My people

As I have been spending more and more time in prayer these days, I have learned more and more about myself – my desires, my screwed upness, my vision.

I have learned that one of the very very very very biggest stumbling blocks in my life…the biggest…is the fact that I do not know how to love my own people.  I mean Chinese people.

In fact, I despise Chinese people.  As long as I don’t look in the mirror.

It is very screwed up.

I think I need to quit my job at the Ballroom.  It doesn’t help when all the stereotypes I have of the Chinese folks continuously get reinforced at every one of my shifts there.  Glad I quit Starbucks at least.

In fact, I think I need to get out of Richmond, period.  I think I have pretty much made my mind up about leaving this artificial place by September 2009.

I don’t know what else to call it.  I mean, where else do you get a little city where people immigrate into for retirement only?  All the kids have no fathers to model after because their fathers don’t even father?

There’s so much more I’d like to say, but I have always promised to never post anything that is UN-edifying (if that is a word).

On Moobs

Serving alongside academics at church, especially one who is a grad student in Geography, I’ve gotten to learn a lot more about my own upbringing. I realize that while I had always considered myself a Hong Konger, I simply cannot ignore the fact that I am also an immigrant who spent most of my growing up years here in Vancouver, BC.

There’s this inner struggle I have in figuring out who I am exactly.

And so, just to better illustrate this whole idea, I am going to talk about my moobs, otherwise referred to as man-boobs.

You see, there are days when I would put on one of my favourite shirts, only to have the day ruined because I noticed that my moobs were totally sticking out like a hungry fox in a pen of innocent sheeps. During those days, I would vow to myself that I will do everything within my power to lose them moobs.  Afterall, as even Jason Bateman said on either Jay Leno or Conan, who would want bigger boobs than their wife?

‘I will work hard even if it means committing social suicide’, I would convince myself inside my head.

All this above is a very crisp example of the Chinese in me.

Now, on another day under the exact same circumstances, the same thing could happen to me but I would react to it in polar opposites. I might look into the mirror, see my moobs, and then just go ‘that’s a guy thing, I should be proud of who I am, and these moobs define me’.

‘Why should I work hard to lose them? I am not living my life to impress other people!’, I would also tell myself.

There, my friend, is the Western side of me coming out of the closet.

And so, how do I resolve this, you might ask.

It’s quite simple: the same way I would answer back to fat apologists (there seems to be more and more of them in the world nowadays).

Fat apologists being folks who claim that being fat is simply being who they are; they would claim that as long as they are healthy they are okay; they would further ask rhetorical questions like ‘is it really such a good thing to be skinny like that girl who was on that TV show with Paris Hilton (Nicole Ricci?) and become anorexic and become drug addicts?’

Blah blah blah.

And to this, my Chinese side would come out and would always win. It would simply ask me and my Western side a very simple question: what is easier, being fat or being skinny?

To simply say the moobs are part of who I am so I can just sit in my armchair and enjoy life is to say that we don’t need to make compromises in life, that we don’t need to love others as that would require sacrifices and putting yourself at risk of facing suffering. Very easy. And has there ever been good things given to people who take the easy way out of life historically? Not that I know of.

As the apostle Paul tells us in the book of Romans, hardwork, such as working out to lose your moobs, requires suffering. And suffering produces character. And character is what really defines us.

So get with the program.

Keep fit & have fun.

Make compromises. Suffer. That’s life.

Note: with all this said and done, I still have my moobs. Sigh.