Category: Prose

As with any first love, figure skating never truly left me. Or rather, I never really left it. Every four years I sometimes morph into a pretend pundit for the edification and entertainment of my friends, who are gracious enough to listen to my commentary. However, I’ve had other suitors foisted on me before, by my own parents no less.

Male parent threw out a thought, “What about trying equestrian or golf?”

And I appropriately responded with, “Huh?”

I say appropriate because I had never expressed an interest in either of these activities before. I loved unicorns as much as the next 90’s kid who collected Lisa Frank stationery, I was devastated to be over the socially (and physically) permissible age to ride a pony, but equestrian is serious, no rainbows or ponies allowed. And need I say more about golf?

I would hear him out, since I understood that there must be a rationale. After all, as an accountant in his former life, numbers and logic always had to add up.

“You’re going to be in high society someday, and people in those circles do things like that. You didn’t like tennis, but it’s not too late for these sports.”

My dad was being gracious, for my tennis instructor knew I wasn’t going to be his Li Na after the first lesson. We respected each other’s time and parted ways amicably. My figure skating coach was not so lucky; I stuck around for almost a decade.

My dad continued his explanation, my mom nodding. (Though she likely masterminded broaching the topic.) “If you’re good at golf, you’ll have the respect of other businesspeople and then you can build relationships on the golf course.”

He offered some optionality, another fork in his reasoning. “Equestrian is more athletic though, so maybe you’d enjoy that more. And we live in Texas. There must be somewhere to learn.”

At this point I understood him completely. This was all coming from the same place that prompted him to shut down a passing joke from his colleague that I should start hostessing where they both worked. “She’s not going to work in a restaurant like me.”

Like me. There was a lot embedded in those words.

Like me, who used to be an accountant in one of the best hospitals in Shanghai. Like me, who may have been more than blue-collar middle-class in a country that could be hospitable at times and hostile at others. Like me, who may have become one of those businesspeople playing golf. Like me, who didn’t and who will not let his child feel that she belongs anywhere but in “high society.”

Fortunately, no one in my family has been unemployed for long, but perhaps worse is being underemployed in a job whose requirements one’s education or skills may surpass. (Don’t start about millennial baristas, don’t.) My parents didn’t let it show much, but it would’ve described their status accurately. However, the way they dressed and carried themselves betrayed their convictions that they were of a more “sophisticated” class. (This is also admittedly a side-effect of being Shanghainese; you can verify this with people familiar with the personalities of China’s regions.) On weekend outings with my family, you would never guess that they were waiters. 

I’ve picked up many of my dad’s mannerisms in particular. Regardless of his day job, he wanted to look and talk like a boss. Stand tall, shoulders down, speak clearly, show ‘em wass-up. (Latter is entirely my addition.)

Of course, I acknowledge these are all my hypotheses, but I have gathered enough data points to feel confident. These examples aside, my parents proved their executive abilities were as good as any F500 CEO’s by running a household while working long hours. My dad was particularly proud of his neat record and bookkeeping, true to his accountant past. He would use his former training where he could in his life now.

I can’t say for sure, but I guessed that my college admissions provided non-insignificant vindication for years of feeling insecure or inadequate compared to other family and friends. They opted to start waiting in a restaurant immediately instead of trying to redo their education here, but at least I was on the path to joining “high society.” And with a tidy office job now, it would seem that way. Seem!

Without a doubt, I will “disappoint” my parents in one way. I am still not interested in golf, and being thrown off a horse could end any further career I have, equestrian or otherwise.

I prefer to write dinky little blogs.

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Thanks for reading! This is the fifth in my series “An Economic-ish Life,” where I write to educate and entertain while attempting to remember and apply my liberal arts education. 🙂 And yes, the series title has changed.

Fearless. Driven. Tenacious. Ambitious. I repeated these words in my head over and over and faster and faster the closer the plane got to landing in Los Angeles. They were my wishes for the type of person I desperately wanted to become while living in the sprawling metropolis, where dreams go to grow beyond one’s wildest dreams or to sputter out. As much as I tried to inundate my mind with positivity, a creeping sense of loneliness mixed with the trepidation of being a newly-minted “adult” also lodged itself in.

Could I be happy here? Would I? Or would the all-hours traffic slowly drive me insane? (Badum-tiss.)

—–

The opportunity costs of moving to LA were clear from the start. Driving would have to become as reflexive as bee-lining to the office kitchen for a coffee. Friends would be far removed, in San Francisco at best, and most likely be reduced to profile pictures liked and chat stickers exchanged. Overall, I would give up feeling a sense of belonging and familiarity for, at the start at least, discomfort and bumpy roads.

You cannot get something without giving up something. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything has a price. Bang only comes from relinquishing bucks.

You can say it a thousand ways, but the economic concept is simple. To rapidly advance its economy, China has given up the opportunity to have clean air. To fund other items, schools have cut budgets or entire departments for arts and music education. But as we all know, concepts we study on paper will never be as strong as the ones we directly experience. To go to college among brilliant peers, I gave up being able to drive home on the weekends when things were just too much.

Everything felt just a bit foreign and strange in a new city. You can drift past the white lines to wait for a left turn? Why are juices and coffees so expensive? (Correction, why is everything so expensive?) Parking isn’t free? (Come again, that much for 15 minutes, really?)

I wanted my suburban ease and quietude back. I didn’t want to hear sirens and loud motorcycles ripping by my window. I wanted to be able to run home instead of flying home.

But to grow, Kiki taught me that I had to fly away. From the creators of Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service tells the story of a young witch who completes her rite of passage by striking out on her own. On a night that feels right for the occasion, she and her wise-cracking cat Gigi kick off her broomstick and end up in a quaint seaside town. She finds gainful employment, makes new friends, and overcomes personal challenges. If that’s not an inspirational movie, I don’t know what is. And that’s the script I’m trying to live by.

I’m very fortunately employed. I’ve surprisingly made new friends. The emphasis there is on the word “made.” (I have to get dressed? And make small talk?) I force myself to go on solo romps and have happily discovered that LA is a la-la-land of donut shops!

I don’t have a broomstick, though I sure wish for one when traffic is bumper-to-bumper. Just like Kiki, I’ve slowly found places and ways to fit myself into this town. There are still nights where I mope because I feel disconnected from everyone I used to know. There are still times when I wished I had tried harder to live closer to my friends. But then I wouldn’t be writing this because I would have nothing to reflect on. And to me that would be more disappointing than anything else.

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Thanks for reading! This is the fourth in my series “An Economic Life,” where I write to educate and entertain while attempting to remember and apply my liberal arts education. 🙂

“You’re keeping score. And that’s a recipe for resentment and disaster. Don’t do this.”

This is what I thought as I stared at my phone and did it anyway. I tried to summon the latent psychic powers I knew I had. (I don’t care if I’m past the right age; I know my Hogwarts letter is coming.) I would will the person at the other end to reciprocate. To say they wouldn’t mind, to express their happiness to do something for me for once.

My neck and back were sore from hours at a desk, and my right hand experienced the niggling pain that comes from too many repetitions of small movements like swiping to unlock my phone and scrolling with my thumb. Though it didn’t compare to the soreness of disappointment. I doubted the multiple uuuuu’s in their “thank youuuu” were proportional to the depth of gratitude they felt.

How could they not see how much of myself I put out for them? Why didn’t they understand that I did everything because I so valued their presence in my life? Did they not value me nearly as much? Was I wasting my time?

No doubt many a romantic partner has cycled through the same list of questions and scuttled any hope of a mutual future. But countless friends who never made it to “best friends” must have as well. I had no excuse. I had read the advice articles that said keeping score was poison. Relationships don’t operate according to a balance of trade, but I didn’t want to keep feeling like I was generating a surplus.

—–

My fruitless and silent staring at my phone for a sign was the latest in a rout of bruisings. More and more, I felt like acquiring the heavy crown of being the “friend you can always count on” wasn’t worth it.

To my mom, the answer was simple. I created my problem and made things bad for myself while making good for anyone else. It’s not the sweetest advice, but when do we ever need advice when all is going well?

“If you feel like you don’t receive the same care in return, then you should stop, I don’t know, being so much for them.”

“But they’re still my friends.”

“Daughter, this is why people walk over you. They know you better than you do.”

“I’m just trying to be a good person. But now I feel petty.” I could cite the incidents lately where I had done something for someone else; I had sunk that low.

“But you need to be smart, too. For your own sake. Don’t go out of your own way for someone who won’t do the same.”

I ended the phone call when I heard everything she could offer. I reflected on her words, but it seemed like such a utilitarian way of evaluating my relationships. How could I say no to people if I was able to help, to listen, to just be there, even if it wasn’t convenient for me?

Maybe the answer to my questions traced back to growing up as an only child. I understood even then that friends were not blood siblings, so if I wanted to hold onto them, I needed to give them reasons to keep me. I rarely thought of it the other way around. That would be selfish, wouldn’t it? That’s not how I was raised.

No, maybe that was the problem with my thinking. Personality traits rarely manifest in absolutes. Sometimes we are selfish, and sometimes we are generous. It may be possible, but like my mom believed, it certainly wasn’t practical to give someone 100% of yourself all the time.

So how much was I to give then?

—–

Slowly, the fragments of my thoughts knit themselves into a net of understanding. I don’t call it a compromise because that implies giving something up to get something else, which was exactly the kind of thinking I wanted to avoid.

It really was simple, but not in the way my mom thought (as a caring mom would). I needed to be more forgiving of myself when I couldn’t be the super-friend I aspired to be. And I needed to have more faith in my friends for understanding no.

You’d think that when I figured this out once, I could just apply the same philosophy to romantic relationships. But as we’ve seen lately, history does repeat itself…

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Thank you for reading! This is the third in my series “An Economic Life,” where I write to educate and entertain while attempting to remember and apply my liberal arts education. 🙂

“I’m not trying to look weak!” My gloved hands flew back onto my hips, but the trembling of my lower lip betrayed me. Even though it was a late night session with few people on the ice, I didn’t want my frustrated huffs to attract an audience.

My mom crossed her arms in reply. “Then stiffen up your arms! It’ll help you land your jumps!” She unhinged her elbows and straightened hers out on either side of her as a demonstration.

I sucked in a deep breath and pushed away from the boards near her seat. I needed to calm down before I attempted another run-through of my routine. Unlike a professional at all, every little thing could mess me up. And nothing was going right tonight. My gloves had holes in the fingertips, my blades weren’t gripping the ice enough, and my first competition was just a few weeks away.

I started the night confident that I could deliver a great practice performance for her to watch and record for my dad. Work would probably prevent either of them from getting to see me skate in the pretty, expensive, rhinestoned dress they bought just for the occasion. (I just want to sparkle like the other competitors! You want me to look good, right? Oh yes, I was unfortunately a manipulative little…)  

I threw a few single jumps to get back into a groove, any groove, and looked back in my mom’s direction. She was reading something on her phone. I couldn’t blame her; I wasn’t impressing anyone at the moment. But maybe I shouldn’t have expected to in the first place.

—–

At five-foot-seven and not exactly the most svelte, my body didn’t fit the ideal figure skater profile. Super aware of my higher center of gravity, I couldn’t force myself to be fearless and throw jumps over and over again until I landed one. Faster, push more, my coach would urge me, but speed terrified me more than it carried me to any success on the ice. Suffice it to say that figure skating wasn’t an area of comparative advantage for me.

Yet somehow, I stayed with figure skating for almost a decade. I never experienced breakout results, rarely passed the level tests with any sort of colors, and often wasted time being upset over my practice one day instead of progressing on my math homework. My parents told me I could quit anytime and do something else, but I would not budge. I would love skating until it loved me back.

—–

Home from college one winter break, I tagged along to my friend’s jazz and ballet classes. I had just started dancing recreationally in college and quickly became envious of my new stage-veteran, recovering bunhead friends. Like many of my peers, I had been shepherded to dance studios as a kid, but it just didn’t stick with me at the time.

After we stretched, the teacher looked at my physique and said, “Oh, I could’ve made you.” I asked for clarification. She admired my height and long (really?) limbs. I could’ve parlayed my natural resources into being a beautiful ballerina. Could’ve. The word stung. It reeked of lost opportunity, lost potential.

—–

I went home that night with a simmering anger. Why couldn’t I have known this sooner? Why didn’t my parents try harder to get me to reconsider my obsession with skating? Why…not? Why not? The realizations burrowed themselves in my mind for months and leaked into other areas of my life.

In grade school, my talents manifested in classes like social studies and history, English, and foreign languages. Math and science? With the odd exception of chemistry, to say I wished, craved, cried for those subjects to feel “easy” would be a wild understatement. But unlike skating or dance, I didn’t have a choice but to do well in all academic areas.

I wanted the advantages that I didn’t enjoy. I felt like those things were more impressive. Things I was good at? They were nice, but not so much in light of the increasing importance of STEM. And I was never going to be a Michelle Kwan. 

—–

In basic macroeconomics, you learn that countries should focus on producing things that they have a comparative advantage in. For example, Southeast Asia started to manufacture products when their cost of labor became more competitive, sometimes known in corporate speak as “cheaper.”

But you also learn that economies can grow by investing in areas they are deficient in, such as Singapore’s attracting of an international workforce responsible for much of its service industries or South Korea’s early investments in entertainment and pop culture that became precursors for the “hallyu wave.”

So I began to apply these principles to my own life. I would invest in learning things I didn’t know and needed to know, without neglecting to nurture my natural talents.

—–

Come winter of freshman year in college, I had almost had it with “investment.” I was trying desperately to bring my intro math class grade back up after disastrous midterms, and the former valedictorians around me never seemed to slow down. I transferred my skating skills to a student dance troupe, where I was good enough but always aware that there were even better.

For a study break, I went skating on an outdoor rink for the first time at Boston’s Frog Pond. I glided easily among the awkward first dates, tweens goofing off, and parents who were regretting bringing their kid. Every bone in my body felt a newfound appreciation for the years I had spent falling and slipping and tripping on frozen water. As I exhaled and watched the tendrils of my breath uncurl and float away, I looked up and muttered a silent thank-you to my past self, for not giving up and for getting me this far. The decade had not, in fact, been for nothing. In a way, it had given me everything I needed.

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Thank you for reading! This is the second in my series “An Economic Life,” where I write to educate and entertain while attempting to remember and apply my liberal arts education. 🙂

Also published on Medium.

Dear reader,

I published the below piece first on Medium. I would not be where I am today without my parents, so it’s only fitting that I dedicate the beginning of my site to them. For anyone who appreciates family, food, and even some economic theory, do have a read.

Best,

Jennifer

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My mom likes to joke that she scored with my dad. That Shanghainese men make the best husbands. They like to cook, clean, and generally keep house. I can’t confirm whether this is actually widely accepted among Chinese people, but he certainly lived up to and beyond the claims. However, he had a tendency to ruin my taste for my favorite foods. I never begrudged him for it. He ended up (indirectly) teaching me about an economics principle I wouldn’t formally encounter until my last year of high school.

I’ve always known Houston to be a food city, even if it’s only recently started to get wider recognition for it. Next to Chinatown’s palaces of seafood, dim sum, and hot pot, you have Viet-town with savory pho and crispy banh mi. Obviously, glorious Tex-Mex joints abound. So when my dad brought home roast quail for dinner one night, I wasn’t surprised.

“It tastes like chicken,” he said. He started to tear off small pieces and spread them out in the styrofoam box, warped from the steam and his commute.

I poked a piece with my chopstick. “It smells kind of weird.” We’d eaten even less mainstream things though, like pig intestines doused in red oil.

“Here, just try it.” He placed a large piece between my chopsticks. I took my first bite and let it settle on my tongue. The crispy and slightly caramelized skin made up for the relatively tasteless meat. It was a little tougher than chicken.

He smiled. “See? Good, huh?”

I nodded even though I hadn’t passed a verdict yet. He had gone during a break from his restaurant shift to pick up the new dish in Chinatown. Always buying food for the family, his coworkers liked to say.

Somehow, we (and by we, I mean I) ended up picking clean three-quarters of the box. When my dad set down another box a few days later, I attacked the fragrant meat more eagerly. There were no leftovers to pack for my school lunch that time.

For the next two months give or take, I ate each box of quail as completely as I could, but each time the amount of leftovers increased. I hate wasting food, so in it went into my lunches, buried in noodles, rice, and the bone broths my mom and grandma steeped. (News flash for food hipsters: bone broth has been part of Asian food for years and years.) Spurred on by the positive feedback, my dad made sure there was never a deficit in my roast quail supply.

On a Sunday before I was due to go teach a few hours of ice skating lessons, he set a hearty serving in a shallow blue-and-white bowl before me.

“Protein for the endurance you’ll need! Eat it before it gets cold!” His wide grin couldn’t drum up the enthusiasm he had gotten so used to seeing though. My whiny teenager side had bubbled up.

“I’m tired of quail. Do we have ramen?” I said. Addressing his kind attention to my protein intake, I added, “I’ll eat an egg with it.”

“What do you mean you’re tired of it? You like eating it so much!”

“Ba-ba, we’ve had it for months.” I pouted, carefully. “Maybe for dinner instead?”

He nodded, but his lips pressed together as he took a few pieces for himself and put the rest back into the fridge.

Halfway through my three hours of bending down to hold little kids’ hands as they teetered around the ice, my stomach growled and reminded me how much I could’ve used that protein. What was I thinking having one fried egg and instant ramen?

At dinner I monopolized the quail dish. My mom was both impressed and horrified by my remarkable appetite. My dad smiled again, wide and bright, and also had some, but only when I was occupied with the small pile in my bowl.

A few weeks later, this pattern repeated with char-siew pork, then caramelized sea bass, then lamb chops. You wouldn’t have known that my parents worked blue-collar jobs. I certainly didn’t until I learned that collars had certain colors at all.

In my first semester of college, my introduction to microeconomics TA explained diminishing marginal utility to an indifferent lecture hall, using the typical examples. To satisfy a craving, one more cupcake (or cookie) will give you less satisfaction than the first one consumed. One more Maserati in a millionaire’s collection bestows fewer bragging rights than the first two. Okay, that one I embellished.

I, on the other hand, had different examples in mind.

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Thank you for reading! This is the first in my series “An Economic Life,” where I write to educate and entertain while attempting to remember and apply my liberal arts education.