#thefickletck

Maybe life’s pace goes by too fast.

No time to reminisce the past.

Not enough time to mourn the passed.

No time to switch back the hourglass.

Freedom and trust are the fundamentals of love.

Independence from one another builds up more love.

No expectations. 

I learned a life lesson about a year ago,

Glad my ass got whooped when I had a young ego.

You should never have expectations of anyone,

You’ll just end up the miserable one.

When your expectations are crushed to bits,

It’s their life--what say did you have in it?

Even if they love you in all aspects,

They don’t owe you what you expect.

You feel that you care for them, and

that’s why you expected from them./

It doesn’t work that way.

If you truly loved them,

there’s no expectations.

You’ll have happier days and,

you’ll just let them be them. 

I wasn’t your standard rich millionaire TCK growing up. Spoiled, yes, not going to lie. Rich, by far.

The reason why our family had the opportunity to move around so much was because of my father’s occupation. He’s an academic. Academics don’t really earn that much--but they do have a substantial amount of intellectual reputation. Sadly I didn’t get those intellectual genes.

Our family friends growing up were mostly rich in the academic sense. Yes, we did have family friends who are big in business, owning a few pieces of real estate here and there. 

Let me tell you how awesome my childhood was--I lived like a princess. And then later, let me tell you the consequences of having such a rich childhood as a penniless adult. 

My first few memories stem from Hong Kong. I was so spoiled in the sense that I hated eating sea cucumbers (an expensive luxurious Chinese delicacy) all the damn time. All I could remember was my mom cooking up them slimy nasty gutty seafood, and eating them all the time when we went out to eat. Yeah, spoiled as fuck. 

I remember in Hong Kong we ate out all the time; shark fin, abalone, meeting friends in 5 star hotels. It was the fucking life, and I didn’t know it growing up. I just let it be--it wasn’t my money, probably wasn’t my parents money either (well, the home cooked sea cucumbers were), but damn it felt good. 

Though our family lived in the suburbs of Hong Kong, we could afford a (part time) maid--apparently an essential to a rich household in Hong Kong. Our family friend lived in Central, on Magazine Gap Road (aka Ballin’ Boulevard). Tell me I didn’t live a good life.

Then we moved to Singapore. No difference in the luxurious lifestyle. This time instead of eating sea cucumbers (haha, I’m so fucking obsessed with this nastiness I can’t stop! But, yeah, there were still plenty of those going around), we spent our money on airplane tickets to Malaysia, Bali, Laos, Myanmar, spent it on fucking white-people-vacation-style Club Med. Tell me I didn’t live a rich childhood.

Then we moved to Taiwan for a year. Luxurious lifestyle became non-existent. My parents didn’t really have friends since they’ve been abroad for a long time. My father didn’t get paid that much. Then, came hell, when my mom took me and my brother back to the US for studies. 

We ate Taco Bell and McDonald’s at least 2 times a week for breakfast and dinner. That’s how bad we had it. And that’s when I was in my most depressed state, and I probably haven’t recovered from that. I’ll dedicate a post especially for my ‘homecoming’ experience. 

Onto the next topic: why is having such a ‘rich’ childhood difficult as an adult?

People assume that me traveling a lot as kid meant that my father was a CEO for several big companies; or we just had old money. My father & mother are FAR from old money--which makes me admire them so much from starting from a background like theirs to the things they’ve gone through. I wish I could just be as strong, independent, and intelligent as them. Then, I would die happily at any time. Anyways, no, we didn’t have that much money. If we did, I would’ve gone to UCLA as an out of state kid. 

I graduated from college and stepped into the real world, shit seriously got real. People who assume I am rich really wanted to gold dig. MEN wanted to gold dig. Fucking ridiculous, what is wrong with society nowadays? Fucking useless men AGHHHH I’ve been on this rant about how useless guys are for probably a fucking year. Anyways, so people gold dig as much as they can. 

People who assume I am rich, I feel embarrassed, ashamed to bring them back to my nice apartment because I don’t want them to envy me. Nor I want to feel sorry for them. 

People who assume I am rich expect me to pay for their meals instead of going A-A. Hell, I’m not rich, I’m probably poorer than you. I ain’t payin’ for shit. 

I’m a very poor adult living in Shanghai, barely earning US minimum wage. Come on now. Not all TCKs are rich, alright? 

You know now that I think about it, growing up as a TCK and actually being surrounded by rich TCKs, it never bothered me that they were 10x richer than me. There was no need for comparison; everyone wore uniforms so nobody had the chance to bring their LV bags to school. It was great. But as I grew older, even in college, people start comparing how much money they have with me, and I get upset and angry. I fucking hate talking about money. Do I hate talking about money because I have none? Hahaha. IRREGARDLESS. The only time you’ll hear me talking about money is if someone pushes my buttons when they keep asking how much money I make or how much they make, and just simply want to show me how much better they are than me (in regards to wealth), then I either make them shut the fuck up. Maybe my newest line to make them shut the fuck up is, so how many houses do you own? 

It’s Monday. And I should have the Monday Blues. Something bad or uncomfortable always happens on Mondays for me (well, everyday in China is a bit uncomfortable, but that’s for a later post). 

I just worked out, and thought I’d put my endorphin to good use. So, let’s talk about food. Let’s talk about food for TCKs.

I think most TCKs will agree with me that they sometimes don’t know where to call “home.” They don’t know how to answer “where are you from.” They secretly roll their eyes when people ask “where have you lived”--why would we roll our eyes? People probably don’t understand what it feels like to move to 5 different places as a child.

SIDE NOTE:  By the way, I’m not a military brat. I’m an educational brat. And no, I’m not from a rich family like most TCKs that I know. More on THAT later.

Why did I bring food into this equation? Because TCKs have lived all over the world, the one thing they can hold onto, the one thing they can claim, is the authenticity of the taste of the food they were brought up on. We PRIDE ourselves in knowing what authentic food tastes like. We always crave those foods that are so hard to make; we always crave the nostalgia associated with the food; we always crave eating with our TCK friends again. 

Food is so important to every single culture.

Food, for me, tastes phenomenal only when I’m with the best of companies. 30nt street food in Taiwan tastes phenomenal when my mom’s driving and I’m trying to stuff her face with food and being hazardous at the same time. 200RMB meal in Shanghai tastes great with buddies when we realize how much we connect to one another (with the help of some beer). I’ve eaten the most expensive meals, the cheapest meals, the shittiest of meals, but they ones I only remember are with my loved ones (and super fucking shitty meals hahaha).

I remember in my past posts, I mentioned that I’ve lost interest in food. I equate it to not having good company to share food with. Even if I have a friend who’d be down to check out the hippest foodie restaurants in Shanghai, if your company sucks, man, the food’s going to taste like shit as well (yeah, trust me. been there, done that. don’t really ask him to eat with me anymore unless I DESPERATELY want to try a restaurant. I’m not mean, simply stating the truth).

Well, to be honest, Shanghai is supposedly foodie mecca. I disagree. Food here tastes like shit--so sub-par to Hong Kong. BUT argument has it that it’s China, so it’s as good as it gets. Western restaurants here are way over-hyped, and lead me in disappointment. OR might be the fact that the company (or lack thereof) sucks. Haha, okay, well, my argument is, even though my company sucks, the food has to taste good to make up for it. Nope. Sucks.

Chinese food sucks here because your constantly worried if the restaurants use gutter oil, is it really lamb or is that rat, when waiters pick their nose has their finger touched our plates. 

Western food sucks because there’s not much of an option. SIDE NOTE: Mr. & Mrs. Bund sucks a lot. Don’t ever go there. The view isn’t even worth it. 

I think I might be a bit depressed.

Is it the lack of friends?

Is it my environment?

Is it because I’m lonely?

Is it because I don’t feel loved?

Is it because I feel like I don’t belong?

I need to get out of here. I don’t think Shanghai’s treated me very well. It’s a cold, dark, lifeless place with cold, dark, disgusting people.

I’ve changed. In a bad way. I’ve become selfish, like them. I’ve become meaner, like them. I’m more apathetic, like them. I don’t want to live like this. I need to move, or I’m going to go insane. 

I love my parents a lot, and they think what I’m doing is awesome. Being in Shanghai all alone, being a ‘successful’ career woman after living off ramen for 9 months. But, I will disregard what they think about me moving to a different city. I really think I should leave. I can’t connect with anyone here. Even if I try to connect, there’s always something missing. 

I used to be a very social person back in college, where I was the center of attention. Maybe that’s all I lack. Attention. Love. I don’t get any of that here in Shanghai. ‘Friends’ ask me to hang out, but I reject them simply ‘cause there exists no deeper relationship with them.

I get turned off by guys here on dates because they don’t understand the basics of being a gentleman. Tell me how do I go about dating when whenever I look at a man here, I just want to throw up.

Whenever I travel on holidays, to Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc., I’m so happy. I get turned on by men (that’s really a shocker to me)! Is it because I’m in the real world now? (I graduated about 2-3 years ago) Is it because in the real world, it’s really that much harder to make friends? Is it harder to find someone to love?

I never really had a boyfriend in college. But I sure had plenty of friends to fill that void. 

At least I’m addressing these questions now. At least I’m pondering where the source of my depression comes from. 

I used to have a tumblr... but I don’t know why I deleted it.

I think I got paranoid that my future employees would stumble upon my tumblr.

What a dumb mistake. All the memories I’ve written down are lost I suppose.

I remember when I had Xanga during my depressing high school life, sadly, don’t remember what my username was. So even if I wanted to delete it, I can’t. THAT Xanga definitely should be deleted haha--way worse than my old tumblr.

The last two posts were too depressing for a start of a new blog. Probably shouldn’t have done that while drunk. But, this isn’t really a happy blog to begin with. Below will be a list of things I want to cover, from the bad to the ugly (the good will come later....eventually...). 

1. The things I hate about China.

2. Why guys (in China) are fucking useless.

Why did I decide to write this blog? What prompted me to write this? I’ve been thinking about this for a while and never came to it. Thank you alcohol courage. 

Today, I stumbled upon this article. I AM an expat in Shanghai, but my role as a TCK overshadows the fact that I’m an expat. Actually, I don’t know. But, this really hit home. If any of y’all are in China, you might know what I’m talkin’ bout. ESPECIALLY if you’re of an Asian descent, ‘cause fucking white, black, and indian people don’t know what I be talkin’ bout. 

Yes, I will write RACSIT AND POLITCIALLY INCORRECT REMARKS because I’m racist and SO IS EVERYONE ELSE ON THIS PLANET. Don’t deny it. You’re being racist even if you’re tryna be politcally ‘correct.’ So, this is a no-bullshit zone--Imma lay it out as is. I just hope I don’t get blocked. Lol, I mean come on. It won’t exactly be racist, it’ll just be my observations or a particular....race...Hahaha.

Anyways, here’s the article. Why does it hit home in particular, because I’m “supposedly” Asian-American. http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/10/04/a-chinese-american-revisits-her-dark-expat-experience-in-china/ If you live/lived in China as an Asian-American, you’d probably know EXACTLY how I’m feeling.