event), only to find out that this relic is a huge compound full of discs filled with past human history and scientific discoveries BUT they can’t access it because they don’t understand nor have the technology to read the “discs.” What an oversight from a world that was so far in terms of technological advances, huh? [/Spoiler] Now imagine if all of our information were stored digitally… what happens when technology ceases to work? Everything would be lost.

You can increase information-sharing and save tons of space and money by going digital but the experience of reading a book just wouldn’t be same and would completely loose it’s essence. The touch of a book, the smell of the pages and even the occasional smudge of ink is all part of the experience. Walking in a bookstore, being surrounded by books and spending hours browsing the shelves is fun and therapeutic but where’s the fun in standing in front of a computer or reading The Pillars of the Earth from a tiny screen? Not being able to have the book in your hands makes it so boring and artificial.

Real book-lovers like myself will never go digital because there is nothing like the touch of an actual book or seeing those spines lined up beautifully on your bookshelves.

Well unless they are 948430lbs textbooks… then I’ll reconsider.

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Yeet Hay (literally translates to “hot air“) is a condition that the Chinese believe you get when you consume too many “hot” foods. The Chinese culture revolves around yin and yang, so when you eat too many “hot” foods (eg. greasy/spicy food, lychee, durian, mango, etc.), your body will become imbalanced causing annoyances like cankersores, acne, dried lips, sore throats, nose bleeds, etc.

My parents and grandparents use to warn us all the time that eating too much of something will give us yeet hay but I always thought it was just something they said to make us stop eating junk food and never believed it until I got older.

Lychee Lychee is my favorite fruit and has deadly yang properties, hence the quote, “one lychee equals three torches of fire“. I can probably eat 985641564lbs in a sitting despite my dad’s warnings but one day a light bulb went off in my head and I realized why I was getting so many cankersores in the summer (after basking in a pile of lychee)… YEET HAY! So my dad wasn’t lying after all.

IT’S TRUE. YEET HAY EXISTS. OH-EM-GEE.

One discussion that I have with my Chinese friends and family is: is there an English term for “yeet hay”? It’s always difficult to explain to our non-Chinese friends because there doesn’t seem to be an official term for it since the concept doesn’t really exist in any other cultures. The funniest definition I’ve heard is, “Are you sure it doesn’t mean yeast infection? …Chinese yeast infection?”

The Chinese believes that to cure yeet hay, you have to balance it out with yin (or “cool”) foods, for example, logans are the opposite of lychee (too bad they’re not as good).

Every ten li a station swirling with dust,
Every five li a post to urge couriers on;
Men die like flies, their corpses line the road,
So that lychees and longans may be delivered to court.
Carriages race over hills, boats sweep through the seas,
With new plucked fruit on fresh boughs, the leaves still dewy,
All to win a smile from the beauty in the palace,
Though it cost bloodshed and strife,
and its effect remains for ever.”

- Su Shi, 11th Century Chinese Poet, from A Lament for Lychees

I still eat shitloads of lychee. It’s totally worth the yeet hay considering I only get to eat it about 2 months out of a year. Slurp.

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Digital painting by Alexiuss <em>[via DeviantArt]</em>.” title=”Future” width=”500″ height=”500″ class=”size-full wp-image-5198″ /><p class=Digital painting by {link:http://alexiuss.deviantart.com/art/Machinery-of-the-Stars-69638365}Alexiuss{/link}.

A century ago, nobody knew the Theory of Relativity (not like I do now, but you know). Humans dreamed of space travel but never in their mind would they imagine we’d be able to send humans into space now (even though we can’t go very far at the moment).

Half a century ago, there was no such thing as the internet. No Lost or Grey’s Anatomy in your living room. No credit cards (gasp). No diet sodas. No catastrophic killers such as the atom bomb.

Can you just imagine what’s going to be invented in the next 50 years? Can you imagine how changed the world will be when we’re old and hobbling around with some futuristic version of a cane?

@JohnChow’s daughter has no idea what a tape or record is. Are my grand-kids going to laugh at me because I’ll still be reading BOOKS while they’re reading from some Super-Kindle that also pours you a martini with a simple thought-command … or one that reads for you (ooh)?

My girlfriends and I made a vow that we’d go to a rave when we’re 70 and try pick up 20-year-old guys to gross them out… what would “raves” be like then?

Are we going to be able to our grow boobs bigger without an incision? Or make all our fat and cellulite disappear with a simple pill? (Too bad we can only dream for now.)

The world is an amazing place. I can’t wait to live the rest of my life.

… that is if global warming or some apocalyptic event doesn’t kills us all first. :D

What do you think the future will hold?

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Monday, April 13, 2009

Doing Nothing

Thoughts & Insights

Nothing I was talking to a friend today and I realized that I can never sit there and literally do nothing and I always feel the need to multi-task. I eat lunch at my desk at work because I always have to be doing something while I’m eating or else I’ll feel like I’m wasting time. I eat and blog while applying make up, doing my hair and playing with my puppy. I watch movies but my mind is always on something else like social networking. I read blogs while talking to a friend on the phone. I walk around the mall and shop while text messaging, reading emails, constantly checking Twitter and reorganizing my calendar.

I always want to do a lot of things at once but sometimes the best thing to do in the world is to do nothing which I have officially mastered. Hey, don’t call me lazy because doing nothing is a great way of taking a break from a busy life AND it’s also a great source of inspiration— sometimes a lot of great ideas can come out of nothing because your mind is at rest. Just remember to bounce back to doing something after you’ve finished with doing nothing.

How do I do nothing?

  • Read a good book from start to finish.
  • Re-organize my bookshelf. Or just stare at my bookshelf. That’s how much I love my books!
  • Play with my puppy and try to make her attack Boyfriend and jump on his face while he’s trying to watch TV.
  • Watch Korean dramas with Boyfriend and constantly run a finger under his eyes to check if he’s crying. Then make fun of him if he is (which he never is) or call him cold and heartless if he isn’t.
  • Take a nap.
  • Re-organize my make up and closet.
  • Be an “old woman” and listening to classical and country music while sipping on strong, bitter Chinese herbal teas (yum).
  • Play video games with Boyfriend… or watch and nag him to do this or that while he plays alone. When we play together, he usually fights all the bad guys (it gives me heart-attacks) while I explore every nook and cranny in the game world.
  • Pig out on Boyfriend’s mom’s food while lying around like a slob at his house and watching movies on PPV (watched Yes Man last night).
  • Hang out with friends and doing absolutely nothing (eg. girl talk).

What are your favorite ways of doing nothing?

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