This blog was started as a "Randomness everyday blog" in 2015 when I was in high school, branded as a "note to self" kinda blogging experience. As a teenager growing up in a crackhead suburb as I always like to say, it's so hard to find yourself when you feel alienated as "otherness." Being in diaspora means bearing the pain of being lost and constant self-discovery. I think I've done a lot trying to find myself growing up in Grand Blanc as a teenager.
I remember in 8th grade during my first year in the US, I would journal every day in class. I was not fluent in English; I didn't know how to communicate with my classmates, especially when I don't see anyone like me. Journaling on a paper and writing everything that happened at school each day was how I coped with this alienation. I still remember vividly that Hong Kong youtube was getting popular at that time. Some of my favorite YouTubers are Loui5ng, haywong and his hot brother, eminleo, and minjai (I still watch minjai to this day regularly). Loui5ng was definitely my favorite during the time. He did this vlog series called "lazy vlog" to capture his everyday life in secondary school (we were all so young!). I think that was the inspiration behind journaling in school and titling it "lazy blog" in 8th grade.
Times has changed a lot since then. I saw that I have an unfinished blog post on Running man from 2015, feelings were still the same, so I finished the blog post and publish it as the first piece of 2019. I've been told I am a really nostalgic person, which isn't wrong at all. 4 years of time seemed very long ago, maybe because of the growth I've had moving on to different stages of life, but also felt like a blink of the eye. Sometimes I wonder what would my 2015 self think of myself today.
So I reread the blog posts I made in high school and I see how I was trying to resist the assimilation into the American-ness; I definitely wanted to keep my Hong Kong roots. In secondary school, people really praised the ones who decide to immigrate to the west for education, as if they finally can "escape" and will "make it" in life. It's true, I think being in the west is a privilege because of liberal society and freedom to do things (even though that can be worse at times, but that's another conversation about liberalism). So I always have a sense of belonging growing up, still do now. I was really proud to be an "alumni" of CNECCC, even though I only went there for a year, but that was one of the best years of my life. Now that all my friends have graduated from secondary school long ago and we are all in university, I no longer linger so much on the identity of being proud as a CNECCCer. Instead, I learned about what identities, race, ethnicities are in college and started putting more efforts into staying grounded as a Hong Konger in the diaspora. But the thing is that I never realized I was doing so since the first day living in the diaspora until now, and I'm honestly proud of how strong I was trying to stay connected to my roots and resist assimilation.
As I said, things have changed so much around me just after 4 years, I have learned more and become educated in a nice university, who would have known I would be pursuing an Engineering degree? I have come out as a gay person. I learned a lot about identities in college and global politics. The boy who used to get yelled at by his family for "being so skinny" has become slightly more toned, now we even have to get rid of some belly fat. My mind and body have grown so much.
Life is truly wild. It's like I have become a different person than I was 4 years ago, maybe parts of me have still remained but it's definitely changed a lot, for better or for worse. It reminds me of hot daddy Nathan Zed's video "thethirdpew is dead." The worries and negativities I have no longer reside in just being in white suburbia, but more on the anxiety and depression of the society and being an adult. I still can't believe I'm a 20-year-old adult. To be honest, it's really scary, maybe because I was never prepared for it. Hong Kong has changed a lot, it's a lot that I talk about. It's a lot to explain. And to keep it in the "note to self" fashion, I'm not gonna explain it, because I will never forget what happened these years in Hong Kong. But I would say that I think the worst part is feeling the disconnect to my homeland and the obvious evidence of my Chinese getting worse day by day. Chinese journaling has become all English journaling after 4 years.
Even though I abandoned this blog for 5 years, I don't think journaling has ever stopped for me, maybe just in different mediums. I like to express my vulnerability by getting things off my chest, whether it be talking to friends, shitposting on finsta, actually writing in my journal. I guess it has always been a part of my life, and I hope to continue that. In the near future, I hope to put out more content to process my thoughts on here, whether it be pieces from MiC or projects that I've been working on. It will be interesting!
Edit: the blog subtitle used to literally be "Randomness. Self-explanatory. A blog page written by just an ordinary Asian kid from USA. People call me an ABC. But maybe this is really what ABC's do daily. Who knows." You can tell how much I didn't wanna be assimilated hhhhhhhh
Edit: the blog subtitle used to literally be "Randomness. Self-explanatory. A blog page written by just an ordinary Asian kid from USA. People call me an ABC. But maybe this is really what ABC's do daily. Who knows." You can tell how much I didn't wanna be assimilated hhhhhhhh
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