Parents: Got to stop listening to them

Last summer while I was in LA doing my internship, I heard John Kobara tell me and my fellow interns to stop listening to our parents and he gave us a few pointers on how to get them off our backs to boot.  After that meeting, I joked to my fellow intern Monica that I was already on the right track because I never listened to my parents. 

As kids, we were always told that we were young and should listen to our parents because they knew better due to their experience.  Of course, this applied doubly since I was Asian.  Do get me wrong, this is great advice when you are say 12 but I realize now it is no longer naïve to think that I know more than my parents.  It is not arrogance that has led me to say this, but rather something that I have concluded after listening to “guidance” from my parents that was either inconsistent with the times or simply out of their area of expertise.   

I have always had a hearing impediment to my parents’ advice, but it was not until my winter quarter in sophomore year in college that I made a conscious effort to divorce myself from my parents’ guidance.  That was the year that I decided to completely drop my Economics double major because it was making me miserable.  I had taken up the additional major due to my mom essentially telling me that with my Anthropology degree I would graduate with no job prospects (little does she know Economics also does not offer a skill set that employers are looking for).  It was at that point that I realized my parents did not know what was best for me. 

So what is the problem? I already decided I was no longer under parents’ influence, case closed right?  Well, not exactly, because later that sophomore year, I made a commitment to reconnect with my family, I have been finding myself straying from my independent thinking that has served me so well.  As a sort of good will gesture, I have started placing weight into the advice that they give me, which in turn has caused me doubt myself.  This became a real problem during my search for summer internships.

I turned to my dad to help me find an internship, due to the fact that I was in Shanghai at the time.  Everything appeared to be going well, my mom told me that he was sending my resume out and getting responses and assurances.  My mom told me not to worry and that for sure they would find me something.  My skepticism increased dramatically when my dad got back to me with jobs that were extremely technical and seemingly as far from the marketing department as possible.  In the end, the whole finding me an internship through connections turned out to be a flop, leaving me scrambling to find something, anything that I could add to my resume.

The trouble continued once I got my first interview at a startup.  My dad scoffed after the interview when I told him that if I got $10 an hour I would be happy.  He told me I was silly to expect that kind of money since interns at VMWare and Cisco were making around $25 an hour and that the startup’s pay had to be competitive to that.  I am not sure why I trusted him at that point about the pay, because it certainly made no sense!  Why would I expect a multibillion dollar company to pay at the same rate as a startup with just $50,000 in seed funding? When the offer came and it was $10 an hour like I had expected, my dad did not say anything, perhaps he realized the folly of his reasoning. 

My interview with the startup that gave me the offer went very well.  I really enjoyed talking to the founders and had a strong hunch that we would work well together.  I had another interview scheduled, but in reality I had made up my mind.  The other startup interviewing me would have had to be beyond amazing to even get me considering to join them.  In essence, my heart was pretty much set on where I wanted to be for the summer, there was just this feeling that the first startup was where I needed to be. 

When I told my parents this, they panicked.  They told me to not rush the decision and wait for the other interview (something I was going to do anyway) and for the second time I listened to them.  I started doubting my own hunch about where I should be and began wondering if I was being a fool who was rushing in.  The second interview came and it was a disaster, the founder was cold and generally gave off this attitude that she did not give a shit whether I came onboard or not.  Immediately when the second interview ended, I wanted to call up the first startup and tell them “I ACCEPT!” However, my parent’s words about caution and thinking things through started creeping in from the back of my mind.  Once again, I was doubting my own judgment and hesitating on what I felt was the right course of action.

In my doubt came anger and then shame.  I felt that I was betraying myself by not following my own intuition which has served me so well for so long.  I had always blazed my own path and marched to the tune of my own drummer, yet here I was making the most important decision of possibly the year and doubting myself because of my parents.  A shameful moment indeed.   

After this epiphany, I picked up the phone, dialed my mom and told her I was going to accept the offer the next day.  She tried to tell me not to rush the decision, but I was having none of it, my mind was made up.  My choice, once again ended up being the correct one as I am currently having the best internship experience of my life. 

Morale of the story? Understand that being close to your family does not mean that you have to listen to them.

-muffinman

Attending a BBoy Competition

The same week that I came back, my friend Vicki invited me to a BBoy competition. I started to going to competitions with her back during my freshman summer or perhaps it was the senior summer of high school?  It definitely felt cool to be going to competitions even if I did not dance or know what was going on.  Just being at a competition made me feel like I was part of something that few people knew about and even fewer attended.

Fast forward, a couple of years and I have been bugging Vicki to take me to another competition because I have not been to one since my freshman year.  Sadly, even though I had been hearing so much about Vicki's competition successes, I was not going to be able to see it because she was not competing this tournament.  Nonetheless it was good to break out of the usual and go see a bunch of talented bboys and girls.  

This is mostly a picture post:

Vicki's friend Ian who was really good. Baffling that he did not make it past the first elimination round.

My friend Vicki who did not compete but still entered the cyphers, which are informal exhibition performances where anyone can go into the circle do a few moves, jump back out and someone else takes their place.

There is a huge attitude and taunting culture to bboying. Sometimes tensions will run high and fights will break out but most of the time it is just playful teasing.  

Part of the taunting is trying to get as close to the opponent as possible without touching them. However, as you can see that does not always work out.

Just a cool picture

These two teams were in my opinion the most impressive in the competition.  Vicki tells me that the guy on the floor competes internationally.  

-muffinman

Last Lesson in China

During my year in Shanghai, I had accumulated a decent amount of change because I just never got used to the idea of using of change to buy stuff.  All of my change was collected in a cut in half water bottle.  When I left, I think I had maybe 100RMB in change in that bottle and with no exchange it or pack it in my bag I elected to leave it in my room, hoping that whoever took possession of the change would put it to good use.  Little did I know that this was going to happen within the hour.    

The man who came up with me to check my apartment for damages must have felt extremely lucky once he saw the large amount of things that my roommates and I were leaving behind.  He entered my room and started pointing at various items, asking me if I was sure about leaving it behind.  When I said yes to my bottle of change and asked him if he wanted it, he said yes and started grabbing large handfuls of change and putting it in his pocket.  After a few handfuls, I told him that he could take the whole thing, bottle and all but he refused and told me that it would look bad.  I could not help but smile as I walked out of the room and let him finish stuffing his pockets with change. 

Not quite sure how the man thought walking around jingling on each step was going to keep him from losing face.  He even took a pair of shoes as well and hid those in the stairwell before the elevator came up, presumably so that he could get them later when nobody was looking.

So twas on my last day in China that I was taught through example that life is all about face.

-muffinman

Back Home

I left Shanghai on a Wednesday morning and arrived on Wednesday morning, the benefit of traveling through time zones. It is quite odd that nothing has changed in San Jose after a year and there is some comfort in that. However, people seem to be moving on, as there are few friends left at home with the majority of them either interning or attending summer school.


Home

Some things of note after being back for two days:

My sister has really grown up, make up, short skirt and foul language to go with it. I flinch every time she curses because that is just not how I remember her. She swears as much as me, though far less creatively. Now it takes her an hour to get ready to leave the house because she has to put on her make-up, I do not remember that when I left. San Jose may not have changed much but she definitely did. Also, in the span of less than six months she has significantly scratched my car twice. I hope she outgrows this terrible driving stage soon.


My car...


...and the nice scratch my sister made

Driving is easy, I cannot believe I was ever worried about forgetting how to drive. After a few minutes of driving, I was back to expertly cutting people off like I did back in LA. I even drove my sister all the way to the SF airport, a one hour drive! Even my sense of direction has come back and I am remembering where everything is. It feels great to be behind the wheel again, crazy to think that just two days ago I was riding the metro everywhere.



Open roads and...


...white picket fences as American as it gets

What I wanted most was not to stay in Shanghai, it was time to go, but rather to take all my friends from Shanghai to the US with me. It definitely feels good to be back in the US, I missed the blue skies, sunshine and crystal clear air. Just wish I had all my friends to enjoy it with.

People talk to me and I understand them completely! That is quite the feeling, also strangers talk to me without hesitation, some even joke. It is a completely different feeling from Shanghai where I could go about sleep walking through my day and not talk to anybody even when they talked to me. I would just feel rude if I did that hear.

Adjusting back to English is actually tripping me up. When you have spent a year saying everyday phrases like “Sorry” and “Thank You” in Chinese, it is hard to get out of the habit. While deplaning in SFO I ran into an old lady, probably as a result of routinely pushing my through Shanghai, and I immediately thought to apologize by saying “bu hao yi si.” I stopped myself from saying it after remembering that I was no longer in China, but by the time I remembered to say sorry, the moment had passed.

I have a lot of cool stuff in my room which I totally forgot about.

Boxing gloves, Knives and Bullets

-muffinman