Viva Forever

I don’t like change in environments that I expect to be stable. One of them is my home. Two weeks ago, my mum announced that we’re going to have a family friend coming over from China and staying with us indefinitely as she studies at UNSW. I use “family friend” very loosely because I’ve never heard of her prior to this announcement.

She arrived yesterday. Her name is Sarah, 23 and doesn’t know any English and so will be spending a couple of months doing a language course before starting her University degree. I’m expected to show her around… Sydney, I guess. She seems pretty nice and friendly, and I guess it’s a good opportunity to practice my Cantonese, which currently sucks balls. Since she has no furniture, I was obliged to give up my crafting table to her as well as my bed, though that means I get the spare double bed… whoo!

Next week, my great-aunt and great-uncle will be visiting here for a three week vacation. They’d be living with us for a while, which means I’d have to share a room with my mum and hence have to sleep when my mother does so not to disturb her with my interneting (she’s a light sleeper). The worst part is, I’m definitely expected to show the oldies around, pretend I’m enjoying myself, being friendly etc. Fark. So for the next few weeks, there’s going to be seven people living in my house, three of which I don’t care for at all. Bah humbug.

In other news, this was the Valentine’s Day card I got from Tim (cover and inside; click for a bigger version):

I lol’ed pretty hard when I first read it. The boner reference comes from this Cracked article regarding bad Bond puns, in particular boner reference no.3. I loved how the context of the line ties in with the cover of the card. Also, my 14 year old brother apparently received three red roses from three different girls, two of which he gave away and one that he took home (roses, not the girls). I guess he’s popular with the ladies? O_o

The other day I was at a Subway that Tim and I often visit, and the young woman who frequently works there struck up a conversation with us as she was preparing our subs. She asked me, “where are you from?”, somewhat out of the blue. My answer came out as, “I come from Aus- err… ahem, uh, China…? Yeah…”, which undoubtedly made me sound pretty stupid.

My initial, gut reaction to the question was to answer with “I come from Australia”, an answer I’d give to anyone when I’m not actually in Australia. However, I had to stop myself when I realised how unhelpful and jerky it would sound to say that because obviously that’s not the answer she was looking for. She was, in essence, trying to ask me where in Asia I came from because I look Asian. And yet, I found myself having trouble saying “I come from China” because I really don’t associate myself with that country, having left it when I was five years old. I see it closer to being a place I had a really long holiday a very long time ago, and my stuttered answer had mostly to do with having to mentally grapple with then communicating a concept of “coming from” a country that I don’t feel affinity towards.

I imagine that if my brother was confronted with such a question, he’d have more difficulty with the answer since he was born here. I didn’t feel offended or anything by the question, especially since there was no malice behind it, but was just an interesting incident. It feels a little bizarre that although you may have identified and internalised to yourself that you are from a particular place, to some other people, they may have internalised the assumption that you are from elsewhere altogether.

Another reason I refused to be a jerk and answer with my initial reaction was because the whole thing reminded me of this series of horrible comics: [1] [2] [3] [4] See, the premise of the whole site was said to be raising awareness about Asian American “issues” but all it is is the blatant caricaturing of Caucasian men as lecherous, misogynistic and unpleasant people who are out to prey on Asian women. I shit you not. The comics are so bad in how unrealistic and strawmen-like the characters and situations are. I mean, seriously, to take the four comics I just linked, how likely is it that a random guy walks up to a complete stranger and pesters them about what kind of Asian they are?

And don’t even get me started on the small communities I’ve found, consisting mostly of angry/bitter Asian men who complain to each other about how Asian women are dating people of other races. But that’s for a whole other post. I’m going to bed, it’s 4:54am. This entry is incoherent enough.