The Mighty Quynh

Vietnamese gangs are moving into Dutch marijuana

…So does that mean I can find finally find (good) pho in the Netherlands?

Oddly enough, this article gave me an idea for a slant I could take on traveling. It would be interesting to seek out Vietnamese communities in various parts of the world and see the differences and similarities and examine how they adapted to their surroundings. Maybe it’s already been done in some sociological study or something, but this is something that has been piquing my interest more and more since I moved away from my parents.

I always felt a bit removed from the Viet community, primarily because I never really knew one, and secondarily because I had a complex about my heritage growing up (when people in 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade ask you, “Are you Chinese?” and when you say, “No,” they stretch out the corners of their eyes and ask, “Then why are your eyes like this?” you might internalize some stupid ideas too). I got over the complex, but I still feel uncomfortable around (older) Vietnamese people because I feel like I’m being judged on a tougher metric than when I’m with mixed company. Also, there are things you can say in Vietnamese culture that wouldn’t fly in typical American culture and I’m too Americanized not to be a little bothered by it.

I should note that it was slightly different with Vietnamese people in Vietnam because I believe they largely regarded me as American once they heard how awful my Vietnamese was. I think my problem is Vietnamese people in America expect me to be more Vietnamese than I am. Or maybe it’s just my messed up perception and they really don’t. I dunno. In any case, I’d like to see my American bias in contrast to different subsets of Vietnamese culture all over the world. It could be a fun, potentially eye-opening experiment for me.

I like all sorts*, but I’m most fond of capybaras, pacas (GIS them—they are adorable!), and Gambian pouched rats (our friends in the detection of landmines). The bigger the better.

I also harbor very deep affection for a certain breed of rat from the highlands of Ikea, the GOSIG RÅTTA.

Mischief of rats

_
I’m just letting you all know that on top of our apartment being horrendously cluttered, I have stuffed rats lying around, so don’t be too weirded out because I totally warned you.

(This is why we avoid having guests over.)

*There are two rodent/rodent-like species I don’t really care for: the naked mole rat, and the star-nosed mole (not a rodent, but y’know). Sorry, little guys. You’re just too gnarly.

Because I do. Or at least I like the idea of it. It’s just that I’m too boring and unimaginative and lazy to come up with an awesome costume, so rather than go buy one from the store or cobble together a completely crappy one with stuff I already have, I’d rather just not try at all.

On top of that, I usually have no idea what anyone is. I’m not well-versed in pop culture. I don’t care or know anything about movies, I don’t watch anything on TV aside from Food Network and nature programs and some other assorted garbage (plus Top Shot, which is not garbage :p), and I have no idea what most musical artists look like (I thought Ke$ha was a black chick for the longest time). So I am always that girl who needs to have every costume explained to her.

So I pretty much spend Halloween in my apartment playing solo video games or something equally non-social.

Hammy suffered a stroke a few weeks back. Last Friday I said farewell to her for the last time before Rich took her to the vet. She’s running in the great hamster ball in the sky now. Here are a few pics of her I had been saving up for a rainy day.

Hammy?

Hammy!

Sophie and Hammy

I grew up under the impression that opening doors for people was simply polite, with no notion of its roots in chivalry. When I was young I did not see gender so I absorbed it all as ‘things I should do’, not ‘things men should do for women’ or vice versa. I enjoy opening doors for men now because it throws a lot of them off and they get all flustered and insistent that I go first or whatever. Silly man. I’m already opening the door, just go already.

Politeness is rather strange anyway, especially once you see how varied and conflicting it is across different cultures.

I said it well over a year ago, and I’m saying it again because I never did get that new computer. I’m so lazy though. I don’t need to buy a whole new PC when I already have a case and hard drives and such. All I really need is a new motherboard, CPU, and graphics card. But these days, I just don’t care enough to take my case apart and swap all that crap out and set everything up. Oh yeah, and RAM. Okay, this is getting more annoying by the minute, see?

There was no point to this except to point out how lazy I am about even entertaining myself.

Time: Is This the Death of Dutch Multiculturalism? – Wilder’s anti-Islam sentiments are legal: I can agree with that (free speech). The fact that his sentiments have gained ground amongst the people: disheartening.
Wikipedia: Allochtoon – They want you to “integrate”, but you are still considered allochtoon (foreigner) if one of your parents wasn’t Dutch, even if you were born in the Netherlands. (Edit: Additionally, the whole concept of what it means to be Dutch is so muddled and abstract as to make it near impossible for anyone to know how exactly they’re to integrate. What does it mean?)

I bring this up because as many gripes as I may have about the States, reading that stuff makes me really glad my parents came to the US. I don’t know of any place that is as diverse, welcoming, and accepting as… well, I don’t know about all of the US, but at least the Northeast. While I suspect my parents would have made it wherever they went, they were given a lot of opportunities they wouldn’t have had anywhere else. There’s no question that they are Americans. That’s part of what makes this a great country. Thanks, and happy birthday, USA!

Why is it that when I wear my most expensive watch, which is also the smallest and thinnest, I bang it on everything doing the most basic activities, from holding the elevator door to grabbing a soda can out of the machine. But when I have any of my cheapo watches on, nothing ever happens. On top of that, I managed to nick the crystal on my nice watch within days of owning it.

I was out with some friends last Friday and we ended up at Cielo. At one point, as I was making my way through the club, I heard a guy go past me and say, “Why is she wearing sunglasses?” I wanted to put my heel through his throat.

So here’s the deal for you folks who don’t do this every week. Two words (or is it one?): strobe lights. Clubs are pretty dim most of the time, and my eyes adjust to that level of light. However, every so (too) often, the whole place gets flooded with what feels like 10,000 flashbulbs going off straight into my face. It’s uncomfortable and it hurts my eyes. After seeing stars several dozen times, I said to hell with it and started bringing sunglasses to clubs.

The laws of coolness have been tightened so much that even I, at 26, am beyond the age where I can legally try. I’m not trying to look badass or mysterious or flashy. I’m just trying to save my goddamn eyes from falling out of my head.

The dust at Electric Zoo has always been pretty wicked, especially last year, and I knew from previous years not to wear open sandals unless I wanted to spend an hour scrubbing dirt from between my toes. This year I got more summer-friendly boots (ankle instead of calf length).

Turns out all the EDM festivals this year will have floors in the tents, and Electric Zoo is taking a ton of other measures to keep the dust factor way down. Go figure.

I was never into coffee enough to drink it daily. Plus the last thing I need to put in my body is a(nother) substance I can actually get addicted to. But Rich has a little 3-cup French press at work (I’ve had one for a few years but it has seen little use at home), and now that I learned you can also use it to froth milk (thanks, Bobby Flay and your Irish breakfast episode), I’m all over that. I’m trying to perfect my technique everyday and I actually enjoy making coffee in a French press. There’s something charming about doing things manually.

On that note, I may be ready for a manual watch, but I already blew a boatload of cash on a few quartz watches, so that’ll have to wait.