JOEY NG  | e-mail |
This is me at three. You know I am three because you can tell by the number of fingers I am holding up and I have always been a fan of talking in numbers.
Anyway, it was Halloween and you can’t tell what my costume is because it’s a shit costume.
Being immigrants – and if you don’t already know, immigrant parents give zero fucks about your bullshit-made-for-drugstore-sale holidays – the story I’ve retained in my head was that my Asian mother forgot about Halloween. We get to school and everyone is in a costume and I can’t be the only kid not in a costume. We jump back into the Ford Taurus and my mum sews leaves and patches on to my clothes. Rubs dirt on my face et voila! I am a bum for Halloween. I am three and I am a bum for Halloween. My mother dressed me up as a homeless person and she thought it was hilarious because she gives zero fucks about Halloween.
I, on the other hand, am three and I am fucking devastated and humiliated.
You can tell because in this picture I am clearly the only child without a ‘real’ costume and I am not smiling.
I got over it.
It doesn’t matter that I was strange and upset because in the end, I triumphed. I don’t know what happened to almost all of the others kids in that class but I also don’t care because we can betcher bottom dollar that I WIN.
It’s been a while since anyone’s talked about Tiger Moms, but every day I am reminded that I am a product of a Tiger Mom and as a result, totally a Tiger Mom myself. This is related to the rest of the post insofar as I believe that you need to focus on what matters (personal success) and what doesn’t (being dealt a bad circumstance).
Some moms don’t subscribe to Halloween. They might make you feel like shit from time to time.
The important thing is if they direct you to your highest potential.
That they teach you when you get knocked down by anyone, anything, or any occasion to get the fuck back up.
So if you have to cry, go outside for this is not the place, and I am not the kind of person you should be going to.
I am the kind of person who will tell you to go home, get that dirt off yo face, try harder, and win at life.
Happy Halloween!
(From my Asian mother’s facebook timeline, because all of a sudden, Halloween’s a thing she does now.
I guess I’ll ease up when I’m older.)
This entry was written by , posted on October 31, 2012 at 9:19 am, filed under Funny, Joey Ng, Self-diagnoses, Writing and tagged Halloween, Tiger Moms. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
This turn of the new year, I’ve really learned to let go. Let the past be the past. No more what-ifs, what-could-haves, if-only-you-if-only-we’s.
I’ve made a pretty conscious decision; I don’t have the time to keep hanging on to people. People who don’t give a damn. People who have made up their minds
that I wasn’t worthy of their nights, and their goodness, and their love. Nope.
Block.
Delete.
Don’t let someone live rent free in your heart.
Go on, you’ve got better things to do and better people to do it with.
This entry was written by , posted on January 5, 2011 at 12:22 am, filed under Friends, New York, Photos, Self-diagnoses and tagged Chris Reed, Christmas, Lower East Side, New York, The Suffolk Bar. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
“The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come true.” (Merton, R. K., 1968)
In November 2009, I wrote on my secret blog a name, a figure, and a city. Those three
being a would-be lover, salary, and home.
By November 2010, I had surpassed the figure by 40% and unpacked my single suitcase in a 2nd floor walk up of New York City.
I had everything I set out to. Everything but the boy.
But this isn’t a blog post about that which is not under my control. I wasn’t ever going to be able to make someone feel.
But seemingly without much concerted effort I had accomplished the other of my two goals.
The year before, dancing in a too big t-shirt, my best friend and I fancied ourselves in Los Angeles, working out of HQ, sing-songing my supervisor’s name. It wasn’t long before I skyped in from that faraway fantasy musing “Hey, remember when…?”.
Now I’m not going to try to feed you some mumbo jumbo secret self manifestation home dvd bullshit.
But it wouldn’t hurt to try.
To put it out there and see what magic may.
Instead of making resolutions, make predictions.
Now, the hard part is deciding what to wish for.
Reference: Merton, Robert K. (1968). Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press. pp. 477.
This entry was written by , posted on January 3, 2011 at 9:42 pm, filed under Joey Ng, Self-diagnoses, Toronto, Writing and tagged Kensington, Robert K. Merton, Self-fulfilling prophecy, Social Psychology. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Quite frankly, I haven’t been quite honest with you, blog. I don’t even know what I’m trying to protect nor whether I even care anymore.
I suppose I was far too reckless with my honesty, before.
Complete disregard for other people’s, well, emotions and ongoing narratives.
And now I fear that I’m too afraid. A dichotomy of embarrassment and under-potentialising. I feel the need to ‘mature’. To protect the private lives of private people, to hush and class up my act. If this be the public face, the result of search Googled, then what can I bear to let you see and assume and project and personify?
And to what extent do I hide behind Born-again tact, scoffing at girls blogging about snogging my ex, twitpicing their dates and raising my heart rate. How much do I silence my rage, and low lows, or newfound excitement through an ever present melancholy at the cost of exercising my writing. I used to tell you everything.
I still have much to say.
This entry was written by , posted on December 24, 2010 at 4:17 am, filed under Love, Self-diagnoses, Writing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child
but when I became a man, I put away childish things.For now we see through a glass, darkly
but then face to face…– 1 Corinthians 13
This entry was written by , posted on December 18, 2010 at 2:04 am, filed under Love, New York, Self-diagnoses and tagged Big Bird, Midtown, New York, New York City. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
I think people are fairly cognisant of what’s going on, what’s going wrong with their lives.
It’s the common complaint of a mother’s lament. She calls.
And she makes you feel like shit.
I mean, she means well.
But she’ll point out all the things
All the things you already know aren’t quite right
All the things that you wish you could make your momma proud of
But aren’t
right now, not yet.
You should be making more money
You should be with a man who deserves you,
instead of letting him allowing yourself to be,
continue to be hurt by him.
You should call more often.
No, fuckit, see your fucking parents more often.
You should do better.
You were supposed to do better.
And you can, y’know
You know.
So when someone who is supposed to care
shows they care by pointing out the things you
I guess, were perhaps, maybe even embarrassed to acknowledge
or in the very least trying to shelve.
It
doesn’t help.
I think
maybe
if you mean well, be kind.
If you care, then help them feel better
not worse about themselves.
And I don’t mean that you should lie
or enable a bad situation to get worse but
think
take a step back and ask what you can do to make the other person feel
happier.
Cuz usually, I don’t think people turn to those they love
for advice
for a better understanding of themselves,
I think they mostly want to feel loved.
This entry was written by , posted on November 23, 2010 at 2:47 am, filed under Self-diagnoses, Writing and tagged 5am, I just hoped you'd be nice to me is all. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
: a psychological defense mechanism in which one form of behavior substitutes for or conceals a diametrically opposed repressed impulse in order to protect against it.
– Merriam-Webster dictionary
Some people burn bridges, I tend to hurl wrecking balls at them. Drunken fists full.
Sometimes we say and do things we don’t mean
because it’s easier than being vulnerable.
To get a reaction, even if it’s a bad one. So you can run away from an insurmountable problem you’ve created than to admit and endure what’s really bothering you.
This entry was written by , posted on September 19, 2010 at 8:08 am, filed under Psychology, Self-diagnoses and tagged California, Defence Mechanism, Freud, Los Angeles, Melrose Trading Post, Reaction formation. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Let me tell you about travelling. It’s lonely.
To be ready, jet-set at the drop of an Expedia confirmation may seem like a cool job, and if I have to think about it, it really is. But ask me how I feel and I’ll tell you that “I don’t know, I don’t have the time to consider these things” because it’s easier to pretend that too much is going on in my life than to admit that I am completely, emotionally wrung dry.
You basically take your usual hipster non-committal nonchalance and put a giant, erratic, ticking clock on every relationship (romantic or otherwise), multiplying any sense of isolation ten-fold.
I meet someone. And I have to declare:
“There’s only one thing you need to know about me. And that is.
I will leave you
– unwillingly.”
Which usually lends to the other person behaving in one or two ways:
1. Like a total dick. The I can do whatever the fuck I want with you. It doesn’t matter. You’re leaving anyway.
or
2. In fear of attachment. Making it known that I’m not going to emotionally invest in you. Cold and infrequent.
They both suck.
When you operate every day knowing that someone you’ll grow to care for and like is actively suppressing your significance in their life, it FUCKING SUCKS.
When you relate to people knowing that you are merely transient, not important in their grand scheme of things, well, it essentially nulls the point of relating at all.
It makes me feel like shit.
So you have a good cry and chalk it up to the experience, the situation, the occupational hazard and move on to the next city.
And then you have to do it AGAIN.
So for people to assume that I’m always running away from something, taking the easy way out, that it’s always easier to leave than to be left behind… no.
It’s not that. Ultimately, I do have a choice.
It’s just that no-one has given me a reason to stay.
Not even tried.
This entry was written by , posted on September 11, 2010 at 4:45 am, filed under Babes, Friends, Jokes, Love, Self-diagnoses, Sex, Writing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Things we learn from our mothers. Like how to love.
I was about four when my mother told me that she didn’t marry for love.
That people generally don’t. But that it was just the right time.
Cuz my daddy was an honest man,
from a good family,
he wasn’t going to hurt her.
Cuz he asked and she was nearly 30.
She said “always be with someone who loves you more than you love them.”
She did.
Because to love someone
more than they do you, would be to suffer
and I, her daughter, did not deserve to live a life in pain.
And so I vowed, never to settle for a schmuck I didn’t respect, didn’t ridiculously adore
just to be safe yet unsatiated.
But these men, with all their genius and magic-stry,
I suppose, never wanted to settle with me – the one who’d always pretend
to love him less.
The things we learn from our mothers.
This entry was written by , posted on August 3, 2010 at 4:58 am, filed under Love, Photos, Self-diagnoses, Writing and tagged American Apparel, Ballet Pink, California, Love, Men, Multi-Layered Reversible Petticoat, My mother, San Francisco. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Go on, think about it. Write the list. What was he or she like? What made them extraordinary?
–
–
–
–
–
Now, wouldn’t you describe yourself along the same vein?
What were you like with your ex?
How were you a better person when you were with them?
–
–
–
–
–
Now honestly, what’s changed? Are you not still capable of being yourself?
This entry was written by , posted on July 27, 2010 at 4:17 am, filed under Love, Self-diagnoses. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.