Great blog post

...From back in December '06, but it's still worth a read!

Two Phrases That Destroyed American Culture

'S been a while

Hello there -- it's been a while, hasn't it? I apologize for disappearing; classes kicked my ass last semester, but I managed to come out relatively unbruised with an average GPA of 3.6 for the term. :)

This story is shamelessly stolen from Angry Asian Man, but as it is...kind of relevant to this blog, I decided to post this here.

You heard about the story where a dumbass DC judge is suing a dry cleaning business for $54 million for lost pants, right?

Pearson v. Custom Cleaners: The Plaintiff Testifies

If I had $54 million in my pocket, I'd almost give it to Roy Pearson to end this thing. Pearson took the stand this afternoon in his trial against Custom Cleaners, and it wasn't exactly spellbinding.

Pearson went into seemingly every minute detail of life: his history of community service, his weight gain as a middle-aged man, his financial woes and his painful divorce. Even the opposing defense counsel was rubbing his eyes and suppressing yawns. But the judge let Pearson tell his story, taking occasional notes, always with a somewhat bemused expression on her face. I could almost see the thought bubble over her head: Take as much time as you need to orchestrate your circus. (Though if circuses were this slow, Barnum & Bailey would be out of business.)

Then, just before 3:30, Roy L. Pearson broke down, appeared to almost cry, and quickly requested a break. Would it be heartless to ask whether he had been bored to tears?

I gotta say, this stuff is a bit more fun to read about than the Paris Hilton bullshit.

Hanoi!

I'm taking a break (if you haven't noticed) to travel and teach English in Hanoi, which is where I'm blogging from right now. It's a great place -- crowded and traffic-heavy, definitely, but with nice people and interesting places to visit. I think I'm finally starting to get used to the heat...

See you in a few weeks!

An open letter to all obnoxious customers

Yes, it annoys me when you talk to me like I don't understand English. It also annoys me when you treat my boss, who is 50-something years old, like a child. I'm not sorry I glared at you and didn't smile. Also, don't ignore us if we're saying something to you. We're not speaking gibberish; we obviously are trying to tell you something, so it's rude to not acknowledge that.

To the suburbanites of all (mostly white) races --
Please stop freaking out and yelling at me over the phone because you're a missing pint of rice or one egg roll. It only takes us a second or two to give you your money back. The working class customers understand that we make mistakes from time to time, because -- gasp! They've actually worked at a shit job before in their lives instead of mooching money off of their rich-ass parents (maybe that's why they give us decent tips).

Oh yeah. I'd appreciate it immensely if you bitchy vegan/vegetarians don't come here anymore. Why do you always assume that we know you're vegetarian and complain when we put in our regular dumplings instead of the vegetarian ones? We're a CHINESE RESTAURANT, not a New Age-vegan-Thai food joint. 99.9% of the people who come here order meat. You have to tell us if you want vegetarian dumplings.

And...for you who are obese -- and I mean the really obese ones, not the bigger-boned people -- please do NOT try to squeeze into our regular-sized booths. They're obviously too small for your elephant-sized bum, so stop trying to lodge yourselves in and obstruct the walkways. We don't care if you want to eat here until you have a heart attack. We do care, however, if you're in the way of our other customers or our waitress.

I have to deal with people like you every time I work at my restaurant. Can't you -- uh, you know, stop acting like children and start acting like the adults you are?
It's getting old.


Love,
The Takeout Wench (who is not Chinese, but actually Japanese-American).

Ramblings from a week ago.

I was reading Metro while waiting for more takeout orders to be phoned in. An article caught my attention: "More 9/11 Remains Found".
Nearly 300 bone fragments have been found on the roof of the Deutsche bank, which is in the process of being demolished. It's strange how it sounds like the whole process is an archaeological discovery; maybe it's a sign that the memories are finally fading and the wounds are healing. That's probably a good thing; it's natural for us to heal from traumatic experiences and move on, and it's probably more harmful to hold on to the pain we all felt that day.

So movies like United 93 don't appeal too much to me. In fact, I just find the idea of people cashing in on a movie about 9/11 revolting. (However, I'm not going to deny the fact that I'm just biased like everyone else. Films like Hotel Rwanda and Munich didn't phase me so much, and frankly, nor did events like the London bombings or even the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo incident. Things like that happen often around the world, and if it doesn't directly affect me, I just feel awful for a few minutes and then move on with my life.)

A few of our customers also seemed to feel that way -- a group of middle-aged men, clearly drunk, were discussing their dissatisfaction with the movie's release rather loudly. "They've got no respect," one of them was saying, while the other guys were murmuring their agreement. "I knew three of the guys that died, man. They're not gonna want some asshole in Hollywood to make a movie about how tragic their deaths were. Think about their families, man. Nobody deserves that kind of disrespect."
He went on like that for a while, the topic of discussion eventually changing to his current work situation and his new baby.

An Introduction...

I decided to start up this little blog because I'm often times bored while waiting in between orders. Apart from the self-satisfaction, I thought it might provide people like you with a behind-the-counter perspective of what it's like to work at a small Chinese restaurant in the middle of suburban New Jersey.

It might not sound too exciting, but I guarantee you that it is. This is a place where overhearing things like "Go fuck yourself, I'm dying here!" is normal. If that's not good enough for you, think of all the blatant racist attitudes of the customers and the "ching-chong" jokes I have to sit through on a tri-weekly basis. It's a hellish place to work, and I'm going to be ranting about it. A LOT.

...Which, I must admit, is a lie. At least the second part is.
No, it's not so bad working here -- the pay is decent, the workers are nice, and there is no assembly line-like monotony that comes with a typical restaurant job. I do encounter racism often while working here, but it is usually nothing to get worked up over. When I was starting out here, however, I would go home crying sometimes. I've gotten used to it since then, but sometimes I still come across racist attitudes that break my tough skin and make me actually talk back to the customers.

More on that later. Now, it's time for a belated introduction.

Hi. My name is Erika. I'm a college student who works on the side as a freelance graphic designer. None of those are interesting enough for me to make a whole blog about (nor do they have long waiting times when I can jot down my thoughts). I am Japanese-American.

I've been working here for almost three years now, but I never can get used to hearing so much Cantonese at once, or the plethora of colorful, cheesy Hard Rock Cafe shirts and the enormous bellies of the customers. My relationship with my bosses and co-workers are awkward because I can't speak Chinese and they can only speak minimal amounts of English.
The only thing I'm used to is my job -- taking phone orders, lifting heavy bags of food and bringing them out of the hot, steam-filled kitchen. It's not fun, but it's not horrible, either. I've changed a lot as a person because I started working here. Before my job I was a total introvert who couldn't hold conversations to save her life. Since then I've learned to hold long conversations and make small talk -- and I even learned to flirt better.

So all in all, working here is not too bad. I'll post the second part of my long essay later.