You look considerably better than last time!
I went to a meeting for animal-rights activists last night, and felt lifted up by the charged air. Watching the people made me feel good, too. The participants carried themselves in a very similar way. They even owned the same kind of paraphernalia.
I've been telling you---you shouldn't spend your time pressing your nose against the windows of upscale stores or lounges. They lure you in with their glitz and make you faint with all the zeros and the commas on the little tags and the menus.
Amid the abundance and the glitter, I get worked up about consumerism, materialism, genetically modified cotton, labor abuse and exploitation, environmentally unsustainable development, globalization, digital divide, political and economic hegemony, Gini coefficient, and...
Remember the year 1999? You had a newspaper clutched in one hand, fresh with the smell of ink, and made a fist with the other.
Ummm, November 30, Seattle... Yes, all I need is a cause! It is my anti-authoritarian streak, inherited from my mother.
She's more petite-bourgeoise than activist, as I understand her.
Well, she professes to have blue blood circulating inside and striped with red and green outside.
Is that why she never participates in a demonstration, but watches it on TV with a glass of wine in her hand and cheers on?
Lately, she has been attending a watercolor painting class, and one day the instructor said, "Religion starts from believing, whereas philosophy begins with..."
Defining religion and philosophy in a painting class?
Believe me, she often finds herself in such rather unreal situations. Back to the religion-philosophy sentence, my mother continued, "Philosophy begins with casting doubt." She reports that the instructor was delighted.
Ah, she gave you some of her smart-alec talent as well.
She's not always that quick, so I asked her whether the exchange was exactly like that. She said, "It was! I like that kind of masculine talk." The volume was one notch higher when she said that.
I shall respect your mother, and not get into the discussion of whether it is a sexist remark or not.
Isn't it funny that I, too, feel most comfortable in a high-school debate team atmosphere? I hadn't thought about it consciously until she told me this story. I didn't know either that she and I share androgyny.
It's all your mom's fault, huh, that you are such a monster?
I'm amazed, almost daily, how much influence my parents had on me. It usually starts with the realization that I am so different from my colleagues.
Let's say it's enough that there is only one of you.
When I examine how and why, it always boils down to how my parents lived when I was growing up: the books that they owned, the magazines that they subscribed to, the art that they liked, the conversations that they had, the places that they took us, and so on. My ethical values, too, are basically theirs with some updates.
I know that you've got siblings, so that means...
Of course, our personalities are very different. But in the grand scheme of things, we are pretty much alike.
As kids, we think all families are just like our own. It often takes years before we realize that, for example, the uropods of fried shrimp are normally not eaten.
You eat shrimp tails?
One time when bunch of us went out to dine, we noticed that there was nothing left on the plate of one of us, who ordered breaded and fried shrimp. We were astonished that she ate the whole thing. When we questioned her, she was shocked that none of us had heard of eating shrimp tails. "My dad eats them, my mom does, my brother does... You guys don't?"
I helped a friend prepare a meal, who was strongly against putting broccoli next to pork cutlets on the plate. He insisted that they be accompanied by shredded, raw cabbage and that was what his mother did for any pork cutlet.
Weird!
My parents think it vulgar to discuss money making and saving schemes, often or in detail. My grandparents go even further. In their world, "business" is almost a curse word; you shouldn't think about money at all. I still have difficulty talking about money.
Your family is strange!
Isn't that why we celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day?
I went to a meeting for animal-rights activists last night, and felt lifted up by the charged air. Watching the people made me feel good, too. The participants carried themselves in a very similar way. They even owned the same kind of paraphernalia.
I've been telling you---you shouldn't spend your time pressing your nose against the windows of upscale stores or lounges. They lure you in with their glitz and make you faint with all the zeros and the commas on the little tags and the menus.
Amid the abundance and the glitter, I get worked up about consumerism, materialism, genetically modified cotton, labor abuse and exploitation, environmentally unsustainable development, globalization, digital divide, political and economic hegemony, Gini coefficient, and...
Remember the year 1999? You had a newspaper clutched in one hand, fresh with the smell of ink, and made a fist with the other.
Ummm, November 30, Seattle... Yes, all I need is a cause! It is my anti-authoritarian streak, inherited from my mother.
She's more petite-bourgeoise than activist, as I understand her.
Well, she professes to have blue blood circulating inside and striped with red and green outside.
Is that why she never participates in a demonstration, but watches it on TV with a glass of wine in her hand and cheers on?
Lately, she has been attending a watercolor painting class, and one day the instructor said, "Religion starts from believing, whereas philosophy begins with..."
Defining religion and philosophy in a painting class?
Believe me, she often finds herself in such rather unreal situations. Back to the religion-philosophy sentence, my mother continued, "Philosophy begins with casting doubt." She reports that the instructor was delighted.
Ah, she gave you some of her smart-alec talent as well.
She's not always that quick, so I asked her whether the exchange was exactly like that. She said, "It was! I like that kind of masculine talk." The volume was one notch higher when she said that.
I shall respect your mother, and not get into the discussion of whether it is a sexist remark or not.
Isn't it funny that I, too, feel most comfortable in a high-school debate team atmosphere? I hadn't thought about it consciously until she told me this story. I didn't know either that she and I share androgyny.
It's all your mom's fault, huh, that you are such a monster?
I'm amazed, almost daily, how much influence my parents had on me. It usually starts with the realization that I am so different from my colleagues.
Let's say it's enough that there is only one of you.
When I examine how and why, it always boils down to how my parents lived when I was growing up: the books that they owned, the magazines that they subscribed to, the art that they liked, the conversations that they had, the places that they took us, and so on. My ethical values, too, are basically theirs with some updates.
I know that you've got siblings, so that means...
Of course, our personalities are very different. But in the grand scheme of things, we are pretty much alike.
As kids, we think all families are just like our own. It often takes years before we realize that, for example, the uropods of fried shrimp are normally not eaten.
You eat shrimp tails?
One time when bunch of us went out to dine, we noticed that there was nothing left on the plate of one of us, who ordered breaded and fried shrimp. We were astonished that she ate the whole thing. When we questioned her, she was shocked that none of us had heard of eating shrimp tails. "My dad eats them, my mom does, my brother does... You guys don't?"
I helped a friend prepare a meal, who was strongly against putting broccoli next to pork cutlets on the plate. He insisted that they be accompanied by shredded, raw cabbage and that was what his mother did for any pork cutlet.
Weird!
My parents think it vulgar to discuss money making and saving schemes, often or in detail. My grandparents go even further. In their world, "business" is almost a curse word; you shouldn't think about money at all. I still have difficulty talking about money.
Your family is strange!
Isn't that why we celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day?
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