Author: Frank

Many years ago, I purchased a new home when my wife and I started a life together.  A new neighborhood so new that it confused our GPS since it did not yet exist.  Based on the address, I triangulated its location and found it.  We made an offer on that house, and after a few weeks, it was ours.  That day when we got the keys was exhilarating, and we celebrated in the kitchen of our new home.

However, I already owned a condo.  We were lucky enough to have the means to purchase our new home without needing to sell my existing home.  These circumstances, while lucky in most respects, had their own disadvantages.  We were focused on establishing our new home, but I still had a home filled with my existing belongings, many of which remained at that condo.

Continue reading “Abusing the voting system” →

‘The Princess Bride’ is among my favorite movies; I discovered it on cable television.  It performed modestly at the box office, but it gained a cult following.  Naturally, I can quote dialogue from the film, though many people already do.  A few years ago, I attended a special afternoon showing of the film with a friend.  A young couple sat next to us; they looked a bit younger than I expected.  I asked them, and they admitted that they were introduced to the film by their respective parents.  Neither was alive in 1987, when the film was released.

The Princess Bride is only one among many favorite films.  I’ll admit that among many of my favorite films, there’s an element of romance.  There’s a subtle way in which the relationship between two people develops.  It may be in the uttering of the words, “As you wish.”  Or it may be in the way that Art3mis and Parzival in Ready Player One say to each other, “You’ll forgive me for this, I promise.”

Continue reading “Love is in the Air” →

I grew up in Florida for a fair portion of my life.  Fort Lauderdale lacked traditional theme parks.  Though we occasionally had these traveling proxies instead.  Groups of traveling theme parks will assemble amusement park rides in the parking lots of shopping centers.  We may have gone to one of these from time to time.

However, large theme parks such as Disney World, Universal Studios, and Busch Gardens are located in Florida.  Throughout my childhood, I’d occasionally visit these parks.  Many times, these trips were coordinated by family or friends; other times, our schools organized them.  In fact, when I graduated from high school, we spent a night at Disney World at an event called Grad Night.

Continue reading “It’s not a funnel” →

Many years ago, I worked into the evening at Microsoft.  As I waited for a task to finish on my computer, I thumbed through a magazine.  It was an issue of A. Magazine, an Asian American-focused magazine.  A friend comes by my office to ask a question.  After a few minutes, he looks at the magazine cover quizzically, and I respond with, “It’s an Asian American magazine.”

His response shocked me, “You’re the least Asian person I know.”  For context, this is a friend who met me shortly after I arrived in Washington years before.  He had never heard me speak in any language other than English.  I arrived here for my first professional job, and all my friends were people I met at work.  Therefore, only two observations indicated that I was of Chinese heritage:  my surname and, to a lesser degree, my facial features.

Continue reading “Reflecting on my heritage on this month” →

When I turned 16, my friends were preoccupied with getting their driver’s licenses.  In fact, many spent hours on their actual birthday at the Department of Licensing, officially getting their first licenses.  They saw it as a rite of passage.  While I did get my driver’s license at 16, I did not spend my actual birthday doing so.

Honestly, every family I knew owned cars, so it only made sense that everyone I knew would eventually get a driver’s license.  However, students in my high school generally lived pretty comfortably.  First, sadly, many people cannot afford to get cars.  Second, if you’re a poor family, your insurance rates increase when young drivers live in your household; it doesn’t matter if they choose not to drive.  Suffice it to say, there are many reasons why people may not have a driver’s license.

Continue reading “Distributing new voter identification” →

I have two sisters.  My younger sister was born in Puerto Rico; as such, she was a US citizen from birth.  I’ll occasionally tell her that she must run to be the president of the United States, since she is the only one among us who is qualified to run.  In response, she glares at me.  The very notion that the US population elects a Chinese woman born in Puerto Rico as president is logistically absurd.  While she certainly meets the legal requirement, there’s still implicit racial and gender bias that US citizens exhibit.

I became naturalized when my mom was naturalized, since I had yet to turn 18.  Ironically, I helped her study for that test by memorizing the questions and answers; I would’ve easily passed the test had I taken it.  I remember taking the oath as a teenager.  My older sister had already turned 18, so she took the naturalization exam and passed it years later.

Continue reading “A new form of identification” →

I grew up hearing that cringeworthy expression, “All Asian people look alike.”  I heard it occasionally from my friends.  I honestly thought that they made it up or were at least joking with me.  I mean, I could easily see the difference between two particular Asian people.  It astonished me to learn that they couldn’t.  Still, it sounded to me like a racist stereotype, like expecting me to be able to talk to our Japanese and Korean friends.

Years later, I was reading the book Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do.  Right from chapter one, Seeing Each Other, they confirmed this.  Studies corroborate this phenomenon, and as it happens, it’s a function of both nature and nurture.  People can see subtle differences among familiar faces, and the numbers suggest that it’s easier for Asian people to distinguish among Asian people (even when they’re strangers), etc.

Continue reading “Now you see me, Voting Rights Edition” →

In 2020, I started a new job.  This occurred right in the middle of the pandemic when everything was still shut down.  As such, the onboarding process was strictly remote, and we did this over webcams.  The standard forms clearly outlined the documents: one document from List A or two documents (one from List B and one from List C).  My US passport qualified for List A, but it expired (legally just a piece of paper).  I had to go with the second option.  My driver’s license qualifies for List B; a Social Security card qualifies for List C.  I memorized my number years ago, but I didn’t have a physical card.

My new employer gave me a 3-week window to get a replacement card.  I started the process with Social Security, which was also under lockdown.  It would require meeting with them on webcam; that wait may take as long as three hours.  This wasn’t that bad.  I worked while I waited for the Social Security administrator.  They eventually come in, ask me a few questions, and ask me to hold up my driver’s license to the camera.  Approved.  I got my new card well within my deadline.

Continue reading “The Hippocratic Oath, Voting Rights Edition” →

On a typical weekday afternoon, my friends and I break for lunch.  Many of us do not bring our lunch; we normally walk to an adjoining building that hosts a cafeteria.  After buying lunch, we walk back to our building to the familiar kitchen table where we sit together.  This process only takes a few minutes, and we’ll eventually end up on the same table chatting during lunch.  One friend consistently brings her lunch, and when appropriate, brings sharp utensils.  This amuses me.

During one such lunch, a topic of conversation came up.  I honestly can’t remember what we discussed.  However, I do remember that this conversation, or specifically a friend’s response, distressed me.  I reacted as you might expect:  I became agitated.  I raised my voice.  I minimized her position.  It was ugly.

Continue reading “The source of my bias” →

In the mid 1980s, I navigated my life by autopilot.  I bided my time through the labyrinth we called high school.  Socially, I excelled only in awkwardness.  Academically, I excelled at every subject I studied.  How did I pick my eventual field of study?  Computer programming came easily; I could learn in minutes what took others hours to understand.  Other subjects might’ve come easily, but not that easily.  I spent a couple of summers in engineering programs before graduating.

After high school, I attended the University of Miami to pursue a degree in engineering.  I only have two criticisms about my time at “The U”.  First, as a private school, it had considerably higher tuition than state schools.  Second, which is really a side effect of the first, I consistently took 16-17 credits per semester to maximize my tuition money.  That course load, along with needing a part-time job waiting on tables to pay my expenses, made for an exhausting grind.

Continue reading “A new hope” →