Party Flowers, Osmosians, and Issue Provocateurs

Minnow didn’t get to go to Hong Kong this past week, but at least she attended a nice party on Friday. Foul-Mouthed Braniac added Minnow to his invitation list, perhaps out of pity after hearing of her green card debacle. Not having anywhere better to swim to Minnow happily dived in.

Parties are nice when there are relatively few “Reverse Osmosians”. Minnow groups party attendees into four broad categories:

Wallflowers are shy and tend to recede into the background. Their presence may not add spice to the occasion but their relative absence means they are un-offensive. Some Wallflowers are simply quiet observers and enjoy people watching. Indeed, on some Fridays when Minnow’s little brain does not have any backup power left she morphs into a Wallflower during social gatherings.

Osmosis: the movement of water molecules from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration via semi-permeable membrane
Osmosians are good conversationalists and a pleasure to meet. They permeate and reach out to others, encouraging exchanges and interactions. Many Osmosians are curious by nature and want to know the unique stories behind individuals. They are interested in the type of work you do, the books you read, and what shapes your opinions. If they don’t understand what you tell them, they are not shy to probe and clarify. This takes confidence, so Osmosians are generally very secure and comfortable with themselves. Because Osmosians shower you with attention and interests they make you feel cherished and draw you to them.

Issue Provocateurs are an interesting breed and cover a wide spectrum of party goers. They come alive when discussing specific issues, ranging from music or movie preferences, politics, traveling, poker, ethical dilemmas, or religion. They can spice up parties with ideas, arguments, conjecture, and insight. Hard core intellectuals/academicians are extreme examples of Issue Provocateurs because they enjoy brainy, objective discourse, often assuming positions just for arguments’ sake. The majority of Issue Provocateurs flush out their beliefs in the hope of convincing others or finding like-minded souls. Issue Provocateurs make good conversationalists when you share their interests or when they are open to hearing your differing perspectives. When they try to impose their beliefs on you it is time to excuse yourself to the bathroom.

Sadly, Reverse Osmosians dominate most parties. Minnow dubs this group “MeMe-s” because they are self-absorbed and exclusively interested in themselves. Conversations are one way and only about them. This group usually starts out as Wallflowers until you ask polite ice-breaker questions. From then on their egos become unleashed, they swing from Wallflowers to predators and saturate you with their interests, expertise, tragedies, and accomplishments till you feel nauseous and must excuse yourself to “grab another drink”. Ask Reverse Osmosians whom they have met at a party afterwards and they probably won’t remember the names, let alone what those people do or where they are from.

Why are there so many Reverse Osmosians? It could be insecurity, a lack of curiosity, or simply a lack of social/conversational skills. Perhaps cable –TV is to blame.

The Passing of Thunderstorms

Minnow gave a big smile and got a stamp in her passport from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services this afternoon. Free to swim across oceans again!

Go with the Flow

Peel several beets and garlic. Chop a few onions and carrots. Drizzle some olive oil and toss everything together. Sprinkle a bit of coarse sea salt. Set the oven to 350C and sit back for an hour with Ha Jin's new novel "A Free Life".

I am not in Hong Kong as planned, but at least my house smells good.

Tomorrow I will fill my house with the aroma of pumpkin pie.

The Green Card Vanishes

Four hours before her scheduled 9am flight to Hong Kong on Tuesday, Minnow's Green Card remained in hiding.

Given how she routinely paired the $1,000 card (black market price) with her passport in a dorky neck pouch, and given her quarterly international travel, this disappearance remains more gripping and mysterious than Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes."

Instead of embarking on a 16-hour direct flight to the land of kung-fu films Minnow finally resigned to staying in Gotham for Thanksgiving. Worse, a replacement of this Green Devil takes weeks to months.

For the uninitiated: this means no traveling outside of the US.

Everything happens for a reason, especially something so unprecedented... (too distressed to analyze that now)

Minnow feels like a useless idiot.

Because she is one.

Shock

Oh my god! Where have I been?

Close Encounters of the Stars & Fi$h Kind

Interesting (if not good or fortunate) things continued on a roll. I ran into "Brangelina" outside the Waldorf Astoria Hotel the next day. I was approaching the back entrance of the hotel and noticed four to five onlookers and a paparazzi snapping photos. Some minor celebrity is probably coming out, I thought, given the pathetic tiny crowd. But then as I approached the revolving door the couple emerged. I didn't recognize Angelina Jolie at first because of her goggle-sized shades, though her silouhette was familiar. But Brad Pitt stepped out right behind her and left no doubt who the woman could be. They walked right pass me into their chauffeured, bullet proof SUV and zoomed away. Many people and paparazzi would wait for hours and days to catch a glimpse of the two, and there I was, a random pedestrian who could care less about movie stars/celebrities, getting a good close look of this hounded duo.

Yesterday, I was strolling through Richard Serra's massive steel sculptures at the MOMA. I came out of a narrow opening of a giant installation and there in front of tiny Minnow blocking her exit was a "VBF", where:

V = Really
B = Big
F = FI$H

Mssr. Bernard Arnault, the richest man in France, the sixth richest person in the world (Forbes, 2006), is the owner of LVMH, where:

LV = Louis Vuitton
M = Moët & Chandon
H = Hennessy

I recognized his face immediately, and had no doubt it must be Mssr. Arnault given his impeccable grey wool suit and white shirt, on a day when almost everyone opted for tank tops and shorts.

No one else seemed to recognize him. It must have been a nice change for a billionaire used to being fawned over by employees and people seeking favors. Mssr. Arnault looked very happy and relaxed, a world apart from the steely cold image the media likes to project. When I left I ran into him again, leaving the building with his "VBC", where

V = Very
B = Blond
C = Companion
and
1) 25 < VBC < 35
2) VBC ≠ wife or daughter

VBF and VBC were escorted by their chauffeur/body guard to their black (and bullet proof again?) stretch limo. Again, no one but dorky Minnow took notice of the Very couple.

What does that say about me?

And what is the next positive/interesting surprise?

Melon, I am taking another class with you.

Baby step & Vanity Fair

Melon said many students told her about good things happening after they took her course. She didn't know why, but somehow Conquering Your Fear of Water seemed to open a floodgate of positive events.

That certainly wasn't on my mind when I landed back in NYC, after my flight was delayed for seven hours and I wasted an entire day stuffing myself with Orlando airport sandwiches and salads. It was past midnight when I finally entered the apartment, and there it was, a large envelope from Hong Kong, addressed to me - in my pen name. My heart skipped a beat. I slowly opened it, and there it was – the latest issue of a favorite Chinese literary magazine.

With my submission in it.

COOL.

So cool, it's freezing.

This came on the heels of an English essay coming out in a small literary magazine in NYC. So in the same month I suddenly became an international, bi-lingual published literary writer. It was a minnowish step, but small fish starts with tiny steps.

Melon, I am taking another class with you.

From Wonder Bread to Multi-grain Toast

I landed Orlando, FL a slice of Wonder Bread and returned to NYC a piece of Multi-grain Toast.

Such is the intensity of Melon's course and the UV rays down south. Five other women, each going through important life changes (newly married, newly divorced, newly jobless, soon-to-wed, expecting mother), joined me for four hours in an outdoor pool everyday for a week. Every one acquired a little color. I, of a more delicate nature, got fried like tempura. Forty-eight hours after my return my sand-papered cheeks are still burning, my goggled tan a guarantee for Office Clown status when I show up for work tomorrow.

This said, the trade-offs were worth it. Though I can't do any strokes yet and still need to improve my back "unfloat":

I am far more comfortable in H20
I can do a somersault and handstand in water
I can do a whale jump
I can cough and grin under water
I can stand, totally immersed, in the bottom of water like I stand on land
Etc, etc

For me, that's major progress.

Next time, I will probably take a course in an indoor pool. Burning cheeks could be a painful distraction.

A Love Letter to Water

I am reading Melon's 316-page "Conquer Your Fear of Water" swim manual to prepare for my novice swim class in Orlando, FL (of all places). One of the prep exercises involves writing a letter to Water, to dish out my "feelings" towards it, to have a "dialogue". The samples from previous students were impressively honest, elaborate and sincere, compelling me to sit down for some romantic soul searching. Sorry if the following confession gives you the goose bumps.

Dear Water,

After running away from you for the past nine years I have once again summoned the courage to face you and give our relationship another chance.

Our on-and-off affair has been tumultuous and painful for me, both physically and emotionally. All the gut bleaching and water in the nose was living hell. I felt humiliated and remain emotionally scarred. I doubt if you understand how I have suffered, because our relationship has been so imbalanced – you have had all the power from the very beginning, and I could only go along with your rules. It is choking.

I wanted to trust you and get close to you. Deep down I have always felt that you are The One I have been looking for all my life. Tennis is attractive and captivating, but he could be demanding. Skiing and I had a passionate affair, but we tragically grew apart due to distance. Hiking is elegant and easy-going but we never had real chemistry. I have been with Bikram Yoga for over ten years now. It is a convenient and comfortable but half-hearted relationship, kept alive by necessity (good health), and not unlike flossing / brushing my teeth – done out of habit rather than motivated by feelings.

Trust and love take time to develop, and I hadn’t had this luxury. There were too many distractions between us and too much pressure to hurry. When I was seven my dad said he would support me if I let go of my float, but in five seconds he dropped me. Kevin, my swim coach in college, wanted me to tread across the pool in the first class. I knew I wouldn’t make it but courageously tried, creating a memorable spectacle for everyone. Later I traveled around the world to try approaching you, to start our relationship anew, but time and again those instructors who were supposed to teach me to love you only pulled me away from you.

Yet over all these years I have never forgotten you. I feel incomplete without you, especially because I am a fish. I think of you from time to time, imagining how wonderful it would be to be enveloped by you, to be totally at ease with you, to let you sooth and cradle my back and neck, sore from too much surfing (virtual, of course).

So I am buying us the luxury of time via a full week of swim camp to the tune of $2,500, to give our relationship a fresh chance. Money can't buy you love, but it can buy us time to nurture it.

Yours,
Minnow

Tenth anniversary/ still on cable TV

Ten years ago I was trying to root myself in the U.S.

Ten years later I am debating whether I should move away from this country, perhaps return home, because of my antipathy towards cable TV.

These are my profound reflections on the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong's handover.

Outerspace, UFC, and Cable TV (2) – Space Fish

Recently I learned of the phenomenon called the UFC, or the Ultimate Fighting Championship for those not familiar with Americana (that includes Minnow).

It is a sport involving MMA, or Mixed Martial Arts (acronyms should be BANNED), and is rapidly replacing boxing as one of the most watched combat sports in the U.S. I only heard of it a week ago because – surprise, surprise – I don't have cable TV. A colorful character/foul-mouthed brainiac I met last Friday was the first to educate me about it. He is actually training to participate in this sport.

A few days ago I casually asked the alphas at work after a meeting. “Do you watch the UFC?”

"Sure!” They replied in sync. “Why?”

"Oh, no reason. I didn't know about it until recently, and I happen to know someone who is training for that.”

Suddenly, the dozen alphas around the table leaned forward, their eyes lit up. It was as if twelve disciples wanted Jesus to dole out his divine secret.

"What? Are you serious? Who is it? What's his name?”

At that moment I realized I have been living in outerspace, out of touch with the mass, because I do not have cable. That makes Minnow a Space Cadet, or Space Fish.

Either I should move away from the U.S. or get cable. I wrote Foul-Mouthed Brainiac afterwards.

Get cable. He wrote back. There are some shows that are better than 90% of the fiction out there.

Perhaps Minnow should dive deeper to avoid all fish.

Outerspace, UFC, and cable TV (1)

I blame everything on cable TV.

"Tony" grew up in New Jersey and works in Manhattan. This college educated young man asked me before flying down to Brazil, “Do I really need to bring reais? Don’t they all want U.S. dollars?”

"Mary" is in her forties, grew up just outside NYC, and travels periodically to see her family in Italy, Ukraine, and Argentina. Recently I overheard her advice to a traveler to Hong Kong. “Walk around the city, shop, and get some sushi.” I didn't realize she has thought of me as Japanese all these years.

I can go on with more examples and variations. The common link among these people is that they all dutifully watch cable TV every night. Their world and their existence is defined by channel package subscriptions, shaped by the programs they choose, and reinforced by TiVo. Fortunately for the likes of Rupert Murdoch, there is money aplenty to be made. Unfortunately for mankind, human knowledge now evolves around discourse over the finale of "Sopranos".

Yes, I believe the average person watches too much cable TV. I blame cable TV for human ignorance, cultural apathy, and endemic diabetes (not the genetic type). Healthy folks like me will eventually get taxed more to pay for viewers' self-inflicted agony.

It's time to turn off cable TV.

Drowning Fish and SOS Swimsuit

What is the Minnow Paradox?

Take a guess. Give it a try. No? Okay. It refers to a fish that can't swim.

First in Chicago, then in Hong Kong, next in London, and finally in Hipsterland, NYC, swim coaches on three continents have confirmed the scientifically impossible Minnow Paradox.

Back in Chicago Minnow had to decline the college swim test and courageously took up "novice swimming". Halfway through the second class, Minnow disinfected her disgestive tract with so much chlorine that Coach Kevin lifted her by the gills and dragged the half dead fish back to land.

In Hong Kong - what happened there? Her chlorine-bleached memory is fuzzy.

In London, she spent weeks swimming on a styrofoam board alongside four and five year olds who quickly outswam her without any aids.

And finally in Hipsterland, NYC, the 17-year old Polish swim coach declared, "You are the first fish I know whose fins naturally sink in water."

"I am skinny with hardly any blubber. It's hard for me to float!" Minnow protested.

"That's nonsense," the young amphibian retorted, flexing his impressive biceps. "My body fat is only seven per cent, and I am teaching you - a fish - to swim."

Ever since that definitive debate nine years ago Minnow decided to remain a fish out of water. (Perhaps that's why she is never quite in her element.) Every now and then, however, she still fantasizes about swimming freely in the ocean and taking up a few water sports. A year or two ago she surfed (online, not in water) and found a former Olympic swim coach from Kazakhstan who claimed to specialize in teaching adult swim retards. This was before "Borat" the movie and after Minnow had some nice encounters with a few Kazakhs at work, but somehow, despite the country's access to the Aral and Caspian Sea, and despite the sizable Lake Balkhash, Minnow could only connect Kazahkstan with the Silk Road but not swimming... At one point Minnow also considered going to the Dead Sea, where you don't need to be a Dead Fish to do a perfectly still, horizontal back float...

In the end these all remained wild thoughts.

Recently Minnow came across a swim school in California that employs a radically different approach to teaching hopeless souls like Minnow. The founder is a lady who calls herself "Melon". Minnow watched Melon's DVD and flipped through the 316-page swim manual (can you believe it?), and suddenly, she sensed a ray of light beaming down on her in the deep, dark ocean: Everyone floats differently!
Your perfect back float can mean your knees are bent! For the first time in nine years Minnow finally summoned enough courage to sign up for another novice swim class/ gut bleach session. No, she actually signed up for two, back to back.

This brings us to Minnow Paradox II:

Minnow is a Veteran Swim Novice

There is no assurance that Melon's class will take place in August, because it needs a minimum of five students. But Minnow already got fired up and was ordering swimsuits online this evening. As she browsed through the web someone suggested that she purchase an aqua-colored suit with floral prints. It looked nice, indeed, except that the hue was a "camouflage color", very similar to the pool's. So what if Minnow drowns and people don't notice her because of the aqua suit? As the saying goes, one should prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

So Minnow ordered an aqua suit for swimming, and a fuschia suit for drowning.

Tech retard

From Bangkok to Tokyo, from LA to NYC, and from London to Istanbul, it is now worldwide knowledge :

Minnow is a Tech Retard

She didn't edit her Google profile (to remove her real name) before sending out her invitation to many of you, and guess what, it took away the fun of anonymity, even if it's self-deceiving. So now she needs to switch to Damage Control:

1. Demand a refund from business school. It was supposed to have whipped Minnow into a "renaissance girl" able to excel in both the real and cyber world.
2. Sue the hospital in HK where Minnow was born, for the docs and nurses must have caused her the brain damage that led to her oversight.
3. Call the lawyers at 1-800-Accident in NYC and sue/blackmail Google, gain notoriety, and write a best-selling memoir "How Tech Retard failed the Google Challenge" to cash out.
4. Cry a river and call in sick tomorrow to get an extra day off.

Minnow welcomes your suggestions for any other lucrative damage control strategies.

A minnowish invitation

Dear -

Friends (past, present, future),
Foes (real, imagined),
Admirers (secret, open, passionate, withdrawn),
Detractors (light and heavy weight),
Exes (male, female),
Lovers (carnal, platonic, animal, mineral),
Objects of fantasy (there are two and a half, but I must keep them to myself),
Worshippers (phantom),
Mentors (for love, life, death, writing, etc),
Stalkers (you know who you are after all these years),
Gurus (real and wannabes),
Pets (feline, human),
Superiors (everybody, it seems),
Underlings (nobody really, as far as I can tell),

You are graciously summoned to browse my blog.

You may recognize me right away, you may never – there's no need to tell me. I hope you will enjoy this quirky space as its content and design evolve, and I hope you will share your thoughts from time to time.

Lovingly,
Minnow

Power Save mode

So why did Minnow write all these "juvenile", "silly", "low-brow", and "crude" poems on her blog?

Well, she doesn't know.

Minnow started this blog as a drafting board, a fermenting ground. The idea is to write without inhibition, to free think, to let the mind wander, to experiment with words. Perhaps some day these will become fodder for something more elaborate. But for now, this blog is not meant to be a serious literary pursuit, which is why she is "Minnow" in bloggersphere.

Minnow doesn't like poetry at all. It baffles her that she keeps churning out childish rhymes. Is she suppressing something that somehow finds it way out?

(When in doubt, go Freudian. Even if you aren't right, you can't be entirely wrong. That's why we love Freud.)

Another plausible explanation is that Minnow needs some down time. She can only pretend to be serious, smart, charged and coherent for so many hours of the day. Like every evolved, urban, two-finned, office-bound android/fish out of water, Minnow switches to "Power Save" every now and then to conserve energy, her precious qi. In fact, everyone around the world has his/her own Power Save mode:

For men: All men drink beer. Japanese men also read Manga, Russian men down vodka, American men watch cable TV, Brazilian men play soccer, Hong Kong men bet on horses, and French men have sex.

For women: All women read glossy magazines. Japanese women also shop, Polish women get their hair colored, American women get manicures and pedicures, Hong Kong women shop and play mahjong, and French women have sex (in my next life I want to be French, male/female).

So what happens when someone does almost none of the above?

Well, she behaves out of her character, such as writing silly poems.

Dragon Lady

Snappy, cheeky, harsh is she
Flaming words dart straight at me
Tenderness has swung to spite
Dragon Lady is fiery

Digging, picking faults in me
Great at nano analysis
PMS, post-partum, menopause
Or is it her astrology

One moment nectar and sugar
Suddenly bile and vinegar
It wasn't so long ago
Where is the delicate flower

Reason, ignore, and cajole
All that sinks into black hole
Just when you think you'll implode
Grande dame reverts to sweet soul

Love or loathe this vexed lady
Somebody please help me

Wedding ring, bling, and things

Where's your ring
you strange thing?
Are you looking
for a fling?

Where I'm from
we don't need rings
Though the weddings
still cost bling

Over here
dear darling
Ringless means you're
up for something...

Even if I were
you'd be ding-ed
So leave me alone
and mind your things

Birthday and the Delicate Flower Fallacy

My upcoming Roman calendar birthday coincides with my Lunar birthday.

Last night my mom phoned me from Hong Kong. "Such a coincidence is rare. It has never happened to me or anyone I know. You should buy some gold jewelry to celebrate it."

What a classic Hong Kong mentality, I thought. Go get yourself some jewelry. My mom didn't say, "Ask your man to buy you some." The inherent message was that I deserved it, whether my man agreed or not.

It was not until I lived abroad that I started appreciating the independence of HK women. We don't wait for men to gift us valuables. No, we strut into jewelry stores with our backs straight, our chins up, and we scour through selections of shiny metals the same way we pick bok choy or gutted fish in the market. We deserve those glistening alloy and sparkling carbon for our hard work that men often take for granted. Their judgement is irrelevant because we know we are worth it and don't need their approval.

The stereotype of abused, timid, and delicate Asian flowers are romanticized fallacies of the West. We are a tougher bunch than what the world believes.

Even though jewelry is not my thing, I feel an urge to get some as a way to celebrate the feistiness of my lady folks back home.

Ha ha.

Minnow has a Wish

Tiny minnow lost her way
swimming among bigger fish
Still aspires to fulfil
her tiny, humble wish

Minnow wants to read and write
till she loses her sight
Hit by tidal waves of bill
where's guidance for her plight

Find a catch
and obey his wish
If he's nasty
tell yourself "shush"!

But Big Fish will gulp minnow -
the little fish -
Chew and spit her out
without a twitch

So deeper she dives
avoiding the fiendish
charting in dark waters
for her MinnoWish