My mother and grandmother both live by the mantra “cleanliness is next to godliness” and in response, I had no choice but to become an OCD pack rat. In anticipation of the rituals of Spring cleaning (I need to start early), here’s a list of some of their anal retentive ways:
1. They save all those plastic shopping bags and fold them into origami triangles so that they can be compacted. No jack in the box surprises of plastic baggies flying out of overstuffed drawers.
2. They swab down the mouthpieces of phones with alcohol to kill off any germs. A necessary procedure for households where yelling on the phone is akin to using your normal speaking voice. Read more...
YouTube dancing sensation Yiming Wang, who we’ve blogged about, was invited and flown over by Ellen DeGeneres to appear on her show. We find out the kid is only 4-years old and does a mean Jacko impersonation! Here’s the clip, where the crowd goes wild: 
Now I can go to the very obvious snarky remark about Michael Jackson’s dream come true in embodying a child or the late Man-Child is now just “Child” (I kind of did that with the title of this blog), but you have to admit that this was a cool tribute to the late icon, crotch grab and all! Read more...
Along with a love for food, angst tops the chart of the Asian compulsions. Here are some sources of our angst…
A is for straight As. That letter has been ingrained into our minds since we were first able to read. Anything less than an ‘A’ was akin to sacrilege.
N is for No. Whether you’re the girl seeking permission to leave the watch of the warden…I mean, your parents, or the boy asking that cheerleader to the prom, the anticipation and utterance of the word ‘No’ creates more turmoil in the gut than a daily dose of kimchi. Read more...
Though I agree with my fellow offender Beverly’s post regarding the dearth of decent toys for girls today, I have to say that growing up I didn’t feel too deprived. Here are some toys that happily filled my days as a kid. Read more...
With relatives spread out across the globe, Christmas back home in the Bay Area is a pretty low key affair these days. However, I do remember when I was growing up, the holidays were celebrated with a special Chinese American flair. Here are some memories from back in the day…
1. The house was not filled with the melodies of Christmas carols, but rather the clacking of mah-jong tiles.
2. My parents didn’t see the point of getting a real tree – too much work transporting and disposing it. So it was all about assembling the plastic one we had in the garage. Putting it together was like building a master Lego set. Of course, this was when Lego sets were actual bricks intended to be built into grand structures of the imagination, rather than premolded parts that had to be assembled into a branded movie-related item. Read more...
When I was growing up, the solution to any bruise, headache, sprain, ailment of the moment was Kwan Loong Oil aka “Qu Feng You” which literally means “expelling wind oil”. The expelling wind oil radiated a noxious medicated menthol fume that could knock anyone out within a small city block. So, I often preferred being in pain over being rubbed down with the oil for fear of alienating anyone who wasn’t Chinese and over the age of 70. The alternative to Kwan Loong Oil was Tiger Balm which was pretty much the same thing except the mentholated medicine took the form of a greasy balm. Though my grand uncle used it religiously, our family were orthodox Kwan Loong Oil only. Like the Pepsi vs. Coke scenario, I have a feeling that there’s really only one mentholated cure-all that can rule the medicine cabinet – Kwan Loong Oil or Tiger Balm. Read more...
As part of my ongoing blogging therapy, I’ve created a top ten list of those nagging habits and rules my Chinese relatives lived by that traumatized me as a kid.
1. Public confrontations. If they were slighted, my parents loved to get up in people’s faces . The more public, the better. The problem was that it was usually a tsunami in a teapot.
2. Anything that’s not nailed down is complimentary. My grandmother lived by this unspoken rule and would stuff her bag with airplane cutlery (back when they used to have the real silverware), hotel room glassware, crackers at the soup and salad bar, a dispenser full of napkins, etc. This would be benign if not for the fact that most Chinese parents discipline their children by saying the ’police will come after you’ as a catch-all warning to preempt bad behavior. So I used to panic and expected to hear sirens coming around the corner, when grandma would go on her sticky finger binge. Read more...
As a child, my weekend activities often consisted of accompanying my parents to various mahjong appointments at the homes of relatives. If I wasn’t playing with the other kids, watching tv, drawing, or doing homework, I’d end up snooping around these homes which contained museum-like displays of all sorts of bric-a-brac and tsotchkes. Amidst the Dansk Butter Cookie and Cadbury Chocolate tins, there would also be higher ticket items – miniature glass zodiac animals, Chinese porcelain, clay sculptures of Chinese fishermen, plates with images of ancestors, etc. And, amongst these decorative pieces, I’d usually find a display of plastic or glass grapes growing dust bunnies. Chinese antiques and miniatures, sure that makes sense. But grapes? If you remember strange grown-up tsotchkes and dust collecting decor, etc. from your childhood be they fake grapes or not, please share.
Growing up I remember being gifted with all sorts of hand crafted crocheted gear from different Chinese grandmas – scarves, hats, vests, and cardigans. They always had a nubby quality that was unmistakably handmade and would either be seen worn by small children, middle aged ladies, or grandmas. Somehow this fashion statement eluded men and younger women in those days. Maybe they were too cool for school to work this acquired look. But in the knitting craze that hit in the 90s, crochet made its way into the mainstream.
So this entry is to pay tribute to all those grandmas for being ahead of the curve and working the crochet couture.
So you guys inspired me. With all the communal nostalgia over Royal Dansk Butter Cookies, I am going to start a series called ‘Double Happiness’ that covers random Chinese/Chinese American clichés, universal truths, products, sayings, customs, etc. In doing so, I’d love to know if all things Chinese for me are the same for you — Chinese or not.
I’ll begin with the famous Haw flakes. These were flat candies that resemble Communion wafers except they are really tasty and addictive. In addition to lots of sugar and unknown artificial ingredients, these flakes are made of dried ‘haw’ fruit which is a kind of sweet and tart plum that tastes like tamarind. Packed like a fresh batch of bankrolled quarters, they are wonderfully small and compact. Perfect for a kid to have in their pocket in case they need to replenish their sugar high.
I wasn’t in full agreement with fellow offender, Phil’s list. So to save face for my people, I came up with my own. And in typical Chinese fashion, I had to have 18 (not 14, god forbid) to complete my list. So as this list unfolds, just imagine that each word is a flip card being turned over in unison by a football stadium size troupe of Chinese preteens who then make their exit while doing a ribbon dance routine choreographed to a robust rendition of ‘Con te partirò aka Time To Say Goodbye’. Stand by fireworks…GO!
1. It’s always about saving face. Choosing Macdonalds over In and Out! How could you, we’re going to lose face! Read more...
