Special Day!

Well, considering that I'm in Seattle right now, technically I'm writing this on October 4, 2007, as opposed to what my blog says. Today is a special day!!! But I'm not telling... =)

Spanish Inquisition

I just got off the phone with my parents. I haven't spoken to them in almost three weeks. But it wasn't entirely my fault, you see, because I didn't know they took a couple weeks off to do some vacationing. And of course, despite the fact that I have had my current email address since 1999, my dad always seem to send me emails to my MSN account, which is used only for chatting online with my parents, while the email feature is blocked. Never mind the fact that I have told him for the better part of the last three years to get his address book updated. Aarrgghh!

So anyway, it was quite inevitable that the subject of a steady girl came up. While I was on the phone with my dad, he didn't want to rile up my mom so he broached the subject by asking, "Do you have a friend yet?" (Note, the underlined part was in English, whereas the rest of his question was in Mandarin.) I replied to his question with a question, "What do you mean by friend; I have lots of friends," knowing full well what he meant. Then my dad complained about how he couldn't hear me.

The next thing I know, my mom was talking. The first words out of her mouth? "You know, 30 is a good age to get married." What the... "How come you don't have a girlfriend yet?"

Great, here comes the Chinese Inquisition. Again. Maybe I should have waited another week before deciding to give them a buzz.

As I failed to make them understand that I had to work weekends on this project, I simply started thinking about that Spice Girls song. I think it's called either Be My Lover or Wannabe. Whatever the title is, I began mouthing the words: "So tell me what you want, what you really really want." And before I could restrain myself, I found myself asking her, "So what do you really want? A wife or a baby?"

Of course, in her excitement, she revealed that she wanted a grand kid. But instead of telling her that Szu and her husband have been trying this year, I simply responded, "Well, in that case, I can make it happen without a wife. All I need is to give up something to protect me (as I didn't know the Mandarin word for protection as a noun), and you will have a baby in nine months or so. But you have to be willing to put up with some random girl whose beauty may be questionable to you."

My mom obviously got embarrassed, and laughed it off. All of a sudden, instead of wanting a grand kid, she decided that she wanted me to have a proper wife.

Sigh... Any takers out there? This will purely be a matter of practicality just so I can get my parents off of my back. I'll even pay you! I'll even be willing to lie to my parents that I shoot blanks! Please, someone put me out of my misery.

Zigazig ha!

Aliens!

Alternative Title: Why I'm glad I don't have a womb!

Please don't ask me why, but I woke up this morning and decided to watch some YouTube to kill some time. Then I came across some aliens...





This mother is getting her ass kicked; and she's in pain! Yuck! I think the baby is trying to say, "Don't f**k with me!"

And Eva turned one!

The Asian Inquisition

I looked at the call log on my cellular phone right after we hung up: 54 minutes.

Damn! I spoke with my parents for almost an hour. And what did we talk about? A whole lot of nothing! I barely conversed with my Dad about anything significant. My Mom, on the other hand, is a different story. Of course both my parents got really excited when I sent them Shutterfly links to the New Year's Eve party and Aarthi's Birthday Party pictures. The critiques came flooding over the satellite link between Chicago and Shanghai:
"Who is the girl in picture number so and so? She's cute!"
"Oh my goodness. The girl in picture number so and so is this and that!"
"Which girls are your friends?"
"Is that you dancing in the middle of those two girls? Heavens! Your behavior in America!"
"Are you dating any of the girls in the pictures?"

And so it goes. But the best part of the 54 minute conversation was our brief discussion leading up to my sending the Shutterfly links for their review. Below is an excerpt, roughly translated because my Mandarin vocabulary is worth shit and they have to dumb things down for me to understand:

Mom: What did you do for the new year?
John: I went to a party in a hotel with some friends.
Mom: You went out of town?
John: No, just here in Chicago.
Mom: What did you do?
John: I had a good time with friends. We played a lot. (I meant partied, but I don't know what the Mandarin word for party as a verb is.)
Mom: You always play around with a lot of girls, looking at pictures of you from the past.
John: Most of my friends are girls.
Mom: Listen to me.
John: Yes?
Mom: Szu (my sister) tells me you play around a lot.
John: What? What do you mean?
Mom: You play with girls around a lot. (I realized now that she meant flirt.) And that is not good for you to catch a girl.
John: I don't think that is the problem with why I don't have a girlfriend.
Mom: I'm telling you. You need to find a suitable girl for marriage.
John: (to self) God, here we go again!
Mom: When you play (flirt) around, you scare girls off. They will think you're a playboy.
John: (to self) God, this is embarrassing. (to Mom) Well, I'm just having a good time. I don't flirt with girls when I'm with (dating) a girl.
Mom: How can you find a girl to go out with when you scare them away while playing (flirting) with other girls?
John: (to self) Was that an oxymoron? (to Mom) I think playing (flirting) is a way to catch a girl.
Mom: So why don't you have a girlfriend yet?
John: Because I haven't found the right girl that I like a lot.
Mom: You're too picky!
John: It's not because I'm picky. Sure, there are some things I don't like about a girl sometimes. And poor personality is no exchange (substitute) for good looks. Besides, some girls I like tend to break up with me.
Dad: I didn't hear everything you said.
John: Uh, hi, Dad!
Dad: How old do you want to be when you get married?
John: (to self) What the hell? The Asian Inquisition tonight? (to Dad) Happy new year!
Dad: Happy new year. You're almost 29. Why don't you have a girlfriend?
John: Because I don't know.
Dad: Don't wait too long.
John: Well, I cannot just make (force) a girlfriend to happen.
Mom: We can find you a perfect wife in Shanghai.
John: (to self) This phone switching is starting to get old. (to Mom) I don't want you to find me a wife.
Mom: Well, then you need to find a girlfriend.
John: But...
Mom: And you need to stop playing (flirting) around.

Seeing that this was a losing battle, I decided a quick distraction was in order: "Do you want to see pictures from the new year's party?" "Yes, that would be great!" God, that was a piece of cake like dangling a keychain in front of a baby! And that put the kibosh on the Asian Inquisition instantly.

That is until minutes before we finally hung up. God, I miss my parents.