10 Days in China

As soon as we took the picture she shouted "Money!"

Money!

This is what the Chinese woman shouted at us after we took her picture. She was working in the rice paddies and she wanted us to pay her after we took her photograph. No one did, but this was only because she was too far away to get to us before we jumped into our buses and drove away. Her neighbors beat her to it though. Some of them followed us all the way there, others were waiting just for an opportunity to pose for unsuspecting tourists who would go camera crazy and then be badgered into compensating them Badgered is in fact is putting it mildly. A lady ripped the shirt off my shoulder until I paid her at the sight of some Chinese Yuan that I was lending someone.

Money is indeed the word that sums up my experience in China. It even threatens to overshadow the country’s impressive and immense history. Most of my colleagues, all of whom were undergrad business students were not aware of just how indebted the U.S. is to China and it is not surprising. The Chinese are the most aggressive and persistent business people I have ever met. Men and women, young and old to ancient, pound the pavement wheeling and dealing their knock off merchandise. “Never pay the price they tell you,” warns our tour guide, because shopping in China is a seemingly endless round of negotiations that are not for the faint of heart. A typical transaction can involve people following you out of the store when you leave, others pulling you into their store while constantly prodding and pushing new merchandise in your face, and if you resist them or insist on a price they don’t like, they will not be afraid to give you a firm but playful slap on the arm or even insult your manhood. Yes a colleague of mine was told after he refused to buy something, “you’re not a real man, you’re a lady!”

I asked an American business man what the Chinese work culture I like and he said, “My workers do what I say because I do their assessments.” No motivation required here, either do the work or go home!

Don’t let all this turn you off, China will blow your mind. Its like walking through the pages of National Geographic.  Our tour guide could not speak about the hundreds of students killed by the Chinese government in Tiananmen Square because the government forbids it, but the fury of the slain protestors was revealed in the immense heat from the sun beating down on the American tourists who finally came to appreciate the value of good air conditioner.

The Great Wall was indeed great among other things like gigantic and steep to the point where I had to walk on my tip toes, but with all that said China has taught me a very important lesson. Don’t underestimate the Chinese! The sweet Chinese lady in your local restaurant has a sister somewhere in China that is pounding the pavement, refusing to quit until she gets what she wants and until she and her children ultimately rule the world!

Barack’s win was lost on me until….

As an international student, I could not completely identify with the euphoria of SC State students when Barack Obama was announced the projected winner of the 2008 elections.

I was happy that Barack Obama won and I understood the historic significance theoretically, but I was used to black Presidents[In Trinidad and Tobago] so I did not jump out of my skin when I heard the news. In fact, election day was the first time I even heard the song “My President iz Black.” No I don’t live under a rock, I was just in University Village for a couple of days.

It was as if SC State won a collective lottery. Students mounted their cars in jubilation, and screamed at random persons in the street. As I was making my way back to to my room after working on The Collegian for the entire day, [13 hours, while everybody else had a holiday], someone said “the band is playing at Fine Arts.” I thought OK, one last stop to get more pictures.

As I stepped out of my friend’s car, I felt as if I entered a science fiction movie. Students were running towards the Fine Arts building, out of what seemed like nowhere, carrying clarinets, horns and other instruments. Dressed in pajamas and hoodies the look of anticipation on their faces was exciting, but eerie. I knew then and there, I would not get to my bed anytime soon.

As I followed the band along with what seemed to be the entire school, I marveled at the unplanned unison that Barack Obama created. Armed with a gigantic camera around my neck that I really did not know how to use, [I would later find out, that I did not turn on the flash, rendering all my pictures useless], I stood amazed and almost proud like a parent, of how students mobilized themselves, without direction from faculty or staff, and without fighting or any other stereotypical black youth behavior.

After almost being knocked over by a swinging drum a couple of times, [because positioned myself too close to the band to get flash-less pictures] I exited the crowd, [pictures or no pictures.] It was not until the following day when a student showed me a power point presentation he was working on, did the significance of this even really hit me.

I remained stoic as the slides rolled on showing images of civil rights demonstrations and fire hoses bulldozing human beings; images I’d seen in a dozen movies. This was until slide seven; a slide showin an image of a black man and woman hanging from a tree surrounded by white on-lookers, introduced with a power point bouncing effect.

I got it then. “My President is Black;” It means he has our back. Yes this election was largely about race, but justifiably so. Barack Obama symolizes hope. Hope that Katrina would never happen again. Hope that a black child could become what ever he or she dreams of. Hope that black issues would not take a back seat and more importantly hope that America can see that we are just as good as every other race.

Obama and Hilary Promote Satan’s Finest Accomplishment

Satan’s manifestation of his loathing of God and the human race is revealed in what is his finest accomplishment to date.

Satan hates us so much that not only does he devise a plan to kill millions of us but he has also found a way to convince even educated men and women that “reproductive freedom” or “a woman’s right to choose,” is a positive and rational action.

I think his cleverest marketing strategy to date is the use of the American public, even those who are God fearing, to support those Presidential candidates most of whom promote his plan of destruction.

For example, studies have shown that African Americans who are traditionally conservative still support Democrats.

Why?

In 2008 it’s worse because not only do they traditionally vote Democrat but now there is a black man running for office.

Hilary, Obama, all the other democratic and most of the republican candidates all support this atrocity. Whether they know it or not, they are all just a ploy to fulfill this satanic plan.

What they don’t realize is, yes you may get the votes but you have just done Satan a big favor.

Why do we have so many homicides in this country?

Well what goes around comes around. Maybe that’s it.

`

‘

Hulk Hogan and Wife Split!!!!!

Its getting Ugly.

Child support for a 17 yr old……riiight Linda!

Should Linda get alimony? What do you think?

Apparently Linda is not only demanding alimony but child support for their 17 year old son as well as their Florida Property.

Hulk is like, HELL NO!

If you’ve ever watched the show, there was that one episode where they went to therapy and I was like, there doing this for ratings. I guess not!

Reality Shows are Home wreckers. Another couple has fallen into the the reality show curse.

According to People Magazine, Hulk Hogan’s wife Linda filed for divorce after 24 years of marriage.

Watch out Ozzy!

Following in the footsteps of Nick and Jessica, Linda said enough in enough and filed for divorce without even alerting HER HUSBAND!!!!!

A freaking reporter had to tell Hulk Hogan about his own marriage falling apart!

According to the The St. Petersburg Times, Hogan was called by the reporter to confirm the news but it was the first time he had heard it.

A shocked Hogan was like “Thanks for the info.”

Hogan hung up, made another phone call (possibly to his wife) and then called back the reporter shocked.

After being married to the same guy for 24 years how do you just realize that you don’t want him.

Were you a fan of the newlyweds?

Whose side did you take when they split?

I was totally on Nick’s side

I can’t remember why, but it just seemed as if Jessica would be immature enough to end a marriage without working it through.

Kimora Lee’s split from Russell Simmons……now that I understand!

Yoga my a%@

That guy has anger issues! A guy gives him a lil heat at a subway restaurant and he throws the sandwich back in the guy’s face.

No that’s the person who should deal with Chavez!!!!!!

Anyway let’s not judge Linda Hogan.

Bet you wish you had that pre-nup now huh Hulk!!!!!

 

`

‘

Friends

Ok, we had a few drinks.

It got quickly out of control.

Broken blinds, spilt drinks, lost jewellry and damaged doors.

Casualties of war.

People come in your life and people go.

Insane laughter and a lifetime of memories.

we’ve all had those high school friends who we’ve NEVER seen again.

That appear only in your dreams, haunting you with the false hope of reknewed friendship

The say, “people come in your life for a purpose and when their purpose is complete, they leave.”

That doesn’t make it any easier when they do.

When we are old and gray, we won’t think about the Black Friday sales or the millions of shoes we bought, but our memories will stay with us.

Thanks for the memories.Happy Thanksgiving

FAT

How fat are you?

Not physically, I mean mentally.

How fat do you actually think you are?

I know you know some people who think they are the fattest persons in the world.

You might even be one of those people.

Those people who at your house ask you to use your bathroom scale, even if they are just a friend of a friend and you are meeting them for the first time.

Those people who use measuring tapes to keep track of the size of every part of their body.

Those people who don’t take a break from their diet, even on Thanksgiving.

Yes, these people do exist.

Don’t Judge. You may not do these exact things but if you mention your weight to a person more than twice per day then rest assured you’re one of them.

One of my best friends is totally obsessed.

She finds a way to link it to every conversation.

 

“Do you support the war in Iraq?”

“Of course not, I’m fat!”

 

But seriously, are we mentally fatter than we are physically?

If we become the “skinny,” that we think we want to be, do all our life problems suddenly disappear?

I think not.

 

I lost 61 lbs once, on a diet of vegetables, cheese and literally 4 crackers.

Felt great, too great.

I couldn’t depress myself into eating that crap anymore so I just gained weight.

Ironic right?

When I was fat, I was unhappy so I starved myself skinny.

When I was skinny I was too happy so I could not get to that place where I could even keep a decent diet.

You know something; I had a much better social life post 61 lbs too.

The little Fat demon in our heads, does he ever go away?

Or does he just start saying something else?

<?php echo ”

“; ?>

The Secret Life of Brown People

 A look at the secretly scandalous life of Indian Asians in North America. 

“Yo I’m so glad you’re here, I already arranged for us to go to a club tonight”

“Cool”

“It’s a brown club though”

“Brown club, what the hell is that?”

“Girl, I hang with a whole Indian crew and that’s what they call themselves”  

This is a conversation I had with a good friend in Georgia that goes to medical school with a lot of Canadian Indians.

 I was so intrigued by the gossip and drama in this group that I decided to interview one of her female friends.

 Dr. Punjabi  

What do you like about being Punjabi?

I guess I like the surface things like religion, culture, food and dress. Actually I would miss the Nepotism. Punjabi’s will help each other out with jobs or anything else just because you are Punjabi. Like my real estate agent for example, he has held my hand through the entire process of buying my house, I mean we are complete strangers, but just because I’m Punjabi, he picked me up from the airport, he went out of his way to ensure I understood everything and he’s actually a commercial real estate agent, but he’s helping me with this residential property just because by Dad is Punjabi. In Indian culture your family is not just the people in front of you it’s your whole community.  

What Social class would you say most Punjabi people fall into? 

It all depends on when you left India. If you are a new immigrant, a two parent household would make around $50,000 a year. I’m lucky because my parents have been here for 30 years. Old immigrants would make more than new immigrants. Keeping up with the Joneses is very important to brown people. Ok this is a Punjabi thing, no first generation kid likes it, cause its kind of ghetto, but a lot of brown people have multiple family homes.  New immigrants need to compete. If there is an underlying theme with Brown people its Nepotism and Pride. Anyway, so they still try to buy large homes and they move grandparents in to live with the family so that they can afford it. For example there is a family on my street in a four bedroom house. In this house the parents, the kids, the grandparents, the Dad’s brother and his wife and kids all live there just so that they can say they live in that neighborhood in that type of house. Its like you’re constantly being compared so you have to keep up. I mean they use the grandparents being old as an excuse to take them in, but the grandparents still have to pitch in to help pay the mortgage.

 Did you always want to be a doctor? 

 No, but if my mother asks Yes. Actually I always wanted to so something in health, and I actually got offered a job in research but my parents weren’t feeling it. Indians like to see their people doing better than other ethnicities; no actually its like, if you’re black and you see like the first black person being an astronaut or something, all black people cheer for him. Indians are like that, it’s a matter of representing. The older generations feel like the younger generation has to represent them. People like to say, my son is a doctor and my daughter is a dentist and you need to reply with something equally as prestigious.

   Do all brown people do as their parents tell them?

 A lot of first generation Indians are standing up to their parents. My cousin for example pretty much told his parents “screw your pride, I’m doing my own thing. ” As a result ,he’s the black sheep of the family now, and family in brown culture is not just your relatives. My reason for going to medical school is fear. Fear of letting my father and mother down. More so my Dad, letting my Dad down would be too hard. It’s a guilt based fear. My parents always try to nudge me in the right direction except that for Indians, a nudge is more like a shove. My mom always tells us the story of when they first came to Canada with just a $20. Bill in their hands and lived in a studio apartment. Guilt is big with Indians and you know what, I think I would raise my children the same way.

  What is your social life like? 

  My parents have been here for 30 years so they have kinda adopted a lot of the western values. I drink, go clubbing have cut hair and piercings. (I also noticed a tattoo)  A lot of people think piercings are an Indian thing but it actually depends on the generation, like in my grandmother’s generation, it was ok to pierce your nose for your wedding but it was very taboo in my mother’s generation the equivalent of getting a tattoo for some families.  My mother always wanted a nose ring even up to this day, but she is afraid even though my grandfather is dead for several years now.  It all depends too on when you migrated from India. We call the new immigrants FOBS (pronounced as Sobs with an F,) which is kinda bad that we call them that, but it means Fresh off the Boat, because they still hold on to the lot of the old values. Like last week the people I’m staying with invited me to a wedding, so I was like cool free drinks, I’m there. I get there and apparently a lot of FOBS were invited. I had one drink and people were staring at me, I mean hardcore. Even when my parents have dinner parties and I know FOBS are going to be there, I don’t drink cause they will be like “Hai, you let your daughter drink?” Its ok for boys though, my brother can do it and he’s younger than me can you believe that?  Cut hair is also a determining factor cause that is really apart of Sikhism my religion, Women are not really supposed to cut their hair and men wear long beards. Don’t quote me on the religious part of it though, but you will notice a lot of Sikhs especially FOBS with a long braid or men with beards.

    Are there any limitations on what you are allowed to wear? 

If your family is what we call Backwards, which is basically if you are a FOB (fresh off the boat) or you’ve been in this country for a significant time but your family is still very strict culturally.  Backward families don’t want their kids wearing anything above the knee not even to go swimming. They make their kids wear shorts and a T-Shirt at the beach. On the other hand My Mom is like, let’s go bikini shopping. A good example is when I was studying in Aruba and some one of the other students took a picture of my friend in a Tank top and it got on the internet and got back to her parents. Her parents were so mad like you would not believe and of course everyone is talking about it. I mean it’s a Caribbean country, its hot, of course you’re gonna wear a tank top.

 What about Relationships and Sex        

(She laughs first)

I’m not really attracted to Punjabi men. I don’t know, I guess I haven’t found the right one. I have a jaded view cause I think that a lot of them are so stereotypically Indian and they always have a flaw, like not being open minded. Like me having piercings and drinking is not what traditional Punjabi women should really do and they have a problem with it.  Sex before marriage is very divided. I would say 90% of brown people are dating in secret, more so girls than boys. In Punjabi culture, a woman’s  dignity is determined by her virginity, that isn’t to say that there isn’t sex going on, it happens but very very in the closet. Like you would see a girl whose dating a guy for 6 years and you ask if there having sex and they’ll be like No, but you know they are. Some girls are all like Yes Mommy, Yes Daddy in their turtle necks but you know there screwing everything that moves. That’s part of why I’m not really into Punjabi men cause they seem to always be sex deprived and then they end up being players.

 Will your parents get involved in who you marry? 

Ok. There’s a pyramid. My family set this criterion for me. At the top, there is a Jat/Sikh boy. Jet being the caste, (caste- social divisions into which Hindu society is traditionally divided) and Sikh is our religion. If I can’t find any of those, they’ll accept a Sikh boy even if he is not from the Jat caste. Third in the pyramid would be a Hindu or Sikh Punjabi, and last any Hindu boy. My parents know that I have not been dating any Indians so they would just be glad for me to get an Indian from anywhere. Definitely no Muslims or blacks though.

 What has your experience been like with Racism? 

I feel really comfortable in Atlanta because here, the minorities are the majority. When traveling in other parts of the US, well in addition to the stereotype that Indians smell, I usually get people judging me especially in stores. A lot of times when I enter a store  the store clerks kinda look at me like, Oh God what is she doing here, she can’t speak English and they try to avoid me, then as soon as I open my mouth and they hear my accent, their facial expression changes immediately because they think I’m an American. When they do things like that it just further alienates a community that already feels alienated.

 I’ve noticed that in a lot of Indian movies all of the stars are very light skinned, is there a cultural preference towards light skin? (Bear In mind this is a light skinned Punjabi girl) 

Humm, actually from a Punjabi point of view….. Yes. Actually the night before an Indian wedding, we call it the night of the Mendhi, and please do not judge, a corn flour paste that is rubbed on the girls’ body to make her more light skinned for the wedding night. Nobody actually comes out and says Light skin is better than dark skin but it seeps out. For example, I love to sun tan and when I was in Aruba my mother would be like don’t stay in the sun too long you will get dark and no man wants a dark wife.

 Closing thoughts.  

All Indians need therapy. (She says laughing) With all the guilt we have to put up with, every Indian person should just come with a therapist at birth to prepare them for the road ahead.

Tell me, how much involvement do you think one’s parents should have in a person’s life?

Think this post is interesting? If so Digg it!

 

Writing   Life   Random   Culture   Uncategorized   Family   Media   News  

Created by WordPress.com Tag Cloud Generator by //engtech

Hello world!- Freshman Retreat

Hi Guys

Do people born after 1985 really exist?

They do!

There out there.

And there beginning to get all up in my space! (not the website mysace, my actual space)

OOPS! I forgot, I’m in their space!

I’m a 27 year old freshman, but if anybody asks, I’m 23!

I started college in January 2007. Before that time, people under age 22 (for the least) did not really exist in my world.

So I had to go to a freshmen retreat this weekend. With all the freshmen…….. gasp!!!!!!

It was not as bad as it sounds.

Well, except for the SNAKE THAT CRAWLED INTO MY ROOM!!!!!!

Otherwise, it was fairly ok, I discovered that I could still squat, and on a log far less.

So we were doing this exercise where we stood on logs and pretended we were surrounded by larva.

A pretend helicopter was coming and we needed to sort ourselves with the youngest first

and the oldest last.  

So they were trying to find out who were the oldest, one person said lets start with

January 1989

 1989!!!!!! Who on earth is born in 1989???????? 

People I know are not born in 1989, or 1988 or 1987, my youngest friend post college is 22 and I make fun of him for it all the time.

So I just said listen, I’m the oldest.

One of the guys said “Are you sure, are you over 20?”

Yes.

I’m sure.

I’m very sure.

I desperately needed an outlet. I have way too much crap on my laptop that the school newspaper can’t handle.

Would be great to hear from some of you.

Hope you like this stuff.

 

Are the teenagers invading your space too? Tell me about it.

 

If you like this post, Digg it!!!

Writing   Life   Random   Culture   Uncategorized   Family   Media   News  

Created by WordPress.com Tag Cloud Generator by //engtech