Saturday, November 28, 2009

Observing Thanksgiving

Since I have no family here in America, I really have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving but to be like a flea and attach to one of my colleagues, my boss, or my friends(only if I can make any friend here in this country). After I had some cold, tough, tasteless turkey in a baking dish, very mushy brussel sprouts, and an extremely boring company in last Thanksgiving at one of my colleagues' parents'-in-laws's house, (looked like "chicken in the pot" in Jerry's Deli, and I was too polite to bring up if that was how a Thanksgiving Turkey supposed to look like since I really had no idea...) I decided that this year I rather spend Thanksgiving alone at home and have cup noodles with spam instead...

Just as I was so sure about my Thanksgiving plan, I got a potluck invite from someone I met in one of my professional seminars. We aren't really friends cause I don't hang out with him too often, we don't confide in each other about our problems either. We exchanged 2 emails and we went to a dinner and a lunch together in the course of 12 months. So in America, how is a relationship like this defined?? I guess I can call us acquaintances??? We are not dating, we aren't friends, we aren't colleagues, not neighbours...

I am glad I accepted his invite cause it was the best Thanksgiving food I had ever had. It was when I learnt what an American Thanksgiving turkey was all about. How I loved that turkey! We had 30 people, each brought something. I made a couple appetizers right at the host's house and I had never felt so proud of myself. My appetizers were a big hit and there was no leftover to be taken home.

I feed myself on instant noodles and restaurant food. So, cooking is definitely not my strength or even something I am interested in doing. However, I have to admit that the moment when I saw someone grabbed my last piece of appetizer was extremely satisfying.

Besides great food, the company was the most interesting I ever had on a Thanksgiving. I didn't know anyone there except the host but I had a lot of fun meeting all these interesting new characters. I even met another girl who's also from Hong Kong, who's in the same profession I am in, and who speaks my native language!! I've also met new "aliens" who had been here for less than six months. One of them was a mail-order bride from the Philipines, she told me she got her greencard by marrying a U.S. citizen and is currently in the process of applying for a student loan from the gov't so she could go to community college... (anyone who's here on a greencard is called "resident alien" and is eligible for all the perks available here.) Another one told me she got a greencard cause she won the greencard lottery in Nigeria and was here just in time to benefit from the "Cash For Clunker" program. She kept praising how America was such a wonderful place where she got assitance in housing, cars, college, medicaid, etc, etc...I thought, "wow, this is a great country for you guys because I am paying taxes to fund all these assistance you enjoy so much... So much for the land of the freeloaders. Is this what equal opportunities are all about, meaning every freeloaders from the third-world or self-proclaimed bums have equal share of my money?"

When they asked me, "So, how did you get your greencard?" I replied ackwardly, "I'm not a mail-order bride and I'm not a lottery winner... I'm in fact a lottery loser who came here on a work visa because my firm wanted me here to provide a service that they couldn't find qualified people here to do...I have been participating in the greencard lottery since the first year I came, but I was never picked cause only 120 out of 55000 greencards from this lottery is allocated to people from Hong Kong, versus 10,800 to Nigeria alone....Obviously, the U.S. gov't doesn't think I should have a greencard...haha, because they obviously prefer to have more Africans from Nigeria." I had been in this country long enough to see that "Freedom and Equality" are not necessary the case in America. Do I have more freedom and equality here in America than in Hong Kong, I can say loudly and confidently, "no, I don't." It's like asking me if those gadgets on late night infomericals are great as they claim to be. ( I bought enough of those to find out.) It's called, "Marketing", folks.

When I was fascinated by the so-called "free-world", and rushed in signing this employment contract to work here in America... my dad warned me, "Kid, there is not such thing as a fair and free world, no one is free in this world and no country is really fair. You are only free to do certain things because you give up some of your freedom to enjoy certain things. Whatever becomes fair to others won't necessarily be fair to you. Because, this is just how nature operates..." Today, I know exactly what my father was talking about.

Besides meeting some newly arrived aliens, I had met no husband material. Most of the guests were single women, if they weren't mail-order brides already. The guys there were all gay or they were unemployed. I was told, "Eligible single men are like parking lots, the good ones are already taken, the ones that are available are for the handicapped only." This Thanksgiving dinner, I realized how true it was.

When I looked at my host who invited me, I was wondering why would such an educated, young and promising professional Asian American man like him, be attracted to a white man who is in his late 50s, short, totally unattractive and who is currently unemployed and has just lost his apartment. How lucky is this ungly, gross looking old man got a young boyfriend and got to move into his nice house!!

According to the logic of eharmony.com, my host and I matched on all levels, we love the same food, we are big fans of Karaoke, we are highly educated, we are in the same profession, we enjoy the same movies, we have the same financial security. We enjoy talking to each other and we like to play mah-jong with each other. But he is attracted to an old ugly gay guy who's broke and who's old enough to be his father. Here I am , an attractive Asian female who is compatible with him at every level, yet I don't fit into his criteria of a life partner, a soul mate, or a lover.

I'm here in America long enough that I know I have no right to judge and measure anyone with my own measuring stick. Throughout the dinner, I observed that everybody there had some stories that really went against my values and standards that I was brought up with. I was amazed by how people got all these problems, but who am I to judge? Afterall, there is nothing abnormal in America. The only one that is abnormal at the dinner party is really myself who still believes in old-fashion love and marriages, who considers her parents her best friends in the world. I am an alien in this country afterall. Normal or not, I had a blast this Thanksgiving. With an open mind and an empty stomach, even a single alien like me can have a lot of fun and a great company to say thanks to.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Obama's China Visit - TV Spoof




I don't watch TV cause I don't have a TV at home. I'm more a Netflix person and a magazineworm. But this TV clip I found on the internet really cracked me up and got me rolling on my carpet with tears. This is so devilishly funny and yet the facts are so true. I like the way they imitated the instant translation I often saw on the Chinese government diplomatic press conferences. Also, the way they spoof the Chinese culture of using lots of indirectness and the Chinese way of translating American slang, are just so funny!! ( Chinese like to use metaphors in conversations and ask "what does this mean ?" when they really want to add a note of criticism and reprimand.) My encounter with the American humors is one of the very amazing life experiences I have in this foreign country. I have to give Kudos to the creative folks at NBC who put together such an entertaining act to give me some laughs in my lonely single life. Love it.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Trying To Remember Where Oprah Has Been Throughout My Single Life.....



It's another boring Saturday again here in Los Angeles. I just logged into my eharmony.com account and I found no communciation from any match. It's really depressing!! I had cancelled my membership and I will have until Febrary to use up my paid dues, which will not be refunded.

Anyway, I came home last night from work and I went straight to bed and woke up just now. I can't believe it. Instead of going out finding my future husband, I went to sleep instead. Why did I feel so tired? I think I must have "SPES" - Single Person Exhaustion Syndrome. Can anyone out there fact check this for me and see if such a syndrome does exist afterall and it's not my imagination
.
So, nothing's new on eharmony.com and nothing's new on the Internet either, America is still heavily in debt and highly unemployable, and the world is still rotating (by the way, does the earth rotate clockwise or anti-clockwise???) Naturally, Oprah's teary announcement is the only thing that is important enough to become today's national headline in this country. Look, there is tear in Oprah's eyes, look!!! Oh, no! What should we do now??

So Oprah is announcing her big quit when I haven't had a chance to watch her show yet! When I first came to this country, I heard about her everywhere I went. She is like the Goddess of America that everybody is worshipping. I was beginning to believe that her head was actually on the dollar bills, just like the Queen of England on our HK dollar bills before 1997. I remember checking my dollar bills and even the coins, and I was surprised that Oprah's head wasn't on any of them. Then I checked the stamps, and she wasn't there... Can anyone tell me if Ophra's head is ever on any of your stamps?? So far, all the females that I have encountered in this country all ga ga about Oprah. I heard about her so much from my American friends, colleagues, the media, my clients, I had a dream about her on Sunday night.

The reason I am writing this post is because her annoucement reminded me of my nightmare on Sunday night. No kidding, Oprah was actually in my nightmare. I dreamt that I was trying to go through a fancy chateau like building on the corner of a very steep hill (may be because I had just stayed at Nob Hill in San Francisco for my recent vacation...). I thought instead of walking up the top of the hill to get to the other side , I could get through this fancy chateau like building and get to the other side instead. The building was really fancy with sparkly gold rims on every exterior window sill. Anyway, that was a mistake, and that's where my nightmare began. I walked in but I was trapped and couldn't find a way out. I was trapped in a huge ballroom with huge long tables setup all over (just like the set up you will have in any seminars or conferences you attend). The difference for this one is the tables were placed in such complicated line-up that, the whole set up is like a maze... I had no idea how I could walk through it when I couldn't find any aisle I could access, I saw the asiles but I couldn't get to them. What made it worse was there were big open flames here and there on every few tables serving as petitions between tables. Or were they put there meant to be centerpieces??? The flames were roaring just like the flamming stoves you find in the kitchens of Chinese restaurants when the chefs there were doing stir-fry. In my nightmare, I was thinking, "God, are they going to have a big shabu-shabu dinner? (where food is cooked in hotpot on the tabletop, very pouplar in Chinese and Japanese dining) But these are way too big a fire for shabu-shabu!! This restaurant is so in violation of the fire code!!"

Before I could figure out how to proceed through the table maze with huge flames, I heard noises and I saw from a long distance, some chefs or kitchen staffs were rolling in food and plates and whatever utensils. That restaurant really got a huge ballroom so they didn't even see me when I was in the faraway opposite end. I was still trying to walk through the tables so I could get to whatever entance the kitchen people were rolling in. But the aisles were like so crooked and so mysterious I felt like I walked and walked and I was never proceeding and was at the same end of the restaurant ballroom. I thought I was clever when I figured out I would claw underneath the tables, straight across. I didn't know why I thought that was clever in my dream. What difference would it have made, really? But this is why it was a dream, people did stupid things.

As I was clawing through, I heard more noises and saw lots of feet rushing in. I could tell a crowd was flowing in and somehow one of them found me underneath the tables and called out, "Hey, what are you doing down there, get up!! The dinner is about to begin!! Come on!" You have no idea how embarrassed I felt at the time when I was spotted on the floor like that!! So I got up trying to act like calm and normal, "Oh, I dropped my earrings and I was trying to find it, but never mind..." Then all of a sudden, I heard the crowd clap their hands and roar at the far end of the ballroom, I followed their star-strucked glances and I saw , guess who? Oprah was making her entrance of course!! A young African American teenager (I think he was like 15 years old, something like that) at the time dragged me by my hands and said, "hey, come here and take a seat, don't stand there like that.. you are blocking my view of Oprah!!" I looked at the teenager and saw him in a very nice plaid suit, hanging a digital camera around his neck and I was thinking "this boy looks like a very good kid cause he was speaking without an accent and he got no earrings, no tatoo and his hair was short and clean cut. He is such an enthusiastic young fellow that he is going to have a bright future like Obama, I can tell from his eyes." So I sat next to him (which was the only seat I could seem to get to for no good reason, I was still trapped in that table maze) but unfortunately, my seat was also next to one of that many big fire centerpieces or partition, that got me really nervous.

As soon as I sat down, I found the Oprah magazine sitting on my plate. Meanwhile Oprah was starting to talk and everybody became dead quiet and focused all their attention on what Oprah was about to say. She thanked everybody for attending the speical dinner she was hosting in her new Oprah Restaurant. I thought at the time, "Boy, Oprah is now in the restaurant business too! This woman will put her hands in every business, pretty soon, there will be the Oprah brand of Chinese Psychic & Fung Sui Joints...".

Few minutes into Oprah's big speech about how wonderful it was to have people of all colors to sit down together in her brand new Oprah restaurant, to share a nice evening of great meal without prejudice, without being racially critical and judgemental, my ADD kicked in and my mind started to drift away to somewhere else. (I was never officially diagnosed cause it wasn't a custom for parents in Hong Kong to take their kids for pyschiatric evaulation like the parents here in America..... I just was never able to pay attention during any class lecture from my kindergarten to my college.. and now, my continuing professional seminars that I am required to attend...it would have made no difference if I was never sent to school and just stayed home with my mother to read on my own...) I started flipping open the Oprah Magazine sitting on my plate and browsing through the fashion and beauty sections, disappointing to find out that all the advice were really meant for women my mother's age. As soon as I concluded that the Oprah Magazine wasn't my cup of tea, Oprah stood in front of me with a stern look and her hands on each of her hips. She told me, "Don't you know how many others would like to take your seat tonight and be here to participate in this historical cross racial exchange and to help humankinds to increase appreciation of each other? You just sit here with disinterest and you seem to be busy doing something else instead of listening to my speech!!! This is very disrepectful to any host, you know that??"

At that moment, I felt an instant nostalgia of how my 6th grade English teacher (who was a nun) picked on me and made me stand up to humiliate me with a lecture about me not paying attention in class but reading Daninelle Steel's novel, "Crossing". At the same time, the big fire centerpiece on my left side of my table really made me nervous cause the air ventiliation of the room just kept blowing the flames in my direction and very close to my hair...My eyes were darting between the flames and Oprah's offended face while I was constantly leaning to my right on the African American teenager, who at the time was mistaken that I was hitting on him. My dogding the flames and my inability to maintain eye contact with Oprah while she was reprimanding me only offended her more. I was so stressed out and I just wanted Oprah to get off my back so the hundreds of pair of eyes from the crowd will stop staring at me and the spot light above my head will move away! I thought, "This is definitely much worse than when my Daninelle Steel novel was confistigated in front of my 55 classmates in 6th grade in Hong Kong. This is me being humiliated in front of hundreds of people in a fancy restaurant and I don't know how many millions of people will be watching this on TV. Oh no... Whoever Oprah likes always becomes America's sweet heart and hero, I can't imagine what will happen to any person whom Oprah detests, oh no..."
"Sorry, I have to run my errands now on this boring Saturday and this nightmare of mine will be continued later....."

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

When Can One Tell There Is Chemistry??

I am cancelling my eharmony.com account because I haven't got one single date from that site, but humiliation and frustration.

I have no idea how the site matches people up. All the guys that the site matched me up with did one of the following:

1) They made me aware of their existence through "Closed Match" messages that say either one of these to explain why they closed the match (me) that eharmony sent them, "I don't feel the chemistry there." or "Other".... Whenever I log into my account, I will see a list of messages that say, "Closed Match". I don't even know these guys exist until I see them closing their match with me. I don't even know I was matched with these guys by eharmony until I see their closed match messages. My first question is, isn't eharmony supposed to match me with people who will find me compatible based on the trouble I went through to answer their long list of personality questions?? My second question is why did all these guys reject me when they didn't even give me a chance to say , "hello, how're you???" How did these guys know there was no chemistry??? For me, I always communicate with the guy first before I can tell whether there is chemistry or not. I won't say chemistry, cause it's a word for loser. I am more looking for the person's personality, if he is kind and if he is smart and hardworking and someone who got strong family values, then that's my man. I have no idea what "chemistry" really means. Do these guys who rejected me without me being aware of their existence want to feel a volcano explosion before I even said "Hello" to them?? These dudes are so stupid and definitely not smart enough to know how to pursue happiness in life, and forget about being successful. I like men who will go after every opportunity that is sent towards their way. What do these guys do? Sit there in front of their computer all day long and just click the "close match" button until eharmony matches them up with Ivana Trump?

2) Very rarely (almost as rare as I find rain here in Los Angeles) ,I would have a guy who initiated communication with me by sending me the 1st round of questions (which are bad questions and in my opinion, poorly written that tells nothing about one's soul mate). After the first round of multiple-choice quesions like "Is Chemistry important to you?" "Where do you want to be in 5 years? A house in a suburb, an apartment in a big city, or a beach house..." yada yada.... Surprisingly, every guy (well even there are only a couple in a year or so), who initiated communication with me through eharmony asked me the exact same type of first round questions... which I always answer the same, "I believe chemistry can be cultivated over time..." "I will be where my future husband and family will be" (cause I really don't give a damn whether it's going to be a suburb, an apartment in NYC or a little hut in Santa Monica...as long as it's not some Homeless Center in Los Angeles) But normally after me shooting back my answers to their 1st round of questions, I would receive "closed match" messages from these guys.

So eharmony.com, I really think your so-called matching algorithm is totally defective. Please stop matching me up with losers and I will highly appreicate if you can refund me my membership fees for the last couple years!!!