It’s always a delight to hear an older Chinese person say something in English without accent. However, hearing an older Caucasian person speak Cantonese without accent it’s completely fucking scary cause it’s like OMG THEY ARE INFILTRATING AND THEY KNOW WHAT WE ARE SAYING QUICK PRETEND LIKE YOU DON’T NOTICE AND SAY THEY HAVE NICE TEETH. I use the word “older” because nowadays it’s not uncommon for people to speak more than one language fluently, whereas at my parents age the education for such things wasn’t the norm.

Went to the Hong Kong Museum of History, and learned that Hong Kong people suck at fighting. Out of the two wars we were in, we won zero and lost two. First was against those damn British in 1839, taking Hong Kong from China so they could have free trade of their soulless opium. Then there was the Japanese invasion in the early 1940’s which made Hong Kong a living hell for almost everyone there, although one could say that the Brits were responsible for defending one of their colonies. I can sort of see what the return to China has done to the exhibits in the subtle hints of propaganda found in the later galleries.

Also went to the Honk Kong Science Museum, which is a complete rip-off of the Ontario Science Centre (or is it the other way around?), from the experiments to the interactive contraptions. I had actually seen almost all of the HKMS already just from my younger visits to the OSC, and most of it was exactly the same. I wonder if there was a collaborative effort with Ontario to create a standardized science museum.

My aunt and uncle happened to be in town from B.C. yesterday, so they took me out to dinner and brought their son along. I don’t believe I had met any of them before, although they all seemed familiar. A difficulty I have with the Chinese culture is the fact that everyone is called aunt or uncle if they’re older, even if they’ve just been met. Our actual relatives (the aunts and uncles related by blood), however, have a completely different name system, mostly based on rank and which side of the family they are from. The problem ends up being the fact that I have no idea what the names of these people are, since we don’t append a first name to “aunt” or “uncle”, and I ran into that specific problem yesterday. I was able to go the entire dinner without having to call any of them by name though, so I escaped with my ignorance in ignorance.

When I think of the Chinese culture, a very specific image comes into my head, of a father dominated family, parents who don’t know their children, and closed-minded individuals.

I think my upbringing has exposed me to such a one-sided aspect of Chinese life. Almost every Chinese family I’ve met is like this. It wouldn’t be so bad if I saw the kids as growing up and surpassing such limited individualism. And yet most of the Chinese people my age just seem to be falling into the same childish mindset, a product of parental (mis)guidance, in my humble opinion.

It almost makes me sick.

When I read about Chinese history, I’m fascinated about how wisdom is held in such reverence, and how scholars are so respected. The same virtues seem to hold for Chinese people today, except that they don’t truly understand why academics are important, or why one should learn an instrument.

I wish I didn’t have such a limited view of a culture with such great history. I wish I could be exposed to an amazing Chinese family. I wish something could change my view.

All of this has created such a distaste of Asian looking girls in me. It’s as if my mind makes an unfair association.

I’m stuck.

I forgot to plug in my freezer after disconnecting it to free up a spot on the power socket on Saturday, so basically all my food has gone bad. I still have some breakfast and lunch food in the refrigerator, but that’s about it. I won’t be able to do much grocery shopping this week due to all the shit I have to get done, and the most convenient store for me to get to is closed until the fall, so I’m pretty much fucked, food-wise, for a few days.

I can’t stand what people believe are Chinese accents. Every time I hear one from a North American source, the accent can’t be further from realism. Every time a Chinese person is on the Simpson’s, or a Crank Yankers prank call from a Chinese guy, or even the fucking Chinese people speak in C&C: Generals, I get pissed off. Why don’t they just get an actual Chinese person to do the accent? The accents are not even close to what a nasty Chinese person sounds like. It’s like they have to tone down the accent so that people can recognize it (let alone understand what the person is saying), and so that it can be accepted by the general public.

Speaking of C&C: Generals, I was able to get my hands on a copy of it today, a few days before it’s due out in Canada. It looks amazing, but possibly a little too cluttered for actual gameplay purposes. I’m not sure if I’ll buy it yet. I’ll probably wait and see if my friends are interested in purchasing it for online play, and if I get addicted enough to warrant support of EA Games, although I’m sure they have enough money as a publisher of mainstream games already.

I got a compliment on my black nail polish today. I was pleased, I guess, but I suppose that it’s rare that one would make a bad comment on something like that; I think that most people, if not finding it atractive, would simply remain silent.

Somehow I got an 80% on my cryptography assignment. I imagine that the class average was around there. The questions were so difficult that the TA had to be extremely generous with the marks. Pat ended up getting 88%, which I feel is unfair, since he spent so much more time on his assignment than I did. It seems to be such a plight of university, that professors don’t realize that students’ capabilities are much lower than theirs.