2. Visit one country I’ve never been to (Costa Rica???)

3. GMAT

4. Cook more

5. Cleanup backyard and make a garden

6. Build something out of wood (dresser/bookshelf)

7. Workout!

8. Blog more

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2012 Resolutions

Project 52 – Made it through half the year but fizzled out. Planning a wedding and finding time to take artistic shots was much harder than I thought.

Lose 10 pounds – nope and it was a battle throughout the year to stay at a decent weight.

Get married – DONE and DONE

Travel to one new country – French Polynesia + Singapore!

More wine corks – Yes, a lot! Especially if you count wine from the wedding.

No gambling – no Vegas, no problem!

No raw denim – 2 pairs purchased. Oops!

Gmat prep course – post-wedding this definitely did not happen. Maybe 2012?

Expand my network – I was better about it, but there’s always room for improvement.

Looking back, I would say 2011 was a great year. Getting married and a wonderful honeymoon and trips to St. Louis, NYC, and Singapore/India made it a fantastic year and to top it off, we now have a dog! Although I didn’t take enough photos or bike enough, I’ve cooked a lot more and am thoroughly enjoying it. As I think about 2012, a definite theme will be frugality. 2011 was good, but 2012 should be better!

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2011 Resolutions – How did I do?

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Last day of Movember

I suppose I have a backlog of posts about the honeymoon, wedding, horseback riding, cooking, etc so I’ll get to those when I have time. In the meantime, I’d like to welcome you to the newest member of the family. His name is Coco!

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Happy one month

The slope up after my weight of 152.9 is from post-honeymoon weigh-ins. Vacations make you fat.

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Vacations make you fat

The past few days have been full of moving, packing, unpacking, donating, throwing away, eating, and playing ping pong. I can’t wait to sit on the beach and do nothing for a few days. I hope I remember how to do my job when I get back…

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Off to French Polynesia

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Welcome to the Good Life

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80 hours!

So, for $19.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond, I bought myself a Neti Pot.

The basic idea is this:
- Fill the pot with warm water + table salt
- Tilt your head sideways and put the neti pot against the top nostril
- With any luck, the saline solution will come out your other nose
- Breathe through your mouth until the pot is emptied
- Experience clear sinuses!

Really, it’s amazing. Blowing my nose with a tissue had failed all this time and the neti pot resulted in instant relief. I am a true believer! I’ve done this several times since Monday and it’s really helped keep me happily breathing through my nose. If there was only a way to get rid of the cough…

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Neti Pot

With me so far?

The basic premise of the article is wondering if the rigid way Asian Americans were raised, as per Amy Chua’s Battle Hymm of the Tiger Mother, was in fact reflected in corporate America. Yang’s answer is no, supported through stories of males who have hit the “bamboo ceiling” in their corporate lives. The solution to some amount of fulfillment is in fact deviating from this behavioral norm through accepting that you were raised in this manner, taking risks, seducing women (more on this later), and making some noise.

As I started reading the article, I was initially quite intrigued, first to see a Korean American author featured on NYMag and secondly, to see him outright reject the Asian American behavioral norm. The article takes a controversial turn though, as the focus turns to an Asian American pickup artist who instills confidence in the asexual Asian American male and completely ignores the perspective of women, despite positioning itself as an article on Asian Americans as a whole.

In other words, I think Yang raises some good points. In other areas, I think he’s wrong.

Controversial is a good thing though, and if there’s one thing I learned in my studies at college is that dialogue and articles like this make for great discussions. Reading the comments on the article and checking out a few responses after searching on Google, it’s clear Yang has struck a nerve. As an Asian American male, and one who studied this subject in college, I felt compelled to add my voice. I was never the most succinct writer. Blogging offers me a way to free-form my thoughts without a grade to force careful editing.

I agree that Yang’s concerns about a bamboo ceiling have merit. Statistics back this up. I certainly have my own concerns about where my career will peak and I certainly hope that beyond age 30 I’ll still have value to any company in America. I’m fourth generation Japanese American so I can’t head back to my motherland if prospects in America run out. I do agree that I probably listen more than I talk to in meetings and this probably reflects poorly on me. That’s something I know I need to address and I’m glad Yang brought this up. I do disagree, however, that the ceiling keeps one from success. I don’t think I want to be a C.E.O. which was the initial barometer for success, so if Asian Americans are thin in those ranks, I’m not offended. What would concern me is if Asian Americans do not have an equal chance of obtaining jobs in the first place. In fact, this should be the opposite, due to the much quoted facts surrounding Asian American representation in top tier colleges, etc. When I think about it, success to me is not about running a multi-billion dollar corporation, it’s more about having a job that pays the bills and lets me live comfortably. Success to me is seeing my children go off to a nice college so they can repeat what I did. I have trouble finding ways that I’ll make a lasting impression in society and I’m not sure I ever will. Sometimes I wonder if I would be happy doing what I’m doing today, 30 years from now. Although it wouldn’t be incredibly engaging, I think I would be fine with it, because it would pay the bills and keep my family fed. But, I know I don’t want thirty years of the same thing, so I do strive to do things within my control to advance in whatever ways I can.

I agree that Yang has legitimate criticisms of the overall way Asian American parents have supposedly raised their children. I met enough students at Stanford and friends living in the Bay Area to understand that this is no myth and that there is a real notion about SAT scores, college admissions, extracurriculars, grad schools, etc. This is mainly propagated by parents who want their children so desperately to succeed in the ways they know how, i.e. – memorize everything you can for the test, practice violin until the piece is perfect. They tell their children to become a scientist even though their passion is literature. It’s hard to rebel against your own parents and more so in college, when it’s not easy to pay your way through school, thus allowing your parents to dictate your major or even what classes you took. I knew enough students at Stanford who had this experience and they were quite miserable. I’d like to think I was an exception to this norm, although I certainly fit within the norm at various points. I tried to major in biology. I ended up as a History and Asian American studies major. I thought about becoming a history professor. I now work at a tech company. What I’ve learned, I guess, is part of Yang’s thoughts – hard work can get you places, but at some point, you’ll need more than that to do well. He’s obviously more extreme (paragraph 6 “Fuck humility and hard-work”). There’s no magic formula to success in America, but hard work I do think can get you to places where you do have a chance to succeed. Yang knocks himself by stating he hasn’t earned more than $12,000 for eight consecutive years. And he’s fine with that. But, I can tell you that I would not be fine with that. Yet, if he’s happy with his place in life, I will be happy for him.

When I think about how I want to raise my children, I think a combination of Tiger Mom mentality will come into play. I don’t want to see my kids slacking off, but I do want them to fail on tests and learn for themselves how to pick themselves up and do better next time. I do want my children to strive for ambitious goals like getting into an Ivy League college, but I don’t think AP exams + instrument + volunteering + debate society will be the predetermined way to get them there. I see value in my kid getting his ass kicked in football if he wants to try out. I think it’s perfectly fine to date outside of one’s race. I have concerns for my child, which will be Asian American, going to a school that’s predominantly Asian. The rest of the country/world is not like that. I would love if my children went to school on the other end of the world for a year or two. It would make me laugh if they went to college and said “Why are there so many Asian kids here?” which is the question I pondered when I showed up at Stanford after attending a predominantly Jewish/African American high school.

Switching gears, a majority of comments and responses to Yang’s article also touched on the issue of male masculinity. The desexualization of the Asian male / exoticism of the Asian female was a popular dichotomy to discuss and track throughout American history in my college courses. It seems natural that some Asian American males would want to dispel this rumor, but the idea of seducing women as a sign of success for the Asian American male is disturbing to me. It’s not about marrying and starting a family. Yang’s values are off-radar and it’s not clear to me that rejecting the institution of marriage is better aligned with white norms. I don’t think it is at all. It’s almost as if Yang, when speaking about the pick-up artist who helps struggling Asian American males in the singles scene, talk to women, is encouraging a digression into some rote memorization of phrases, stances, and intonation, which in fact ties back to some Asian-like values of believing that practice, memorization, practice, is the way to succeed. This contradiction is confusing to me and not one that’s easy to detangle. If I read this as a single Asian American male I would certainly be confused.

Overall, I’m glad that I read this article and for the fact that it raised some questions I enjoyed considering during my college years. I certainly haven’t thought about them as deeply over the past few years. I hope Asian Americans of my generation read this article and ask themselves if they want to be like Yang or not. I hope Asian American parents read this article and look at their own children and are happy with where they are, despite their digression or adherence to the behavioral norm. And I hope non-Asian Americans read this and understand that success is not the only thing on our minds.

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Thoughts on Wesley Yang’s NYMag article “Asian Like Me”