As you know, the Gou fam is in town. Well, I was doing pretty good until yesterday: admittedly, I reach a limit after about six days. I’m sure my irritability is exacerbated by overcrowding, the bland diet, and well the usual personality tensions. My gma and mom are major home bodies, which is fine because I sort of have those tendencies too, but all of us in one apartment is getting to be a bit much. My mother is mostly over her cold, but she’s still making these nerve-grating hacking noises like she’s coughing up hairballs. Yebbie gets out of the house, but every time he comes back, he brings home way too many bags of buns, dumplings, and the like. So what if he overbuys, it’s the American way right? Well, consider this: John hasn’t gone to the gym since returning, and already he’s lost 2.5 kg on the all-bun, zongzi, eternal leftovers diet. I dunno whether my family really doesn’t want to go out for restaurant meals or if they are just sick of eating (following their 15-days of pigging out) or what. Either way, I feel like all we eat is reheated leftovers. We’re talking 6 days of the same leftovers. It never gets chucked, only consumed. Really sucks. Oh well, I’m sick of eating, so I might as well begin my detox fast. Anyone out there done that before? I’m thinking of just eating fruit/veggies for seven days.

My dad pissed me off yesterday. In the evening, we made arrangements to meet his friend Mr. Lin for the Huangpu River cruise. Meeting time was 6pm. So we leave the house early to avoid rush hour, and I tell the cabbie to take us to a nearby department store. We arrive around 4:30pm. The meeting place with Mr. Lin is about 15 minutes away. So right off the bat, my dad keeps harping on and on about how we have to hurry to meet the guy. So forget shopping. Forget a decent dinner, we get shitty noodles and fried rice and head over to the Chenyi Monument. I basically get into a fight with dad, because he’s so fucking pushy. He doesn’t even let us go into a candy store, because “we have to meet Mr. Lin”. So finally, we arrive at the place and guess what time? Five fucking fifteen. Forty-five minutes early, and to make the story even better, Mr. Lin arrives about 45 minutes late. The meeting place turns out to be a shit location, and we end up having to bust ass down the promenade to catch the ferry. So much for arriving early. At least the river cruise was nice.

I had the good fortune of experiencing racial discrimination again yesterday– yeah from my own Chinese peeps. John and I went into a 7-11 type store: John entered the store first, but I was only like 2 seconds behind him. I immediately approached the counter to pay my electric bill and the beotch of a cashier told me to wait. Why? Because John was heading towards the counter (where I already was) to make a purchase. Preferential treatment. I’m telling you: the whities got it good no matter where they go, whether they the majority or the minority. I then told her that he was with me, but it still didn’t make a difference. Still rang him up first. Fucker. She’s lucky I didn’t make a scene. Next time though, she gonna get it…