ALOHA~ **\\(^O^)//**

Yes, your eyes are not fooling you. The hiatus is temporarily over and there is a new post... 

As some of you may know there's some Chinese festival/occasion thingy coming up so like the good granddaughter that I am, I went to KK to visit my grandfather with my mom and aunt today. The thing about Chinese festival/occasion thingy is, you always end up bumping into relatives that you wish you don't have. These are the relatives that seem to think torturing you are their unbound duty. 

Year in and year out no matter how many times I see them, they will unrelentingly ask the same old question and go through the same routine of quizzing me about my life. Their habitual repetition of questions is just a menial, non-essential to me. They are old after all so they have the liberty to do as many repeating as they want to. Besides I can't expect them to keep tabs on everything related to their families or relatives. I don't keep tabs on their actual positions in the family tree, after all...So what I am trying to say here is the repetition do not kill me but trouble starts to brew when I move to Kampar early this year...It's not the place they have problems with, it's altogether another different gripe they have about me in particular...what  is it, you may ask? Well, this is the kind of dialogue we have now...word by word, I kid you not!

Random relative: So...you still studying hor...where ah??

Innocent Yao Jia: Erm...UTAR lor...

Random relative: Oh. UTAR ah...veli good leh...(insert generic praises here) 

This dialogue of sorts will inevitably lead to them asking...

Random relative: So what you study ha??

Innocent Yao Jia thinking "Oh, crap...not again..." : English

Pause...wait for it...wait, wait...there it is! The eyebrows raised, the silent disbelief and the conjectures and epiphany begins...

Random, angered-for-no-apparent-reason relative: You Chinese go study English for what? You don't know how to read and write Chinese considered bad enough; now want to study English...shame on you! Bring disgrace to us Chinese only. You go out don't tell people you Chinese...Think the Westerners very good ah?? Last time they all come attack us ah, torture us...(long winded, self-righteous "Chinese" people talk)

Of course, all these happened when mom is not around and the whole speech is in Cantonese with not one spattering of English involved. I wouldn't dare to incur more wrath now, would I? I really don't get what my studying English has to do with bringing disgrace to Chinese people. Yes, I cannot read nor can I write chinese characters but does that make me any less of a Chinese than they are? I have a Chinese name and no, I cannot write my name properly but that does not mean I do not appreciate my Asian roots. I do not think the Westerners are almighty but I don't think Chinese are that almighty either. Why give me the third degree simply because I choose to study English? Is it so bad? It's not like I'm learning how to kill people in the university. Although judging by their reaction, it might not be such a bad thing unless I start massacring Chinese people left, right and center. Weird enough, as much as they feel so strongly opposed to my choice they don't seem to want to remember this tiny detail about me but instead ask me over and over again everytime we meet, causing themselves more distress a few times a year...I tell you...I have weird, sadistic people for relatives...