#and I’m an Asian person who may be viewed as prettier than her and I have brown eyes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

steamishot · 5 years

Text

Weekend recap

friday - dropped my parents off in monterey park to go on their chinese tour trip with their friends. had to wake up at 5:10am and pick their couple friends up along the way because my dad offered. it was interesting hearing their conversations. my “auntie” was talking about how their friends bought big homes (3-4 rooms) but it’s extra work now that their kids have moved out. more work has to be done for cleaning and maintenance and it might have been a better idea just to get a small, one bedroom place. they talked about how now that they’ve reached 60, to focus on a decade at a time, and try to enjoy themselves from 60-70. once they reach 70, they can reevaluate again.

on saturday, b and i attended the cambodia town film festival. my saturday was quite packed so i almost started to dread driving far out to long beach and questioned if i still even wanted to go. i also slept awkwardly the night before, so i had an uncomfortable stiffness in my neck all day. every time this neck stiffness happens, it affects my whole body and energy level. i was anxious because i left my house later than anticipated (bc facetiming with matt), and i get anxious when i’m late to events lol. finding parking was also hard too, which made me even more anxious. on top of that, i was afraid of running into my ex, any of his friends/family or anyone that i may know.

anyway, we made it on time and caught a short film about a czech lady who longed to host a cambodian family after hearing about the khmer rouge. she empathized with them because her country went through something similar. the film was quite slow and it took some time for me to relax and get into it. i was also distracted by my hunger and thirst. luckily, during the break before the main movie premiered, we got to stop by the falafel shop next door and pick up some pretty good food/snacks! by the time we were back, i was more comfortable, relaxed and ready to enjoy the movie. i was immediately engaged in the movie, and it was very easy to follow and watch. the soundtrack was beautiful and parts of the movie were so heavy and emotional i wanted to cry. 92 minutes went by in an instant. we were grateful to be able to stay afterwards for a Q&A session with the directors, producers, and of course, ellen wong! i was really excited to see her in person, and she’s prettier in real life imo. the directors of CTFT were also there. one was praCh ly, a rapper who apparently was rumored to have a relationship with angelina jolie (i found out after looking him up). when the questions were open to audience, there was a middle age cambodian man who said, “this movie really touched my heart. thank you for making it. i want to know, where in cambodia did you film it?” it was like being in adult/post-college UKS and i had a sense of belonging to this community. there was also a panel afterwards, descendants of genocide survivors.

b and i got a pic with ellen wong. initially, i was scared to go up to her because i wasn’t sure what i’d say. thankfully b is more courageous than i am and we got it. :) the first thing we said to her was, “we’re chinese cambodian too” and ellen goes, “ME TOO!”. it was my first time meeting/talking to a celebrity, and i’m glad it was her. i’ve seen her as knives chau in scott pilgrim, and thought she looked familiar/like she’s one of my people. never questioned it until recently. just learned a few months ago that she’s also teochew, chinese parents from cambodia, and started fangirling her since. lucky to have it play out like this. i drove home starstruck.

since my parents are out of town, i ate dinner at a thai restaurant with my uncle and grandma, then headed back home to prep/pack for paint nite at L’s place. b came over and we picked s up before heading over to meet L and LC. paint nite was therapeutic. great snacks and wine. L asked a lot of questions to kinda get to know everyone on a deeper level. we painted from like 7:45pm to 10pm and got kicked out of the common room when it closed at 10. at that point, most people were like 70-98% done. i was like 98% done lol. i admire L for being mature and having her shit together, and as i was leaning towards building that life for myself, i started becoming more annoyed at b, who is more wild spirited and all over the place. however, i appreciated b more last night. she’s definitely one of a kind and its nice to have her at parties because she does make things more fun. she even got us/L to go out to a bar (at which we only stayed like 30 min lol). i ended up getting home around 1am, which is late for me. it was refreshing to go out and see people at bars/nightlife, even though it drained me being in the environment. it’s nice once in a while to absorb others’ youthful energies and not be such a grandma all the time.

sunday- even though i only had 6-7 hours of sleep, i woke up feeling good. my stiff neck went away and i got up to get ready for my UX dim sum event. i attended this event with my indian mama. the event was interesting and basically what we practiced in class. our workshop was a mix of those who have been to dim sum many times before/grew up with it and those who are first or second timers. we shared our observations, interviewed each other, and shared more/new observations. we tackled the problems in the design that we discovered, such as- how do we even know what each dish is? what’s in each dish? and we explored the cart system and difficulties of ordering. it was really cool to view dim sum in a new light. i don’t see any of the proposals we came up with being used in 626, where it’s predominately asian, but it might be useful in like chinatown, cerritos, south bay, etc where there the customers are less homogenous (i think). it made me realize how inclusive dim sum is. you go in, and there’s no instruction on how the system works. no friendly staff to be like, “is this your first time here? blahblahblah”. you just have to figure it out on your own, or rely on people who have been there before to teach you.

in our table of 14 today, i sat in between my indian mama and a mexican/german UX researcher girl. it was my indian mama’s first time and the UX researcher’s second time at dim sum. part of what makes the experience fun and interesting is getting to see others experience dim sum for the first time. as a dim sum “veteran”, i also take on the role of the caretaker, explaining what each dish is to the best of my knowledge, and helping them out with chopsticks/grabbing food.

design thinking is not easy. i still tend to be timid and not speak up in group environments, and i feel self conscious that i’m not contributing enough. i’d definitely feel more comfortable once i’ve seen and worked with the same people before, but i’m still shy at the beginning. from what i’ve seen today, your presentation skills/ability to articulate an idea well really matter a lot. the others in the workshop were able to make everyone laugh as they were explaining their ideas, whereas i was more serious and mousy - and therefore not very fun. oh well, i’m glad i did something out of my comfort zone today. :) made me happy to also be with my indian mama when she tried dimsum and half and half for the first time.

0 notes