11 posts tagged “30 days of miserable childhood”
That is a show-off restaurant.
We believe money spent on looking like a clean and pleasant place to eat is not spent on quality ingredients.
We don't like cat. They bathroom all over the house.
We don't like adorable, loving animals and will make every excuse in the world to not let you have one.
Because I'm your mom.
I don't have any justification or reason for what I am asking you to do, which is probably why you are asking me "why". So I am going to resort to using my trump card.
Because I'm your dad.
Like your mother, I also have no rhyme or reason for what I am asking.
You are stupid!
Apparently, you are exhibiting thought patterns that do not agree with ours. Since about 5% of what we think follows any sort of convention, you are going to be stupid often.
You are acting innard.
Some guy taught us that innard was the real word for retarded. So we are calling you mentally challenged because you don't follow directions.
You should show-off yourself!
Instead of sharing with the world the things that make you great, we would rather you flaunt the stereotypically Asian things that we make you do. You are not a complete child until you master that classical instrument and have some pretentious recital where only our Asian friends will show up.
Show them speak Thai!
I have to convince our visitors that we are still down with our roots and taught our language to the child. Which is funny because the person I am bragging to is not Thai, so you could say anything and they would never know. But I will!
Be good boy on date!
We have no idea how you scored a girl that hot. However, we would prefer an Asian girl. Either way, you understand that your education is most important (editor's note: They said that a lot. Yet they sent me to a public school in Ohio). Don't physically touch the girl and be home by 9 pm... it's a Saturday so we will allow you to be out past dark. This does not help your application for MIT! Remember, no touching! (I had my first successful threesome [after the BAD FLAVR incident] and a day later while doing yard work my mother is talking to me and goes "You kiss girl yet?"... yeah, out of touch is what you are).
Only one or two people that read this blog have ever gone into my parents' house in Ohio. If I ever return, I will get pictures to document this post. But for now you are going to have to take my word for it.
There are family pictures all over the place in that house. Everywhere we went we took copious pictures as is legally required for people of Asian descent. So walk around that house and look at all the pictures... and you will notice something.
Every picture is the same.
Well, the time and place changes, from 1980's Ohio, to a trip to Japan in 1992, etc.
But the composition is always the same.
My mother is all done up, smiling at the camera.
My father is never looking at the camera, or if he is he has a pissed off look.
I am usually looking at the camera, but looking unkempt or blinking or smiling strange.
This is true for every single picture on display in our house. At last count it was over 50.
Now, before you say that obviously my father never looked at the camera, or I always looked like a bum or don't know how to smile, it's not true. We have album after album of pictures where all three of us look great. She never EVER hangs those up though. Not one. In fact, unless there's a pic from the same event already hanging, you won't find any pictures where my mother is the only one smiling and me and dad are being tarded. Why? Because she's already taken them all and hung them up on the walls.
A few years ago I was talking to my mother on a night where she had imbibed enough Grand Marnier to be open. I asked her if this was on purpose (of course it is on purpose, I was more wanting to see if she would bother lying). My mother told me that she held this family together, and that on our trips and especially during picture time, she was the only one paying attention because my dad is aloof and I'm just a bad kid that doesn't know how to smile. So when she's hanging up pictures, she tries to get pictures that accurately portray what it was like being there.
So there you have it. My mother is some sort of oddball adherent to cinema verite.
To my parents' credit, a lot of this wasn't their fault. Well, it was but it's understandable why they didn't act more like human beings. Most of their friends were also Asian with children, and their abusive methods of parenting spread like cancer as they all reassured each other that this was the way to raise bad kids in this horrible white world they lived in.
Instead of trying to describe the different things they did, I'm going to share with you some of the things I overheard at their dinner parties. You be the judge. Keep in mind that the speakers here are all professionals with college degrees making upper middle class incomes and working at major corporations. So it's not like they lived in a dark hole, unless you consider Ohio a dark hole.
- I was very impress by dollar store. You should see the BRAND they have! They even has LA GEAR! (this was in 1995 mind you).
- My kid tried to take a dangerous trip with their friend last weekend. But I'm not dumb enough to allow my kid to go to camping with boy scout.
- Of course I vote Republican. I don't want gay or black to move into our neighborhood.
- Did you hear about Charles kid? He so bad! Get to college and not want be doctor anymore. See, I told Charles don't let kid live in dorm, get bad influence other kids.
- We never eat in restaurant with nice looking. Because you are pay for nice looking instead of food. If you want to pay for nice looking spend money decorate your house instead.
- We don't allow kid watch TV. TV give them temptation not be good kid.
- I talk to my kid about sex last week. I say, sex is for bad kid, you get doctor, and then family.
- His daughter went to school dance with black. That why they move house to come here and be this school system.
- I don't like Mexican food. Mexico is poor junk country with low class people. Why their food going to taste any good.
- In home country we not have Mexican. But we have Filipino. Same thing.
- That Kim Dae. He pretend to believe in joke Jesus so Presbyterian bring him to America. When he get here, he tell them, "I don't believe in your white children story!" and leave church.
- My wife caught kid masturbate. We yell for three hour. You suppose study, not masturbate!
- I make my kid do talent show play violin. He say other kid make fun of him. White kid jealous.
- Did you hear is son is a GAY? What? Oh, not gay? Have girlfriend that work at mall? Is bad too!
- We find out our kid take English class at Yale, so we cut off money and tell him if take Mickey Mouse class we make him go to Ohio State.
- We think about adopt. But only brown kid available here. And if we want Asian kid we just make our own.
- My husband was lay off last week. They say he not communicate good. We think are sue discrimination.
I've always wondered what the right way would be to tell this story. Forward to back, back to forward, or out of order Pulp Fiction style. I don't really know, so I'm going to wing it.
All through my life, my parents have always had the same thing to say whenever I messed something up. Well, that's sort of inaccurate. More like, when in their minds I messed something up. Which is something completely different than actually messing something up.
But, for two decades, the insult was always the same. "You screw up just like you drop pizza when you little kid. No responsibility. Sloppy everything. Mess up everything!"
Huh?
Let's rewind.
When I was about 6 years old, we were still broke-ass people as my parents were both still in graduate school. It was a huge treat at the time to go eat at Pizza Hut (How time flies, right? If my life EVER degenerates to the point that PIZZA HUT is a TREAT, I'm just going to commit suicide by Olive Garden lemon cake). As always, we got our leftover pizza in a pizza box. While walking to our third floor walkup in the low income roach-infested hellhole my parents were raising a child in, I dropped the pizza box. Straight down. The box just dropped on the ground. Face down, closed lid. No harm, no foul.
My dad instantly started yelling at me for:
- being a stupid kid
- not paying attention
- wasting food
- wasting money
- wanting the family to starve
- not appreciating my parents' sacrifices
- being an idiot
- etc etc asian parent bullshit
- probably more shit I didn't understand because his engrish was so bad
This went on for about three hours. At multiple points during this verbal waterboarding I tried to mention that the pizza was fine and that I didn't realize what the problem was. At some point my dad decided to make a huge show of throwing the pizza in the trash to show it was ruined (irony of ironies, it wasn't ruined until he threw it in the trash).
For DECADES after this incident, as previously mentioned this was always the example about how I was a defective child that never cared.
I fought this notion all the time. When I was 22 and talking to my parents, I basically declared this was a parent-child deal breaker and that they needed to understand that their recollection of this incident was out and out bullshit and that they needed to reunite with reality.
My parents told me in no uncertain terms that this was yet another example about how I was a bad kid that liked to lie.
Whatever.
Crazies.
At summer camp every year, we had a day where we would make our own iron ons with crayons and come out with our own custom shirt. This was always a funny event for me. The original shirts are locked up at my parents' house, but I've drawn them here from memory for you.
Summer after 1st grade:
I am sitting there making some kind of shirt with a tree on it. That's all I remember. My mother, a teacher at the camp, walks up and tears up the one I am working on. She says "No, your shirt should be for Mom. It should say I LOVE MOM." Seriously. When I initially refused, she started screaming at me about being a bad kid until I changed it.
Summer after second grade:
This girl named Michelle really pissed me off. My shirt looks remarkably close to what I drew here. I doubt any kid would get away with making such a shirt nowadays.
- My mother would always spend the winter months in Thailand because she hated the cold. One time before she left she struck up a conversation with 9 year old me. She asked me if I would be ok while mommy was in Thailand, could I take care of myself because daddy was busy at work and didn't really have time. I said sure, I would try to be a good boy to make it easier on dad. My mom starts SOBBING and SCREAMING at me that "You don't need MOM, MOM SHOULD LEAVE PERMANENTLY" then calls my dad at work and tells him the same thing. My dad comes home from work to yell at me for making mom cry. Seriously. LOLZ
- She was constantly convinced that she was sick and was going to die. In fact we spent three years and countless doctors (and money) trying to figure out what was wrong with her (I still suspect Munchausens). At dinner she would say things like "I am going to die and dad is going to remarry, so I didn't put much effort into this meal.
- My dad and I would have to endure hour long tellings of all the guys in Thailand she COULD have married, rather than marrying an engineer and moving to her obscure life in America. This would happen probably once a week. There was the guy with the motorcycle. And the guy that named a boat after her. And the famous helicopter pilot. And Jesus.
- I am a huge F1 fan, and I would get up early on Sunday morning to watch the races. My favorite race has always been the Monaco GP. Well, one morning I am watching the race and my mother walks in. Now, we had a 4000+ sqft house so there was plenty of places for her to go. Oh, but no. She sits on the couch next to the TV and starts complaining that the engine noises are giving her a headache, at which time my dad yells at me for an hour for giving mom a headache.
- My dad probably doesn't know what good food at a restaurant tastes like. Why? Well, my mother would order the most oddball thing on the menu consistently, no matter how nasty it seemed or against her palate it was. If she didn't like the food, she would just sit and complain. After years of this, my dad got the habit of just ordering the most boring, mundane food on the menu. This was my mother's "safety meal". If she didn't like the crap that she ordered, she would just trade plates with my dad, and he would either starve or eat her crap.
- My mother blamed racist America for why she never got a job with her PhD in education. Well, let's look, first there's the language skills, then there's the fact that no primary schools are going to hire a PhD. Which is where she applied. Especially since her focus was on physical education. LOOK NOBODY HIS HIRING A GYM TEACHER WITH A DOCTORATE IN AN OHIO PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Golly. Racist indeed.
- That being said, my mother would completely miss it when racism was thrown in her face. When they opened the local library, my family were major donors. The head of the library district was taking pictures with all the donors at the front door during the grand opening party. When we walked up for the pic, she literally shoved the three of us at the refreshment table and half yelled "GET SOME FOOD AND DRINK!" and ran off, never to be seen again. My mother goes "She so nice, show us where food is!"
- My mother would come to my doctor appointments and yell and argue with the doctor when she didn't agree (which was often). She was once physically removed from a doctor's office by a nurse.
- This has been mentioned before, but my mother thinks I'm the pickiest eater on Earth. Also, she thinks my bipolar father is "easy going".
- On long flights, my mother would scoot up close to my head to hear the music coming out of my earphones. Then she would yell at me for listening to such stupid music.
- To this day, my mother says that the biggest waste of money the family ever endured was when my dad bought me my first Discman. You know, the Discman that I used starting with a trip to Thailand in 1994 and finally retired after driving cross country in 2000. What a waste of money, mother who bought three coats in one day.
- Despite feeding me a very unhealthy diet, my mother would try and strictly control what I was eating. If she heard sounds from the kitchen in the middle of the night she would race down to stop me from eating whatever it was I was looking at. As a result of this, I would spend hours in front of the microwave trying to optimize my button presses to minimize the beeps (say, hitting time-9-0-start instead of time-1-3-0-start). This would turn out to be the first process I would optimize in my life, a trend that continues into my current job and career track.
- There were three Asian-owned restaurants in the mall food court. One was Chinese, one was Japanese and the third was a Greek gyro place. The funny part is that people would always walk up to the gyro place asking for soy sauce, and then be all pissed off when the GREEK GYRO place didn't have any. Come on guys. It's not like I walk up to a Mexican cashier at Chick-Fil-A and ask for Cholula.
- Little kids during trick-or-treat would ask my parents if they had General Tso's chicken
- Small businesses were fond of using the letter K in their names when it made no creative sense. Like "Kreative Kustom Kars". Yeah, I get the message loud and clear, Cletus.
- My mother was at a bridge game when one of her "friends" blurted out "I would never go to an Asian doctor, I just can't trust them!"
- I was dating a girl with very strict parents, it turns out she was only allowed to go out with me because "obviously that's just a practice boyfriend, you aren't going to make whoopee with an Oriental".
- Fellow students in middle and high school were fond of making Hitler and Nazi themed drawings and hanging them on their locker doors.
- No matter how far apart we were, if I was in a line with another Asian they would ask if we were together. So, for example, if a girl was at the counter at McDonalds and I was 4 people back, most likely the cashier would yell out asking if we wanted to order together.
- I can't even count the number of times someone said to me "wow, you done speak good English."
- Along those lines, I also can't even count the number of times someone spoke to me like they were speaking to a three year old, and even after they heard my English they kept it up.
- Once I started growing facial hair I never got carded again. Because the only Asians that anyone had ever seen were Confucius and Mister Miyagi, both over 21.
- My panel interview for what will remain an unnamed Ivy included one of the interviewers saying "In my opinion, the school went down the shitter when they let women and coloreds in!"
- Overheard at the only foreign card repair shop in town: kid: "I hate coming to this dirty place!" dad: "Well, as long as mom ignores Pearl Harbor and keeps buying rice burners we have to come here to get them fixed."
- Overheard at the only Indian restaurant in town: dad talking to kid: "Don't call them n***ers, son. That's insulting."
- Overheard in front of KFC: "Now you know I don't get anything that don't sponsor Nascar, and you know ain't got no Negro food car."
- A mulatto classmate took and hid someone else's calculator as a joke. A kid remarked "Guess his black genes are showing through!"
- After someone dropped a jar of pennies in class: "Someone call a Jew! Anyone know a Jew???"
- Mexican kid to me: "Fucking chink" me to Mexican kid: "Hey, at least my parents took a plane over here." Mexican: "True that, fuck Whitey."
- Showing up to pick up a date, dad says in the other room to mom: "Least she didn't bring a f*g or n***er"
- People used "born and raised" like it's something to be proud of. Well, it is, if where you live is cool. Small town Ohio==NOT IT
- There was an hour plus long line to get into Starbucks when the first one opened... in 1997. What the heck do you people think this is... Krispy Kreme?
- Woman walks into police station screaming help. Policemen tell her to wait outside in the parking lot. That's where they find her murdered a few hours later.
- While on this subject, high ranking cop got caught banging his underage cousin
- The california roll place is considered very exotic
- Due to the lack of lodging (who the hell wants to visit here and doesn't have a place to stay???) it was more than a common occurrence when a guy in high school would rent a storage unit, put a mattress in it, and use it as is funky sex chamber.
- Lots of sudden pregnancies after every school dance...
- Overheard frequency: "He's a good kid, he went local for college, knows what's important."
- I honestly thought a civil war was going to break out when the town next to ours stole our minor league baseball team
- They call it "pop". Hey backwoods bumpkin, it's soda, or soda pop, or Coke, or the name of the product in the container. Why don't you marinate over that while you cruise along in your horseless buggy?
- Nothing but the most generic blockbuster movies would ever show at the theaters. There was no point.
- I knew no fewer that three couples with His and Hers Camaros (nothing against Camaros, even though I'm a Ford man, but wtf)
- When I had sex with an Asian classmate junior year in high school, that meant that 40% of the school's nonwhite population was fucking each other at that moment. High school population==1600.
- When people found out I was going to Duke after high school, I got three questions:
- Where's Duke?
- Where's North Carolina?
- You don't play basketball. Why are you going there?
- Next to every onramp there's a sign that says NO TRACTORS. ... ... ... ...AND a sign with PICTURES OF TRACTORS in case you're too stupid to figure it out
- Olive Garden was fine dining max. If you were there it meant you were either celebrating something or about to propose to your girlfriend.
- Trucks with confederate flags > Trucks with current registration
- Plenty of people in my hometown have never left the county, much less state
- Every other person was in the Army Reserves thinking it was easy money... you know, rather than being THE ARMY (enjoy the free vacation in the desert)
- The NYT sent a reporter to my hometown to do a series of stories about middle America, something about how except for once, our district had correctly picked the president every time. Of course, the article that ends up making the FRONT PAGE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES is about how my school district is the lily white one in a pool of ghetto schools and contains a choice quote from the captain of our basketball team discussing how black kids love kicking "white ass"
edit: Fixed typos so BA and IG don't make fun of my farmboy English.
I'm going to deviate from the norm here and not talk about my parents for this entry. The only fault I think I can place here is that despite my acceptance into several prestigious high schools ("academies", whatever) my parents took the advice of their misguided family friends and decided to keep me in public school.
In no particular order, some highlights from my incarceration in public school:
- Fourth grade, I put the answer for "Who discovered America" down as "the indians". Of course this got marked wrong. When I brought this up, I suggested that perhaps the answer was "the vikings" if we were only going to count white people. The teacher looked at me with a blank stare and said "but in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue!!!".
- Second grade, I smiled at the math teacher. She said "stop smiling, cute is for babies".
- Second grade, same math teacher, kicked my chair out from under me because I had it "using too much room".
- First grade, only went to recess a few times the entire year because the teacher gave me extra work and would not let me to go recess unless it was done. Then would send the remainder home with me with notes about how I was slow and stupid.
- Eleventh grade, the assistant principal threatened their extracurricular academic superstar (me) with truancy charges because I failed to scan my library card one day while attending study hall there.
- Second grade English teacher once told the class "Black people have smaller brains, but they have nice white teeth to make up for it."
- Fourth grade music teacher was racist and hated me. Once had a competition where she went around the class making them clap some stupid rhythm. I did fine, everyone heard it said it was fine, but she claimed I messed up. Went around the rest of the class anyway to see "how far you would have gotten had Yod not messed up."
- Fourth grade music teacher again.. had some sort of note drawing competition and pitted me against a mentally disabled kid and accepted his answer as first and correct (even through what he drew wasn't really even notes).
- Sixth grade english... teacher: "Anything worth doing is worth doing right" me: "Guess you know how I feel about your assignment"
- Sixth grade music teacher accused me of talking in class constantly even though... I couldn't since she put my desk BEHIND A PILLAR where nobody else was.
- Sixth grade math teacher called a conference with all of my teachers to say I was rude (stemming from some comment I made about the cold classroom). During this conference the music teacher agreed I was an ass. The aforementioned English teacher chimed in with something along the lines of "Yes he has an attitude, but wouldn't you have one if you had to sit through classes as bad as I know yours are" and pointed to the two teachers complaining. My history teacher agreed and said the mere calling of that meeting said a lot about their teaching style and philosophy. Whatever. They were hella polite to me after that.
- Seventh grade English, a five dollar bill dropped out of my pocket. The white trash girl next to me picked it up and said ooooh five dollars, this is mine! Hearing us argue, the teacher came over to mediate. I had a reason for having the money, she didn't. In the end he handed it to me and said "if this turns out to be hers, you not only lied, you stole!" I said "Well if you are handing it to me, you are accepting that I am telling the truth, which means she DID lie and DID steal." He just mumbled something and walked away.
- Ninth grade history, the teacher taught that the official language of the ancient Romans was Greek. No joke.
- Tenth grade science, the teacher taught that it was a proven fact that glass was a liquid.
- Eleventh grade pep rally, the high school principal misspelled our school name.
I'll be back to add to this post as things occur to me during the day, but this is a good start.
Band... specifically marching band was... and is a huge part of my school district.
Band starts in fifth grade, the last year of elementary school. I loved drums and signed up for drums. Drums were popular so you had to audition. I passed, of course (I'm awesome).
Well, the week of the start of band comes and the instruments arrive from the rental place (talk about a Halliburton contract, anyway). Instead of getting a drum, I get an oboe. Immediately, I insist that they've made a mistake. They tell me no.
That night, I go home and tell my parents that the music store made a mistake. They sit me down and tell me that I got the right instrument. Apparently, the day after I came home and told them about the band tryouts, they went to the school and had a meeting with the band director. In that meeting, the explained that they did it not feel it was healthy for me to be playing an instrument that was competitive. They then asked him what the LEAST competitive instrument would be, that is, what instrument was NOBODY playing? That was the oboe.
I quit two weeks later.
So this is a shoutout to my parents, despite your best hopes into turning me into a pussy emasculated Asian fucktard male, it didn't work. Fuck you :) Seriously. You two are dead to me.
You really have to wonder about Asian people. If you believe in a strict interpretation of evolution, Asians selected for short stature and narrow eyes. This widespread malfunction in natural selection could only be indicative of an across the board scourge of mental retardation or a general philosophical breakdown in society.
I believe the above statement is sort of stupid. But it is hard to argue with when you look at how Asians, this very day, try their best to raise their children to be passive, pushover retards. It's just sad.
For those Asian parents that have joined the 21st century, thank you. Please, keep reproducing. We'll have to win this fight with numbers.
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