Postings from ASU's Music Library.

A continuation of my collection of individual narratives from the past week or so. I suspect this will be a regular format I'll use from now on.

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Parental wounds

Ever heard of attachment theory? It posits that the upbringing of an individual can be significant in shaping their adult experiences and the way they behave. Sure, people intuitively know that to be true, but far too often, they don't spend the time to address the small issues until it's too late, and their behaviour becomes destructive.

I contemplate my own upbringing. It wasn't particularly traumatic by any stretch of the imagination, and I find that my parental relations are, for the most part, in a healthy place.

With that said, I am now living with my uncle and aunt, and they are very much functioning as my adoptive parents, since I'm not fully independent as of now, relying on their generosity in hosting me while I conduct my studies in the US.

The dynamic between myself and them is an interesting one to say the least. With my uncle, it's actually not bad at all. It's my interaction with my aunt that does give rise to a sense of anxiety.

It's not particularly bad, but it's just there, a little bit more work to navigate through, that's all. I suppose I'll elaborate in my next narrative chunk.

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When your mum is your aunt

You may think the title refers to my current situation. Well, in a way it is an indirect reference, but I'm actually thinking more about the (now probably archaic) Chinese family habit of raising one's children to refer to themselves not as parent, but as uncle and aunt.

Apparently the purpose of this practice is to create a deliberate distance between child and parent, the rationale behind being that many Chinese families in the past see affection and attachment as an impractical aspect to the family dynamic, where duty and hierarchy are more important. Of course, by our modern understanding of parenthood, this could be seen as quite counter-intuitive, and somewhat cruel.

Personally, I'm not quite on board with said approach, yet it is what it is, and it had its place in a world that was recovering from WWII. Thankfully nowadays, most families don't practice this anymore, but the remnants of said habit is still present in the older generation.

In fact, the whole reason why I thought about it is because the lady owner of the Malaysian restaurant that I'm currently helping out still refers to her mum as aunt. Actually, my father and his siblings used to refer to my grandma as their aunt as well, and it only changed in recent years when my grandma mellowed down and decided to connect with her kids on a more emotional level.

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Mild tensions

On a somewhat related note, my aunt whom I'm currently staying with also came from a family that did the above. And to my limited understanding, her relationship with her own mother is lukewarm at best.

I guess that's why I'm feeling a bit of tension between myself and her. Here's the thing, I don't doubt that she has the best intentions, yet there were several instances where I felt put down, at least in the spur of the moment, and needing to put in the work to ruminate and try to understand why my aunt does what she does.

To elaborate, she can be quite nit-picky about the way I do things, and many times, the plans, the ideas I have, whatever I put on the table to discuss over dinner, is often met with critical questions and suggestions laced with a hint of condescension.

Now here's the thing. I understand the intention, I understand that it is a result of her own upbringing, and with some effort, I appreciate it. But all the same, it requires effort to internalise and understand that this is her way of expressing her concern, affection even.

Nonetheless, in the spur of the moment when it happens, it can feel quite disconcerting. And frankly, it can weigh down on me during bad days, and sometimes it triggers my shame, which I am recently realising is the main area of my struggle in terms of parental wounding, of which the details I've yet to properly hash out yet. I guess in due time, I will find a way to navigate this.

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Phoenix Zoo

I guess to segue this post, I want to write about some totally unrelated happenings to all the previous posts, more or less of a lighter nature.

I went to the zoo the past weekend, and it was fun a refreshing to say the least. I went with ASU English Corner, with the people I've been meeting for the past few months, and getting to have interesting conversations with them.


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Redeeming service

And after the fact, I went on to finish the day at the Malaysian restaurant, helping out the evening service. After last week's unsavoury experience, it was kind of nice to finish the evening strong with not too many complains or hiccups.

Being a little self-critical in saying this, but I thought it wasn't a very busy evening. With that said, the fact that I managed it well did still nurse a bit of the shame from last week's blunder.

If I may end on a rumination, I wonder how fair am I being towards myself. I messed up one table last week, but am I ignoring all the other tables that enjoyed my service? I ask this question with full of doubt, because it is all too easy to be dismissive towards my good performance, and just be utterly consumed by that one mistake. Seems like I can only be satisfied if I get through the evening without even a single issue, preferably if it were a busy evening.

Signs of being an unhealthy perfectionist? Perhaps.

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Sk8er Boy?

Too Zongxu, trying to learn how to ride a skateboard. Who would've thought?

As it is, I got myself a used longboard, supposedly one of the easier variant among skateboard types for a beginner to learn.

Hoping to use it eventually in my campus commute, given the distance I seem to be covering on average. A bicycle would be too bulky, and a kick scooter would be a little pricey.

Not to mention I lucked out on this longboard, got it at a pretty cheap price, and it turns out the board model itself is a pretty popular one, regularly being recommended for beginners, at least according to the skateboarding online community.

First ride over the weekend wasn't easy. I knew to expect that it will take some time to acquire the skills to ride one of these, but what I didn't expect is how physically demanding it can get just to stay balanced, I could feel my core muscles becoming sore by the end of the practice ride. Ah well, hopefully I won't take too long to get the basics down and start using it.