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#10
What you really feel about violence, famine, death, disease, mental disorder, blood and gore.
#9
You don't actually brush your teeth, clean your ears, use any soap in the shower, use any shampoo in the shower, use the water in the shower, wash the family dishes properly, separate your raw from your cooked in the kitchen, wash your hands after every time you go to the bathroom, and/or wipe your ass every time after doing a poo.
#8
If you have a tattoo or piercing in 'special places' on your body.
#7
Whether you really go to school every single day.
#6
What causes that kind-of-like-weed smell in your bedroom.
#5
What you're doing in the bathroom that takes so long.
#4
Where all that money she gives you really goes.
#3
Whether you've lost your virginity yet, and if so, with who?
#2
Whether you've ever hidden a pregnancy or an STD from her.
And the #1 thing a guy's mom should never know:
If it looks exactly the same as your dad's.
In two days, my mother is coming from Hong Kong to visit me here in the UK. We're planning to head up to Edinburgh for a couple of days, and booking tickets and accommodation for us has been mentally taxing. In the past few days, I've been trying to research and brainstorm all the things we could do in Scotland and in Kent, and I'm just very, very tired now. You would think that her going to visit one of her old students in Exeter for two days would help lessen the burden, but I actually have a test the day after she comes back. My break-from-Mom gone, just like that. In the next month, I'm also planning to meet up with two of my closest friends, three times, separately, in London. I have two essays due and a lot of computer stuff to do too. I've also had to search for accommodation for next year, and it's been a complete nightmare so far...
I actually have plans to open up another blog... on the 15th of February in fact. On top of getting that ready, I also have to prepare posts on this blog and Do you hate it too? for each day that I'm with my mother, from the 10th to the 20th. It's all just snowballed, and it's all really, really, really working me hard, but I just have to power through it, I guess.
There are two times during the year that have notoriously been very busy times for me. One is around February/March, the other is around May/June. Every year during these times, I'm so, so stressed out and I just cannot feel relaxed. In the past, there have been plays to perform, examinations to take, orals to do, 4,000-word essays to hand in, presentations, reports, and so many birthdays and anniversaries to attend...
I'm so tired. These two times of the year I always see coming my way, but I never have any defense set up to protect myself from it. This year, it's going to change - it has to change. I need to quickly pick up my efficiency so that I can deal with things faster and more effectively, hence prevent stressing myself out during these times again.
And now, I'm a little bit hungry.
Okay, actually, I'm very hungry. So I'm going to go make some pasta. Toodles.
I do this most of all with my money, and my snacks. There must have been at least fifty times in the past four years, when I've exited the school premises, and on my way home, noticed that I had a lollipop or a Mars Bar in my bag or in my jacket pocket that I forgot I even purchased at least a day ago. And I would often hide my money in between the pages of books, and then I would forget about it until I found it again, long after the day I hid it in the first place.
And everytime I found one of these nice surprises, I look up at the sky, for that is where destiny/fate/the past is to me, and I say to myself, Well done, Michael...
Because in some weird subconscious way, I was treating myself for the future without even knowing it.
Today, I was tidying my room here at university because I wanted it to look neat for when my mother comes to visit me next week. Inside one of my drawers, I unexpectedly found £10. I was so happy, 'cause I had actually come to believe I was broke. For almost seven weeks, I had almost nothing in my bank account, and nothing but a bowl of copper coins in cash. And I somewhat believe that a few months ago, I had hidden that £10 purposefully for a day like this - where I was on the verge of starvation, in desperate need for some seed money for my mini-welcome party for my mother... and low and behold, I got it.
It's been nearly five months since I last saw my mother, and after she leaves, it'll be close to another five months 'til I see her again. Since I've come to the UK from Hong Kong, I've forced myself not to think about things like missing my parents or missing my best friend, because I know it's not healthy to yearn. I never had to will myself not to think about these things, though... it wasn't a challenge. It just happened naturally, subconsciously, and I think, again, these things that happen in the subconscious are my mind's attempt at treating me well in the long run, a form of forward-thinking, you might say.
I hate to admit defeat. I am a competitive person. I want to reach the top.
And I don't ever want to ask for people to support me on my way. It would take away from my personal glory, my own accomplishments in life.
However, people like my mother and a few good buddies of mine have helped me throughout my entire life. They've stuck by me through thick and thin, in both times when I was very sure of who I was, and times when I was lost and confused. At this stage in my life, they only know all too well to simply wait for me to ask them for help if I need it. I manage to find trust in them somewhere inside me because they've proven for years that they can help me. I ask them because I'm not afraid of being disappointed by them. They live up to their roles as my closest family and friends.
At university, let's just say that there are a group of people that I have been trying to work with for the past four months to bring together something really fun, really educational, and really good. I put my heart and soul into this little project, and on my return to university from my winter holidays, I was extremely, extremely disappointed to find out that the other people in this group just didn't want to do it anymore. They gave up. And they don't give a rat's ass about what I feel.
And that is exactly why it is so hard for me to trust and depend on people I've just met. I cannot tell you how many times I've been disappointed by the people around me. Too often in my life, different people have done things to demonstrate how they are just so flawed and unworthy of my trust. I wish people kept the same personalities throughout your entire time of knowing them. But the real world makes it work differently. Friends become enemies, and enemies become friends. A social life filled with good friendships is a slippery slope on the summit of a mountain, and although reaching the highest point on that mountaintop gives you a great sense of pride, the natural inclination is to go downwards, because hiking up to the peak requires too much hard work.
One of these days, I'm going to stop giving new people I meet a chance. One of these days, I won't trust anyone new ever to help me with certain matters, because I feel like nobody can get things done right besides me. I'll ponder this a bit more - and I'm sure I'll come to some conclusion as to why I should give people chances.
But for now, for just these next few minutes, I want to be mad - mad at the people who let me down, mad at the inconsiderate, self-indulgent, power-hungry people that don't even care. It's not fair. It's not right.
Recently, I came to talking with someone about the way I was brought up and how that made me the person I am today. My mother's main desire with me was for me to always broaden my horizons. She would always take me to see all the movies, to all the different restaurants to try different cuisines, to the bookstore so that I could find books to read and learn from. And we also have shared a lot of vacation time together. We've probably been on holiday together around thirty times now, and we're in the midst of planning a trip to Scotland next February.
Often, I find that my conversations with her are always too serious. They always concern family, safety, time management, health, and the two biggest topics of all - money, and my future. And this is why it was good for us to go on holiday, or to go to the movies. It would give us the opportunity to spend time together, but there was distraction to keep our minds occupied, and ultimately, to help us avoid an overly serious mother-son relationship.
My dad on the other hand, he was always about teaching me to enjoy my life. Although he works a very serious job as a private investigator, engaging with the police and the big CEOs and the triads of Hong Kong, he still managed to teach me how to deal with a dichotomous reality where life can be complex and toilsome at times, but also calm, laid-back and enjoyable during other times.
To enjoy life didn't mean going out to bars, drinking and partying - that wasn't the only part of it, or even a major part of it. He knew how to find fun and beauty in doing simple things like playing chess, going out bike-riding, and playing catch with a baseball on the beach. Even though the modern world, with all its technology and education, is a major part in our societal advancement today, a simple pork chop, barbecued over a lit fire-pit in the backyard with some honey glazed on top, could be so much more marvelous compared to pretentious braising, caramelizing or sautéing.
And I find myself really blessed to have parents like these. They might not teach their children, me, the way the other may want to, but I think I've come to take all the good life-lessons they both had to offer. And I appreciate the fact that although going out drinking, or enjoying the great outdoors may not be my mother's cup of tea, she still likes the fact that I'm going out there, learning things about people, broadening my horizons in that sense. And with my dad, although education, books and traveling may not be what he's all about, he sees that I enjoy it, that I'm enjoying my life - which makes him proud, makes both of my parents proud.
They are divorced, but that isn't a concern for any of the three of us any longer - just a fact, just something that happened in the past. They may not agree on certain things - but they've both reinforced the same ideas in my head, collectively guiding me to be a person that appreciates my family on both sides, to stand up for myself when I feel I'm being wronged, to not be afraid of the world and the difficulties it brings, to be sincere, and honest, and kind to people generally, and to have a strong will if I want to do something passionately.
And finally, I'll end this here, with the two things they constantly remind me to keep in mind the most. It's almost annoying how many times it comes up in conversation. The first rule is to always use protection. They don't want me catching HIV, which I guess is reasonable. The second rule, of course, is to never, ever, ever, ever - get married.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha...
Wow, it's been eleven days since I last blogged. I think I'm going to use my day off today to prepare some more blog posts to be published throughout next week. I've been really thoughtful lately, but just hate that I haven't expressed those thoughts on Blogger.
So, since I last spoke to you all, I was heading off to Singapore. My mother wanted to see an Air Supply concert, and she had correctly assumed that I would be the only one who would agree to go with her all that way just to see a show. Singapore was, to me, a good place to visit. They had nice food, and a beautiful combination of sand and sea called Santosa beach. It seemed like a very pleasant place to live. And everywhere, I could see people who enjoyed living there, the expression on their faces revealing a feeling a lot like mine in how I love residing in Hong Kong.
We were only there for four days and three nights, and my mother and I had both taken three days off work just to be there. On the first night, my mother permitted me to go out clubbing and bar-hopping. The nightlife in Singapore was fantastic. It's a place called Clarke Quay, and it consists of a whole line of restaurants, bars, clubs and pubs, that line the banks of a river. It seemed a lot cleaner than Hong Kong's partying districts, and a lot less crowded, even though there was still a lot of people.
After scouting the area for an hour or so, asking various bouncers for the entrance fees and the availability of an open bar, I routinely bought some breath mints from 7-11, and paid twenty Singaporean dollars to enter a nightclub called Zirca. It was quiet at around 9pm, but I waited 'til the party started, as it usually does on a Thursday night. Three young-looking people seated a table seemed sociable and welcoming, so I joined them. We ended up dancing to pretty much the same boring tunes they play in Hong Kong. Singaporeans certainly have a lot of energy on the dancefloor, but by 2am, I just couldn't keep up with them, I wasn't feeling up for it, the alcohol started making me miss home, and so I went back to the place where my mother and I were staying in.
When I got home, my mother bade me go to the bedroom. I went, and as soon as I stepped in, she gave me a big, heartful hug, and said in Chinese, "You worried me to death!"
My mother has a keener interest in health and safety than I do. She always hears stories of the malicious things people do in different places. There are innocent, Indonesian girls that get raped in the middle of the night when they're alone. There are love interests who you think you can trust, who may tell you they have nothing wrong with them, but in actual fact, have a sexually transmitted disease like AIDS. And then there are young guys like me, thirsty for alcohol, who might get served a drink that contains some sort of sedative, so that the strangers behind the bar may carry me off into a world of crime, and teach me how to deal drugs illegally (and God knows what else), and transform me into a monster that will also, sneakily and heavily, sedate other young boys for generations to come, to keep the future of drug trade alive.
While I was having fun in Singapore's clubbing district, my mother was alone, creating an untrue image, of which I will never know the exact nature of, in her mind, of what might have happened to me, in the most unfortunate sense. I actually regretted going out that night, and I did not go out for the next two nights we were there, because of what transpired on the first night. I felt sorry to her, for worrying her. It's understandable because she hardly approves of me going out at all, even here in Hong Kong. She doesn't know that Singaporeans are friendlier than Hongkongers. She has no idea that Singapore and Hong Kong have two of the lowest crime rates in the world, Singapore's being even less than Hong Kong's. And, she doesn't know just how often I go out.
It's logical for her to worry, with what she doesn't know.
I have no doubt that I will return to Singapore some day, to properly experience the nightlife there without anybody worrying me. I guess when you go on holiday with your mother to a foreign country, some things will never change and you still can't go out drinking, whether you're finally 18 years old or not, because it worries her. It always will.
So I promised I would post pictures from my trip to Chengdu and Jiuzhaigou Valley. They're places in a province of China called Sichuan, the province in which last year's Sichuan Great Earthquake took place.
Behold, the photos. I tried to select the best out of thousands, so enjoy?
A statue outside a monastery that has different parts from all twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. I was born in the year of the Sheep, so I'm touching the goat's beard for good luck.
Remember the post on bad translations of Chinese food on my other blog? Well, through this gate was the street that sold all that food.
The Giant Panda Breeding Research Base.
Four of them all battling for bamboo.
Red panda, lucky shot of this one standing.
Jiazhaikou Valley, famous for its spectacular scenery comprising rivers, waterfalls and lakes. We had to take another plane from Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou in order to get here. In this photo, I was a little... cold. It doesn't look cold from the photo, but it really was.
Those colors are unreal, man. 熊猫海, Xiong mao hai, "Panda Lake".
Pretty waterfall.
My mom and I at another waterfall.
My mother reckons her photography skills are awesome because it's artistic. What's artistic, apparently, is the tree that's in the way. To me, that defies all logic.
Pretty tree.
Really blue lake.
Blue and green hues of 草海, chao hai, "Grass Lake".
五花海, wu hua hai, "Five Flower Lake".
Side-view of 诺日朗瀑布, nuo ri lang pu bu, "Nuorilang Waterfall".
I'm just trying something...
Still Nuorilang Waterfall. This is hilarious because we were trying out the widescreen function. In case you still haven't found me, I'm in the bottom-right corner..jpg)
We flew back to Chengdu and this was taken in the bathroom of the Chengdu airport.
My mother likes taking photos of my slavery as I retrieve our suitcases at baggage claim.
Have you ever stayed in a honeymoon suite with your mother because the hotel couldn't place you anywhere else? This is the consequence: a view of the shower from your bed, with the curtain on the outside of the bathroom. Weird.
Mount Emei, 3099 metres above sea level. The only food they sold there were sausages. Who doesn't like sausages?
Cold.
Everything with a thin layer of snow.
My mother disturbing me in my sleep on the way down the mountain.
Leshan Giant Buddha, viewed from a darn boat. This was what I wanted to see from the very beginning, but the boat we got didn't stop to let us get off and actually walk around and up next to the buddha. But anyway, it's 71 metres tall and the Buddha-in-a-wall to see in one's lifetime.
On the flight back to Hong Kong.
Pretty clouds.
"I was born and raised in Hong Kong."
That's the simple version of my early life. The simple sentence that I'll share with people that probably don't have much interest in learning more, the people who don't care, the people who consider their lives to be big and interesting enough. But, to me, the past seventeen-and-a-half years have been remarkable, and scary, and every living second of my time now is spent not knowing what I'm doing or why I do it. I certainly like to pretend that I do know what I'm doing, though. I've always tried to be independent, confident in my own ability and self-reliant. I believe I've inherited that quality from my parents who constantly don't know what they're doing at all either, but they pretend. They try.
I was born conventionally (not by C-section) in a hospital. She was 23 at the time while he was 27. They met while working at a hotel. She was the voice that you hear on the room service hotline and he was the bellboy that would conveniently carry your luggage to your room. They were both naive and they fell in love. They got married. I was an accident.
My father was unfaithful to my mother, sleeping with other women while I was in the womb. That wasn't too big of an issue... My mother always aspired to be a teacher and as soon as she was relieved of the burden that is me, she went out to find work and pursue her goals. My father ended up being the househusband, feeding me baby food, amusing me with toys and wiping my ass. For two years, the family dynamic was this way and it frustrated my father greatly because he firmly believed that the man should be the one working and earning the dough. He would take me to countless part-time jobs with me lying in a crib under the office desk. He would get fired because of me. He just couldn't find stable work and he felt emasculated as my caretaker. One day, while my mother was at work, he moved out and took me with him.
For three painful months, my mother searched desperately for me and my father. My dad would hang up on her whenever she called and my paternal grandparents wouldn't let her know a thing, always staying on my father's side. They would tell my mother that Michael was okay, but for three months, all that would satisfy her maternal instincts was to hear my tiny voice innocently whisper the words, Michael loves Mommy.
They were still married when my father had 'kidnapped' me. My mother could take it no longer and she filed for divorce. My father was forced to let my mother see me again. In court, it was clear that my mother deserved full custody since she had the stable income, and the large family to back her up, while my father had nothing. In addition, my mother had cunningly tape-recorded all the phone conversations with my dad during the three months she was separated from me. It proved that my father had purposefully separated us and that my paternal grandparents had encouraged it to happen. I belonged to my mother from that point onwards.
I went to Toronto, Canada, and lived there from the ages of two to four. I don't remember much honestly, but I know I was happy. I know this by watching numerous video tapes that my mother had recorded with the excitement and enthusiasm that all typical mothers have when their kids are that young and cute and when technology had begun to enable parents to capture their children on digital media. Parenting me on her own was something that she was so proud of, and nowadays, everyone on both sides of my family would agree that she deserved to be proud.
I remember I was watching one of these videos and we were going to a cherry farm. One segment of the video exhibited me on the very top step of a ladder, picking off cherries with my tiny, plump hands. My mother asked me, "Are you scared?" and I replied with, "no." When we had finished our day in the cherry farm, we sat down around a wooden table and she asked me, "Would you like some of my cherries?" and I said, "no." And then on the car ride home, she asked me, "Michael, are you happy today?" and I continued staring out the window without answering her. Seeing myself at that age reacting to my mother in such a way really touches me and as I watch the tape, I cry. I cry because even at that age, I knew I was independent, I knew I didn't need my mother's help, I knew I wasn't scared to face the world. The one thing that's always been difficult for me though is finding happiness. More than ten years ago, this was already the case...
I've had some good times in my childhood, though, obviously. My mother decided that my father could have me for my kindergarten year as long as my mother could see me once every weekend. I have to say that my kindergarten year was probably my happiest, my favorite, it was my best.
My father was a manager at a restaurant at the time. The restaurant served fries, burgers, garden salads, club sandwiches, hot dogs, ice-cold Coca Cola, onion rings, ribs, potato skins, and all the traditional comfort food that any kid would love to eat everyday - for free. While he was at work, I had a baby-sitter. My father was paying for diapers at a convenience store one day and my father asked the nineteen-year-old cashier lady if she would like to take care of me instead. Each day, she would ride her bike to kindergarten with me sitting in the backseat, and after school, she would bring me to the playground, or McDonald's or the beach. The baby-sitter lived with us, so it was pretty much just me and her all the time.
When my dad was free on his days off, he spent his time teaching me how to ride a bike and how to swim. He brought me fishing and hiking too. We also had a lot of barbecues in the backyard where I picked up a few fire-making and steak-perfecting skills. We were very outdoorsy, something that I really miss from my life now where it's all books, exams, essays and university applications. I don't just miss being a kid like everybody else does. I miss being that kid, the kid that I was at the time, diving to the depths of incredibly salty water without my goggles. I miss hiking to the top of a mountain that appeared to be a million metres high just for the sake of it, just because I could at my age. I miss biking in the middle of the night, being a little daredevil that wasn't scared of the dark.
Speaking of which, there was one night when I couldn't fall asleep. I was five years old. I went out to see if my dad was watching television, but I found that my father and my baby-sitter were both not present in the house. I decided to go out for some fresh air on my bike, perhaps stop by McDonald's for an apple pie. I did go to McDonald's and surprisingly found my father and my baby-sitter seated at one of the tables. My father gave me some money for three apple pies and when I returned with the food, my father gave me some big news.
It was there and then that I found out that my baby-sitter and my father had fallen in love, and that she was pregnant. I remember smiling ever-so-widely at the thought of me becoming a big brother, and I was so happy for these adults whom I loved so dearly. Despite the fact that I was still young, I knew that family is important and that love is great. Unfortunately, when she was just four months into the pregnancy, it was time for me to be returned to my mother for primary school. My best year had ended there.
I had little contact with my father for the next six years. I didn't know that I was a big brother to a beautiful baby sister. I didn't know my baby-sitter got pregnant again, and gave birth to another girl. I didn't know that the restaurant my father worked in got shut down and that he lost his job. I didn't know that he started an internship working as a private investigator. Most of all, I didn't know they weren't married. I always assumed that they were, but they weren't. I didn't know anything.
After I turned six and left my dad, my mother began to provide the childhood experience that she deemed to be the best, filled with books, travels and (of course) many good times with her. I can't say I hated it entirely. I enjoyed learning at school and I loved to read. She would always bring me out to have dinner, or to go see the latest movie, or to the bookstore. Every summer holiday, she would take me somewhere foreign and this engrained in me this passion to travel all the time, a passion that I reckon will exist within in me for my whole life. She took me skiing in Korea, and diving in Thailand, and shopping in Japan. I saw Niagara Falls, the White House and the Statue of Liberty. It was truly unbelievable as I think about it now. My time with my dad allowed me to learn a lot about the great outdoors, while my time with my mother was something a whole lot different. It was about building academic learning, about travel, about broadening my perspective.
Both of them have shaped my early life into one that I am very proud of, one that has been enriching, fulfilling, joyous, incredible and one that I sometimes miss so badly. I'm crying as I type this, not because I'm unhappy that I cannot relive the past, but because I'm impressed by my upbringing, I'm happy that I had one like such. The second half of my life has been a lot harder, and I'm glad that at least the first half was lived truly happy. It's the sort of childhood that I wish my future kids will have. I wish they will learn the important lessons in life the way I learnt them. There's a lot that goes on in my life right now, but everything that I'm doing now is to achieve that one goal, to parent children that will grow up happy and proud to have me as a dad.
I'm far from being a good father now. I'm only seventeen. I'm only a student. But one day, I will know what I'm doing. I'm sick of pretending to know what I'm doing. I'm tired of trying to do the right thing. I will be a good dad.
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