Neighborhood Story

Here's my horribly plotless, meaningless, and depthless story about my interesting-less neighborhood:
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I know the sun is starting to set because we live on the west side of the condo, my desk always facing the sinking orange orb. In collaboration with our pale window curtains, the sun casts strange, long orange lines on my desk and homework. I also know I am a procrastinator, because I am arguing with my mom over who should go to print some of my pictures for an English class project out at FedEx Kinko’s. She says I am old enough. They are my pictures. I argue that I have too much homework (due to procrastination). I am too lazy.

In the end, I am armored with a thin sea-green jacket, a ten dollar bill in my jeans pocket. My mother wins because she is always right. My lack of time as an excuse rarely works. Somehow the elevator ride down seven floors seems too slow, as I listen to an intelligent voice announce the first floor. I step through my building’s revolving doors, whishwoosh-whishwoosh. The air is sweet, tangy with wafts of dark chocolate from a chocolate factory several blocks northeast. The May weather is nice, but I walk briskly to FedEx Kinko’s (wishing I had some Starbuck’s coffee first).

As I walk back home, I start across the street towards the fresh fish market. I stare longingly, for I want to eat some salmon. The May breeze blows a whiff of the wet, slimy smells of fish and the ocean while the CTA Halsted bus pulls up and blocks my view. When the bus has pulled away, I see several teenage boys attempting to pull tricks on their skateboards. They must be bringing back the skateboard trend, I muse, as I think back to several classmates of mine who have been regularly bringing skateboards to school.

After I get home, my mother has dinner ready. I help her clear the table, scoop two bowls of rice, and retrieve two pairs of chopsticks. With the rice and plates of veggies and meat steaming, I suddenly feel my appetite increasing. It is as if my stomach is endless, and I start to eat quite ferociously. My mother and I are both silent, and I know as always that my mother is thinking about what my father is eating right now.

Not long after, the silence is pierced by a shiver-inducing screeching noise followed by a short BOOM of crunching metal. Both my mother and I rush over to the window to find that there has been a crash between two black cars. One is sadly wedged between a pole and the fish market (somehow) and the other car is invisible in our angle of view. My mother and I go out onto our balcony for a closer look. I chuckle as I see that our neighbors on both sides are on their respective balconies as wells. Both cars are fairly crushed and damaged, and luckily no pedestrians were involved. My mother sighs. Crashes at this particular intersection have already happened several times in the past. Cars are too busy speeding down the slope of a bridge coming from around Grand Street to slow down at the Fulton-Halsted intersection. My mother and I then go back to our cooling dinners, chatting about my upcoming graduation.

A few months later, as I wait at the Halsted bus stop to go to swim team practice, I will notice that a stop sign has been placed at the intersection. And I will not witness another crash in the area for quite some time.

You know you're gold

This time I shouldn't be presenting you any bullcrap (no guarantees) although AP's are coming up. Our blogpost this week is supposed to be an intellectual interpretation of a song that we picked.

"Z E B R A"  -  B E A C H    H O U S E

You know you're gold, you don't got to worry none
Oasis child, born and so wild
Don't I know you better than the rest
All deception, all deception from you

Your love is stag in the white sand
Wilderness for miles, eyes so mild and wise
Don't I know you better than the rest
All deception, all deception from you

Any way you run, you run before us
Black and white horse arching among us
Any way you run, you run before us
Black and white horse arching among us

Your love is stag in the white sand
Oasis child born into a man
Don't I know you better than the rest
All deception, all deception from you

Wilderness for miles, eyes so mild and wise
Oasis child, born and so wild
Don't I know you better than the rest
All deception, all deception from you

Any way you run, you run before us
Black and white horse arching among us
Any way you run, you run before us
Black and white horse arching among us

(Sadly I have trouble understanding these lyrics myself. I mean, what was I thinking when I picked this song? It's not even my favorite, since all my favorite bands happen to be from Sweden and New Zealand and Australia and Ireland. And sadly Mr. McCarthy has to put up with my scrunchy handwriting and insufficient answers to the questions we got in class.)

Starting with the first line, "You know you're gold, you don't got to worry none" and repeated use of "oasis child" represents that the subject of this song, in the speaker's eyes, is a person born of life in a desert, precious and valuable like gold. The speaker is telling the subject "You know...you're like gold, so don't you worry". And like the images of a golden-grassed safari this song gives, the zebra ("black and white horse" could be representing a person) is wild. "Wild" can be interpreted as mysterious, exotic, special, different. "Don't I know you better than the rest" reads like a questions, meaning that the speaker knows the subject better than anyone else, but really the speaker doesn't know all that much about the subject because the zebra is deceptive. Zebras travel in herds, and their black-and-white stripes help them confuse predators because a color-blind lion will see a moving mass of stripes, or when a zebra is alone and standing still, the stripes mimic the tall grass. "Any way you run, you run before us" shows that the zebra is always ahead and out-of-reach, always mysterious and no one fully understands it. And if "among us" means among the other zebras, then "black and white horse" means that if everybody else were horses, then the zebra is slightly different but essentially the same (horses and zebras are of the same species). For a brief stanza or two with the lines "Oasis child born into a man" and "Wilderness for miles, eyes so mild and wise", the zebra metaphor is being compared to a human (a man's eyes are more likely to look wise than a zebra's).

In the end, "Zebra" could be a love song. Who knows? I think it means that, with the song's galloping beat and almost wistful voice, the speaker thinks the subject is a good and interesting person, with a seemingly wild/mysterious image. The speaker knows the subject most out of everyone, and is telling the subject that he/she is precious like gold and yet the subject still distances himself/herself from the speaker and everyone else.

On the Reservation

I'm not sure if it's good to be back...I think it means more homework on top of everything else. Hence I am presenting you some temporary bullcrap until I decide not be lazy and edit this post! (I have been reading too many Japanese comics. I just finished the five hundred thirty second chapter of a series today, meaning I read 532 chapters in less than a week! My record is 233 chapters in two days. Anyways...)

This week's topic is about the reservation, since we're reading Montana 1948 (I keep thinking it's 1984 instead of 1948). Reservations = Native American reservations, and I don't know anything about them beyond the fact that they are stupid. The reservations relocated the Native Americans, the rightful "Americans" of this land, to the worst, tiniest plots of land existing in the US. It was just the white people marching in with their superiority complex and their guns and decide like God that they must be better than everything on Earth because they have guns that go POWPOW and their skins are white (though really pinkish almost). They relocate the natives to reservation after reservation, and now they decide that everything's okay as long as they offer scholarships to students of Native American descent. I don't mean any offense to anybody, but every time I think about it I get irritated. People who call themselves Americans nowadays, these people who cling on so doggedly to their McDonald's double cheeseburgers and Glee, this supposed American culture...when these same Americans were the ones who crushed culture after culture as they eliminated Indian tribes.

America was and still is supposed to stand for justice and peace and equal rights. I didn't think that the Constitution could be subject to misinterpretation. It clearly states that "all men are created equal", and last time I checked, it didn't precede the phrase "and some are more equal than others". I guess I'm a bit off-topic and ranting now, but I get more and more disappointed as I learn more history.

(all due respect to white people and Native Americans)

-JY

Propaganda!

I found this website while looking for some good propaganda. I think that the bottom right picture offends me most. It is a horrible depiction of Japanese people. It is propaganda, but it just goes to show that one of the things they try to use to make you dislike the enemy is to emphasize the differences in race, in skin color. I also found this, which people thought was Chinese propaganda for the Cultural Revolution. It's similar, but only in the picture that's on the cover. The title of the book doesn't relate to the Cultural Revolution at all. Also, I thought this was pretty funny/ironic as well as this.

Anyways, I guess I'm back to the Cultural Revolution. Off topic, but today I went to a Buddhist temple in Bridgeport (I'm gladly agnostic/atheist thankyouverymuch) where they conducted the entire service full of Chinese old ladies in Mandarin and Cantonese. I feel extra-connected to my culture today. (Don't you like this picture? It has great colors!) But don't yell at me about how it isn't relevant to 2011 today. Because in some ways, it can be.

Nowadays, everybody is living in urban areas, especially in China. The majority of China is sparsely populated with mountains and deserts. China has 26 urban areas with more than 2 million inhabitants, and 52 with more than 1 million. However, two-thirds of the people live in rural areas and work as farmers. In Japan, because of development and the changing ideals of society, women are finding more options besides staying home and birthing babies. Women can choose to not get married, maintain a professional work life. In some rural areas in Japan (more than three-fourths of all Japanese live in urban areas and work at industrial or service jobs) there can be one or two kids in one entire school. There are more elderly than there are young people, and soon enough, in more developed countries like Japan, there won't be enough young people in the work force to support the country. Japan is very strict with immigration and allowing immigrants to become naturalized. By supporting agriculture and counterurbanization like this propaganda poster advertises, there will be more awareness of the situation in rural areas.

...

(taken from An Introduction to Human Geography by James M. Rubenstein)

Hi. This is syd speaking. I have taken over Jy's blogpost for the time being. Mwahahahahahaha.

Did you know that in seventh grade, she was a boy for one lunch period? :P

-JY
(by the way, what Syd said is not true...)

Black Boy Response

So... I know nothing about hip-hop or anything like that. Black Boy, I do know, and I think that it almost frustrates me. It's good, very good, and I enjoy reading it immensely (just not the taking notes part). What bugs me a little is the way Richard Wright narrates seems emotionless, detached from the situation. Of all memories, I would think that emotions attached to these memories and events would be strong and clear. It's not like he's refraining from adding emotions into it because he feels this way as an adult after looking back to these events in his life. Richard never really expresses anger towards his mother, or anger/frustration in the way Aunt Addie treats him, or annoyance towards his grandmother. (He does threaten to kill Aunt Adde with a knife, but only because he didn't want to be beaten.) These people are just as they are--jerks--and while I'm sitting at my desk mad at people in his life like Aunt Addie, Richard just goes along with everything. I'm not sure if this is because his job writing this book is to recount his life in facts.

Overall, I love the honesty of everything. There are many times where I cringed, but I like that he's brutally honest, and doesn't hesitate to use the "N-word". He talks of race and other issues like God freely, and that makes me like the book even more.

JY

The Hunger for Attention

Richard Wright's hunger for attention is extreme, I guess, in comparison to how I was as a little attention-hogging kid. I never did anything dangerous or rebellious like him, but I guess this is because my parents taught me better, and because I'm a girl. I still recall being a complete show-off in the presence of guests. When I was in Japan, I used to be very chirpy and sang Japanese songs with a plastic flashlight as a microphone whenever my parents invited colleagues, friends, professors and such. The guests loved me, they gave me gifts frequently. :D

Even now I do things because of that deep down wanting attention. I don't admit this to myself, and these actions are much more subtle. But nowadays, I also try to be noticed by being good at skill sets that I work hard to improve. Take piano, for example. I've been playing piano for about seven years, and even though I don't want to be labeled as a show-off, deep inside I sometimes hope people ask me to play something if a piano is nearby. After so many years of hard work, nobody knows that I can play the piano (much less how "well" I can play the piano) and I'm just dying to hear praise coming out of someone's mouth. At least, that was how I used to be with the piano. A year ago, I finally discovered that child prodigies truly exist, and that no matter how good you may think you are, there's always someone better than you. That deflated my self-esteem (you can't even imagine), but the want for attention is still there when I am in the presence of those that aren't learned in music.

In my case, I crave praise because my parents are always criticizing me. In Richard Wright's case, he is curious, he wants attention, but most importantly I think he wants some affection from his mother. He never blames her for beating him, or for treating him harshly, and he acts rebellious and does things that will force his mom not to act kindly to him. Underneath, Richard's mom is trying to teach Richard a lesson, but Richard almost understands why he was wrong in doing what he did. I can understand if Richard allows himself to be hurt for the sake of one day having his mom realize herself that she's wrong in treating him so harshly.

JY

PS Happy Chinese New Year 2011!

Reader Response 2

I don't have a particular favorite this week. I thought that the Walden excerpt was pretty cool, after dissecting his  ramblings. However, I really disliked Civil Disobedience, because I couldn't understand it at all. All the articles were really interesting too, and offered lots of insight into what being an American means to them. I liked How it Feels to be Colored Me because Zora reminded me of my friend, especially with the quote "Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me." Zora has a distinctive voice that kind of reminds me of Daisy from The Great Gatsby.  The only exception would be the article by Baldwin, because I couldn't really understand him well either. I liked On being a Mexican American for its crossroads metaphor... (Some of the others were long, like the MLK letter--the reason why I didn't take notes on all of the articles.)

On to the actual post: I am responding to American Dreamer by Bharati Mukherjee. She makes very contemporary points about immigrants vs. Americans, and strips these problems down to ugly truths that everyone denies and which no one wants to here. Most importantly, I find myself relating to her a lot.

Honestly, I can rant about many points she brings up in her article. It's always been "white people" vs. me. (In Japan it wasn't a problem--there were Indians and Caucasians and they were not discriminated against. Tells you a lot about the US, doesn't it?) After all these years of being looked down, you end up finding so much disgust and anger at the pit of your stomach. Why can't you just accept me for who I am? I carry my cultural baggage, yes, but in terms of human beings with feelings and basic rights, we are all the same.

In my family, it's always been "us" against "them", like Mukherjee says. My parents tell me specifically to spread my horizons and make friends with white kids. Also, when they get billings asking for payments they don't need to pay, they blame it on the white people. "What racism!" they mutter. "Just trying to bully you." There are other instances in the car, where you can encounter limitless amounts of jerks driving flashy cars.  Whenever they get beeped or shot a dirty look at for "driving too slow", they say, "Bet you those guys are white people." They later add, "Or black!" These remarks may seem unreasonable, and it makes my parents look like they are the ones being racist, but even though I don't like to admit it, I think in many cases, it is a concept of "us" vs. "them". The Americans pit you against them, and we pit the Americans against us.

Also, one day on the way home from school, an African American man with graying hair, frazzled clothes and beard was riding a dirty bike on Madison, by Racine. There are interesting shops there, and turning my head away from the windows showed me that the man was riding up to me and I was in his way. So I quickly swerved to the right, and as he rode towards my direction he yelled, "Get out of my ----ing way, you ----ing -----." I tried not to take this guy seriously, but I was seriously insulted. What did I ever do to him?

And as for the Americans wanting to bar immigration, I think it is very hypocritical and stupid. American has always been and still is Ellis Island to immigrants. You come to America for a better future, and that is what the US has been advertising for a long time. We are proud nowadays to say we go to diverse schools and whatnot. Plus, Americans were once immigrants too. Except no one wants to acknowledge the fact that we pushed the Native Americans out of their land and no matter how many scholarships you give to outstanding students of Native American descent, it doesn't erase anything. Besides, it's not everyone else's fault that Mexicans keep migrating into the US illegally. Furthermore, it is no one's fault that apparently immigrants are stealing American jobs. Maybe it's because you lack skill.

I promised myself I wouldn't rant. Here I am now, having ranted. I am disappointed in myself, but I couldn't help it. Life is a jerk. Overall, Mukherjee's article says that even though there is a supposed "melting pot" and "mosaic" in America and Canada, there are still divisions among the cultures, with Caucasians in the center on a podium surrounded by bulletproof glass. Even though we are here in America for a better future, there is a divide of "us" vs. "them". It shouldn't exist, and by rejecting her Asian-American hyphenation, Mukherjee says that is it her demand for equal deliverance of the promises of the American dream and its Constitution. Afterall, we are all here for the same reasons.

King Still King?

Come Monday, we will observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, in memory of one of the greatest civil rights activists, a heroic leader in the history of modern American liberalism. A prominent figure in the African American civil rights movement, he led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and in 1964, was the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He devoted his whole life, which ended in assassination, to end racial discrimination and segregation. All for what?

One thing a human being cannot avoid is being biased. Even though no one admits to it today, we are still racist/discriminating in some way. We hold stereotypes against others, and even ourselves. ("You're Asian, why didn't you get a 100 on that test?" or "That was some Indian dude driving that taxi.") We joke around, I joke around, but after all the laughter has died down, I can't help but feel a little... hurt? Offended? Annoyed? We don't mean to, but we discriminate, and that's that. Furthermore, we'd like to believe that America is the boiling pot, a welcoming place for immigrants. But I'd always thought this pot was just a little too hot--be prepared to be scalded at any moment. 

[Jiayin's life story] I myself am an immigrant. Not second generation, not first. I migrated here along with my parents, from China to Japan, and then to the US. My story isn't unique at all--in some ways it doesn't differ from the Mexicans' or the Filipinos'. My parents had great jobs in China, truthfully speaking. We didn't emigrate for economic reasons, they emigrated for my future. Not only are we not as well-off as we would've been if we stayed in China, in the so-called melting pot, we are being looked down on. You can't prove that they don't like you because you're foreign, but it's just a feeling that you get. My parents don't speak the best English, and have gone through plenty of uncomfortable situations because all people did was look down on them, and never genuinely tried to help them. As for me, maybe it was because I was the new kid in first grade, but I think primarily because I couldn't speak English, a bunch of kids in first grade decided to steal my color pencils every. single. day. (I shall refrain from mentioning the race.) I had to take them back every single day, and what could I do? I didn't even know what came first: A or B or C? I didn't know Chinese, and who in the world spoke Japanese in Bridgeport?  [/Jiayin's life story]

Apart from a sort of social discrimination, I'd like to generalize by mentioning immigration laws. I'm not talking about the Mexican-US border laws and the Whatever-whatever Act granting citizenship to illegal Mexican children. (It bugs me that no one knows much about immigration outside of Mexicans.) Anyways, as immigrants, you come with a visa status, and if you want to stay, you have to apply for visa status changes, and then ultimately, your Green Card, making you a permanent alien resident. Because we are Chinese (or Asian, whichever), we have to wait a very long time for our Green Card (as well as forms that have to be approved of in between--currently it is backed up in 2005). Whereas other races (minorities) don't have to wait in line like we Chinese people and Indians do. I understand that they do this because there are lots of us, but it doesn't make sense to me. Not only is it backed up to 2005, sometimes they backtrack further. And along the way, they reject many, many Green Card applications. Once your visa runs out, you have to leave. However, I don't want to say anything more about this, because I am "only a kid" and I can only know so much about all this legal schnazz.

But Why? Isn't it obvious they are trying to draw the line? They are rejecting many applications and backing up the line such that if the forms don't approve in time of the visas, people will have to leave. If we are all equal, why do we have to go through so much trouble? Why do people who are born here get automatic citizenship? How can it be that easy? And ultimately (though unreasonable as this question is) why don't they just force all the African Americans back to Africa? 

I'm just upset that here, we have a bunch of corrupt CEOs playing games with the market, while the US Immigration Department goes through Chinese applications based on how much this person will contribute to the country. We as immigrants have to go through a sort of social injustice (and social trauma in my case--do you know how much I love those color pencils?) in this so-called melting pot where immigrants get to start over and live a better life. I don't understand why we are so bent upon differentiating ourselves. (In the words of Mr. Wallace, "Chinese people can't differentiate their /l/'s and /r/'s!") Is feeling superior necessary?

We are not all equal, and it bugs me. It bugs me a lot.

Reader Response

So... [insert awkward moment here]

I really liked the To Be Young, Talented and Black excerpt (p. 770-773) by Lorraine Hansberry (even more than I liked the We are Ugly, But We are Here) because it was really colorful. Not in the kind of The Great Gatsby colorful, but in the sense that it painted a vivid idea in my head what Hansberry's life was like back then.

I can't really put into words why I liked it so much. (I need to learn how to ramble in circles like Syd here. Of course, in the nicest way possible.)

Is it weird that I liked it because her writing style is one that I aspire to develop mine into? I wish I could write meaningful sentences ("Why was it important to take a small step, a teeny step, or the most desired of all--one GIANT step?"). Ones that imply meaning instead of explicitly stating them. ("...we were better than no one but infinitely better than everyone...") Ones that could be little stories on their own, trailing off and leaving the reader with a 'Huh.' moment (kind of like an 'Ohhhh.' moment; "You are not a person--you are a nuisance who is not particular fun anymore. Consequently, you swiftly learned to play alone.")

Even though she talks of the vanity required to write a memoir, even though every section seems like she is just giving you a glimpse of her life, they come along with some sort of implied meaning. Her writing is simplistic and soulful.

Maybe I should stop here, before I start saying things that will make me yell, "You're so stupid. Why don't you just shut up?" to myself later, when I go back and reread this. Point is, I like it, and I hope to read the rest of the book sometime soon.

-JY



PS: I'm sure no one cares, but that banner at the top of this page? Yeah, I made it. :D Just wanted to point that out, before it goes down for the new year.
Temporary Link for Mr. McCarthy: Indigoe Timms