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By Dennis Hong, May 6, 2013 9:24 am

Welcome to MelbaMusings! Like melba toast, but… you know, musings. Truth be told, it’s not easy to come up with the insights of our full-length articles. Sometimes, we just have some random thoughts or questions we want to put out there. MelbaMusings may not always have a lesson, but we hope they’ll still make you think….

Happy Revenge of the Sixth, everyone. (You probably know May the Fourth, but I just learned about Revenge of the Sixth last week, so of course, I now have to use it.)

I was five years old when I saw Star Wars for the first time. I’m pretty sure I nagged my parents to see it in the theaters at least 10 or 11 times. And no, I’m not exaggerating.

When The Empire Strikes Back came out the following year, I couldn’t wait to see it. I think it’s a safe assumption that my generation (that is, kids born in the 70s) was probably the one most influenced by Star Wars. In fact, I realize now that it’s pervaded even my romantic life….

Yes, that is correct. I learned romance from Star Wars.

You see, The Empire Strikes Back has one of the most iconic lines in the history of love stories. After spending the first two-thirds of the movie mocking and belittling Han Solo (Han never flinching the entire time), Princess Leia eventually realizes that she’s fallen in love with him. Unfortunately, this realization comes after they’ve been captured by Darth Vader.

As Han, wrists shackled and surrounded by Imperial Stormtroopers, is brought onto the carbon freezing platform, facing an almost-certain death, Leia finally reveals her feelings. She looks across the chamber, locks eyes with Han, and blurts out, “I love you.”

Continue reading 'I grew up thinking “I know” is how you respond to “I love you”'»

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By Dennis Hong, April 2, 2013 6:00 am

Image by Hauke Dressler

I love eating alone. Aside from the fact that it gives me a chance to catch up on my reading, it just makes more sense. Yes, eating together is a social tradition dating back to our cave-people days, but let’s think about this for a second:

1) Being “social” generally entails talking to another human being.

2) Talking when you have food in your mouth is considered rude.

Okay, so how exactly are we supposed to do both at the same time? Seriously, I can think of few activities that are as mutually exclusive as eating a meal and chatting with a friend. And yet, we love to mash the two together.

That’s why we end up with those inevitable awkward moments. You know, when someone asks a question at the exact instant you’ve stuffed a giant piece of food in your mouth. So, you make an exaggerated chewing motion as you nod along like a bobblehead, telegraphing the universal sign for, “I’d be delighted to answer your question as soon as I finish chewing!”

Really, eat by yourself. Then meet with a friend and catch up. It’s just more practical.

But this isn’t a treatise on why we should all eat alone. Instead, it’s a story of how I used to be afraid to eat alone – and how my high school English teacher was the one who instilled that fear in me….

I was always an independent kid. I had friends I would play with, so I wasn’t a loner by any means. Yet, I was just as happy doing my own stuff. In grade school, if none of my friends were free (or not grounded), I’d ride my bike over to the nearest shopping center, about a mile away. There was a burger restaurant there called Knowlwood that I loved, partly because they had awesome cheeseburgers, but mostly because cheeseburgers weren’t exactly on my mom’s list of Asian recipes. I’d order a burger and a shake, grab a booth, and scarf it down excitedly. Afterwards, I’d wander through the stores nearby or catch a movie.

Continue reading 'My Teacher Made Me Ashamed To Be An Introvert'»

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By Dennis Hong, November 14, 2012 11:36 am

A few days ago, I almost plowed my car into a shiny new BMW because the dumbass in the Beemer failed to check for oncoming traffic (that is, me) before making a turn.

Unmentionable profanities spewed from my mouth as I was forced to swerve around him at 50 mph. But then, I looked over as I blew past him (intending to flash him my most intimidating glare, of course), and I saw him hold up his hand and nod sheepishly at me. It was pretty clear from his body language that he was saying, “Sorry, my bad.”

Interestingly, my desire to continue spewing profanities immediately vanished, and I felt totally vindicated. I still thought he was a dumbass, but at least now he was just a dumbass, and not an asshole to go along with it (let’s call that being a dumbasshole). Even more interestingly, his apologetic gesture immediately quenched my seething road rage.

And that got me to pondering….

I’m sure we all agree that driving brings out the vilest monsters lurking in our psyche. Maybe it’s the stress of trying to get somewhere on time. Maybe it’s the frustration of having to deal with traffic. Maybe it really is all the assholes surrounding us, because certainly the asshole can’t be us, right?

Sure, maybe.

Then again… maybe it’s the inherent design of our automobiles that turns us all into assholes. Let’s take a look at the equipment we have available to communicate to other drivers on the road:

1) Turn signals

2) A horn

That’s it.

Continue reading 'I Wish Cars Had A “My Bad” Horn'»

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By Dennis Hong, October 22, 2012 6:00 am

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had one of those uncanny dreams that go something like this:

You’re at home… or work… or school. All of a sudden, the fire alarm goes off, and you see smoke seeping in all around you. You scamper frantically down the hallway. Meanwhile, the fire alarm continues to blare—BLAAA BLAAA BLAAA BLAAA BLAAA. You claw through the thickening fumes, trying to find your way to the door. But then, the fire starts to catch up with you. You’re trapped, and just as the flames engulf you….

You wake up to your alarm clock blaring— BLAAA BLAAA BLAAA BLAAA.

And then, you think to yourself, “Whoa, how did my brain create this elaborate dream that ended exactly with my alarm going off? What kind of freaky synchronicity was that?”

The explanation is quite simple, actually. But I’ll get to that in a bit….

In a recent issue of Newsweek, brain surgeon Eben Alexander describes how a deadly bacterial infection put him in a coma for seven days. During that time, his brain registered zero activity and he was clinically brain-dead. Yet, something amazing happened. As he describes it:

I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death….

There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.

Dr. Alexander goes on to describe what he saw and uses it as proof that Heaven exists. After all, as he asserts, there is no possible scientific explanation for what he experienced.

To that, I say: “Bullshit.”

There absolutely is a scientific explanation for what happened, and it’s connected to the dream I describe above….

Continue reading 'Why You Can’t Prove (Or Disprove) That God Exists'»

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By Dennis Hong, October 1, 2012 6:00 am

This past Mother’s Day, a local radio station did a segment called “The Worst Mother’s Day Ever.”

In case that title isn’t descriptive enough for you, they basically asked mothers to call in and describe how horrible their Mother’s Day went. The mother with the worst story won a $700 pair of earrings!

Of all the calls that rolled in, one still stands out in my mind. This particular mother lamented how she has three grown sons, none of whom even bothered to call to wish her Happy Mother’s Day. She was most upset by her oldest son, who she explained is currently living out of his car. Every now and then, he still shows up unannounced and sleeps in her guest room. Furthermore, he “smells real bad,” according to this forlorn mother, so she always has to wash the sheets afterwards.

This poor mother was baffled how her own son, who imposes himself on her all the time, couldn’t even be bothered to call on Mother’s Day.

The radio DJ was sympathetic.

I rolled my eyes.

Sure, sure, it sounds like she has some pretty selfish sons. Especially the oldest one. Sure, sure.

But, here’s what I can’t help wondering: How the hell did the son end up like this? If he’s a grown man, why is he still living out of his car?

Most importantly, what kind of mother lets her child get to this point? That, to me, is the question she should be asking herself.

Continue reading 'I Blame Your Shitty Kids On Your Shitty Parenting'»

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By Dennis Hong, September 20, 2012 1:11 am

Image by Yaw Yong Xin

Welp, the angry people are at it again.

From now on, whenever I submit an article to The Frisky, I should just make it my goal to see how many hypersensitive people I can offend. That’s what usually ends up happening, anyway.

Here’s a rundown of the latest drama:

I published an article (which itself was based on an old Musings post) about the fact that a disproportionate percentage of Asian women in San Diego (around 30%, according to an informal survey I took on Match.com) openly refuse to date Asian men. The key term here is openly. These aren’t women who secretly prefer to date non-Asians, but don’t admit it. These are women who publicly announce that they will not date Asian men.

Now, the point of my article wasn’t to judge these women. Nor was it to try to convince them to change their dating preferences. Short of me formatting that part in flashing 20-point Comic Sans font, I don’t know how I could’ve made my intentions more clear. For the record, I see nothing wrong with interracial dating. I think everyone should be allowed to fall in love with whomever they want.

No, the point of the article was to share how this affected my personal dating life. Because the reality is that, as an Asian-American male, I’m confronted with a huge dating discrepancy:

A much higher percentage of Asian women date outside their race than Asian men.

This means that, by my calculations, 19% of the Asian men in the United States are left with nobody. Here’s how I got that number: If 36% of Asian women and 17% of Asian men marry outside their race (according to the Pew Research Center), that means a whopping 19% of Asian men are literally left with no one to marry.

[Note: I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this stat, because it’s absolutely shocking to me. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong (because, boy, do I want to be wrong). Is it really possible that 19% of the Asian men out there are left with no one to marry? What am I missing here?]

I certainly think this fact is worth mentioning. And I certainly think the explanation for this discrepancy is worth speculating on.

Continue reading 'How I Pissed Off A Bunch Of Asian Women On The Internet'»

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By Dennis Hong, September 5, 2012 6:00 am

I confess. Back in college, I was in a fraternity. And yes, I engaged in some of the dumbass behaviors you probably associate with fraternities.

Something like this, I imagine you’re imagining….

Even today, friends sometimes express surprise when they find out that I was a “frat boy.” Other times, when I’m caught in moments of douchiness, I’m told that I’m “still such a frat boy.”

But, I have a dirty secret to tell:

I’m proud to be frat boy. I have exactly zero regrets about being in a fraternity, because my fraternity made me the guy I am today.

Amongst other things….

You’ve heard the expression, “Kids can be so cruel”? You learn the meaning of “cruel” when you live in a house with 40 other guys, many of whom spend a solid portion of their waking hours in varying stages of belligerent drunkenness.

Continue reading 'A Little (Ruthless) Mocking Only Made Me A Better Person'»

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By Dennis Hong, July 27, 2012 6:00 am

Image by Asger Carlsen

Man, the world is full of angry people. And I’d say that, aside from the smattering of terrorists, bigots, outright lunatics, and one chartreuse superhero, about 95% of them inhabit the comments section of various websites.

I write about dating and relationships because I truly do want to help bridge the communication gap between men and women. Even though we are all humans, I believe that we think and behave very differently sometimes.

A guy may act a certain way because he’s thinking a certain way. But, a girl may look at the way the guy is acting and believe he’s thinking something entirely different. Same with the way girls think and act, and what guys think the girls are thinking.

I believe that if I share stories about how I’ve acted in my own dating life, then I can shed some light on how men think. And if that helps even one woman understand even one man better, then I’ve done my job.

What baffles me is when I share something personal about myself, and I get lectured for it. Here’s one instance. Here’s another. And here’s one by Musings’ resident douchebag. Check out how much flak he gets for describing his behavior.

Well, guess what? That’s how guys act. The stories I tell are real-life examples of guy behavior. It’s not always gonna be shiny armor and merit badges.

And here’s the thing: Unless you’re the one actually dating me (which all but one of you are not), or you think you may want to date me (which… oh, heeeey, baby. How you doin’?), you have absolutely zero incentive to tell me how I should lead my dating life. Any change in behavior on my part will have precisely zero effect on you.

In fact, the only reason you should have in lecturing me is to feed your own sense of self-righteousness. You may even believe it’s a, ahem, righteous cause.

Continue reading 'If You Can’t Change The World, Change Yourself'»

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By Dennis Hong, April 6, 2012 6:00 am

Image by Jeremy Sage

Years ago, whenever my mom deemed it necessary to declare war on someone I or my sister was dating, she would execute a pretty ambitious—though usually ineffective—battle plan. Her strategy? To “prove” the person wasn’t right for us by systematically pointing out every last imperfection this person might have.

If character assassination is what you do when you want to discredit someone, then mom’s strategy was character napalm. She didn’t just destroy. She utterly annihilated.

Mom’s misgivings with our dates ranged from the questionably reasonable:

She’s too chatty, he’s too quiet, she’s too young, he’s too old, she’s a social butterfly, he’s too shy….

To the grotesquely superficial:

She has bad complexion, he has gray hairs, she doesn’t look very smart….

That last one is particularly memorable, by the way, as it was spoken regarding a girl she had just met and hadn’t spoken one word to.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my mom, and I know she only wants the best for me. But, this… this just struck me as being a tad on the overkill end of things.

So, I decided to take a stand one day. And I told my mom that if she did have legitimate concerns about the people we were dating, the legitimate concerns were usually lost in the firestorm of superficial complaints. Over the course of a surprisingly civil conversation, I gave her the extended, half-Taiwanese/half-English paraphrasing of the age-old saying:

Pick your battles, mom.

Continue reading 'Dear Politics: Please Pick Your Battles'»

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By Dennis Hong, February 3, 2012 11:49 am

Image by Peter Beavis

Here’s a fun little experiment. Read the passage below in your head and see if it makes sense to you. If it doesn’t, read it out loud to yourself. If it still doesn’t make sense, ask someone to recite it to you. Hopefully, then it should be obvious.

And if you don’t have someone (to recite the passage to you, that is, not in general — that’s a whole ‘nother issue that’s outside the scope of this article), click here and copy-and-paste the passage into the text reader.

Okay, here’s the passage:

Up led Joe legions tulip lag lovely ewe gnat his date sublet merit cob. Unto theory pup leg, fur wretched stance, unlay shin, on dirt got, end if is civil, whiff fibber tea Angie us diss four hall.

As a teacher, I’ve learned that different people have different styles of learning, the two most common being visual and auditory. Visual learners need to see information, while auditory learners need to hear information.

If the above passage works as intended, whether or not you can figure it out may reveal whether you’re more of an auditory or visual learner. I believe that auditory people will naturally “hear” this passage as they’re reading it, so they’ll easily be able to understand it. Visual learners, on the other hand, will only see the words on the screen and may not immediately be able to decipher them.

As a writer, I’ve learned that writing isn’t just about grammar and spelling. Good writing flows and has a comfortable rhythm. It’s almost melodic.

In this respect, I believe it’s important to “hear” what we write, not just look at the words. Even when we’re dealing in articles that were never intended to be read aloud, we have to pay close attention to how our words sound. Because cadence is just as important to good writing as all the other technical stuff. And because there will be people out there who “hear” your written words!

Continue reading 'Can You “Hear” What You Read And Write?'»