Bienvenidos a Cancún
March 28, 2011 § 1 Comment
We took a red-eye flight to Mexico, leaving the house at 10:30PM via Aeromexico. I guess it was due to the size of the airline, but we were relegated to the outer terminal at O’Hare. It was relatively empty. When we got in line for Aeromexico, the nearby usher guy gestured to us and said, “The line for Shanghai is over there.” I raised both eyebrows. I mean, we did look out of place, but really? Damn.
I barely slept that night. For some reason, I forced myself to stay awake during our four-hour stopover in Mexico City, and after we arrived in the humid mid-morning of Cancun, I pretty much wanted to die. We’re staying at Royal Solaris, which is the first all-inclusive hotel we’ve stayed at. All necessities are included — drinks (alcohol), pools, food, entertainment, etc.
As my parents sat down with one of the staff to go over hotel information, my brother and I wandered over to the bar to order some soda.
“Where are you guys from?” asked the bartender, a young-ish Mexican guy.
My brother and I answered simultaneously. “Chicago.” “USA.” “Chicago,” I corrected myself.
He asked again. “Where are you from?”
“Chicago,” I repeated.
He looked at us. “You’re really from there?”
We nodded. Did he not believe us..?
“You were born there? Not Japan, somewhere?”
Inwardly, I scoffed in disbelief. The ethnicity question can be an awkward one to ask, but the “Where are you from no where are you really from” tactic is just rude. I didn’t expect to encounter it here, but I guess I shouldn’t expect too much racial sensitivity in this tourist haven.
Going on vacation can bring out either the worst or best in people. Spending five days at a resort in Cancun should undoubtedly make any family happy, and my parents and I would be at maximum cheerfulness if it weren’t for my selfish prick of a brother. Now that he’s arguably stronger than me and our aging father, he takes every opportunity to poison the mood.
“Shut up,” he says to anyone in any given situation. He acts ostensibly chagrined to be anywhere near us or do anything with us, always sulking in a corner somewhere. He threatens to smash the camera if we try to take a picture of or with him. He’s no longer afraid to swear audibly in our presence. I’d really like to punch him in the face, but I don’t think that would teach him to be a better son.
I used to attribute this behavior to mere teenage moodiness, but there is no foreseeable improvement. I don’t particularly care what he says to me, but the tremendous disrespect he delivers to my parents is appalling. They choose to ignore it half the time.
Now that I’m 21, I’ve started to drink somewhat openly with my parents. I ordered some banana-pineapple mixed drink at the pool bar today. My mom’s eyes widened when she realized it was alcoholic, but she got over her initial surprise pretty quickly. I ordered a margarita at dinner [it turned out to be disgusting], and later traded it for a Miami Vice [it was delicious]. My brother tried some of my margarita and got a mouthful of salt LOL.
I’m not sure if it’s the journalist side of me or if it’s simply a personal habit, but when I look at some people, especially those in the business of service, I can’t help wondering who they are outside of this job. How did they get here? Do they like the job? Is it enough to provide for their families?
I thought about this as I watched the waiters work the buffet area during dinner last night. I thought about it at the beach today as I watched the handful of Mexican men selling sunglasses and other trinkets to sunbathing tourists. I also thought about it while watching the Mexican dance show provided by the resort’s theater.
In high school, I occasionally read the blog of a guy who worked as entertainment staff at Disney World — he and the other workers seemed to hate it. Indeed, donning a Goofy costume is not considered a very good job in America. But is performing in hotel shows in Cancun considered good work in Mexico? Do these people hate their jobs too, despite the bright smiles they show the audience? How much money does a sunglasses-seller make every day? What are the ambitions of the waiters who serve us drinks? All this thinking makes it difficult to enjoy the social privilege I have as a tourist here.
Anyway, these are my thoughts from the first two days here. I haven’t done much except eat, drink and tan. I wish I had photos to share but I haven’t used my camera at all, and I haven’t had time to get the pictures I’ve taken on my parents’ Nikon. I’m currently sitting with them while listening to the two-person band in the lobby/bar area, which is the only place with wi-fi. A 24-year-old Vietnamese girl from Toronto that I met this afternoon told me that the nightlife here is better than Vegas, but I don’t think this is the right opportunity to go clubbing, as much fun as it sounds. A girl at the table next to me just said that the cover for the VIP club is $49, which is pretty heinous anyway.
That’s all for now! I’ll have more to share in a few days :)
Family Trees and Wise Teeth
January 6, 2011 § 2 Comments
On Sunday night, my parents went to the airport to pick up a distant relative, who is currently a freshman at Virginia Tech. Apparently, his great-grandpa is my grandpa’s oldest brother, which makes this boy a distant nephew of mine, and it makes him my mother’s cousin. My mom said she would draw me a family tree, but she never got around to it.
His flight arrived around 11:30PM [way to be considerate of people who have work the next day…], and I made sure to leave my makeup and normal clothes on until they got home because I expressly wanted him to see how I normally look before getting my wisdom teeth removed the next day LOL. Is that vain? I just wanted to make a good impression.
They didn’t get home until 1:45AM, by which time my brother was already asleep. I padded downstairs and met a skinny boy who towered over both my parents.
“You can call him dà wēi,” my mom said.
“Do you have an English name?” I asked him.
“Mahoné,” he replied.
“…Is that a Hawaiian name?”
“It’s Icelandic.”
This boy was clearly atypical, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. At least he was a lot cuter than our last house guest. My parents set him up in the guest room and we all went to sleep.
The pre-surgery instructions directed me not to eat for six hours before surgery. I thought it would be easy, since I’m usually not hungry in the morning anyway. The instructions also prohibited makeup and nail polish, which made me laugh. I mean, I wasn’t about to make myself pretty for surgery, but how would nail polish affect anything? I typically always wear both, and I wasn’t about to remove my nail polish for no reason. What a waste.
The next morning, I woke up in a foul mood for some reason. I was hungry but couldn’t eat anything, and sat in the car hating everything about the world on the way to the oral surgeon. Mother didn’t help things. I dislike being in the car alone with her because there’s no way to escape if she starts lecturing me, and I certainly didn’t want to hear it that morning.
But it came anyway.
“Are you being serious about looking for a job? Do you understand what your choices are after graduation? What use is it if your father and I came to America if you’re going to be as poor as we were when you graduate?”
During his sermon the previous day, Pastor Alex said that on average, parents and children have 38 minutes of meaningful conversation a day. In my family, I think it’s less than 10% of that even if you combine my brother and me.
Mother was left in the waiting room as the nurses led me into the operating room. I felt nervous. I hate the thought of surgery, the thought of being cut open, the thought of drugs making me lose control of my body, everything. They fitted a tube around my nose for laughing gas, but I still felt too aware. When the IV needle pricked into the back of my hand, I closed my eyes and tried hard not to think about that one summer in China when I got pneumonia and had a needle stuck in my hand every day for two weeks.
One of the nurses fitted something onto my fingertip.
“Let me see if this will read through your nail polish,” she said. Oops. I wondered if they had nail polish remover in their office, but it turned out to be okay. Good thing I only painted two coats this time.
Eventually I lost consciousness. I vague remember the feeling of plastic instruments being shoved into my mouth, which is quite undignified if I think about it, but that’s all I can recall. I awakened with gauze in the far corners of my mouth and a numb bottom lip. We went home and I removed the semi-bloody gauze, sipped on a bit of chicken rice soup [while avoiding the chicken & rice], took my three pills [one for swelling, one for pain, and one for infections], put more gauze in and went to bed.
That night, my aunt’s family came over for dinner to welcome Mahone to town. They made dumplings — I’ve never wanted to eat dumplings so badly in my life [well except maybe when I watched Kung Fu Panda]. Instead, I sat next to Mahone and silently sulked over some bland egg pudding my aunt kindly made for me. She also kept asking me questions about my jaw, which I had difficulty answering due to the swelling. Moral of the story: Don’t try to get me to talk to you if I can barely open my mouth wide enough to stick a spoon in.
I noticed that Mahone wore one tiny earring in each earlobe. Interesting. During dinner, someone asked about his hair, which seemed an artificial brown color.
“Actually, I have naturally brown hair,” he replied. “My mom says that my father had light hair when he was young too, and it turned darker as he got older.”
We all looked at him. I mean, the kid wasn’t that old, but 19 isn’t that young either, to have that kind of condition still lingering about.
“My hair is usually lighter than this, but I dyed it a darker shade of brown,” he continued. What an interesting fellow.
After finishing my meager portion, I took my meds and went back to my room. It was too depressing to watch other people eat what I couldn’t have. I eventually started feeling nauseated and dizzy, so I curled up in bed again and watched Kuragehime, which was an absolutely delightful anime.
I woke up around 9PM to take my medicine, went back to sleep, and awakened again around midnight still feeling nauseated. I really didn’t want to eat, but I had to take my pills, so I went downstairs to reluctantly scoop a bowl of ice cream. It was Oberweis Black Cherry, but I couldn’t even eat the cherry chunks.
Surprisingly, Mahone joined me in the kitchen. He was by the sink making himself hot water when I walked out of the bathroom.
“Thirsty?” I asked.
“Just not feeling well.”
“Mm…likewise.”
I had brought my laptop downstairs with me.
“What are you watching?” he asked.
“Just…some Japanese cartoons,” I replied.
“Cool.” He took his cup of water and a small bowl of mixed nuts and bid me adieu.
I turned my attention back to my bowl. Ice cream is one of those foods [like chocolate cake and PB&J sandwiches] that I can eat forever and ever, so it was weird having to force myself to ingest it this time. The texture was smooth [once I scraped off all the freezer burns], but the enjoyment simply wasn’t there. I wasn’t even allowed to brush my teeth that day, so I just stumbled back into bed afterward.
The past few days have pretty much followed the same pattern. Wake up, nibble on something liquidy, sleep for a few hours, repeat. I didn’t shower for two days because really, there was no point. The good part is that my mom is actually taking care of me, unlike that one time I stayed home sick in elementary school and she made me clean out my closet, and nobody questions my strange eating or sleeping schedule.
On the other hand, I still have a squarely defined jawline, I can only open my already-small mouth partway, attempting to chew anything is exhausting, and I eat so slowly that my food gets cold before I’m even half done with it. Also, I’ve contributed even less to society than usual. I wonder when this parasitic lifestyle will get old? Life would be much easier if my house had a better Internet connection, too.
This is me as of yesterday [feel free to check out the “About Me” page for what I normally look like]:
And so I continue to sit on the couch while watching anime. Hopefully I will be well enough by tomorrow to pick my dad up from the airport!
The Family That Saves Together
December 26, 2010 § 3 Comments
The last time it felt like Christmas in my house was when I was in middle school: The morning sun shone into our living room as we gathered in front of the Christmas tree. I shrieked when I unwrapped the gift from my parents:
The other present, from “Santa,” was Pokémon Silver [how did he know?! Just kidding; I’m pretty sure I stopped believing in Santa by the age of 7]. At that point in time, my brother Larry was still young enough to be somewhat obedient and willingly join our family for pictures and stuff. After opening all our presents, my dad went to go put a Christmas CD into the stereo system, and we played contently with our new belongings as the sounds of a children’s choir echoed throughout the house.
Since then, many things have changed. We’ve spent Christmas at Disney World, at our new house; the past four years have been spent skiing in Wisconsin; I ordered my past two Christmas presents “from my parents” online for myself; we’ve become disillusioned with the enchanting idea of a cohesive family.
Yesterday, I started reading The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan. I love reading her books not only for obvious reasons (she’s an amazing writer whose stories about Chinese-American women relate directly to me), but also because they always remind me that cherishing family is extremely difficult yet extremely important. And so I write.
This Christmas, I was awakened at 11AM by a heartwarming text from DP. I could’ve slept for another two hours, but I figured it would be rude to wake up so late on a holiday. When I peeked into the hallway, only Larry’s bedroom door was open; I could hear faint sounds of him playing Call of Duty downstairs. I tiptoed down to wish him a Merry Christmas and took it as a good sign that he didn’t respond with his usual “Shut up, fatty.”
My mom came out of her room as I was entering the bathroom, and when I came back out, I could hear the rustling of tissue paper from the living room.
“Thanks, Laura,” she called up to me.
“Are you not going to wait for the rest of us?!” I responded loudly.
“Oh, sorry!”
Sigh.
I went down to the living room as Larry was examining his gift from our aunt in New Jersey; it was a navy blue American Eagle sweatshirt.
“I already have two navy blue sweatshirts without zippers,” he said. “And I don’t wear American Eagle…”
Our aunt had sent me a Christmas card containing $40, and I looked at it for a while, thinking. A week ago, our other aunt [the one who lives five minutes away] had slipped my brother and me a pair of red envelopes, each holding $200. The two of us were left agape, and he handed me his envelope to deal with. Later, I gave both of them to my mom.
“How much did she give you guys?” she asked.
“Two hundred each.”
“What?? Is my sister crazy??”
“I…don’t know. Maybe you should take $200 to give to my cousin and then leave me and Larry with $100 each,” I suggested.
The aunt who lives in New Jersey is a lawyer and lives in a million-dollar house with her family. The aunt who lives near us lives in a house smaller than ours, and she and her husband make much less money than the other aunt and her husband. I’m not sure if there are any implications deeper than one aunt probably loves us more [I say this objectively, without sarcasm], but it’s interesting to think about.
My mom did exactly as I suggested, and I took my $100 to the mall with LC on Monday to do some Christmas shopping. This past semester, I’ve helped upgrade the wardrobes of approximately three guy friends, which in turn helps me become more purposeful in my gift-giving.
I bought a thin belt for my mom. I tried buying her clothing once during high school, spending a whole hour agonizing over the racks at H&M only to have her return everything a few days later. Women are picky about their clothes, I know, so I didn’t take it personally but still felt somewhat crestfallen. Thankfully, there were no complaints about the belt.
I was going to buy a pair of dress pants for my dad because he has this awful pair of brown corduroys that he wears pulled up to his waist like my grandpa, but I didn’t know his pant size. I bought him a warm beanie instead, to replace the scruffy white one I’ve seen him wearing for years.
When he unwrapped the hat, I asked him how long he’s had his other one.
“Your mom gave it to me when we were dating,” he responded.
When we were dating. When we were dating.
His words echoed in my head. “It’s THAT OLD?!” I said incredulously.
“Your mom had a matching one,” he reminisced. “It was blue with white stripes.”
“Actually, I think it was green,” my mom cut in.
“Her second sister made them for us,” dad continued.
I almost died. To think that my dad still owns and uses something from more than 20 years ago…it’s utterly amazing.
I guess my dad didn’t expect anyone to get him presents, because he bought himself a bag of stuff and left it by the side of the tree LOL. He seemed pretty pleased, even proud of his purchases as he pulled out the six t-shirts and two pants show me.
“Guess how much this one cost,” he said, holding up a Chicago Bears shirt.
“Did you go shopping with mom?” I responded.
“No,” he told me. “I went to the outlet mall in Pennsylvania on my business trip. This shirt cost less than $2!”
My mind was still reeling from the thought of my dad doing retail shopping by himself.
“Wait a minute,” I said suddenly, poking at his pile of clothes. “Did you buy two of the same shirt?”
“I bought three, actually,” he replied happily, showing me the other one. “I’m planning to replace my old t-shirts with these.”
I nodded, thinking about the raggedy shirt my dad currently sleeps in, which has holes at the seams.
When my mom had asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I replied “Nothing” [I already feel like enough of an unemployed burden], so that’s what I got. As a miracle upon miracles, Larry actually gave me something — Apples To Apples On The Go. Seriously unexpected, but it reminded me of the good old days when we played board games together instead of merely sharing the same Internet connection.
I think Larry also asked for nothing from my parents because that’s what he received too. I suppose it’s refreshing for a child not to pester his parents for an expensive Christmas gift, though they might be willing to pay that expense in order to have a son that gives respect instead of verbal abuse. When my dad took Larry to China over the summer, my relatives plastered him with birthday money, so the brand new XBox 360 & COD Black Ops that he plays was purchased with his own funds.
Larry seemed to like the two shirts I bought him from PacSun, but insists that he wears medium instead of small. UGH. He might still be growing [I mean, I hope so because he’s still shorter than me], but the progress is slow and size small clothing definitely fits him perfectly at the moment. I don’t want him to be another case of boy-who-never-wears-clothes-that-actually-fit!
After lunch, my dad and I made a sponge cake with the recipe he had enthusiastically obtained from someone at my aunt’s house last night. Both of my parents were awed by my ability to separate an egg yolk from an egg white LOL.
Whew…I spent all of yesterday writing this blog post. It’s filled with mostly daily minutia, but to me, any time I spend with my family that doesn’t involve fighting is worth recording. The closer I get to leaving this house, the more I have to cherish moments like these.
auradis 