I can't find my mojo
Note: this entry is brought to you by my insomnia. Everybody, please give my insomnia a hand.
I think my penis shrinks every time I cross the state border into California.
No, I'm not saying that California girls are less attractive than New Jersey girls (in fact, I think the opposite is very often true). However, I've come to this inescapable conclusion, as it's the only way to reconcile two very big differences in the general cross-state treatment that I receive.
I grew up in a relatively affluent upper-middle class suburban New Jersey town, and though I have no idea why, it is pretty sheltered and free of the racial tensions that can be found in other parts of the country. For one thing, it has a very high Jewish population, with the result being that for the longest time, I had no idea of how prevalent anti-Semitism was. Very early on, we studied the Holocaust as all schoolchildren do, and I was like, "Holy shit, that's fucked up. I'm glad no one today is like that...." In my early years, I couldn't tell Jewish people from non-Jewish people (and I still have a hard time doing so today), as I had grown up with so many Jewish and non-Jewish friends that they were all so alike to my unbiased eyes. For years I would be like, "Oh really, so and so is Jewish? Wow, that's cool, how can you tell?" I was likewise surprised to learn that many Jewish people were considered to be non-white, because I honestly couldn't tell the difference.
Along the same lines, despite being an American-born Chinese, for the longest time I had no idea that I was considered non-white. I remember in elementary school we would read about the Native Americans or the African-Americans or about Martin Luther King, Jr., and how the "Indians" and "black people" were often at odds with the "white people". At that tender young age, all I knew was that "white people" referred to people whose skin color were generally pretty pale. I would then look at myself and note that while my hair was black, my skin was pretty pale, and I naively came to the conclusion that I must likewise be one of those "white people". Once again, I was in for a shock when I got older.
However, when you consider my hometown, it wasn't too hard to make such a misconception. The Chinese-American population was, like the Jewish population, a substantial minority, and we as a whole generally weren't treated very differently. Nowadays, if I stop and think about it, I could see race as a factor boiling on everyone's subconscious, but by and large the statement, "I'm of Chinese ethnicity" had no more of an effect than saying, "I have brown hair." Maybe this is because many of my experiences stem from elementary or middle school, which is before most people have the stereotypes of others imprinted on them, but it wasn't as big as a factor as it is when I'm in California.
You can imagine my surprise when I was thrust into the racially-charged atmosphere that is California. Before coming to Stanford, I had been to many parts of the country, but this was the first time that I was immersed in another region of the country for a period long enough to pick these things out. All of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I was slapped with the label Asian. Now back in New Jersey, I had a number of terms to describe myself. I've called myself "American", "Chinese", "Chinese-American", or a "New-Yorker" (one of the things about North Jerseyans is that we find that outsiders are generally more impressed with us if we say that we are from New York City). Since coming to California, I have started calling myself a "New Jerseyan", while steeling myself for the inevitable jabs involving highways or smokestacks (which ironically describes Los Angeles far better than it would ever describe New Jersey).
Yet for the first time in my life, I was officially an Asian. In the three years that I've been at Stanford, no one has ever called me a "Chinese-American", yet I get "Asian" almost daily. Others would say to me, "you're asian". Fellow "asians" would talk to me about "asian pride". During orientation week, I couldn't walk anywhere without having the words "Asian-American Activities" or "Asian-American Activism" thrust at me. It was all very strange to me; I was, until I came to Stanford, blissfully ignorant of the idea that our differences were something to be cherished.
There was this one time that a person from Alabama told me, "You're asian but you don't act very asian." I spent a lot of time thinking about what he meant, about why I wasn't "asian" in his eyes. To the best of my knowledge, it has to do with the fact that I'm somewhat athletic, or that I'm often opinionated and easily pissed off, or that I play musical instruments that aren't stringed, or that I speak perfect unaccented English and can write better than he can (though it admittedly isn't very hard, considering the standard level of education of the public school system). I do, however, fit many other stereotypes, as I'm skinny, play computer games, practice a martial art, enjoy watching Hong Kong movies, and do well in math and science. In fact, my freshman year, everybody, including those people who I have never interacted with academically and who had no obvious indicator of my intelligence, somehow immediately assumed that I was incredibly smart.
However, the strangest revelation by far occurred the first time someone said to me, "Oh, you're asian, you must have a small penis". I was shocked, as it was the first time in my life that someone with whom I have had no intimate encounters of any kind whatsoever, who (I would hope) had never measured the length of my genitalia, had just attacked my dick size. I was speechless, as I couldn't think of any adequate reply that any normal human male would give that didn't involve some form of physical violence.
Thus, I've come to the only logical conclusion that can reconcile both of these viewpoints, which is that my penis size must shrink every time I pass the state border into California, and expand every time I return to New Jersey. I think these are very novel conclusions, and thus worthy of someone's research efforts.
I think my penis shrinks every time I cross the state border into California.
No, I'm not saying that California girls are less attractive than New Jersey girls (in fact, I think the opposite is very often true). However, I've come to this inescapable conclusion, as it's the only way to reconcile two very big differences in the general cross-state treatment that I receive.
I grew up in a relatively affluent upper-middle class suburban New Jersey town, and though I have no idea why, it is pretty sheltered and free of the racial tensions that can be found in other parts of the country. For one thing, it has a very high Jewish population, with the result being that for the longest time, I had no idea of how prevalent anti-Semitism was. Very early on, we studied the Holocaust as all schoolchildren do, and I was like, "Holy shit, that's fucked up. I'm glad no one today is like that...." In my early years, I couldn't tell Jewish people from non-Jewish people (and I still have a hard time doing so today), as I had grown up with so many Jewish and non-Jewish friends that they were all so alike to my unbiased eyes. For years I would be like, "Oh really, so and so is Jewish? Wow, that's cool, how can you tell?" I was likewise surprised to learn that many Jewish people were considered to be non-white, because I honestly couldn't tell the difference.
Along the same lines, despite being an American-born Chinese, for the longest time I had no idea that I was considered non-white. I remember in elementary school we would read about the Native Americans or the African-Americans or about Martin Luther King, Jr., and how the "Indians" and "black people" were often at odds with the "white people". At that tender young age, all I knew was that "white people" referred to people whose skin color were generally pretty pale. I would then look at myself and note that while my hair was black, my skin was pretty pale, and I naively came to the conclusion that I must likewise be one of those "white people". Once again, I was in for a shock when I got older.
However, when you consider my hometown, it wasn't too hard to make such a misconception. The Chinese-American population was, like the Jewish population, a substantial minority, and we as a whole generally weren't treated very differently. Nowadays, if I stop and think about it, I could see race as a factor boiling on everyone's subconscious, but by and large the statement, "I'm of Chinese ethnicity" had no more of an effect than saying, "I have brown hair." Maybe this is because many of my experiences stem from elementary or middle school, which is before most people have the stereotypes of others imprinted on them, but it wasn't as big as a factor as it is when I'm in California.
You can imagine my surprise when I was thrust into the racially-charged atmosphere that is California. Before coming to Stanford, I had been to many parts of the country, but this was the first time that I was immersed in another region of the country for a period long enough to pick these things out. All of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I was slapped with the label Asian. Now back in New Jersey, I had a number of terms to describe myself. I've called myself "American", "Chinese", "Chinese-American", or a "New-Yorker" (one of the things about North Jerseyans is that we find that outsiders are generally more impressed with us if we say that we are from New York City). Since coming to California, I have started calling myself a "New Jerseyan", while steeling myself for the inevitable jabs involving highways or smokestacks (which ironically describes Los Angeles far better than it would ever describe New Jersey).
Yet for the first time in my life, I was officially an Asian. In the three years that I've been at Stanford, no one has ever called me a "Chinese-American", yet I get "Asian" almost daily. Others would say to me, "you're asian". Fellow "asians" would talk to me about "asian pride". During orientation week, I couldn't walk anywhere without having the words "Asian-American Activities" or "Asian-American Activism" thrust at me. It was all very strange to me; I was, until I came to Stanford, blissfully ignorant of the idea that our differences were something to be cherished.
There was this one time that a person from Alabama told me, "You're asian but you don't act very asian." I spent a lot of time thinking about what he meant, about why I wasn't "asian" in his eyes. To the best of my knowledge, it has to do with the fact that I'm somewhat athletic, or that I'm often opinionated and easily pissed off, or that I play musical instruments that aren't stringed, or that I speak perfect unaccented English and can write better than he can (though it admittedly isn't very hard, considering the standard level of education of the public school system). I do, however, fit many other stereotypes, as I'm skinny, play computer games, practice a martial art, enjoy watching Hong Kong movies, and do well in math and science. In fact, my freshman year, everybody, including those people who I have never interacted with academically and who had no obvious indicator of my intelligence, somehow immediately assumed that I was incredibly smart.
However, the strangest revelation by far occurred the first time someone said to me, "Oh, you're asian, you must have a small penis". I was shocked, as it was the first time in my life that someone with whom I have had no intimate encounters of any kind whatsoever, who (I would hope) had never measured the length of my genitalia, had just attacked my dick size. I was speechless, as I couldn't think of any adequate reply that any normal human male would give that didn't involve some form of physical violence.
Thus, I've come to the only logical conclusion that can reconcile both of these viewpoints, which is that my penis size must shrink every time I pass the state border into California, and expand every time I return to New Jersey. I think these are very novel conclusions, and thus worthy of someone's research efforts.