a special report dug up by an ex-cupertino area closet friend (not to be confused with ex-closet friend):

"monta vista high school's parent-teacher association, recently dissuaded a family with a young child from moving to cupertino because there are so few young white kids left in the public schools. 'this may not sound good,' she confides, 'but their child may be the only caucasian kid in the class.'

...some asians believe that the resulting lack of diversity creates an atmosphere that is too sheltering for their children, leaving then unprepared for life in a country that is only 4 percent asian overall. moreover, many asians share some of their white counterpart's concerns. both groups finger newer asian immigrants for the schools' intense competitiveness.

...'it does help to have a lower asian population,' says homestead pta president mary anne norling. 'i don't think our parents are as uptight as if my kids went to monta vista.'"

so sowwy. i used to try to explain to my white friend why there's this seemingly intangible bond between asian american kids. at the time, i broke it down to similar parental attitudes about child-rearing. a few assumptions i could make when talking to a fellow asian american kid. one, their parents were strict and highly concerned about the state of their education. two, they had parents/grandparents who spoke poor english. three, they brought weird lunches to school. four, they were not cool and were in fact dorky and nerdy. five, they were shy at a young age. six, they played an instrument.

these handful of assumptions about fellow asians were enough to establish a familial bond with any dark haired brethren i might meet. of course, as my world widened, i started to encounter asian kids who didn't have strict parents, whose parents actually spoke perfect english, kids who played and starred in school sports (besides badminton or ping pong), kids who sucked as much in math as i did. i met kids who, god forbid, didn't ever take piano or violin lessons. i must confess, these types of asians confused me. the japanese americans especially. because japanese americans have typically resided in the united states longer than the other asian ethnicities, one could call a japanese friend's house and be greeted with perfect english on the other line. it was most confusing.

my perfectly constructed asian world was falling apart.

then i went to college and met asians who didn't speak their native tongue. like at all. "wait, you think you know how to write your chinese name? what?!" i met asians who didn't grow up around other asians. they grew up fitting in perfectly with their non-asian friends and then went to college and magically got asian-fied. it was a very exciting time for them i'm sure; to be able to loiter in front of restaurants and stand around on random street corners with people who looked just like them. how thrilling those moments must have been.

i started to realize that yes, asians didn't just come in one stereotype. there were many of us, and some of us had childhoods that were not reflective of the typical immigrant experience. there were asian households that focused on well rounded social lives and not just grades? it sounds ridiculous but it's true. i don't think i had any asian friends in middle or high school who were allowed to stay out past five pm on a week day, there was always homework and kumon to do afterall.

all of this ethnic revelation did quite a number on what i had previously thought bonded asians americans together. if it wasn't about parents or the piano, what was it that made us asian? i came to food as my next final answer. food was what made us asian. being able to eat foods that everyone could identify at a glance without curious eyebrow raises was what bonded asians together.

this theory was put to the test as i wandered confusingly through the world of kimchee, lumpia, and pho. surely this was what set me apart as chinese. i never had kimchee, lumpia, or pho before college. just like i had no (close) korean, filipino, or vietnamese friends. this theory meshed perfectly with the world i knew, since i knew nothing about persian, indian, or even white people foods. meatloaf? casserole? what's that? i had no persian, indian, or non-jewish regular white people friends in high school either. the food theory was a success.

but it bothered me that what makes us asian (or any ethnicity) is apparently just food. i mean, i don't want to be defined by dim sum, i hate dim sum. plus this theory also opened the door for other people to "buy into asian-ness" by simply ingesting our culture. food was too simple of an answer and totally unacceptable to me as the reason for asians being asian.

so, stripping away language, food, childhood experiences and everything else mentioned above, what makes an asian american an asian? the answer? nothing really. just our slanty eyes and black hair. so it is all skin deep. depressing isn't it?

and really, how to explain that i'm more comfortable meeting an asian person as opposed to a non-asian? am i subconsciously inclined to be comfortable because maybe we will have foods, language, english-challenged parents in common? i doubt it right? if i walk into a white bar that serves chinese food and everyone there had strict parents, wore thick glasses, played the piano, would that make me comfortable? or just scared? and why am i automaticaly more comfortable walking into an asian club where i probably have nothing in common with anyone, except the fact that we're asian? maybe it's just because i hang out with mostly asians so that when i meet other asians, that sets up a comfort zone? this way, it has nothing to do with ethnic math at all, it's more about what you're used to. yes, i'll go with this one: "asians, we're used to each other."

thanks. when asked if most people would prefer to experience a beautiful "moment" alone or with someone, usually they reply "with someone." the experience of seeing a breathtaking landscape or partaking in a once-in-a-lifetime trip is supposedly more powerful if it can be shared. some people value the bond that this creates between two people, some people value being able to poach another person's pictures. sometimes when friends go off to distant lands or have great weekends and try to relay the amount of fun they had to me, i kind of don't get it. i mean, i understand why they had a good time, i understand that universal feeling. but when i see the pictures and listen to the stories to get an approximation of what they experienced, i've found that it's just not possible.

and so when i have an extraordinary moment or experience i'm forced to try to share, i just kind of throw out a platitude or two to placate the masses. "it was pretty good, no, actually great." i realize that you really can't convey even ten percent of what makes your weekend great, or your trip to fiji amazing. these moments really can't be shared with anyone but yourself, or maybe the people you went with. so what you get is this build up of amazing moments that nobody knows about, that you can't explain, and then you're left feeling like nobody knows what you just did.

the solution to this problem is either to (a) get better at describing moments or (b) bring everyone along with you everywhere. i infinitely prefer option (b) simply because option (a) seems like a lot of work and even with work, i'm unconvinced that you can do moments justice by simply showing a few pictures or regaling people with some highlights.

looking at pictures and sharing stories of something great you just experienced is like trying to describe great scenes from a movie when the other person's never seen the movie. it's just frustrating. i say just give up until they've seen the movie.

real men wear tight britches and possess tongues of silver. having just watched "pride & prejudice," the thing i'm most amazed by is the sheer articulateness and eloquence of the period. sure it took half an hour to get used to the english accents and the big words used on-screen, but after i figured out what was being said, i loved it. those british really had a way with words back then. for example, which phrase is more likely to earn your lady love's forgiveness?

(a) "i've been an unmitigated and comprehensive ass."
(b) "i'm, like, really sorry i slept with your best friend. i know, i'm a dick."

not even a contest. i'll take "unmitigated and comprehensive" for effectiveness and depth of feeling. there's no doubt that our language has degraded over time and -- despite it being initially jarring -- to hear english spoken so well is enough to make anybody swoon. i think i'd rather learn to speak well than to do gravity defying back flips or shoot guns out of moving cars. is that so wrong?

imagine if you were suddenly able to completely express yourself, to use words that actually meant something -- words that carried weight and had precise definitions. how in awe would the people around you be? how easily could you convey exactly what you were thinking or feeling? sure, informal speech peppered with disyllabic words is much easier on the brain (and the tongue) but sometimes it would be nice to say something that didn't involve "like" or "um." "do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?"

i was on the phone yesterday for a business type conversation and one of the first things i said was "awesome." i'm pretty sure that's a word not often heard in business related talks. i guess i should just be thankful that i didn't follow up with a "cool" or a "dope" after my initial gaffe.

what i would give for a nineteenth century english vocabulary and the impressive wit that apparently accompanies such knowledge. keep it real, i love jane austen. you should love her too.

non-tourage. i think sometimes, often, about what a sudden rise to fame will do to a relationship. and not a romantic one, just a relationship/friendship in general. watching j.k. rowling's latest movie adaptation tonight, it dawned on me that she is probably the most powerful woman on the planet now. sorry to have to qualify that with a gender difference there. anyway, mrs rowling (she is married right?) has two more books in a series that will pretty much be the best selling books ever. i can't even imagine what could top the harry potter's books financially. anyway, the point here is that up until a few years ago, mrs rowling was probably just writing her little books on the side, with her husband and children doing their own thing. suddenly, potter gets huge, j.k. gets rich, and her words are like gospel to millions of people around the world.

how's that make her husband feel? his little suggestions and encouragements to her wizard stories are suddenly totally pointless right? i mean, j.k. came up with all of this stuff on her own before, and it was obviously hugely successful, so now what role might the husband play in her creative endeavors? none probably. do you think he still has any real say on what the family does now? highly doubtful. the whole dynamic between them is changed because of her success right?

this is all made up of course, i have no idea if mrs rowling is indeed married or with children. but say you have a group of friends. you have the dumb one, the hot one, the funny one, the whatever one. suddenly one of them gets famous and that person becomes the focal point of your group -- at least to the outside world. that person is automatically given alpha male status right? lebron james isn't playing second banana to anyone in his friend circle, he's definitely the alpha male. bad example maybe, since lebron's most likely always been the alpha male in his group.

but what happens when suddenly one member of your friend circle is "the one?" maybe nothing, maybe it'll change everything. but how do you know till this happens? i can't wait till someone i know gets super famous to see where this all goes. will i get jealous? will i get annoyed with all of the attention he/she receives? will they suddenly be too good for me? will i be able to finagle my way onto their coattails? will i get a cushy job as a handler and personal assistant? one can only dream. someone get hugely famous and successful, quick.

"and finally, every woman wants to have a beauty to unveil. not to conjure, but to unveil. most women feel the pressure to be beautiful from very young, but that is not what i speak of. there is also a deep desire to simply and truly be the beauty, and be delighted in. most little girls will remember playing dress up... ...she'll put her pretty dress on, come into the living room and twirl. what she longs for is to capture her daddy's delight. 'do you see me?' asks the heart of every girl. 'and are you captivated by what you see?'"
-wild at heart: discovering the secret of a man's soul-

doing it and doing it and doing it well. i found out recently, as in yesterday, that a friend of mine/ours just got married in vegas. eloped! i finally know someone who eloped. all along i've maintained that eloping is really the best possible option for two people who want to get married. it's quick, it's virtually painless, and it's so sudden that you can't regret anything. the point of marriage is to be together and sometimes having to wait and plan a wedding can get in the way of that. eloping is really the answer to marital bliss. not that traditional weddings can't lead to marital bliss, but you know what i mean.

of course, this might not have been a technical eloping, since both sets (i think) of parents knew what was going to happen, and if anything, they agreed to it since a real post-marriage ceremony will be conducted in taiwan at a later date. but still. suddenly one week your friend is engaged, and then two weeks later she's already married. how do you say "you go girl" without sounding gay? it's virtually impossible.

now that the precedent has been set, i expect many friends and close acquaintances to run off and get married in vegas. the things i want to know now are exactly how quick and painless is this insta-marriage process? and in the event of a change of heart, how many days/hours do you have to annul?

i also need to know which chapel my friend used? i mean, what is the thought process behind choosing a vegas wedding chapel? do you go for the cheapest one (how much is it anyway)? the nicest one? the one with the shortest line? the one that's closest to your hotel? what? these are the types of things i need to know.

"the equal opportunity dating policy was implemented this year as new year's resolution #1. my friends always accuse me of not giving guys enough of a chance, so this was my response to it. i will go on one date with any guy who asks me out. because if someone screws up the courage to actually put themselves on the line, the least i owe them is an hour of my time. and i get dinner. if the first date doesn't go well, then i feel perfectly justified in turning them down, conscience-free. however, if the results of the first date are inconclusive, then i may agree to a second date. in case the guy was nervous the first time around. the only thing that will lead to a third date is if the second date has a positive outcome. i think this is pretty fair."
-eidolon ink, 11.09.05-

the butter on your breakfast toast. apparently a soft rock band from the seventies channeled my entire relationship philosophy within four minutes and a few verses. amazing. i was driving around listening to the official old people's radio station and this song comes on and i happen to catch the line "it don't matter to me, if you take up with someone who's better than me..."

i was like, "hey, this doesn't sound like a normal love song! this sounds great!" so i kept listening and suddenly i was ready to elevate this song to number two on the list of relationship songs i can believe in -- right under alanis' "not the doctor." of course the song eventually devolves into an "i'll be waiting for you forever" aesthetic but i guess the band had to sell records right? so after a look-through of the lyrics, i've decided i really only like this one verse. do non-happy ending love songs not move units or something? oh well, i guess my career as a singer songwriter is over.

it don't matter to me
if you take up with
someone who's better than me
'cause your happiness is all i want
for you to find
peace ... your peace of mind
-bread, it don't matter to me-

hobbies: eating, sleeping, breathing, shopping. i'm currently reading this wonderful book about, of all things, shopping. it breaks down and provides a history of how we became shoppers while at the same time revealing how consumers have been trained to buy their way to status. the book "explores the minds of shoppers in the quest to nourish and feed fantasies, to define individuality, to provide for family, and to satisfy the needs for celebration, power, and choice -- all of which leads us to malls, boutiques, websites, and superstores."

"is our shopping an exercise in freedom and self-definition, a consequence off the expansion of powers and insecurities of the individual that began during the renaissance? or is shopping a kind of compulsive behavior that helps compensate for the fact that our lives are meaningless and unsatisfying? do we fill up our homes with stuff because we are empty within?"

sounds intriguing no? i feel like if you like to shop (and who doesn't), you might as well read all you can about it so that the next time you walk into the mall, you can analyze what's really going on, aside from burning a hole in your wallet. the act of money exchanging hands over an item you'll only wear once has never possessed so much intellectual cachet.

thomas hine's other works read like a laundry list of must-read books: "the rise and fall of the american teenager," "the total package: the secret history and hidden meanings of boxes, bottles, cans and other persuasive containers," among many others. i love this guy already. how does one apply to be a cultural historian? this must be the greatest job ever.

"advertising helps create insecurity by convincing its targets that there is something missing from their lives that only the product being offered can satisfy. but, to a considerable degree, we choose the insecurities to which we care to respond. and we create insecurities of our own that induce us to buy things because we crave change, progress, excitement, and a feeling of accomplishment."
-i want that! how we all became shoppers-

we, the chinese delegation select the GZA, the RZA, and the ghostface killa...the wu tang clan! flipping through the cable guide a few weeks ago, i came across a channel marked "AZN." i passed over it thinking it was just an unfortunate acronym, after all, would there actually be an asian channel that was monikered AZN? that's like a bad joke. however, much to my chagrin, the AZN channel touts itself as "the network for asian america."

heavens (and ancestors), a television channel dedicated to asian americans? one that doesn't involve terrible accents and subtitles? well actually, subtitles and terrible accents are in abundance on the AZN channel. but you know what i mean. the AZN channel is no international channel at least.

then i did some research. in fact, the i-channel has cunningly rebranded itself into the AZN channel -- first generation asian parents and grandparents must have collapsed as their favorite channel suddenly morphed into a mtv knock-off. this shift in branding and philosophy must explain why this peculiar channel appears on my cable subscription package. i mean, there's no way i willingly agreed to have asian americans lurking on my tv at all times right?

looking at it one way, the fact that there's now a channel dedicated to asian americans is kind of a coup and a step forward for APAs everywhere. finally, we have landed on planet america and have legitimized our coolness with a television channel that will soon rival BET for trend setting and late night viewing. on the other hand, everyone knows that the word "AZN" brings up the worst sort of connotations about asian americans. azns are into import cars, not smiling, repping fake gangster cred, and alternating capped letters when they type. self-respecting asians squirm at the sight of the letters a-z-n.

but so be it. we have an azn channel, let's see what we can do with it -- and how many people will watch. my initial forays into the land of the azn were unsuccessful. nothing captured my attention. then today i caught a documentary about the vietnamese-american experience, a show about tracing family trees, and the clincher: a show about yao ming in the nba. i was hooked. i found myself thinking that maybe with a little bit of work, the AZN channel could really be something. maybe i could volunteer, maybe i could make films, maybe i could host a show or something. i mean, i'm asian right?

then i saw the ads pushing uncensored anime as a selling point to watching the AZN channel. we're using our one mass media outlet to push animated porn? what? maybe the yellow peril-L isn't quite ready for the big time. i somehow don't think that the target audience of non-asians watching the AZN channel should be repressed men of all ages, sizes, and ethnicities. for god's sake, at least show real life seductive oriental women, that seems to work for hollywood.

then again, how else would i get to watch documentaries about the asian immigrant experience except on the AZN channel? now that ang lee has totally forsaken us by making a gay cowboy movie (not to mention a crappy comic book movie), don't we need to sow some other azn oats? i've decided to tentatively become a fan of the AZN channel in the hopes that the programming will get richer, and that one day, "AZN" will no longer be a derogatory term. i'll be sure to skip the anime programming though.

i'm saying,
let's give them
the melting pot
america's always talked about,
and watch hair get darker,
eyes get smaller,
and everyone fuck
that much better.
-beau sia, the asians are coming-

there's never a wish better than this, when you only got one hundred years to live. let's say by the grace of god or some minor miracle of technology, i were to survive until i were a hundred. people at that point would ask me things about the 21st century, because really, all we ask of our old people is to remember what their youths were like. when people live to to be a hundred, rarely do we ask them about their opinion on events of the day -- since we seem biased towards our youthful version of the present -- we inevitably ask old people to reminisce and to tell us about "way back when."

assuming that i was still somewhat lucid and capable of intelligible speech as a centenarian, people would ask me things like "so what was y2k like? was not being able to teleport hard? how was watching 2D movies? was monogamy boring? did you celebrate when the red sox won their last title? what was living through 9/11 like? did people really wear denim on denim? was earth pretty? did milkshakes really bring the boys to the yard?"

and what would my answer to these questions be? in my old age, desperate for attention and conversation, would i go with the truth? would i offer boring accounts of "well, i spent the turn of the new century in front of my tv in jersey city, alone and doing nothing." or would i make up some dramatic story about how i had hunkered down with my friends, family, randomly assorted refugees, water, spam, and sardines, waiting for the world to end? would i tell eager ears about the potential disaster that was the y2k bug? would i regale them with stories about those crazy automobiles and airplanes and how much noise they made? would i pretend that red sox baseball was important to me, just because it was a moment in history? simply put, would i make up shit about my twenties and thirties just so that people would keep listening?

old timers have it rough man. may i never live to one hundred.