CBR9 #8: Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli

To say that this has been a difficult year would be an understatement. For Americans, no matter what one's political affiliation is, it is clear to see that the rampant gas-lighting the current administration is putting us through is not normal. The word "fact" seems to have completely undergone a change in meaning, so much so that statements from politicians are view with the default setting of "definitely a lie."

Putting aside that I wake up every morning with a sense of impending dread that I'm sure has something to do with having my iPhone so close to my head (every Politico news alert I get seems to give me heart palpitations), my personal life has been in the trash. I upended my life for a man this year, only to have it completely tossed in the air again six months later when he walked out of my life. I'm still waiting to see how it looks when things fall in place.

And yet, it's hard for me to vocalize how bad I feel because I have a sense he's doing worse; I have a sense that I've been lucky because of all the work I've put in on myself, because of all the friends and loved ones who've come to my rescue, and because of the daily reminders that I am not alone.

I bring all this up in my review of Tell Me How It Ends, because it came as an absolute surprise to me, at a strange intersection of feelings – of immense disappointment in US politics, immense sadness at the apparent downward slide of Cambodia's (facade of a) democracy towards outright tyranny, and of immense happiness for my friends and their journey.

I certainly didn't know what I was getting myself into when I opened this book after I ordered it from Amazon – no, I'm not kidding, I had put it in my Amazon basket months ago and had forgotten why I did that, so I just clicked "buy" when I was in the US in August. Tell Me How It Ends... this must be a romance novella, yes? This must be a slow burn of a friendship, yes? A strange existential novel about young love, yes?

Well, friends, it is not. Valeria Luiselli is a Mexican writer living in the US, waiting for her green card for her and her family to come through in the summer of 2014 when she hears of the news of tens of thousands of child refugees coming into the US from Mexico and Central America. She then begins working as a Spanish interpreter for the New York City immigration court, where she asks the children 40 questions drawn up by immigration lawyers to "process" their way through the American legal system. Depending on how the children answer, the lawyers are able to draw up a defense to the immigration court, to persuade the judges to rule that these children may have sanctuary.

Two days after I started reading this book, an old friend of mine finally got notification that she will be sworn in for citizenship in less than a week. A day after she received the letter, the White House announced that they will be rescinding DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration policy that enable people who had entered the country as minors be allowed a postponement of deportation.

To say that my friend's naturalization ceremony notice came at a bittersweet moment in history would be an understatement. She was wracked with guilt and relief – after years of being called an "illegal," of being unable to go to preferred colleges or obtain jobs in journalism because of her status, she would be able to be pronounced a citizen under one of the most polarized administration in history.

Like my friend, Luiselli was herself questioning her desire to be in the US, guilting herself on her and her husband's fortune to be professors and writers at a time when people – children, essentially – who looked and spoke like her were being villainized on talk radio. The very system in which she was trying to gain access to is broken and morally wrong in its treatment of young children. But she continues waiting out her green card while working at the immigration court, making her way through the 40 questions that seem so innocent but can reveal so much about the scars a child has obtained on his/her way to the land of the free... where the moment they arrive, they are kept in cold, locked rooms, shuttled from untrusting adult to untrusting adult until they get her, someone who can act as their voice.

I found myself tearing up several times during this. Yes, it's about children, and yes, it's a bare-bones look at our immigration system. But the words on these pages reflect a raging culture war that is happening in the US now. My privilege, the distance I have as an expat, my general upper middle-class Asian upbringing leaves me untouched, but I am touched as well.

There is a part in the book when she describes how police officers stopped their car during their road trip out west for vacation. She and her husband keeps it simply -- "We are writing a Western, sir... We came to Arizona for the open skies and the silent and the emptiness," she writes. It is untrue, but that's what they say.

Handing back our passports, one official says sardonically:  

So you come all the way down here for the inspiration.  

We know better than to contradict anyone who carries a badge and a gun, so we just say: 

Yes sir.  

Because –how do you explain that it is never inspiration that drives you to tell a story, but rather a combination of anger and clarity? How do you say: No, we do not find inspiration here, but we find a country that is as beautiful as it is broken, and we are somehow now part of it, so we are also broken with it, and feel ashamed, confused, and sometimes hopeless, and are trying to figure out how to do something about all that.  

We roll the windows up and keep driving. 

On September 7, my beautiful friend – the brightest, most hard-hitting and hardworking journalist in New York, I believe – was sworn in as a citizen. Her friends and I were sequestered into a separate waiting room where all we had to see them by was an inadequately sized TV. We were surrounded by bored relatives and petulant children.

We were there until 11 am, when Judge Ann Donnelly entered the court and issued a perfunctory swearing-in. She was the same federal judge who ordered a stay on Trump's refugee ban, allowing refugees detained in airports across the US not to be sent back to their home countries – but we didn't know that then, when we were standing in New York Eastern District Court listening to her begin a speech. Halting and filled with emotion, Judge Donnelly quoted President Barack Obama's press statement on DACA released the day before.

"What makes us American is not a question of what we look like, or where our names come from, or the way we pray. What makes us American is our fidelity to a set of ideals – that all of us are created equal; that all of us deserve the chance to make of our lives what we will; that all of us share an obligation to stand up, speak out, and secure our most cherished values for the next generation," she quoted, her voice crescendoing. She urged the new citizens to vote in all elections – "even in your local ones" – and to use their voice and speak out on issues that are important to them. She ended it by informing them that they are all Americans, that they are wanted in this country. The people in the waiting room, who previously had the energy of stale bread, burst into applause and tears, and then ran down to congratulate their loved ones.

My old newspaper was shut down by the government just two days before– a sign of Cambodia's increasing lean towards dictatorship – leaving many of my Cambodian colleagues jobless; the current administration had chosen to deport 800,000 young people who were brought to America by their parents; and I had just seen my friend sworn in as a citizen. In that moment, I chose to go with hope and happiness for my friend's future. I chose to see the strange serendipity that fate engineered to get her an eloquent, passionate female judge as a sign for better things.

Tell Me How It Ends takes its title from Luiseilli's daughter, who asked her mother often about the young refugees' stories when she was interpreting at the court. "Tell me how it ends, Mamma," she would say, inquiring into these children's outcomes. I suppose, in a way, it is a strange existential book about young love. But it is no novel, and we still don't know how it ends.

CBR7 #1: Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

My decision to read Crazy Rich Asians wasn't an accidental one. I had just returned from a family wedding in Singapore, and being around so many of my relatives -- some of whom I haven't seen in more than 15 years -- aroused such a bizarre sense of nostalgia. Part of it is comforting, like seeing the familiar faces and personalities of my aunts and uncles (all of whom are physical variations of my mother); part of that nostalgia came with relief. It reminded me of how exhausting it is to always have to consciously, or subconsciously, factor in what your relatives/extended family are going to think of you (or your parent) if you were to make a single misstep in your life (or if you're just merely impolite to an elder.)

This is what Crazy Rich Asians's whole premise hinges on -- about what you are expected to do and how you are expected to act when you are part of a "clan," a somewhat-archaic word that is still used liberally in Asian families; about how your actions reflect on your upbringing and on your parents; and about how your actions can be perceived by the rest of the family, whether if the assumptions they come to are true or fair.

The plot is pretty simple: Nicholas Young, a handsome professor of history who comes from Singapore's upper echelons of "old money," has invited his girlfriend, Rachel, an American-born-Chinese NYU economist, home to Singapore to join him for his best friend's wedding. Only that Nick does not tell Rachel how wealthy his family is, nor does he prepare her for the scrutiny she would receive as a woman from an "improper background." Whether he is naive or cruel, Rachel is thrust into the middle of a decades-old in-family feuding, in which everything -- especially marriage -- is calculated in dollars.

Personally, I think author Kevin Kwan intended for his book to serve two purposes. The first, if you are reading as the average American (or Westerner -- for the lack of a better term), it is to show that Asia is more than just China and Japan, and that Asians are more than just the Chinese and the Japanese. This may seem like an absurdly patronising way to put it, but the truth is that most of the Western world (again, a word used in a similarly bland, general way as the word "Asian") conceives the continent as a single entity with a single people of a single personality. Case in point, I attended a conference last year in Singapore where its participants -- many of whom were part of the American and European luxury retail industry -- held presentation after presentation about how Asian consumers can no longer be classified as simply "from China." "There are different types of Asian consumers; there are even different types of Southeast Asian consumers," said a straight-faced presenter at one point, completely unaware of the irony of saying these very words in Singapore.

So, it's good that Crazy Rich Asians is here to present a different view of Asians, one that Westerners often don't hear about -- at least not in the context of China having the largest number of millionaires in the last 10 years. Kwan certainly has a lot of fun doing so, laying it on thick by listing all the designer brand clothing that the characters wear, allowing his characters to sound ultra-educated (and haughty and materialistic) in British-inflected English, and taking pains to describe elaborate homes that double as tacky palaces.

But the second purpose of the novel is to showcase Asian culture, or at least Singaporean-Chinese culture. There were so many instances in the novel where I felt were an exact replica of what I've experienced, either as a child who grew up in Singapore, as a teenager who moved to the US and visited Singapore occasionally, and as an adult who has had to explain to non-Singaporean friends the strange family obligations I am bound to. One of the beginning chapters, when Nick told Rachel that he had not informed his mother of their relationship despite dating for almost two years, is an almost word-by-word copy of a conversation I had with my boyfriend a year earlier, when he was surprised that I had not told my mom that we were dating.

Kwan also perfectly captured the calculating relationships that large families in Singapore allow themselves to co-exist in, submerging themselves in toxic environments weekly just so that they can come out on top -- and by come out on top, I mean, inherit the family wealth. There are so many mistruths spread between the Youngs and Leongs (the families that have married each other for wealth). I don't know if all Singaporean families are like that, but this aspect of the novel smacked of so much truth that it was comical for me to think that some readers might assume it a caricature.

Finally, that concept of an "outsider" -- which young, naive Rachel was used to personify -- is repeated throughout the book, sometimes obnoxiously hammered home with tell-all, cathartic speeches. But Kwan isn't wrong about that protective cocooning of clan-like families against the rest of the world, even people that their relatives are married to. Nick's mother, Eleanor, formerly a Sung, has never been truly accepted into the Youngs; the marriage of Astrid, Nick's beautiful cousin, suffers because her husband feels looked down upon by the Leongs. Yet their children are always immune to that sort of treatment, because of the Asian obsession with blood (which is akin to Games of Thrones' obsession with lineage). Growing up, my cousins and I always spoke about the in-laws within our family as if they were other -- this sort of talk mimicked the way our parents spoke about so-and-so's spouse who of course married them for the money, not love

And it was always about the money, always. Maybe not uttered so nakedly and in such listicle-heavy terms (some of the soliloquies mounted by Kwan's characters could double as a BuzzFeed post on "The 20 Things a Rich Spoiled Singaporean Girl is Looking for in a Husband"), but the talk was there. It has lessened somewhat now that I'm an adult -- because adults watch what they say around other adults -- but as a child, nothing was censored.

I've so far massively praised this book for being true to the reality I know. I grew up in Singapore as part of a large well-to-do family, moved to the US when I was a teenager (and even lived in the Bay Area, where Rachel was raised), and have returned occasionally to visit what I consider my homeland -- so yes, it resonates. But truthfully, I don't know if this world would come through to any other reader who haven't been raised in my specific situation, because the writing really wasn't great. The main characters, Nick and Rachel, are just so broadly drawn that it's hard to imagine people -- coming from their education and socio-economic backgrounds -- to be so naive and completely unaware of how family politics work. How is it that Rachel, a seemingly intelligent woman with a curious mind, allowed two years to go by without knowing a thing about her boyfriend's family or how he grew up? How can Nick, knowing how status-obsessed his family is, be unconcerned about how his mother would receive Rachel?

Perhaps I should just take what I can get and be grateful. Frankly, I'm just glad that there is a book about modern Asia -- one that is about more than just China, that isn't about poor suffering peasants or communism, that isn't a story about racism, that isn't a history book. Maybe next time, there will be a better-written one.

I'm reading and reviewing for Pajiba's Cannonball Read 7, so this review appears on their website as well. 

CBR6 #4: At Last by Edward St. Aubyn

Last year, I read and reviewed the first four novels in The Patrick Melrose series, and it was, without a doubt, some of the most eye-opening books I read last year. At Last is the final book of the series, and finishing it makes me so sad. My friend who introduced these books to me once said, "I am so jealous that you are getting to read these for the first time," and I understand now what she means because I feel so sad that I can never re-read these books for the first time again.

The series chart the life of Patrick Melrose, who starts on in Never Mind as a child who worships his parents but are later disappointed by them. By Mother's Milk, Melrose is married with children and struggling to come to terms his relationship with mother, who has been so absent in his life.

At Last reverts back to the same format that the first three books took (and that Mother's Milk departed from) -- spanning only a short period of time in a pivotal moment of Patrick's life. His mother, a woman who he has an intensely complex feelings towards, had passed away, and the book centers on her funeral and all the people who attend it. It shows how fractured so much of Patrick's life is, how his family is seen, and how he is seen, and the person that he has eventually become.

His father's old friend, Nicholas Pratt, who worships Patrick's cruel father (he passed away in Bad News, the second book), gets the first words in the novel: "Surprised to see me?" And as a reader who's been through the whole series, yea, I was. I was filled with mixed feelings of recognition, derision and glee because Nicholas Pratt represents how Patrick's abusive father was portrayed to the outside world, as an upright and honorable man. He also has a lot of the aristocratic pretensions that Patrick now hates, which is why his appearance is appreciated because it means there is more incisive commentary on how the affluent and entitled live.

Patrick's old friend, Johnny is also present. He is the first one he ever told about his father's abuse, and his point of view serves to show a grown-up, almost psychiatric insight into how the Melrose circle of friends/family work. Patrick's ex-lover, Julia, also attends the funeral, and his interactions with her shows us how he used to see women as an answer to all the questions he wants silenced, and how he's grown as a person.

Finally, there is his family. Mary, his wife (or estranged wife), once again took on a hyper-materal role, a presence that Patrick desperately craves in his life because of his own insistently neglectful mother; his sons serve as fresh eyes into the horrors that Patrick experienced as a child -- experiences he thought ordinary were seen with pity and empathy when he recounted them to his sensitive children; and there is his aunt, his mother's sister, a kleptomaniacal spendthrift who cannot let got of their family's wealthy past.

The beauty of St. Aubyn's writing isn't really in anything that happens; it's in the little revelations that Patrick experiences as he interacts with each person -- nothing is groundbreaking, but they all explain or answer how he has been raised and developed as a person, and in some way, show how far he's come since. The Patrick we see in At Last is still very much the same person, but also, in certain respects, completely different from his grown-up self in Some Hope, or even Mother's Milk (the third and fourth book, respectively.) St. Aubyn's genius lies in the fact that he's able to show how a person can retain certain parts of himself, while also maturing other parts without losing a clear sense that we are reading about the same person. And his writing is pretty fucking brilliant too.

I find writing reviews about these books exceedingly difficult because it's hard to put forth why exactly they are so good and absolutely need to be read, mostly because not a whole lot happens in it. But yes, the Patrick Melrose novels absolutely need to be read.

I'm reading and reviewing for Pajiba's Cannonball Read 6, so part of this review also appears on their website. 

So I disappeared for a bit...

2013 was a bit of a shit year, to be honest. After I read and reviewed Ghostwritten, my life sort of went down the rabbit hole. My boyfriend and I broke up -- we were in a long-distance relationship, so the absence shouldn't have mattered so much, right? Even so.

So I disappeared for a bit, and I stopped reading, and I stopped reviewing. I found it difficult to sit still by myself with my thoughts, and so I was just running around, doing as much as I possibly could. I went to Kep on weekends with new friends, went to Jakarta on another weekend to visit an old friend. I started cooking again, this time trying to make Chinese-style noodles (hor fun), or pierogis, or just meals that consisted of the four food groups. I adopted a kitten and named him Biggie Smalls. I fought with friends, made up with friends, said goodbye to friends. I went to new places, new events that I wouldn't have bothered with six months ago, and I met up with old friends who visited Phnom Penh. I bought a nice camera and (somewhat) learned how to use it. 

First day in Jakarta

Jakarta city-view

Parts of the city were waterlogged when I was there. 

But people still seemed positively cheerful 

With Christi and her boyfriend, hanging outside in the balcony

Biggie Smalls, when he was very small

Biggie Smalls, two months later. Dude got huge!

My pierogis. I was very proud of 'em. 

Jane and I looking like hot bitches on our way to a classical music concert (Photo by Ben Woods*)

At the night market with friends (Photo by Ben Woods)

Always at Liquid. Etan (third from left) visited me in Phnom Penh for about 48 hours. (Photo by Ben Woods)

And this was all while working my ass off at my job, which is utterly life-consuming in some ways. Work was a relief during this time. I complain about it a lot, but I do love it. 

In March, I returned to the States for a month for Cynthia's wedding. It was beautiful, of course, and it was great seeing her again. Talking to her always feels like such a relief, like nothing's ever going to change between us and that if there's one thing that I can rely on to be constant in my life, it's my friendship with her. Her husband, Chris, was very sweet, very funny, and loves her very much (obvi), and I, naturally, think that he's lucky to have found a woman like Cynthia.

We don't like each other. 

Puppies kissing Cynthia before the ceremony

Cynthia walks down the aisle with her father

I also got to spend some time with my mother. We took a trip to central California, to Solvang, and its surrounding towns. This place was like weird farm central. We went to an ostrich farm, a miniature horse farm, a miniature donkey farm and a lavender farm. My mom also accompanied me to a beer brewery, called Figueroa Mountain Brewery.

miniature ponies!

miniature donkeys! (This one was sweet)

The donkey was trying to get my mom to pet him. 

Ostriches are fucking freakish looking. Also ginormous, and have huge talons. 

Then New York, which was exhilarating and exhausting. I stayed with Marissa, and just had a schedule full of seeing family, friends, mentors, and former colleagues. I drank way too much beer, ate way too much good food, and spent... not as much money as I expected, which was a nice surprise given how expensive the city can be. But I guess since I was visiting from Cambodia, everyone seemed to want buy me lunch, dinner, drinks. I also got to go to a concert in Bushwick, which made me so happy. Haven't heard live music in ages. The band was Crushed Out aka Boom Chick -- a drum/guitar duo. They were great.

View of uptown from my uncle's office. He works near WTC.

My cousin. She got so big! And understands words now. 

I meet the Polish hotties in the East Village.

I miss these girls so much. 

got a hipster card from the girls

Last week, May 3, was my two-year anniversary in Cambodia with Emily. We didn't do much -- just had sushi for dinner to commemorate it, then went out drinking with a buddy who was back in town.

Two years in Cambodia. Nuts.

Anyway, it's been a pretty eventful four months. I'm glad that I was more willing to put myself out there and do different things, but obviously there have been some down sides to being unwilling to settle down and allow myself to be ok with just. sitting. still. But I'm trying, right now, I really, really am. I've even started reading again -- besides that Ron Vitale book I reviewed below, I've read three other books. I'm aware that puts me way behind my CBR5 goal of 26, but I'll keep trying.

(*My friend, Ben, has more photos of Phnom Penh at his tumblr. He's a great photographer.)

Country Living/Leaving

This was where I spent most of my weekend.

I went to my uncle's house in upstate New York, and it was wonderful just to get away from the city, if only for just 24 hours. I arrived there Friday night, slept in a bedroom that was built in the 1700s (and was just a bit disappointed that I wasn't awaken in the middle of the night by ghosts), biked along an old rail trail on Saturday afternoon and spent time playing with my little cousin. Then I was on the 7:45 p.m. train and whisked back to the city.

My uncle, his daughter and his wife

When I arrived at Port Authority, I made my way to the ACE. Some guy violently bumped into me and I looked up (from texting, of course), annoyed, and glared at him. He quickly apologized, and instead of saying, "It's ok," I snapped, "Dude, watch where you're going." I instantly regretted being rude but didn't know how to take it back. The kid was younger than me, looked like he was from out of town and looked seriously freaked. He disappeared before I could figure out an appropriate way to apologize.

Perhaps I've been in New York a little too long? Six years ago, I would have accepted that apology without a second thought; yesterday, I had to bite my tongue from saying something inappropriate.

I suppose these thoughts are only natural since I am actually leaving the city. I am leaving the country, to be more exact, on May 1 to Cambodia for a new job. I am absolutely thrilled/nervous/thankful for this opportunity and jumped at the chance when it was offered – but a part of me wondered if I was ready to leave this city I love so much. An old friend of mine said once, "I don't think people should leave New York until they absolutely cannot live here anymore." Her reasoning was that if we left before we were ready to, we'd always keep coming back, searching for that new shiny life, and being disappointed over and over again. It's a little bleak, for sure, but it's difficult to take an optimistic point of view when city living can beat you down with the high rents, high expenses and rude people (Exhibit A: me.)

On the other hand, I could also argue that the people of New York, be them transplants or actual locals (not an urban myth by the way), are some of the best people I have ever met. There are so many that are genuine and interesting and weird and strange and hardworking and good – I have become much more open-minded to so many different types of people, and I am always able to see the goodness in them. They (we – because as my uncle said, I am a New Yorker, even if I'm not) can be brusque and a little rough around the edges. But what you see is what you get, and if you don't like it, we really don't care.

My favorite quintessential New York Summer photo. Taken in 2007, I think.

So no, I'm not quite ready to leave here yet. But I am so ready to start on my new gig. Anyway, I'll always be back.

Cannonball Read #36: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

There's been so much written about "Freedom" that I feel like quite an amateur putting my two cents into the cacophony of opinions (" ... a work of total genius," "A book people are eager to love or hate for reasons mostly unrelated to the words on the pages," "This is his glory and his curse.") I had read "The Corrections" about three years ago and found myself blown away by how amazing it was ... and then I promptly forgot about it. No, seriously, ask me about the plot and characters and I draw a blank except for the general gist: Dad has Alzheimer's; Mom's kind of a bitch and is possibly on speed; sister is a lesbian/home-wrecker; brother is over-educated, flaky and he travels to some country for money. (A giant "Maybe?" to what I just typed because I am not going to look it up.)

That's not to say that I think Franzen isn't an effective writer. I remember getting really invested in his book while reading it - I just read it so quickly that I failed, over time, to really retain any of it. And I think the same thing happened with "Freedom." As usual, I decided that typing the review a month after I've read the book is the smartest thing to do, especially when the book clocks in at 500+ pages (No, it's not the smartest thing to do.) However, my spotty memory after this short delay best illustrates why I consider Franzen to be both a great and a pulp-y writer. The man writes literal page-turners and I devour his words so quickly and urgently - not unlike the way I read Dan Brown (don't judge). I don't read Franzen the way I read Steinbeck or Vonnegut, where I chew over the words and meaning and nuance, which isn't to say that there aren't any. I just can't seem to stop myself from flying over his words.

He also excels at characters. They are neurotic and compelling, simultaneously appealing and appalling because I can see so much of myself (and people I know) in them. Moreover, plot is so minute that I am constantly amazed that he had managed to interest me in a run-of-a-mill wife-cheats-on-husband story. Really, the general plot is not that intricate, but the characters' roles in their very painfully ordinary lives suffuse the clichés with newness.

Unless you've been steadfastly ignoring every magazine/website for the past three months, chances are you already know the plot. But if not, you're going to be surprised by how boring it sounds. Walter and Patty Berglund are a long-suffering married couple with two children. Walter is the rock of family, trying to keep the neuroses and unhappiness of his stay-at-home wife in check while working a full-time job to keep his family happy. But the family isn't happy – not really. The son, Joey, is a cocky know-it-all who wants to have-it-all, cake-candles-icing-whole-nine-yards; the daughter, Jessica, is the only sane person in the household, but the inattention the family gives her makes me think there can be a sequel coming from Franzen focused on her titled "The Therapy Sessions." Patty has been harboring a crush on Walter's best friend, Richard, for years, and finally consummates her desires when Walter leaves the two of them in his cabin home.

As I said, it is not the most earth-shattering concept ever, but it really is very, very good. Sometimes, people like to gush about the It Books because it's trendy to do so – and I think they like feeling smart too. "Freedom" may be an It Book but I do think Franzen's talents are worthy of all the praise because it can definitely stand up to – and even exceed – expectations.

Where I wallow in nostalgia.

Growing up in Singapore, celebrating Chinese New Year was a very big deal. As children, we get several days off from school, and we would come together as a family in my aunt's gigantic home and just eat and play. It's my favorite holiday because I used to love going to my aunt's house and playing hide-and-seek with my cousins. We would watch TV in her bedroom while the adults ate and chatted in the living room area. They more or less left us alone, except when they gave us red packets with money in them. I just remember having so much fun every year with my cousins, though if I have to think of specific details and describe them, they don't sound as fun as I feel like they were.


As my mother is the youngest to 6 older sisters and 2 brothers in her family, I had a ton of cousins to play with growing up. People are always surprised by how well-adjusted I am for someone who is a single child (which is not a dig to people who grew up without siblings. It was their observation, not mine.) I didn't really feel like a single child growing up. I am closest to my cousins who are in the same age range, and the older ones I regard the way I would an aunt or uncle. If it helps to picture just how large my mother's family is, my oldest cousin is 4 years younger than my mom, and his oldest son is a year younger than me. He and his younger brothers grew up calling me "Auntie" which is always bizarre for a 6-year-old to hear.

Anyway, yesterday was the first day of Chinese New Year, and I did not do anything to celebrate it except order shitty takeout Chinese food. It's times like this that I miss my cousins desperately and I wish I could go back to Singapore to visit. I know, however, that even if I were to return during the holiday, it would not be the same as before. Because I am now so much older, the adults (I will forever refer to my aunts and uncles as "the adults" even though I am technically an adult) now try to talk to me and ask me questions about my life here. And since I am not an immature 10-year-old, I can't really get away with ignoring my elders and running off to play with my cousins.

It may sound like I am complaining about having to talk to my aunts and uncles when they show interest in my life. The truth is that despite my age, I still get nervous about talking to them about my life and my choices. I don't feel comfortable with my aunts and uncles because they have been such figures of authorities for me growing up - These are people who have reprimanded me, scolded me and humiliated me (in the way that a petty child may feel humiliated by an adult reprimanding her, not in the David-Sedaris-scarring way) They have also taken care of me in some way or other, and therefore, there is some residual fear of them (fear in the "oh no, I am in trouble for playing in the rain!" way, not fear in the David-Sedaris-scarring way.)

Yesterday, I kept telling myself that I should do something special for Chinese New Year, like go down to Chinatown and watch the lion dance. But I know that I can eat all the fantastic Chinese food and watch all the parades, and I will still feel like I'm not really celebrating it. I haven't celebrated Chinese New Year for almost ten years and I just miss it so much. It used to be my favorite holiday and now it's been reduced to watching the All-Star game on TV while eating crap Chinese food with my boyfriend (In case he ever reads this, I should probably add that he's wonderful company. He's just not my cousins and watching the All-Star game is not celebrating in Singapore.)

Cannonball Read #15: Naked by David Sedaris

I read David Sedaris' Naked so quickly that nothing seemed to really have stuck in my mind except how hilarious some of the short stories were. I do most of my reading on the subway, so it's really surprising to people when the girl next to them starts cracking up, and that happened to me several times while I was reading this book.

Naked is a collection of short stories that Sedaris has penned about his life. A lot of them revolve around his gigantic Greek family, and they really seem to be the makings of some indie movie about a dysfunctional family that comes together in the end. Except the members of the Sedaris clan don't really seem to peddle in platitudes about how "family is the most important thing" or "spending time together is precious." Ma and Pa Sedaris can seem incredibly cruel (or thick) at times. In "A Plague of Tics," Sedaris' mom accurately imitates his idiosyncrasies to his visiting teachers, deflecting their criticism of his obsessive -compulsive behavior by charming them into laughter. In "The Women's Open," Sedaris' dad insists on dragging the children to boring golf tournaments, and then refuses to go home even though his sister got her first period.

It was a little difficult for me to connect the way Sedaris was as a child (in the beginning of the book) to the way he was as an adult. As a child, he was a nervous ball of anxiety and obsessive-compulsiveness, which "A Plague of Tics" so humorously showed; then as a young adult, he was content to hitchhike around America and pick up whatever odd jobs he could ("The Incomplete Quad" and "C.O.G.") He said the smoking in college really helped to loosen him up.

Reading about his childhood (his family stories stick out more in my mind than his college years) really made me... (the word is) grateful. For not being the child of his parents. Now, I love my mother and I would never want her to be any other way than the way she is (even though I might complain differently to my friends about it) but I'm not sure how I would turn out if she was like Sedaris' parents (a famous author? sigh.) It's not that they are terrible human beings; they just seem to do and say really awful things. Even though everything was written in a really funny and entertaining manner, I kinda got the sense that Sedaris had to see humor in his childhood or else he might just be constantly disappointed with his parents. It could be that or maybe he's just grown-up enough that he has forgiven his parents. Not that there would necessarily be something to forgive for, but that he is now able to look back and just see that certain things were done for his own good, and other things were done because his parents, just like him, are human.

There's a reason why this is not a travel blog.

I tried to take pictures in Singapore, but I guess I didn't try hard enough because the only photos I have are of my family and friends. I don't have a single (use-able) shot of Singapore. You're just going to have to take my word that it's an amazing country. I grew up there, so I always feel silly when I take photos that seem tourist-like because it's not like I haven't seen any of those sights before. I only have a couple, but they aren't that great...

Ok, here's one shot I found pretty interesting:

I was riding the bus somewhere and there was a Hindu temple outside. It was a very tall building with colorful Indian deities on its edge staring down at us. You only see part of it here (a blurry part - sorry) but you get the idea. I was pretty wowed by it because it was the most colorful building on the block.

I spent my New Year's Eve with family. One of my aunts works for the television station in Singapore, and she had organized a variety show that counts down to the New Year for the Indian TV channel. We sat in the audience and we clapped and cheered whenever it was required of us.

Here's a shot of the stage before the show started:

The show had lots of awesome dances (though there were also some awful ones too - my high school bhangra team could do better) and two hours passed quickly enough. I pulled little poppers when midnight came and blew on my noisemaker.

I got really excited about this:

TIME OUT SINGAPORE!! Like Time Out New York, only without the Gay Nightlife section!

I'll leave you with this picture:

This is my aunt and uncle. They have been married about 40 years, and they still hold hands wherever they go. It's one thing to see a young couple holding hands (that one thing is nauseating. Sorry, all you hand-holders out there... yes, me included.) It's something else entirely when you see that it's a couple who have been together that long.

Anyway, I noticed them doing it when I was 16, and I always thought it was really sweet and cute of them. When I was 18, I finally made a comment about it to my mom one day. She looked at me like she thought I was kidding. Or stupid. She said, "Your uncle is close to blind. Your aunt holds his hand because he can't see where he is going... not because they are so in love."

That stunned me, and then it cracked me up. Even though what I originally thought had an "awww" factor, I like the true version better. Her wanting to help him, after all their years together, makes it sweeter.

Happy New Year, everyone!

My computer has no virus, I do not have swine flu, and no one called me dirty names today. Phew

Two weeks ago, my uncle asked me what I wanted for my birthday. Keeping the Cannonball Read in mind, I said, "A book!" Well, being as awesome as they are, guess what he and his girlfriend got me?

.....












Yes! I am now a very proud owner of a Kindle! I was so excited when I saw the Amazon box because I was like, "OMG IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS!!" (By the way, that's Ralph Ellison on the power save page. Which is funny because The Invisible Man completely frustrated me in high school. It's ok – I still love it!)

I mean, two weeks ago, I'm sure I said something along the lines (to friends) about how I like books better because it's tactile and personal like newspapers and blah blah blah, but now that I have this, I am so excited about it!

I really did have a lovely birthday today, especially since I was kinda expecting a shit storm to descend upon me. It's tradition for me to have the worst absolute luck on my birthday. Serious, ever since my 6th birthday when my mom threw a party for me and all my ballet friends were invited and then some adult there called me a little pig because I was pigging out on cake, and then other people caught on to that and thought it was pretty funny, and being a 6-year-old, I was naturally upset about it. Didn't want another birthday party for a very long time.

On my 16th birthday, I got a computer virus on my home computer that I shared with my mother. A porn virus! Yea, that was awkward. Not what you think – a friend's AIM profile was hacked and had a link with the requisite "This is AWESOME!" So I clicked. Palm/Face. The funniest thing was when the technician guy came and he just looked at me and said, "Porn sites are very bad for computers." I felt so embarrassed that I couldn't even explain how those pesky popups with blow jobs and penetration got on our computer.

Everything else bad that happened is too personal to go into great detail, but trust me – my birthdays are bad luck. My yearly ritual is to go about my daily routine and then get home and sit in bed and hope nothing happens.

But yes, this year's was nice, and not just because of the Kindle. I suspect the past couple weeks of terribleness (I had a shitty, shitty month in terms of everything in my life) might have cancelled out the Birthday Bad Luck. There needs to be a balance somewhere, right? I'm superstitious like that.

I had the day off from work (I usually get Tuesdays off) and I went to Crunch on a guest pass with my friend, Jana. That was an eye-opener. I hate gyms because I feel like a hamster on the treadmill and I don't like looking at myself in the mirror for long periods of time. However, since it was my first time working out in a long time, it was actually kinda nice to get sweaty and play pretend-healthy. The best part of the gym was the showers in the locked rooms! Yea, it does not take much to impress me apparently. I was just in awe that they had shampoo, conditioner and body wash, and you are standing on nice black tiles and the hot water was actually hot and cold water came out when you turned the dial, and you get to use lots of towels when you get out. It kinda reminded me of being in public pools as a kid and I just liked that so much.

Then Jana and I went to lunch at a low-key restaurant down the street, The Smile, and I had the creamiest, butternutty butternut squash soup. My sandwich – a baguette with black forest ham, gruyere and grain mustard – was pretty sweet too, but the soup was definitely a highlight. After, I wandered around the city looking for a gift for my uncle's girlfriend because it's her birthday on Friday. Then I finished a book that I've kinda been sloughing through (review should be up in a couple days).

For dinner, my uncle and his girlfriend brought me and my friend, Marissa, to the Gramercy Tavern. It was pretty fancypants and I was definitely under-dressed so I felt a little out-of-place. I relaxed after a couple sips of wine and good conversation with awesome company. The food was so delicious and unexpected too. My uncle had venison and he said it was delicious. That dish came with potato pancakes! I tried a flat iron steak for the first time tonight, and flat iron is basically the meat behind a cow's shoulder. It was braised and accompanied with slices of sirloin steak, all served with a drizzle of burnt milk (what is burnt milk? I'm not sure – Google can help you here – but it was pretty tasty.) The flat iron was the best part of the dish though. It was like happiness in my mouth.

Finally, walking home from the train, I spoke to the boyfriend (He's out of town) and he told me that he got me a subscription to New York Magazine! My jaw dropped and I am so excited for my first issue! He used to get a bulk subscription and NYMag was included and I would be allowed to steal it because he initially thought it was a girly magazine (I think they were fashion week covers or the design issue when he started receiving them.) He likes it now though (Phew, I guess i don't have to break up with him then. Totally kidding.)

So yea, that gift was unexpected and completely useful and a perfect fit for me. The boyfriend always finds the best ways to surprise me. He had asked me for my address yesterday and I thought he was going to send flowers or something (I complained last week that he needs to give me flowers) but he got me something much, much better.

Good day!

Ok, one more photo of the Kindle!

And here's one of Max lazing on the empty Kindle box. Max is our fiesty house cat. Do you know that blogger demands that you spell-check the word fiesty?

I didn't break my uncle's baby

I babysat last week for my cousin, B. Most of my friends know that it's probably not wise to have children around me (I'm not a fan), but my uncle thought it was a good idea because his daughter actually recognizes me. So on Wednesday night, I was left alone with a 6-month old baby.


Now, keep in mind that I haven't babysat since middle school, and even then, those kids were in grade school. I was a little nervous and asked B's mommy for tips in case she started wailing. But I really didn't have to worry because she was just a lovely baby all night. We surfed the Internet together for takeout and then I let her watch a couple movie trailers on Pajiba (nothing centipede-related, of course) because she was fascinated by the colors and sounds. Then when my sushi came, we watched episodes of Bored to Death together until she fell asleep.

Great. Now I'm Craving Cake.

Hello there, summer babies! I do mean that literally, like babies of summer, because July has been the month of birthdays. Now I am not usually great with birthdays– two years ago, one of my best friends called me to remind me that it was her birthday that very day, and without skipping a beat, I replied, "Oh, happy birthday!"– but I'm trying more now. I think. I hope.

Anyway, tomorrow is the birthday of a person most important to me: my mom. This past Monday, I sent out a birthday card with a kitten on it (she loves cats, as do I) with a present. Her gift idea was kinda inspired, if I may say so myself. I'm not good at getting the right gifts, but since I have so much history with my mom, it was just a matter of searching for something from our past. When I was very young, my mother was a graphic designer before she was a piano teacher. That meant that we have really interesting artistic books lying around our apartment. I ignored those; my favorites were my mother's collection of pop-up books. I think I broke a couple because I got a little over-zealous with the popping-up. So I haven't seen a pop-up book in years, and my mom stopping collecting them I think. But I bought a Chronicles of Narnia pop-up book for her– there's some pretty amazing stuff in there actually, like the Lion literally looks like he is climbing out of the page. Unfortunately, I didn't any pictures of it before sending it to her, so you would just have to use your imagination.

In addition to my mom's birthday, it was also my friend, Marissa's (really, it was in June, but close enough-I got her one of my favorite books); my boyfriend's (got him a harmonica- he wants to learn to play it); Paulina's (an orange scarf- it was a color she would never buy for herself and therefore needed it as a gift); and Magda's birthday (a Paris-inspired coaster: Her reaction when she saw the very posh French lady painted on the porcelain was, "Does this remind you of me?" It actually kinda does because Magda is very stylish and dignified.) There are a couple folks whose birthdays I'm forgetting (it's not like they read this anyway), but those people were the only ones I got gifts for (final parentheses.)

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I'm broke.