pictures from london now up on myspace.
i gave in and saw a doctor who said i was insane to pop my shoulder back in and keep playing. i am now bandaged to the hilt and have to keep my arm in a sling for at least a week, with no basketball for at least a month.
i look retarded with my arm in a sling.
this lady tried to get into it with me today. my mom, brother and i were at a cafe at santana row, this swanky shopping center in san jose. the place was packed with people waiting in line and sitting in the row of tables next to it, so you really had to squeeze by. i got up to get some milk for my tea and i tripped over the foot of this couple’s table because they had pushed their table a little farther out than the others, and it was one of those things where i caught myself but ended up running halfway across the room to keep from falling, a hard task when you have your dominant arm in a sling and are carrying a glass of really hot tea. by the time i regained my balance, i was at least 10 feet away. i heard someone really angry yell, you better say excuse me. it was loud enough to make everyone turn and look. i stopped and turned around. it was this older woman, about 50, white and seemingly self-appointed upper class, indigenous to this shopping area. but the problem with that area is you get a lot of rich people who are arrogantly rich but richly unhappy. she was looking at me like i’d just thrown my tea in her face and she was ready to fight.
it’s really hard for me to back down. it always has been and as much as i work on it, it’s still hard. so she’s glaring at me and i think she expected me to apologize (i’m a clumsy asian girl with her arm in a sling who almost just wiped out so why not), but instead i walk right up to her and say, excuse me?
i don’t think she expected me to confront her, but she’s not willing to back down.
she says in that condescending rich white lady tone, you should be old enough to know when you need to say excuse me.
i smile at her, real slowly like i’m sizing up prey, but i can feel that heat pulse in my chest where if we had been alone in an alley, i would have already grabbed her by the throat.
the guy she was with, a gentler older guy, patted her hand and said, it’s fine, it’s no big deal, then looked at me and said, everything’s okay.
i look at him then at her. i would back down if she backs down, but she’s sitting there looking justified.
i’m sorry i tripped over your table, i said to her, still smiling, but i know what my eyes look like. i leaned down, my eyes directly into hers, inches from her face. i lower my tone. would it make you feel better if i said excuse me while looking you in the eye and shaking your hand? i held out my hand that was in a sling and thrust it inches from her body. it was a power play. my mom said later that when i did that, she wondered if the woman thought i might hit her. my arm may look hurt but my energy was definitely dangerous.
you should have said excuse me, she says, not as sure anymore.
i’ll happily say it now, i said. i’ll be happy to say excuse me and shake your hand if it makes you feel better. My tone is teasing now, but i’m still sizing her up like meat and my eyes are cold.
i’m not going to shake your hand, she says, sitting straight in her chair and backing her body away.
i laugh then say cheerfully, then i guess i don’t need to shake yours!
abruptly turn and walk away.
unfortunately we had the table right next to her. when i walked back, the guy saw me coming and quickly looked down, averting his eyes. i would have smiled at him. i have no beef with him. when i sat down, michael was a little upset so we started talking in chinese about some people who are just nasty, negative people. i was telling my mom that it seems like we have a lot of incidences in this shopping area, and just earlier, michael had accidentally bumped a girl and she had glared at him and then demanded that she and her boyfriend leave. i said, some people just look for fights. i must have said fights in english (sometimes i mix english with chinese, depending on what language provides the most accurate words to convey meaning) and i guess the woman thought we were talking about her, so she starts loudly talking about us.
behind me, i hear her say, “people trying to come into our neighborhood where they don’t belong and start fights with people bigger than they are.”
what she meant by our neighborhood, was “a place for rich people.” what she meant by people who are bigger, was “people who are richer.” I quickly looked at my mom to see what she was wearing, and it was all designer and well put together, and my mom sports some major bling.
i myself am wearing a $500 watch and a four-figure piece of jewelry, but that’s not the point because i don’t care about money or bling… i wear these things because they’re sentimental pieces.
my point is, we didn’t look “not rich.” we didn’t look like this wasn’t “our neighborhood” as well. which leads me to believe this was a racist comment.
but i ignore her because in my mind, if she’s a 50 year old woman who needs to loudly talk shit about people because she’s uncomfortable that they may be talking shit about her in another language, she’s an idiot.
we just keep talking at a polite conversational level, and i purposely say funny things so that we’re laughing. we’re still talking in chinese, so she tries to switch to a different language, too, but i notice the guy was completely silent by now, not even trying to calm her down anymore.
my mom notices a table across the room open up. do you guys want to move, she asks? yes, we say. so we all jovially move to the other table, still chatting away, no one even acknowledging her. we see they get up a few minutes later and leave.
i know i shouldn’t get so hot-headed and walk into confrontations, but i have a bad habit of letting pride take over, especially when the person being stupid is someone i know i can intimidate. i asked my mom if i should have walked away and she said that i could of, but then it was also good that i did it because a lot of asian people would have apologized and backed off whereas the woman could tell i was strong and wasn’t going to take her crap. my mom was happy because she felt like we’d won, that we’d gotten the last word in by ignoring her, then moving to get away from her because we didn’t want to be around her.
i told her that the thing that really bothered me was that neighborhood comment and my mom started telling me about how in life and in business, so much really is measured by success and status, so if you have certain things and dress a certain way, people will be afraid to mess with you. i think that’s true to an extent, that people measure status in those ways.
but i also told her that in a way, it’s good that we weren’t dressed like slobs so she could pull a bullshit money card. but the thing is, if you measure wealth by the level of happiness or contentment in your life, then who do you think is more wealthy…me, or a 50 year-old woman who has to pick fights with strangers at a cafe? clearly she’s an unhappy person who wants to spread it, because people who are happy spread happiness and let the meaningless things slide. if someone had tripped over my table, i would be more likely to apologize and move it out of the way, or let it go. and i’m sure once i had caught my balance and stopped freaking out internally from having almost fallen, i would have turned around and if it looked like i had disrupted them, i would have apologized. but she was a miserable bully and i wasn’t going to back down, but at the end of the day, i think that people who act that way probably don’t have great lives so i’ll go on with mine and let her go on with hers.
i think that was a test though.
i think i could have done better, i could have reduced it to one
polite but dismissive line and walked away which would have given me the situational win, but i didn’t lose on a personal level–i stayed in control of myself, i was polite at every point, and i didn’t back down in a way that was respectful to myself.
it’s funny though. ever since i started consciously living life more positively and avoiding negative people and situations, i haven’t had very many encounters like this. which is why i really think this was a test.