Monday, October 13, 2014

Different Kinds of Blessings

We are all blessed differently. Here are some of those blessings ;)

1. Ignorance. To not care about anything around you but yourself.
2. To be the joker and can always make other people laugh out loud with your silliness without trying too hard.
3. To eat a lot, and I mean A LOT and still the skinniest among your friends.
4. Never needed a filling all your life while you only brush your teeth once a day.
5. A morning person.
6. To be able to sleep through the night while your roommates wake up in the middle of the night to all sorts of noise I.e. party next door or helicopter flying over your roof.
7. To do "number 2" anytime per required.
8. Fall asleep anywhere anytime.
9. Winning random competitions.
10. The ability to say nice words when your friend is in trouble or upset.
11. Good in gambling.
12. Being a magnet to everyone. I.e. when meeting someone new, you are the one that always gets approached by the newbie.
13. To get boyfriend/girlfriend easily. I don't know if this is a blessing or not, depends I guess? But sure is handy.
14. Almost 30 but still looks like a uni student.
15. To bake things you never made before and almost never fails.

16. Kids love you. I don't know if you're lucky that kids always love you, or if you are actually good with kids.

17. The ability to find a bargain, and I mean ridiculously cheap bargain.

18. Having amazing skin without even bother to wash your face twice a day.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure I missed 2 at least, but can't remember. Will update when I remember it :)

So, which one are you? And which one do you think is mine? :)

Thursday, October 9, 2014

One Thing You Learn Living Overseas

I found this shared by my friend on Facebook, and it pretty much sums up the way we, who live overseas, think.

"Living abroad makes me change the way I see people
You smoke? cool. You don't smoke? okay
You drink? cool. You don't drink? Let's grab coffee.
You are not virgin? cool. You are virgin? great!
You wear short skirts, crop tee, dye your hair green? cool. You dress casually? nevermind.
You kiss your date in public? so what. You don't kiss them? not my business.
You get tattoo? well done. You hate tattoo? no probs.

Sometimes we have to mind our own business instead of judging and talking bad about people. You don't pay their living anyway, so what makes you think you can bad mouthing them?"

All those are true to us. We don't really care if you do or do not do all those. And we don't straight away decide oh, you have tattoos, so you are a bad person. Or, you drink, so you must be a drunk and use drugs.

To people living in our home country, they might think we are already ruined by western way of thinking, becoming individualists, arrogant, and simply bad. Well, to us, you are shallow, judging and don't have the ability or even maybe do not want to think. 

Take my friend as an example. She is over 30 years old and still single. If she goes home to Vietnam, everyone asks her "When are you going to get married?". Even her mum forced her to go meet this 40 years old man, to see if they have a chance to date. On that first meeting, that guy asked her "So, you live overseas, so you go to pubs and drink?". To which she replied, "That's the habit in Australia. People go out to pub with friends and have a drink or two. Nothing's wrong with that!". To tell you the truth, she is not a pub girl. True, we all here drink, but doesn't mean we do it regularly or are addicted to it. It's just a once in a while thing. And that guy, without getting to know her better, already judged her and believed that she goes out partying and who knows what else. People say the older you are, the wiser you become. Well, not in that guy's case. He's over 40 but still can't put himself in other people's shoes.

I experienced it myself when I went back to Indo. Once I went with my dad to his music club (It's a traditional Chinese music group, they play erhu, mandolin, flute, zither, yangqing, and other musical instruments). My mum was not feeling well, and she was worried my dad would be sleepy if nobody keeps him company when driving, so I went instead. Then, this old woman, my dad's music club mate, looked at me from head to toe, back to head again, and said to my dad in Mandarin, "Your daughter? Still not married?? She's past 25-26 already, isn't it???". Excuse me????? It's NONE of YOUR effing business!! If it wasn't for my dad, I would have scolded her back. 

That's the thing with Asian country, so much of the so called manner I.e. don't fight with elders, don't talk back to elders bla bla -_- which clearly gives the upper hand to the so called "elders". If we get upset, or annoyed bcoz of what they say, they say we have bad temper. If we talk back or increase our voice just a bit, they say we have no manners. If we defend ourselves, they say "No wonder, she's been living overseas for too long".

Seems like she likes judging people, so let me judge her then! That old lady, if you ask me, is no better than me anyway. She is OLD and already has grandchildren, let me repeat, GRANDCHILDREN! But she comes to the music club in obsessive make up and dressed like she is going to the Melbourne Cup Racing, also with 10 cm high heels. Lady, aren't you suppose to take care of your feet at that age? Also, she is a Chinese descendant living in Indo for all her life, yet, she can't speak a single word in Indo! Now talk about ignorance!

When I saw that post on Facebook, it reminded me of a conversation I had with my friend here. And she just told me that it reminded her of that too. That time her sister had just gave birth to a baby girl, and posted the photos on Facebook. Then this friend, who hasn't contacted her since they were in high school, started chatting to her on Facebook. She asked her all those questions about ANYTHING! About her baby and her sister's baby, I.e. are they or have they been baptized, where will they be baptized, what kind of mobile phones they have and then... What kind of contraceptive does she use -.- talking about kaypoh to the max -.- and please remember that they haven't talked to each other since like.. 10++ years ago.

So yep, back to the post I shared of Facebook, living overseas teaches us to be more considerate towards others. To know our place. To try to understand the other side of the story. To care, but not being busybodies. To ask a question, and know to stop pressing when the other party does not want to answer. To be close, but still giving people their space. When we see someone is upset, we learn to give them time when they are not ready to talk, but still watching over them and letting them know we will always be there when they are finally ready to talk. That to me, definitely is a good thing.