If only all problems were so easily resolved

Back from Hong Kong!

I got back from Hong Kong last night, and I've a lot to do this year in an effort to reconnect with my Asianness:

First, I have to rehearse my new repertoire of asian picture poses. I thought that all I had to do was make a V with every picture, and I was officially asian, but nope. I've been told that there's an entire catalog of asian poses, many of which can be found on this website: www.asianposes.com. I better start practicing.

Second, I need to make more asian friends. Apparently, one isn't really asian until they have a whole gaggle of asian friends to karaoke and gamble with. I don't gamble or karaoke, but if I have more asian friends, perhaps I'll start. I'll see you at the Casino.

Third? Well, I have to get back to my life. Everything (job search, networking, etc) has been on hold for the last five weeks while I've been overseas. Now that I'm back, it's back to the grind for me again.

I had a rocky start in Hong Kong, but by the time week five came around, I was sad to leave the island. The first two weeks were overwhelming -- first, I forgot about how my dad can be, and second, I haven't been around that many people since I foolishly decided to watch the 2003 Holloween Parade my first year in NY. By the third week, I finally felt comfortable being out and about in HK. I was reminded of all the outdoor activities, interesting people, diversity and awesome food the city had to offer. I saw friends I hadn't seen in a years. I learned to ignore my curmudgeonly dad. My mom was off on break, so I got to spend lots of time with her. It was really nice. If I didn't have plans to meet people in HK, I'd often take a walk around the lake at my parents' place, do a bit of yoga, pet the animals, watch some TV and do crossword puzzles all day. I was sad to leave my parents and come back to face life again.

Stranger things have happened

I was at the Star Ferry today, and this is what I saw.

in hong kong...

I haven't been here since 2004, and it's different now. It could be because my parents now live all the way out in Tuen Mun now, but I also think that the government has developed the heck out of the islands since I last lived here in 2000. Plus, the SARS scare has made Hong Kong so germaphobic that all public areas are disinfected several times a day. The impeccably clean public bathrooms, elevators and wet markets are a far cry from the Hong Kong I knew growing up.

I flew EVA from SFO to Taipei to HK. I haven't flown a non-American airline in so long that I was completely blown away by the amazing service on EVA. There's more legroom in the economy seats, and each passenger gets a blanket, pillow, slipper and headphones. I didn't even KNOW airlines still give out slippers, blankets and pillows! Wow, remind me to fly EVA more often.

It was a LOOOONG flight, but I made it. I've been here for 1.5 days, and the drama has already begun.

We had to take my step mother to the emergency room today. She woke up with a terrible case of vertigo and couldn't move without the dry heaves. The hospital couldn't find anything wrong with her and just gave her some medication that I assume you take whenever you get seasick. She's sleeping it off now. I feel so bad for her. My dad says this happens to her about once a year, but they don't quite know why.

While it's good to see my family, my dad stresses me out. My relationship with him is always really good from a distance when all we do is chat briefly over the phone or exchange emails. I forget what it's like to be around him all the time. When it comes to me, he's always been hypercritical, and since I've been home (it's only been 1.5 days, but it feels like years), it has felt like I can't do anything right. I've received numerous lectures about how my life is destined to be unlucky, which is why things have turned out the way they have so far, and there's nothing I can do about it. On the flip side, I've also been harangued non-stop about my ability to control my destiny on fun topics such as: I'm a failure at everything I do, I'm too materialistic (not sure where that one comes from, since I don't want to own or buy anything), I lack ambition (because I don't want to own or be responsible for anything), I don't work hard enough, I've made terrible life choices (this should cancel out the unlucky destiny lecture, right?), I'm way past my prime and need to marry asap.

Thanks to my brother's fiance who told my parents that the last two times my good friend P went to NYC it was to see he if had a shot at dating me despite the fact that I barely saw him both times (wtf?!?), I also received a long lecture from both dad and step mom about how I should have married P when I had a chance. In typical Chinese fashion, it's more important for my family to see me married than to see me happily married, as both parents disregard the fact that I'm not attracted to P, I don't want to marry P, and more importantly, P and I as a couple would be a complete disaster.

As much as I love my family (and I really do), I'm suddenly reminded of why I prefer to keep an ocean between them and me and haven't visited since 2004. My step mother is usually around to act as a buffer when my dad gets too insufferable, but without her, being around my dad makes me want to run for the hills. If it weren't for the fact that I've had 15 years to become comfortable in my own skin, my dad's Debbie Downer influence could make even a saint an insecure emotional wreck.

Ah well, old Chinese people are what they are, so this is the way things will always be with my dad. While waiting in the ER, I asked my dad why he always seems so dissatisfied with me. After all, I've never killed anyone or committed a crime. I pay my taxes. Heck, I even pay my parking tickets. His response was that I wouldn't have made it as far in life if he hadn't been so critical. I think he believes that he's responsible for who I've become.

Strangely, he might be right, because so much of me is a reaction to seeing my family as they are and thinking to myself that I don't want to be like that. Which is why I am who I am from the tip of my stubborn, drama-abhorring, twinkie head through my "I-don't-want-to-own-things-just-to-own-things" core on down to my "commitment-shunning-I'll-marry-and/or-have-children-if-and-when-I'm-good-and-ready-even-if-that-means-I-never-marry" toes. The irony is that my father thinks his hypercriticism will make me more of the obedient deferential daughter he wishes he has, but instead, it has made me the daughter he believes is inadequate.

Despite my dad's dysfunctional and crazy behavior (what those of us who have parents like this might also describe as typical Chinese parenting), I realize that it comes from a place of concern and care, so I try to just roll with it. I'm a little tired from all the emotional browbeating, and I wonder if this is the way it'll be for the entire five weeks I'm going to be here. I better settle in for a long ride...

Douchey Mcdouche

Infamous internet celeb and wannabe actor:

http://arthurkade.com/2009/05/27/philadelphia-magazine/

OMG, he's NOT being ironic in those Priceline commercials!!!

Note column to the top right of this website

And then visit http://www.tweetingtoohard.com/. Hilarious!

"I had broken a ligament and pulled a bone..."

I can't tell if this guy was trying to be funny, or if he really got the two concepts confused...

Check out the video

Even better than LOLCATS!!!!

OK, just kidding b/c nothing can ever top LOLCATS in that saccharin hurt your teeth way, but this comes pretty darn close:

http://www.latfh.com/


Although more in a hurt your eyes and your brain sort of way.

Ah, you fucking hipster. How is it possible that I both love and hate you...

The The Impotence of Proofreading

It only does what you tell it to douche...

Goodbye Silver Fox

Goodbye Silver Fox.  Here's why things will never work for us:

1. I eventually figured out that you are close to 20 years my senior, and when I jokingly mentioned you were twice my age, you got offended. Let's call things as they are and admit that you are not as young as like to pretend, and you are not good at pretending.

2. You made me go outside an admire your new BMW on our first date as if I cared what sort of car you drove.

3. You drink too much and then start shouting random Rolling Stones lyrics even if they aren't playing at the time.  We were at Crispo for dinner, and every few minutes, you'd get up and start belting out Rolling Stones lyrics even though there was no music and we were in a sit down restaurant.

4. You drink too much and then start telling me that I'm not going to do any better than you because you're extremely good looking, very successful, tall and in the best shape of your life.

5.  You drink too much and then imagine yourself friends with everyone. We went for drinks at Cibar, and you proceeded to yell Rolling Stones lyrics across the bar at the British DJ and explained that you two were great friends.  Later, the DJ asked me what was up with the annoying guy who kept yelling Rolling Stones lyrics across the bar, because every time he was at Cibar, that's all he did.

6. You told me you when to Yale at one point, and when I started to ask you about it (because I know people that went to Yale), you explained you attended a high school gifted program at Yale University one summer.  We both know that is very different from "going to Yale."

6. You enjoy hanging out in the meatpacking district and spend most of your weekend evenings there.  The one night I got to pick the bar, we ran into Heather Mills at the Rusty Knot.  When she left, you told me that you two were part of the same social circle in the Hamptons, and Heather has thrown herself at you numerous times, but you weren't interested.  At this point, I'm certain you had drank too much.

7. On our second date, you tried to get me to go home with you, using the very convincing and original rationale that you are very good looking, successful and tall.  I went home alone.

8.  On our third date, you upped the ante, and in addition to good looking, successful and tall, you also told me that you really really wanted a girlfriend, and if I went home with you, you'd take me shopping.  I went home alone.

9.  The morning after our third date, you sent me an email with a subject line: let's consummate our friendship tonight.  intimacy is very important to me."  In the body, you had attached a picture of two women in various stages of undress.  That's when I finally picked up the phone and politely ended any interaction with you by telling you that despite your height, success and good looks, we were in different places in life.  You agreed and told me I was boring.

Well, it's a good thing that I'm wishing you a goodbye then, Silver Fox!

Gawker picture of the day: adorable snowman

This picture is so cute, I'm both horrified by its cuteness and fascinated with it at the same time.

A child enjoys the Sapporo Snow Festival, along with some two million other tourists, in Japan; image via Getty

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She said WHAT?

Et tu, Miley?

After hearing about my latest He said WHAT episode, B suggested we introduce Mr. Foot-in-Mouth to Miley Cyrus. It seems like they have a similar sense of humor.

Michael Shermer: Why people believe strange things

Can you see what I can see?

I couldn't.

Now, you try it. Watch the video and follow the instructions. Tell me the results when you're done.

I was sent the video, which then led me to this article on ForgetoMori. He has an interesting website, so I'll probably go back and read it regularly. :-)

He said WHAT?

"You're an idiot," said the policeman that had been yelling at me for some indeterminate time. He and five other policemen gave me stern, angry looks and then walked away.

Or maybe I walked away. I can't remember it very well. It was 4am on January 1, 2009, and I was B-E-A-T. I was lucky I wasn't called worse. Spending the night in jail would have been an inauspicious start to a new year.



After a hectic night at two New Year's Eve parties in Brooklyn and the West Village, I eventually landed at the The Red Lion where I counted into 2009 with B and J. Somewhere on my way home from Bleecker Street, as I waited for B and friends to catch up to me, I thought it would be a good, no, GREAT idea to check if the police golf cart I was next to was locked.

Well, the door wasn't locked.

I opened the door and then I shut it. Thanks to my tiredness and impaired judgement, I didn't think it was a big deal. I was feeling GREAT -- I got to see tons of friends, and I had had a martini over dinner (courtesy of Pookie), a scotch at M and L's house party in Brooklyn, and four or five scotches at the Red Lion (courtesy of J).

I walked away from the golf cart and would have forgotten about the whole thing if it weren't for the six policemen that had started to run towards me the minute my hand touched that vehicle. To my hazy memory, they suddenly appeared out of nowhere, yelling at me. According to B and J, they RAN towards me.

"Why did you open that door?"

"What did you think you were doing?"

"What were you going to do?"

I was confused. I mean, I didn't even get IN the car! Why were they so upset? I was just checking to see if the door was locked!

They looked at me like I was stupid. Which I'm chagrined to say I was. They called me an idiot. Which I was. I was then summarily dismissed. Dismissed by six angry cops.

Happy 2009!

At least he's consistent...

I love this guy. Even when the market is tanking and the world economy is in crisis, he remembers to hold his grudges. I have to admire that quality about him -- at least he's consistent.

In the bleakest stock market of the past 70 years, when hedge funds and 401Ks alike have cratered, few people are smiling. But short seller Jim Chanos, whose fund is up 50%, is having the time of his life.

On the morning of November 4, Jim Chanos, president of Kynikos Associates on West 55th Street, the world’s biggest short-selling hedge fund, read an article...with irrepressible glee. A colleague had e-mailed him a link. The headline: GOLDMAN FUND LOSES $990M AFTER 10 MONTHS.

His East Hampton neighbor, Marc Spilker, managing director of the Goldman Sachs division responsible for the billion-dollar loss, was finally receiving his comeuppance. In June 2007, Spilker decided to widen the rather narrow footpath from his house on Further Lane to the beach. One afternoon, Spilker dispatched a crew to widen the path by bulldozing the hedges between his mansion and Chanos’s. Chanos was outraged. “I hope this is not a harbinger of how other Goldman senior executives may act when the markets become ‘just not lucrative enough for us!’ ” he wrote to friends at the time in an e-mail that just happened to find its way to the New York Post. Several months after the Post leak, Chanos pulled nearly $3 billion out of his Goldman trading account, costing the bank some $50 million in annual fees, according to a source, and brought a suit against Spilker. (Goldman disputes these numbers.) Now, a year later, as Chanos sat at his Bloomberg terminal reading the Financial Times’ account of Spilker’s recent hedge-fund woes, a smile broadened across his face. He sent out another mass e-mail to his friends, staff, and financial journalists, directing them to the news. “Mark [sic] Spilker (Head of GS Internal Hedge Funds, and Horticultural Hater) strikes again!”

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I was born a pain in the ass

Parents are so funny.

Since I was rightsized at the beginning of last month, my Dad has called me every Friday night to "chat." He inevitably asks me if I've found a job yet. Of course I haven't found a job yet, as the economy is on the verge of a financial meltdown. Every firm is job cutting, not job creating! His question adds to my general sense of discomfort and anxiety over the uncertainty of my future income stream. I mean, how will I pay for rent or feed myself???



When I spoke to my Dad last Friday, I promised him that he'd be the first person I'd call once I found a job, but only if he would stop asking me about it every time we spoke.

I think he understood because when he called tonight, he made no mention of my job search or employment status. Instead, he asked, "Any news?"

I chuckled at his question. To give him credit, he "technically" didn't ask me about employment. He's purposefully literal. Wily.

I must be my father's daughter, because I can be stubbornly obstinate. I "misunderstood" his question and filled him in on the mundane details of my life. We both knew what he was dying to ask.

I appreciate Dad's restraint, even if he couldn't quite seem to let go of his concern about my ability to support myself. I guess parents can't help but be parents even when their children are full grown.

As for grown children? Well, I guess I can't help but be the same ornery pain in the ass kid I once was either.

It looks like Dad and I will probably keep having our weekly "chats" where both of us will continue to ignore the proverbial employment elephant that's the third caller on the IP phone with us. At least until I find a job, that is.

Man tries to pay bill with spider drawing

Trust Aussies to have a wicked sense of humor. If I don't find a job soon, I may have to attempt to pay my bills this way too!

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(The letter reminds me of Letters from a Nut.)

Uh oh, gold diggers may soon have to find real jobs!

With the market in serious trouble, well-to-do bankers and hedge fund guys in search of arm candy is harder to come by.

...being unemployed is not hot. Real estate broker Sammy, a 37-year-old "single girl in the dating scene" (who would rather keep her real name private so that her boss doesn't know she's a gold digger), wrinkles her nose in disgust. "Will I knowingly date somebody who is in the sh--ter right now? Probably not." Sophie agrees, "I would never go out with someone who came up to me and said, 'I don't have a job.' " Emilaya shakes her head. "No, no, no." Even the non-English speaker shakes her head no. It's universal: No banking job, no service.