Privileges

One of the common societal and psychological problem that we constantly have to deal with is privilege. The people around us with any gender, race, age are all given with certain privileges. We don't have all the same privileges, but any one of us, especially the ones reading this post, have at least one - access to internet, able to speak the universal language, access to electricity, etc. We often don't look at our own privileges, because it just so easy to take them for granted. And granted, some privileges are given to us when we were born. We often look at other people's privileges that we do not have, and agonize about how unfair for us to not have them. Then there are people whom appreciate certain privileges and consider themselves lucky to have them, of which then soon translate to responsibility.

Throughout history, no one can deny the fact that a lack of privileges is a main reason people make profound social changes for. War of 1812 started when we do not have the privilege to be represented in parliament, Feminism started when women do not have the same right as men. And currently, the black right movement that's surfing on top of internet wave is louder then ever. I have encountered a number of articles that comes out to speak up their opinion of black awareness. Some I agree with, some I think are written by self-deceptive idiots. It is hard both morally and reasonably to take a stance on the whole thing, but it is because I do not have either the white nor black privilege. In my numerous attempt to form my own opinion of racial awareness and privileges, I realized that I cannot have one that is completely fair.

Having a certain privilege places you in a certain environment that is uniquely to people with such privilege. For the outside eyes, we see benefits, yet we don't know the consequences that comes with it. And believe me, all things have good and bad consequences. It's just a matter of how much. What we should do with privileges, is simply be aware of it. We can simply understand that they are in a unique situation that we will never be in, then walk away. I don't think it is fair to point fingers at one another and say, you have privilege X, Y, and Z, and I don't. I think it is not point fingers and say, you have privilege X, Y, and Z, I have privilege A, B, and C, those privilege do not make us better or worse of a person, it just makes us different.

That being said, it is also important to acknowledge that each one of us have certain kind of priviliege that not a lot of other people have. It is obvious to point out privileges in well-to-do families, but being able to find your privileges in your painful background is a very good tool to have. In Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath, Gladwell talked about how people who were born in challenging family backgrounds raise to the top of society through the unique and harsh environment in childhood and early adulthood. While this phenomenon does not happen to all people born in that environment, we know, through pop science, that there is at least a hope, a chance. I would say being born in difficult family environments is a privilege because you have the experience to go through hardship that not a lot of people will. And hardship is very good for the soul because it forces you to stay sane by practicing hope and hard work. Both hope and hard work are necessary for a healthy and successful life.

Personally, being a minority is a privilege. It gains me access to people of my own kind. We are friendlier to each other, we help each other out. Being a minority also gives me the privilege to practice dignity, to have a clear view of the common misconceptions, to be lesser fearful of failures due to my minority status. Being a minority instead of being white in America is like climbing the Himalayas instead of the Sierra Nevada, it's more difficult, but the gains are incomparably enormous. 

Shanghai Bao Kitchen in Bethesda, Maryland

Shanghai Bao Kitchen is one of those small store fronts squeezed in the three story high food market in Montgomery mall in Chevy Chase, Maryland. I have been wanting to try it every time I get hungry, consistently for the past two weeks. So I finally got some of those Baos, after a few hours of slow-mo cardio in the mall.

What prompted me to write this food post is not how delicious, or rare, or nostalgic, are those Baos which I have not had in a long time. The shop just happened to first start serving sandwich Baos, and I (background applause) just happen to be the first customer trying it! With rarity of being the first customer, I decided to write this post to celebrate my incredibly-short-lived-first-customer-excitment. This post, however, is still about the quality and taste of those Shanghai Baos.

The sandwich Bao model shown in above flyer was so tempting that I went ahead and bought one even with my limited budget for the day. Kimchi in the middle with  Korean Bulgogi - another asian fusion that's awkward to categorize.

The incredibly friendly staff members definitely made customers feel special. If they lied about me being the first customer to try the sandwich Baos, then they are top of the notch to know how to win customers.

Pan fried Baos! Man was I excited to see them! I haven't had them in ages. They even had those mouse-shaped looking Baos that usually indicate either vegetarian, or in my hometown is fermented cabbage. The joy of encountering something that stirs up memories of childhood is priceless.

The left Bao in the picture is pork Bao.  It tastes great, just like what pork Bao suppose to taste like. It's not perfect because the filling is made with industrialized pork instead of freshly butchered ones. And you can't find freshly butchered meat in cities. The sandwich Bao in the middle has threaded cucumber at the bottom, tender and well-seasoned chicken, green onions, a drop of Hoisin sauce on top with drizzles of sriracha. Delicious. The vegetable Baos on the right really impressed me. Vegetables are seasoned to the appropriate amount, yeasts fermenting in flour to the right amount. Each bite was satisfying. Comfort foods taste the best only in their distant memories. I really enjoyed these, and they are as good as it gets in the DMV area.

I find it bazaar that they provided choices of dipping sauce for Baos. I never ate Baos, pan-fried nor steamed, with any dipping sauce. In fact, dipping sauce, according to my family tradition, is only paired with dumplings. They had different options of dipping sauce: soy, sriracha, Chipotle ranch, Hoisin, etc. I went with the classic soy, because I tend to go on the conservative side when I am experimenting. 

Three buns costs $9, which isn't dirt cheap, and I still have some room in my bird stomach afterwards. You can stuff yourself with $7.15 worth of Chipotle if you don't mind the risk of E.coli. This price range I would identify it as 2 dollar signs on Yelp. With that said, those Shanghai Baos nowadays are becoming very popular, and with its price point becoming less friendly.

The woman in a social environment

I have been spending sometimes with the books - frictions, non frictions, they are all products of intellectual inspirations, valuable introspective analyses. Station Eleven is a book that I finished the other day for a local book club that I joined. This book didn't register me too much other than the shock value I got for taking place in a post apocalyptic world. The previous novel I read prior was Americanah. That book connected with me so much that I believe the many friction books that follows after will most likely cast in shadows for a while.

While reading, one particular character left a heavy impression on me. It was a character in the memories, someone that was involved for half a page out of the three hundred page novel. It took place at a social party, a woman sipping on her cocktail, wobbling around as if she owns the whole scene. She occasionally interrupts people while they are speaking and asks: "I'm sorry...What exactly is it that you do?" She often mistakes rudeness for intellectual rigor, smiles tactfully in social situations, with occasional "oh"s as amusement and as if showing wild interest in someone else is rare. Our main protagonist believes that she is the most pretentious person she had ever seen.

I can easily imagine a woman like that, dressed color-coordinated, cashmere sweater, white pants, J-crew jewelry, Kate Spade handbag, Cole Haan flats. I would think she is some well-to-do semi-important woman in some kind of marketing that involves dealing with people on a daily basis. I would give her initially a hint of respect while being wary of my own behavior, subconsciously comparing myself with her. I would silently judge how she behaves in front of strangers, positioning marks among my mental checklist of friendliness, open-mindedness, number of positive-neutral-negative comments being said, all of which determines if she is worthy befriending and will be of good influence on me.

For the woman that appeared in Station Eleven, I would also think that she is pretentious, have high standards, constantly and consistently judgmental. She is someone who doesn't care how she appeared to other people while others' opinion deeply define her at the same time. I have seen these kind of people, especially in power-hungry cities like DC and New York. They are unhappy with their lives due to their own standards and judgements. They believe that they are confident and indestructible on the surface, but actually arrogant and easily stressed on the inside.

How do I know so much about these people? It's because frankly, I am exactly like that. I behave exactly like that woman in social situations, and of course I have my own reasons for behaving this way. I dress nicely to create a good first impression. A cocktail in my hand is my ticket for fitting in. While evaluating, I would also make sure I am well represented. I want to be like myself with my facial expressions and reactions especially at first impression, because pretending at first would elicit pretending for the rest of eternity. I occasionally show interests because there are only so many things someone says that interest me. My eyebrows would raise only slightly while I heard something that is worth longer in-depth discussions, because I would not want to appear too desperate. I would not smile too much to cover up my neurotic nature. I would be impatient with a content-lacking conversation going on, and tactfully break into the conversation by changing subjects, usually by "Oh really? So what do you do then?"

Somehow to my own justification, I seem to do no wrong. If that appears pretentious to a writer and to myself, then some analysis and brain-storming are required. Because, you know, we don't want to be called pretentious.

Letting go and moving on from a loved one

Letting go of someone that was once important can sound like a failure. You have to let go and find alternatives when things don't work out. That original moment when you are forced to recognize that reality does not match with fantasy can be shocking, despairing, even suicidal. Your trust and love for the other person is so damaged that you want to actively destroy and erase trust and love once and forever. You are angry with that person, because it was his or her fault for the damages done. You are angry with yourself, for even letting others to ruin you in this way. The negativity bias comes in and magnifies all your feelings, and of course, the lack of love during childhood does not help.

When I'm trying to find ways to start process of letting go, I hesitate and think, as if I'm making a decision that will determine life and death. I keep on finding reasons, excuses, or truth (depending on how one sees it), so that my decision of letting go or not letting go is entirely justified. There are many reasons why we don't want to let go: familiarity, fear, hope for the future. We often think that being in this level of destruction is better than any other alternative. Indeed, I suspect that's how masochism starts.

Perhaps you are over this stage of shock and mourn. Perhaps you want to try, or are ready to move on. But how? Letting go and moving on means that you are willing to accept all consequences. If the ones you love ended up with someone else and completely betrays you, you are okay. If the ones you love comes back to you, you are okay as well. It's easy to question your morals and worth at this point when you are contemplating all your options. It's normal to associate who you are with the next few choices you make, because the feeling is just so strong and overwhelming. Seeking meaning at this stage can set you back and prevent you from letting go. Hope is something good to have, but when you are letting go and moving on, hope can lead to something potentially more dangerous and for a longer period of time.

I believe the actual moving on process is the process of accepting the worse case scenario. My way of dealing this moving on is more destructive, more overwhelming, and more cynical against hope. I tend to want to speed up the process of letting go and have all the pain come at me at once so I can get it over with. I often bombard myself with vivid day dreams of worse case scenarios that might happen to my loved ones that has deeply, profoundly hurt me. I lock myself up in my room. I cry, and let all my emotions go. Once I started the process, I drench myself in the process until I am deprived of all feelings. I put those vivid dreams on replay, until when I no longer feel angry towards it.

Anger is a sign that you still deeply care about someone. Anger is an intense feeling, aroused by injustice that you are a victim of. If you feel angry toward your loved one, it means you have not yet let go. What truly gives you an indication of victory, is disgust, disrespect, and indifference. They are all feelings that repels you from the other person, as if they have some disease that is contagious, and you don't want any of it. Disgust and disrespect comes first, because you have not get forgiven that person. When forgiveness is granted, you reach indifference. By that time, you reach a new born freedom, new power that makes you feel indestructible. By that time, you have suffered a lot, yet your brain won't remember exactly how much you have suffered. The entire experience fossils into additional resilience, a trophy, or a scar.

After my overexposure towards pain and despair, I return to the society feeling like a zombie, a barren land after the volcano eruption. But spring will come, green grass and flowers will seed and grow again.

Why we should leave tourists alone

Tourism is something that can generate a feeling of repugnance within local citizens who really have a sense of belonging to their city/town/country, etc. Living in new york city then moved to DC, I have a similar feeling. The lousy new york city can be disorienting, yet money burning skyscrapers can be condescending too. White stone embellished buildings in downtown DC and iconic monuments can always be crowded with reverence and the not-so-classy selfie takers.

Walking either in downtown Manhattan or Washington, I often bump into tourists. They would stop me in the middle of the road and ask for directions, price of city rental bikes. If they were more energetic, they would ask me for places that I recommend them checking out. Knowing they were tourists, I often recommend the up-in-coming sleek neighborhoods, never anything like the monuments, white house, or anything the tourists would really want to go. I often provide them with these recommendations with the good intention to explore DC as native DC locals.

It wasn't till last time that I was being a tourist in San Francisco did I realize the dramatic difference in thought process between locals and tourists. They think differently, hence they do different things. The natural resentment towards tourists can be justified, yet the obnoxious tourist behaviors be justified even more. But ultimately, tourists do what tourists do, and we locals should just leave them alone.

San Francisco has always been a city that I wanted to visit, and potentially live in. With its artsy cultures, steep hills, heart beat views of the ocean, this city is easily a target of literary romanticization. I arrived in San Francisco wanting to see what this city was all about. First day in the city we started from financial district to Chinatown on foot. Relying on Maps app on the iPhone as our tour guide, I decided to walk from Chinatown to Japan town, while sight seeing the residential areas in between. Next day we again started from financial district to Chinatown, then up to Telegraph hill, hiking in parks, discovering hidden stair cases, and landed at the Pier ports. We walked everywhere, it was a great cardio. I was proud of our triumph - exploring the city without anyone telling us what to do. We only bumped into a couple of old-style tourists and a couple of Munis passing by. I felt as if I just moved into a random apartment in SF, exploring the city as a new local.

Then we shared uberPool with a stranger, whom just happened to be a SF local. Through our conversations, it was pretty obvious that it was our first time in San Francisco. I asked the stranger, Andrew (I think that was his name), for some places that he recommended us visiting. Then he goes -- The mission district for bar scenes, Fort Funston dog park for afternoon sunbathe, and the Castro is also a pretty chill place to hangout. Bar scenes? Sunbathe? Chill place to hangout? No, we only have two days in SF, no time to chill and lay in the sun. I was surprised how familiar did his recommendation sounded from my recommendations to DC tourists. I am just like him when it comes to recommending places, but for some reason Andrew's response sounded extremely inconsiderate. There are bar scenes in DC as well, and having a sense of belonging in DC, I think the DC bar scene is better than anywhere else. As for dog park, the bethesda trolly trail has a big yard with dog owners walking their dogs. And chill places to hangout for me are places in DC like Dupont circle or Metro center. Being a Washingtonian, I was pretty much convinced that there is no other place better than DC in terms of casual social locations. I'm familiar with, it is my hood. Of course being in a brand new city I have to see things that are so uniquely belong to San Fransico. There are bar scenes everywhere, parks everywhere, and a chill place to hangout is completely subjective. I considered Andrew's suggestions useless, because he was not answering my question. Instead, he was projecting his love and familiarity for San Francisco onto me. And for me, that special place is already occupied by Washington, DC.

There goes an opinion from a tourist. We go to a completely different place, we see something that is completely new from our everyday lives. We want to be stimulated, we want to see something exotic.  We go to museums, galleries, monuments, or the place that has any signs of history. Of course we have to take photos, because we know that our days being in this new bazaar place only last a few days. We interacting with the locals for a short time, exchanging ideas, but bluntly aware of our geographical differences. We see the locals in a new environment as wrapped up candy in a candy shop. They are people, but they are also a representation of the an unknown place.

This new, fresh, exciting, dangerously unknown feeling is absent from that of a local. A local of any place, no matter how geographically or historically unique, focuses on the daily pleasures. Chill bars, leisure parks, and maybe location of which ethnic or organic food markets, are what defines the city in a local's mind. It is normal that a local new yorker has never visited statue of liberty. It is also not a big deal if Washingtonians do not go to the monuments on a weekly basis. Only the places that locals hangout most often make up the mental map of their living city.

The weekly mundanes of a local boil down to the same thing no matter where you live - go to work, shop for groceries, hangout with friends at a favorite bar, go see a baseball or football game. To devalue the excitement from a tourist and replace with our own accustomed routine almost sound like a moral crime.