I am Canadian. Get over it.

For those of you who don't know me well, I am Chinese by heritage. My parents are from mainland China, and as a random bit of trivia, my mom likes to mention that she grew up watching the Terracotta soldiers being unearthed. (Even more trivia…did you know that for the first time EVER, the Chinese government is letting some of the soldiers out of the country? They are hitting up Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary museums!)

Those of you who know me…will also know that I am “white”. In fact, I often get “whiter than most white people”, or “you are the whitest person I know”. In other words, I don’t act asian.

I do not speak Mandarin or Canto. I can’t read or write an asian language. I do not speak Engrish, or English with an accent. I do have a Chinese name, however, I can’t pronounce it, write it, or even recognize it in writing if someone showed it to me. I never had to go to Chinese school. I do not go to China once every two years. I do not know my relatives in China. In fact, I don’t even know how many relatives I have in China. The only time I went to China was when I was 5. I HATED it. I date a white guy, and no, my parents never tried to set me up with asian guys. I spent most of my life in Okotoks – for most of my life there, we were one of the only asian families in the entire community.

Is this unusual? I don’t think so…I am meeting more and more Canadian Born Chinese (CBCs) every day. I’m not alone!

Then why are there so many people who think I am some sort of alien?

Throughout my life, I’ve encountered people who express horror at my upbringing. “How can you not know how to speak mandarin?” “Where are your parents?” “Why didn’t your parents teach you?” “Why didn’t you go to Chinese school?” “You sound like a white person” “What a disgrace, dishonouring your heritage” “How can you ignore that you are Chinese?”

Why is it not obvious? My family chose to leave China – China didn’t do anything good for them. They chose to come to Canada, they chose to raise their kids as Canadian. Why is that so hard to understand? I’m not IGNORING the fact that I’m Chinese, my family has some habits and ways that can only be described as Chinese. However, my parents chose to embrace Canada and it’s ways and traditions, making our own little niche in this fantastic country.

I am Canadian. Chinese by heritage, but 100% Canadian, and it’s time people learnt to accept that.

-S

Life is knocking....shhh, ignore it.

First off, sorry for not posting sooner! It's amazing how the whole "oh I'll do it later" magically turns into 4 months later x.x

Anyways! Quick catching up. I just flew home to Alberta, before that I went camping for 4 days, then before that I just finished my last work term ever...that was basically my summer =P Now, surrounded by electronics, tea, moon cakes, and a cat who keeps pressing the 'd' and 's' keys on my laptop, I am back to blogging.

The ending of my last co-op term really got me thinking. In my case, it was the end of 31 months of work as an undergraduate student...that's 2.5 years of work experience! And here I am, one year of school left, and the full time job search stretching in front of me like a dismal fish.

I am among that percentage of students coming out of co-op who actually thought it was worth it. Yes, there were a lot of dark moments....CECS losing my papers, 5 PD courses, some .....interesting co-op terms and so forth, but in the end I got to do almost 2 whole years of work in fields that I am genuinely interested, and have met some fantastic people along the way. But now that that is over, it's time to focus on life.

It's actually kind of terrifying. Going into a co-op term, you always have that safety net - if the term is not going well, you know it's going to end in 4 or less months. Jobs in the real world? There is no end date...though I guess you could do some sort of contracting gig, and have contracts of a year or less at a time.

How do you make such a huge decision about your life? Do you follow the money, or do what you want to do? Ah hahaha, that is assuming you can even find a job in this interesting economy in the first place.

How long can you postpone the decision? Then again, if you put it off for too long...what if you miss opportunities on the way? Where do you go, how do you do it, when do you do it?

Oh life...go away. I'm on vacation until school starts.

-S

Body image, a personal account

There is the saying that goes, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." It is expected that standards of beauty differ among individuals and cultures, and something that is beautiful to one may not be the case for the other. Though, regardless of what it looks like, the concept of beauty is one that cannot be ignored in the life of a female. The way I see it, standards of beauty are crucial when it comes to building a woman's self esteem from her earliest years.

When I was a very young kid growing up in England, I was taller than most kids of my age. I didn't think too much of it; I just liked being at the back of the line when lined up in order of height. The only time it annoyed me was when I couldn't get into the IKEA ball pit because I was too tall, despite that I was right in the recommended age range. And of course, I didn't know of the concept of fat or thin, except when there was an unusually fat kid in the school.

This was all about to change. The year I turned 9, I moved from England to South Korea. Twice a year, children's heights and weights are measured in order to keep track of their growth. Of course, the intention is all good. The problem lies in that when one child is being measured and weighed, everyone else in line can see the figures that show up on the machine. And while they can see that some children are taller than others, when it comes to weight, all that matters is the number that appears. I clearly remember being called "fat" in semester 2 of grade 3 - I was 147cm tall and weighed 38kg. At the age of 9, Korean children are used to seeing weights in the 20s range, and even as low as 18kg for the smaller children; naturally, I was dubbed "fat" from that day on.

The word "fat" lingered in the back of my head for years to come. I was still a rather skinny child, though since I returned to Korea, I was rapidly gaining weight. By the time I had hit the age of 12, I was 167cm tall, weighing somewhere around 50kg. I was not made fun of--in fact, my female classmates did tell me I was "so skinny"--yet it was bugging me that I was gaining weight that fast. That "5" in "50" scared me. It didn't help that I was noticing classmates almost as tall as myself, but wearing jeans 1-2 sizes smaller. Unfortunately, things would not go in my favour from there.

A year later, I was at 169cm, weighing 57kg. I had jumped 2-3 sizes in just a year, and the jeans that were so big that I could fit two fists in and still have room left were now just right. And to make things worse, I was now at the very end of the Korean female clothing sizing scale. I'd see pretty clothes and ask if they had my size; it turned out that at least 80% of reputable Korean brands did not produce clothes in my size. It was demoralising. A lot of people still thought I was thin, as my wrists and ankles were still as bony as ever, but a little part of me died every time I went out shopping. So I survived a good 4 years primarily on very baggy clothing. I felt that my figure was something to be concealed until I could drop down a few sizes, almost good enough to look like a supermodel. I was just glad that baggy trousers weren't completely out of style yet, as they had been immensely popular in Korea around the turn of the century.

Soon after I turned 17, I found myself in a new land: Canada. During the first few weeks, all I did was stay at home and eat. As a result, I put on a whopping 5kg in just three weeks. Mother was not pleased. One day, she called me. "C, you're fat. Come here." There she was with a tape ruler in her hands. She proceeded to measure my waist. Then she told me to go to the gym at least 3 times a week so I could lose weight.

Luckily I did lose that excess weight fairly quickly. But that was not the only good thing to happen; I was delighted to find that in this country, I could actually go shopping without killing my self-esteem every time! Back in Korea, I could only shop at a few stores because I was too big for the rest of them, but here, I was welcome to shop anywhere I pleased. No more asking "Excuse me.... ur.... what size does this come up to?", but instead, rummaging through all the disorganised piles at Boxing Day sales to see if I could dig up something nice in my size.

Many years have passed since then. I will admit that I will never be 100% content with my figure, but I can say that I no longer feel like an inadequate excuse of a female human being, or a blob of fat made to accentuate the perceived beauty of others. It has been a long journey to reach this state of mind - I hope I will be able to maintain this for many more decades to come.

Items you should never put in your cabin baggage

With the ever-worsening baggage restrictions for flights, going through security can resemble hell rather closely at times. Drawing from my experiences, here's a list of items you should never put in your cabin baggage:

1. Items on the no-fly list

'Nuff said.

2. Dense metal plane-shaped objects

Security guards will turn on the laser beams in their eyes once their scanners show signs of suspicious metal objects. Said lasers become more intense when the metal is dense, and when the suspicious item happens to resemble a miniature plane, watch out. I knew the world was paranoid about planes smashing into skyscrapers, but I didn't know that just having a plane shaped object could buy suspicion.

And the true identity of the dense metal plane-shaped object I was caught with? A mini cross with a base to help it stay upright.

The item in question. Suspicious indeed...

3. Metal chopsticks

Born Korean, I prefer to eat with metal chopsticks rather than wooden ones. But of course, they're made of metal, and they're long and thin! A potential threat, you say? The guidebook available for security guards at Heathrow Airport doesn't list chopsticks as a potential threat. The guards' supervisor will even tell you the metal spoon that comes with the chopsticks is also good to go.

4. Invisible items

Watch out for these, especially if you're a skilled packer. Security guards will tell you that they're searching for "nothing [they] can tell you about". They will then proceed to empty out half of your well packed bag, and loosely stuff everything back in when they fail to find the suspicious object after going through all of the contents. Not surprising, considering it doesn't really exist...

Coming soon!

Hey,

So... long time no see, eh? I have been really busy with school, and sitting down to write something like a blog entry seemed like a huge commitment in terms of time and energy. So I never did... But I haven't forgotten, and I did read all of S and C's posts. And my own post will be coming soon - as soon as school is over (that's right, the American schools end later than the Canadian ones, I'm done in about 2.5 weeks now!).

Just letting you know that I'm still alive and well, and talk to you soon!

Britain Grounded

It was a sunny, albeit mildly chilly, Thursday morning, and I was sitting in the hostel lounge, trying in vain to revise for exams. A few French people, all armed with massive backpacks, had just walked into the hostel. They looked like any other group of backpackers, except they had something interesting to say: they went to the airport early in the morning, but were sent back because their flight got cancelled. And to add to that, all flights in the UK and Ireland that day had been cancelled.

What was this? And would my flight, scheduled for the following evening, be able to take off? I asked the girl at the reception, and was told that a volcano had erupted in Iceland, and that the ashes were covering the skies of Britain, posing a safety hazard. It sounded like a joke, but having seen the people that had just returned to the hostel, I decided to believe this.

It was no joke. More flights were cancelled, and there were talks about booking ferry tickets out of Ireland. To make things worse, the internet stations at the hostel were down, so I couldn't even check live updates on the spot. All I had were updates from people that were scheduled to leave Ireland that same day.

Time went by. My flight hadn't been cancelled as of lunchtime, so I went out for a tour as planned. When I got to the Temple Bar and was about to dig into my dinner, however, some people standing next to me flipped out a newspaper with the Icelandic volcano story on the first page. They noticed that I was trying to read the article, and asked if I was supposed to travel anywhere today. These gentlemen were from Birmingham, their flight had been cancelled (I forget their destination), so they had decided to take a ferry to Dublin instead. After a half hour chat with one of them, I was advised to go and book a ferry ticket.

Upon returning to the hostel, I found out that all flights leaving up until 1pm on Friday had now been cancelled. Most people were taking advantage of free rebooking services or were looking for alternate ways out. Most guests at the hostel were panicked, but in a sense, things were normal. People were still bringing cans of beer to the kitchen to drink together, complaining about how expensive everything is in Dublin.

If anything, this chaotic situation gave guests an excuse to bond with each other. All you had to do to start talking was to ask, "Are you travelling today?" We were all in it together, and strangers were helping strangers so that everyone could get out of Ireland in due time to their next destinations.

I found myself saying "Good luck! See you tonight if my flight gets cancelled." to the group I'd just met the previousn ight. Maybe I jinxed things -- at around noon today, I got the following text message from Ryanair:

URGENT-Your Ryanair flight has been cancelled - please visit www.ryanair.com for free rebooking/refund

And now I too was stranded in Dublin for a while. In an hour and a half at an internet cafe, I managed to notify my dad of the situation, cancelled a dinner appointment in London, and after multiple tries, rebooked my flight. All the weekend flights to London were fully booked, so the earliest I could get was Monday morning. That would leave me with a mere 1.5 days to explore London. So instead, I booked a flight straight to Edinburgh for Sunday evening.

News reports say Scottish and Irish skies are clearing up gradually, so hopefully I won't need to reschedule a second time. It's a pity that I've had to give up London, but I do appreciate that the industry cares about passenger safety, especially after what happened to Poland a few days ago. Plus, at least I'm stuck in a city where I am fluent in the language. Not to mention accommodation is decently cheap here... (It's one of the few cheap things in Dublin)


Update: I shouldn't have spoken too early. My rebooked flight also got cancelled, so now I have a ferry ticket and a bus ticket. All I need is a bus or train ticket from Dublin to Belfast, and I'll be on my way home, safe and sound.

Anyone have a Paypal account?

For those of you who don't know, I am moving in the next month. One of the perks of moving into a nicer, bigger place, is that we bought newer, nicer things - including a TV. So now I am in the process of selling our old TV and TV stand.

I decided to give Facebook Marketplace a shot. I lised the TV stand for $50, with a photo of it. It's in great condition - I even decided to wipe the dust off it!!!

Within a few hours, I get this:


xxxxxxx xxxxxx March 29 at 3:50am Report
I am interested in purchasing your listing as a birthday gift for my immediate sister schooling in a private university in Africa Nigeria. So i will be paying you $500 for the item and $200 for shipping to him in Africa and am paying via paypal, do get back to me with your PayPal id for the payment as i will be paying via a secured method of payment. Hoping to hear from you ASAP!.

So....anyone have a Paypal account? =P I'm so eager to ship my TV unit off to Nigeria. I'm really curious about this private university in Nigeria as well, and how the gender of her sister changed in the second sentence. Another interesting thing to note, is that the person who messaged me claims to work for Disney...does Disney have any connections with private Nigerian universities?