equivocality — Jeff Ngan's collection of thoughts, experiences, and projects, inspired by pretty much everything
Viewing entries tagged with "childhood"
Pages (2): 12
22 Feb 13
7

pulling weeds and planting flowers

Few peo­ple have been able to fill the void lately. The ones who do sing to me the unashamedly erotic songs of John Dowland and help me test new decks.

Through it all, I’ve been try­ing to take five breaths every now and then, inhal­ing and exhal­ing a lit­tle more fully than usual. Trying not to live like it’s a fri­day every day. Trying to fig­ure out if I should apol­o­gize for using your song to score the moments I shared with some­one else. Trying to rec­on­cile my old Taoist beliefs with my new Buddhist views. Trying to be happy with the per­son I am, instead of let­ting dis­con­tent drive self-improvement.

house in the woods

 

Frigid win­ter days are teach­ing me patience and vul­ner­a­bil­ity. Some are eas­ier than oth­ers. I’ve been work­ing with the fickle swings instead of against them. Otherwise, it’s a con­stant strug­gle when try­ing to impose sta­tic order on inher­ently unsta­ble processes. The hard part is mak­ing plans when you don’t know how you’ll feel from one day to the next.

Jesse arranges

Back in the day when we were doing cov­ers of Frank Ocean songs. One of the most rec­og­niz­able things about Jesse’s room are instru­ments strewn about.

The great­est test of my progress so far will be an acoustic show Jesse asked me to play with him on Sunday. Anxiety has been get­ting the bet­ter of me lately, and the prospect of hav­ing only two nights of rehearsal does noth­ing to assuage this.

I’ve been keep­ing in mind that we were able to pull off a decent per­for­mance last time when I didn’t know the show was going to hap­pen until a few hours prior; one of those exer­cises to fos­ter pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences and com­bat neg­a­tiv­ity bias. Fortunately, Jesse is a great front­man to be behind, cause he com­mands the atten­tion of any­one watch­ing, also tak­ing the atten­tion away from ner­vous fin­gers and live jitters.

cat and girl

 

The jour­ney of self-discovery has been dif­fi­cult. When there’s a his­tory of trauma, it’s inevitable that an uncom­fort­able feel­ings get stirred up every now and then. I take care of myself by mak­ing sure I see the impor­tant peo­ple on a con­sis­tent basis and liv­ing in those moments. The lit­tle ways to heal are found in both the expe­ri­ences them­selves and the time one takes to inter­nal­ize those experiences.

This is how I learn that self-compassion isn’t self-pity, and that most peo­ple bring less kind­ness to them­selves than to oth­ers. To get on my own side, I’ve been visu­al­iz­ing myself as a child, just as wor­thy of care as any other. I would wish the best for that lit­tle per­son, and it helps me under­stand that I should wish the best for myself as well.

tagged with #Byron #childhood #Lisa #reflection #self-evaluation #winter / filed under Daily Life Photos Thoughts
23 Jan 13
7

that I may cease to mourn

At some point along the way, I dis­cover that I’m ter­ri­ble at being alone. I need some­one to care for / spoil / love / give my exis­tence mean­ing. Echoes of a try­ing child­hood I’m just now sort­ing out. Otherwise, I’m con­stantly feel­ing empty instead of fulfilled.

Once a week I’m torn down so I can be rebuilt again, and some days I won­der: what of me will be left?

tagged with #childhood #self-evaluation #therapy / filed under Random Thoughts
14 Mar 10
2

Predisposition

Thumbnail: My grandparents

When I was young and it was sum­mer, my mater­nal grand­par­ents would come from Hong Kong to babysit me. It was a strange time in my life, what I con­sider my fetal years when I don’t remem­ber learn­ing any­thing, or hav­ing any aware­ness of my own consciousness.

My grand­fa­ther was a strong, intel­li­gent, lov­ing, gen­tle man, and my biggest hero. He showed me his war wounds, and taught me about states of mat­ter. I even learned the term “civil war” from him when he used it (in English!) one time when some old black-and-white footage of Chinese bat­tles came on the TV, but his English wasn’t great so I thought he was say­ing, “zero war”.

He was my favourite per­son in the world because he gave me the atten­tion and stim­u­la­tion I never got from my parents.

In one of those sum­mers, I stole his cig­a­rettes, two at a time so he wouldn’t notice, and hid them in the com­part­ment of a red and white chil­drens draft­ing table. It was my way of get­ting him to stop smoking.

One time, I heard my grand­par­ents shout­ing in the kitchen. They were fight­ing. My grand­mother accused him of pee­ing on the toi­let seat. It was the first time I heard them raise their voices at all, let alone at each other. I thought it was strange because at that age I was prob­a­bly pee­ing all over the toi­let seat, and no one ever yelled at me for it, so I didn’t under­stand why it was such a big deal.

My aunt and uncle were over because they wanted to spend time with them, and they came to see what the com­mo­tion was about. But they just stood there, lis­ten­ing, not want­ing to take sides.

Eventually, my grand­fa­ther slowly bent at the knees, his entire body sag­ging, buried the heels of his hands in his eyes to rub out the tears, and said to my aunt and uncle with lan­guish­ing pauses, “Sometimes, she makes me want to kill myself”.

And I knew he meant it.

I was too young to even be shocked, but for my grand­fa­ther to say some­thing like that was com­pletely out of char­ac­ter. He was invin­ci­ble to me. I never under­stood it.

Until now.

Eventually, he went to live with my aunt and uncle for a while. They slowly became warmer when they saw each other a few weeks later. I don’t know if they ever talked about it.

tagged with #childhood #growing up #memories #suicide / filed under Thoughts
11 Mar 10
9

Damaged Goods

I have to write this so I can admit it to myself.

I have to write this because I can’t think of any­thing else nowa­days, except for how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning.

I’ve been read­ing a book my ther­a­pist rec­om­mended to me a long time ago, the one that deals with life­traps. In one of the first chap­ters, it goes through each life­trap by first explain­ing a “core need”, which is some­thing a child should have in order to thrive. It goes through exam­ples on how we should have been raised, and how a healthy mind will grow from that. Then it explains how the life­trap may develop if that core need isn’t met, by giv­ing exam­ples of destruc­tive child­hood environments.

And for almost every life­trap in the book, I saw my own child­hood in those exam­ples of destruc­tive envi­ron­ments, such as the one about “Self-esteem”:

Self-esteem is the feel­ing that we are worth­while in our per­sonal, social, and work lives. It comes from feel­ing loved and respected as a child in our fam­ily, by friends, and at school.

Ideally we would all have had child­hoods that sup­port our self-esteem. We would have felt loved and appre­ci­ated by our fam­ily, accepted by peers, and suc­cess­ful at school. We would have received praise and encour­age­ment with­out exces­sive crit­i­cism or rejection.

But this may not have hap­pened to you. Perhaps you had a par­ent or sib­ling who con­stantly crit­i­cized you, so that noth­ing you did was accept­able. You felt unlov­able.

As an adult, you may feel inse­cure about cer­tain aspects of your life.

When I was read­ing that, all I could think of was one spe­cific inci­dent from my child­hood. I was young enough that my mom would bathe me, and she would do it in the en suite bath­room of the mas­ter bed­room. One day, she came to dry me off with a towel, and both the bath­room door and the bed­room cur­tains were open. I told her to close the door, because I was self-conscious about being seen naked by the neigh­bours across the street. I was really upset about it, and instead of walk­ing two feet to close the door, she laughed and said, “You’re no Tom Cruise”, and left it open. From that point, I’ve had this irre­press­ible feel­ing that I’m never attrac­tive enough for some­one to even be inter­ested in see­ing me naked.

And that was just one exam­ple. My child­hood was filled with so many such mem­o­ries, each one branch­ing into other lifetraps.

I’ve never won­dered why I have self-esteem issues. I fuck­ing hate how self-conscious I am, because I know the extent of that self-consciousness isn’t nor­mal. I’ve strug­gled with issues like that my entire life, and I can trace every­thing back to my par­ents. It fills me with rage to know that they dam­aged me to the point where I feel so over­whelmed by my flaws that some­times I’d rather be dead.

If I were ever to com­mit sui­cide — and at this point I feel like I can’t rule out the pos­si­bil­ity of this any­more — I’d say that my par­ents would be 55% respon­si­ble1, with my mom shar­ing more of that blame than my dad.

I hope she reads this one day. I hope my entire fam­ily reads this. I hope all my cousin’s moms read this, because they usu­ally try to defend her. I want every­one to know that if I die by my own hand one day, I blame my mom more than any­thing else in the world. I want par­ents to know that they have a respon­si­bil­ity to their kids because they’re peo­ple too, that they have to treat them prop­erly, and that I was an exam­ple of what hap­pens when you don’t.

This is start­ing to sound like a sui­cide note, and it’s scar­ing me. Good thing I’ve always been a ratio­nal per­son, and I still rec­og­nize that sui­cide is an irra­tional deci­sion for me at this moment. Sometimes, I watch sui­cide videos just to shock myself into real­iz­ing how final, irre­versible, and hor­ri­ble that deci­sion is.

I’m at a lot bet­ter than where I was two years ago, before I went to ther­apy, but I’m still far from being fixed. I can admit that to myself now.

  1. The other 45% being my own inabil­ity to deal with these things, but I attribute that to tem­pera­ment, which is inborn and hence not their fault. [↩]
tagged with #childhood #depression #memories #mother #parents #self-evaluation #suicide #therapy / filed under Thoughts
23 Sep 09
5

Pretentious with a Dash of Random

Hi, how’s it going.

When talk­ing about hair­cuts, I always say, “My styl­ist”. As soon as this comes out of my mouth, I won­der if this makes me sound snooty and pre­ten­tious. Most peo­ple seem to say, “hair­dresser”, which I imag­ine is the same thing, with the for­mer being a way to charge an extra $15–30 for a hair­cut. But the only rea­son why I say “styl­ist” is because that’s what the recep­tion­ists say (“…and what styl­ist would you like?”) when book­ing appoint­ments. But styl­ists are so dif­fer­ent from bar­bers, in my expe­ri­ence. And my styl­ist has gone for courses in the US, so I’m think­ing this actu­ally gives him the title.

I also say “cha­cun à son goût” when the phrase is appro­pri­ate. I won­der if this makes me sound pre­ten­tious too. The only rea­son why I say that instead of “each to his own taste” is because I learned the expres­sion first in grade 8 French class. There was a pic­ture of King Henry say­ing, “cha­cun a MON gout!”, as if he was famous for being in demand­ing king. Ever since, I relate the phrase to the French. Sometimes, I imag­ine I’m in late Imperial Russia, when French was con­sid­ered the hall­mark of a civ­i­lized soci­ety, so peo­ple threw in French phrases to impress peo­ple or fit in. I imag­ine myself say­ing, “Ho ho, mon cher, je méprise les femmes pour ne pas les aimer car autrement la vie serait un mélo­drame trop ridicule”, while throw­ing my head back with dainty laugh.

Sometimes my nights are spent like this:
Night spent

My favourite pas­time at the moment is play­ing Flight Control while lis­ten­ing to music. I have a sort of run­ning com­pe­ti­tion going with Pat (high score 99) and John (high score 67). So far I’ve been able to best their scores at 292, but now I’m try­ing to pad the vic­tory even more, because Pat and John have as much of a healthy com­pet­i­tive streak as I do, and actu­ally spend some extra effort try­ing to beat each other. So some­times I’ll just sit down and put some music on and play. I’ve also tried cook­ing while play­ing, but my foods ends up get­ting burnt. There has also been some stand-up com­edy lis­ten­ing while I play, but laugh­ter always gets in the way of fine motor controls.

When I was younger, my par­ents owned a con­ve­nience store. It got held up a cou­ple of times, late at night when my dad was work­ing. He never talked about it, not because it was shock­ing, but because he didn’t care. Sometimes, I won­der how my dad felt with a gun pointed at him. One time they caught the three or four guys involved in one hold-up, and my dad had to go to court to tes­tify. Somehow my dad han­dled it, but going through all of this would prob­a­bly freak me out.

tagged with #childhood #father #pieces of me #self-portrait / filed under Photos Random
23 Aug 09
3

I Am Here

(I thought it only appro­pri­ate that I name this entry after another Shane Watt song, as the last one was as well. Amazingly enough, they both go together.)

I’ve been feel­ing bet­ter. A lot bet­ter actu­ally. One of the rea­sons why I was feel­ing so depressed on Friday was because I was so unmo­ti­vated, not so much in terms of not want­ing to do any­thing, but not want­ing to do any­thing pro­duc­tive.

Part of this puri­tan atti­tude (as John’s pro­fes­sor dad calls it) is due to my upbring­ing. The months of sum­mer between school semes­ters were never a time to relax, accord­ing to my par­ents, it was a time to study ahead for the upcom­ing year. I was made to feel guilty if I was hav­ing fun.

Then, at one point on Friday, I real­ized how wrong that was.

So this week­end I embraced my lack of moti­va­tion. I decided that I didn’t care about being pro­duc­tive. That I’ve been work­ing hard the last few weeks and I’m ahead on my projects, so I needed a break.

I watched a few movies I’d been sav­ing. I hung out with Bronwen. I played some GTA IV (which offers it’s own par­tic­u­lar sat­is­fac­tion in terms of being able to beat up exec­u­tives and hip­sters who are walk­ing around with cups of gourmet cof­fee). When I needed a break, I decided to do some main­te­nance on my music library, some­thing I never seem to find the time for oth­er­wise. And what do you know, I ended up being pro­duc­tive with­out mean­ing to.

Amazing how a change in mind­set can instantly flip one’s mood. It’s nor­mally not so easy for me, because in the back of my mind I feel like I’m fool­ing myself, but for some rea­son, it worked really well this time. Probably because it makes a lot of sense.

Next week, I’m going to stick to a sched­ule to get things back on track. I’m going to exer­cise some self-control and abstain from any brain activ­ity and start read­ing one of the books that Tatiana gave me, to help me fall asleep before bed.

I used to think that I should always be look­ing for­ward to tomor­row. Instead, I’m look­ing for­ward to right now.

tagged with #childhood #hope #reflection / filed under Daily Life
25 Mar 09
6

Old Family Portrait

Old family portrait

I found this pic­ture at my uncle’s house. It is:

  1. Hilarious
  2. Hilarious
  3. Hilarious
  4. All of the above

How weird is it that I didn’t even rec­og­nize myself. And look at those glasses! They were my first pair, which prob­a­bly means I was around 14 or 15. Apparently, I was still wear­ing my cal­cu­la­tor watch at that age.

tagged with #childhood #family #growing up / filed under Photos Random
10 Mar 09
5

Accepting My Baggage

Sometimes, I won­der what my life would be like if I didn’t have so much bag­gage. How my rela­tion­ships would be dif­fer­ent. Which ones would have worked, and which ones wouldn’t have changed at all.

Love, in all it’s multi-faceted won­der, lev­els, and types, is never a sure thing for me. I may feel it, but feel that it’s fleet­ing and con­di­tional at the same time. Other peo­ple have the lux­ury of tak­ing love for granted. They assume they’re loved. How com­fort­ing it must be. For me, it’s always been a strug­gle for sta­bil­ity. “We won’t love you if you don’t do well on this test. We won’t love you if you don’t prac­tice piano. We won’t love you if you don’t fin­ish your din­ner. No one’s going to love you if you always stay this skinny.”

It feels like I haven’t sur­vived my child­hood yet. And I arrive at this fact so many times when try­ing to fig­ure out the source of my issues that it’s start­ing to sound like an excuse. Therapy has helped iden­tify my issues, but it’s still tak­ing work on my part to resolve them, along with patience on the parts of oth­ers. I’m begin­ning to ques­tion why peo­ple would accept and love me. I guess it’s worth it to some, but things would be so much eas­ier if they didn’t have to deal with my insecurities.

tagged with #childhood #insecurity #love #reflection #therapy / filed under Thoughts
20 Jul 08
7

I Wanna Hold Your Hand (In The Car)

When I was young, the only affec­tion my par­ents ever showed for each other was occa­sion­ally (maybe five times ever) hold­ing hands in the car. They never kissed, never hugged, never said “I love you”. Aside from sit­ting down to eat din­ner, their lives were com­pletely sep­a­rate. They wouldn’t even sleep in the same room.

Now that I have a car, hold­ing hands while dri­ving has come to define a rela­tion­ship for me. I leave my right hand on the shifter, tap­ping it to the beat of my music, but I always have this urge to hold someone’s hand, as if it’s some strange ideal I’ve never been able to experience.

tagged with #childhood #memories #reflection / filed under Thoughts
24 Jul 07
0

Are You In A Lot Of Pain?

People won­der how it got so far. They ask me if some­thing hap­pened and I tell them, “Yeah…my childhood”.

They ask me if I hate you, and I tell them “hate” isn’t a strong enough word.

It hurts, doesn’t it? Are you in a lot of pain? Cause I was in a lot of pain.

I’m still try­ing to fix your dam­age. Still try­ing to cover up the scars.

You deserve this. You did this to yourself.

And I fuck­ing hope it hurts.

tagged with #childhood #mother / filed under Random
05 Apr 07
11

Lessons From a Childhood of Abuse

I often explain to peo­ple that Karaoke to the Chinese is like drink­ing to the British. We don’t pour pints at our par­ties, we sing. It’s part of the cul­ture. The Chinese-Canadian dream is a Toyota in every dri­ve­way and a Karaoke machine in every house.

My dad was no excep­tion. Like all his hob­bies, he took Karaoke seri­ously. He had singing lessons from a famous teacher. Sometimes, he would record him­self and lis­ten to the tapes to ana­lyze his singing when dri­ving me to school. We would never talk on those hour-long rides, I would only hear him singing, some­times along with his recorded voice, some­times prac­tic­ing the parts that he didn’t have quite right.

When I was young, about seven, I would sing one of the English songs from his col­lec­tion. I couldn’t tell you why. Karaoke didn’t par­tic­u­larly inter­est me. Maybe it was a way for me to be a part of his life. He had noth­ing to do with me otherwise.

Read the rest of this entry »

tagged with #childhood #father #growing up #memories #mother #parents #weight / filed under Thoughts
25 Dec 06
17

Christmas Is Dead

This used to be my favourite season.

I don’t even know why. Christmas was always about tedious gath­er­ings. Each parental group of friends and fam­ily — con­sist­ing only of Chinese peo­ple — would take turns host­ing par­ties. As one of the “kids”, I was thrust in a room with the other sons and daugh­ters. People I only saw once a year, with whom I had noth­ing in com­mon. Some years, I’d go to six dif­fer­ent houses in two weeks.

My par­ents would always host New Year’s. Some time ago, with the money I earned from my first job, I bought them a classy fon­due set and fon­due book for them to use as hosts. They never opened the box, or even cracked the spine of the book. It broke my heart.

The things that peo­ple gave me never made things bet­ter. Gifts were always safe.

Monetary cer­tifi­cates. Sweaters. Cheap sta­tion­ary. Nothing per­son­al­ized. Nothing from the heart. Nothing I ever needed or wanted. It was merely a dis­play of how lit­tle peo­ple knew or cared about me. It would have meant more if they gave the money to charity.

The one reprieve dur­ing the hol­i­days was being able to see Darren, sneak­ing out in the mid­dle of a party to get stoned with him, or hang­ing out with John.

Then why did the hol­i­days mean so much to me?

Maybe it was the atmos­phere. The snow. The mem­o­ries of Christmas in Hong Kong. The fact that peo­ple who had noth­ing in com­mon would put up Christmas lights. Something that every­one believed in.

Thumbnail: Cat statue
Thumbnail: Magnets of my initials
Thumbnail: Catnip jar
Thumbnail: Mao, The Unknown Story

Even though I’ve received some beau­ti­ful, thought­ful gifts for once, even though I don’t really cel­e­brate Christmas, I’m down. It’s too warm for the snow to stay. I didn’t buy presents for any­one. I’m work­ing the short week between Christmas week­end and New Year’s week­end because I can’t afford any time off.

I sup­pose the hol­i­days are what you make of them.

There have been many gen­er­ous peo­ple — Louise, John, Aaron, Joel, Bronwen, Pat — who opened their houses to me today, but it’s not the same.

It’s made me real­ize that even though I loathed those gath­er­ings back home, I still needed them.

To feel like I was part of some­thing, part of a fam­ily, as dys­func­tional as it was. Because of the divorce, there’s no home to go to for the first time in my life.

Christmas is dead this year, but it’s only a reflec­tion of how dead I feel inside.

tagged with #childhood #Christmas #parents #presents #sadness / filed under Daily Life Photos Thoughts
01 Oct 06
4

Family Tied

Over ten years ago, I lived at my aunt’s house for about four months in the sum­mer. Much of my mater­nal fam­ily was vis­it­ing from Hong Kong, so every­one stayed there as a cen­tral location.

One day my par­ents had a blow-out. It was triv­ial, as always. As a result, from my mom’s side of the story, he went out with another woman that night. From his side, my mom tried to kill him with a steak knife. It cut his fin­ger to the bone when he was defend­ing him­self. The next day, with swollen eyes and a weak voice, my mom showed me the yel­low bruises down her arm. They had to be pho­tographed by the police as evi­dence before they healed. Two subpoena’s later and they were bet­ter than new, for the next few months at least until the next fight.

This is the last mem­ory I have of my aunt’s house. I haven’t been back since. Not until this weekend.

Now every­one from my mater­nal side is here, all my mom’s sib­lings and their respec­tive fam­i­lies. It started out as an act of com­mis­er­a­tion, to help her out dur­ing the divorce. Aunt, uncle, and son, aunt, uncle, and son, aunt and uncle. And then there’s me, with my mom. Without father. The only bro­ken family.

At first I think it’s just a coin­ci­dence. My aunt and uncle have the same vac­uum cleaner that we had, the same piano, the same brown cowhide cor­ner sofa. And then it clicks. Since the divorce, my mom sold the house after buy­ing out my father of the con­tents. Everything is stored here until she moves into her new house, from the base­ment to the fam­ily room, from the kitchen to the bathroom.

My child­hood is strewn across every floor. The fam­ily pho­tos. My old finger-painted, art­work from ele­men­tary school. My dad didn’t want any of it.

I need to get out of here.

I need to get the fuck out of here.

tagged with #childhood #family #memories #parents / filed under Daily Life
24 Jul 06
6

A Bittersweet Comfort

Thumbnail: BBQ pork
Thumbnail: Washing veggies
Thumbnail: Cutting onions
Thumbnail: Shiitake mushrooms
Thumbnail: Washed veggies
Thumbnail: Bone China bowls
Thumbnail: Soup close-up
Thumbnail: Soup extreme close-up

A bowl of egg-noodles, with bar­be­cue pork, shi­itake mush­rooms, shrimp, car­rots, bok choi, and green onions in a chicken broth, is con­sid­ered com­fort food for most Chinese peo­ple. They say that com­fort food soothes the mind by act­ing like an opi­ate, hit­ting the recep­tors in our cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem. We go to it in times of stress, and in addi­tion to keep­ing us full, it keeps us pacified.

As Pat and Jen cut, and wash, and cook, they never nib­ble. Everything that’s pre­pared goes into the pot. Not too long, or the veg­eta­bles will lose their firm­ness. With chop­sticks and a spoon, they serve the noo­dle soup in large bowls. One eats from the spoon, which is used to scoop the broth, while the chop­sticks are sim­ply used to put the desired ingre­di­ents on the for­mer utensil.

I don’t have meals like this any­more. Chinese food is a com­pli­cated affair. It takes a mot­ley set of ingre­di­ents, most of which is only avail­able on a sin­gle street in this city, so I’m grate­ful for a real home-cooked meal.

Everything about it brings me back to a time when I was a child, liv­ing with my par­ents, liv­ing off Chinese food every day. The con­trast­ing colours of the pork against the noo­dles. The full aroma. The savoury taste of broth. Even the dul­cet slurp of noodles.

If only my child­hood was worth remembering.

tagged with #childhood #Chinese culture #food / filed under Daily Life Photos
15 May 06
3

This Is How They Love Me

Thumbnail: Shirt and tie

With presents that come folded to per­fec­tion, boxed in white wrap­ping paper, and spe­cial wash­ing instruc­tions. This is the safest gift for some­one my age, unlike the guess­ing game that music, toys, or games has become.

This spe­cially processed, pure cot­ton fab­ric is designed for easy care and a crisp, con­fi­dent look that lasts. The soft­ness, absorbency and breatha­bil­ity of cot­ton, enhanced with inno­v­a­tive care fea­tures, ensure opti­mum wear­a­bil­ity. Engineered for no-fuss, express han­dling. Requires almost no iron­ing. Today’s quin­tes­sen­tial busi­ness shirt: time-saving, energy-saving, travel friendly.

We rec­om­mend using a mild deter­gent. Spin briefly, then hang to dry. Gently pull col­lar, cuffs and seams into shape. Touch up with a medium iron.

Not that I’m com­plain­ing. If it’s one thing my par­ents have been able to give me, it’s finan­cial free­dom. Never hav­ing to worry about how I’m going to pay for rent, or board, or edu­ca­tion. It’s not easy for Chinese par­ents to show affec­tion, an influ­ence of the cul­ture they grew up in, so they buy me things instead.

I’m the fam­ily pet.

The dog they can love and take care of and want around, but not have to actu­ally talk to or spend time with.

These are my treats.

tagged with #childhood #Chinese culture #growing up #parents / filed under Photos Random
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