Pride🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

Yen grew up here, she said her childhood was very miserable because at that time this little town was famous for its redneck residents and it was "Super Racist back then". Her exact words. I can't imagine if I was growing up in such environment, what could happen, what kind of a person I would turn into. Maybe because people like me are discriminated on regular basis, name calling, teasing, laughing, shaming, I could never build up that confidence within, so I would also grow to be only capable of loving Asian men or women. The people I hang out with would only be Asians anyway because I won't be accepted by the "naturally beautiful whites" and if I don't stick with my own color I will be abandoned by the only people who truly accept me. Yuck, racism sucks... 

Yen came here in a refugee boat from Vietnam when she was 6 months old. Jason's mom was born in a Japanese detention camp too. For Asians, fate could change within two generations. Yen now a OBGYN, Jason before becoming a stay-home dad, worked for NASA. Story for blacks are somehow much different. "The key is in the mentality" I always argue, and Leena would get so upset, she hates it so much whenever I strongly support blacks and natives, which I absolutely don't know why. It's actually a very natural thing among Chinese freedom fighters to stand on the side of the blacks and natives. Chinese got their basic rights catching the free bus of Civil Rights Movement. I look up to black and native freedom fighters, always. I guess I am the only true freedom fighter among all of them, all of our family members. They could stand for some cause, to some degree which is not contradict to their convenience and tranquility. Nobody is like me, I doubt that anyone even truly understands me, sometimes my existence is only causing unpleasant feelings for them. At least I have my prof and my colleagues, at least. I don't have any expectations on anyone anyways, truly. And I won't change for anyone neither. 

Yen and Jason bought house in this little town in 2015 even Yen spent all her 20s in UC Berkeley, Boston, India and vowed to never come back, by then things drastically changed. Last 15-20 years the tide has been turning. I couldn't believe there was even a local pride celebration, obviously it has been happening for the past 16 years. Some Asian church people were standing on the opposite side of the road, fiercely protesting against the pride, for hours in the burning sun, waving their banners and shouting at all the cars passing by. No idea what they aimed to achieve and why so much energy generated by hatred. Yen knows a lot of people in the boots, shop owners, artists, a lot of them from her crafting group. There was a drag show too. Minorities understand how minorities feel and what they've been through, so I would always give them the warmest encouragement I could give. It's because the bits and pieces of support I received, some imagined, during the time when I was massively bullied for more than a decade, I survived, didn't ruin my life, didn't kill myself. People are sheep, they are unconsciously compelled to follow the "mainstream" and use that to justify their ignorance, cruelty and lack of compassion for the "marginalized". Pride community is a rare community comprises of people who been there, done those and have woken up from such venomous force of so called "mainstream". 

At least I caught the tail of pride celebration this year, San Francisco or Berkeley parades happened during the time when we were traveling in India. Saw a video shared by Chinese girls who study in the west coast, some Chinese feminists went topless in the parade in LA. My type of girl! Chinese women are among the most outspoken feminists I would say, because when suppression and oppression by an authoritarian regime happens, women are in the front line to be crushed, their rights the first to be stripped away -- one of the conversation highlights with my newly acquainted Iranian mommy friend in a classmate's b'day house party. We couldn't stop the exclamation when we reached the conclusion from the exact same path at the exact same pace. What can I say, victims from the "Four Internet Blackholes on Earth" (China, Iran, Cuba and North Korea) think alike, we could be instant buddies. Well, Iranians lead a double life, their brainwashing level is not matchable to China or Cuba or NK's, therefore only the kind of "done with being brainwashed" Chinese or Cubans or NKs could make that instant connection with Iranians I guess. Learned a lot about Iran from my new mommy friend. I should ask her out sometime, just to rant. 

I also like to shop locally, to support local business, it's just that I really don't have so much time to discover. So when I saw the boot for handmade body and hair butter, the black girl and her trans-brother introduced the products made by them and their mom, I loved the scent and feel and decided to try and stick to their products. When I run out of the current set, I will go visit their workshop 10 minutes away from my home. 

People from a gym boot really wanted to talk to us, the older woman caught Yen to chat, then she turned to me and asked, "You can tag along! How old are you?" "Er... 38..." "Oh??!!8%$^%" She wished to dig a hole and disappear. Then the man who finished talking to the others turned to us, "So you are mother and daughter?" "Oh no... I know, the rainbow I drew on my face is very deceiving..." I also wish to dig a hole and disappear. It's the way I dress up nowadays, it's just my current phase, it could be my under-developed breasts too, well, they fed my two infants for two years each, it makes Raj look like an old rich bald Indian man with a 20-years-younger chick, it could also embarrass two Asian women who hang out together. I don't know Yen so well yet, it's our first time alone, it's always Jason who's been my friend. The last thing I want is to offend her. But seems like she is very secure and confident, don't bother to think twice on petty matters like this, that kind of strong woman I admire. I just want to be with people who accepts me as who I am and even supports it, who has no problem with me feeling comfortable about my own skin no matter what it is. I am also secure and confident and wouldn't think twice on petty matters like ages and looks. I am way too old for childish things like that.