Category: Real Life

A Child of Two Worlds

Spock
Sarek: "You will always be a child of two worlds. I am grateful for this, and for you."

I am of mixed ethnicity. Shock horror. I know. So really, I’m a bit like Spock here, only I’ve got just the one slightly pointy ear.  Now, I’ve ranted a little elsewhere about my various issues with how I get treated, so I won’t really go into that here.

Suffice it to say, I’m Chinese and Caucasian. Or actually more specifically, Malaysian Chinese and White British (randomly, it’s kind of interesting how the  word order goes in both of those phrases).

There are attitudes, habits and tastes that seem prevalent in the British/English world and there are others that are prevalent in the Malaysian Chinese world.

As a child of two worlds, I’ve pretty much grabbed a handful from each pile. One of these is that I don’t really get the real aversion to going back to live with your parents after university (or for that matter, the perceived eagerness of parents to watch their kids fly the nest as soon as they hit 18). In the Chinese side of my family, going home to live with Mum and Dad is totally expected and normal. In the English world I grew up in? Not so much.

There’s also other things like how the elderly are treated (they seem to be put out to die more in the English world), how extended family relates to each other (possibly just a personal thing, but as soon as my English grandparents died, we stopped really seeing the rest of that side of the family) and smaller silly things like taking your shoes off when you enter someone’s house (in Malaysia, you ALWAYS take your shoes off).

So while there’s a lot of sort of English things I don’t get, I don’t think I could ever live in Malaysia. Buying clothes there is a pain in the neck, possibly because I’m just looking in the wrong places but mostly because I’m twice the size of nearly all the women on that side of the family (I’m just built differently). The mosquitoes. I am allergic to the damn mosquitoes. It’s not a good thing. The bruises left over from the bites I got last December have just about faded. The weather! I am not a hot, humid weather person. Give me cloudy, overcast, cool days ANYTIME.

Tea. Oh God. As much as I enjoy Chinese tea and Teh Tarik in all its forms, making a decent cup of “English” tea has proved almost impossible unless I’m in a hotel. It might be the milk. It might be the water. It might be the teabags. Who knows?

The traditional Chinese family structure is also kind of out for me – with the father as the dictatorial head of the family, especially now that I’m an adult. I’m pretty easy-going, but there is only so much being told what to do that I’ll put up with. There’s also the expectation that I’ll get married and have children (but I suppose, that’s a universal thing) – as someone who has seriously considered entering the religious life (and it’s not something I’ve totally ruled out yet), I am content with the idea that I might never marry or have children.

Oh. There’s also the small issue of all the bands I like not visiting Malaysia. I don’t think I could live in a place where I’d never go to see live music. What little I’ve seen of popular culture in Malaysia…seems to be all the stuff I avoid at home in the UK.

There’s also attitudes to sexuality (and the issue of homosexuality being illegal in Malaysia), to women, to race, to censorship and the corruption seemingly rife within  not just the political system there. There are complex issues there.

In the end, despite being a child of two worlds, I’m pretty much English/British with the occasional moment where  I identify as Chinese.

Tinnitus Awareness Week

Since it’s now about halfway through Tinnitus Awareness Week, I figure I should actually get around to saying something about it.

Some of you who know me in real life (and probably a few who only know me online) might be aware that I suffer from what I would call fairly mild tinnitus or that whenever I go to gigs or sing-a-long movies or anything potentially loud, I wear earplugs. My tinnitus is pretty much down to going to gigs and rocking out at the front and totally not looking after my hearing while I was at university. Looking back, I remember seeing Alec Empire at Reading when I was about 17 and being almost completely deaf for a little over an hour after leaving the tent he was performing in. Alec Empire was great and with all the excitement of seeing all the other bands I wanted to check out at the festival, I didn’t really give my hearing any real thought – other than it was a bit inconvenient that I couldn’t hear how much credit I had left on my mobile. I was young and invincible, right?

After that I went to other gigs. I remember marvelling that coming home after seeing Queens of the Stone age, my ears didn’t ring half so much as they did after I’d been to see Idlewild. Incidentally, that Idlewild gig left my ears ringing constantly for over a week. Again, I was young and invincible.

Until, after one gig I went to (and I don’t remember which one) the ringing didn’t go away. It just stuck about. Pretty quietly, but there.

Most of the time, I don’t notice it. I’m doing other things or listening to music and so long as my hearing hasn’t really been overstimulated during the day… I can go to bed and it’ll still be very quiet and I can just go to sleep like most people. Sometimes though, if I’ve been somewhere loud or right after doing the vacuuming, the ringing in my ears dials up to 11 and stops me from being able to get to sleep. Now, there are ways of dealing with it and I tend to turn the radio on very quietly and then my brain can latch on to that sound as something to pay attention to, instead of the riiiiiiing in my head (I find Ancient Faith radio or Classic FM to be pretty good for this).

The best thing is not to get to that stage in the first place and that’s why I now wear earplugs at gigs. Also, when I vacuum. It always feels like my hearing’s been pretty sharp anyway so I carry my earplugs everywhere and if I think something’s too loud, regardless of what it is? In they go. Best investment ever. I have custom earplugs which are moulded to fit my ears exactly and they are great. They live in a little purse in my handbag and I take them everywhere.

So. If you like going to gigs, wear earplugs. They don’t have to be the custom fancy pants expensive kind – for years I used to pop into Superdrug every so often and pick up a box of the foam kind. They don’t tone down the sound with the same kind of quality, but they still protect your ears and really, that’s the important part.

And finally, a word from Eddy Temple-Morris on Tinnitus, because he’s a boss and I got a discount on my earplugs thanks to him.

 

British Tinnitus Association

The Kids Are Sick Again

I actually hate being sick. It’s normal to dislike it, I know, and most of the time I ignore it and carry on with what I am doing until it goes away.

What I hate most is when I am too sick to carry on with what I am doing and yet not tired or lethargic or whatever enough to be content with doing nothing. It sucks.

On the other hand, at least I don’t get throat infections every year, now that I have grown into my tonsils.

I Am Disappeared

Penang Furnicular RailwaySo.  Came back from two weeks in Malaysia.

You’ll notice I don’t really talk about going away before I go away. That’s so no one comes round to burgle our house. Not that I’m paranoid.

Malaysia was great though. Got to see most of the family, ate out lots, watched my mum buy many many pairs of shoes, ate some more, carried a lot of shopping and generally had good times all round. I still don’t understand how anyone can just buy 8 pairs of shoes over the course of 10 days. The idea just boggles me.

I’m not much of a shoe buying person. I buy shoes when I need them, not just because they’re on sale and because of the exchange rate/cost of living…they also are really really cheap. I don’t get it.

One thing that’s annoying about Malaysia is the difficulty I have buying clothes there. I do understand that one though.  It’s because I’m twice the size of most of my female relatives and they’re pretty much the average size of ladies in Malaysia. Meh.

 

2 Years On…

Last month it was two years since my Dad passed away. It’s hard to imagine that so much time has passed, when at the same time it feels like so little. Sometimes it still feels like he could be sitting downstairs listening to his music with headphones on and it feels a little weird when I do go downstairs for whatever reason to find that it’s dark and he’s not there. Plus, of course, if he was listening to music on his headphones? I would have been able to hear it upstairs.

I don’t think it really gets any easier, but you just get used to it more.

There are so many things that have happened in the last two years that make me think of my dad – like going on holiday with mum and thinking that he would have liked to see those places. Or going to see bands! I really got into The Gaslight Anthem a few months after he passed away and whenever I listen to their music, I am struck every time by the thought that he would really have liked it. He would have enjoyed going to see them live with me (rather than gone to a gig and thought they were merely “OK” like with AFI). I’ve considered getting a tattoo for the last like… ten years (it’s the kind of permanent decision I won’t rush into) and my dad always said to me “When you go and get one, let me know and I’ll come get one too.” This won’t even happen now but I’ve thought about it a lot recently since I’ve mostly likely settled on what I’d like etch indelibly on my person now.

I’m getting used to it yeah, and it feels more real, but it’s never going to be easy.