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| i would like to write down the experiences of my parents.
what i mean by that is everything they felt, saw, and heard in China as they were growing up during some its most turbulent decades. what were their sensations and emotions? i want to know, because chinese parents are often so stoic. they hide so many years of history-so many facets of themselves-to show the face only of the disciplinarian to me-their child. what should i then tell my children-if i have any-of their grandparents? i want to immortalize their legacy through their story.
my mother told me that as a child, there was sometimes not enough to eat, that her father would starve to feed his children. she said that he had joined the kmt as a young man. they fed him, and provided for him at the time. however, his actions later plagued him and caused him to be demoted. i wonder what it would be like to live in fear of your own government, with no right to freedom or justice.
my father and mother met in college and married after graduation. i wonder what their courtship was like. what was their wedding like? i don't even know when it is since they don't celebrate their anniversary.
my father came here in 1986, the year i was born. my mother came a year later, and i a year after that. what is it like being separated from your husband for a year, barely being able to speak to him (this is before skype now and my dad is a poor student in buffalo), then being separated from your child? what is it like to go to another country separated from everything and everyone that you knew? to raise children in a culture that is foreign to you, and watch them neglect their roots like an unfavored sweater that sits in the bottom of a dresser drawer, rarely put on display, and by most means ignored.
what is it like to go back to china 20 years after you've left and feel that it has changed? it is no longer the homeland of which you dream but an organism that has mutated rapidly since and continues to evolve each moment as you feel it pulsing ALIVE. to be stuck somewhere in between two countries and cultures. to make turkey for thanksgiving and hang ornaments at christmas and to watch everybody loves raymond and to have a landscaped lawn in front of a tudor house in a cul-de-sac in a tidy, wooded suburb. my dad loves pizza hut and tennis and the discovery science channel and my mom sings gershwin and andrew lloyd webber songs and reads the bible religiously. it's strange how much we've assimilated, yet there's something fundamentally different about the inner workings of my family compared to those of my "american" friends. not that we're not american... but we're not just american... if you know what i mean.
there's a constant reminder that i belong to two cultures, in the daily meals of rice and vegetables, in my parents' imperfect diction, in the chinese school on the weekends, and the parties with the chinese family friends that all the children are dragged to while the parents sing karaoke and the kids play video games or talk or watch tv and then fall asleep.
i went home a few weeks ago and saw my dad using a snowblower. i found it slightly disorienting and weird that he was doing something so... american.
i need to interview mommy and daddy. more info required. STAT.
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| mic check mic check 1 2 1 2... is this shit on? this is ingrid back at the helm... or rather keyboard in a surprise guest appearance. i have had the URGE to write, but have been lacking in the time and energy as work has sucked all of the life and passion out of me. excuses excuses i know. suckariffic. sacre bleu. i have been thinking. what have i been doing for the past few years? not just, what have i been doing, but what have i achieved? what have i been thinking? i want meaning. PASSION YES I AM SCREAMING OUT THERE FOR YOU. fuck YES. i want to feel alive because yes what i've been feeling sometimes is my intellect, my life, my time draining away. this is not for me, this finance shit. i want to affect people. i know i could be writing in a way that DOES affect people, not this shit now that my fatigued brain is stamping out, like widgets from a factory. NO I SAY. NO MORE MINDLESSLY MANUFACTURED WORDS. but before that... i must take a nap. | | |
| responsibility. what's that?
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| i have migrated xangas. in truth, i don't like doing protected posts.
i'm paranoid about people googling me. at least now i can do it in a
semi-private forum under the cloak of anonymity.
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| http://www.theshopsatatlaspark.com/
a new mega center of urban living at its sanitized finest. keeping the hobos out... keeping the cash flowing in.
what i will do this summer, by ingrid pan
i will not slave away at a meaningless job. i'll slave at a meaningful
job. or if i can't get one, i will relax at the meaningless job that i
was able to get. relax. that's what summer is about - relaxing. it's
about sitting on your back deck with a cold drink and soaking it all
in. of course in manhattan there are no back decks to sprawl on and
enjoy the yawning expanse of the sun overhead and hear the cicadas
chirp and hum. so, i guess i'll have to steal someone's roof space and
do it there.
summer is a perfect time to live life purposefully. for a student, the
first days of summer are like the first long sucks of air you breathe
in after you've been holding your breath underwater. not preoccupied
about the end result of projects and exams, i can live doing what i
want, not what i need. i'll live with the purpose of enjoying myself
and improving myself.
i'm going to read. read read read. and not just people's xangas. actual
books for my own pleasure that will bestow on me a greater dexterity
with the english language. i've hated writing for the longest time. i
want to start liking it. (and win the literature category in jeopardy.
a significant portion of my thoughts are devoted to winning on
jeopardy. it's pretty sad.)
i'm going to play tennis. i'll learn to serve. my backhand will be
killer. i'll play piano... maybe. i'll perfect that moonlight sonata
i've been working on since seventh grade when i quit. i wish i hadn't
quit.
i'll reflect on things. my harried life has been a string of snap
judgments, of scanning words, of quick glances. i haven't had the
patience to sit through things lately. or if i do, i fall asleep. i get
bored so easily. i think things will change though. the solstice comes,
and the universe hits reset, all of a sudden things are going the other
way.
this summer will be good.
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