Letter VI: Small Confessions and Mom's Birthday

Greetings, Tim!
The test is over, and school is getting back to its normal pace. School fair, spelling contest, etc. are coming rather sooner than later, and the schedules are getting jam-packed once more; high school life, it is.

Celebrating Mom's Birthday

Mom has her birthday on October the sixteenth, which is Monday of this week. It is a weekday, so I had decided that I am going to take her out for dinner with my allowance. We went to Taipei 101 first, for we both were starving. In the food court, we both ordered a meal of Japanese-styled rice with beef, a meal which we both enjoyed immensely.

LOOK AT THAT PILE OF BEEF

After quenching the fire of hunger in our stomach, we headed for the bookstore nearby, within twenty minutes of walking distance. One nice thing about my mother is that she also loves reading books. She has her own stack of books, written by her favorite authors, either from Japan or Taiwan. The genres we read are radically different, though, so we seldom talk about the books we read. I guess I have to thank my mom for never restricting me from reading novels since I was a kid. True, she sometimes chastised me for reading novels too much that I am basically neglecting my school work, but that was all. She sometimes sees me buying books online without letting her know in advance, but except giving me a "death glare", there was nothing else. She is solemnly awesome in this perspective.
My mom is an amazing mom. She cooks some tummy-rocking dishes, and when I bring her dishes to school as lunch, I gladly share the food with my classmates, since they are also under the spell of my mom's culinary skills. I have been learning how to cook from her for a while right now, and I would try making mental notes of her recipe, just for the sake of keeping her dishes as long as possible. Nothing is better than a supportive mother. My mom is one. She supports me when I actively asked for extracurricular English classes, French classes, and even German classes. When I was in a smaller age, around 7 or 8, she used to take me, three days in a week, to Page One, a no-longer-existing bookstore in Taipei 101, buying a book or two each time, to let me live in the magical worlds they give me (right then, the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne was my favorite. "And it went still. Absolutely still.")
When I told her I want to take a lot of English proficiency tests (Okay, so I'm a nerd. :D), she didn't give a second thought and said yes. She was one of the reasons why I love reading so much.
She is also a role model of mine. Most of the time, my mom is very easygoing, but when it comes to matters of manners and propriety, she is extremely strict.
"When having meals with adults or elders, they have to be the first one to eat."
"Sometimes when elders say something you disagree, remember that they deserve respect, and be sure to do that. NO TALKING BACK." (I sometimes fail at this)
She also taught me that I have to be polite and be kind to people who have been good to you; to be grateful, that is, and it is essential to admit that you have made a mistake if you really did. Her words are like an anchor of my morality, in the bottom of my heart.
It's almost my mother's birthday, and I love her.

I got a book and she got two. We went home, contently.

Say hi to my new love!

Clearing the Air and Coming Out

After reading your reply to the last letter, I realized that I was being too vague.

This matter is basically one of the biggest secrets I have ever had in my family, next to stealing cookies from my cousin and not admitting all those years ago (Okay. Be serious.)

The thing is that, I don't wish for a girlfriend, as what my father expected; No, I don't want a girlfriend anytime soon, nor ever.

I'm gay.

I have been true and honest to myself, being exactly who I am since I was in the second year of middle school. This is who I am, and I have told a lot of my friends so far, including the whole class of 220 (thanks to William and his ne'er closing mouth) and so grateful was I because they were supporting, if not, showing respect.

I have a lot of words swirling in my head right now, but I am not sure which to talk about first.

I have never told any of my family members; the risk is too irrationally high. When you have a student mocking you because you are gay, at least you'll get rid of that person soon enough if you are lucky. However, if it is a family member... Deep in the bottom of my heart, I knew that most of them would be very supportive, but the small proportion of them are the ones that disconcert me. From the letter of the week before the last, you can see that I had taught the students in my English club: "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." But family matters! What if I come out to them and they are troubled by that? It was this kind of illogical (ill-logical) thoughts that drove me into chickening out every time I tried coming out to my family. I don't want that to happen.

And now that I am also coming out on the Internet, especially to you, Mr. Maher. I have been pondering the pros and cons of telling such thing on my blog, firstly because I don't know how you would react, and I really felt lucky that I have such a nice teacher from America, and please, Tim, I want to hear about how you think of all this and leave your thoughts in the comments.

Secondly, I am not sure if my dad or my other family members would check out my blog; if they do, they would see this, and there will be no more secrets. Typing until here, I know the risks out pressing the "post" button, but with another perspective, I don't have to be scared that someone would find out in another way; I have been given a chance to explain myself, in my own words.

Hope it goes well with you.

Questions Answering

1. The first Chinese immigrants first came here to work on the railroad system, around the year of 1870. Upon arriving in Arizona, they looked for all sorts of jobs that can sustain their lives abroad. Laundry washing, opening up restaurants, etc. this is the origin of why a lot of Chinese people still persisted on such kinds of jobs abroad.

2. The original Arizona "Chinatown" is now the location of areas for sports such as baseball and basketball.

3. The COFCO, or the China National Cereals, Oils, and Foodstuffs Corporation had shocked people when it had decided that they build a cultural center in a place really close to the airport, a convenient place. The Cultural Center has a façade of  Chinese traditional building, and though it thrived and flourished for a while, it is supposedly dying at a painfully slow pace.

4. I am not sure what else there is to do, but if there are somethings I can do to keep the cultural center going, I would rather start planning methods of promoting the cultural significance. Before that, I would evaluate all the facilities and the shops inside the center and cut the redundant or the least irrelevant ones and used the saved money to work on the promoting. As for the façade, I don't know... from the picture Mr. Maher showed us, it looked pretty endearing, and therefore I would be voting "yes" on the matter of whether keeping the entrance design or not.

5. A rivalry game is a sports match between two teams, that has been going on for a somewhat long period (I guess?). Similar to the ordinary games, rivalry games are fights for glory and respect et al, but I don't think that there will be more than two teams competing, more of a one on one battle, with only winning and losing be concerned.

6. After a minute or two spent on Google (not going to lie) I found that the name of the trophy was called the "Floyd of Rosedale", which is in the shape of a pig, made of bronze. Here is the picture:

I'm not sure about the design since I have no personal connections with pigs, but I love the name- Floyd of Rosedale- just utterly charming and sophisticated.

Intermission- Celebrating Birthday with Mom- Part Two

Long story short, my dad came back from Indonesia just today (It is Tuesday now) and he would be staying in Taiwan for a while, for he has to go to Kaohsiung for some mechanic training, which means that though he wouldn;t be living with us for a long time still, but at least for forty days, he is in moderate contacting distance.

My dad wasn't here on my mother's birthday, so tonight we went out for a belated "second celebration". My choice was to go to my favorite Thai restaurant, one that we frequented when we are together. I have no idea why, but Thai food has always been the kind of cuisine that strikes my fancy. Maybe it was the hint of lemony-sourness blended in most of the dishes or sauce that gives me the extra tinge of stimulation other bland flavors can't.

Favorite dish of all Thai food: deep-fried shrimp cake; goes best with the sweet-sour sauce provided.

Anyway, the whole atmosphere was cozy, despite to freezing airconditioning they have.

We didn't have much exchange in words, but we all were happy that we could actually sit together at a dining table, having a pleasant dinner as a whole family.

Family: Son Perspective

During dinner, though, my mom did say that the cousin she was taking care of, Sophie, an eight-year-old cute angel/little devil caught the atrocious stomach disease (from her baby brother, who caught the same disease last week) and she was asking me if I could come over. I didn't even have to think twice to give the only sane answer: YES! I don't even have to take the distance and time needed to go over to her house because it was basically like a walk in a park! Almost literally, since we practically live in the same community.

I spend some thirty minutes playing with the kids and it was stress relieving. I love family.

Continual of the Questions

7. I wouldn't say that the spectators caring for the rivalries are crazy- they are just fans! And what do fans do? Being fanatic! It was just that easy, but for deeper reasons, I believe that they care because it is not just a matter of the sports outcomes; it was the prestige they gain for the whole state-either for the people from Iowa or those from Minnesota-and they concern the results with zeal and great passion because they don't want to lose the prestige or they want the prestige as well.

8. Citizens of Tempe consider themselves "civilized" because they have all the infrastructures and adequate. That, and also the prestigious university in the city center.

9. Only until recently have people understood that to make a place completely "civilized", a franchised tea shop is in the top-required list. Without that, no one should call that (supposedly) "benighted barbaric" culture a civilized one...?

10. One ultimate goal to fully achieve civilization is to have mangoes like the ones they add in tea shops in Taiwan, or it would be like missing a piece of a jigsaw puzzle; when OCD kicks in, you can only feel helplessly frustrated.

Experiencing the Burnout/ Afterglow of Writing

Ah. How exhausting it was, pushing myself to write as much as possible. But the substantial sense of achievement was intoxicating at the same moment, so let's call it a night.

p.s. I am still unsure how you would react to my coming out, please reply soon :D

Sincerely,

Hugo