Choice,low and easy, in 3 payments of $33.99

I have been in America for four days now. I have had slight culture shock overwhelmed by the vast amounts of surplus. I walk into a Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, etc. and think half factiously and seriously “Ah this is America at it’s finest”. We are not lacking any ability to choose in any form, whatsoever. In fact, we may be suffering from our choices.
My first full day at my friends house, I watched TV and was immediately attracted to the “Magic Bullet”. Oh, this thing is a slice of heaven for people who love to cook. It comes with 17 pieces to create great dishes. It slices, pulsates, mixes, dices, and grinds. I was swept up in the multi-functionalism of it until I saw the price. $99 or 3 easy payments of $33.99. That soon ended all fantasies of holdin’ down Martha’s job for her while she is away.

Then I watched a bit of the numerous reality shows that are on, “The Swan”, “American Idol”, etc. I was most fascinated by the beauty reality shows because of the level of participation and expectation that is involved from its participants. Each of the women, and the majority of it has been female participation, has justified their choice to undergo such drastic changes in order to be “more confident”. Code word for: I am not lovable, acceptable; and so on hence I will change so that I can look like something they perceive lacking with in themselves.

What kills me about these shows, especially with likes of “Extreme Makeover”, is the vast amount of women whom are involved. Why are we doing all this to ourselves to change? Where are the men? Do they not desire a change in their lives? Aren’t there some out there that also, want to be MORE CONFIDENT HANDSOME, etc.? Even with feminism, women still have yet get away from that as women, they still aren’t enough. It also occurred to me, that in all this ‘change’ men are being left behind, because they are not “required” by social norms to adapt and expand. Hence this divide, I perceive disturbs me because we are talkin’ from two different levels.

The premise behind democracy as taught to me as child was one has the right to choice. Choose a life that one deem fit for them and have the freedom to express it. It’s all outlined in the Bill of Rights, the original human manifesto. With a surge of personal income and economic freedom, we have become a nation of choices with little restraint. There seems to be a running dialogue in our daily lives that says we must have more, to be something of importance. The more we have, the better we are. I am from the generation of speed, the introduction of microwaves, personal computers, video games. Our parents lamented that we would forget that there is no easy and fast way to having what you want. But that all changed, with people being able to become millionaires and billionaires within shorter amounts of time. It’s a blessing, because we are no longer restrained by outdated ideals that say growth and change are only for “those with____”. But now empowered with ideals that all humans are entitled to choose no matter what your circumstance is. What scares me also about this is that there is a generation growing up thinking, that if something isn’t right within or in my life, I can ‘buy/do plastic surgery/win on a reality show’ the solution. I don’t think we are being empowered by our new freedoms, and vast amounts of choices. We are being slowly anesthetized to a spiritual death by them.

Personally, I think half of the women on these shows, just needed stop their lifestyle choices and eating choices and do it without all the surgery. If they need a little tweaking when done then, so be it. But we have become a nation not afraid to make change as long as it’s not drastic. I would like to actually believe is that I am hearing and seeing are the beginning conversations of learning what it takes to transform. Transformation is lasting while change just alters the form. It think within 5 years, we will begin to see and hear people pushing for things that have a lasting change, which would actual be called-transformation.

Living overseas your choices can be hampered because of language, lifestyle or other elements involved. Or your choice can come to the forefront and become empowering or educational. The fact that one would have to be in there 20’s to live overseas, a hotbed age period where one’s choices are developed and refined; as an expat can have an profound impact on the choice making process.

For one, you are adapting your life to the culture, so what is “right” in that culture becomes integrated into the culture you carry within. And second, you begin to flesh out within yourself, a three dimensional way, seeing how your own choice have impact on the world around you. You are also impacted by how the citizens of the country you are staying in, by what choices they have available to make to form their own lives. All this makes for interesting development.

Before I moved overseas, I never gave much taught to my choices. In fact, I thought I never had many, having grown up in a restrictive environment. As I moved thru the different cultures, I was “taught” by my experiences, that I did have a choice in what was in my life, or not. That these experiences and observations of a new “world” around me helped me refine, define, and expand on what I wanted in my life. It also enabled me to deal with unfinished situations that I was still encountering difficult in achieving personal success with. In short, moving away was a ‘choice’ that allowed me to have a fresh perspective on life. It was rejuvenating and cathartic in a sense.

The friend whom I am visiting, has always been the hero in my life for choices. She to me knows how to make them with out the emotional content that I have when I do. She is wiser than me, and sometimes more perceptive. Yet, her most important life choice has left me valuing the power of choice.

She has a child. The most beautiful one in the world, but it is not a choice I think she would have made so soon. She has shared with me that she is a resentful mother. I don’t think she is one, given her hand on skills with her daughter. Yet, I think that she would have like to have had a point in her life where she looked and said what this choice will do for me as oppose to having to choose after the fact. This endears me to her. Her lesson has taught me a greater love for her and how we handle what life throws at us. How she has handled it with such dignity and grace shows me how flexible one can be even in the throws of a choose we are not comfortable with.

I have an argument I use sometimes called “the Korean dog” argument. In Korea it’s all right to raise a dog to eat as dinner. In America, it’s not. They are our pets. Who is wrong or right in this situation? I believe neither because the dog itself serves a purpose in both cultures. Its our perceptions of the purpose that gets into the moral judgment of it all. There is no “right” or “wrong” choice, something we can spend a lifetime on reaping the benefits, or lamenting to anyone who will listen. It’s our perceptions of the choices that can give us insight, growth, and life. I think now with all that is available to Americans, we are choosing because we are overwhelmed by what we have and the immediacy in which it can come by. We are seeking rejuvenation, joy and excitement; something that marks our growth in life. Something that validates our experience and shows we have impact.

Or maybe we are a nation of knuckle heads, who plainly have too much.

It’s just my procrastination…

It’s just my procrastination…

Okay, I finally got almost everything in. Draggin my heels, playing spades and literali online. Shame on me but I think that somewhere on my birth certificate is a spot that says, procrastinator. Anyway, I went back to my place, because I left the tickets in my other suitcase. I stayed around, prayed on the place, and just hoped to get "the vibe." The place feels sooo much like home or a home. The kitchen is ridiculously large for me and great because I love to cook. So, I'm trying to vibe with the place and as I am leaving, I lock the bedroom only to realize that I have locked my keys inside. OY!!!! So, I leave the house, closing the outside door, I try to go back in to get something, and I'm locked of there!! OY VEY!!! So, I go down and pantomime to the old guard in the lobby, who has more platinum in his mouth than a Durtty South rapper. He calls the locksmith, who looks mighty pissed to be called away from what ever he was doing (chewing betel nut?). Unlocks the door and I get my keys and leave. Only to get back to the other place I am at to realize that I still didn't take certain things. Ahhh, this is why I hate moving.


Check out the link below to see something really really crazy click on the title of the blog!

"For it’s what's on the inside that counts"

Well I finally got everything done with moving into a new house, and setting down. I am looking forward to going to see a friend that I haven't seen in 13 years. It's amazing how we have managed to keep in touch for so long and not see each other. I will assume that love doesn't need a visual. It’s all a matter of what's on the inside.

Speaking of what's on the inside, I took a small trip outside of Taipei today. Taiwan is quiet amazing when you venture outside the city limits. The air gets cleaner (?!), and the landscape and greenery is astounding. Living in abroad constantly teaches me to have to go beyond the surface to see the "deeper" meaning. It's not that I think everything I encounter has a meaning per se. But my vision, heart and mind, has deepened with each new encounter I have. I’ve learned to see the similarities in people while being able to delight in their uniqueness. It’s a tad ironic, because what comes to mind are few thoughts about how a few foreigners come to Asia with ideas of exoticness dancing in their minds, and the difference aspects of life abroad hits, then some resistance comes up. Lord knows, I have had my share, yet, with each funny and sometimes, frustrating encounter comes up I am for the richer. I have had to learn to take my mother's comment to heart "for it’s what's on the inside that counts"

Across the Abyss

Today, I had to speak to my father, which I generally dread because his way of holding a conversation is generally to yell and scream at each other. But in this conversation, I got to see how far I had come in really relating to him and how who he is impacts me.

Generally, I have always left the conversations, feeling less than powerful and blaming him for not ‘allowing me’ to be or do something. But since we haven’t talked in 9 months, I was surprised and pleased with how I dealt with the situation. I saw how much I grown in how much I had allowed his words to have power over me.

When you live overseas, you are not in your comfort zone. All your issues with yourself and others do come to the forefront because you have no where to ‘hide’. Of course, you can isolate yourself in the foreign community, drink a shit load of beer, or go to work and then come home. But eventually your ‘stuff’ will be there magnified waiting for you to deal with. Each time abroad, I have had the opportunity to transform myself into becoming something more than I thought I could be. The experience itself requires you to up the level of being, but the opportunities to integrate lessons learned into this new self are optional.

These opportunities have enabled me to bring closure to a painful past, particularly with my father. We have had a very tense relationship, and for years I believed as he would say that I was the source of that tension. When I moved back in to his house last summer, I saw that none of that was true.

Living in Kaoshiung, I was living next door to a neighbor who mirrored my father in attitude and behavior, verbally and emotionally abusive. Couple that with the fact that I was working on resolving my anger issues it wasn’t the greatest 10 months of my life. To reach the peace in my life that I wanted, I knew that I had to give up my anger, yet was not truly aware of it. I had many New Age and self help books to tell me how to do it. I even had an astrologer on hand to help me thru. Yet, I wasn’t getting thru.

Living everyday in a culture where you can’t read or speak the language is strenuous. The level of stress is higher because you the one that will make it or not make it “happen”.

So, add this to the weight of the anger I had toward myself, the world and in all my relationships, I was a wreck. I began a meditation called “Planetary Meditation for Peace” suggested to me by the astrologer. After a month of trying, I began to be able to quiet my mind. In the meditation which uses the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, I heard the line “where there is hatred, so let me so love.” My mind stopped and in that moment I became aware that I held the hatred in me. In that moment, anger ceased to have power over me. I became aware of the impact that all my anger had had in my life and was free.
When you have moments of clarity like that you will be tested. When I realized how much in control of my emotions I could be, I could begin “to control’” the situations that triggered the anger, I no longer was at its mercy. A new day had arrived.

My biggest test would come when I would have to move back in with my father for the summer. During that summer, I realized that I was involved in a verbally and emotionally abusive relationship once I stopped responding and allowing myself to be triggered by his anger and words. Armed with that knowledge and realization that I was not the source of his anger as I believed so for many years, I found myself more compassionate toward him, because I know he isn’t aware of the impact of his actions. I began to really see that my father is struggling with his own issues stemming from a harsh childhood. I also began to embark on the realization that I wasn’t as weak and powerless in my life as I thought I was.

Each time abroad, I have had some sort of assistance. But this time it was all on me, the financial part, and the part as to where to live and what to do. During these 9 months of not talking to him and doing it on my own, I have been able to see where in myself I have been still “tied” to him in child/parent relating. I realized that I had to just approve of myself and come to trust myself in what I did for my life. Up until that moment I had second guessed what I did based on what I thought he would say or think. This showed up in all my other relationships as well here. I begin to realize that the approval and support I was seeking was within and once I took that jump, I have found that a lot of my demons have been laid to rest.

At some point of adulthood, one has to just see mom and dad as Jane and John. Come to realize that they have the same fallacies as we do and allow them to be. I think in America we idealize parenthood way too much. We need to stop blaming our parents after 20,30,40 years of what they did, and didn’t do and come to realize that – not that they did the best the could- but that they are very very much like us, struggling with their own demons, losses, and hopes in their own world. It pains me not to be able to see my father grow beyond behaviors that are detrimental, yet they serve a purpose for him and in true love and forgiveness, I have to allow him to be who he is, for he is perfect.

Okay, here's the 1st "Create a caption" contest. Create a caption for this photo with a short info line about the picture and you will recieve a gift from Taiwan worth $100NTD. This offer is good until June 4th 2004. 

R&J Renolds continues to get them young in China. The age for this boy is not published.

Ms. I.AM. Somebody, Ph.D.

I have put off a day of writing because I have been sooo tired. I assume that my soul has already made the journey to America before my body has because in my classes I have looked at my teacher as if she was speaking Chinese to me. Oh wait, I am learning Chinese. Okay, bad joke. But seriously, I have hit that wall of learning. I can’t do it any more. I want to go back to see what is going on. What the gossip is, and to check out who this Osmora chick everyone hates. Generally, I have ideas and things to write but I am at a loss as to how to put my words today. I guess just spittin’ it out there would make it the best way.

Maya Angelou, who also spent many years abroad, has a saying that she picked up when she lived in Africa. Blow bite and blow. I first heard this term used when she was explaining something to Oprah and how to handle the negative press. The concept is that there are people in your life who will not come right out and attack. Rather they will “blow, then bite and then blow” which lessens the degree of impact of their negativity. I have encountered this behavior recently. Giving a ride to a classmate, she comments that she felt “guilty for me becoming her personal chauffer”. I began mocking her and her comment by acting like I was in the movie driving “Ms. Daisy”. The classmate, whom I have been spending a lot of time with, is some one to be admired. Self made, brilliant thinker and resilient to what horrendous obstacles life has thrown her way. Yet, her views of me continue to reinforce that higher education doesn’t produce greater minds.

During the course of our acquaintance, she has made reactionary comments that seemed to be the result of a stereotypical upbringing. What is assertive to me is hostility to her. What is me being direct is confrontational to her. Why this all occurs to me is profound on two levels. When I first lived in Japan, I was so concerned with racism. While it does it exists, I began to realize it is not as intuitional in the world as it is in America. The Japanese do not have the political nor social history of dealing with Blacks as White Americans do, therefore their perception of Blacks and their actions or way of being is completely different. What is of the norm at home completely means something else or nothing at all overseas. You begin to see, if you are open to it, that there is no “correct” perception.

The second level of this experience is that she will be going on to study for a Master’s at an Ivy League college. Having been raised in a household where both parents held PhD’s and being surrounded by people who held the same stature I began to see a common theme. You can have a higher education, but that doesn’t mean your own personal views will necessarily be of a higher level. I am not opposed at all to advanced education, I am amazed at how many I have encountered that have entrenched views that are racists, sexist, etc in tone. I must have a naive way of thinking because I believe that as one’s education progressed, that one would be more tolerant and open to different ideologies and characteristics. Yet, that doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems that the higher you are on the education level the more you have a sort of lobotomy on the emphatic section of your brain.

I have concluded that my associate is not intentionally trying to hurt or insult me. That she is not very aware of the impact her beliefs are having. Having encounter tremendous amounts of obstacles in her youth, she has believed that being highly educated will some how absolve her from being deemed less than worthy. And this is not just symptomatic of her. It’s the old story of trying to regain a sense of self thru what is deemed of value in a society. And being that African Americans are not deemed to be of worth in America, it is understandable that she would have such reactions toward my behaviors.

I am not an angel by any means, and have had to struggle for years with my own sense of self worth. Yet, her perception only solidifies the realization that our self value can only be set by us and nothing outside of you can alter that.

Those crazy Taiwanese kids.

I read the Apple Daily paper,a Chinese tabloid-like,newspaper here to get an idea(a strange one at that) of what life is like in Taiwan. There is one page that shows pictures the crazy stuff that happens around Taiwan. I will try to post one a day, if it's crazy. Also, I will be having "create an caption" contest and if it's funny enough, then the winner will get a gift valued at $100NTD!!! So keep checking and enjoy!!! :)

The words of the day-liu(3)Niao(2). Means to "walk the bird" its slang for a man takin his penis for a walk. Occationally this happens a couple of times a year in Taiwan. 

Just Do it...

Just do it…..

I'm doing everything but what should be doing today, watching "Family Guy", playin' spades on Yahoo, etc. I have a shit load of laundry to do, plus packing because I'm moving in to my great new apartment. This will be my 11th move since 1997. You think I would be adapt at such a process. I always looked at my future homes as places that would be the agent of change in my life.

Since I lost my mother in 1994, I have been trying to create an upswing in my life. I have always looked at my apartments as the hope that will spring eternal. So, I always have these high hopes of "Oh this is the place where I will be able to attract a boyfriend, loads of friends to come over, dinner parties, etc." the place where all my dreams/fabulous life will begin to manifest. And up to this date, to my perception, none of that has occurred. With each apartment, I have always spent a load of money on furnishing it, doing feng shui, blessing with Indian Sages, Tibetan bells and salts left in the corners, you name it, I may have done it, all in the name of changing my reality. And in the end, sometimes I have wasted a lot of money, or just gone overboard. I have been very lucky in being able to make so many moves, especially when I didn't know how it would occur. Yet, I can look back I see, that each opportunity was me simply trying to gain approval of others. Seeing all that I realize that money hasn't been a tool for me to use, a tool to enable me to manifest my dreams, but more like many of my possessions are a results emotional buying with the emphasis of it will finally make me a person worthy of love.

Seeing this has brought enough clarity to me to say that this apartment is a place to rest, no need to run myself ragged, running around town trying to buy "that right" thing and attempt to understand the concept that I am the source of any manifestation in my life.

The great Ikea couch is just end result.

what Hollywood did to Buckwheat. 

I the Person of My Own Being…

Okay. This is my first post online. I probably will be rambling on until I get the hang of this or get a groove in my writing. I currently prepare to finish my term at ShiDa University, in Taipei Taiwan. I hate the school and the classes but it's all very much for my good, I suppose. I am preparing to go live in China for the summer. You think that living in Taiwan would prepare me for such a venture, but I can sense the culture shock beginning. I am also dealing with the stress of going to see a friend I haven't seen in 13 years. It's so interesting with that because I am seeing that how things are "blocking" my way to going to see her, i.e. negative thinking and fear. And it's interesting, if you truly pay attention to your life you will see how lessons will show up for you in ways that don't occur to be lessons. For example, my friend and I have been saying we would meet up, but we didn’t. And now that a huge chapter in my life is closing and beginning a new stage, I am seeing how the power of your word has such significance. It is the only thing a person truly owns, yet we use it like it has no power. I have always wondered why some things happened and others don't. Given that I keep my word when it benefits me or when I think I'm in a safe position, I see how things work out. But when things would require for me to go beyond my boundaries and put myself on the line, I can see where I have created situations where they don't develop. For example, I could back out on this trip using the excuse that I don't have the money to spend. It's true that I am reassessing my finances, and do need to be wiser in my choices of spending. But I know that if I were to say “I don't have the money for this." I would have the same money to use for something else. So it has caused me to go deeper and question why I would limit myself in doing something that would give me such vast amounts of joy. One is that I have the internal conversation based upon the belief that not many people care about me. Another is, me being forced to face my fear of intimacy. In order to grow, I realize that I will have to challenge my fears, and remember that they aren't something that define who I am.