Frasier Roz & the Schnoz - Meeting new people

While watching this hilarious episode of Frasier, I began to realise I was the couple with the "giant schnauzers". No, I haven't got a huge nose. I don't have a big anything in fact. What struck me was the way they were treated.

Like Rozs expectant baby's grandparents, I have something that is unavoidably noticeable, something that some people have a sensitivity to (conscious or not). What it this thing? My difference in race. Ok, I don't get people just randomly laughing at me because of it, but it is something that many people seem to bring up and they can't see you outside of a very small stereotyped set of ideas and assumptions about Asian people. Just like the big nose couple, it is all they see and they simply can't get beyond that shallowness. I can literally pin point the moment people pause when they meet me. There's always a hesitation, I feel like there's something wrong with me. Does that mean these (often white) people are uncomfortable around people of different race/colour? Why? I don't get it. This is London, one of the most racially, culturally diverse places on earth.

It's like they see only the dominant difference, and not all the other subtle things that make up a person as you would if you were meeting a white English person. The way they're dressed, the way they talk, mannerisms. It's still shallow, but at least it is a start to something more human. Instead, I get reactions that don't seem to go beyond race, and then gender. With Asian, my gender is inherently connected to my race. Stereotypes abound within western culture.

Dreaming of ghosts from my past

Someone I haven't thought about for years turned up in a dream last night (I saw him last about 15 years ago). I've never dreamt about him ever, until now. Strange how the mind works.

I was in college doing an art & design foundation course and he was my tutor. Mark was a tall, geeky looking guy (glasses of course) and always seemed awkward in his own skin. Those were the days when things could happen, and this is when I first began to be self aware. Not in the stereotypical teenage way, no, this was when I started to mature and develop into myself. I remember distinctly moments when I became aware I was more clever and witty than my brothers (that hasn't changed over the years).

Let me see, I left rubbish sixth form around 18 or so. Got onto the course, found it great but didn't finish the two years, returned the next year. So I must have been there for four years. Saw the first class go off to do their degrees or whatever, the second class became more bonded. God, that was so long ago. I don't think I've particularly changed much, just alot more confident now. Funny that, because the work I did back then was so much more interesting, innovative. Now, it's analysed way too much! There's a gradual price to pay for self awareness.

I have to say this dream was quite out of the blue. What I remember is vague but it seems Mark and I just had the most intense relationship. He lives a few doors down, so we were practically neighbours. I make my way back to his place to see him again, and there are two elderly ladies (nicely dressed) who seem to be bickering about some issue in the living room. There's a familiarity to everyone. I can't remember what happened next, but I and some other people I know end up on top of a skyscraper and need to get down. One of my friends (who I don't recognise) climbs down the side. I'm not having any of that thank you and go through down from the inside of the skyscraper. And that's it! Weird or what!

This is actually quite typical of my dreams. They're often surreal with a mix of real and made up people and places. Why I would suddenly dream of Mark makes little sense in the context of my life right now. But the relationship part has a lot to do with a (most probably true) rumour that went around at the time that he slept with a German student (don't remember her name) in my first class. Apparently she did it so he would make a real effort to get her and her Japanese friend into Goldsmiths art college (she did). I only learnt this from Maria in the second class a year later. And then she turns up at our final graduation exhibition and I couldn't look at her or Mark in quite the same way. LOL!

I do admit to having had a slight crush on Mark, but I'd never imagine this! Very art school:)

Ah! Nostalgic for those innocent days...