first dayz

Day 1 of boundary setting between MH and i

- I cant pinch his rosy cheeks and ears. Control!!! I actually feel more calm

- I can’t shout and scream at MH — I am not abusive but I tend to talk loudly. I also feel more calm and controlled

- I feel like I am courting MH all over again. Its weird, old insecurities surface, in small degrees. MH says this is because I am trying not to take him for granted

- I felt like I was preparing to break up w MH, but really I think I am realizing how it feels to NOT take him for granted

- I was in the Trotskyism study group today w/o MH. I felt very lost. I dont think I realized how much I relied on him for these study groups. Very humbling for me:P I feel like I am so used to saying a thought and waiting for him to finish it. Its a habit I need to change

- I am feeling actually very motivated to have more independence.

想童年

每当家里出事，我总是会想童年的时候。

发现自己离乡背井已有十年了。在意大利的两年，在美国的八年。

但我仍然把童年的回忆怀在心中。这是我最亲切地怀念父母的方式。

享受一下

林清霞在《 东方不败》的演出。伴曲是《沧海一声笑》：

transitions i have a few

Time flies so quickly. When I started this blog two years ago, it was in a moment of huge transition. I was departing Providence, Detroit, Singapore — three cities that have shaped me immensely.

I couldnt always deal with the changes and transitions as smoothly as I wish I could.

I am not good with changes, even when I have heard as a kid from Papa, that to live, is to change. To live a fulfilling life is to change constantly.

Yet two years later, with many changes hurling my way, I duck for cover. Not able to withstand those mind boggling, gut wrenching changes.

This year 2009, my generation of peers, their families, deal with these turbulences too.

The three kinds of indigestible changes:

1) Papa thought he left his peasant life behind. He went from being the son of a rubber tapper in Ipoh, to a construction worker in Brunei,  waiter in Hong Kong, to tour guide in Ginza, Japan. He thought that the wealth of Ginza could support him his whole life. With Ma, they innovated and tried their hand at many different things that would carry them through the highs and lows of the 20th century. The Lilyanna Massage Parlor, the products, hand ground, self formulated, precious.

They thought they could leave behind poverty and a peasant’s scarcity. Today they are back in square one. Only a meager amount in their savings. Not enough. Ma going through dialysis. Screwed by effing medical establishment.

I dont know how to deal w that.

2) MH and my relationship had been a source of strength, support and we are going through a crisis. He feels undesired by me and I feel like our political relationship has monopolized everything in our lives. I dont know how to live in a more balanced way. I dont know how to show him I love him. I dont know how to draw boundaries between us. I see him as an extension of myself and so I shut out my filters, excessively. Will I lose him?

I dont really know what I should do. I need to learn to appreciate him and draw our boundaries. Can I have enough patience, self restraint to do that?

3) The custodian struggle. Many losses. No clear way ahead. Many of the workers face the same craziness that Ma and Pa are facing. Life is not easy. An entire generation is suffering. Pa said it well when he said the whole world is going through the same thing as him and Mama.

I dont know how to move on with a sharp mind and resolution. I feel fear.

4) Sh and Am are leaving. Yet another transition. I am bad with goodbyes. They hit me in a big way. I run through memories in my mind, for good and for bad and I can’t sleep cos I can’t let go of my feelings. I miss their presence. I will miss the sense of stability and support they have been able to offer me.

I dont know I needed it till I lose it.

Many changes, many transitions and no one said life was gonna be easy. I feel a lot of sadness. I feel a lot of anxiety. I need some clarity. I need some structure. I need my sense of direction back. I need to know what needs to get done so I can go do it. With strength and willpower, but then also vulnerability. I need to be soft to be able to love those around me. I need to be tender to show that I am strengthened by those around me. They need this side of me too.

some sad thoughts

This week has been so crazy, its unbelievable. I went on auto-pilot for 3 days, I felt.

I keep reminding myself, doing this work is like running a marathon. You gotta build up stamina. You got to keep your head in a steady mode, the pace gotta be firm, decisive, and forward.

Of course we need to reflect and re-evaluate mistakes but these reflections need to keep us moving, it needs to be made in the spirit of how to move forward, how to learn from it so we dont get tricked again. it should not be debilitating.

How many times does the working class need to be punched in its face before they come together to fight these shrewd, evil, money grubbing management?

It was a really sad week. These relationships that people have built over 10,20 years of working alongside one another; the courage and inspiration they gave to one another for standing up against the bosses together; the petty dramas and wedges that they have drawn up against one another, wedges that have grown stagnant but still alive; for good and for bad, they dont see or work with one another any more.

J with his slouched back and pink eyes declaring how management is trying to screw him over by making him clean an entire building on his own, alone.

N, with his bright eyes saying, we need to keep going, keep meeting, keep fighting.

R, with pain in her voice not understanding why LL and Z are hating on her so much.

These are the churning bowl of pain, sadness and preserverance that management has dished out. Aided by the union bureaucracy.

This is not new for working people. For immigrants who have fled war and poverty. Not saying this is desirable, or easy, but these workers have experienced many more difficult moments.

When is the breaking point? In Soo Chen, the Korean guy who immolated himself, did it out of desperation. The kind of desperation I saw last night. Will desperation or the fight arrive first? They are intimately intertwined, which is why labor struggles have such an urgency to them…

What to the immigrant workers is the 4th of July?

Thats for another day.

Today, I will rest, relax and clean the damn house!! Its time!!

To Age Well!!

Aight. I am 26 going on 27, very soon I will be 62 going on 63, and the like.

I would like to take a slow deep breath right now and reevaluate the unhealthy ways that I am living. Dont mistake me. I love my life and what I do, but then…I think the way I sustain myself through it is somewhat UNHEALTHY!! Will die early!! (thats what my dad constantly reminds me) I think I try to live the lifestyle I had at 20 y/o and no, its not working. I will be taxing my body to the bone if I do that!!

Here’s whats unhealthy:

1) Little sleep — though that has gotten better over the past 6 months cos I kept getting sick. But I feel like my reticular formation in the brain never forms!! Dont feel alert a lot of the time…just sleepyheadz

2) Smoking — I am in denial, I dont call myself a smoker, but ok lets face it. I like it and yearn it and puff it when I get the chance. And sometimes, the chances roll by way too often.

3) STRESS! Yes, heart rate acceleration, stomach juices churning, blood vessel dilation, brain stomping kind of STRESS! damn those gastric juices that are disintegrating my tummy wall right now. Gotta chill on this!!

4) Exercise — need I say more? The routine that is so near, yet so far.

5) My brain can’t stop thinking of strategizing, to-dos, etc — When I dont take definitive breaks, my brain just continues ticking away on whats going on, seeking clarity, blah blah, even when I am not SUPPOSED to be working. Damn. I can’t turn it off! Options: 1) ACCEPT IT and seek momentary, brief definitive pauses, or 2) CHANGE THE HECK OUT OF IT!

6) Snappy with MH when I am stressed and overworked:(

7) Keeping up relationships and news back home

Keeping up with the WORLD right here — i get too entrenched in the immediate things that needta get done

9) Eating too much meat. I think I am going to dream of dead chickens and their meat fibers dancing above them…Yikes. all that death and hormones!!! Seattle is getting to me!!!

Next post will be how to change it

My long to-do list takes me away:P

thoughts on a gendered past

yesterday, a brief conversation with W and S brought up memories of growing up back home. i didnt know it would be as emotional as it was, but lots of dredges of stuffed memories started surfacing in yucky blobs.

memory is sometimes just so black and white, even though the real lived experience was more greyer, much more ambiguous.

but in this stage of my life, the recollection of how rigid gender norms, body image etc were was painful.

I never found an identity for myself that fit. I would say, part of it is teenage angst. The other part of it is that there isnt any real, sustainable, mature identity carved out for women who dont wear size 2 dresses, and get married at age 22.

everyone else is an ugly spinster or loser.

for the longest time i lacked self confident, self esteem, because so much was based on body image and leaving home was the best thing i could have done for myself then.

anyways, more to say but gotta get back to work now….

i am a workaholic

How do I know that?

Because I get a panic attack before I go on break.

MH and I are going for a 24-hour getaway to a nice lil island nearby — near the ocean, woods and the good stuff.

and i am freaking out about what I need to get done, or havent done, or have been procrastinating on!!

ah!!

poverty is a state-induced pathology

its been a while since i have been hojin. havent been practicing the values that earned me this buddhist name.

yet still needing this space to channel my feelings as i deal w this world, and interact w the youth i work with towards whom this world has been harsh, cruel.

not about to write a diatribe about how poor people are sick, undeserving or shit like that. its more like poverty is a form of mental illness that is caused by the state, by capitalism. class doesnt take only the form of material deprivation. it manifests itself also in personal, destructive ways, warping beauty, destroying much that is beautiful, leaving us with debris to recreate beauty.

today with A, D, Ro, i felt just sadness. their words so powerful on paper; their awareness of how they have been shortchanged by their parents; their bitterness of what they have been deprived of; their knowledge that things didnt have to be so bad.

i dont know their parents and i dont feel the need to defend them from accusations. i know tho that these same parents are also products of imperialism, white supremacy, war.

all 3 are children of immigrants. all 3 have had their country messed w by the US.

Korean war.

war against immigrants

Ethioipian war against Eritrea

fleeing parents who cannot translate into their childrens’ new languages

dear dear A

I need to write as we start this new year. I already feel anxiety post holidays!

I had such a wonderful break and relaxed so much, hung out w friends whom I really missed, and needed to be with, even if only briefly. But now, I feel thrown into this busy lifestyle. I fluctuate between resting and being completely relaxed, and then being completely stressed out and mentally occupied. I dont know that I know a happy  medium w these things.

I think that is my main New Years resolution. To be able to keep my head clear. To be able to work hard, and yet have fun AT THE TIME SAME; to love Matt well, ove my family well, and take care of my friends around me. Its important for me to know that I have freinds outside of Seattle, outside of the drama relationships w Khalil and the perceived uncaringness of the group members…I need to remember I have freinds whom I care for and vice versa. I really need that to sustain myself.

I also want to rec0nnect w my brother. Slowly but surely.

There is so much stuff happening in the Middle East right now. Its tragic the kinds of attacks going on in Gaza. I need to make time and have a firmer grasp on whats going on. We are thrown into moments like that and I am reminded again and again how much the US empire wrecks lives. In Singapore you dont see it…or at least its hidden. But in other parts of the world the pain is so obvious and outrageous.

take care of my heart body soul.

jm

chasing, chasing, chasing

feel like i am running behind Life trying to catch up

the dredges of everyday living accumulating threatening to clog up outlets

expressions of who i am.

need draino to clear out the schmuck

but also need to get a little more of a headstart w this slimy unfolding of Life

dont get me wrong, its all good. i know its for a reason, i know there are deep lessons entrenched in these folds waiting for release

i want it need it desire these revelations

just asking for more assuredness that i will survive this shebang, that this isnt just a mindless unfolding that captures me too much by surprises

capture me in your unpredictable expressions, just leave me some room for

preparedness.

readiness.

soberity.

and with wide alert eyes, i will receive you as you come.