Eastern Vs. Western Ideas Of Sexy

My wife loves her soap operas. No, not the kind you see in the afternoons on network TV. She loves her Asian soap operas, particularly the ones made in South Korea. She raves about their story lines, the wonderful acting, and particularly their beautiful actors. She'll frequently ask me to come over and ask for my opinion about an actor on the show. Did I agree with her that he's the best looking guy ever? Almost always, my answer is no.

For you see, her idea of beauty frequently is different from mine. Having grown up here in the U.S., I guess my interpretation of a sexy man runs more toward Western standards. We've all been brainwashed by American media to idolize men who are tall, beefy, and hairy chested. I think that's why I had such an inferiority complex in high school. My brother and I once discussed what we thought the optimal height should be for a man. He thought a man should stand 6' 2".  I considered 6' 3" to be the perfect height, since, you know, 6' 4" would be too tall. Needless to say, neither of us ever came close to that. Neither did we ever achieve a thatch of chest hair, or even a wisp.

I still had my preconceptions about masculinity even after marrying my beautiful wife. I asked her once if she wouldn't prefer to sleep with somebody who has lots of body hair. Her surprising answer to me was, "Ew". She couldn't understand the attractiveness of a hirsute body. She said it would be like sleeping with an animal. Her definition of a sexy man is somebody who is boyish and androgynous, lithe, with cute hair. In other words, somebody who would be thought of as gay among Western men. That is precisely what I told her, that all her idealized men look homosexual. She thought I was ridiculous.

It really is amazing how the media sears into our brains what the definition of beauty is. My wife, who grew up in China, only knew of the Chinese men she saw on Chinese TV. The infrequent times she saw a Hollywood movie only reinforced the differences, though not because Hollywood actors were more beautiful. Instead she only noticed their hairy bodies, their big noses, and their sweaty skin. Instead she adored the boyish charms of the Asian boy bands and flirtations of her favorite TV stars. By contrast I grew up with what is perceived to be Western beauty, as conceived by white screenwriters, white directors, and white actors. So I was conditioned to accept that as the consummate male sexuality.

Now as my daughter starts getting older and becoming more aware of others' physicality, I'm torn about how I should approach this. Should I inundate her with Asian videos and have her play with mostly Asian friends so that she will recognize her own Eastern beauty? Or should I let her assimilate with her Western friends and hope for the best that she doesn't look down on Asian boys? It is so hard to grow up in the U.S. as a minority.

My Wife Hates Steve Jobs

My wife hates Steve Jobs. It's true. She hates him with a passion. She thinks the creator of the iconic Macintosh and iPad computers is evil reincarnate. Why, you ask? The reason she harbors such hatred toward the man is because he undermines everything she tries to accomplish as a tiger mom.

You see, our kids are obsessed with my iPhone. They ask to play with it every chance they can. I would love for them to have as much fun with it as I do but when she is around, it stays safely in my pocket. Her idea of free time is to play puzzle games or practice the piano. Playing table tennis is as much recreation as they are allowed. And that is because we are paying for very expensive weekly ping pong lessons and she still has dreams of them making the U.S. Olympics team in 2020.

Apple products is the antithesis of this lifestyle. The computers are made specifically to be so easy to operate that even children can play with them with minimal instructions. But of course every minute they are playing "Temple Run" or "Sonic" is a minute taken from piano practice or Kumon. And that is not allowed to happen, ever. If she could flush my iPhone down the toilet she would. I think that is one reason why she still clings so loyally to her Blackberry. It is nearly impossible to play games or watch videos on her phone. Yet it's easy for her to text her friends. So that makes it her perfect phone.

But Steve (RIP) and his family shouldn't take it personally. She hates the person who invented the internet even more. So I guess Al Gore will never make it onto her friends list.

Mercedes Benz, Declasse. Mass Class Has Reduced My Ardor For The Three Pointed Star

I used to love Mercedes Benz cars. I've never owned one but have always aspired to. I remember as a kid looking through my older brother's Car and Driver magazines where they tested seminal Mercedes classics like the 6.9 or the 560SEL, like the one J.R. Ewing used to drive. I thought someday, I'll be cruising around in one of those babies instead of chugging along, blocking the slow lane, like my dad's VW Bus.

Now that I have successfully finished decades of education and training, I can finally say, yes, it is now my time. I can realistically consider getting one of those three pointed starred cars in my very own garage. I have finally made it. But have I? I look around Southern California, and that is all I see--Mercedes hood ornaments and trunk emblems on every block I drive.

M-B has decided that it wanted to rake in more money by going mass class. While owning a Mercedes used to imprint on the owner an image of wealth and exclusivity, it is now priced so low that almost anyone can have one. Driving through the San Gabriel Valley, and in fact most of Southern California, a Mercedes is as common as a boba milk tea. It's on every block, in every parking lot, parked on almost every driveway on every god-forsaken side street. It just doesn't exude affluence anymore.

It's the same feeling my wife has with Louis Vuitton bags. In its attempt to generate more revenue, LV has also become declasse. Virtually anyone can, and do, have one. I've seen many teenagers carry one, as well as nursing assistants, 7-11 clerks, and just about anybody who thinks it makes them look elegant and chic. Unfotunately this ubiquity has really turned off my wife. She now carries Coach bags. If you're going to carry a mass class bag, why not get one for hundreds less than the wannabes who buy LV?

As a matter of fact, if one truly wants to stand out here in SoCal, the best way to gain attention is to drive an American car. Owning one imparts on the owner that he is an individual, not one of the lemmings. Driving an Oldsmobile Cutlass or a Chevy Malibu here is more fashionable than the BMW 3-Series. While shopping for cars, I've seriously looked at exotic cars (for SoCal) like the Ford Taurus or the Buick LaCrosse. Why spend thousands of dollars for an expensive European brand when you will see another one driving past you every day while you're still paying off your sixty month car loan?

Maybe my dad was pretty smart after all. The VW Bus is probably the most coveted, hippy chic, car that one can own today. I should have bought it from him when I had the chance. Now they have something that Mercedes Benz can't touch, a pop culture image that no billion dollar advertising campaign can duplicate. That is the definition of exclusive.

Learning English With A Five Year Old. Life Imitates Art

Reading bedtimes stories is one of my favorite activities as a Dad. It's amazing to watch him learn new words at such a rapid pace. Seems like just yesterday he was still trying to remember his ABC's. Now he can read many of the Dr. Seuss books that he received from his older sister.

While he has mastered many monosyllabic words, he is facing some frustrations with the intricacies of English language. As anybody who has tried to learn English knows, our language is not the easiest one to comprehend, with all sorts of rules of pronunciation that defy all manners of logic. Like the classic "I Love Lucy" clip above, these illogical practices can drive one to tears.

For instance, while reading one of his books tonight, he came across several words that look like they should be pronounced the same, but are in fact, quite different. The words were "here", "there", and "where." All end in "ere" yet each one is supposed to be said in a distinct way. It got to the point where he hesistated before speaking such seemingly innocent looking words. I won't even go into how the word "ere" itself is supposed to be spoken lest it causes the reader to descend to madness.

Another one where he got stumped was "know" and "now." With one change in letter, the two words are suddenly pronounced entiredly unalike. How is this possible? How can one language not have consistent rules for its words? It's probably due to the melting pot nature of American society that we have so many ways of speaking similar words. Every new immigrant brought with him his native language which eventually got incorporated into our language. Unfortunately this also included the pronunciations of the native language as well. So now we have a polyglot of ways to say similar words.

My son can sympathize with Ricky Ricardo's angst. Ricky notes that Spanish is very easy to learn, with the same rules applying to all words. Unfortunately for American English learners, we don't have the luxury of such a pure uncontaminated language. Ours has been stirred through the melting pot of our wider culture. It is now a test of endurance and brain power to correctly decipher our English. This is a great way to make sure only smart people can migrate to the U.S. and become productive citizens.

Sugar And Spice And Everything Nice, Unless You're Chinese

Chinese Style Cake

Today is my son's birthday. Naturally there will be a party, red envelopes, and a big ole birthday cake. Good times is expected by all. Except the planning and preparation can get a little dicey. You see, my wife is very old school. She prefers the Chinese style cakes that are sold in the local Chinese bakeries. I, on the other hand, much prefer Western style birthday cakes with thick gooey layers of buttercream frosting and cake so moist they cling to your lips and cheeks when you bite into them.

I definitely don't understand the appeal of Chinese cakes. To me they are really unappetizing. The cakes are extremely dry and tasteless. The frosting is just as plain. They taste like whipped cream that somebody forgot to add the sugar. The only flavor in a typical Chinese style cake is derived from the fruit that typically serves as a topping. For my wife, even that is too sweet and she typically scrapes off the frosting and only eat the fruit and the cake. For me and the children, the frosting is just about the only thing we'll eat. We usually leave the cake behind.

She on the other hand find Western birthday cakes sweet to the point of gag-inducing. She can't understand how anybody can eat that much sugar in a single bite. Having been in the U.S. much longer than her, and having come over when I was much younger, when my taste preferences were still developing, I got used to Western cakes, the kinds you find in supermarkets and Costco. My kids are the same way. They would rather have Western style desserts like cakes, cookies, and ice cream than typical Chinese desserts like red bean soup and hot tapioca soup.

For awhile, these arguments over what type of cake to buy for a birthday party got quite heated. I usually let her get what she wants because it was usually she who was in charge of the party. But after awhile, should could see that most of the cake was wasted. The children usually took one bite of the cake and discarded the rest. So that got her realizing that it was just a waste of money to buy Chinese cakes for American children, no matter how much she adored them. Now she will buy a cake from Costco, but only the smallest one she can find. Because it is still horrible for children to eat that much sugar.

Filipino Nurses. Not American Enough To Represent The Face Of Our Hospital

Filipino nurses have been in the news recently, and not in a good way, thanks to the remarks of Washington, D.C. former mayor and current Council member Marion Barry. The convicted cocaine abuser remarked, "In fact, it's so bad, that if you go to the hospital now, you find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines. And no offense, but let's grow our own teachers, let's grow our own nurses -- and so that we don't have to be scrounging around in our community clinics and other kinds of places -- having to hire people from somewhere else."

We can all agree that it was a very ignorant and racist thing for an elected official to say. Even the other members of the City Council and fellow Democrats have called on Barry to apologize. But is his overt racism any worse than the racism that was recently displayed at our hospital?

Like many hospitals in this country, many, if not most, of our nurses are of Filipino nationality. They are hard working, friendly, and competent nurses. Many have worked here for decades. Recently, the hospital decided to do some promotional advertising and needed a picture of a nurse that worked on our unit. Despite the dozens of Filipino nurses on the ward that day, they got the only white male nurse to do the modeling work. Hmmm.

We all like this nurse. He is a good hardworking nurse that everybody likes to work with. Unfortunately he has only been on our unit for little over a month. Yet they chose him over many nurses that have been working here for years to represent the hospital. This got many of the nurses silently seething with rage and indignation. I also have to mention that the new nursing manager in this ward is also a tall, skinny, extremely pale-faced blonde. It did not take long for people to connect the dots.

So even in 21st century America, workplace discrimination continues. They may not be in a form as overt as Marion Barry, but make no mistake. For some people not matter how many years we have lived in this country, we will never be considered "American". We will always represent the foreigner, the hyphenated American who can never be a true American.

Secret To Getting Into Stanford Is...Ping Pong?

My daughter is just finishing up second grade. But that doesn't mean it's too early to start thinking about which private university she should go to after high school graduation. My wife is all too aware of how difficult it can be for Asian Americans to get into the elite colleges. We've all read the horror stories of Asian kids with nearly perfect SAT scores, high school GPA of 5.0, and president of their chess club and are still denied admission to Harvard or Stanford. Therefore now is the perfect time to start preparing our child to get into college.

The success of Jeremy Lin has changed my wife's thinking about the potential of athletics in advancing our child's academic career. Before Linsanity, sports was considered a black or white man's game, a back door way for somebody to get into an Ivy League without having to put of Ivy League academic numbers. Now she sees that sports can be a differential. My daughter can stand out from all the other Asian nerds trying to get into the same schools by excelling at a sport.

She considered many sports possibilities. Baseball? Too boring. Basketball? Too short. Soccer? Too slow. Then she settled on her personal love--table tennis. My daughter will excel at ping pong, making her stand out from all the other boring Asian geeks. When she presented her idea to me, I was skeptical. "Uh, I don't think the NCAA even recognizes ping pong as an official collegiate sport. I think you have to choose a sport that colleges care enough about to compete with other colleges and provide national exposure for their campus."

Pish posh, was my wife's reply, or something like that but in Chinese. To prove her point, she drove us to a table tennis academy in the San Gabriel Valley that specializes in training youth ping pong. She started talking to some of the parents there. My wife is not into subtlety. She pointedly asked another parent if they think their child's incredible table tennis skills will get him into a good college. Of course, was the reply. Who wouldn't want to recruit my child when he starts competing for the national team to represent America in the Olympics in 2020? After all, table tennis is an official Olympic event.

My wife looked at me with a wide grin. That settled it. Our seven year old daughter will start rigorous ping pong training to get her ready for admission into Stanford. In a few years, when she is ready for the national trials for female table tennis players, she will be ranked number one and Stanford can't possibly refuse her. This is a foolproof plan. Once she's in then she can drop all ideations about having a sports career and start concentrating on getting into medical school.