Saturday, January 6, 2001 !!
Reading:
Korean history books, still. (The 20th century is the saddest
part.)
Watching: My Korean pop videos from Angelpop.com.
Last two search engine queries to my site: "Sin girls" and
"medea sin" (what the hell??).
I've gone internacionale': La
Cote - Douarnenez (scroll down to Dec. 7). Oui
Oui! (Oui
was always one of my favorite magazines growing up.)
THE LURE OF THE J-GIRL
STEVE : "Dude, he said there’s going to be Japanese girls there."
Steve (brother-in-law) and Kevin (cousin-in-law) were trying to convince me to go to a Korean holiday party.
ME : "Yeah, right. How does [name of Korean F.O.B. cousin] know any Japanese girls? And if they did know him, there's no way they'd be going to his party."
[note : F.O.B. = Fresh Off the Boat]
AMY : "He's not that bad."
ME : "He scares me. He's a freak."
KEVIN : "Yeah, he is pretty strange Amy."
ME : "You know it’s just going to be a big Korean sausage fest. The only girls there will be Amy and her sister."
AMY : "Fine with me. Let's go."
STEVE : "Okay, Scott, now you’re the ITALIAN guy. If there are any F.O.B. girls there, then your name will be … KEANU!"
KEVIN : "Dude, you have to come now! Haha!! Think of US!"
Poor Korean Costanza Kevin has been single since ... forever. Maybe because of schemes like this.
AMY : "Come on, baby. It will be fun. <sarcasm> Think of all the hot girls you’ll get to see. </sarcasm>"
Fine, I’m Keanu, the "Italian" guy. Also known in Korean restaurants as, "Give-The-Fork-To-That Guy."
[And of course, Keanu isn't really Italian. He's half-Chinese and half-Hawaiian. And maybe half gay.]
CELEBRITY SEX-MATCH
It wasn’t quite a sausage fest. But certainly not enough girls to play a heterosexually-comfortable game of Twister either. No Japanese girls either, but one Japanese guy who was dating a Korean girl there. (Confusing, I know, interracial politics and such. I’ll get a map.)
Everyone was just sitting on sofas, or by the stereo. We took over the empty kitchen table and the fridge. We clearly had the advantage in food supply if not terrain.
A Britney Spears song was in the background. My brother-in-law Steve, a.k.a. Broken Fist, got bored and started asking questions.
STEVE : "So, Scott, if you could choose between Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, who would it be?"
ME : "Huh? (looking at Amy) Am I married?"STEVE : "No, single, of course."
ME : "Aguilera."
She clearly wasn’t the popular one at this table. Too petite they were saying. My logic was that both of them were white-trash pop skank hoes, but at least Christina Aguilera was honest about it.
The celebrity matchups got harder and harder.
Aguilera vs. Sarah Michelle Gellar (SMG is more interesting but I would still go with Aguilera since she wears skankier costumes / hair).
Weezie from the Jeffersons vs. the mom from Good Times.
Mr. Miyagi vs. Egg Fu Yung from Big Trouble in Little China.
For Amy, it was always "Dean Cain vs …"
AMY : "DEAN CAIN!!!"
(Hmmm... Does my baby have a half-Asian fetish? :-)
LITTLE TROUBLE IN BIG KITCHEN
The Japanese guy walked through the kitchen with his Korean girl, which prompted Amy’s brother Charlie to reminisce about the good old days.
CHARLIE : "You know, back in college, we would have beaten that guy up for going out with her."
ME : "Really? Why?"
CHARLIE : "Because he’s not Korean. Things are different now man, haha."
KEVIN (in mock bully voice) : "Yeah, back in the day, we used to beat people up for BEING DIFFERENT!!"
Kevin could never beat anyone up. He was probably the guy who always got beat up during recess. He alternates between silly and sardonic but he’s also the most fair-minded.
I committed a faux pas then, but one that I had been wondering since I had first met Amy’s family.
ME (smiling) : "So, why didn’t you beat ME up when I started dating Amy?"
CHARLIE : (confused pause) … Hey, have you got the new Playstation2 yet?!"
KEVIN : "He’s changing the subject, omigod. Haha!"
I asked it without malice. I left a perfect opening to save face. He could have said, "Because you are Korean" or "We liked you" or even, "Because Amy and my mom liked you so much." But he didn’t.
My faux pas was reminding them that I am not wholly Korean, that half of me was "the white man." Even if I hardly feel like that most times.
His lack of response made me wonder if maybe they let me "through" because I was a soon-to-be doctor and half-Korean, so that would bring some "honor" to their family. Certainly I could take care of Amy, the goal of most traditional Korean parents' mindsets. Maybe I was too big … I was clearly more muscular back then. Maybe they didn’t beat anyone up at all … just macho bragging.
RULE OUT ANNOYING
There was a medstudent there (who actually turned out to be a medical resident in Detroit). I could tell because the first thing I overhead him say was,
"You know, if you have a fever and a headache, you should go to the ER to RULE OUT meningitis."
ME : (*rolls eyes*)
Medical students and newer residents often talk like that. When you get to be a senior or attending, you learn to talk NORMALLY again.
I like students and residents, but not if they are going to be talking shop (flaunting feathers) at a social gathering.
RAGIN' AMY
The rest of the night went by. No Japanese girls dancing like the F.O.B. cousin said there would be.
Eventually I had to drag Amy home. She was slightly inebriated and therefore a bit more comicly outspoken, as she went on about :
1) How the cancer protocols had only three check boxes for race on them : BLACK, WHITE, and ASIAN. Apparently, there is no OTHER, especially if you are half or mixed. Is the census bureau THAT much more intelligent than the cancer research department?
2) How Amy’s coworkers assumed she was adopted because she spoke English so well and her name was the same as mine, coincidentally. (Hello! Ring finger!!)
3) One well-traveled doctor, whom she never met before, had the nerve to talk to her in Korean. Newsflash: A whole lot of Korean-Americans don’t even speak Korean … they are Americans (not F.O.B.’s) after all.
Ignorance abounds even at the "top-most" levels, I guess. My F.A.T. (Femininja Assault Team) ass-kicking list gets longer every day. Nu Seoul won’t be built in a day.
So I drove my drunken mistress home. Tucked her in. Got sexually rebuffed. (Ancient Proverb : Don’t wake a sleeping tiger. Modern Translation : If Amy is tired, then she is not horny.)
WINTER FASHION in MICHIGAN
I just don't get why the store clerks start laughing when they see me now.
(My mom's Christmas present to me.)
Take me to your igloo.
"The Northern girls
With the way they kiss
They keep their boy friends warm at night"-- words of wisdom by Beach Boys
(but I just remember David Lee Roth's video).
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