Being a mom

I admit I get a little bit, actually a significant amount, of anxiety with this issue. My son has a girl best friend now who he hangs out with all the time. 

A beautiful family from South Korea, daddy a cool open-minded guy who likes drums and leads some Google products. Mommy a gentle sweet Korean woman who possesses enchanting and implicit Eastern beauty. Because of the "best friend situation" that both of the families know, we did try to arrange some playdates and try to know each other. 

They liked all of my ideas for after-school classes. The first thing they put the girl to was the same Taekwondo classes, girl speaks fluent Korean and writes & reads too, Taekwondo is her culture. Sometimes Shiva wants to attend lower belt sections just to be with her. Girl was also sent to the same horse riding coach for a few months until she was found to be allergic to hay and horse... After hearing Shiva's School of Rock experience, now girl is also a regular student for private lessons there, she chose the keyboard and in the waiting list to join band practice. They tried to enroll her into the same summer music camp as ours, didn't get it but for a different week. Every Friday afternoon the two children attend private lessons at the same time. I enjoy chatting with either the mommy or daddy for that half an hour. 

Today girl's mommy sent me a message asking if I could enroll Shiva for the "parents' night out" at the Taekwondo studio. Girl was bugging her parents about it. It's from 6pm to 9pm, kids get dropped off, watch a movie and eat snacks together, maybe some exercise too. Bring blankets because they are gonna sit or lie down together. 

I did get a bit panic there, for a minute. 

I sent urgent messages to the group of Raj, Leena and Noah. I think they all thought I was crazy. 

Raj sent me separate messages, shouting at my face "Just chill out, will you? He's only 7! Boys at this age know nothing! They only get feelings after 14 or so!"

Well, if Raj has no problem with it, I did reply to girl's mommy right away saying we are up for it...with my hands shaking and sweating...

I mean I'm definitely not a possessive mother who doesn't let go of her son, lol... "My son is the best creation and most beautiful creature in the universe!" lol you should see how I scold my kids and I do feel extremely uncomfortable nowadays when my son comes to stick to me and kiss me on my lips...

I also enjoy being categorized as "the cool mom", if that doesn't conflict with my fundamentals. 

Why am I anxious then? Good question. Because I have lived through it! 

Who said 7, almost 8 years old is too young? I started at 9 years old! Shiva is not too far away from that, obviously...

I was never a shrewd girl who was smooth at talking and manipulating. I was just simply really intelligent and could feel for what the others felt, plus kind and genuine. And I see me in Shiva, well, sometimes...  

Love is two-way energy if there is a connection. With that intense energy, we co-existed in the same space before went to college. We grew up together, shaped by each other. He is part of me, I am part of him, and that never will change. It's also way before anyone I later met in life, so I am frank about it.  

More than ten years of fierce heartbeats, non-stop thoughts, and unstoppable tears. In a person's best years. Sometimes people are just not meant to be together. 

I was caged and chained, never had one day of freedom, never once opened my wings and flew. I only learned to stand on my feet many years later. 

From when we were let out till we respectively got married and had children, everything became a blur. We did try to find a way in between, I guess the universe had a different plan for me all along. Some words were never delivered to me, no matter how much he tried. 

Now I pushed away that whole space and shut my door, because of what happened in 2021. I felt relieved actually because I now have valid excuses to not return and face that drumming of my heart. 

Children. After children, all the choices either for them or for myself, I make for the best of them. 

Love, attraction, lust, aspiration, all of them could be locked up and put away, and that's all I intend to do. Done it before, can do it again. 

So do I want the same thing for my children? I have been struggling with this question. Back and forth. 

At the end of the day, I tell myself, it's not your life to live, it's not your decision to make. 

If I held so much grudge about being prisoned, I should not do the same to my children. 

That's all I know.

That's all I know, even now I use all my might to put myself in prison. 

For the person I love the most in this world

Kids suddenly started quarreling and crying during breakfast. Shiva came upstairs telling us "Aditi said I'm brown and brown means stupid." I went down to a screaming Aditi. She was sobbing and trying to explain "I only talking about myself. I said I am brown, I didn't say Shiva." "Who told you your skin color is not pretty?" It's not her first time making comments about her skin color. Once she told my sister-in-law that "My grandma told me dark color is not pretty and my and your skin color is not pretty."

 

Yes, I have been aware of this, in fact, I started preparing my parents and warning them before the birth of my children. White supremacy is not only prominent in America, it's horrifyingly prominent in almost all Asian countries. One of my parents' most said phrases is "Put on a long sleeve and hat, apply a lot of sunscreen, don't get blackened in the sun!" 

I was lucky, growing up in such a toxic environment but praised for my fair skin all along. "Momo is so white, her skin so fair, so pretty. Only if she was 3 cm taller, she could be married into any rich and powerful family! But even with just that skin, she could marry well!" My cousin was unlucky, she was somewhat a tiny bit darker than me, she was always put down when they compare the two of us' skin color. So she never really built any self-confidence. She has a good job but she didn't really learn to love herself. So now she is unmarried with a son, not by her choice, she was lied to. 

After all these years of warnings, I don't think my parents could change the habit of telling children "Don't get blackened in the sun!" And children are smart, they get the hidden messages and take them into the heart. So I have been praising my daughter's skin color from the day when she was born. 

Every day I tell her she has the most beautiful skin color in the world. I tell her in 100 years or so, everybody in America will be the same color, your color. I tell her, no matter who, if they make a judgment about your skin color or your appearance, tell them "My vice president is a beautiful mixed-blood woman from a black father and an Indian mother, if you think you are smarter than her, like if you are the president of America, then judge me, please. If not, then please just shut up, bla bla", "And while you say this, point to your brain and look into their eyes as if you have much higher intelligence than them. You surely do, by the way. At the end of the day, only this matters, nothing else".

I have seen enough of self-deprecation and self-defacement among women. I have heard enough vile comments about me "whore, prostitute, nasty, rotten, ugly..." I have borne through enough suffering, the suffering of women because they have butts, breasts, vaginas and wombs. So I have stopped giving a fuck, a long time ago. 

 

If my most precious daughter is gonna grow up to be a confident and headstrong boss, no, leader, whose mind is set to get what she wants, so be it. Mama can't be more proud and Mama thinks all of them should just go fuck themselves. 

Vegas

The first time was in 2013. How young we all were. 

After companying the boys to gentlemen's club so many times, the gentlemen finally felt that the ladies should try lady's club too. 

Gentlemen's clubs were fun for sure, a large percentage of girls were highly intelligent, and many of them were earning tuition fees for higher education. 

The girls most often came for girls first, we picked the girls judging only from their faces and smile. I could easily fall in love with the ones with whom I had interesting conversations. 

The touch and intimacy had never changed from awkward to comfortable, I guess that's when I knew exactly where I resided in my spectrum.

It was fun to experience, to observe. But after a while, the boys all dispersed into different corners, not too much of a group affair anymore. 

Well, bringing us along was not our idea. Obviously, we were super fun to bring along anywhere and it has never been a bad idea. 

"Men can separate physical experience from emotions." That's what we knew. There seems to be a switch, men are able to control it, on and off. 

Boys sent us in, some inner layer chambers through a long hallway, they would be waiting the night outside where it was a crowded gentlemen's club. I guess the owner modified a small part of the gentlemen's club, just to experiment. 

This was the only lady's club in town at that time. Maybe it still is. But how empty it was that night. Such a contrast to what was happening outside the hallway. 

We picked a table far away from the stage. There were only 5, 6 very old ladies sitting along the edge of the stage. Putting their hands and arms on the dimly lighted glass, grabbing whatever came their way, dipping their heads in.

We were giggling in the dark. 

When the gentlemen came to us, we were still giggling and toughened up to stay in our seats instead of screaming and running away. 

We were the only young girls in the whole chamber, therefore in turns, all of them came to us, sat for a while, brought us drinks, and whispered into our ears. 

"What's your name? Where you from? What do you do?" From right ear to left, then right, then left. 

"You so beautiful..." Picked a lock of our hair, gazed into our eyes. While we were getting warmed up, not only on alcohol. 

"Which of us do you want? Do you want me? Or him? He is my friend. We both from XX. Have you traveled to XX before? It's a beautiful country." 

We were given an amazing amount of time and patience, they came and went, came and went, one by one. We kept giggling and discussing, trying to comprehend.

There never were more young, even middle-aged women came, the whole night, it was just us. 

What happened next, stayed in Vegas. All I can say is that I tumbled out to find the boys and got a lot more cash from them! They were like: "What are you girls doing inside?!" 

And with what we got and how much we spent, that also stayed in time, never the same just a few years later. 

The chamber expanded into huge halls, layers of tables and sofas were added. The balcony and open area were also put into use, like a proper club. Many more private rooms were added in different compartments of the building, at a price that none of us could or would be willing to afford. In 2017 when we visited again, it was filled with all kinds of ladies of all ages. Nobody had the time to play with your hair and warm you up. 

While we knew "men can separate physical experience from emotions", what we didn't know was "women really really can't separate physical experience from emotions!" Those lingering feelings and fantasies that followed us for quite some time! 

How much we wished we also had a button to switch on and off, just like men. We learned that lesson in a hard, well, also sweet way. An extraordinarily adventurous way, I would say. 

All in all, it was an unforgettable experience of sisterhood that doesn't quite happen often. And Vegas to us will always be a place to take our friendship to a special place and for it to bloom and fruit. 

As we grow older, thrown into the chaos of family and children, slowly stripped away our innocence and novice. Can we now separate physical experience from feelings and emotions? Yes, maybe we can now. 

We learned to shut off, we learned to close our eyes and stay the course. We learned to find that balance, tiptoe forward, and not trip, as long as you don't pull too hard. 

"In love"

Something worth writing down, my daughter got her first little "lover". "I think he is in love." Coach B told me about his son. Actually, I think he told me even before, I wasn't paying attention. 

"Every time coming back from practice he keeps talking about Aditi. Before going to practice too, he is really excited to meet her. When you went traveling and missed the game, he was so sad Aditi couldn't come. When you were sick and missed the game, he was so sad again, sitting on the bench all by himself."

I was thinking: "That's why you put your son and Aditi in the same group throughout the practice?" I don't have much problem with it, because at this age, how much baseball are they gonna learn right? And I also don't have any problem with the little 5-year-old cute boy who keeps talking to Aditi in her ears. It's ok that she gets to make a friend and all that attention. I just need to keep reminding them to pay attention to instructions. 

What is so cute to me is that daddy respects his son's emotions, encourages them, and intentionally helps him with that. If we could all get that kind of daddy love as daughters or sons, we might end up making better choices in life. 

Aditi came to me and told me: "He said this and that and this and that, and poop..." A girl who loves potty jokes, whoever boy wouldn't be in love right?

Went back to our team photo, to my surprise, Coach B's boy was standing right in front of me. My daughter was standing right in front of Coach B. I don't think at that time we knew who was who at all. 

To be honest, I just really love all of the kiddos that show up in my life. I have this intense feeling of motherly love overflowing from my heart, for each and every child that I know... Just can't help it... I could do anything to protect and help them. Maybe Coach B also feels this way about the kiddos. 

Walking on this Earth, for sure some of us will find our paths entangled. It's immense luck. I cherish it, always.

But love, what does 5-year-old know about love? 

I wish they stay as long as they can, being ignorant about love. All different kinds of love. Not knowing what's love from either responsibility, random encounters, or soul searching. 

Just a little longer, until they couldn't contain anymore the desire to seek, pounding on their hearts.  

One day they will surely go down the same path as we all, there will be heartaches and tears, sleepless nights, and haunting dreams, no matter what choices they make. 

But what can I say? It's us, it's life. 

Just stay a little longer with me, my innocent little baby who knows no pain.

An unavoidable path

I really hope with what's happening in China and Russia right now, people in the world, especially the free world, should wake up to the false anticipation of authoritarian economic models and delusions of totalitarian governments. 

Whatever progress China made after disguised itself into the free world's market, at the core it was by exploiting peasants who were forcefully turned into cheap laborers and at the cost of polluting & exhausting any natural resources possible, leaving behind air unbreathable, water full of heavy metals and a food industry utterly untrustworthy & filled with scandals. 

Your individual freedom, freedom of thoughts, freedom of information, and freedom of expression, it's not worth it to trade that for any amount of money. No need to mention your freedom of staying in whichever city you want, having whatever amount of children you want, either more or less, and your freedom to go out the door and buy food so you won't starve when there's a pandemic outbreak. 

The truth is what has been happening in China for the past almost 40 years is just a detour. A capitalism detour. They stole the idea of capitalism, without ever acknowledging the term "Capitalism", decorated with an authoritarian style of lawlessness and ruthlessness, and used it for money grab. 

Without a change in its political foundation, China will eventually go back to its regular path of famines and purges. 

Shutting down doors and tormenting powerless people is what China does the best and will surely happen more often and more viciously in the near future.

The power of gender indication in story books

 Apr. 6th 2022

2 books about friendship and being kind, today's storytime for my daughter's TK class. Both are on the list of my favorites. Both of them have leading characters in all male forms.

While obviously, I can't change the gender of the alien boy and the Earth boy, I was able to change the gender of the leading character Giraffe into a girl hero who saved the boy Crocodile. 

Pretty sure if I read as what the books printed - all major roles as boys, the girls in the class would unconsciously take home the cognition that females are way less relevant in all storytellings. 

Why? Because they truly love the stories and would remember them for a long long time, because the stories taught them to be open-minded, to be kind, and friendly. 

Can you understand now why we say women from birth to adulthood face subtle gender discrimination in all aspects and the strikes on their self-worth come from all sorts of overlooked details? 

And the efforts to undermine that foundation so women could rewrite their fate to be unapologetically worthy as men, if allowed, should be enduring and earnest. 

 Apr. 4th 

After finishing their art project, a little time left for the table to read a book. They wanted me to so I started reading. 3 girls listened together with me reading out loud. "The hungry little caterpillar". 

"He was this, he was that, he did that, he did this..." after a few pages I felt bad because good picture stories have been largely stories about "He". 

If there was a "She" at the center of the story, most probably a cute pretty princess or unicorn. Especially so with the old picture books in the classroom, donated a long time ago. 

So I said, "hmmm, you know what, caterpillar could be a girl too, there are boy and girl caterpillars both." Then I changed all "he" into "she". The 3 girls instantly lighted up, as if they were suddenly relevant. "She was not little anymore, she became a fat and big caterpillar!" The girls all giggled. 

On the last page, "she" turned into a beautiful butterfly, "how beautiful she is right? You are too, as beautiful as this butterfly!" I believe the girls would now believe in it, much more than when the story was about a "he" caterpillar.

我們家經歷的奧米克戎

之前怕公開了爸媽回國有影響，現在情況都這樣了應該也沒多大關係了 -- 那就是我們家一月底也得了奧米克戎，這是我們第一次得武漢肺炎，在所有（輝瑞/莫德納）疫苗都打完的前提下。

搞笑的是，只有我和兩娃陽性，印度老公和爸媽怎麼測都是陰性。

我一直以為只是感冒，最開始喉嚨痛，流涕，頭暈，四五天後，孩子們出現症狀才去檢測出了陽性。希娃喉嚨痛了一天就沒症狀了，妹妹也喉嚨痛，外加發了幾個小時燒，一天內也沒症狀了。我頭暈感冒的感覺持續了大約兩周，但除此之外沒有發燒，味覺嗅覺也都正常。

孩子們是在週一到校之後沒多久出現症狀，學校立即通知讓家長接回家，為了他們盡快返校我們週一下午去學區指定地點做了快速檢測。本來以為絕對不是武漢肺炎，因為我上週因為感冒剛剛做了 PCR 測試，結果是陰性。沒想到快速檢測結果出來，兩個孩子都是陽性。我也再做了 PCR 測試，幾天後結果也是陽性。

這幾年下來我們所做的所有檢測，全部都是免費的，有時一周做好幾次。

我們在家隔離了一週，所有下午的其他課程也自行取消，三個人在家裡玩了一整個星期。家裡有測試盒，週五做了測試還是陽性，週日再測就轉陰了。把家裡的測試結果拍個照片發到學區護士的郵箱，週日當晚就得到回復說週一可以返還學校上課。

學區從2021年4月恢復在校上課以來，訂製了一套非常精細的應對流程。包括教室內新置的空氣淨化器，新設的隔離板，新畫的單行路線，上廁所吃午餐的新規則等等。對於出現症狀、感染了普通流感以及確診武漢肺炎陽性的孩子與其兄弟姊妹如何進行居家隔離，如何結束隔離回來學校都有詳細規定。

但這些規定裡，從來沒有一項是強制檢測在校學員，也絕對不會強制家長提交檢測報告。所有檢測都是家長自願去做的，結果出來通知不通知給學校，那都是家長的自由。出現症狀的孩子被送回家隔離後，如果想提早回校，可以提交陰性檢測報告，學區護士同意就可以回來。不然最多居家十天後也可以自動回來。

因為學區及時設計了非常精細的應對流程，也因為學區手裡有學生接種疫苗的數據（我們學區82% 極高），還因為學生和家長都能非常配合新規，像思想成熟的正常社會人遵守共同制定的法律一樣，所以學區在奧米克戎席捲之際，在堂課程照常運行，有條不紊。

一月至二月最嚴重的時候，孩子們輪著在家隔離，每個班同時5到10個缺堂，最多的時候一個班25個孩子一半沒來。似乎每家都輪著得了一回奧米克戎，自行在家隔離一週。但最嚴重也不過如此，從沒聽說哪家人出現重症。

不知不覺，一月二月過去，在大約二月中/底的時候，突然校園裡滿了起來，孩子們陸續都回來了，各班級基本都滿員。

再來就是三月了，奧米克戎這一波算是過去了，群体免疫建立，80%的家庭都得過了。傳染性極強，但比流感還輕的流行病。搞笑的是，每家都是幾個成員呈陽性，幾個成員怎麼測都是陰性。於是我們這裡基本可以宣布徹底走出武漢肺炎，口罩令也都逐一取消，我們家孩子現在上所有室內室外課都不戴口罩了。