Just got back from English... Kachana wanted us to write a personal statement on the issue of gender, and I blanked out. I thought that I had never really thought about the question... When I handed in the piece of paper, I told her that I was having a lot of trouble writing about it, and she gave me the example that I brought up during class, which was the egg-frying episode that happened to me when I was back in Taiwan a few years ago. Then, the guarding gate opens and thoughts flooded in...

I was in the kitchen, holding the heavy black frying pan in front of the heated fire stove, frying some eggs for my dad. It was one of those few times that I was actually allowed to cook, because Mom usually tells me to go away and do something else while she cooks. She wasn't there... I think she was still in the US since we booked our flights at different time that summer. My 85-6 year-old grandma had just taught me how to stir fry some vegetables and eggs a few days ago, so I decided to practice frying some eggs for dad. I cracked the egg and let the egg white and yoke slip out of the white fragile egg shell into the heated oiled frying pan. I waited for the bottom of the egg to get cooked and flipped it when the bottom get one of those crispy looking fringes. I waited for the inner yoke to get cooked... I don't like liquidy yoke too much... I like the yoke to be semisolid, but not solid hard as the yoke you would find in a hard boiled egg. I squeezed the yoke park a little with pressure applied from the spatula, flipped it, and did the same thing. I repeated the process... Then, all of a sudden, I heard "what are you doing taking so long?" I turned around and found my grandpa standing behind me with this half laughing and half serious face. He saw what I was doing...

"Oh, I am just trying to make sure the yoke is cooked, Yeye."
"So you squeeze the egg like that? It would taste horrible with the way you are doing it. You are never going to find a guy with that skill! Are you expecting your future husband to be able to cook, clean, and do laundry for you?"
"What's wrong with making sure the yoke is cooked?"
"Where are you going to find him?"
"Oh...he BETTER be able to cook, clean, and do laundry..." I said adamantly.

How can you expect a woman to cook, clean, do laundry, and work all at the same time! I wondered... He was joking, of course, but it made me think how much the world has changed. Back in the days, women were expect to do the above on top of taking of the children and perhaps working in the fields, if they weren't in wealthy families. They wouldn't be able to eat with the men at the same time, instead they had to wait and eat in the backroom... Tough life. They swallowed the bitterness and let their stomachs churn on it for a long time. Some of them placed their revenge onto the next female generation, the future daughter-in-laws, while a few of them became the forgiving mother-in-laws and treated the daughter-in-laws with some respects. Time have changed with the westernization, but you can still see the old ideas floating around...

I was told by dad that I have too much ambition and that I am too aggressive and dominant. He meant no harm. He's my mirror. All he wanted to tell me was that these are my personality traits that might be a little intimidating to some other people who don't know me well. Maybe I should make some tiny adjustments so that boys will not be scared by me. Maybe that's the reason why I am still single, he said, because they are scared. Is it so? Does it matter? Do women have to be passive, obedient, and dreamless? I suppose those are the other side of the extreme, and I suppose that they are desirable to some men, but... hm... Nowadays, people want to gain control over their lives, and I am not an exception of that. I have a mind and my own will, and I like to have control over myself and not to be ruled down and looked down like what they did to women a long time ago. Being ambitious and sometimes aggressive help me to maintain the control over myself in this chaotic competitive world. It doesn't really matter if there is a guy in my life now. I will continue to live and have a fulfilling life by interacting with and helping others in the long run. At least, that's my current point of view.

Anyhow... Enough with the tiny little reflection here... going to eat.

bye now.