Hotashi

During a class I took last term, I had responded to a professor’s question to the class regarding “race” in Canada. I stated that I believed that people of colour will never be considered ‘real’ Canadians because we will always be judged by our appearance first. A classmate then shot up his hand and asked me from across the room if I ever thought racism would be eliminated in our society. To this I responded, “no”.

I thought about this incident during my trip to Michigan two weekends ago when my family and my cousins who live in Michigan went to an amusement park. The amusement park is located in a city 2 hours away from where my cousins live, so we chose to stay in a hotel overnight. We had a hard time finding the hotel so we stopped by McDonald’s to pick up some dinner and ask for directions. My uncle and father went in alone so that we could lounge in the car. They came back with a story that really bothered me. They asked the woman who was serving them directions to the hotel, to which she quickly cut them off and declared that she couldn’t understand them and had to get someone to “translate”. She called over a Spanish-speaking worker tp speak to my dad and uncle in Spanish.

My dad and uncle just laughed this off when they told us, but everytime these things happen I have to hold back my anger. My father and uncle do have accents, but are completely fluent in English and do not have any trouble expressing themselves with the language. To assume that an accent is an indication of the inability to speak English is pure ignorance, and in this situation, impatience. It also bothered me that she thought they were Spanish. There is nothing wrong with being Spanish, but there is something wrong with assuming a person’s ethnicity based on the colour of their skin.

For the most part, I haven’t experienced this type of ignornace when I’ve been in the States. I have no intention of letting this one incident taint my positive feelings towards the States. But with every incident like this that occurs (and there have been many before this one), my statement in that class becomes more and more of a reality to me.

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This site has officially been added to Rice Bowl Journals. Hooray!

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My new love word is chindian. A Chindian is a person of mixed heritage, specifically Indian and Chinese. Therefore, my kids will be classified as a Chindian. I really hope that it’s not an offensive term in some part of the world. According to this WIKI article, there is a significant population of Chindians in Malaysia and Singapore. I would have guessed the latter, but not really Malaysia. And it’s also obvious that they would exist in the West Indies. I wonder what my family in India thinks of Chinese, Indo-Chinese and Chindians.

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I found a place to live for next year in Waterloo. Hooray! Jack and I went up to Waterloo this past Sunday and then saw some places with my roommate on Sunday. We say five places in total and three of them were gross. I don’t know how people can live in such filthy conditions. Another place wasn’t that bad, but it was quite a walk from campus and since I may be on campus late now and then, I’d rather not have a 20-30 minute walk home. The place my roommate and I decided on is REALLY close to campus, includes utilities in the rent, is being fully renovated for when we move in, and comes with furniture. Can I say SWEEEEET DEAL. I’m really excited about the place. I got the biggest room too. Tokki will have fun running around it. =D

So that is one thing off my to-do list. It was also the first time I met my roommate. She seems nice, and I hope she won’t turn out to be hard to live with like someone else in my life. I was a little disappointed this weekend though because it was also supposed to function as Ams and Jack alone time, and one of my current roommates showed up for the weekend to pack. It didn’t really matter since Jack and I went out for the most part, but there is alwas that awkwardness about having someone else there when you want quality time. Anyway, it wasn’t a big deal. Just a bummer.

Actually, I was freaked out when she showed up because 1) I wasn’t expecting her, and 2) she came when we were taking a nap. So I was asleep and I hear all this noise outside my door. So I open it to see who it is, and it’s my roommate and her boyfriend. She was looking at me like this O_O and then asked me if I had been there the entire time. I was still half awake so I didn’t know what exactly she was asking me. And then she asked when I got in. I eventually found out that the interregation was due to her forgetting her keys when she came up and she had to stay in a hotel last night until her boyfriend dropped off her keys in the morning. That’s a real bummer. So it could have been worse for us…we could have come Friday night to hear her trying to break into the house. =P

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I don’t care what anyone says. Sweater vests are sexy. The first time I saw Jack in one, I drooled like crazy. I still remember him walking over to a printer of photocopier (can’t remember because I was too distracted) and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him. Maybe I have a strange fettish for geeks, I don’t know. But those sweater vests…they make my hormones go crazy. And just to make life better, my crush Sungmin from Super Junior is wearing a sweater vest in their performances for their latest song. Life is good.

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