Underneath my yellow skin

Category Archives: Musings

How martial arts have changed my life, part three

I want to talk more about martial arts because it’s such an important part of my life. Putting living beings aside, I would say it’s the most important. It has changed my life in so many ways, it’s hard to count them. I honestly don’t think I would be alive today without Taiji. That’s not hyperbole. I attribute me surviving that night to love, luck, and Taiji.

Yesterday, I was talking about working out, how thick my calves and thighls are, and a bunch of other things related to martial arts–tangentially or not. I am very muscular, and I have no issue with that. It’s another thing my mother didn’t like–that I wasn’t thin and delicate the way she was. Even when I was anorexic and thinner than she was (which she did not like, either, by the way. The only time she commented negatively when
I was anorexic was when she said very jealously that my waist was smaller than hers), I had thick thighs and calves. I have always been thick in certain places.

I do want to eat better, but that’s another post for another day. I also want to learn to cook simple things, but I highly doubt I will.

Most Americans go too hard on resolutions. The all or nothing mentality that serves no one well. That’s why so many people sign up for gyms in January and barely make it past February. It’s really hard to go from doing nothing to working out five to seven days a week, an hour a day.

I know that it doesn’t feel like much when done incrementally, but you’re (general you) much more likely to stick to a habit that you can do easily every day than one you struggle with and hate with every fiber of your being.

Side note: I’m including a video of my teacher’s teacher and his teacher doing San-Shou (push hands). Tha’s another thing I want to learn this year, but it’s harder as it’s a two-person form.

Oh, speaking of two person forms, there are two-person sword forms, too. I would also like to learn those. This is the problem. There are just too many forms, and I want to learn them all at the same time. Right now, I’m brushing up on my Cane Form and teaching myself the left side of the Fan Form. I think I”ll add learning the rest of the Karambit (not Taiji or Bagua) as well. I only have one of four rows left to go, so it should not be too difficult to teach it to myself.


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So much martial and very much an art, part two

In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how much martial arts mean to me. I most certainly would not be here without Taiji. I believe this to be true with 100% of my heart.

When I was in the hospital, every medical person I talked to could not believe that I had woken up from my coma. Almost everyone said that it was a miracle, and they marveled over me whenever they came tho check in on me.

I was drugged to the gills, rememmber, so I didn’t pay much attention to what they said to me. However, one thing that stuck in my brain was the survival rate of people who go into cardiac arrest. It’s 10%. Later, when I looked it up, I learned it’s not quite as dire as that. It’s 10% if no one is around. It’s 20% if it happens in a hospital (with medical personnel nearby). It’s 30% if someone applies CPR to the patient in time.

I had all that happen to me. There were cops around and I think the EMT when I had my first cardiac arrest. They applied CRP and defibbed me. I had two cardiac arrests, and they used the paddles once on me and jabbed me with an EpiPen as well. I don’t know if that was on the same cardiac arrest or on different ones, but it was a dire situation.

I know I should not be alive. I’m lucky to be alive. And yet, I’m tired.

To that end, I want to beef up my martial arts practice because it’s one of the few things that brings me joy. Or rather, not joy exactly, but peace and strength. I feel more focused and centered after my morning routine, and I am able to carry that with me throughout the day.

I do want to work on my eating habits, but I’ll get to that in a future post. This one is solely about my love for martial arts and how I want to do even more in the next year.

Before my medical crisis, I attended three classes a week. For the first several years, I only did one class a week. I added a second and then a third because I could not make myself practice at home for the life of me. I rationalized that if I went to more classes, it didn’t matter sa much if I did not practice at home.

I really wanted to do so, though. Practice at home, I mean. I knew I would benefit from it, and I could not understand why I could not make myself do it. Do you want to know how I finally did it? I told myself that I would stretch for five minutes. That’s how low a bar I set, and I still struggled to meet it.


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An eye to the future

I’m writing this on Christmas Day, and I’m contemplative. I don’t celebrate Christmas, but everyone else in my life does. It’s another thing where I don’t mind that I’m different from everyone else, and I’m not bothered by people wishing me a Merry Christmas. it’s taken me many decades to be truly neutral about Christmas, and I still have a reflexive instinct to wish people a Merry Christmas.

I went through a period of time where I wished people Happy Holidays, but that never felt natural to me. We all know that it’s Christmas today–and, indeed, the month leading up to this day. No one thinks about Hanukkah, let alone Kwanzaa (interesting note, Hanukkah started on December 25th this year). I had to roll my eyes when some Christians got so upset about salespeople saying ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas’ because ‘They’re taking the Christ out of Christmas!’.

Um.

I hate to break it to them, but if Jesus really did exist, he probably would have been on the side of the people salespeople who were working their asses off for peanuts during the holiday season and dealing with entitled assholes screaming at them because they could not find a PlayStation5 anywhere and little Timmy would be sooooo disappointed when he did not get one under the tree. The only thing that Christmas really celebrated these days was crass commercialism and capitalism.

Hm. Maybe I’m not as neutral about Christmas as I thought I was. But the idea of gathering with friends and/or families and/or other loved ones is a lovely one. Winter is fmy favorite season so I see nothing wrong with letting people know that I love them–even if it’s on an overly saccharinely sweet holiday.

See, I may be against traditions for the most part, but I believe in love. Love is what got me through dying (twice) and me fumbling back to some semblance of normal afterwards.

There is one holiday song duo that I like, one Christmas carol that I love, and two other Christmas-related (sort of) songs that are quite lovely, indeed. The first one is Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. It’s just really beautiful.

The rest of them, though, can mostly get in the bin. Not because they’re necessarily bad songs, but because they have been so overplayed. Christmas music starts being played in the stores any time after Halloween (and one horrible yer, it started in early October). I hated that year, let me tell you what.

Note: I didn’t feel like finishng the post on Christmas, so I wrote the rest of it the next day.

I still hate the commercialization of Christmas (which started when I was in high school. I wrote an op-ed in 9th grade about how Christmas had become one month-long, overpriced commercial. That was over thirty years ago!) , and I get so tired of the forced cheer.

I don’t hate it the way I used to, but I don’t understand why people are so into it, either. Here’s Jennifer Hudson singing, O Holy Night. I actually sang that for church one Christmas. A solo. This is the only traditional Christmas carol that I love with all my heart. I get chills every time I hear it.


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Genderblender, not gender bender

Talking more about gender. And about dating. Because that’s where I ended up in the last post. And why I am done with cishet white dudes.

I had an argument decades ago with a white dude about reading material. This was when I first realized that I was Taiwanese American and wanted to read literature by Asian American women. This was in college so over thirty years ago. I spent a year solely reading literature by non-white non-men people, so not even just Asian American woman. The white dude I was talking to sniffed and said that I was just practicing reverse discrimination, which really set me off. First of all, that’s not a thing. It just isn’t. Secondly, discrimination in the purest sense of the word is not positive or negative–it just is. And we all discriminate on the regular. When someone chooses to eat burgers for dinner, for example, that’s discrimination (in that they aren’t eating anything else).

We all make choices. No one notices when the choices align with the norms. It’s only when the choices are outliers do they raise an eyebrow. What I said to that obnoxious white dude was that I would bet any amount of money he wanted to bet that even with my then-current year of reading non-white dudes, I had read way more dead white dudes than he had people of color. I was 100% sure of that. Thatt shut him up, much to my smug pleasure.

It’s gotten better. In the year of our whatever, 2024, people are aware that there are more than white dudes out there. And yet. Still. Look for a list of ‘best of’ any kind of pop culture, and still, the preponderance of the people on the list are white men. Music, especially. And video games? There is literally a website that tracks how woke a game is, and something as minor as having a Pride flag in the game gets it labeled woke.

When I heard of this, I thought it was some kind of joke. It was not. When I looked at the list, I just had to shake my head and  feel both pity and disgust for the people who are so threatened by these kinds of things. I mean, seriously. A Pride flag?? Also, these are the same people who told us to make our own games if we were such special snowflakes that we could not handle mainstream games. And when we did that? Or developers realized that they could get good money out of us? (Or, less cynically, developers share those progressive viewpoints and want to include these things in their games! No way. That can’t be true, can it??)

You can bet that most of the people whining about diversity in games are white straight dudes. Again, I will bet any amount of money on this. All the monies.

I have heard it all. It’s pandering. It’s giving into the minority. They don’t want pronouns in their game. They don’t want to play as a black woman or anything other than a white straight man. Hell, they don’t want it to exist in their games (probably their real lives, too). Awwww can the poor widdle baby not handle the mere existence of a trans person in their game? Or having to actively choose ‘he/him’ as their pronouns when he starts the game?

Who’s the fucking snowflake now?


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Let’s talk about gender…again

Let’s talk about gender, shall we? We shall because it’s my blog and I can do what I want. Also because gender is important–and yet, I wish it weren’t. Let me hastily add that I don’t want to take gender away from anyone for whom it’s important. My BFF, K, and I have discussed whether or not ‘they’ will take over gender proclamations in our lifetime (instead of he and/or she). This was before the election, by the way. All bets are off now.

We were both hopeful that we were moving towrds a society in which gender was not as emphasized as it is now. Or rather,, that the toxic, sexist ideas of gender would subside.

I can’t help but laugh bitterly at that idea now after said election. Never in my lifetime has equality seemed more like a dream. I have read about queers hastily marrying before the exchange of power because they fear that marriage equality would be repealed.

This should not even be on the menu. Civil rights should never be able to be voted away/legislated. And yet, here we are. Marriage equality became law in 2015. Almost a decade later, we are fearing that it will be whisked away again. Before it became the law of the land, I was talking about it with K. I did not think it would happen in our lifetime (I was the doubting Thom in our friendship) while she was convinced it would. I begrudgingly said maybe, but only when we were in our seventies or eighties. It was less than five years later when it became a reality. I was stunned, in a good way. It honestly happened faster than I could comprehend, but I willingly accepted it as a positive thing.

I did not care about marriage equality persosnally because I don’t believe in marriage (for me), but I cared about it from a social justice perspective because I firmly believe in equality. If straight people get to be miserably yoked together, then so should queers! I kid, but not exactly.

I honestly do not understand why straights are so against marriage equality when it has nothing to do with them. But wait. This post was not going to be about that–but it’s related. Those who have rigid ideas about gender are more likely to be anti-queer, too.

See how I tied it back to the point of this post?

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Why the holidays are so fraught

I have hated most holidays all my life. The only holiday I liked was Halloween, and it’s because black is a featured color. Plus, you can dress up in a costume as an adult and it’s not weird. That’s pretty cool. I did a bait-and-switch yesterday in that I was gonig to talk about holidays, but then ended up talking about bigots. I think it’s pretty clear how I got from one to the other because holidays are when bigots seem unavoidable. Or rather, when people feel pressured to spend time with faaaaaaamily.

I’m not saying bigots and family are the same thing. I am saying that they are often the same thing. I’m also saying it’s when you see the bigots in your family if you have to see them at all. This is one reason I don’t like tradition for the sake of tradition–it makes you do things you don’t want to do and it makes you the problem if you don’t.  I mean, this is a problem with family, too, so it’s no surprise that when you put the two together, it just makes everything worse.

I think one of my issues with holidays/traditions is that they become so hardened over time. And they harken back to a time that people romanticize, but were not better for the majority of people. Any time people talk about the good old days, all I hear is “we don’t like diversity” or “we don’t realize that not everyone is like us”. It’s not surprising that most people who mourn for the good old days are white people. In America, I mean. Anyone being wistful for the sixties and is still alive to talk about it is most likely not a PoC or a queer person. Or, quite frankly, a woman.

Especially in this year, I have no tolerance for this bullshit. It disheartens me that I have to reiterate what I wrote about more than ten years ago when marriage equality was being debated. If someone does not believe that I deserve the same human rights as straight people, we cannot be friends. There is just no debating this.

I hate the framing of ‘this is just politics’. It’s not just politics. The political is, as the saying go, personal. If it didn’t have any impact in the real world, then we wouldn’t care about voting at all. (Not going to get into voting right now; I’m just not.) If it didn’t matter, there wouldn’t have been the Capitol attack. Only people who aren’t disadvantaged would say that politics don’t matter.

I don’t like having hate in my heart, but it’s where I am right now. I am old. I am tired. I went through hell with my medical crisis back in 2021–well, kind of. Not going to expand on that, either. This year has been a really shitty year. A very shitty year. I don’t want to talk about that, either, but it’s been such a downer of a year.


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Have a holly, jolly–oh stop it

I’m in a pensive mood. Not just because of the holidays, but just because of gestures at the world all around. There are people who believe that voting for that man is ‘just politics’ and why would someone end a friendship/family relationship over ‘just politics’? And why are we (those on the left) being soooooooooooooo intolerant? Aren’t we being just as bad/hypocritical/intolerant?!?

In a word: no. In two words: hell fucking no. Ok, that was three, but you know what I mean.

There’s a theory called the Paradox of Tolerance that was coined by Karl Popper in 1945. It’s enjoyed a resurgence in the past several years, probably because of the thing that I want to talk about. Basically, the theory goes that if a society is tolerant of the intolerant, then it erodes the very tolerance it wants to espouse. This is a very gross generalization of the theory, but it’s good enough for my purpose.

Whether someone likes pizza with pineapple or not is a personal opinion. I don’t care if someone likes the same musical groups I do, for another example. Hell. What someone wants or doesn’t want to do in the bedroom is fine by me! (As long as it’s consensual, obviously.) Whether or not someone thinks I am a human being who should be allowed to exist? Yeah, no. That’s not a matter of opinion or something I need to entertain.

That’s the devious part of the whole conversation and has been for as long as I have followed politics. Or rather, the disgusting part. This happened during the debates for marriage equality, too. The bigots were all, “Can’t we be civil about this?” Nope. I am not civil with people who believe I am less of a human being than they are. Also, I resent the narrative that the people who are being oppressed need to present their side in a perfectly calm and, let’s face it, servile manner or be viewed as uncivil. This is the whole ‘tone police’ argument, by the way. “Oh, if you only present your case in an agreeable enough way (i.e., supplicating), then maaaaaaaaaybe we would deign to listen to it.

Again. Fuck that noise. If someone wants to do the work of trying to win over the bigots–more power to them. BLah blah blah win them over to your side whatever the fuck. I ain’t got time for that shit, and I have no patience for begging people to grant me my humanity. Accept me or don’t, but I am not going to try to win anyone over.


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More thoughts on holidays and capitalism

Still musing about capitalism and holidays. I was at Cubs, and Christmas music was blaring from the overhead speaker. In November. No. Just–no. I mean, it’s better than the year I saw a Christmas ad in the first week of October, but not by much. Here is my post from yesterday.

I used to hate Christmas. I find it amusing that I wrote an article about the commercialism of Christmas when I was in high school–which was nearly forty years ago. I got some flak for that back then, and I still get it periodically throughout the years.

I don’t think I was ever really into Christmas. I liked the presents, of course, but the holiday itself was pretty fraught. I remember when I was seven or eight, I woke up fairly early and raced to my stocking. There was nothing in it, which crushed me. I went to my mother and told her about it. She told me to go back to bed and Santa would be there soon. A half hour later, the stocking was filled, and that’s when I realized that my mother was Santa. I didn’t believe after that.

My issues with Christmas didn’t really have to do with that, though. Nor with the fact that it’s a Christian holiday trying to masquerade as a secular one. I do have issues with that bit, but more because some Christians take such offense at ‘happy holiday’ and try so hard to feel persecuted as a majority.

My main issue was with tradition itself. This is a constant battle I have with my mother. She is Taiwanese by birth and it runs in her veins. In addition, her mother was really rigid as to what she thought was The Right Way To Be, and those ways were deeply, deeply sexist. DEEPLY. So much so, it’s embedded in my mother’s DNA. Here’s the irony. Both my grandmother and my mother were untraditional women. My grandmother was the first woman to attend a certain college in Japan and to be the equivalent of a senator in her prefecture in Taipei. At the same time, she espoused that women should stay home, have children, and always hyped up the men in her husband’s family.

Here’s the other irony. She had eight children–four boys and four girls. Of the four boys, only two weren’t completely screwed up. And only one made what you could arguably call a success of himself (the oldest). Of the girls, all of them have done well for themselves.

My mother continued the tradition of trumpeting traditional gender roles for boys and girls*. My brother was allowed to run around and be energetic. Granted, he was also on the spectrum, but that wasn’t well-known at the time so my mother didn’t know what to do about it.


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More pensive thoughts this holiday

It’s Black Friday, y’all. When did this become such a thing? I’ve never been a shopping kind of person, so I don’t understand why this is such a big deal to people. Then again, I also am not someone who is heavily influenced by marketing. I am not loyal to brands. I mean, if something works, I will stick to it–until it no longer works. Or until I find something better. To me, that’s how it should be. I don’t get putting one brand over another simply because of what the label says. Back when I drank pop, I was a Coke person (Caffeiene-free Diet Coke, then Diet Coke, then Coke Zero). I drank the last until they changed the formula. That tasted gross to me so I quit drinking it. Then I quit drinking pop completely. If I do have a pop, though, it’ll be a Diet Coke. I have heard that Coke Zero is back to the old formula, but I haven’t tried it in years.

It’s interesting because I’ve been on a bit of a shopping jag lately, but only for one specific thing–Giant Hoodies. They make huge hoodies that fit most people, and I had bought a few of them in the past. The reason being that the hoodies I had been buying recently were ‘unisex’, but did not fit my massive chest. I cannot buy women’s clothing because it’s usually fitted and will have problems with the shape of my body over all. I have broad shoulders and big biceps on top. I have thick thighs and calves on bottom. I’m just thick and very muscular all over. So, yeah. Fitted women’s clothing is a no-go. Also, what’s up with the capped sleeves? I hate them so much. I hate short sleeves in general, but especially the capped sleeves.

Unisex is usually better about shoulders and arms, but that’s because they are just men’s sizes under a different name. Which means boobage is not taken into consideration. Of course. Also, the sweatshirts that I had this issue with (way too tight across the chest) was with a British company–which I think matters sizing-wise. I’m guessing sizes are smaller over there than here in general. But also, I have just huge boobs. They’re HUGE. And I hate them being squished–which is why I gave up bras.

I also gave up on getting sweatshirts from this company. I’m not naming them because it’s not the company’s fault. Although, weirdly, their t-shirts don’t have the same issue. I live in hoodies in the the winter, and I love them. They are comfy and warm, and they feel like a gentle hug. In fact, they feel better than a hug to me.

I don’t know how I heard about Giant Hoodies, but I was skeptical upfront. Why? Because ‘most people’ usually doesn’t include me. All their hoodies were one-size fits most, and they are pretty pricey. I decided to try one out, and I was delighted with it. Shadow claimed it as his own, and I quickly ordered another one. They also have blankets that are supposed to be really soft and warm. I was skeptical, but I got one one sale, and it’s amazing. Seriously. I sleep with it every night, and it’s the best blanket I’ve ever used. I recently got another for free with the purchase of two more sweatshirts, which was a really great deal.


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Pensive on sometimes-turkey (but sometimes other things) day

It’s Thanksgiving today here in the states. Given the state of the country, I’m not feeling very thankful. I’m not feeling t all grateful. I’m fearful for what is to come in the upcoming years. I was going to set that aside, but I can’t do it quite yet. I’m still not over what happened at the polls, and I don’t know what to do about it. It really feels like a line-in-the-sand moment for this country, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.

The fact that over half the voters in this country are that threatened by a black/Indian woman being president was a cold, hard slap in the face. It’s fucking 2024. Aren’t we past this yet? My mother was half-joking that I should move to Taiwan. That’s not a good idea for several reasons, but they did elect a woman as president in 2016. I remember because it was the same year that Hillary Clinton was running for president. Taiwan is also the first Asian country to make marriage equality legal. My mother brought that up as well.

Those would be two very big reasons I would consider Taiwan if there weren’t other big negative reasons to counteract the positives. It galls me, though,that my country of heritage has done two very progressive things, one well before my actual country (assuming we ever elect a non-male president). It was such a shock to me how big the win was by because in my mind, race and gender should not matter at all. I don’t think of either in anything but a positive way, so knowing that others don’t feel that way–my fucking countrymen (and, yes, emphasis on men)–infuriates and saddens me.

I keep stumbling over the fact that we are regressing in a hurry. I had more rights when I was in my twenties than my niblings do today. And the next administratin will do their damnedest to make sure that generations to come have even less personal rights than our ancestors. And the fact that apparently queer people in general and trans people in specific are the number one issue to be dealt with. Even if someone is against queer people, how does it affect them at all?

So. What am I thankful for? I’m thankful for my friends and my brother. I’m thankful that I am still alive, I guess. It’s difficult to say that unequivocally because of what’s going on, though. I keep thinking, “I did not come back for this shit.”

Uh. Oh. I’m glad that I ‘m able to write again. Sometimes, it’s the outside pressure that gets me to do what I need/want to do. That was what grad school did for me. I went to New College of California (sigh. I’m sighing because they got their accreditation stripped for financial shenanigans) to get my MA in Writing & Consciousness. It was a year-long MA program, and while there were many problems with it, it made me write every day.


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