Author: Y C

I can not tell anymore …. A few weeks ago, there was a partial rant on the topic from an oblique angle. The whole Howard Dean and Dr. Steinberg touched it off I believe. Anyways, I think the Titanic and Dean’s campaign were remarkably similar in how fast they sunk.

But I digress…. A J kindly forwarded this website to me and fair warning to all, it’s highly irreverant, insulting, amusing, stereotypical, but definitely entertaining: The honest marriage and relationship advice for men. I had to share this site with B- and she found it shocking, amusing and scary all at once. She did ask me, “Is any of this true”? I flatly said, “Yes.”

My favorites links are:

American women are fucked, they priced themselves out of the market
Fucking decent mid-priced whores twice a week is less expensive than a wife
Marriage means you become a slave to your job

Hilarious quotes:
American women offer up a shit sandwich and then get pissed off when men go elsewhere to eat.

What is the relevance here? You wouldn’t get such an obvious Howard Dean and Dr. Steinberg situation in Asia. That’s nothing to say about what goes on behind the doors, but solidarity and long-term are just so much more the norm in other cultures than in the US when it comes to relationships and to marriage in general.

And this sort of thing goes on in Asia too as a lot more women begin to adopt more Westernized notions of relationships and attitudes. There’s a hierarchy nowadays I’m beginning to detect. Men avoiding the obvious choices like China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and looking toward Malaysians, Vietnamese, Thai women. The “headache” of dealing with women who’s sole aim is to marry well and be kept for the rest of their lives is a guy’s nightmare seconded probably by divorce and losing everything.

My education here of the sexes has been fascinating and not sure what to make of it. Need more time to digest it. I’m not suggesting that things are amiss with me and B-, things are really wonderful and still “honeymoonish” but going through counseling and having serious chats has helped. We’re still learning about each other, nothing is perfect, we have good and bad qualities. Looking forward to August 31st.

=YC

So I’m back in Taipei again…. just arrived this evening. SO that means more consistent blogging. Malaysia has infrastructure issues which make being on-line quite difficult. Even many of their internet cafe’s can be really iffy. Only going to the well-developed areas and areas where there are many foreigners can you be guaranteed reliable internet access.

It was sorta weird getting on that flight heading back — to SFO eventually. Mixed bag of feelings… unfinished business but also new opportunities await. Will be missing B- a whole lot but I think this time, our separation will be shorter. Having successfully gotten her I-130 approved Monday we relaxed at the Pan Pacific Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. Now, it’s getting some affidavits signed, submitted and waiting for an interview date. Hopefully all will be completed in 10 weeks time. I mixed in some networking and work too as it just so happened that PMI-Malaysia was having their conference on “Managing for Success” which I attended and met some good people. This was the first time since 1994 that I’ve been away from the US for such a long time and made me realize again that America is not the center of the universe and that we all need to expand our horizons and challenge our biases. At the same point, despite all the stuff happening in the world, American professionals are still viewed respectfully and even highly desired. All in all, the trip was really great for so many reasons.

It was also great because of all the good food I had there. Before I left for my trip I worked for 3 months go lose 15lbs. This was a landmark event considering that in some 12+ yrs I’d never lost weight. It was just in time too for photoshoot and the wedding pics turned out great. B- and I opted for more of the traditional scenes and costumes. The only chinese costume we did was the Shanghai style which turned out well despite their suit being 1-2 sizes too small for me. Let me tell you, that photo shoot was really hard to do, from 9am to 6pm with a one hour lunch break. And I had the easy part! We did 6 costumes and the time spent to make up B- probably took 1/3 of the time. We ended up choosing 22 pics + 2 family pics of B-‘s family and me. The big bonus was getting the negatives for us to develop more. Most of the wedding photo places nowadays have gone all digital, using the Nikon as the standard. For portraits and such, I think digital is still lacking having seen a few samples. Of course, having an excellent Photoshop expert to clean up the pics is a big part of it. We used France-Taipei, which is one of many wedding photo chains. We should be getting back the pics end of April if not sooner. Our wedding day is August 31st and will be publishing more about it to our friends and family soon.

Long day ahead tomorrow as I begin my first day at Adecco with AJ. Should be fun :-).

=YC

I am now husband and wife according to the laws of Malaysia. It’s pretty neato to be married by an uncle of mine :-).

It’s hot here boys and girls! We had a torrential downpour yesterday and it is still awfully hot and humid. Ipoh is hotter than Kuala Lumpur. Hanging out here in an internet cafe waiting to hook up with A J.

Hope you folks are doing well.

=YC