Mom with foreign background

Lee Ang's Pushing Hands not only evoked a strange sense of warmth and familiarity, it also left me deeply touched, with the memory of the film still vivid and fresh in my head even after many days of watching it. It probably has something to do with the third-generation child who's born to Chinese and American parents, which resonates with me naturally because of my daughter. An innocent scene of the child-actor refusing to use chopsticks and requesting for his usual American food instead of eating his Chinese meal touches a raw nerve with me.

Sometimes a tinge of sadness wells up inside me at the thought that my little girl will probably not get to know the culture which her mother grew up in. Ancient Chinese tales and folklores such as 花木兰 (Hua Mulan), 屈原 (Qu Yuan), 后羿射日 (Hou Yi She Ri), 司马光 (Si Ma Guang) would seem as alien to her, as would stories of Roman gods and goddesses to me. While she speaks and understands the Chinese language, it does not necessarily lead to culture identification on her part. Her increasing pondering lately on why she has to speak a different language with me is a sign that she is beginning to question her identity, at the tender age of 3 years old. Her refusal to speak the language at times and her insistence that she is German when told she is also half Singaporean both alarmed and worried me.

Efforts can be made to keep her in touch with her other heritage through traditional stories, poems, songs and food. But without the additional influence of school, television, cinema and radio, I fear it's going to be an uphill battle.

With her recent keen interest in the English language, I can only hope that she would eventually adopt an open mind towards mommy's culture and the Chinese language and could flick the linguistic switch wherever she is and whenever she wants.

"If you’re an immigrant family and your kids aren’t as interested in their roots as you’d hoped, don’t despair till they’re at least thirty." - Vampire Weekend mom

There is hope.

 

Endless wants

I had the idea that the moment I put on this pair of boots, I would instantly be transformed into an impossibly cool and badass rock chick, a heroine of some sort with a killer sense of fashion, turning heads and incurring the wrath of many jealous women. Just because I own that pair of must-have boots.

Nothing of that sort materialized of course when my feet were encased in the moto boots. When the glossy image of an anorexically slim model parading in the boots and the real-life image of stumpy legs in the same pair collide, a trainwreck kind of collision happens. Aside from the mild disappointment, the boots did grow on me. While obviously I won't look half as good as the models with the boots, they exude effortless chic nonetheless and I was almost sold. Until I examined the shoes and discovered the workmanship left a lot to be desired. Untidy seams with one or two white bits on the black leather. My nagging suspicion that the product was manufactured in China was confirmed. For that price tag, I promptly and gladly sent it back without a second thought. It's another story though if they are on sale. Haha!

Imagine I could barely contain my glee when the boots finally arrived. I've been hankering after them for too long. Almost a year to be exact. Not to mention the great lengths I went to to get my claws on them. Desires are nourished by delays, indeed. Naturally I was deeply disappointed that I was left with no boots to show for and no more boots to pine for.

But very quickly, I found another object of desire:

 

TV rots your brain!

'No, my lowest moment came on Monday night, when... I realized that, with seventeen episodes to go, there was a good chance that I wasn’t going to make it.'

The above totally captured the mortification I was facing while bingeing on a Taiwanese drama many years ago. I wasn't ill then and it was the weekend. And the best part was, I was crashing at my best friend's which means no funny looks or questions from my parents though my mother is a bigger TV addict than I am. I thought I could hit the stop button and go home in the evening because it's a work day the next day. Needless to say, I thought wrong of course. Not only did I not go home, I stayed and finished the whole season, all 31 episodes of it. I just couldn't put a brake on this crazy ride. It was the wee hours by then. With a brain that was foggy and almost dead, I called in sick the next morning. Definitely not something which I am proud of...

What I find interesting is, TV addiction manifests itself regardless where we are: Asia, Europe, America... Someone out there right now is watching, or worse, bingeing on a drama as I type. With TV studios and stations churning out new and great (damn!) series all the time, how do we find time to devour these must-sees? I am awfully jealous of those who can afford that luxury, particularly those who have to juggle work and family. These are the super humans, the immortals.

But why do we all feel guilty about watching our favourite shows? Does TV make us dumb and really rot our brain? As one commenter put it, we wouldn't apologize for reading a good book in one sitting so why should we be embarrassed about spending a few hours a week on a good show? A good point there and one which I would gladly use as an excuse to go on another crazy ride! Haha!

 

When getting in bed with the government

A jaw-dropping opinion on the corruption in China still leaves me in shock days after I heard it:

'If you want to be a civil servant or government official, you have to be greedy and corrupted. If your inspiration is to be an upright and honest official, you will unfortunately not go very far because such unwelcome work ethics stand out like a sore thumb within the government sector. With corruption so deeply embedded in the 5000 years of China history, the main motivation for choosing a political life is power and greed, not to serve the people.'

I have no way of knowing if this view is representative of the Chinese public but if every Chinese citizen were to have such sad mentality while accepting corruption as a normal way of life, even mounting a herculean effort to battle the rampant corruption and to save this country would be utterly futile and hopeless.

Examples of the widespread corruption:

'...Fighting corruption would require Chinese government officials to live like monks, and nobody joins the Chinese government in order to live like a monk.' - The Alantic

'....one party secretary in a poor county received repeated death threats for rejecting over 600,000 Renminbi in bribes during his tenure.' - Wikipedia

'In fact, the police stations in Chongqing were actually the centre of the prostitution, gambling and drugs rackets. They would detain gangsters from time to time, and sometimes send them to prison, but the gangsters described it as going away for a holiday. The police and the mafia were buddies.' - The Telegraph

Some other interesting articles on the topic: here and here.