Some tidbits (I promised triviality)

Here are a few gems from tonight--I went out for a bit with a friend and a bunch of her friends from junior college (which is not the same as in the US, junior college is one of three options that you must follow if you want to go to university, which we loosely define as college, but anyway, I digress...).  They were all Singaporean, and at one point the conversation turned to how little kids are often confused by the concept of age and years and whatnot, and I suddenly decided to ask if in Singapore, they tell the story of the stork to small children.  Everyone looked perplexed at first, so I explained the concept, and as soon as they understood, everyone looked at each other and said, laughingly, "No, we tell them about the rubbish heap..." and so it turns out that in Singapore, you tell small children that babies are rescued from trash piles. 

Also tonight, I taught these people the meaning of the phrase "Asian glow."  Actually, I didn't bring it up myself; one of them had studied at the University of Michigan and undoubtedly had the phrase applied to him, but none of the others had heard it before.  So we patiently explained to them that, well, the vast majority of Asians turn red when they drink, and U.S. universities have so kindly developed terminology for the phenomena.

Speaking of phrases that Asian-Americans likely know but Asians do not, I did recently explain the term FOB to someone.  (Fresh Off the Boat; I don't want to leave anyone in the dark.)  Haha it's actually kind of funny that "the boat" really does come from somewhere, though, because I've always thought of being fobby as being a style, a kind of "get in touch with your roots" movement, and I've never really considered that it might actually be a normal manner of dressing/living for, say, an entire continent.  Kind of like how stores try to sell a surfer "look," and then you go to San Diego, for instance, and realize that it's actually a completely standard manner of dress for a population.

But yes, the vast majority of Asians here, minus the few that really try to be Western for whatever reason, are fobby.  They throw up peace signs in photos.  The guys spend ridiculous amounts of time applying copious amounts of gel to their hair in the morning in order to achieve that "just got out of bed" look, on their way to shopping for skinny jeans.  They're just so... Asian.  It's a surprise that shouldn't be, I suppose, and I'm learning to appreciate it.