Archive for March, 2009
Posted on March 31, 2009 at 06:53am
Thanks to the success of our last discussion question on college and careers, we’ve decided to continue with an engaging topic (hopefully) once per week. Here’s the latest and greatest by a very special guest blogger!
Hello MMIAF readers,
It’s guest blogger time! I’m Ho Chie Tsai, creator of the web portal site TaiwaneseAmerican.org, frequent speaker among the Taiwanese American high school and college crowd, and occasional behind-the-scenes co-conspirator with Serena. In an effort to encourage discussion among all of you, it’s time to get you to talk about the best of all gossip topics: Boys and Girls! And Dating! Or not dating… It’s more common than you think. You know who you are.
Within my discussions among the Asian American youth community, I’ve heard it time and again… all the complaints and pressures when it comes to that time in your life when you develop those “oh-so-special tingly feelings” a.k.a. “attraction.” It’s hard enough as it is navigating your way through life, but figuring out how you fit in or how you’ll ever meet that standard of beauty exemplified in all those magazines is a whole other level. We’re all looking for acceptance at some level, and sometimes it can be just plain stressful!
Oh, the anxiety! I mean, who among us doesn’t remember feeling insecure about ourselves, yet feeling excited about that special someone. The heart skips a beat, and you lay awake at night dreaming and hoping. Except that nothing ever happens because the guy just doesn’t know how to tell the girl how he really feels, or because both justify their inaction because they are too busy with studying or work anyways. My personal favorite is the good ol’ excuse from the girls that “my mom says I’m not allowed to date til I’m 25 or when I get married. Whichever comes first.”
How do we deal with all the age-old questions about love and relationships? Does he/she like me? Will it work out? Will my parents approve? I’m sure I don’t have all the answers. And there’s no doubt that it causes stress and anxiety among the best of us. There’s got to be a connection with the fact that the highest depression rates are found among Asian American teens. Even so, maybe the place to start is to open up conversation about dating and relationships.
So here’s the part where you get to reminisce about your first love, the romantic crushes you sent secret notes to, or the ones you loved, but treated as “just friends” because, well, you just didn’t know any other way around it or you didn’t want to “ruin the friendship.” Or just admit it, you just were afraid of rejection. (Where’s the manual on this stuff for us Asian Americans anyway?).
Whatever ethnicity you are, Asian American or not, we want to hear your stories. So spew away, and tell us (anonymously, if you want) about how growing up in your particular culture/community influenced your love or dating life (or lack of), and perhaps even explore how your parents affected your perspectives on expressing love and affection. Were your parents the restrictive type? The nosy type? The contradictory type? Or maybe they were oddly supportive? Let’s not even get into the ones who so willingly gave the “birds and the bees” talk… 10 years too late. Ah. Parents. We love them anyways.
So no matter what stage of life you’re in, it’s your opportunity to share, but please remember to be respectful. Leave names out or change them to protect privacy. Our hearts always remain fragile throughout our entire lives. But maybe through this process of sharing, we’ll discover some uniqueness to our experiences, or maybe we’ll find out that we’re just not that different from each other after all.
In any case, we want to know everything. Spill it.
P.S. Want to hear more? Serena and I are teaming up and speaking at two college-level conferences this month on the topic of generation gap issues. Our workshop is entitled “Back in my day, we walked to school. Uphill. Both ways.” It’s not too late to register and join in on our madness. We’ll be in southern California http://usc.itasa.org and Illinois http://uiuc.itasa.org.
Posted on March 28, 2009 at 04:54pm
It’s times like these that make me regret helping my mom cheat in language school when she was learning English.
Posted on March 28, 2009 at 04:53pm
Found this new sign left by my mom.
Posted on March 28, 2009 at 04:34pm
Mom: Liam Neeson’s wife died. Some sort of freaking accident.
Me: you mean ‘freak accident’?
Posted on March 26, 2009 at 09:28pm
My mom is always suspicious. Everything I do, she automatically concludes that I must be smoking. She tries so hard to bust me for smoking and I don’t even smoke.
Scenario A:
Mom: Are you hungry?
Me: No mom.
Mom: Why aren’t you? It’s way past dinner time… You’re smoking aren’t you! Smoking leads to lost appetite.
Scenario B:
Mom: What are you doing?
Me: I’m doing laundry.
Mom: WHY? You never do laundry! You’re hiding something… You must be smoking. You’re SMOKING AREN’T YOU!
Me: Mom… I just wanted to be helpful. Forget it, you can do the laundry for me.
Scenario C:
Mom: Did you just take another shower?
Me: Yes….
Mom: WHY? That’s the second time you took a shower!
Me: Mom, I just got done playing football outside. Chill OUT!
Mom: You’re smoking aren’t you?
Scenario D:
Mom: You look funny. You’re face lost some weight.
Me: WHAT….?
Mom: You’re SMOKING aren’t YOU!?
Posted on March 25, 2009 at 08:08pm
My mom is trying to hook up my brother with some girl in Beijing… my brother likes Italian girls though, and he is in Iraq and not exactly available to date—doubly not interested. Here’s her plea email…
Please let me know if you want made friends with Lily or not, if yes, I will give your e-mail address to her and tell her don’t talk anything about both of your jobs. only personal questions, she might come US on this summer for her nursing school and she want find job and stay in US. she was top student in university so she doesn’t have problem of English, she already saw your picture and want make friend with you.
I won’t ask you about 1985 thing anymore, I know what was happen, I already stooped relationship with aunt Linda. I will never see her again. please answer my question I don’t think it is so difficult?? I’m not push you merry her just start be friend first. be like a man and answer the question. okay!!
Margaret said you want Italian girl but you cannot have cheese, milk how you can live with Italian. they eat cheese all the time! and after be mother most Italian woman become very fat. think about!!
mom
Posted on March 25, 2009 at 04:00am
Hello MMIAF readers,
It’s Serena here. Instead of being just a humor site for readers to vote on submitted content, we’re going to try something a little different. Of course, we want to bring you as much entertainment as Engrish and Passive Aggressive Notes, but we also want to encourage discussion, much like Postcards from Yo Momma and Stuff White People Like. We would like MMIAF to become a sharing community where people realize, “Hey, I’m not the only one with a misspelled name!” or that our parents aren’t the only ruthless ones who display tough love in the form of brutal honesty. In an effort to move MMIAF in that direction, we’re going to try to have forum-style discussion topics to spur e-communication, examine our cultural similarities and differences, and discover how the first generation has impacted the second.
In the spirit of college acceptance/rejection letters, or, as one dad puts it, “March Madness”, here’s to every scholar’s academic pursuit of enlightenment: what did you decide to major in and what is your dream career? Since our parents seemed to care more about our college apps than we did, it is also valid to ask, did your parents influence your choice, and if so, in what way? While some parents are adamant about us pursuing law or meeting med-school boys, others just want us to sleep nine hours a day—or all of the above with divine help. What did your fob parents expect of you? If you want, you may share your choice of college as well—even if it’s Dark Mouth University (btw, Dartmouth is a very good school).
If you’re not even a “fresherman” in college, you may share what you would like to major in and why (perhaps versus what your parents want you to major in); and for those who are already part of the work force, please share past college experiences and/or any insight you would like others to know.
To start off the conversation, I will share my personal story. Read More
Posted on March 23, 2009 at 11:42am
I moved to NYC from CA, where my sister still lives with my parents. She’s a nurse who works nights and goes out on her days off. This is the ending of an email my mom sent to me regarding my sister’s lifestyle. Little does my mother know, the crazies in CA ain’t got nothing on the NYC crazies.
Thanks anak. Have a nice and safe weekend. As an older sister, please tell your little sister to listen to us and not be going out and staying till 3 am on her days off. We are very concern about her staying out so late and coming home early in the morning with all the drunks, rapist, serial killers and crazy people out here. Hopefully she would listen to you.
Love you very much,
Mama
Posted on March 20, 2009 at 03:02pm
This is the first time I’ve told my mother that I’m dating. I figured it was about time, and if anything I should be old enough to date so she’d be okay with it. She lives in Taiwan, and calls me once every two weeks. This week, I told her.
Me: Hey mom, so I have a boyfriend now, are you okay with that?
Mom: Well, I’m fine with it but I’m disappointed. I think you are a little too young.
Me: But I’m eighteen, mom. I’m turning nineteen in a few months.
Mom: Eighteen is too young! Chinese people like their daughters to start dating at twenty, not eighteen. You are just a baby. The point is that you shouldn’t let your father know.
Me: Why not?
Mom: Because he is a rabbit, and rabbits do not like sudden changes in their lives. On that thought– don’t tell your Auntie Irene, either. She is a rabbit too.
Me: I think she would understand, she knows me pretty well.
Mom: Doesn’t matter, she is a rabbit. She’s not like me, a monkey.
Posted on March 18, 2009 at 01:25am
Hi Jo,
Where are you? I’m worried.
Did you get my email attached tutoring info and application? Pleasssssssse reply this and let us know you are OK.
You are not in LA. You are out of country. You have to correspond with us EVERYDAY.
Love,
Mom
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