The Granddaughter Asian Grandpas Wouldn’t Want.

It’s no secret that I am a little crazy. I am easily agitated over random things. One of those things is my grandpa’s insistence on putting clothes in the dryer after they’ve been hanging to air dry for two days. It just doesn’t make sense to me. He claims that air-drying for two days first saves money because the dryer isn’t running for the full hour.

I wasn’t really in the mood because I had a really strange dream about rejection and woke up confused and slightly angry. (What else is really new?) I decided to wash the bed sheets because I equated clean sheets with good dreams but when I came downstairs, I saw grandpa stacking the clothes washed two days ago one by one in to the dryer -- apparently laying them flat helps the already dry clothes dry faster -- and I just went crazy and started complaining about it. And it turned into a full-blown argument with both of us yelling at each other. OMG and it must be a generational thing or maybe he has been watching way too many TVB shows but grandpa threw down that he can’t “忍 受” (rěn shòu, to suffer) the complaining about the issue anymore. He knew that we all thought his clothes drying methods were insane and chose to ignore them because he was stubborn. Ugh and then we ended up yelling at each other about how we should do our own laundry (which is fine with me cuz I think he’s insane).

So there you have it, perhaps the ultimate example of not being filial. Confucius must be rolling over in his grave. Hearing Grandpa wax poetic about how he is suffering the indignity of being lectured by his granddaughter made me feel bad. It was like reliving that sad Sutaitai moment again: the day when I vowed never to make the elderly feel so exasperated and defeated. woops. Looking back, I should’ve left it all alone. Both Dad and Alex have also made comments about his laundry method, but neither has been as aggressive as mine probably because they don’t spend nearly as much time at home as I do. I am probably having cabin fever and took it out on them. Still I should have known better. Grandpa and Grandma live in our home and I shouldn’t be looking at them as if they were mere guests. :sigh: This is yet another reason to find a job ASAP so I can move out and never have to deal with the guilt for yelling at people for doing stupid insane things again!!

Hollywoodization

Has anyone else seen both versions of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs? Pilar and I have. The concept is so simple it's revolutionary - a story about two moles trying to rat out each other. The comedian Eddie Izzard hit the nail on the head in the case of the Hollywood remake of Infernal Affairs. Pilar and I went to see it with a bunch of Americans who hadn't seen the original (gritty, intense, emotional, dark... a lovely movie, highly recommended, if only for the eye candy. OMG Tony Leung Chiu Wai please marry me, I'll do your dirty dishes). Afterwards, Pilar and I could not stop bitching about how the Hong Kong version was soooooo much more awesome. Our other friends got jealous about how much fun we were having and told us we needed to stop, because The Departed was a good movie. Was it bad form of us to bitch, when it was TEH TRUTH?

Any other tainted movies to mention? I would really love to hear from someone who knows a movie that was better after Hollywoodization. No, really, I'm eager to be surpised. I shall eat crow, if I am.

Friendship Chemistry

This is the third blog that I've started in as many years, because although I LOVELOVELOVE checking in at my favorite blogsites every time I'm on the internet, and think that they're like, like, like COLUMNS but BETTER, I worry that the whole concept of having an online diary is a little too hubristic.

Self-consciousness aside, I had the thought that a rant may not be the most auspicious beginning to this, our blog, and wanted to introduce you all to my friend Pilar, by telling y'all how we met...

The short story is that we took Chinese class together in the second semester of our Sophomore year (natural alliteration! It doesn't happen often, it's like, penguins in your soup or something...) I'd bore you with the long story, but everyone knows there's such thing as friendship chemistry, so I'd like to say something about how my (non-sexual) crush on Pilar started out.

The true romance of our friendship began in Hong Kong, actually, when I fell asleep on an evening I was supposed to take her out partying in LanKwai, and she forgave me for it. It was unforgivable on my part because she was only in Hong Kong for about a week, and everyone knows that you have to squeeze every last minute of joy out of short trips, in order to placate yourself when you look at your bank account statement when you get home. That she let me sleep is true selflessness. She even gave me this purple scarf she bought during her other Chinese travels despite my callous succumbance to lethargy. Pilar is a SAINT I tell you!!!!! When I'm an wearing my Cardinal reds I'll be the first one to vote for her (they do vote, don't they?) canonization.

The rest is recent history. :) (actually, I shit myself when I use that phrase, because I don't really know what that means. What does "the rest is history" actually mean? Technically, everything that happened is history, but why does it feel right to point out that obvious absurdity / absurd obviousness right about now?)