my friend Mary

So I was facebook stalking one day and saw that my college friend, Mary, was going to be in the Chicago area last week.  I contacted her to have lunch with her one day while she was in town.  Turns out she had this big wedding to plan for Mindy, who also went to Cornell.  Originally, Mary was going to come to the city to eat at El Cid, a nice Mexican place in my old neighborhood.  But since the actual work for the wedding got put off I had to go meet her in Wheaton.  First, I decided to help out by going there before lunch time.  That led to me being invited to the wedding.

I ended up attending the wedding and it was pretty awesome.  I only knew 4 people there but everyone was cool and talked to me.  That doesn't always happen when I'm in a group of strangers but it ended up working very well this time.  You can go to Mary's blog(s) on facebook to find out about the actual wedding.  Maybe I'll post a blog about it later.  Look up my flickr page for pics.

The next day, Mary came with me to Ben and Amber's to hang out with more Cornell people.  I just hoped to have lunch or dinner with her one day.  I love it when you take a chance (i.e. going to a wedding with a lot of people you don't know) and it ends up paying off beautifully.  I hadn't talked to Mary in person or on the phone for years before this past week.  And look how much better friends we are now because of what transpired.  Love it.

weird

So I went to a wedding last Saturday with a friend of mine. It was pretty low key. At the house in the very casual clothing. Still, it was really nice. My friend, Stacey, was one of the bridesmaids so she was tending to the bride. Meanwhile, I was chatting with some folks there. Crazy enough, this one guy there was ripping on Chinese people and Asians in general. I think he was making fun of how a Chinese couple at a store or restaurant they went to talked. Obvoiusly, he didn't know that I am Chinese, but that's not even the point.

Yes, in many ways race and ethnic relations in the U.S. are improving, but racism still very much exists. It kind of caught me off guard because it really didn't happen to me much growing up. It's just ignorance. Maybe he thought that all Chinese people in the U.S. speak like that? He even asked me if I was Chinese! I didn't really say anything, mainly because the only person I knew there was tending to the bride. And I'm not saying that was right or wrong- just how I felt at the time. Anyways, cannot change what happened now. It's best now just to let it go.