Every now and then I fly too close to the sun. It’s that feeling I get when I realize I’m too cool. This happens when people are feeding into my circle jerk of freshness. It’s like “OK ladies I get it, you love me. OK gentlemen I get it, you want to be me!” This happens a lot in school for me as it is a setting where students are very supportive of each other. And you know in social settings – your boy thrives. But every now and then an event occurs where my ego just gets deflated. No, it’s not schoolwork or the future, I believe that whatever happens, happens. So what is this event? How do I get humbled? Well there are two methods to humble me, 1. The three seconds after a girl rejects me. It’s pretty shitty and stings for about three seconds until I realize that it’s probably not meant to be and that there are a lot more women out there in the world. And 2. Send me home.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this before but I have Chinese parents. Chinese parents are extremely blunt and will feel no remorse for telling you about your weight gain or your lack of romantic interests. I wholeheartedly believe it’s because of my Chinese parents and their bluntness that I developed this sense of humour. My comedy stems from my parents beating up my ego and it acts as a defensive maneuver. Although to a lot of you this may seem sad, it really isn’t! I’m very grateful for this thick skin that I have developed. However, I am not the only victim of Chinese parents as my younger brother has also fallen into this parent trap. Due to this my brother has always felt very competitive with me as many younger brothers are often compared to their older brothers. I could find the cure for cancer and my brother will still blame me for not finding it earlier.
Now, you have to understand something. In Asian culture being humble is very important and being boastful isn’t cool. This could be due to Confucian philosophy – which seems to be the foundation of a lot of Eastern culture. So even in my elementary school days, I would look forward to parent-teacher interviews, hoping that my teachers would convince my parents that I was a good kid. It would often end up with me going home with my mom telling me that I should behave at home as I do in school. I think that during all of elementary school and halfway through high school my parents didn’t understand all the hype that I made myself to be, but I think that in grade 11, it clicked for them. It clicked for them that their kid was never going to be a doctor or an engineer. Their kid hated numbers and was just bad at the whole math thing (Their kid also feels really guilty for having his parents enroll him in 7 years of tutoring…).
Although my parents and my brother beat my ego senseless when I come home from school, I probably deserve it sometimes. I get too self centered and have to realize that I’m not that great and at the end of the day I’m just my parents’ son, and the only impressive part about being my parents’ son is that I grew up having two wonderful parents.
