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.
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