Ask Me Anything

I don't remember food is both something I liked but also that I can't get right now. Maybe I'm just too "normie" because every food I liked is still available right now.

Which part of Guangzhou?

Lol this feels kinda way to specific and personal. But fine:

白云区

Do you speak Cantonese?

Yes, but I only speak it at home, haven't exactly developed much volcabulary/lexicon. Like... I can't speak it well enough to have a political debate, for example, because I don't have the words to articulate my argument.

What do you like and dislike the most about GZ, if you remember it.

I was a kid, didn't really really have rigid concept of "likes" and "dislikes" yet, but I guess, some of the things I think I enjoyed was: I remember the McDonalds, I think I remember being happy every time my parents took me and my older brother there for food, and I remember the icecream there. I remember being at a restaurant and had 云吞 and 小笼包. I remember a KFC, but not sure if we ever ate there. I remember a Pizzahut, but this part is mostly from my mother's account, according her, the pizza was small and its relatively expensive, and I guess they could charge that because it was new and foreign stuff that people wanted to try. I don't remember it because I think we only had it once so it didn't from any long lasting memories.

I remember at home watching cartoons like 猫和老鼠 (Tom and Jerry), 多啦A梦 (Doreamon), I think Mr. Bean, and that's about all I remember. I remember playing around with my dad's morotola phone, and getting SIM PIN thing locked. And he got mad at me lol, the phone store was like I think 20-30 minutes of walking to get there, so I basically wasted his time. I remember there was a weird Ninja Turtle game on the phone, but it automatically incurred charges on his phone plan, so he got mad at both of us, but it was my older brother tricking me to click on it, so it was his fault lol

I remember exploring the 白云山 (Baiyun Mountain) with my father and it was kinda creepy there, but there are others also taking walks there so I guess its not exactly like some wild jungle. I remember being scared of like bugs and they fenced off some areas, I guess its for power generation or whatever. I remember being afroid of touching the fence and getting electricuted, so I never dared to touch the fence. I think they had this tall metal structure that my dad said it was to redirect electricity so lightning doesn't shock things nearby.

What I didn't like was school. I mean, I guess every kid didn't like school. Mandarin always sound like it has this "serious" tone to it. I mean, I guess its because the only time I hear Mandarin is during school and from classmates so it sounfs very "formal", Cantonese felt more comfortable, because well... its reminds of home. They also did weird raising the flag ceremonies in the school yard like I remember its either Weekly or Monthly, but I hated standing in the school yard, sometimes when the sun was directly shining on me. I hated that. Its kinda like the equivalent of being in the school auditorium in the US, and they have people talking about a bunch of BS that nobody ever listens to.

And um... what else I didn't like about Guangzhou is, well, this was not exactly a Guangzhou problem, but I remember having a fight with my older brother, so I kinda got scared, and ran away from home. So um... yea I kinda wanderd around for a bit, all alone. I still remember how scared I was that day. Luckily I didn't get kidnapped lol. My mom told me kidnappings were common, but IDK if its fearmongering to get me to not "misbehave" or if its actually a problem. And oh, my mom kinda blamed me for the incident, even though my brother was literally chasing me around the apartment and trying to hit me and I was a kid, what was I supposed to do? I was like 5-7 around this time. I can't think properly, my brain was thinking: there is danger inside the house, so kid me decided to run out the door. So this PTSD memory is just permanently attached to my memories of Guangzhou, and just Mainland China overall.

Also, I didn't learn of it at the time, but I later on, I learned about the Hukou System and Guangzhou's local government didn't allow us to convert the Hukou, so couldn't go to public schools, so the school I went to was privately-run school that migrant parents had to pay for and its lower quality than public schools, so that was probably why I hated school so much.

Sorry if its non-coherent.

Favorite food...

In Guangzhou it was 小笼包, from what little I can remember.

In NYC, I remembered liking sushi and Big Macs and McChicken (I mean, back then when that stuff was good). I remember things like Roasted Duck (燒鴨) and Cha Siu (叉燒) from Chinatown and also there were some Chinese restaurants near where I used to live. So often when my parents didn't cook, we had some of those stuff from the restaurant and just cooked rice at home and the Cha Siu or Roasted Duck was served with rice. On rare occasions, we went to McDonalds (again, back then they actually tasted good, I mean like around 2010s).

In Philly, not really sure, but I think its the Shimai (燒賣).

Now for most hated food? The fucking school lunch ffs, ew. Everyone across all the different school I've been to, joked that it was prison food.

NYC used to open schools in the summer so kids can be fed (school lunch was free) so my parents made sure to take me and my brother there so we are less hungry and thus need to eat less at home thus saving money. I hated it. Its literal prison food. Its even worse in Philly schools.

(Okay I'm not actually saying that school is prison, but they sure made it feel like prison.)

Ecomonic offortunities is one of the big factors, but also for overall improvements for things like better air quality, better safety regulation for thing like food, because my mother was keep talking about food safety all the time, everyone was so afraid the fake baby formula that would be toxic to infants, so I was actually breastfed. (Actually, now that I think about it, maybe she did care for me. But idk why she's being so abusive/neglectful, is this bipolar?!?), better education, because our Hukou was in Taishan, and its just very poorly funded, and those privately-run ones in Guangzhou was also shitty (can't go to public ones, they require Guangzhou Hukou, even though I was born in Guangzhou, I don't get Guangzhou Hukou). Geneally, its just because jobs paid more, and its paid on time. Delaying payments is a common thing in mainland China.

For context, the application to immigrate began like back in the 1990s (I think probably like mid/late-1990s), it was on waitlist for over a decade until 2010, so that application was before I was even born. In 1990s, the mainland China looked a lot worse than now. Even in 2010, the difference was a lot compared to now. Things were much much worse back then.

As for preparing... I mean they had over a decade to save up money to prepare for the initial funding. I think that was also chalenging given the fact that they had to pay like a fine for giving birth to me (2nd child, since One Child Policy was still in effect back then) in order to get my legal documents from the PRC government (otherwise it would've been problematic for the US immigration visas, if I didn't have PRC's legal documentation), the fine was somewhere in the range of like ¥10,000 to ¥25,000 (idk the exact amount, they didn't tell me), which was a lot at the time. So anyways, she managed to pay the fine for violating the One Child Policy, application is fixed and my name got added on to the application, and like my mom was always worried the immigration officials would be strict and like ask questions to me like "who is your father/mother", since 2nd children are rare, she thought the US would be suspicious and that the immigration official would suspect that I was not actually her child or something (as in, the US could be paranoid about potential child trafficking), I remember her just asking me: "if the immigration people ask who is your mother or father, how would you answer?" like... to prep for such possible questions, but they never asked those questions. I mean idk why my parents so so worried, I aint stupid lol, I know who my parents are lol.

So when we arrived in the US, out relatives didn't really help out too much, except to help us find a place and prepaid like half a month of rent, they had to find jobs literally the next day after we arrived. I remember playing some weird gold games on the plane infotainment system. I remember being in Seoul International Airport (waiting for transfer flight) and the first time I learn of exchange values. I remember seeing stuff costing 10,000 and being 7 year old me (almost 8 years old), I was like WTF, then my parents explained how different countries have different money. Don't remember much from the flights, but I remember excitement.

We kinda just left very early morning, I think I got anxious that morning we left, my mom told me about it a while ago and urged me not to share with classmates, but I was a kid, and I'm pretty sure I remember just babbling it to the kids at school, not sure if they believed me when I said I was gonna being going to 美国 (America). But my mom didn't wanted kids to get too jealous and like paint a target on our back or something. Child-me was thinking like some assassin is gonna kill us or something (my thoughts are kinda wild back then. But still, I just like to "brag" about things. I didn't get murdered, obviously, but honestly, idk why my mom thought such of a big deal of not telling anyone, like is anyone actually gonna murder us in jealousy that we could leave?

I think she also sometimes borrowed a bit of money from relatives and friends (they always eventually get paid back btw, because "face" is a huge thing, debt always got paid back).

So because most relative didn't help a lot, she turned to friends. She had like this one close friend (I think its like her childhood "BFF" or something) still in NYC right now that lend her half of the money that she eventually used to buy a house in Philadelphia, the house was bought via direct cash payment, not a mortgage, btw. I think by now, that debt she owed to her friend should've been all cleared up and repaid. They are still friends to this day I think. I remember being at her (the mom's friend) house sometimes when my mom goes there for chit chat or something, it feels very awkward being there because I was always afraid of breaking something and like making things awkward since. I remember this friend also help my mom and she pick me up from school when my mom was busy (and I spent like an hour at her house, just anxious af since I thought I was gonna embarass myself if I touched something and broke it). Btw her kids also went to the same elementary school as I did, don't think we ever had the same class, probably different grade-level. Her son was older, born in mainland China, her daughter was born later, in the United States. I was so socially awkward I never really talked to them,

My mother joked once that she should get me to go to NYC to play with the friend's daughter (around similar age as me) more often, and maybe marry when we get older. I LOLed at it, because I'm like, chill out mom, that is big adult talk, and like I barely know her lol, never even had the same class in school.

I mean, literally some friends helped out more than our blood-relatives did lol. "Blood is thinker than water" is a lie. I could've never done this if I were in her position, I would not have had friends and no 关系 and so social support networking. I don't think I would been brave enough to do emmigration myself had my parents not paved the way for me and did it all for me.

Which mades me even sadder, since they are also the same parents that were sometimes abusive to me. Why?!? Is it really just bipolar?

Welp that is some old memory I didn't think I still had, so thanks for helping me remember.

(Didn't proofread, sorry if I typo)

So for scooter/bikes, I don't really remember seeing it happening to anyone else, except like once I fell of my bike in Philly because the chains got messed up and it got stuck, so I lost balance. And one time the brakes didn't work so my bike kinda crashed into a wall. Last time I remember being on a bike was like years ago.

As for traffic accidents, I didn't see any in NYC, but I did see like at least 3 car crashes around my neighborhood in Philly. One time the entire car flipped over. I guess people suck at driving here 🤷‍♂️

And my parent's car also got rear ended once, nobody got hurt and the other side's insurance paid out more than what that second hand car was worth.

I don't remember seeing any accidents actually. Other than school, I was mostly just left at home with my older brother with no adult supervision. Not much opportunity to be outside.

Sometimes my maternal grandmother would be here to watch us, but sometimes she'd be at her village back in Taishan.

Actually, you know what was worse than accidents? My brother fucking playing with fire at home because we were bored af. He poured white-out liquid onto a piece of paper and lit it on fire using a lighter.

What the fuck lol. Luckily, the buildings were made of concrete/cement and its not a wooden house.

But I now remember the doors we had could be locked from the outside, so sometime my parents would lock the door from the outside to make sure we didn't like run away from home or something. (Think like the "child proof" car locks, its basically that, but for doors at home) I had no idea if they did that that day. But I guess we got lucky nothing got caught on fire. I remember telling my mom about my brother doing it and it didn't even seem to faze her, like my brother didn't get in trouble or anything, I don't think. (I think this is probably similar to the "boys will be boys" attitude)

Edit: Sorry, last question I answered was about Guangzhou, forgot you mean like in general.

Gonna reply later as I try to remember.

Honestly, idk what "home" even is. Guangzhou is filled with childhood trauma. NYC is filled with school problems. Same with Philly. My household was dysfunctional, I mean, to be clear, it was nothing like alcoholism or gambling or any serious things like that, but I'm pretty sure my parents were (undiagnosed) bipolar. My mother would tell me how much she loves me, then later tells me how much of a burden I am. Idk... Home is just a concept I daydream about. Didn't feel like I belong in school, nor any sense of safety at home.

Guess why I developed depression...

Um... idk lol. I never really developed an obsession with dinosaurs.

?

What?

NYC feels less "ghetto" than Philly, tbh. (Sorry for the lack of a better choice of words)

But housing was cheaper in Philly, which is why my parents moved here. Buying a home in NYC was impossible, even in Brooklyn. So expensive.

But the trade off was Philly schools sucks, very low ratings when you look online.

Do I miss it? I mean we used to have a landlord in Brooklyn, in Philly, my parents were able to buy a house, so I guess one less thing to worry about.

Where we lived in Brooklyn was right next to a subway track, so there was noise every so often, very annoying

Idk, sort of yes, but also sort of no.

You mean like comparison between the various schools I've been to?

In Guangzhou, the school I went to was a privately-run one, I wasn't allowed to be in public school because everyone in my family had rural hukou. These school are said to be subpar compared to the public schools, as they lack the public funding, and parents had to pay for it out of pocket. Feels kinda run-down. There were zero shared textbooks, everyone has to get these like these small student handbooks, everything else is learned from the chalkboard. It's around like 2008 to 2010. Like zero smartboards. Zero internet. Didn't have internet at home either. There was a windows xp computer at home, but I that from a relative. My older brother used it to play music and some videos (its those old desktops with the DVD player thing).

And one distinct thing about it is. Every week (or month, not sure), they do this raising the flag ceremony where every student has to be in the school yard and they put on this whole performance and had students bring out the flag and then raise it with the national anthem being played, then afterwards, some stupid announcements. As an introvert and a non-conformist, that stuff was really weird. And I think they also played the national anthem every day, but without the whole raising the flag thing in the schoolyard.

And they had this weird thing, which I now learned its called the Young Pioneers of China, where everyone wears a red scarf to symbolize some "communist" stuff. They had upper classmen that were about to move on to middle school to put the red scarf on the 1st graders. Its like part of your uniform, kinda like in some US schools, you had to wear a tie.

Americans, does this raising the flag ceremony sound familiar?

Which brings me to the NYC. So when they first did the pledge of allegiance and the star spangled banner played on the PA system, I didn't even feel strange, it was just another ritual to me. I stood for it to fit in, but just stayed silent for the pledge, I wasn't a citizen and didn't know english at the time so of course I didn't do the pledge. Still didn't do it even after I learned english, it was just sooo awkward to say it.

So, the NYC's (Brooklyn) public school was much more "modern", I see a lot of smartboards that I never saw before. Computers being used in class, projectors, and copying stuff from a windows document projected, instead of chalkboards. And well... they did have those dry-erase boards, so at least there aren't chalk dust everywhere, those dusts were annoying. They had a computer room, still running XP in like what, 2010-2014? Lolol.

In Philadelphia, schools were less funded than in NYC's. It feels kinda run-down again. Technology is definitely still part of class, but some class seem to be missing stuff, its like only half of the classrooms had projectors, didn't see many smartboards that you could write on. In middle school, they had like one or two carts of computers, and a comouter room. These are all Macs. In highschool, they started to transition to Google Classroom, so I don't think they even spend money on Smartboards anymore these days, they had full carts of chromebooks instead. After covid, everyone was issued one by the high school as part of a loaner program.

P.S. In middle school, they stopped doing the star spangle banner, and in highschool, they stoped doing the pledge all together.