Yesterday was Halloween, quite possibly my favorite holiday in my favorite season of the year. I find it fascinating how the meaning of Halloween changes for people with age. When parents still had to hold our hands to each doorway down suburbia lane, it was a time when we could be something adorable and fuzzy like a rabbit. Not playboy bunny, but full on fuzzy suit rabbit. Or maybe a ghost or a witch, both legit and popular costumes of choice. And also just the concept of trick or treating, knocking on stranger's doors, people you wouldn't normally see or talk to, and demanding (sometimes even yelling in their face "trick or treat!" ...give me candy, bitch. or else I'm going to trash your home. What other day can a person say something with those implied meanings and not get slapped in the face, but be warmly greeted by the homeowners who are happy that little children are stopping by.
I always thought of Halloween as the one night of the year where a person can be someone/something/hybrid of both else. It's so interesting then, to see people, especially women, increasingly choose costumes where they can yes, be someone else and also showcase their sexuality/skanky or more wilder side. What age did Halloween change from being nights of witches and bunnies and fairies to playboy bunnies, French maids, and policewomen? Not going to deny that if done right it's pretty hot, but it's interesting to see Halloween turn into the night where a person can slut down.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
tracked in life
My roommates constantly surprise me with new thoughts to keep my mind occupied. It can happen at the most random times too. Contrary to the idea that higher education opens doors to greater opportunities, we suggest that it leads not to greater but to different paths, and possibly limiting ones career choices. Even though one has attained a level of education high from a decently known institution and probably has access to pursue many different avenues, the pressures coming from friends, family, and the greater social network and also the culture, the "air that we breath" does not support this free for all environment. Factoring the expectations that come attached with one seeking to attain a higher degree, I feel that one is also gathering cultural capital which invovles ingraining a set of values of what is appropiate and what is not. Maybe it comes from the family, who have probably invested a lot of resources to help the child reach the place where he is presently and expect high returns. Regardless perhaps there is this invisible tracking that so many of us are experiencing. Dustin mentioned last night that we never really get out of highschool. Are we tracked throughout life? Also, my memory is fading but was everyone tracked in our pre-college institutions? I remember that there were programs for the so called "smart" kids and then a number of outreach programs for the "at risk" population. I don't remember there being significant efforts to direct those who were at the middle performance level. They were the people who passed the classes, maybe with a C but they made it through and that was what mattered. If one then wants freedom from being tracked in life, then is the answer to be mediocre?
email to home from singapore
On Jan 19, 2007, at 1:20 AM, Teresa Chan wrote:
Hello and greetings from Singapore!
I think it is about time I got my act together and write to people at home before you all forgot who I am. Actually, I had started at least five or six drafts but it seems like every time I revisit it, something becomes inaccurate because the past couple weeks has been a constant parade of readjusting and getting settled in, being exposed to new things, etc. So this time even though stuff might change later I really need to just send it out.
So I have been having a great time in Singapore and southeast asia! I definitely am very satisfied (so far) with choosing to come here. Like the night before leaving I was like….what am I getting myself into going to a country right on the equator to a room with no air conditioning. I was kind of lonely on the plane because I didn’t know anyone but a plethora of movies kept me occupied. But right when I got off the plane (totaling about 20 hours) some of the other people that were studying abroad from other UCs approached me. So in retrospect, I really lucked out in always having someone there who was going through the same thing. If I didn’t run into them I would have had to chill at the airport for 6+ hours, luckily we found this neat little hostel to stay at for the night! When I first stepped out of the airport the humidity was so bad I felt like I was breathing in water, and it felt like that for the first couple days but now I’m used to it.
Then the next week was spent playing tourists and getting to know the others in the group. The food here, or a good amount of it I think, is amazing in both quality and quantity. Except for chicken rice, which is sort of like their signature dish, I haven’t had the same thing twice yet. They have these places called Hawker centers, where its an area than all these food vendors congregate and sell cheap good food. Most the food here is a Chinese, Malay, and Indian food because those are the three biggest populations here. Side note: apparently, Mc.Donalds (they call is “Macs” here) and other western fast food restaurants are treated as a luxury so only people that are slightly better off eat there because one meal S$~5-6 dollars is twice the amount of a meal in a hawker center. Also my new favorite drink is now soursop guava- soursop is a kind of fruit? Maybe it was in the states before but I just discovered it now. Amazing.
But okay, besides eating tasty food all the time, we visited a ton of places around Singapore like museums and different ethnic areas like Little India and Arab street. One memory that is a bit traumatic happened by the mosque. We had some time before this Malay performance so a couple of us wandered around to the mosque because a festival was happening. I had expected to see like, people dancing or whatever but instead saw four sheep getting their heads chopped off! I felt like throwing up. And the sheeps’ blood was running like a river down into the streets. On that lovely note- we continued to do a massive load of culture intake and to be honest it was a bit too museum-ish for me. We did go to Sentosa though, which is like Singapore’s resort island. Actually, we went there once in the daytime and the other was for this foam party for new years, which was right on the beach and definitely rocked. I remember all these people dancing in the sand and in the foam pit getting absolutely crazy, and us doing the whole countdown soaking wet! There are pictures posted on facebook, but I will try to post more of them. Our batch of UC students, I think, are a lot of fun and I love hanging out with them. It works out really well too because when it comes to traveling, a lot of them know the languages of other Southeast Asian countries so navigating just got that much easier. Oh, and people here love to shop. It amazes me how a population that lives primarily in flats in super tall high rises can accumulate so much…stuff. I’m getting a bit tired of seeing malls left and right. One of my friends here, Jenny, put it quite nicely by saying Singapore is made of up 75% shopping malls, and the remaining 25% is food.
The people here are quite nice and once the ice is broken they actually do talk a lot. I’m having an incredibly hard time remembering/pronouncing people’s names because a lot are names like Sze Le or Jia Mai. I think the girls here are really pretty. A lot more feminine than America in how they act and dress. A good thing about Singapore is that because its so damn hot here, every day can be a let us dress cute and summery day- even when its thunder storming its hot! So as a result I think a lot of girls look classy cute when going to school. The guys…well the guys here are two years academically behind the girls, because when they finish high school, they have to go serve in the military for two years. It’s mandatory and I guess a lot are bitter about it, but I think it’s comforting to know that the guy sitting next to you in class knows how to operate a tank and kick someone’s ass if something was ever to come up. But uh… physically I think Americans guys look more the part than the Singaporeans. =)
One thing I really really love about Singapore is how incredibly safe it is here, it’s a huge change from Berkeley. I went from being too freaked out to shower at night because of peeping toms at Cal to an open dormitory where when I walk outside of my room it’s the outside and people go running at like 2 in the morning around campus. Because the punishments here are quite severe, most of the people, or at least the student population and other locals I have met, are really good. Apparently when everyone is a kid, the schools take them to the prisons to show them the caning room and the gallows (yeah the death penalty is carried out by hanging still). And in one of the shopping malls there is this huge stern looking man printed on cardboard with a caption that says (in regards to shoplifting)“A moment of greed, a LIFETIME of regret!” Its also amazing how clean it is, and its true that even though gum is allowed now, people don’t really chew it and as a result it isn’t on the streets.
This totally was not the case when I traveled to Malaysia this past weekend, which was awesome but in a different way. We first went to KL, short for Kuala Lumpur, their capital. It didn’t impress me incredibly to be honest- it was hectic and dirty with crazy taxi drivers that tried to rip us off, but if you look at it another way it was way more representative of asia than Singapore was. We saw the Petronas Towers (well now the tallest twin towers in the world). It’s quite beautiful, and I really like it because its perimiter is modeled after one of the main muslim symbols. To be able to integrate culture that well with building a skyscraper definitely impressed me. But my favorite part was going inside their national mosque. I never thought I would go into a mosque! We put on these robes that looked like moo moos and got barefoot and then proceded to walk inside and saw the big room where all the men prayed in 5 times a day. Really serene place and we learned a little about the Muslim faith. At night we just kicked it back at the hostel with some guys from Illinois and ate more dirt cheap yummy food. Then we headed to Malacca, which is still in Malaysia but a smaller, historic port town. Loved, Loved, Loved my time there! i think some of my favorite moments so far happened there. We stayed in Malacca’s Chinatown. This was like…hardcore Chinatown, all the buildings were the original ones with the open drains for everything out in the front, with narrow winding streets and bikes everywhere. The bottom were shops selling stuff like herbs or trinkets while the top floor was where the shopkeepers lived. It was really cool because I think it was how my family back in Asia used to live so it was awesome to get a feel for what it was like. At night we went to their night market, which is basically what the title says it is- a bunch of vendors selling stuff at night with more food. The cool thing was by the night market there was this open karaoke stage where anyone could go up and sing, and so all these old people were lined up to sing their fav. Chinese oldies while chairs were set up so others in the community could hear. It was so effin awesome just to like…sit their with them and chill and be and enjoy life with the locals. I have a few pictures but it really doesn’t capture the feeling. Later that night we went to a live music bar and they played some American oldies so our entire group just like got up and went crazy and provided some high class entertainment for the locals that were there haha, and later we ended up partying with this local old man who basically still had the spirit of a 20 yr old & told us about his life n stuff! The whole night was just so…I dunno… chill and fun! I definitely loved it. But the next day we visited a church which was just as amazing. It was on top of a hill and was a pain to walk there but it was definitely one of those places where you walk in and this feeling just comes over you. Well at least it came over me. It was actually church ruins, and inside the deteriorating structure was this man who was singing and playing guitar. The music he was playing really hit the spot and just made the moment of standing in the old church something I won’t be forgetting for a while. Then he played a song for me! I was really happy.
I am leaving out a lot of stuff because this is already page three and if you bothered to read this far, well, thanks for being curious but I am afraid of boring you more. Oh! I’ve been going clubbing a lot so that’s a bit of a change for me! Every Wednesday it is ladies night so they lift the cover charge and at some even the drinks, so it’s a sweet deal and everyone goes out on this night. Apparently it’s part of the government’s initiative to get people to procreate. Just what I heard! Last night one of the locals who lives below me took a couple of us out to Zouk, which is like their most famous club aside from this one called Ministry of Sound- which I will check out on my birthday. Zouk was quite nice- it’s actually a complex of 3 or 4 clubs grouped into one so there were several types of music to choose from throughout the night, I tried a flaming lamborguini for the first time and was freaked out because it was on fire- haha I didn’t know it was actually supposed to be! Even though the drinking age is 18 in Singapore, turning 21 is still a huge deal. I asked why and everyone was just like, just because!
So something that has randomly happened is that I joined my hall’s volleyball team! They needed some extra players so I was like hey why not let’s do it. The dorms are really spirited here and so it was kind of nerve- racking when everyone was like cheering and yelling for their hall. But the best part is that they coach and communicate in Chinese mostly and I have no idea what they are saying! But the girls have been really nice about explaining stuff. Another thing- I had picked Singapore because I thought the people spoke English. They do but it’s a differen’t kind of English that took some time getting used to. (ie, they stick “la” at the end of a lot of their words, like “ok-la!”). And much of the spoken daily language is a mixture of Chinese, English, and Malay to varying degrees. I think its called Singlish.
I am leaving so many things out! Oh, classes started. Um…so far I think they are o.k. I’ve heard that people here are really competitive because everything is curved even the arts. We only meet once a week for classes though, so that was a nice surprise upon arriving here! I’m just continuing to take sociology classes and a class about Singapore…because I feel like since I’m here already, I should learn something about it right? Yeah.
With generally speaking favorable exchange rates, I am pretty excited to travel around southeast asia. My trip to Malaysia this past weekend cost less than $100! I want to go to all these places! But with the bombings and kidnapping, etc by the local terrorists groups here- several of the countries are out of the question. It’s actually really scary to be so close to the stuff that is happening.
Overall I really like it here and in Asia! There are these subtle differences that make it different that I am not mentioning such as eating places not providing napkins, half the toilets being squatting toilets (so like even girls pee standing), using a small plastic bag for take away drinks instead of a cup (it’s not “to go” here- it’s “take away”), the obsession with Milo (which is a chocolate milk kind of drink, they also sell it in the states but it consumed like water here) but all these small differences are adding up along with the bigger ones like culture and values which I am constantly learning a lot about. Having a group from CA really makes it a lot more fun because they are going through the same thing with me. It’s definitely making me realize and reconsider how Asian, or not Asian I am though!
Despite having a really good time here, I must say that I do miss home and Berkeley at times. Definitely felt that winter break was too short and that I was being hurled into something new without having enough time to relax and chill at home. Now that school has started again, I definitely miss hearing the Campanile concerts, boba runs, and the formal dinners at the theta house, just to name a few! I think on New Years I broke my camera- so I haven’t been being a diligent picture taker, but am working on getting it fixed soon. I definitely feel like this email isn’t doing Singapore justice but I just need to send one out! Okay and if you have the time, write back and tell me how your life is going too! =) I would love to hear from people back in the states, even a short paragraph would be awesome and appreciated!
Missing you and much love,
- Teresa
Hello and greetings from Singapore!
I think it is about time I got my act together and write to people at home before you all forgot who I am. Actually, I had started at least five or six drafts but it seems like every time I revisit it, something becomes inaccurate because the past couple weeks has been a constant parade of readjusting and getting settled in, being exposed to new things, etc. So this time even though stuff might change later I really need to just send it out.
So I have been having a great time in Singapore and southeast asia! I definitely am very satisfied (so far) with choosing to come here. Like the night before leaving I was like….what am I getting myself into going to a country right on the equator to a room with no air conditioning. I was kind of lonely on the plane because I didn’t know anyone but a plethora of movies kept me occupied. But right when I got off the plane (totaling about 20 hours) some of the other people that were studying abroad from other UCs approached me. So in retrospect, I really lucked out in always having someone there who was going through the same thing. If I didn’t run into them I would have had to chill at the airport for 6+ hours, luckily we found this neat little hostel to stay at for the night! When I first stepped out of the airport the humidity was so bad I felt like I was breathing in water, and it felt like that for the first couple days but now I’m used to it.
Then the next week was spent playing tourists and getting to know the others in the group. The food here, or a good amount of it I think, is amazing in both quality and quantity. Except for chicken rice, which is sort of like their signature dish, I haven’t had the same thing twice yet. They have these places called Hawker centers, where its an area than all these food vendors congregate and sell cheap good food. Most the food here is a Chinese, Malay, and Indian food because those are the three biggest populations here. Side note: apparently, Mc.Donalds (they call is “Macs” here) and other western fast food restaurants are treated as a luxury so only people that are slightly better off eat there because one meal S$~5-6 dollars is twice the amount of a meal in a hawker center. Also my new favorite drink is now soursop guava- soursop is a kind of fruit? Maybe it was in the states before but I just discovered it now. Amazing.
But okay, besides eating tasty food all the time, we visited a ton of places around Singapore like museums and different ethnic areas like Little India and Arab street. One memory that is a bit traumatic happened by the mosque. We had some time before this Malay performance so a couple of us wandered around to the mosque because a festival was happening. I had expected to see like, people dancing or whatever but instead saw four sheep getting their heads chopped off! I felt like throwing up. And the sheeps’ blood was running like a river down into the streets. On that lovely note- we continued to do a massive load of culture intake and to be honest it was a bit too museum-ish for me. We did go to Sentosa though, which is like Singapore’s resort island. Actually, we went there once in the daytime and the other was for this foam party for new years, which was right on the beach and definitely rocked. I remember all these people dancing in the sand and in the foam pit getting absolutely crazy, and us doing the whole countdown soaking wet! There are pictures posted on facebook, but I will try to post more of them. Our batch of UC students, I think, are a lot of fun and I love hanging out with them. It works out really well too because when it comes to traveling, a lot of them know the languages of other Southeast Asian countries so navigating just got that much easier. Oh, and people here love to shop. It amazes me how a population that lives primarily in flats in super tall high rises can accumulate so much…stuff. I’m getting a bit tired of seeing malls left and right. One of my friends here, Jenny, put it quite nicely by saying Singapore is made of up 75% shopping malls, and the remaining 25% is food.
The people here are quite nice and once the ice is broken they actually do talk a lot. I’m having an incredibly hard time remembering/pronouncing people’s names because a lot are names like Sze Le or Jia Mai. I think the girls here are really pretty. A lot more feminine than America in how they act and dress. A good thing about Singapore is that because its so damn hot here, every day can be a let us dress cute and summery day- even when its thunder storming its hot! So as a result I think a lot of girls look classy cute when going to school. The guys…well the guys here are two years academically behind the girls, because when they finish high school, they have to go serve in the military for two years. It’s mandatory and I guess a lot are bitter about it, but I think it’s comforting to know that the guy sitting next to you in class knows how to operate a tank and kick someone’s ass if something was ever to come up. But uh… physically I think Americans guys look more the part than the Singaporeans. =)
One thing I really really love about Singapore is how incredibly safe it is here, it’s a huge change from Berkeley. I went from being too freaked out to shower at night because of peeping toms at Cal to an open dormitory where when I walk outside of my room it’s the outside and people go running at like 2 in the morning around campus. Because the punishments here are quite severe, most of the people, or at least the student population and other locals I have met, are really good. Apparently when everyone is a kid, the schools take them to the prisons to show them the caning room and the gallows (yeah the death penalty is carried out by hanging still). And in one of the shopping malls there is this huge stern looking man printed on cardboard with a caption that says (in regards to shoplifting)“A moment of greed, a LIFETIME of regret!” Its also amazing how clean it is, and its true that even though gum is allowed now, people don’t really chew it and as a result it isn’t on the streets.
This totally was not the case when I traveled to Malaysia this past weekend, which was awesome but in a different way. We first went to KL, short for Kuala Lumpur, their capital. It didn’t impress me incredibly to be honest- it was hectic and dirty with crazy taxi drivers that tried to rip us off, but if you look at it another way it was way more representative of asia than Singapore was. We saw the Petronas Towers (well now the tallest twin towers in the world). It’s quite beautiful, and I really like it because its perimiter is modeled after one of the main muslim symbols. To be able to integrate culture that well with building a skyscraper definitely impressed me. But my favorite part was going inside their national mosque. I never thought I would go into a mosque! We put on these robes that looked like moo moos and got barefoot and then proceded to walk inside and saw the big room where all the men prayed in 5 times a day. Really serene place and we learned a little about the Muslim faith. At night we just kicked it back at the hostel with some guys from Illinois and ate more dirt cheap yummy food. Then we headed to Malacca, which is still in Malaysia but a smaller, historic port town. Loved, Loved, Loved my time there! i think some of my favorite moments so far happened there. We stayed in Malacca’s Chinatown. This was like…hardcore Chinatown, all the buildings were the original ones with the open drains for everything out in the front, with narrow winding streets and bikes everywhere. The bottom were shops selling stuff like herbs or trinkets while the top floor was where the shopkeepers lived. It was really cool because I think it was how my family back in Asia used to live so it was awesome to get a feel for what it was like. At night we went to their night market, which is basically what the title says it is- a bunch of vendors selling stuff at night with more food. The cool thing was by the night market there was this open karaoke stage where anyone could go up and sing, and so all these old people were lined up to sing their fav. Chinese oldies while chairs were set up so others in the community could hear. It was so effin awesome just to like…sit their with them and chill and be and enjoy life with the locals. I have a few pictures but it really doesn’t capture the feeling. Later that night we went to a live music bar and they played some American oldies so our entire group just like got up and went crazy and provided some high class entertainment for the locals that were there haha, and later we ended up partying with this local old man who basically still had the spirit of a 20 yr old & told us about his life n stuff! The whole night was just so…I dunno… chill and fun! I definitely loved it. But the next day we visited a church which was just as amazing. It was on top of a hill and was a pain to walk there but it was definitely one of those places where you walk in and this feeling just comes over you. Well at least it came over me. It was actually church ruins, and inside the deteriorating structure was this man who was singing and playing guitar. The music he was playing really hit the spot and just made the moment of standing in the old church something I won’t be forgetting for a while. Then he played a song for me! I was really happy.
I am leaving out a lot of stuff because this is already page three and if you bothered to read this far, well, thanks for being curious but I am afraid of boring you more. Oh! I’ve been going clubbing a lot so that’s a bit of a change for me! Every Wednesday it is ladies night so they lift the cover charge and at some even the drinks, so it’s a sweet deal and everyone goes out on this night. Apparently it’s part of the government’s initiative to get people to procreate. Just what I heard! Last night one of the locals who lives below me took a couple of us out to Zouk, which is like their most famous club aside from this one called Ministry of Sound- which I will check out on my birthday. Zouk was quite nice- it’s actually a complex of 3 or 4 clubs grouped into one so there were several types of music to choose from throughout the night, I tried a flaming lamborguini for the first time and was freaked out because it was on fire- haha I didn’t know it was actually supposed to be! Even though the drinking age is 18 in Singapore, turning 21 is still a huge deal. I asked why and everyone was just like, just because!
So something that has randomly happened is that I joined my hall’s volleyball team! They needed some extra players so I was like hey why not let’s do it. The dorms are really spirited here and so it was kind of nerve- racking when everyone was like cheering and yelling for their hall. But the best part is that they coach and communicate in Chinese mostly and I have no idea what they are saying! But the girls have been really nice about explaining stuff. Another thing- I had picked Singapore because I thought the people spoke English. They do but it’s a differen’t kind of English that took some time getting used to. (ie, they stick “la” at the end of a lot of their words, like “ok-la!”). And much of the spoken daily language is a mixture of Chinese, English, and Malay to varying degrees. I think its called Singlish.
I am leaving so many things out! Oh, classes started. Um…so far I think they are o.k. I’ve heard that people here are really competitive because everything is curved even the arts. We only meet once a week for classes though, so that was a nice surprise upon arriving here! I’m just continuing to take sociology classes and a class about Singapore…because I feel like since I’m here already, I should learn something about it right? Yeah.
With generally speaking favorable exchange rates, I am pretty excited to travel around southeast asia. My trip to Malaysia this past weekend cost less than $100! I want to go to all these places! But with the bombings and kidnapping, etc by the local terrorists groups here- several of the countries are out of the question. It’s actually really scary to be so close to the stuff that is happening.
Overall I really like it here and in Asia! There are these subtle differences that make it different that I am not mentioning such as eating places not providing napkins, half the toilets being squatting toilets (so like even girls pee standing), using a small plastic bag for take away drinks instead of a cup (it’s not “to go” here- it’s “take away”), the obsession with Milo (which is a chocolate milk kind of drink, they also sell it in the states but it consumed like water here) but all these small differences are adding up along with the bigger ones like culture and values which I am constantly learning a lot about. Having a group from CA really makes it a lot more fun because they are going through the same thing with me. It’s definitely making me realize and reconsider how Asian, or not Asian I am though!
Despite having a really good time here, I must say that I do miss home and Berkeley at times. Definitely felt that winter break was too short and that I was being hurled into something new without having enough time to relax and chill at home. Now that school has started again, I definitely miss hearing the Campanile concerts, boba runs, and the formal dinners at the theta house, just to name a few! I think on New Years I broke my camera- so I haven’t been being a diligent picture taker, but am working on getting it fixed soon. I definitely feel like this email isn’t doing Singapore justice but I just need to send one out! Okay and if you have the time, write back and tell me how your life is going too! =) I would love to hear from people back in the states, even a short paragraph would be awesome and appreciated!
Missing you and much love,
- Teresa
Monday, October 29, 2007
About the past 4 or 5 previous postings
So the last few postings were email excerpts about my trip earlier this year. They are choppy, convoluted, and terribly incomplete. Yet, it makes me happy to remember that I recorded some of the experiences down. Maybe the job isn't to accurately record every aspect of an experience, but remember the ones that meant the most and were occupying my thoughts during those days and moments. Therefore, they would essentially be pieces, with many of its counterparts missing in print and only in my mind, of what made returning to Asia such a special time in my life.
Cambodia memories
oke up at 3:40am today to get to the airport to take a flight into Cambodia! in cambodia, we took taxis and tuk tuks around everywhere trying to get the vietnam visa settled. My passport is now full of lovely stickers from everywhere =) We ate at this place that was run by an NGO today and all the money they earned went towards this charity for running a home for street children that was write behind the restaurant. And the waiters and chefs were the older streechildren who were being trained to work in the future. How cool is that? the food wasn't bad either...we had this kind of food called tapas and its basically like a bunch of small snacks like sun dried tomato hummus on wonton chips...stuff like that. It was yummy! Reminded me a bit of hte food i eat in california
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