Monday, March 29, 2021

Chen’s Red Shoes & other Asians I’ve known

For as long as I’ve lived at my address, I’ve known an Asian man (more specifically, Chinese) who lives here too, but I’m unsure which floor he’s on.  He’s younger than me by 10-15 years, but we’re the same height & build (5’8” and chubby) and I share that because I wonder if that’s the reason he’s so friendly with me.  He always greets me the same way—“Haha, hey!  Hi!” like we’re old acquaintances who haven’t seen each other for awhile. 

Let me think… should I know him from somewhere?  Nope, I don’t think so!

Friday I was coming home from a dental appointment, feeling pretty… relaxed from the Valium my doc gave me, when I saw my Chinese man outside.  He was holding an iphone in one hand and a cigarette (yuk) in the other, and was wearing the reddest pair of Adidas shoes I’ve ever seen.  He saw me and waved, and I thought of the recent ugly headlines of attacks on Asian Americans, so instead of just waving back I approached him and said “Hey there!  I like your shoes!” 

He smiled and nodded at me, but I could see the confusion in his eyes.  Maybe he didn’t speak a lot of English?   I pointed down at his feet and said “Very cool!” and gave him a thumbs up, and I think this time he got it, because he said “Hank you!!”  I said “I’m Doug!”  and he said “Chen!” and we just stood there nodding and smiling.  I said “Well… bye!” and came inside.  He followed me in, and as I checked my mail he said “Doug!” and held up his phone.  On it’s screen was a pair of his red shoes, on a website called Zappos. 

I thanked him, but yikes—they were priced at $94.00!

I read recently that Asians make up 60% of the people on our planet; how is it that I can count on two hands the number of them I’ve known in my life personally?  Growing up in my hometown of Waynesburg PA, there wasn’t an Asian in my school to be found.  Come to think of it, we didn’t even have a Chinese restaurant until I’d moved away!  The only Asian I knew back then was Mrs. Livingston, a Japanese woman who helped raise a widower’s son on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.

“Mister Eddie Father not come home for dinner again?  Little Eddie need more than nourishment to grow up and be a man.  He need… his father!” 

Not including the Asians I know online (bloggers Kay of Musings and Gigi-Hawaii), I’ve gotten to know probably 10 Asians total in my years in the city.

A few of them instantly come to mind like Gao Y., a Chinese woman I worked with in 1989 at my first IT job in Pittsburgh.  Her husband was a professor at nearby Pitt University, and she only moved here from Beijing a few years earlier (yet spoke English fluently).  She gave me ‘lunch lectures’ on everything from where to buy soup downtown to what type of girl I should marry.  And then there was Ping C., a VERY petite Japanese coworker in her fifties who sat “over the wall” from me.  She ate things like raw eel or octopus wrapped in seaweed everyday for lunch, and one time when I called out “Ping, can’t you eat something that doesn’t smell like mildew?” she cackled and said “Just wait!  I’m going to live to be 200 and show you all!” 

I very much believed it. 

But I’d have to say my favorite was Andy H., a Vietnamese man I met my first day on the job at UPMC Health Plan in November 2000.  He was considerably younger than myself, and his business attire was the same as his sense of humor—VERY sharp.  He loved to taunt you, but it was all in good fun; Andy didn’t have a mean bone in his body.

He called me Doug-Luss or White-Boy (when we were alone), and he’d come to my desk on Fridays and say things like “What are you doing this weekend white boy, sitting in front of your tv for 2 days and eating cereal?  I’m taking my wife to best steakhouse in town—then picking up our NEW MERCEDES SUV on way home!”

A couple years ago when I saw Crazy Rich Asians, all I could think of was Andy  Smile

One time in early 2001, when “political correctness” was all the rage in the corporate sector, UPMC was offering torturous 3 hour training classes throughout the week on being PC.  You weren’t required to attend unless your manager asked you to, but Andy chose to go one morning to score points with our boss. 

After Andy was through, he came over to my desk and told me if I knew what was good for me, I’d attend the next session.  I joked back “I’m already the most pc worker in this office, go sit your commie ass down.”  Not TWO seconds later, our manager came around the corner and Andy said “Len—did you hear what this white boy just said to me!” 

Len said to Andy “What did you just say?”  Andy said “I SAID, did you hear what this—I mean Doug-Luss” and Len stopped him.  He asked “When’s the next PC training?”  and Sarah (who sat one row over) told him that afternoon.  Len said “Andy you’re going.”  Andy said “But I just GOT BACK from one!” and Len said “Then maybe this time you’ll listen!” 

After Len walked away, we all had a good laugh—even Andy, who swore he’d get his revenge. 

Hmm, I want to look money like Andy--maybe I’ll buy Chen’s pricey red shoes after all!

 

 

28 comments:

  1. I grew up without "seeing" an asian and when I was preparing to marry my asian wife, I told her that she would be all alone in a very white world where I lived. But afterwards, I started seeing asians everywhere. I don't know if I was just blind to seeing them or they only recently started to migrate to my area, or some of both. These days, I know asians by the hundreds if not thousands.

    Although I usually don't like octopus, I do love it when properly cooked. Eel is very hard to mess up and I eat it all the time especially in sushi. Combined with soysauce it sort of has a BBQ chicken taste to it.

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    1. Well Ed, I haven't lived in my old hometown since 1987, but I still don't think there's an Asian populace there; up here in Pittsburgh is quite another story! As for octopus or eel, I'm open to anything if it's not squirming 😉

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  2. Like you I hadn't had many occasions to meet and talk with an Asian till I worked with a delightful girl named Kapi from Hawaii. She was Japanese/American. She worked at our bank in the day and sometimes worked as Hawaiian dancer at a local restaurant in the evenings. Her husband was an undercover cop. She and I became good friends. What was odd is that while she was totally graceful on the dance floor, she could barely walk through a doorway without hitting one side or the other.
    Think you ought to get those shoes. They are real attention getters.

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    1. Patti thanks so much for sharing that, I loved reading about Kapi; I hope her hitting doorways wasn't anything medical! Also, I appreciate you speaking up about those shoes because more & more I'm leaning towards them. I bet your blogging pal Cool Joe would like them :^)

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  3. When I went back to teaching in Illinois after staying at home with the kids, my kids' African American principal, Mr. Johnson told me to apply right away because he wanted me at his school. He had already hired two other Asian American teachers and wanted his staff to be diverse. I applied, but at that point the demand for diversity was high so they insisted on sending me to another school which was definitely very white. Mr. Johnson would jokingly call me traitor for a while. In my first year, a parent told me their child was upset because their 6 year old insisted he was put in an ESL class. The secretary thought it was funny pulling the sides of her eyes up saying, "I know why you were hired." However, I made many friends there and it worked out to be a life changing happy experience for me. Art says EPA had staffers who were diverse and just about everyone he worked with were wonderful, but generally that's the sort of people you would expect to see working to protect the environment.

    And as for obnoxious Asians. Yup. Definitely, we have those too, just like every other ethnicity. I told Art your story and he burst out laughing. He was a supervisor and would have said the same thing to Andy.

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    1. Kay thanks for sharing this! Ive always wanted to hear some of your teaching stories but what was with that secretary pulling up her eyes? That didn't sound very kind! As for my old co-worker Andy, haha I'm glad that made Art laugh but I'm telling you Kay, he was a very nice young man--he just had an ornery side to him :)

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    2. OK... Here’s one teaching story I can share with you. I wrote it a long time ago.
      https://travelerswife.blogspot.com/2008/03/michaels-christmas-gift.html

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    3. Aw Kay... that little boy broke my heart. I think what you did was very sweet, I think most would've refused to accept it and he wanted you to have it. The ending of this hurt to read, but I appreciated your sad honesty.

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  4. I know Asians where I work from all countries, Africa, India, Romania, Czechoslovakia, France, Spain, Poland, Slovenia and I welcome them all. Its a small world in 1970 3.65 billion people on planet earth co-existed now theres double that amount. What this means ApacheDug every 50 years Earth is getting smaller so we'd better be kind to each other.

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    1. SpacerGuy, well said and thank you--and YOU just reminded me of one of my all-time favorite Asians, George Takei! It's funny, when I was younger I didn't see him so much as Asian as I did Starfleet, hoping someday that's our reality :^)

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  5. There are many Asians here in the PacNW, so perhaps it's a regional thing? We also have a military base nearby which also makes a difference. I'm embarrassed to tell you how much I pay for my running and walking shoes. Eek.

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    1. Margaret I do think it is a regional thing--it seems like most Asian Americans are west coast. As for your pricey shoes, haha well I know you're a lot richer than me so if you can afford the best why nor ;^)

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  6. We have many Asians in our neighborhood. We wave and smile when walking, but don't really know any of them well. But we don't know most people in our neighborhood except the ones close by - on both sides of our house. I do have a very dear friend who is from Taiwan. She and I used to work together and we kept up our friendship after retiring. We talk and text a lot... occasionally meeting for coffee (before the pandemic).

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    1. Rian now you have me curious how many are in my own neighborhood; well that's nice about your friend from Taiwan, I'm going to reach out to my neighbor Chen again. I almost forgot about Emily, a Chinese nurse here who calls me "The Plant Thief" because I rescued a plant of hers from the garbage, re-potted and kept it. :)

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  7. I live in a mixed race community, where there are lots of Asians and biracial families. It's all cool. I lived in New York back in the 1970s. There were lots of Jews, who befriended me. I now tend to have Asian girl friends, who are married to white men. I tend to like biracial couples.

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    1. Gigi, very interesting! I think the more we see of that, interracial couples, the less meanness & prejudice we'll have. I know it sounds corny but we're all just people. :^)

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  8. Co-incidentally, I just now received a package in the post. Pepper red crocks for gardening in! Very compfy but unlikely to ever receive a compliment. Chen's footwear much sportier and he sounds like a sweetheart but I worry a bit for the state of his lungs. Andy H. -- a mischievous guy for sure! George Takei a gem!

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    1. Florence, I hope the next time you post pictures we can see your red crocs! I think Arkansas Patti has got me going on getting those red Adidas. I wonder what Chen would think, haha--he IS a very nice guy.

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  9. You never know, you might enjoy a snazzy pair of red shoes like that! I hate to tell you but that price is not bad for those types of shoes! Personally I go more for comfort but the kids love those shoes.

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    1. Thanks Bonnie! And no, I appreciate you being upfront with me--I am woefully out of touch with stuff like this! Anyway I prefer comfort too, but if I can have my cake and eat it too... :)

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  10. Well I think the reason you don't meet a lot of Asians is because ... most of them live in Asia. That being said, there's a lovely young Korean-American woman who lives next door to us, married to an Irish-American, with two cute little twin girls. Part of our somewhat-diverse neighborhood (meaning, also, and thankfully, that we're not the only old people on the street.)

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    1. Haha--well Tom, I just meant that I was surprised I didn't know more Asians as I live in a city now (compared to growing up). Your neighbors sound nice, I very much like seeing all the diversity (that's what our country's all about) :)

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  11. I agree with a lot of points on PC, but I also think it has gone way overboard to the point where people are afraid to speak at all for fear of offending even just one person. I don't personally know any Asians, although Adelaide seems to be full of them, certainly our universities are, but I've had Asian dentists and they do excellent work.

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    1. River, I appreciate you saying that--there IS such a thing as being too PC. I'm doing a future blog about that! As for Asian doctors, I have a gastrointestinal doctor who's Asian and she's not very... personable, but I like her honesty!

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  12. My Son's Ex is Cambodian and many in the Asian Community live in specific areas where there is an Asian Population and the businesses that cater to the Communities needs and preferences. Much the same in many Communities when you think about it, which is probably why, growing up, you mostly saw people similar to yourself. Having been raised by an Interracial Intercultural set of Parents {Dad being of Native American heritage and Mom being a Foreign War Bride he met while Stationed in her Country}, during an Era where there was a lot of segregated Communities that weren't so 'voluntary' as they might be today... we often had to live in Minority Communities due to my Parents being a mixed-race Marriage. So, I grew up around a lot of diversity that didn't look exactly like me. I didn't even seem to realize it wasn't so common for most Americans until during a not so distant Blog Post I Shared pixs from an Old High School Yearbook I had found when unpacking from our Move. Several Blog Friends who are from my Generation commented on how many Black Students were apparent in my Yearbook. It then struck me, that for the average White person, perhaps that had been only a few, if any, in their Schools growing up... of any Ethnicity other than their own? I think a lot of the Racism that presently exists would be greatly diminished if people had more daily exposure to one another and got to really KNOW people beyond the superficiality of complexion alone and not knowing anyone that wasn't just like them. Exposure is EVERYTHING when it comes to shaping the personal filter we view our World with. We are but a compilation of our Life's Experiences. If we have absolutely NO point of reference or experience/knowledge, we can erroneously base things on conjecture and myths or stereotypes otherwise.

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    1. Wow... Bohemian, very cool about your own upbringing and I liked what you said about what would be helpful about our own growing up. The recent headlines about Asian Americans being assaulted simply for being Asian... what an ugly step backward. I think in time we'll get there, but I doubt I'll be around to see it.

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  13. I didn't get around to commenting earlier, but I sure enjoyed the way you told me all about Andy. He sounds like he was a good guy. I have known too many Asians over the years to single anybody out. You're a good writer, Doug! :-)

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    1. Thanks DJan! I'm not surprised you know more Asians than me, from what I understand they are more Pacific coast. But the few I've known, I genuinely like. :)

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