little. yellow. different. » fremont

Pack Day

ernie — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 07:29:35 +0000

Tomorrow is the big move to San Francisco. Today was pack day, or at the very least, “pack as much as you can that isn’t tied down” day. As a result, my mother is spending the night, mostly due to a combination of her wanting to help and Asian parental obligation and child obligation to let the parental unit guilt the child into moving far, far away from said parents. If “far, far away” meant, like, a 35 minute drive.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m totally grateful for her being here – I hate packing and moving with every fiber of my soul. The fact that I’ve hired movers to actually do the grunt work for the first time ever says a lot for the fact that I’m willing to pay money out of my pocket to make the moving process that much easier. But packing is a necessary evil, and my Mom, bless her heart, is here to help me out, and crack the whip and constantly brew pots of tea – even if it means having Taiwanese commercials for the SAT in the background and her rummaging through my photographs, wondering if every girl in the photograph could have been “the one.”

That doesn’t mean she’s not driving me crazy. (Mandarin in italics.)

Mom: Why did you throw this away? (Holds up an old shirt that hasn’t been worn since 1997 that was lying in the throwaway pile. It might as well have the Cross-Colours logo on it.)
Me: Because I haven’t worn this since college.
Mom: But it’s warm.
Me: I haven’t worn it, Mom.
Mom: But it’s warm. San Francisco is colder than Fremont up there. SO COLD!!
Me: Ma, I’m not going to wear it.
Mom: …
Me: …
Mom: I’m packing it back in.
Me: Fine.

You know how some people use moves as an opportunity to purge stuff? Somehow, I get the feeling I’m going to end up with more items than I started.

Mom: What’s this?
Me: It’s a business card holder.
Mom: So what is this inside?
Me: It’s a gift certificate card for Coldstone.
Mom: Coldstone?
Me: Ice cream.
Mom: ICE CREAM? WHY ARE YOU EATING ICE CREAM? ICE CREAM GETS YOU FAT.
Me: Mom, I haven’t eaten any ice cream. That’s why I still have the card.
Mom: Then why do you have the card?
Me: It was a gift from a co-worker.
Mom: Some gift! Those Americans, they’re always eating their ice cream. Whenever they’re sending you things like this you just tell them that you don’t need something like this!

[cut to an awkward, imaginary date]
Cute guy: Hey.. I know we barely know each other, but I figured I should send you something, so I got you… this. I know it’s not much, but…
Ernie: Ohmygod, that’s totally sweet of y- oh.
Cute guy: “Oh?”
Ernie: It’s a gift certificate for Coldstone. You see, my mom always mentions that “your people” always eat ice cream, and really, ice cream gets me fat, so, uhm, yeah. No.
CG: …
Ernie: …

Me: Okay, Mom. I’ll do that.
Mom: Hmph!

Why the Fremont, CA Sweet Tomatoes has so many Asian People

ernie — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 08:09:52 +0000

It’s a buffet. And we all know that Asians LOVE a buffet, never mind that you’re paying $12 for soup and salad – you can eat AS MUCH AS YOU WANT! It’s like being in Reno, without the gambling! And in the case of my mother, you can also grab a sweet potato, wrap it in two or three napkins, and stuff it in your purse when no one is looking.
(Note that while the local Hometown Buffet also offers a buffet selection, that’s just gross.)
The Big Chunk Chicken Noodle Soup. It’s broth based and it only has two things in it: noodles and chicken. You know this is the cheapest soup for them to make (boil the fuck out of a chicken, add noodles, make profit) and yet there is always a huge line of Chinese people, fighting over the soup – it’s like it’s laced with opium or something.
As a side note, there was one time when Sweet Tomatoes announced a new item: “Asian Ginger Soup.” It even had a red sign with the Chinese character for PROSPERITY next to it, just to show how prosperous the soup was. No one ate it, and it was quickly cycled off the menu.
No dessert. Well, okay, not true; they have soft serve ice cream, orange and melon slices and a bowl of green jello and if you’re lucky, sugar-free chocolate pudding. But compared to the cake and pie warehouse that is Hometown Buffet, they barely offer anything sweet at all. I think Asian people just gravitate towards eating establishments where they don’t serve things that delight children.

an open letter to the city of fremont, ca

ernie — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 10:24:10 +0000

Dear Fremont, CA:

Though a series of circumstances, most of them directly out of my control, I have been living in your fair city, on and off, for the past two or three years or so. Therefore, I think I have a right to make any judgments and opinions about you. And that assessment is this:

You totally fucking suck.

Too harsh, you say? Perhaps. Your high density of Chinese-Americans attracted my parents to move to your city. And they, in turn, convinced me to purchase a condo here, in part due to cheaper housing in the Bay Area, but mostly due to that little-known-to-white-people thing known as “Asian familial responsibility.” So I’m stuck here, if only temporarily.

Why yes, I HAVE read up on the history of your city; enough to know that it was a small enclave of five former townships, each with a distinct community and personality of its own. Then in 1956, someone had a bright idea to merge these towns into the immense suckitude that is Fremont, California.

You don’t have a downtown so much as a series of attached strip malls. I am walking distance from at least five franchised fast food restaurants, staffed by a plethora of Indian and Taiwanese families, eager to pursue the American dream. Which would be great, if my version of “fine dining” was Quizno’s. When your fair city was planned, was your idea of “night life” for people to drive 20 minutes south to San Jose? And don’t get me started on what it’s like to live as a single gay person living in Fremont. If the only option of gay life here is anonymous sex with strangers in the bushes of Niles Canyon, let’s just say that I have a gut feeling that I will be single for a very long time. A. Very. Long. Time.

Oh yeah, and you being the new home to the Oakland A’s? I live in Fremont, and even I think it’s a bad idea. You know that YouTube video where those guys protest the A’s move by ghostriding their Volvo? The part where they say that Fremont is “a parking lot with a mayor?” Yep. Totally agree.

In conclusion: your city sucks and I want to move somewhere with gay people my age. Hell, I’ll settle for people my age. And a restaurant that isn’t a Carl’s Jr, because I’m SO fucking tired of eating cheeseburgers with onion rings in them. That is all.

- Ernie

PS: Okay, the fact that there is a Fry’s isn’t horrible. But it doesn’t have a cool Egyptian motif like the Fry’s in Campbell. The mere fact that Campbell is infinitely cooler than another city says a LOT.

why i hate my name. again.

ernie — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 07:18:42 +0000

(The scene: Chaat Cafe, last night. I’m at the counter with my boyfriend, ordering dinner. This time, instead of italics being in Chinese like in previous posts, italics signify a heavy, heavy Indian accent.)

Ernie: Hi, one chicken pesto stuffed naan and a chicken tikka dinner please, to go.
Woman at the counter: Okay. What’s your name?
Ernie: Ernie.
Woman: What?
Ernie: Ernie.
Woman: Ornie?
Ernie: Ernie.
Woman: ORRNIE? [flashes Ernie a dirty look]
Ernie: … yes.
Woman: Hrm. [writes my name down, hands it to chef]

After paying with my credit card, I open up my wallet and look for some cash to put in the tip jar. Since I only have bills above $10, I decide I’m not that generous and put my wallet back in my pants, only for the woman cashier to notice and give yet another glare of death. “I think she hates me,” I say to Mike.

So, I’m sitting in one of the benches marked for to-go customers, taking in the ambiance; there are framed pictures of Bollywood stars, and the restaurant is still filled with mostly Indian patrons, a promising sign of knowing whether the restaurant is going to be good or not. (As opposed to a restaurant that has a name like, say, “Rick and Mollys House of Sushi.” Right?) Although I find it funny that the Indian chef calls out for the name “Horny” for a to-go order. What kind of Indian name is Horny?

The chef repeats the name again. “HORNY?” on the giant microphone. Except this time he is looking straight at me.

Now at this point, I’m not necessarily thinking he’s trying to say the word “horny” – I’m thinking the cashier wrote the name “Ornie” and he’s just pronouncing the name a little differently because he’s not from America and it’s like the game Telephone, when you sit around a circle with your 12-year old friends and you giggle as the phrase “The love of Jesus surrounds me” turns into “I fucked arugula on a pony,” so I’m telling myself that it’s cool, no harm, no foul.

And only THEN do I look down on the receipt. And there under the order, written in large letter with a giant BIC pen, do I see my name spelled the following way:

H-O-R-N-E-Y.

I look over to the cashier in horror. She’s helping another customer, oblivious.

Let’s stop time right here. At that moment, I figure I could do one of two things: Mike hasn’t seen the receipt yet. I can grab the dinner and run, run for Mexico where no one will ever know about this somewhat awkard moment and live my life in semi-anonymity with sea lions and Tijuana hookers. Or, I could tell Mike and he could give me shit for the rest of the night.

Eh, what the fuck. It’s blog-fodder.

Ernie, to Mike: (look at the receipt. look what she wrote as my…)
Mike: HOLY SHIT!

(Ernie and Mike run out of Chaat Cafe, hoping the chef doesn’t do anything embarassing, like holding up a can of soda and screaming “HORNY, YOU FORGOT YOUR DRINK” while 30 Indians point and laugh)

At least the chicken tikka dinner was delcious. All it cost was a couple of dollars and MY SOUL.