I could only smile apologetically at my grandma as she asked me a question. She grinned in return as she shook her head and tried to come up with the words in English.
Sadly, my Cantonese is shameful. I'm the typical Chinese American born in a predominantly Caucasian town. That means I speak almost zero Chinese.
I smiled. I couldn't help it. It was just one of those memorable scenes that you want to store away in your mind for a rainy day.
My friend's cousin, a girl only in elementary school, was the centerpiece.
"He's handsome," said the hairdresser in Cantonese. She walked behind the lady cutting my hair and patted her shoulder. They smiled at each other.
In broken English my hairdresser asked, "Where you from?"
"New York," I replied. "I just moved here about a year and a half ago."
"The entire American society is out to get Asians."
That line sums up the feelings of a sub-culture of Asian Americans.
"You'll need to have good mathematical skills for this job—but you're oriental, so you should have no problem with that."
I bit my lower lip. The first interviewer chortled. The second one, standing somewhere behind me, joined in. He slapped my shoulder.
The perfect woman for me is a sheep.
Astrologically speaking, that is.
According to the Chinese astrological calendar I saw in King Sun Kitchen, the perfect mate for a rabbit is a sheep.
The Cantonese-speaking lady blurted out a line of made-up syllables; imitating the taunts she must have heard as she worked in this Chinese restaurant.
The young African-American boy must have been only in elementary school. There's one right down the street from this restaurant. He wore a dark down jacket and a bright yellow school bag with a patch from the Wu-Tang Clan displayed proudly on the back.
He laughed. "Yea, I can speak Chinese too! Nay ho ma? Nay ho ma?"
"English, French, German, Spanish, um, a little Russian, and a little Chinese."
"You can speak ALL those languages?"
"Yea."
"And how old are you?"
"Fourteen."
This millennium, I resolve to casually date.
Odd prediction, eh? To explain further, let me give you some background information.
For the sake of this argument, I'm going to generalize the whole dating scene into two main categories: the Casual Date and the Spouse Interview.
Weekly random rambles, musings & writings of Mike Lee in San Francisco, CA