Geisha School Dropout

Word of the Week GIVEAWAY #2!

Congratulations to Dusty for being randomly selected to win the $50 Amazon gift certificate!  I will contact you shortly.

Here is Dusty's hilarious use of the word "gorgonize":

Using the word gorgonized is very challenging and spell check says that it's misspelled and it suggested that I should use the word organized instead.

 

This week's prize is a 450 mL bottle of Shu Uemura brightening cleansing oil.  I use this on my face instead of soap or foam to remove make-up and cleanse, all in one step.  Retail price is $81, and the reason why I'm giving it away is that one of these puppies lasts me a year, and when I reordered one recently, I didn't realize I had already received one as a gift a few months back.  So, might as well share the wealth!

The non-soapiness takes a little bit to get used to, but let's face it peoples: no one's skin benefits by stripping away all the natural oil it creates.  Dry skin gets drier, oily skin makes more oil to compensate.  These cleansing oils leave your skin clean and baby-bottom soft, and this specific formulation works to even out skin tone and fade sun and age spots.

In order to win, all you have to do is leave a comment below using the latest Word of the Week: BIDDABLE.

Biddable means: easily led, taught, or controlled.  Synonym: docile

Example sentence: The pool boy turned out to be the labrador retriever of lovers: biddable and eager to please.

Good luck to all!

Life Lessons Learned from Halloween 2012

Emi wanted her and Isaac to dress up as ninja this year, which would normally raise my cultural appropriation hackles, but I let it go.  I figured, they're 1/4 Japanese, so I can say it's an homage to their roots, ha ha ha.

Nonetheless, here are some best practices and lessons learned from this year's shenanigans:

1. Ninja were supposedly masters of stealth, and costumed ninja turned out to be no different: there is nothing in the world harder to keep track of than excited trick-or-treating kids dressed in ninja gear after dark.  Next time, we are going to wrap them up in triple layers of glow necklaces! 

2. Apparently, if you're a grown-ass woman, and you open the door really fast with a huge smile on your face because you are so excited to pass out candy, you will scare the children.  And it also freaks them out when you refer to them as their character.  Example: A well-intentioned "Hello there, Spiderman!" made a 3-year-old back away slowly and run back to his mama sans candy.

3. After they sorted their haul, I told the kids they could eat 5 pieces of candy tonight, which I thought was rather generous.  Emi apparently got a full-size Hershey bar and stuffed it into her mouth before I realized what was going on. Apparently, I was not prepared to deal with a professional.

4. My candy-consumption tolerance has gone down immensely since I was a kid.  I've had about 4 fun-sized Twix, and I feel like I can see through time.  I AM A GOLDEN GOD!!!

PS: And because I'm a big nerd, here are this year's Halloween trick-or-treater statistics: 119 trick-or-treaters in 119 minutes, 6:25-8:24pm. Busiest half-hour segment was from 7:00-7:30....And at 8:54, college kids asking for candy ruin my beautiful 1 person/minute average. Goddamn outliers!

How was Halloween in your neighborhoods?  Do you still get trick-or-treaters, or have the malls taken over candy duty?

This is the first of 30 daily NaBloPoMo posts this month!  Thanks for tuning in!

Second Grade Playground Racism Called, and It Wants Its Joke Back

I have long been a fan of formerly-plus-size model Crystal Renn.  She was such a luscious bastion of perfection without being a size 0:

 

Although I will admit that I was a little let down at first by her steady metamorphosis towards the mainstream standard of beauty, I am still a staunch admirer.  This is what she looks like now:

Still gorgeous, yes; just a little less to love!

But now this:

From: http://www.refinery29.com/is-taping-your-eyes-to-look-asian-the-new-blackface

How was this allowed to happen?  And in the moment, how could this have been stopped?  Obviously someone amongst the team of stylists, editors, photographers, and make-up artists came up with and pushed for the eye-slanting for none other than Vogue Japan.   I personally can't see how Ms. Renn could have protested amidst all the other primping and prodding, so no blame lies with her, but I am angered by whoever associated her with the oldest Asian joke in the book. 

Was this somehow some clumsy and tone-deaf-as-fuck attempt at ingratiating Ms. Renn and Dolce & Gabbana to an Asian audience?  Because if anything, this just distracts from the clothes and her beauty.  First of all, the taping was done unevenly, so she looks odd.  But most importantly, she doesn't look more Asian at all because obviously, the rest of her face isn't Asian, and for the millionth time in my life, not all of us Asian people have "chink eyes"!!!  Argh!  If you knew Asian people at all, you'd know that 1. Dolce & Gabbana doesn't have to resort to racist editorial spreads to garner attention...Asia LOOOOOOVES them already and 2. If anything, we actually prefer BIG eyes.

I would love to hear other people's points of view on this.  Meanwhile, me and my round-eyed Asian ass will sit huddled in the nearest corner.  :(

A Little Bit of Feel-Good Goes a Long Way

How have your last couple weeks been?  If they were anything like mine, you're probably needing some little smiles.  Let me see if I can provide some.  I will start with the frowns and try to turn them upside-down:

1. Emi has been waking up in the night wailing for me to come sleep with her.  It's been so long since I've had consecutive nights of interrupted sleep (apologies to the new parents who wish to smite me right now), and combined with Daylight Savings Time, I'm super fuzzy-brained right now.  But of course, it's not really that bad.  She is growing up to be such a caring, fun-loving, brave, and driven girl with a vivid imagination; I can hardly stand the wait to see what kind of woman she'll choose to become.  

I think she's been hearing bits and pieces of our conversations about the earthquakes, tsunami, and nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan, because today she built this Lego scene where the foreground was obviously a farmer tending to his rectangular crops, then a girl on top of a tower in the back, behind double doors.  "This girl is trapped inside the lab, and she can't come out because of the water.  The farmer might be okay."

2. Isaac has finally discovered the art of Little Kid Attitude.  My little helper man has morphed into a whirlwind of complaint, and it makes me unbelievably sad to see it!  I feel like I have to keep asking and bugging him to do things he normally would just do out of his own accord...feed Maggie, come with me on errands, get ready for school, do his homework.  And when I do ask, I get this tongue-click and groan like I am the worst mom in the world!  Annoying!  But luckily, flashes of my sweet little boy still come out.  He still kisses me good night, he is so patient with his little sister, and today I caught him on my computer; turns out he was writing a letter:

Dear Emily M-----,
I am your big brother so I have my eye on you,Emily.
Oh,and I see that you are doing something bad,I'll say,"Stop where you are"!!
My eye is watching you!!!
But....I still love you,Emily M-----.
Be good in school and at home.
And I'f you feel lonely.....come to me so you don't feel as lonely.
Love,
Isaac.
The date is 3/14/11

I hope you and your loved ones are safe, healthy, and happy, especially those of you in Japan or who have people there.  

Scenes from Huddle House

We made it safely to Cuba (not THAT Cuba), and the kids are having a great time charming their extended family and rolling around in big brown piles of oak leaves.  So far, I've been enjoying the hearty Midwestern fare, namely things smothered in white gravy...biscuits, chicken fried steak, chicken and dumplings, you name it.

Here are some shots of the family we had dinner with today:

Isaac and Tim

Obaa-chan (Tim's mom) and Emi

Grandpa (Tim's dad)

Great Aunt Sheila and Great-Grandma (Grandpa's sister and mom)

I can't really put my finger on why, but it feels good to know that I inherited a whole other family when I married Tim.

Carpe Hipsterdom

Tim's glasses broke while we were on vacation.  He had to fix them with super glue and scotch tape and turned into a total nerd stereotype for a few days.

But look now!

What do you think?  I think my absentminded professor magically turned into a bass player for an indie shoegazer band and I am SO STOKED.

Tim is still hesitant about the new frames, since his glasses are normally tiny, wire-framed, and delicate, more like Dickensian spectacles than real glasses.  He's afraid of seeming like a wannabe hipster, but I'm sure once the short-haired manic pixie dream girls start pouring in, he'll feel better.  Plus, he's not getting any younger, and this may very well be his last chance to be fashionably relevant.  We shall see.

Note to future Tim groupies: he will only accept offerings of kaki no tane, beer, and clever t-shirts.  Please submit resumes below, along with a listing of your favorite Japanese porn genres.

I Wonder What Malignant Ones are Like

For a laugh, here is a picture of a kids meal toy Emi got the other day:

 
 
 If you have trouble seeing it, it says "Benign Girl."  We got this at a Japanese restaurant, so I can only assume that this is a Japanese virtue, although the product was actually made in China.  So ladies, if you want to be the perfect Japanese girl, you must be benign!  And apparently benign girls are:

• Battery
• Operated
• Creative
• Various Music

I have the last two down pat, and I think my Caesarian section counts as being operated, so all I gotta work on is the battery part.  Do they mean assault and battery?  Hrmm...intriguing.

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I only have a week left of this daily blogging gig.  It has been quite a rewarding workout of my writing muscles, but I will definitely be relieved when July is over and I can go back to my lackadaisical schedule.

To commemorate the last week and also to appease my husband who has been on my case about being a deadbeat Korean mom and not teaching my kids the language, starting tomorrow, I will highlight a phrase or two a day that I will teach to my kids.  Apparently I cannot be trusted to keep my promises unless I announce them on the Internet!  :P  I suppose the weight of the world judging me keeps me honest.  Oh well, at least something works. 

Impotence

Today is Children's Day in Korea and Japan.  Usually children's parents come home early from work to take their kids to the park or the zoo, and give presents.  Isn't that sweet?  To celebrate, Kimchi Mamas is giving away a $100 gift certificate to Tea Collection, which happens to be my brand of choice!  Enter now by submitting your wish for your children.  Or not, so I have a better chance at winning.  :P

I am not actually with my children today, being in the Bay Area for business, so I will save the giddy "YOU ARE THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO MOMMY" loving for later.  I feel like breaking some shit dooooown.

Sigh.  Concerning mommyhood, can I have a do-over?  I think I messed up my turn.  Isaac got in trouble two more times after I posted last, and I have no idea what else to do.  He was staunchly independent from birth; I used to half-joke that Isaac had always known what to do in his life, and my job was only to make sure he didn't kill himself while doing it.  And to this day, he has shown an amazing sense of restraint and temperance, but this kissing and touching people situation is just getting worse.  I keep thinking he should know better, but then I think, well, he's only six.  And then again, maybe we've been parenting incorrectly this whole time, and he actually is too young for the amount of autonomy we give him, and we've just been lucky he hasn't gotten into more serious trouble before. 

And Emi, my goodness, that girl.  Did you know she's still not potty-trained?  She will be 3.5 in July.  She'll go when you sit her down on the potty, but she cannot hold anything in, nor can she tell when she has to go.  She seriously has no problem wetting herself and sitting in it.  That was the silver bullet with Isaac: he just didn't like that feeling.  Peer pressure also does not work one bit, she is used to being unique and higher-maintenance than her peers.  I show her the beautiful big girl underwear just waiting for her to wear, and she doesn't care.  She can take or leave the chocolate chips we give her when she goes in the potty.  Perhaps she doesn't like change in general, even diaper changes.  Again, what am I doing wrong?  I thought girls were supposed to be easier.

I hate this part of parenting, the incessant self-flagellation and hand-wringing.  It makes me feel like Woody Allen, endlessly dithering to myself and letting valuable time slip past in the meantime.  It is ultimately a kind of self-absorption, to be questioning oneself all the goddamn time.  It is tiresome and unbecoming, especially for someone whose sole purpose in life is to be the Jolly Fat Girl Who Makes People Laugh and Feel Good.  But inside every clown is a self-loathing, bad-poetry-writing, cavernous-navel-gazing, Morrissey-loving Drama Llama who masturbates with a stainless steel dildo emblazoned with the slogan "WHAT IF" and who just rubs against it again, and again, and again, and again until something bleeds.

Whoa, what just happened there?  Well, heh heh, I've put myself on this diet of sorts because my blood sugar is high again.  Lots of protein and no carbs makes me turn into a vulgar Goth apparently.  Don't mind me.  We will be back to our regularly scheduled antics shortly.  Just one request: please keep Tim in your prayers, because he's been bearing the brunt of this hideousness.  Or perhaps even more effective would be an emergency baguette he can hurl my way next time I get that look in my eye again.

What Happened in Vegas

I know what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but hello, I'm a blogger.

At 5:30 am last Saturday morning, the Mangs headed out to Sin City to meet up with Tim's parents at Mandalay Bay.

The last time Tim and I were in Las Vegas was in 2002, when we got hitched at the drive-thru window of the Little White Wedding Chapel.  We were married in a Prius; the bride wore a Placebo shirt and jeans.

Anyway, we resolved to have a slightly classier stay this time around, and thanks to a cabana that cost more than our actual hotel room, we did.  The kids had a total blast: even after 8 hours of swimming in the kiddie side of the wave pool and jogging through the not-so-lazy-river, we had to drag them kicking and screaming up to the room to change for dinner.  They slept like stones that evening, bless the angels of Mandalay Bay.  And by angels I am referring to the cocktail waitresses decked out in aquamarine tankinis which would be considered downright modest if any of them had a rack smaller than Jessica Rabbit's, which of course, they didn't.  My father-in-law sustained a minor elbow injury due to the many times he jabbed Tim with it saying, "Dang, son!  Get a load of those!"  He's expected to recover soon. 

Another unwelcome window to my in-laws' sexuality came via Australia by way of the UK.  Tim and I mentioned that we saw a commercial playing in the elevator about Muse and the Silversun Pickups playing at the Mandalay Bay Event Center Saturday evening, and my in-laws totally volunteered to watch the kids so we could go, and I was super-excited and grateful.  However, my mother-in-law then mentioned oh-so-casually that actually, something she had always wanted to do but never was able to, was see a male strip show.  In fact, Thunder from Down Under performs two hotels over, and she was wondering if I could go see it with her.  She said it in such a way that I knew it was going to happen, no matter what I thought of the matter.

 

Bye bye, Muse.

I honestly was in such shock that I couldn't think of any excuse not to.  So I offered to research tickets (after freaking out on Facebook, of course...to those who offered their condolences, thanks for the support, btw).  I called the reservations number and asked for 2 tickets to their 9:00 show.  The lady asked for me to hold and I was regaled with a breathless voice informing me of their dancers' rippling muscles and awesome moves.  I dry-heaved with tension.

And then the angels of Mandalay Bay spared me yet again: the 9:00 show was sold out!!!  And since my in-laws were still on East Coast time, the 11:00 show was way too late.  I totally dodged a bullet, and all I had to do was sacrifice seeing two of my favorite bands in concert.  All told, I think it was worth it.

The next day, we walked down the Strip for a few hours before heading home.  Let me just note that my kids are strange.  We were right in front of the Luxor, this huge black pyramid, and Isaac and Emi didn't care about it at all.  They were much more interested in the fake plaster statues, staging imaginary charges against their enemies.  At first I was annoyed that they were missing the forest (hello, pyramid!) for the trees, but then I realized that unlike 99.999% of the US population, we actually live across the street from a big blue pyramid, and can even see it from our living room windows.  These kids probably think there's a pyramid in every town.  Isn't that funny?

 

Another strange story: I *think* Celine Dion thinks Emi is cute.  Sure, Celine Dion probably loves every child on the planet, but maybe she told me in person?  There was this lady who looked exactly like her sunbathing by the pool with her gray-haired husband, and she kept staring at us and smiling.  Once we made eye contact, she smiled even more, pulled up her sunglasses, and said "Your daughtair is so byewtifool!"  Emi then said "I'm Princess Emi!" and it made her chuckle.  This lady had the right accent and the earnestness-bordering-on-craziness vibe...hrm, I wonder.

An Open Letter to "Akihabara Majokko Princess"

Dear Japanophiles and Japanophile enablers associated with this video:

If you must exist at all, can you PLEASE find something else to latch on to?  Step.  Up.  Your.  Game.

I GET IT ALREADY, OKAY??? Japan is one big crazy clusterfuck of people who do nothing but walk hurriedly amongst neon billboards and vending machines when they're not smiling giddily behind rice paper doors. I have already given up trying to debate the fact that Japan has more to offer than that, but at least stop filming the same things over and over again, all the while pretending it's fresh and edgy.  Save your money and just borrow footage from any other movie or home video filmed in Japan.

And I also understand by now that Japanese people are hideously dull and ugly compared to a dolled-up white woman.  Look at their flat, emotionless faces and funny glasses and weird hair!  Wow, Kirsten Dunst looks like an angel in a sea of trolls.  She wouldn't look nearly as leggy, cute, and alabaster-skinned in a European country, right?  Sigh.  Props to the kids who looked bored and aware of the obvious commercial objectification, and for the partygoers near the end of the video for providing the only real humanity in the entire video.  More people like you, and maybe they'll take the hint finally and find some other people to exploit.

And the same request for you, Takashi Murakami: I know you have raked in gonzo bucks with your happy flower/bear/yadda yadda yadda characters, what with the Louis Vuitton and Kanye West partnerships, but can you please create something else?  I could have handled sitting through a mediocre video starring a stoned Kirsten Dunst if it debuted some new fresh art; instead it tried to eke out every last penny from the same tired designs.  But props to you for your little cameo inside a furry human-sized soccer ball, that was cute, although I do know at one point you actually sold $400 soccer balls, which lowers your quirk factor quite a bit.  You are probably more businessman than artist after crossing that threshold.

And Kirsten Dunst!  Were you totally blitzed out of your mind, or were you actually terrified cavorting around these natives dressed as Rainbow-Brite-fist-fucking-Sailor-Moon, which from the many shots of anime-porn posters featured in the video, you probably guess is Salary Man Ogle Bait?  You looked overtly uncomfortable during some of your mystical wand-waving.  Maybe you were just nervous that the people who invented karaoke would give you a low score on your rendition of "Turning Japanese."  Or maybe you're a little bit smarter than McG gave you credit for and a part of you felt a little, I dunno, EMBARRASSED to be singing that song in front of real Japanese people.  Anyway, your dimples have not lost their charm, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt and think of you as the biggest victim of this clownshow.

Sincerely,
Me

PS: AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!