Putting on Appearances

Why am I writing entries about dress again? Clearly, I am not myself.

I was supposed to have dinner with a good friend of mine, who was going to DC in Fall semester and maybe study abroad in the Winter semester, so there was a good chance I might not see her again in college.

The friend asked if it was okay if she brought her roommate along.

"Sure," I said, because, unless there was a very valid reason, why deny her request?

But secretly, I was slightly intimidated; I knew her roommate. She was tall, pretty, and from what I can tell, quite the popular girl.

The fact that my friend's roommate was coming for dinner brought a sense of dread; what if she thought I was a complete loser?

I was coming back from working at the Daily; I was wearing a Michigan shirt and jeans. I had my glasses on and my hair was tied unfashionably in a ponytail. Anyone could see that I cared very little about my appearance. And a girl who looked like this was not the type of person any cool people would want to hang out with.

There was also the factor of feeling like I should look "Korean" enough.
Ever since being bullied and having my self-esteem destroyed pointed out that I wasn't "Korean" enough (never mind my passport) in terms of style, thoughts, drama watching and all other trivial things, I have been very much concerned about how other Koreans might see me. I felt the need to assert that "Hey guys, you and I are exactly alike, and I just don't hang out with most of you guys not because I'm some loser, but I just like having friends who I can feel REALLY comfortable with!"

Whoever said that girls dress to impress guys is a complete liar. Girls dress to impress other girls and put on an appearance that she is a person who matters, a person who is good enough to be "one of them" and thus not get shunned in a clique, a PTA meeting, or whatever social groups women make.

My neurosis was reaching into epic proportions. I have not been this nervous about dressing well since my first date in freshman year or other important occasions where I had to dress up. It's just a casual dinner, calm the fuck down! I told myself, but my mind was too freaked out to listen.

I rushed home while brainstorming what to wear for dinner. I showered while brainstorming what to wear for dinner. I dried my hair while brainstorming what to wear for dinner.

After much deliberation, I decided to wear a gray shirt with bicycle prints at the bottom (bought in Korea, even!), a pair of dark jeans, and flat white sneakers. I put on my contacts, patted on a bit of BB cream, put on clear lip gloss, opted against any other makeup (in case I look like a try-hard), put on a bracelet, sprayed some perfume, and took my big brown handbag, which was the fanciest-looking bag I had.

I thought I seemed pretty okay and that I could blend in. I walked out the door and went all the way to Sushiya.

As I opened the Sushiya door, my friend and her roommate greeted me, while dressed like this:

 In case it's hard to read: Roommate has an 'Asian updo', 'scarf', 'thin top' and 'small handbag/purse'. Friend has 'eyeliner', 'pretty blouse', and 'French manicured nails'.

Even with all my primping, they looked collectively fancier than I did.

I had forgotten how much Korean girls adorn themselves with little things that I do not possess/give a damn about.

'Ah'

I have once again failed to look like "one of them".

(The actual dinner went okay though, I think.)

Dress makes the Person

Today I learn the simple fact that my mother had drilled into my brain a billion times and a little more, but the one that it took a little self-realization for me to fully appreciate.

Dresses really do make the person.

I'm not saying that dressing up nicely makes a person look better; if that simple fact required writing a blog entry I probably would have to question my intelligence. I guess my realization is slightly different, but still related to dress regardless.

Robert, Andrew, and I went to the Manna Korean food store to buy stuff. While we were walking up and down the aisles we were (obviously) conversing in English, oohing and aahing over products and me telling what all the moonspeak in the funky items indicated.

After all the shopping was done, I went to the cashier and said hello to the lady in Korean because, well, I was Korean, and I thought it would be nice to be extra friendly.

Me:Ahnnyeonghaseyo!

Lady: Hello- ahnnyeonghaseyo.

*I take stuff out of the basket - I go crazy at Korean stores and buy a shit-ton of food*

Me: (In Korean) Ahaha, I bought a lot.

*Lady rings up price without a word*

Lady: (Korean) It is (English) $46. 49 (She says the $46.49 part  in English; forty six forty nine)

*I pay by card*

Me: (In Korean) Thank you, goodbye!

Lady: (Korean) Thank you, goodbye, (switches to English) Goodbye!

I was a little puzzled by her insistence on using English to me. Was it because I was hanging out with two "Western" guys, talking to them in English? Does that not make me seem like I can speak Korean? (I am always extremely a little sensitive about whether I appear "Korean enough" to others, but that is a story for another day.)

I initially thought being with Robert and Andrew was the reason the lady spoke to me in English, but later I remember that the last time I was here with Matt and Heidi, two very White-looking people, I talked to the lady in Korean and she responded in Korean without switching every word back into English. I am confused, but I let it pass.

Later, after all the shopping-cooking-eating adventure was over and I chat with Robert while walking him to his car, I realize something.

I am not stick-thin, I was wearing contacts, my hair was unstyled and hanging loose, I had on a huge black hooded jacket with beige shorts, and sneakers.

In short, my fashion attire was that of a thoroughly Americanized Asian American, or in cruder terms, like that of a "whitewashed" Asian American or a "Banana" or a "Twinkie", you get the picture.

As I point this out to Robert, he says, "Oooooh, that's why the lady kept on talking to you in English, it all makes sense now."

...Ooooooh.

Not to defend my choice or wardrobe or anything, but my fashion choice of the day was largely affected by my laundry and the still-cold May weather. I unfortunately had no more long pants to wear as they were either in the laundry bag or still drying from the hanger, so I had to resort to shorts. Since it was cold out, I wore my black hooded jacket. I wore sneakers because that's what I always wear, I kind of hate shoes with heels.

Oddly enough the combination created that look of an Asian American who prefers playing volleyball with her Asian sorority sisters and likes jogging in the sunlight and takes yoga classes at the CCRB and who probably can't speak a lick of their ancestrors' language; in my case, Korean.

With that amusing little encounter in mind, I resolve myself that I should dress better. It's not that I'm offended by being thought of as Asian American, it's just that as a Korean-Korean (...), it felt really weird to be branded as someone who can't speak Korean. Also, this has made me paranoid about what my attire suggests about me in other times and places as I'm not bothred with how I dress and just kind of wear whatever is in the drawer. WHAT STEREOTYPICAL IMAGE AM I INADVERTENTLY DISPLAYING ONTO ALL THE STRANGERS???

In Ann Arbor.

School has ended. I'm in Ann Arbor.
I'm staying here mainly to A) work at the Daily, B) study for GRE and C) and... that's about it, really. Besides, I now have an apartment that I can stay in, so why not? At least I have friends here. Dear god do I sound like a sad lonely kid.

For the past two days, I've been studying, writing articles, and generally trying not to fall back into that burnt-out state of mind that cost my GPA this most recent semester. Perhaps the whole fear about the future and pressure about getting a decent job to pay back my tuition just paralyzed me in fear; no wait, it does paralyze me in fear. Call me a weak, whiny wuss, but that's how it is.

I suppose I should be stronger and just bear it. All the college students are going through this cycle anyway (although the only thing preventing me from losing it completely is the portrayal of a hikikomori man I've seen in this one manga series - if anything, that series scares you into keeping your sanity intact even at the worst of times.)

I also needed an excuse to keep this blog running and not let it rot and die away once more. It is most peculiar - suddenly I am at a loss on what to write about.

Well, the summer is long, and I suppose I shall make the most of it.

P.S. Michigan's definition of May weather is like a biploar patient; sweating hot one day, and "I-actually-need-a-jacket" chilly on another, and rainy days in-between. Even the weather isn't really helping matters.

Chicago Trip

The Chicago trip of this year's spring break has been one of the most fun trips I've ever had, and I can say it was what all good trips strived to achieve: good travel, good food, and an atmosphere of great merriment with your good friends.

Day 1:

I attempted breakfast crepes. It failed horribly, and I ended up swallowing floury mush. This was not a good idea, because it caused me carsickness as soon as I stepped on Mike's car.

Stop #1: Brian's house. Brian lived in the very northern parts of Michigan, and it took two hours to get there. Brain awaited us with awesome, awesome lunch: curry, rice, eggs, dumplings, and cookies.

All hail the Food God!

After we picked up Brian, we continued our way into Chicago.
We first stopped by the Shedd Aquarium, and watched the fish. There were a lot to look at; big fish, small fish, colorful fish, and creepy fish. I realize I sound real ignorant referring to all the different breeds as simply, "fish", but please save the species labelling to the marine biologists. Creatures with gills, scales, and tail are fish to me. We also saw other creatures such as poisonous frogs, alligators, otters, and jellyfish.

Exhibit 1: FISH.

After walking around the aquarium, we took a tour round the area, then headed to Chinatown, where we had dinner at Joyee's.

Joyee's was a delicious place: great range of foods, and a variety of bubble tea filled with various fruits and jellies. Mine looked like this:

and Mike's looked like this.

He did not know it was supposed to be that big.

My rendition of the incident: my memory was hazy on his shirt.

The food was great, actually. We had a good time eating, drinking, and discussing the arts of shrimp peeling, to help Mike who had a bunch of shrimp in his soup and needed help eating them without taking his sweet time.

Professor Antai says: Bite the head off.

I say that my method of "twist the head off, and pry it apart" was more tasteful than the "Bite the head and legs off" method, but Mike preferred the manlier way.

After dinner, we again went on our annual Mission: Hotel Room Smuggling, as we tried to fit in eight whole legal adults into one room, and took great lengths to avoid suspicion, such as moving in groups of two or threes at a time when entering the room, and maintaining a quiet noise level in fear the next door will hear us. The first day went by pretty peacefully.

Day 2:

Time to actually travel around Chicago. We started off with the morning with Mike trying to find a certain coffee house that he wished to go, but due to poor sense of directions, we just ended up walking half an hour in the freezing cold, which eventually ended with grabbing breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and a very pissed off Kara shouting at Mike.

After eating, we decided to split off into groups to accomodate each of our touring preferences. Kara and Antai went off to shop and look around, while I was with Maggie, Mike, Brian, Heidi, and Manlee to see the body exhibit. The exhibit was... fascinating; a little nauseating, as well. I held onto various people to prevent myself from running away going "aaaaaaaaa" at times. Afterwards, Heidi and Brian went to the bookstore, Maggie and Mike to the massage place (which turned out to be nonexistent), and Manlee and I started shopping.

At the end of the ordeal, the two of us each got a Hello Kitty perfume. Spare the judgments, it smelled pretty, and you would have bought it too despite the namesake!

We then met up with Maggie and Mike, and had Chicago-style pizza, which was absolutely delicious.

The place was also filled with graffitis all over the restauran,t and I really mean all over. Our waiter actually gave us a marker so that we can also leave our marks in the place, which we promptly did.

 Maggie later got a nice hat for herself when shopping.

We then went to the Millenium Park, where we all took pictures and posed at the metal bean, and later went ice-skating.

Kara turned out to be a pretty good skater.

Dinnertime took place at The Cheesecake factory, which was quite satisfactory: the food was great, the atmosphere was nice, and of course, the wide selection of cheesecakes were simply divine. After dinner, we went to a stand-up comedy show in The Second City, and enjoyed the skit very much.


Day 3:

While everybody went to the coffee house for breakfast, I slept in, so I headed to the John Hancock tower (where we were all supposed to meet) with Kara and Antai, who also decided to skip out on the coffee house.

Being in the company of two of your good friends, who also happen to be dating each other, always leaves the awkward dillemma: should you chat and have fun with them as good friends and deprive them of their loving gazes, or should you take a step behind and let them have their lovey dovey time? Conveniently, I woke up feeling kind of cranky, so I mostly stayed quiet and let the two have their lovey dovey time (not that it required me stepping out to make them have a lovey dovey time, anyway. Argh so adorable).

Exhibit B: The couple of D'AWWW.

The observatory of the tower offered some great views.

Afterwards, we took one last visit to H&M, picked up Heidi at the University of Chicago and headed towards Mitsuba. Not that it was important or anything, but the cranky feeling in the morning turned out to be the ever-persistent Angst Mode, which makes me doubt everyone's intentions, twist them around in my head, and leaves me in a pool of self-loathing because you think everyone secretly hates you. Even after all this time, that damn Angst will creep up every now and then. THIS IS WHY BULLYING IS BAD, PEOPLE. Long-term effects of mental scarring is long.

Exhibit C: Unhappy Me.

Luckily, Mitsuwa lifted up my spirits.

Mitsuwa is a Japanese market and food court area. I ate chicken soba for lunch, and bought delicious Japanese candy, Matcha powder (fucking finally!), and a pack of origami paper. Also, the place offered Matcha soft serve, something I hadn't had since leaving Korea last summer, and I was very, very happy to eat it again. IT WAS SO DAMN GOOD.

On the car ride the way back, we decided  to play a game of questions, where we asked trivial, silly, and serious questions about each other and answered them. It was a great game to pass the time, as well as an opportunity to get to know each other even better. I wouldn't have known I was the token boring good teammate within the Kendo circle if not for this question game. Perhaps I should be more mean and bitchy?

So, the trip was great. I got to see much of Chicago, and enjoyed my time with friends. To finish off, I shall leave with this gem of a quote from the car trip on the way back:

Preach.

Fly.

I would like to know how it feels like to fly.

For some years - It's been a while - I dreamed of flying, of escape. A mind-blowing event that will lift me away from the mundane life and transform me forever, an escape that will fill me with a rush of adrenaline and make everything exciting and magical beyond imagination.

I wonder sometimes if I am pursuing the impossible, if such an escape is possible.
Perhaps it's all just a pipe dream to escape when reality does not seem to go well for me.
Although this probably is the musings of a spoiled brat, in a sense.

Perhaps it's up to yourself to make things magical.
Let's see what I can do for spring break.

YJS is not a very exploitable Nickname Material, Actually

I, YJS, am seeping in nostalgia right now, though what I really should be doing is read for my psychology class and start my paper on interest politics of deviance.

The paper is challenging... the weather is cold out... and I have been too sleep-deprived to do anything... so I haven't started my work yet.

In an hour I would have to go to kata workshop for kendo, too.

I had been excited for the next kata workshop. Not only do I need to practice for my promotion exam, but I wanted to show off my brand new bokuto, which is a sleek, white wooden sword. It meant that I didn't have to borrow Brian Chen's bokuto anymore, which is still a nice sword, but I felt sorry borrowing his bokuto all the time. Although Brian Chen is a nice guy who didn't mind lending me his bokuto, I'm sure he wondered why I wasn't ordering my own sword already.

I, YJS, would like to go to kata workshop.

But realistically speaking, it would not be a very good idea, as I had not even started on my paper yet. Sadly, I must revoke the opportunity this time.

If you are wondering why I, YJS, am writing a blog entry like this and addressing myself as I, YJS, it's because I had just looked up the Amber Brown series on the Internet.

I, YJS, loved reading the Amber Brown series as a child. The plot was rather mature for a children's book, the concerns and conflicts were realistic, and Amber Brown was a spunky, likable nine-year-old with a sense of humor and a love for puns. In fact, I liked it so much that I collected all but the last two books from the series, and when I found out that more books have been published, I, YJS, sneaked into the children's section of the school library to read it, although I was already a high school student when I found out about it.

I actually wasn't too embarrassed about reading the book... I was only worried that somebody would find me in the kids section and tease me. Because in high school, you weren't supposed to read books from the children's section... you weren't even supposed to like books on the teens sections too much, either. You had to be intelligent and mature and read books that your English teacher would approve.

Something had inspired me to search for the Amber Brown series today, and while I ate my dinner, I, YJS, read sample pages of the books from Amazon, and fell in love with the series all over again. It did break my heart, though, to find out that the author of the series passed away in 2004. If a lady could make high school students sneak into the children's section of the library to read her children's books, she's doing something right.

In order to cherish the memory of the books, I, YJS, have decided to emulate the book's writing style on this blog entry... although I think I'm not really doing the series justice by writing in this way.

First of all, Amber is nine years old, while I am twenty, which means it sounds weird when I combine my twenty-year-old narrative voice in this writing style. At best, I sound mildly annoying. At worst, I sound really annoying.

Secondly, my blog entry do not have puns. I, YJS, am not good at coming up with puns... while Amber Brown is an expert at it. It's a shame, because I, YJS, love puns, even if they are really cheesy and silly.

Third, this entry does not have illustrations. I do not know who the illustrator is, but the guy (or girl) has simple yet expressive crayon-like illustrations that really enhances the reading experience.

But I, YJS, have still tried. And for a while, it was nice looking back into my childhood and remembering one of my favorite book series.

(I, YJS, have tried to come up with a witty title, based on the title of the first book "Amber Brown is not a Crayon". I first tried to write "YJS is not a Crayon", but realized that the joke only worked because Amber's full name is a shade of color, while YJS is not a color name, not even in Korean. I thought hard about what to write, and realized I never had a nickname... probably because non-Korean kids don't know what to do with a name like YJS. I guess there's something good that came out of having a mangled romanized name.)

A Katamari Entry

If you are wondering "What the hell is a katamari", you are clearly missing out. Check it out. It's worth it.

It is difficult coming up with something to write on the blog sometimes. It is more diffcult to make my entries sound remotely funny, when I am up against contenders friends such as Andrew or Yiwen, who both write seemingly effortless, yet hilarious and wonderfully articulate blog posts. (Note to Andrew; WRITE MORE.) Or perhaps my writing muse had packed her bags and left, too, along with my artistic inspiration muse, who moved out and only visits me once in a while now. I hope you're enjoying your excursion, you bastards.

On the other hand, there were things that I desparately wished to blog about, but didn't or hadn't, because 1) there isn't enough material for one full post, 2) in fear of making this blog a rant-fest of All That is Wrong With the World, 3) in fear of boring readers to death. But in the end, after hours of pondering, I decided to just clump all the scrap thoughts in my head and make it one post. I mean, how many people read this blog, anyway? Two? Three? I'm sure the single-digit audience know me enough and can handle the babbling. It's in my blog title, after all.

So, here's a lump of a variety of things that is my life and my babbles.

1) Ann Arbor Restaurant Week

Ann Arbor has a Restaurant Week every January; for a week, a select number of fancy restaurants in Main Street offer a set menu, lunch for $12 and dinner for $25, which is redundant information if you are already a UM student, which are about 75%~100% of the blog readers, depending on whether any of my non-UM friends know or read this blog. While I would have liked to pig out for six days a week on fancy restaurants, my class schedule and my wallet does not allow me to do so. However, the places I've been so far were good.

The Melting Pot: fondue place. The cheese and chocolate fondue were both tasty. I think I have fallen in love with the "original chocolate fondue", a warm melting pot (ha ha) of peanut butter and chocolate. Everything tastes infinitely better with melted peanut butter and chocolate. Especially strawberries.

Real Seafood: Seafood place. The food was good, though in retrospect the portion may have been not thaaaat big, or perhaps I am a glutton, or I may just have been really, really hungry. Had New England Clam Chowder, a shrimp dish, and lemon cream puffs. The lemon cream was quite exquisite.

2) Andrew, update your blog.

3) Rant

It just annoys me when people assume Asians undergo "double eyelid" plastic surgery because they want to look like Caucasian people. Some East Asians are born with double eyelids, my own father is born with double eyelids. I doubt he wished he looked like a White man when he was in my grandmother's womb. Asian people with double eyelids do not look like Caucasian people, as any person with a speck of eyesight and sentience will tell you. Double eyelid surgery is merely a method to have larger eyes, as large eyes are a - gasp - universal trait of beauty! Yet somehow, if you're (East) Asian, you're supposed to be "proud of your slanty eyes", and if you undergo plastic surgery, my god, you're trying to be White.

Bullshit.

Obviously, I cannot speak for Asian Americans, as I'm Asian... Asian. And taking a class on Asian American literature, I can see where such an argument may come from, as Asian Americans have also received a lot of flack and racism in the US as much as any other minority races, and their achievements and efforts have often been erased from American history, so we have learned. Who knows, there may be Asian Americans who have suffered a degree of racism that they try to look more Caucasian, I wouldn't know.

BUT, I can tell you that most Asians, while Western standards of beauty have affected what they see as beautiful (ex. thinness, tallness, etc), it is not to the point that an Asian woman looks at the mirror and wants to be Caucasian. And no, dyeing your hair and putting on colored lenses do NOT mean they want to be white. They're just accessorizing themselves as any other person of any race would do. By the same logic, you could argue Caucasians want to be Black, because they tan, or that they want to be Asian, if they dye their hair black. But the latter argument is dismissed as being ridiculous while the former is taken seriously. What sort of silly double standard is this?

One last thing; Not all Asians have "slanty eyes". It is merely a difference of eye shape. The perceived beauty of "slanty eyes", high cheekbones and the like is likely a product of Orientalist exoticism from the past which somehow lingers today. There is a reason why these traits are not seen as attractive to Asians, and it's not because they are so brainwashed by the sheer awesomeness of Caucasian beauty that they hate themselves. They're just... not attractive looking to Asians. That's it.

P.S. Double eyelid surgery isn't some grotesque procedure that fiddles around with your eyes. The whole thing takes only a short while, and you can function normally on the day of, or the next day. Get over it.

4) Ruixiao, how are you. Can you show yourself sometimes? It's not even about anything anymore, it's just that I haven't seen you in a while and I would like to occasionally talk to you or say hi. That is all. Your presence at the moment is like that of an enchanted unicorn - oft mentioned, but never seen.

5) Andrew, update your blog. I have ranted about stuff, so there's no excuse for you not to. Yaaay.

6) As the time to graduate slowly approaches (next spring), my fear of the future is increasing. Some may talk about how the youth is lazy and unmotivated, not willing to work for their future and careers, but trust me, I am nervous to death about whether I will get a job. I need to at least pay back my parents the exorbitant American university tuition.

7) Naaaaa na na na na na na na Katamari Damacy~

8) Why is there no decent yogurt to eat in the States? It's either artificially sweetened, fat deprived tasteless lumps of stuff, or pricey organic yogurt that I can eat, sure, but it is kinda pricey  Yes, you can get natural yogurt, but me being picky and not that much of a health nut, I am slightly reluctant to eat sour and bitter-tasting fermented milk. It feels ridiculous when I have become such a snob that I will only eat yogurt when I go to Prague during vacation. Give me delicious semi-healthy yogurt!

9) I'm supposed to be doing homework right now, but the book I'm supposed to read is incredibly dry. It's not easy for me to lose interest in a book after two pages. I am currently looking at Andrew who is sporting a scarf quite stylishly.

10) And in any case I seem like a creepy Andrew-gawker in Stockwell Lounge, I am also in the company of Robert and Jackie, and formerly Nazifa, Steffie, and Amy, too.

I think I'm done for now. This is the most unorganized post I have ever written.