The Loneliest iPad In The World

Let me tell you the tale of the loneliest iPad in the world. As most things do in our household it starts with my wife, the uber tiger mom. She has been adamant that our children not be corrupted by the evil influences of electronic gaming devices. She still curses the day Steve Jobs invented these blasted things.

However it is impossible to hold back a tidal wave on your own. All our children's friends own iPads. All her friends own iPads. Our elementary school is going to start integrating iPads into the curriculum. She could see that she was fighting a losing battle. The final straw was when I upgraded to an iPhone 5 and AT&T offered $100 off any iPad as part of a Black Friday sale. That discount finally got her to consent to getting one. But she did make one cardinal rule that I had to abide by before we could buy it: NO GAMES. No exceptions. Also the iPad will technically be her Christmas present, not the children's. This way she had final say over who used it and what apps can be downloaded. I said sure. Whatever. I was finally getting an iPad!

Fast forward to Christmas morning. The children had already ripped through all the presents until there was only one unopened box left, my wife's. When she finally pulled the wraps off the iPad the kids went wild. They quickly forgot their other presents and wanted to play with the forbidden fruit. As they dived eagerly into the iPad, they were soon met with disappointment. No games. No Angry Bird. No Temple Run. Nothing. Nada. My wife directed them to some Internet based educational programs that they had already been using on the home computer. They quickly lost interest and went back to their new Legos.

My wife also had an ulterior motive to buy an iPad besides making our children learn Internet multiplication tables on the go. She was hoping to use it to watch her Chinese and Korean soap operas without beging stuck in front of the computer. However she discovered that most of these Asian websites use Flash to stream videos. She found out that iPads don't run Flash. Now her only reason for using an iPad no longer exists.

So here we are, a week after Christmas. While iPads are being adored and loved by millions around the globe, ours sits forlornly in the closet. The children have not asked for it despite tiger mom's best efforts to use it as an incentive for behaving properly. She doesn't want it because she can't watch her soaps with it. I have no need for it because I'm not supposed to download the really interesting apps that I want. I already have an Android tablet for my tablet needs. That is how our iPad became the loneliest one in the whole world.

Empathy As A Parent After Sandy Hook

It's been over 24 hours since the horrible, unspeakable murders of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. The fact that 20 of the victims were innocent first graders has left me and the entire nation in mourning and at a loss. Even now I can't help but well up with emotion with every newspaper article I read and every picture of the children that is presented.

It wasn't always this way. When the Columbine High School rampage happened in 1999, I was still single. I had no children. I felt no connection to the murder victims. Yes it was tragic but I did not feel any empathy or emotions about the incident. It was as if the news was talking about the latest bombings in the Middle East. Sorry it happened but life goes on.

The Aurora, CO movie theater shootings this past summer I wrote off as another one of America's all too frequent mass shootings. (It's terrible to write something like "all too frequent mass shootings".) I didn't get too emotional with that one either. What were all those people doing out at midnight watching a movie? Decent hard working folks don't go out at midnight to watch movies. They especially shouldn't have taken small children to the theater for a movie with multiple scenes of gory killings because they can't find a babysitter at that hour of night. Just a bunch of movie fanatics with poor judgement.

But the Sandy Hook massacre is something else altogether. I feel like I can put myself in those poor parents' shoes. Though I can't fully comprehend the trauma they are going through, and hopefully never will, I still weep with them. Perhaps it's because I have two children in the same age category as the victims, elementary school children who still believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

Ironically one of our kindergarten teachers earlier this year got into trouble for trying to explain to the children this exact scenerio in class. The kids were having a combined earthquake and disaster drill one morning. When one of the kids in my son's class asked the teacher what kind of disaster they are preparing for, the teacher told him they practice the drill in case some gunman walks into the school and starts shooting people.

Some of the students started crying. They told their parents what happened in class. Several of them had nightmares that night. The parents were in an uproar the next day. They cornered the principal and demanded an apology. The principal had to discipline the teacher and write a letter to all the parents to explain why the teacher had gone overboard with the drills.

Now it all seems so sadly prophetic.

"Wreck-It Ralph" Is A Tiger Mom's Worst Nightmare

I just saw the new movie "Wreck-It Ralph" with my two kids. I have to say that we all loved the movie. My son liked the action. My daughter loved the neon-tinted Sugar Rush scenes. I appreciated the nostalgia of the early video game characters brought back to life by the movie.

Afterwards, while I was thinking of all the cultural humor embedded in the film, I realized that my kids will probably never have the same understanding of American humor as I or most children do. Sure they were both born in the U.S. but that doesn't mean they LIVE in the U.S. You see, my wife is doing her hardest to make sure they don't grow up like American children.

She is horrified by how American kids are raised. She absolutely abhors the way children here play video games and watch TV seemingly for hours at a time. She keeps our children busy to make sure they don't have any opportunity to stray from her sure path to success. Kumon is forced upon them every day. If they're not sitting at the kitchen table doing that, they are practicing their piano or playing ping pong. Though we have a Playstation 3 in the house, the children don't even know it exists. They have never been allowed to play a single minute of it for fear their brains might become addled by Sonic the Hedgehog. When I play, I have to do it at night after they have gone to bed. That was the condition I had to agree to before she would allow the machine in the house.

The other main portion of "Wreck-It Ralph" involves scenes that take place in a video game filled with sugary desserts. My daughter loved all the scenes filled with gum drops, doughnuts, candy canes and ice cream. There is one reference to Oreo cookies that got the whole audience laughing. But again, this is all forbidden fruit. As I've mentioned before, my wife HATES American desserts. The children can have as much salty, vinegary food as they want but anything sweet is strictly limited. She blames them for the high rates of obesity and diabetes in Americans. She's partly right. But I feel anything in moderation is okay whereas for this tiger mom sugar is equivalent to poison.

So it saddens me that my kids are so isolated from American culture. Their mother wants them to achieve success in the U.S. but at the same time she wants to shield them from life in the U.S. Granted she's not doing this out of malice. She is reading directly out of the Chinese playbook for becoming a prosperous adult: a single-minded focus on hard work and intense study with little time for slothful pursuits like video games and snacking on unhealthy foods. Though our kids may succeed with this regiment, I think they will have lost some of the pleasures of life in doing so.

Why Are So Many Asian Americans Democrats?

While perusing through my sample California election ballot I couldn't help but notice that every Asian American who is running for office is a Democrat. Maybe it's because I'm living in a state where virtually every elected office is held by a Democrat. The AA's just happen to know who is on the winning side here and declare themselves a liberal to get elected. Is that too cynical? Or are left winged liberals really the political philosphy amongst AA's?

I would think that most Asian Americans would belong on the conservative Republican party. After all, most Asians hold pretty conservative, family oriented, business friendly views of society. We still believe in a nuclear family. Illegitimate births are still frowned upon. We hold strong views about crime. If we had our way, Singapore would be the model the U.S. should emulate when it comes to punishing criminals.

AA's have the highest income of any racial group in America. Many of us are entrepreneurial, owning small businesses. We want less business regulations that will impede our ability to make a good income. And don't even get me started on Asians and their attitudes towards taxes. To state it simply, the less taxes the better. In Asia, avoiding paying taxes is elevated to an art. My father's entire retirement and estate plans revolve around giving as little money to the government as possible.

Yet many AA's identify themselves as Democrats. Perhaps we have become too successful and comfortable in America that now we can focus on societal issues. Yes we are all for a cleaner environment, especially true for Asians who come from the grossly polluted cities in China. Many of us also believe in the right to have an abortion as that is considered a mainstay of birth control over there and people don't have any moral qualms about it. We don't understand why Americans have to have so many guns. Seems like having fewer guns around would make for a more peaceful society.

Is it a generational divide? The younger Asians have been raised so comfortably by their hard working parents that they now have time to indulge in comfortable issues like global warming. Many haven't had to scramble desperately for their next dollar like the past generations have had to do. And since most of the older AA's don't or can't vote while their children and grandchildren do, this will skew the politics of AA's towards liberalism.

Too bad the two party political system in the U.S. forces people to choose the lesser of two evils. I think most Asian Americans are really libertarians. But since people won't vote for a candidate that's unlikely to win, the young AA's vote with their hearts while the older AA's watch in benign amusement at the naivete of their offsprings.

I Hate Chinese Drivers.

Sometimes the stereotypes are true--Chinese people are the worst drivers. As a Chinese-American I've seen many near accidents and rude behavior committed by Chinese drivers through the streets of Southern California, particularly the San Gabriel Valley. It is not uncommon for you to be waiting for a car to pull out of a parking spot while you have your turn signal on to indicate that slot is yours when at the last second a Chinese driver pulls into it. All the horn honking and dirty glares won't do anything. I've seen fistblows right there in the parking lot because of such incidents.

Then there was the time I saw a fire engine, with sirens blazing, come up to a four way intersection. The truck was facing a red light and was slowly inching its way through the intersection. A Chinese driver, facing the green light, decided he had the right of way and drove through, cutting off the fire truck. You should have seen the nasty stares the firemen gave him. But he was on the other side and on his merry way.

Then over Labor Day Weekend, I nearly got into a physical fight with a Chinese driver. We were driving out of the underground parking garage at the 99 Ranch Market in Alhambra. Just as we were almost out, the car in front of me suddenly stops. He gestures for me to back up. I was thinking, did he change his mind and want to go back down into the garage? I motioned for him to go forward as he needed to go out and come back in through the entrance ramp. He honks his horn at me. I honked back.

The Chinese man then gets out of his car and starts yelling at me in Chinese through my car window. I yelled back at him in English. He starts pointing at his car. I'm thinking maybe he was having car trouble. I point to all the cars behind me and that I can't back up. More yelling and pointing continue. Finally he sees the futility of the situation then proceeds down the line and tells everybody to back up, which is not easy since the ramp is curving and very narrow with high walls on both sides.

When we had all backed up a few feet, he gets back into his car. He rolls down the ramp a couple of feet then suddenly, starts his car. He then takes off out of the garage. I was dumbstruck. What the hell was that all about? I thought he was having car problems. I thought he wanted to get back into the garage. Without even an acknowledgement of gratitude, he drives off leaving a line of drivers fuming in the garage. I hate Chinese drivers.

Wondering About White People--Hirsutism

Continuing my random train of thoughts about caucasian folks. I wonder what it's like to be so hairy. White people are probably more hirsute than anybody else on earth. Many black and hispanic populations aren't nearly as hairy as whites. In fact, many are nearly as hairless as Asians. When I say hairless, I don't mean lack of axillary or groin hair which everybody has once they develop puberty. I'm talking about the thick mat of hair white people have on their chests, back, arms, and legs, but who surprisingly also seem to bald quite early and often.

Take a look at this picture of my forearm. No, I didn't shave or wax it. It's au naturel, with not a visible hair on the skin. If you look really closely, like with a magnifying glass, you can see very fine and short strands of hair there but nothing like the thick hair you see on many white people.

What is it like to be living in a house full of hairy people? Are there strands of people hair all over the house like pet hair on the furniture of owners of cats and dogs? My shower drain clogs up pretty easily with hair from my head if I don't put a filter over it. Do white people's drains clog that much faster from all the hair that falls off their bodies when they bathe?

And what is it like to shave your body? I can understand shaving facial hair as I've done that for decades. But to shave your chest and back? Or worse to wax them like the "40 Year Old Virgin"? How do you reach all the different curves and crevices of the body to shave all that surface area. Don't the blades wear down pretty quickly doing that? Since white people seem to grow their facial hair faster than most Asians (I only need to shave my face once every two days while many white people I know have to shave twice a day) doesn't it get tedious to do this all the time? Seems like a pretty laborious task to me.

Isn't it funny how white people spend money to get rid of the hair on their torsos then spend even more money to plant hair on the top of their heads? Why can't they be happy with the hair distribution that God gave them? I don't see too many Asians getting hair transplants. I don't think Asians are nearly that vain. Balding is just a natural part of aging and we understand that and don't try to hide that fact. Except my father who decided to do a combover once he started going bald. That is something no men should ever do. Go proud and go bald. At least we don't ever have to waste money getting a painful wax job on our chests.

Wondering About White People--Visual Fields

I was reading with some bemusement, and annoyance, a recent post in 8Asians. It highlighted what I suppose is a common question among white folks--do Asians have poor peripheral vision, or more specifically vertical peripheral vision. With our smaller eyes, we must not be able to see as much up and down as people with round eyes, right? One ignoramous even had the audacity to ask if Asians see in widescreen, you know, with letterbox blackouts at the top and bottom of our vision.

While I can irrefutably answer that, no, Asians don't see in widescreen, I have to admit I've always wondered about what white people see out of their eyes. With their deep inset eye sockets and prominent supraorbital ridge, do they ever feel like they are peeking out from under a hat all the time? It's a wonder so many white men wear baseball caps since they seem to have a natural sun shade over their eyes everywhere they go. By contrast when I'm out in the sun, I have to squint pretty badly, accentuating my "small" eyes since the sun has easy access to my optic nerves.

The large brow also seems to helpful during exercise or while taking a shower. While my sweat just naturally rolls down my forehead directly onto my eyelids, white people's perspiration seem to dangle off their brows then drip off without ever contacting and irritating their corneas. It's like having a large roof eaves that keep rain from splashing on windows.

Then what about that huge schnoz at the center of the face. I can barely see my own nose without a mirror if I do an extreme cross eye. Then I just barely catch a glimpse of the tip. But what do white people see? With their eyes set way back and a huge protruberence between them, does the nose ever get in the way of their sight? I mean, when driving a car and you pass by another car, does the car disappear from view behind the nose?

Finally, we have all seen sports players rub blackout on their cheeks. I assume that is to reduce glare from the sun as it reflects off their cheekbones and into their eyes. Since most Asians eyes are almost perfectly even with their cheeks, that has never been a problem for me. Of course that also led to relentless taunts of "flatface" in high school. But that is besides the point.

So while white people may have questions about Asians' eyes, we too have many questions about how caucasians can possibly see well out of those deeply embedded eyeballs. I personally would rather have my eyes front and center without anything obstructing their function.