Dear Jennica,

What an interesting story. The church has such an all consuming role in Salt Lake, it keeps amazing me. The thing is tho-- that despite its omnipresent role in your young life, there are still rules you dont know, or dont understand because you have never really been a part of the community. You've always been the outsider wearing pants and luring these young boys astray.

Its not unlike how i grew up in such a dominantly Chinese suburb. Even though i know the drill, can tell you when its time to celebrate things and swear in chinese-- i will never be chinese. My identity will always be that of someone just outside of it, when people see me and hear where i am from, they dont see my experiences in the community where i was raised. Because race becomes involved, i dont get to belong to the club. I recently recalled these two guys in high school, actually--

lets call them Thomas and Walter. they were chinese and they were always together. they both loved basketball and their thing was being a team of 2. they would rap and laugh at each other's jokes, they were Thomas and Walter. Inseparable. but the main thing they would do is finish each other's sentences. and the one they would use on me was this:
Thomas: stupid
Walter: whitegirl.

they'd look up from their classwork and say it to my face. deadpan. i'd roll my eyes and go back to whatever i was doing. that was just life.

i had forgotten all about this til last month, when it came back to me, suddenly, and i realized how fucked up that was. i think Vancouver and its suburbs are actually pretty fantastic places where racism isnt a major issue, but things like this did happen and it was ok with my friends and classmates because i was white. wait, no because in their eyes i was whitey.

even tho i was a minority in my school i was supposed to belong to the cultural majority nationally and thus had to absorb outsider feelings of not being chinese AND absorb the negative stuff coming off of local groups who saw me as the oppressing majority. they saw that majority in me- even when i didnt. i was always the awkward whitegirl, i didnt bring any mooncakes to school and i was too tall. i was wearing the pants at the funeral too. but i am not there in Richmond facing this anymore, and you have gone back to all this, intentionally, in Salt Lake. i am still outside wearing pants tho, but now i am at a different funeral where i am allowed to not belong because i fall under the title of foreigner.

so i dont just have in-laws i dont understand, i have in-laws that speak a completely different language. and i am bitching about it! but now i am wearing pants as a choice too, right? how about that.

but on to another part of your letter- Myspace. social networking websites. online friends.

wait, no. first- you told a really intense story! i wish i could give you a hug about it. death like this is especially haunting and can follow you around.

and it was so complicated by technology. you didnt want to keep him as a project, or a real friend, but somehow you kept him around as an online friend. its a whole new level of social distance. at my new years eve party last night someone made a joke about meeting people and right away knowing they would only qualify to be a distant online social contact. me and Tola starting dissing people with facebook, and talking about the benefits of real-live friends-- like stinky breath and vivid colours. but the real point was how much we hate facebook and will never get it. Henning is here visiting from Vienna and he was making sarcastic comments about his facebook addiction, how he's actually 'twitter'ing his constant movements to facebook (he's not, really) (but i didnt even know this was possible- you send a sms (text message) to your own facebook- updating it remotely throughout the day!)

how bizarre this adding someone as your friend because they have the same class as you, but never actually speaking to them when they are physically just two rows over! and i am such a hater of it, i love being above it all. facebook? No way, i say proudly. but as the world of facebook grows (i already occupies 1/3 of all internet usage!) i get further and further away from the world and me and Tola are the only ones left idealizing stinky breathe and dirty faces. so somehow, it IS bringing people together and leaving us out.

my own sister has told me so many times that i would know more about her everyday life if i would just get facebook already! poo poo for not being allowed to see my sister's life and poo poo for more time being used to create social networks that dont actually bring us closer together, but let us keep each other an arms length apart, just far enough that we know when they die, but not close enough for real human connection which might save us. how enragingly ironic.

love,
marie

ps: its really cold here.