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humansofhanoi · 3 years

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Gia đình mình chẳng khá giả gì đôi lúc còn khó khăn. Mình là em út trong nhà. Mọi người nhìn vào cứ nghĩ là mình sướng vì được 2 anh rồi ba mẹ chiều. Nhưng là người trong cuộc mới có thể hiểu rõ. Mẹ mình hồi đấy đẻ cố cho ra cô con gái chỉ đáng tiếc thay là mẹ với mình không hợp nhau. Mẹ mình ghê gớm lắm! Vì vốn cũng là dân chợ, bố mình thì hiền khô nên lời mẹ nói luôn đúng. Mẹ mình hợp tính ông anh hai nên chiều ông ý lắm. Giặt quần áo, lo cơm nước các kiểu. Dù nhiều lúc mẹ có giận ông ý đến mấy cũng không có to tiếng, chửi bới ổng đâu mà sẽ là đổ lên đầu mình xả tức. Thực sự mẹ rất phân biệt mình với ông ý. Mẹ cũng rất làm hay nói những điều làm tổn thương mình mà không cần quan tâm. Nhiều lúc lời nói có tính sát thương cao rất lớn so với hành động. Mẹ chửi mình nhiều lắm. Chửi kiểu thoá mạ, làm nhục ý. Con đĩ có, không bằng con đĩ có, nghiệp chướng có, máu lạnh có, con chó có, "mày không nên được sinh ra" cũng có... Mẹ mình nhiều lúc chỉ nói rằng mình là con của ba thôi. Mẹ mình cũng hay bắt bẻ. Học hay không học, không làm theo ý mẹ là mẹ mình chửi ngay. Mẹ khiến mình cảm thấy những cố gắng của mình đều chả là gì. Mình vẫn còn nhớ hồi mình thi trượt cấp 3. Đó là một cú sốc rất lớn đối với mình vậy mà bên cạnh mình lúc đó không hề có một ai. Mẹ mình còn ra sức đổ lỗi cho mình. Và mình đã trầm cảm. Mình thu mình lại, không nói chuyện với ai, chỉ khóc. Mình tuyệt vọng đến mức tự cấu xé bản thân, dùng kéo rạch tay, đập đầu vào tường chỉ để cảm thấy được giải thoát đôi chút. Nếu như lần đó không có chị dâu lớn của mình thì vài ngày sau có lẽ mình đã "giải thoát" cuộc đời bằng lọ thuốc ngủ. Nhiều lúc mình cảm thấy bị tổn thương đến mức chỉ cắn răng mà chịu đựng không thì sẽ khóc trong phòng vệ sinh để không ai biết. Đối với mình giờ đây, nhà không còn là tổ ấm mà chính là địa ngục. Có nhiều người bảo mình là hãy cố nói chuyện với mẹ nhưng mình đã thử rất nhiều lần và kết quả đều là không được. Mình bất lực. Mình chỉ có thể tiếp tục gồng mình để chống chọi được mọi thứ đang xảy ra, để mạnh mẹ tự vực dậy bản thân khi đã quá đỗi mệt mỏi. Mình cũng trách mẹ mình nhiều lắm nhưng mà mình biết dù thế nào thì mẹ vẫn là mẹ mình. Mình biết mẹ yêu mình nhưng dường như mẹ đã yêu sai cách mất rồi. Tình yêu đó đã bị lệch lạc trong suy nghĩ của bản thân. Tình yêu đó khiến mình cảm giác như bị phân biệt đối xử, bị coi chẳng ra gì. Tình yêu đó đã mang thêm cả sự tức giận lẫn ức chế của mẹ mà đổ lên đầu mình. Không có một đứa con nào mà không yêu mẹ mình cả nhưng cũng không có một ai muốn mình bị chính người mình thương yêu nhất làm tổn thương từ lần này sang lần khác... . My family is not well-off, not to say hard up sometimes. I was the youngest child in the family, making people think that I am lucky as my brothers and parents must spoil me very much. But there are things that outsiders could never understand. Back then, my mom was under pressure to have a daughter. Unfortunately, I’m not the kind of daughter who gets on well with her mom. She’s very grumpy, as she used to be a vendor. My dad is very laid-back, so mom is always right! She gets along very well with my brothers and spoils them very much. She does all the washing and cooking. Even when she gets mad, she never chews them out. Instead, she will take it out on me. She is always saying things that hurt me without giving a toss. You know, words are much more brutal than actions. She even humiliates and curses at me like “bitch,” “worse than a bitch,” “my bad karma,” “cold-blooded,” “dog,” “you shouldn’t have been born,”... She often says that I’m my father’s daughter, not hers. She is very nitpicking and always finding faults with everything I do. She makes me feel all my effort meaningless. I still remember the time when I failed the high school entrance exam. That came as a great shock to me but I couldn’t find someone to fall back on. My mom kept blaming it on me, making me have major depression. I just kept to myself and cried. I was so depressed that I harmed myself, cut my wrist, banged my head against the wall just to feel relieved. Without my sister-in-law, I would have “released myself” with a jar of sleeping pills some days later. I feel hurt many times but I had to grin and bear it or cry in the toilet so that nobody knows. To me, home is no longer a shelter, but rather hell! Many people have told me to talk to my mom. And I tried in vain. It couldn’t be helped. I have to move on and cope with all these things and to lift my spirits up when I’m exhausted. It’s her fault but whatever happens, she is still my mom. I know that she loves me but in a wrong way. To me, that love has been distorted. It makes me feel like being discriminated and mistreated. It comes with all the frustrations that she has taken out on me. No kid in the world hates their mom, but none of them wants to be hurt again and again by their loved ones...

#humansofhanoi #hohn #hanoi #vietnam

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themountainsays · 4 years

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It's clear Anna and Elsa have loved each other since ALWAYS, because they grew up together (partially), and I've seen a lot of fics develop their romantic relationship from that point, their feelings evolving towards that direction.

But i wonder, if they didn't know each other, what would they find attractive about the other? What would first attract them to each other? What would make them love each other? Because non-familial love is always conditional (as all healthy non-familial love is), so there must be a reason for them to love each other. Shared experience and the gradual development of a bond is a great answer but I'm thinking more about the particular personality traits, for lack of a better word, that make them want to spend time together or even like each other at all.

I can very easily see why someone would be attracted to Anna because ngl she's pretty much my type. Funny, energetic, idealistic, a heart full of love and kindness and courage. Not afraid to get dirty or engage in risky physically activity. I think what I admire the most about her was her willingness to do the right thing, no matter how painful. Watching her try to destroy her own home simply because it was the correct thing to do sent chills down my spine because thats exactly what I admire in a comrade. Someone willing to sacrifice individual happiness for the good of the community.

(Oof getting pretty lefty latina on main let's go back to frozen)

But for Elsa? I mean, most of her character development revolves around her powers and the trauma related to them. It's reached a point where it's impossible to tell where the powers end and Elsa begins. I do think this is intentional and it's not a bad writing decision, even I personally would rather explore who she is as a person and a human being in a way that doesn't revolve entirely around her powers and trauma.

I remember making a post about it? You can read it here and it's basically about how Elsa deserves better than becoming a norse godess: she deserves to he a normal woman among normal people. It makes more sense in the post go read it

So that's what i'm gonna try to do! As you can see no structure no essay only unorganized thoughts posted in tumbrl dot com for everyone to disagree with

I mean from canon we Uuuh well this is going to sound like a no brainer but Elsa is a very careful person. With other people not with herself lmao but you can see in every scene with how much care she treats others. This is usually physical care, because she was raised to believe emotions didn't matter and physical safety was the most important thing, and this is why she repeately ends up hurting people's feelings, all in an attempt to keep then physically safe (rejecting Anna at the party TWICE, both events clearly hurting both. Sending Anna away on the canoe (NOT A KAYAK), which again is painful for both sisters). But if you look at the bigger picture you can observe there's much more than that. From the beginning she spoils her little sister and takes care of her as kids, and through Frozen Fever she cranks up the spoiling to eleven, because she actually loves to see Anna happy. It's very painful for Elsa to reject her. You can see it at the party and during the canoe scene. Actually she loves to see EVERYONE happy. At the end of Frozen i, during OFA and at the beginning of frozen ii she spends time with her people literally making toys for children like fucking Santa Claus, creating an ice skating rink in her own backyard and organizing a fest for everyone to eat for fucking free (two fests, actually. maybe three? Can't remember) i mean what kind of queen does this?? She's way too nice. Even when people are trying to kill her her first reaction is to beg them to stay away so she won't hurt them. She makes it clear she's hiding in the mountains not because she's scared of being hurt (WHICH IS WHAT GRAND PABBIE PREDICTED WOULD HAPPEN). She's hiding because she doesn't want to cause harm. She's trying to fucking protect the people who want to kill her. In frozen ii her first reaction to seeing the tiny dragon is trapped is to offer him a hand and play with him because she's just that nice. She later cuddles a baby reindeer. Oh and in FF she's being mom friend on main by mothering kristoff and olaf as well. Remember she bought him a new sledge and invented a whole new job for him when she could do it herself with her magic? Now she's wiping the paint from his face. You know, like a mom. She even does it in thay gross mom way, licking her thumb and smearing the saliva all over ew ew my mom did that every time i got food on my face its gross. I wonder how kristoff didn't get a cold too that shit's contagious. Anyways, conclussion: while i think her desire to protect people was exacerbated by her trauma, i do think she always had it on her. She likes making people happy. She makes fucking toys for children is she a queen or a toy factory. She likes to spoil everyone around her. And I think this is partially because she wants people to like her. You can see how much it hurts her when people think badly of her ("you only know how to shut people out"). Later, seeing her people scared of her is what makes her run away. Hans telling her not to be the monster everyone thinks she is is what stops her and snaps her back into reality. No one likes to be disliked, but I think Elsa is particularly sensitive to this. And you can see her at her happiest in two different situations:

When she's being loved and cherished by her people (with Anna by her side)

And when she's free and in the wild.

Which leads me to my second point: Elsa is a horse girl

Ok but apart from being a horse girl you can see she... really enjoys being outside, and being free, and exploring the unknown. I'm thinking about LIG, SY and in part yeah ITU. She seems to actually enjoy physical activity like running and probably also hiking? Being away from society seems to be very stimulating for her which, first of all same. If i could live in a glacier i would i completely understand her choice because that's every girl's dream: live in the ice AND study history all day. What else could you possibly want? This is actually when she's at her highest energy. Being introverted doesn't mean you have low energy it doesn't mean jack shit which is why I think I can safely say Elsa is a kinda high energy person actually. Particularly when she's happy (hello??? Frozen Fever??), and what seems to bring the most excitement to her is to be outdoors and in nature. You know like a horse girl. She sings and dances and she's a huge dork who likes to play in the snow and ride horses and sleep on moving sledges and cuddle smelly baby reindeer and climb mountains. It does take her a bit to come out of her shell tho. You can see how stiff she is during the charades scene. But by the end of Frozen i she's dancing with her sister in the ice, surrounded by the entire kingdom.

Shes highly sensitive too. Like I mean this is a no brainer. And her lack of emotional intelligence doesn't help. But if you focus more on how strongly she feels and less on how little control she has over her emotions in frozen i at least you can appreciate how kind her heart is. Did i mention she makes toys for random kids like santa claus? But seriously, she doesn't have a mean spirited bone in her body. Apart from making Anna dance with the duke of weaselton (Oooh mischevious little shit). She's ALWAYS feeling things and VERY STRONGLY. ALL THE TIME. Its like she doesn't have a neutral mode. She's either crying of happiness and dancing like a hippie or having a mental breakdown. I can only imagine she experiences love, wonder, tenderness, care, excitement, indignation, surprise, grief... all so intensely. Her view of the world must be through a filter of constant emotion. When everything elicits such a strong reaction in her heart, she must experience the world in a very special way.

She's also an architecture nerd. She made a whole ice castle by herself in like a minute. Which means she's also a math nerd. She likes geography and physics. This is canon. She built a castle by herself.

She also giggles when awkward or nervous or maybe embarassed (but not scared) (sources, FF, that scene when kai startles her and she freezes her own hands).

Now i'm thinking about about a very famous architect visiting Arendelle and the mighty legendary ice queen giggling like a little girl and fiddling with her hands as she's organizing the welcome and making sure everything is PERFECT because she's going to meet someone she admires. See? Can you picture that scene? Yeah that has more personality than some of her scenes in f2

Oh right and she's also a hardcore perfectionist. She has high standards for herself and she gets frustrated and dissapointed if she can't meet them. Observe how she doesn't hold anyone but herself to these standards. Just look at the first scene in FF, how much pressure she puts in herself to make the PERFECT CAKE DECORATION but she's more accepting of Kristoff and Olaf's imperfections.

Kinda delving into headcanon territory but remember that comic with Anna separating all the blue M&Ms bc she knows those are Elsa's favorite so she can eat them all in front of her as revenge for shutting her out, and Elsa is having a philosophical breakdown at 8 in her room and Anna angrily eating all the blue M&Ms snaps her back into reality? Yep that's her. Elsa thinks too much. But she gets stuck in her ideas and doesn't end up doing anything unless she's pushed to it. Compare to Anna, who might be less thoughtful but more active, coming up with plans and solutions on the spot (not all of which are good but at least they're SOMETHING) while Elsa philosophizes too much and ends up doing nothing. But the scene that made me think of this was when, after her parents tell her the story of the magic forest, Anna goes "that was EPIC" while Elsa looks down and very quietly she asks what happened to the forest and Ahtohallan yep that's bc she thinks too much and also she's an enneagram 6

Speaking of which if i had to type i think her tritype would be... 6w7, 1w2, 5w4? In that order. Yep she's a 6w7 like Rapunzel. I thought about typying her as a 6w5 but i think her 5 wing comes out the most when she's repressing herself and hiding and concealing and not feeling and all that shit. When she's free and happy she's acting much more like a 7. Whoever said Anna is a 6 and Elsa is a 4 can get out of my blog bc Anna is clearly a 2. Probably. I think. No 6 would throw a snowball at marshmallow. I do think it's somewhere in her tritype considering frozen ii tho. Too much enneagram bullshit. To the conclussion:

Conclussion: these are some of the reasons why someone (including Anna) could fall in love with Elsa. In the movie Anna loves Elsa bc she's her sister but if her love was conditional, like most healthy love is, i think these could be the reasons why she would love her, platonically or romantically. Basically she's too nice, was probably be the kindest and most sensitive queen ever, and she's a nerd, and she's a horse girl, and she giggles when nervous (v important). And also she's a perfectionist.

#don't mind me i'm just rambling and thinking about my fic over here #maybe half of thse are headcanons maybe not who knows definitely not me #i wrote this at uuuuh 6 am but like at night bc i didnt sleep #frozen #elsa #character analysis if you squint

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writinginthesecrettrees · 5 years

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It’s my birthday.

I hate my birthday.

I’ve been sitting here, trying to think of a good one, and I think the best might have been in 1983, when I was born. All downhill from there. I’m gonna write a bit about my birthdays over the years. It’s long. It’s really just for me.

Because my birthday has never actually been mine, you see. My birthday has always been about other people. What my mom thought would be fun, and never mind if I wanted to invite the neighbor to my party and never mind that he’s mean to me, we have to be nice. It’s what good neighbors do. Or the year that none of my friends came to my party. That’s a fun high school memory.

Or the year that my high school had a dance on my birthday. Freshman year, and I thought “Hey, let’s just do that,” and went with my best friend. Unfortunately, my ex-boyfriend (we “went out” for about a month before I realized that, while I liked talking to him and we had some shared interests, I wasn’t attracted to him) decided that my birthday was the day to try and get back together with me. I didn’t know how to handle it, so my friend and I went into the locker room (dances in the school gym, locker rooms available for restroom purposes) and hung out there until a teacher asked us what was going on. Because he was right outside, and standing there until I would talk to him. She went out and told him he had to leave us alone.

He spent the weekend sending me really scary emails. Like, 10 to 20 a day. When I went to school on Monday, he was still sending them. Subject lines like “IF YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SCARED AT THE DANCE...” I didn’t know what to do, I’d never dealt with something like that. Luckily, I was a TA first period, for a teacher with a free period (Dr. B, I still love you!). I told her what was going on, showed her the emails. He was still sending at that moment, because his first period class was Internet which was an actual class at my school in 1998 where we made hotmail accounts and built angelfire webpages.

So Dr. B printed out my inbox, just the inbox with the subject lines and showing how many emails I had received just that morning, and took it to the VP in charge of security (our school had four VPs). Ex-boyfriend got called out of class, had a talk with the VP, campus security, the actual police, and, worst of all, his mother. He didn’t bother me after that. But it’s still a wonderful birthday memory.

Things got better after I stopped trying to have parties, but it lets the real crap stand out more. Like the way that people I don’t speak to, who don’t speak to me, decide that my birthday is the day to feelings dump on me. I’m expected to answer their calls, or call them to thank them for the card or whatever, or else I’m the ungrateful spoiled brat.

I’m not gonna go into the friends who have vanished from my life, and me from theirs, who still pop up to say happy birthday on social media. I deleted Facebook, so that’s no longer an issue.

There’s my dad. My dad and mom divorced when I was three, and when I was six my mom got a restraining order and he lost visitation because of his habit of alcoholism and taking me six hours away and not bringing me home on time. I’ve actually got my mom’s old file of legal papers and letters to both my dad and grandma and their responses. So my dad was a deadbeat, and that sucks. Facebook let him find me again a while ago, so now he’s like a creepy jumpscare every birthday. Normal “Happy Birthday I love you” sorts of messages (paragraphs and paragraphs worth) but there’s a lot there that’s unresolved, and I get to have it all dragged up again every year. Happy birthday to me.

There’s also my stepdad. He’s basically been my dad since I was seven, and he actually adopted me when I was eleven. A while back, he decided that drugs, porn, and hookers are more fun than having a family, and skipped out. I actually tried to keep a relationship for a while. Then one year, maybe four years ago, I didn’t reach out on Christmas. And the holiday went by with no communication. And then his birthday went by, and mine, and Father’s Day, and Thanksgiving, and the next Christmas too. And suddenly it had been over a year and there had been zero contact. And that was nice.

Too nice to last, though. He popped up around his birthday (it’s in March) the next year. I ignored it, because I was really enjoying not having awkward dinners with him where he said stupid things and acted like it was deep, or awkward visits where I had to sit and look at over an hour of slideshows of his new family (they don’t speak English, he only speaks English, it’s very confusing to me), or look at his stupid rock collection that’s really the only thing he cares about.

He popped up on my birthday, too. “Wife and I would love to have you come over for dinner tonight” was pretty much the text I received, on my birthday, late afternoon. At the time, I lived about an hour’s drive away, two with traffic, and he knew that. He also knows that I hate last-minute plans, especially last minute plans that require me to drive over an hour to get to. Also, it being my birthday, I already had plans with my mom and sister. Yeah, the plans were just “get Thai food and watch Netflix,” but I’m BIG into the low-key birthday. And I was in the middle of a major depressive period at the time: I love baking, and I love making cakes and stuff, and I’d been planning on making some sort of fancy thing (one year I made lemon cake with orange blossom buttercream and candied orange slices to decorate, and it was gorgeous and delicious and I make good cake is my point) but I ended up just buying a cake that year. Which is rare.

So anyway, he pops up hoping to claim hours of my birthday at the last minute (also I hate his wife’s cooking), and I just ignored it. Went with my mom to get the food, and while we were waiting... Surprise! Stepdad and his wife walked into the exact restaurant we were in. He ducked down and pretended like he hadn’t seen us.

Awkward. Happy birthday to me.

Which brings us to this year. This year, and I’m already braced for impact, because stepdad emailed my mom about “What’s Kelly’s address so I can send her a birthday card? I’d ask her but she never answers me.”

Which is crap, because whenever he asks me an actual fucking question, I respond. I don’t respond immediately to pictures of his new puppy, or a baby flamingo that he thought looked funny, but “Hey, Kelly, what’s your address?” gets an answer right away. I know this, because:

Literally the last texts sent. Edited out the actual address, but that’s it. So literally the last time he texted me was to ask my address, and I immediately responded to that. And yeah - I didn’t respond when he said “love you” because I’ve got some issues with him. Like, went looking for a card to send him for his 60th birthday (milestone year, didn’t want to just ignore it) and I was very frustrated at the lack of “I don’t want to talk to you but I can’t ignore this birthday” cards. Hallmark, you’re missing a market there.

When I had to change my number, I let him know right away. Only reason I didn’t update him when I moved was because he’d never mailed me anything. Or visited. In the five years I was living there.

So now I get to look forward to a card for my birthday. Yay. And I know there’ll be an awkward call with his mom, my grandma to look forward to. It’s really hard having a relationship with her when I don’t have one with him, and when I have so much negativity towards him.

You know what, this has gotten way longer than I meant it to. I’m just gonna end it now.

Happy birthday to me. I hate my birthday. I’m maybe going offline for my birthday. And turning off my phone. I don’t want to deal with people today.

#daddy issues #about me #it's my birthday #which is never fun #ignore me #not spn

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kaileynel4-blog · 6 years

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You are all lucky SOB’s!!!

Alrighty, let’s dive right into the issue of my blog....my title is incorrect!!! Yes, this whole time I have had a title I did not mean to have. I mean, it doesn’t really make sense?!? Happiness is contagious, just like a sneeze??? So remember when I wrote my first blog post? The one where I deleted my entry 3 times?!?! So I think that is where my problem all started! I was so frustrated with the fact that I stupidly deleted my blog, that I stupidly wrote the wrong title!? I am not sure where the sneeze part came into play but I meant to say YAWN!! Yawns are contagious, not SNEEZES! Sweet jesus I’m an oblivious idiot sometimes. I think I am just gonna drop the sneeze part and just go with Happiness is Contagious. Sorry for all the confusion and head scratches along the way...I will say one thing though, it sure would have been nice if one of you told me!!! Just said “hey kailey, your title doesn’t make sense...sneezes aren’t contagious...” I blame 20% of this title mistake on you guys!

Anyways, the past few weeks have been a bit more challenging for me and continually learning the ups and downs of living abroad. I have been in Thailand for 5 months now and can’t believe it! Some days it feels like I’ve been gone forever and others like I just left last week. The amount of thinking through my emotions and listening to that little voice in my head, is much more than I anticipated. I am not much of an emotional person...I am not saying that I am heartless person or that I dont have emotions, I just don’t outwardly express them as much as others. So having to deal with these random thoughts and emotions is not my favorite thing to do. There are many ways to cope with your mental state of craziness. Currently, mine is exercise and coffee. Yes, coffee. I try to do some sort of physical activity everyday. It helps with all my anxiousness that I tend to have...sometimes I swear my attention span is like a 5 year olds. The “squirrel” situation happens to me more often than it should :) Coffee...oh the sweet sweet smell of good coffee. Drinking an iced cappuccino helps calm me and has become a comfort thing for me. It is a reminder of home but also brings back all the wonderful times I have had drinking coffee with my favorite people! I feel a sense of normalcy is brought to my not so normal life. I love the adventure that I am on but realized that it’s okay to want a bit of normalcy and miss some comforts of back home. In the beginning, I wouldn’t let myself think about all the things I missed cause I thought it would be harder but then I realized that I am lucky to miss people from home. I am one lucky lady to be living in a place that not many others have experienced. I am lucky to be surrounded by constant support and love. And I am lucky to have dogs all around me and help improve the lives of elephants in SE Asia! Now this is the part where you get to reflect...what makes you feel lucky?? What are the moments in your life where you have just thought “damn, I am one lucky bastard!” How do you cope with your crazy thoughts and emotions? One thing that i am learning along this journey, is to reflect and be grateful everyday that I am alive. If you are still reading my blogs (thank you Mom) I hope the one thing that you have taken away from them is to be grateful. The crappy situation you may think you are in could always be worse and sometimes you just need to remind yourself how fuckin lucky you are to be alive! Here is a photo of me loving life with two of coworkers, Fang and Roger! We were with the volunteers as they walked the elephants to the river!

This past week I had mixed emotions about life...I was feeling homesick and i think in large part due to the fact that my sister and Jacque were visiting and had just left. Words cant begin to describe how amazing it was to have my sister and Jacque come visit me. It is a pretty special thing to be able to share my Thailand home with the one person that I have always looked up to and admired. Being able to show my sister the loving community i live in, the efforts that Bamboo is doing to improve the lives of the elephants and show her why I love working here. I hope that she now has a better sense of what i am doing and understands a bit more as to why I moved here! After my sister and Jacque left, I had a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for a couple days. I was questioning why the fuck I am here, what do i want to get out of working in Thailand and really how much i missed home. As i worked through these emotions, i realized that I chose to do this. this decision was all me. I reached out to Bamboo to see if they had a job opening, I applied and I got the job. I didn’t care what people thought about me moving aboard cause I knew that I wanted to do it and that was all that mattered. I hope that from here on out I will be bold with my decisions, chase after my dreams, continue to spread happiness (even if its not contagious like a sneeze haha) remember how amazing life is when you are living it up, and always encourage those around you to be the best version of themselves.

The level of shits given lately is 0 for me. I am used to the weird Thailand things and know that i just need to accept it and move on. For example, there is a gecko that lives in my room. He poops in the same spot in my room and I cant seem to get him out! Normally, people would freak out about this and maybe even call a terminator. I dont think there is a such thing in Thailand so I just pray every night that I dont wake up with him on my face. In the village, the water goes out during the middle of the day. I have also had to accept this and just do a bucket shower or remain extremely smelly for a few more hours. I realized when my sister was visiting that my level of actual cleanliness is suffering a bit. I just dont really care that i brush my teeth from water that has been sitting in a bucket for who knows how long, or that the dishes we use to eat with everyday sit outside to dry with all the bugs and critters that could potentially crawl on them, or that i swim in a elephant poo infested river twice a week cause i am not gonna pass up swimming with them. I used to refuse to sleep on floors and never really liked camping in tents unless i had a pad. I have slept on the floor with a small thai pad for 5 months now. Some days i would love to have a tempurpedic mattress but for the most part I have done pretty good considering how high maintenance i was about sleeping on the floor. I have survived brushing my teeth in questionable water for 5 months and as long as I brush them i am pretty pleased with myself. There are just some things in life that aren’t worth the energy of worrying about. Accepting this is the hardest part but something I am learning. Thailand so far has taught me to be tougher and a little smellier. We live a pretty cushy and priviladge life in America and it is good to strip yourself of these privileges every once in awhile to really see what your boundaries are. When Jacque and my sister were here, the one thing that Jacque said she realized almost immediately was that she will never complain about water her beautiful plants again. We saw a woman carrying two big buckets of water on the end of a stick and was going to water her crops. We dont have to worry about watering our plants cause all we have to do is turn the hose on and stand there. We also have house plants for our pure enjoyment and dont rely on them to make a living. Appreciation is a huge thing for me and i appreciate every delicious cup of coffee i get, i appreciate all the meals that are cooked for me, I appreciate when my thai coworkers pick me up so i dont have to walk, I appreciate the dark chocolate that my mom sent me, I appreciate the smell of clean laundry and i appreciate most of all the people in my life. So the next time you complain about having to water your plants, drive your nice car to the grocery store, having to take your dog for a walk, or complain about your bed being too small, remember just how fucking lucky we are to have these things in our lives. Some people wont ever have the luxury of having these things so please just be grateful and appreciative of all that you have!

Here is a photo of our staff/family dinners in the village! I LOVE SPICY THAI FOOD!!!!

Here is one last thing before i go...I have fallen in love.......with a dog at the village. Her name is Kao (pronounced like cow) and she is the sweetest dog. I have talked about her before. She is the dog that had 4 litters of puppies and I paid for her to get spayed so she doesn’t have to have any more puppies! Anyways, I want to adopt kao and bring her back home to America to live a spoiled and privileged puppy life. The problem i have run into is that I dont know exactly when I will be coming home for good and need someone to help foster/adopt her. If you are interested in helping me get her to america please let me know! I am looking for someone to temporarily take care of her until i come home. Now i must warn you, if you want to foster her, please dont fall in love with her. She is my dog and I will want her back! It is going to be hard for you cause she is an amazing pup but we can work out a situation where you can still see her. Maybe even puppy sit! Okay, I’m getting off topic here....If anyone would like to help me out with this amazing and sweet dog please let me know! It is a long process to adopt a dog from Thailand so it would take a little while but i would love to get it started. Here are a couple photos of her to make you feel a little guilty and possible persuade you to help out ;) also, if you cant adopt but want to help out financially let me know!

As always i am sending lots of hugs and kisses to those back home. I am grateful everyday that I am alive and happy and I hope that you are too!

Cheers to summer livin and see you all in a month!! If anyone wants to have a slumber party and drink wine when i am home, i am most definitely down for that!

Love you all :)

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specialsnowflakestorm · 7 years

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Josh Yos, Son of Refugees, Is An American Success Story

In honor of #WorldRefugeeDay we are kicking off the series “Getting to Know Marginalized People,” where we’ll feature Trans, homeless, immigrant people and more. The first is an interview with the son of Cambodian Refugees, printed below.

By Vince Martellacci

Josh Yos is the son of Cambodian refugees, both of whose journeys to America were long and painful. In just one generation, Josh and his family have found success, happiness, and even community in California, settled now mostly in and around Oakland. And thankfully so. They were running from an oppressive regime, the Khmer Rouge, who under Pol Pot were responsible for what in the 1970s was quickly becoming genocide. It is estimated that 21% of the population, or 1.7 million Cambodians, lost their lives under the Khmer Rouge (Yale University).

With the horrorshow going on in Syria right now, it seems pertinent to shed some light on who refugees are as people, and what kinds of things they’re running from. Refugees are not terrorists--they are terror victims. Josh’s mother’s dad was killed in front of her, her two sisters, and her mother. He was a doctor, an intellectual, which the Khmer Rouge was seeking to cleave the population of. “Rich people, smart people, people who were involved in the arts,” says Josh, all were the first targets of the Khmer Rouge, and his family fell victim. The Khmer Rouge was seeking to create a classless, communist state, and anyone high in the ranks of class or the state was in jeopardy.

Josh’s father’s dad, who had lost virtually his entire family to war, was a farmer, which gave him a sort of advantage in that he was able to “play both sides. He knew it was shady … and one day he just decided to leave with my dad and a bunch of people.” They waited in Khao i Dang, a refugee camp on the Thai/Cambodian border for sponsorship from American churches. There and in the Philippines, refugees were taught trades: “They learned how to make donuts, how to run a business, do books for a nail shop or a laundromat.”

This quickly turned Josh and I to a discussion about how people only come to this country to work, not to mooch. Josh knows better: “The ignorant folks, they just want to believe that immigrants come here and they just take welfare.” He went on to make an excellent point about all people, regardless of race or national origin, “Have you ever not had a job? That shit eats at you. … People need a purpose in life or a calling.” Josh added that when it comes to refugees specifically, “Refugees or immigrants who’ve been working their whole lives, they just wanna get back to work, they don’t wanna sit at home … reliving the traumas of war.” And of course that’s true. People are fascinatingly resilient. No one wants to wallow in their trauma, or let it define them. Furthermore, “people crave social interactions,” and for most people that itch is scratched at work.

Josh’s mom and dad met going to school in the refugee camps. Josh tells a dark story with comedic undertones: to protect her daughters, Josh’s grandma dressed them as boys while they were running (200 miles) to Thailand so they would not get abducted or raped. His mother became a tomboy in school at the camps, “My mom was skinny so she looked straight up like a dude, she was tough and was always protecting the family.” She would always defend herself and her sisters, and one day a group of boys was trying to bully them and she beat them all up. One of those boys turned out to be Josh’s dad.

Flash forward to young adulthood in the states, and Josh’s respective grandparents got their children back in touch. His mom was in Stockton at the time, and his dad would make the drive from Oakland sometimes every night to see her. His paternal grandpa became a pastor, and made friends with his worship leader maternal grandma, and the rest is history.

Josh’s family started out doing hard jobs--his mom came to the states at fourteen or fifteen and began picking fruit. But thanks to community and family--and America giving them a chance-- Josh’s mom is now a medical assistant and his father is a stationary engineer. Josh himself just graduated from California State University East Bay with a degree in Health Science and an emphasis in Administration and Management, and that may not even top the list of his accomplishments. For the last few years, he has been working on a project called Village Resting, where he does pop-up kitchens, sometimes even out of his own house. They were so wildly popular that he was able to take over a kitchen at a restaurant for one full Summer, creating and cooking his and his partners’ own menu. He supplements that with social media marketing and a podcast, of which the first episode boasted over 1000 listeners.

Now, Josh is mulling over his next move: “Do i do food or do I pursue what I studied in school? I want to make people happy but I feel like I have an obligation to help out refugees and immigrants.” Josh goes onto say that his degree could really help disadvantaged people like refugees, adding, “Healthcare is a way to offer security and equity.”

Caring about community is something it seems Josh learned from his grandfather, who he describes as a master storyteller who naturally became a pastor. More accurate is that he became a small business owner, and pastor in his spare time. Josh’s grandfather owned a donut shop “in which my entire family, including me, worked.” Josh’s grandfather used his business as a way to help others: “When somebody got out of prison he was like, ‘You wanna work at the donut shop?’ Or if someone just got here from Cambodia. He had homeless people work there. The dude is so cool and so trusting,” maybe even too trusting--Josh says he has been taken advantage of before, burgled by employees--but, “he’ll still have someone come in at night when he’s not there and work. We just don’t deserve some people.” His grandfather’s spirit is reflected in Josh’s own words: “I want Village Resting to be a way to open doors. I’ve opened doors for myself and I want to keep those open for other people. I want [my little brother] to have a part of it.”

Being the son of refugees comes with it’s own struggles as well. Josh was quick to tell the story of how he learned of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot--from other Cambodian kids on the playground around age eleven or twelve. As Josh puts it, “My parents didn’t burden me with that story.” He muses that he may have complained about having to run a mile at P.E., and he feels like his own day-to-day struggles will never compare with his parents’, who had to run 200 miles to the safety of another country.

Being Cambodian, Josh feels underrepresented in the American mainstream, and rightly so. He mentions that he wants to make being Cambodian an institution, with it’s own businesses and economic life. But it is not just that Josh feels the weight of being both Cambodian and American. He also exists in several worlds in America: “I never felt like I really fit in anywhere. I’m from The Town, I’m from Oakland, but we moved out just after I started elementary school. My life, my family was in the hood. But I was sheltered, I’m a church boy, I can’t relate.” Josh said whenever he spent extended time periods with his family in Stockton, he was seen as spoiled, noting, “My parents gave me a good-ass life. I lived in the suburbs, I played baseball growing up. I was always involved in sports, I was in choir.” But Josh adds that this didn’t play well everywhere, “I don’t speak Khmer, I look Chinese, I play sports, they weren’t fucking with me at all.”

At school, everyone told a young Josh that he was Chinese, and his parents had to dispel that for him. As his school years went on Josh felt, “I wasn’t ‘whatever’ enough. I’m not gonna say white enough because I didn’t grow up in a white area.” In college, Josh fell into a Chicano studies track, where he got to watch Latinx students discover their heritage, history, culture. This affected Josh, who thought “It was beautiful. … It gave me a platform to go back and learn what my heritage was.” He adds now that “it’s not about being Cambodian, it’s about being Cambodian American” at a time where no one really knows what that looks like yet. Josh wants to be something for the next generation of Cambodian Americans to look up to, to strive for.

In a matter of decades after being given a chance and let into the United States, Josh’s entire family was able to build a legacy. Creating a community space like a donut shop for generations of your family and people in need to work in is a legacy, an awesome one. Rising from a fruit-picker to a medical assistant creates a legacy: like her father before her and her son after her, his mother found her way (through much struggle) into the medical field. This is a family who is contributing to what truly makes America great in so many ways: spiritually, as healers, as beacons for their community. This is the American Dream in action, if there ever really was such a thing. His family is not in the one percent, not in Senate, but they contribute in a much more real and tangible way, a way that creates a ripple effect throughout the entire bay area and throughout Josh’s family’s entire larger community. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, those contributions are why we must continue to accept refugees. Really, we must continue to accept refugees because they are people, people going through trauma who have the potential to be so much more than their trauma.

#cambodia #khmer rouge #refugees welcome #refugees #world refugee day #A Day Without Immigrants #bernie sanders #feel the bern #democratic socialism #Democratic Socialist #still sanders #Immigrants Make America Great

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