Consumerist
5:59 pm Mon, 22nd September 2003I have succumbed. *Noooo…* I can’t believe I just bought Justin Timberlake’s “Justified”. *hangs head in shame* And after many rants on how I couldn’t stand him and his songs when they first came out! But over time one or two started to wheedle their way into my good books. Starting with ‘Rock Your Body’ – a song I readily admit has a great beat. But now I actually like ‘Senorita’? I hated the song when I first heard it. Aiyah.
I also bought “Travelling without moving” by Jamiroquai (only $9.99 at HMV!!) – slightly redeeming myself there. I’d been meaning to get a Jamiroquai cd for a while. ‘Cosmic Girl’ is an awesome song!
And to top off my spending, I bought ‘Jimmy The Hand’ – Raymond E Feist. After polishing off ‘Talon Of the Silver Hawk’ in a day, I’d been itching to read more. Since I’m gonna have to wait till November for ‘King Of Foxes’, I thought I’d read this in the meantime. Hope its good. (And I always thought Jimmy the Hand was way cool.)
Weekend in review
My dance class went alright. I had about 6 people in my class, including 1 guy! They picked up the dance fairly well, considering it was a pretty difficult and fast routine (to Janet Jackson’s “All For You”).
On Sat night I watched “Down With Love” with Andrew. It was pretty good – though not as romantic as I thought it’d be. More.. interesting/funny. I don’t think I’d pay to see it again. Oh, and we had a bad encounter with this snobby rich yuppy man wearing a dark skivvy. (More about this later.)
I’m gonna be seeing another movie tonight with Andrew – Finding Nemo. Yay! I’m finally catching up on watching all these movies I’d put on hold coz I was waiting for Andrew to be finished with his assignments/midsessions.
Yuppie prejudice?
<rant>
It seems like I’ve been having all these bad encounters with snobby rich people lately. It really.. pisses me off. Two in the past month. The first one was with this middle-aged man – I’d parked my car opposite his driveway to unload some heavy equipment (hence was kinda blocking his driveway coz the street was narrow). I wouldn’t have been there long, and if he wanted to leave, all he had to do was ask – politely. But no, I got a tongue lashing about how I’m not supposed to park there and how was he to get his car out and I’m not supposed to park there coz it says no parking, and what if he wanted to leave, how was he supposed to get his car out… and so on and so forth. I told him I was unloading and it was only a few minutes. He just kept ranting on so I ended up getting in the car and driving off… during his rant.
The second encounter, just on Saturday night at Chatswood Mandarin Hoyts. I was crossing my legs during the movie, resting my foot on the back of the chair in front. I didn’t realise this would bump the chair everytime I moved, and eventually during the movie the guy in front turned around to complain. That was fine, coz I didn’t realise, so I put my foot down. What was uncalled for was after the movie, the guy turns around again and tells us most condescendingly “If you can’t sit still during a movie then next time, why don’t you just stay at home”. What the? Excuse me?! I wanted to make some insulting wisecrack back, but couldn’t think of anything, and didn’t want to start an argument, so I just walked away. But really, that was just nasty. What happened to being polite! Sheesh!
What bothers me about this even more is that I reckon both of these men reacted worse than normal because we were 1) asian, and 2) young. I can just tell their thinking is affected by what they’re seeing – asian youth who don’t know the “proper” way to behave, who are a detriment to upright society. I can’t stand racism and prejudice. That people treat you a certain inferior way just coz of how you look and their preconceptions. Grr. I mean, granted, this wasn’t blatant racism – maybe I’m reading too much into it, maybe I’m just assuming stuff about them – but I still get this feeling about those situations. I never used to have anything against upper/middle-class white people. Or anyone really.
I guess this wasn’t as bad as earlier this year where some guy at macca’s actually called us “you asians”, made all these presumptions about us, just coz we were asian. He was incredibly offensive, almost going so far as to physically restrain us from giving money to our friend (we were just getting a friend to buy our meal for us). Oh, and we were all girls too. Now how rude is that!
</rant>
Current listening :: “Senorita” – Justin Timberlake
Posted in Life, Rant & Bitch | 11 Comments »
11 Comments on “Consumerist”
nate
Sep 23, 2003
I think wongo needs to bulk up and stand up for you 😛
I have a dislike for north shore people as well, except they tend not to tell me off face to face (as I’m bigger than them)…I have most trouble on the road as they think their overpriced, underpowered euro junk deserves to be “king of the road”…Unfortunately my Jap piece of crap is too slow to be a nuisance in return…
leo
Sep 23, 2003
justin…
oh no kaz…
Kazzart
Sep 24, 2003
Leo: Hahah. *cough* Well, I’m not that into him, just like a coupla songs.. they’re good for clubbing. And you know I like R&B! 😛 So how was the gig last Thurs!?
Nate: Hm. Care to donate to the “bulk-up-Andrew” fund? 😛
Michelle
Sep 24, 2003
Oh no, Kaz, not Justin! Nooooo!
Kazzart
Sep 24, 2003
Don’t tell me you don’t like JT too?? 🙂
a l
Sep 24, 2003
i do hv to admit, that one or two JT songs (of which i can’t remember the titles. AT ALL.) are, err, fairly decent.
but no, i’m no closet fan. 😉
sorry to hear about your experience at the cinema. there are jerks everywhere. hope Finding Nemo made up for it! (good right?)
AK
Sep 24, 2003
Of course I don’t know for certain, but you might very well be “reading too much” into your bad experiences. It might not have had anything to do with you being Asian or young. It may just be that they didn’t take well to you blocking their driveway and bumping their seat. You do admit it was your fault in both cases. I encourage you to be Other Person Centred! I honestly think that if you wronged them, an OPC attitude would be to reflect more on how you inconvenienced them rather than on how they upset you with their words. Maybe they overreacted, sure, but then maybe they had their reasons. I’ll give you one example you might not have thought of. Suppose the person sitting in front of you in the cinema was biting their tongue for half-an-hour while you bumped their seat every few seconds? Suppose it was bugging the hell out of them until finally they could take it no more and turned around to say something? Suppose they were so upset by then that it ruined the movie for them? Yes, this is all speculation, but I believe that to consider it from their point of view and to put their feelings ahead of your feelings is OPC, and that to be humbly accepting of their nasty reactions is Christlike. It is good that you didn’t make an insulting wisecrack for that is definitely not Christlike 🙂
And are you sure you’re not succumbing to prejudices and preconceptions yourself? You call them “snobby rich people” and “yuppies”. Are you not in danger of making assumptions about them just as you accuse them of making assumptions about you?
leo
Sep 25, 2003
hey kaz,
gig was good last thursday, we had some dude yelling out “take your clothes off” for the entire set…very entertaining! we even got played on fbi twice that day! yay! album comes out in a couple of weeks! yay!
Kazzart
Sep 25, 2003
Leo: Cool! Aw I wish I coulda made it!!! Hehe there’s always one of those guys isn’t there. But the question is, to whom was that request directed? 😉
a l: Hehe. Well, I’m not a fan of his either. Not even closet. And yes, Finding Nemo was very good! 😀
AK: I’m well aware of the things u’ve pointed out. That I may have been “reading too much into it” and “assuming stuff” about them (as I wrote in my post). I’m also aware that I was also probably succumbing to prejudices myself (as I wrote: “I never used to have anything against upper/middle-class white people. Or anyone really.”).
I just didn’t like that these people had to get so worked up, and hence were nasty about it.
Perhaps I should clarify a few things – I was in a hurry when writing that post, so maybe I didn’t explain the situations very well.
The parking thing. He wasn’t actually trying to get out, so I wasn’t actually blocking him – what he was complaining about was the *possibility* of me blocking him *if* he wanted to get out. I thought he was making a mountain out of a molehill. If he wanted to get out in the few minutes that I was parked there, then he could just say so and I would have moved. Simple as that. No need to get upset.
In the cinema, if that person was holding their tongue till they finally turned around, well I find that a little silly too. Why let urself get all worked up for so long? If it bothers u the first time, then do/say something about it – nicely.
*But* that wasn’t what I had a problem with anyway – when they turned around in the middle of the movie to tell me to stop, that was fine. I didn’t realise what I was doing, so I stopped for the rest of the movie. If that was it, then it woulda been cool. But wat suprised me was after the movie, he had to make an issue out of it. And throw in an insult to boot.
Anyway, it was just a rant. People do these things in blogs. Its what I was thinking at the time. Some of it may not even hold true a few weeks/months etc down the track.
Direct TV
May 26, 2005
Nice entry.. :). Keep on bloggin’.
Ringtones
May 27, 2005
Hi. Nice comments