A Sense of Sadness// Consumption Part Two: A Nostalgia that Never Is
A Sense of Sadness
Ever since I returned to NY, I've been baking at least once a week. Cupcakes that I took to a cupcake picnic about a month ago.
Why is it so drastically cold all of a sudden? No matter, I baked a batch of blueberry muffins had made milk tea to go with it for lunch.
This week was a little surreal. Not like there was anything eventful, but it just felt a little strange. The other day I baked two small chocolate cheesecakes with a sour cream top and gave it to my Welcoming Ministry leader's workplace: a frozen yogurt shop where she treated me to some yogurt with blueberries and shredded coconut. Last night, I didnt have any plans but Jess suddenly calls me about this girl, who I met at a church picnic a month ago, whose birthday party was at 8pm at some Italian restaurant in the Chelsea district and asked me if I would go. Since I didn't have a present because I didn't receive an evite, I quickly packaged the other cheesecake with blue ribbon and a Japanese paper card. There were fourteen of us in total, everyone from NYU except me. Initially I didn't really want to go because I was tired and ill but decided it may be another chance to get to know NYU-ers.
At small groups, there were only a few of us because one girl got her toenail ripped out, another had spinal problems and had to go to the doctor while another girl found out her friend's best friend committed suicide so she and my UHS buddy, Betty, went to go and comfort her. And I had the cold so I was feeling really sluggish that day.
As I was walking home that night a really built guy with a tight fitting 'New york Sports Club' t shirt and his buddy asked me as I was passing by,
"Do you work out?"
I thought it would be some gym promotional membership thingie cuz there's one near where I live so I paused and took out my earphones and said "no because I like to eat" thinking they'd start preaching to me about how I should and the wonders of their gym. I know, my rationality about eating vs working out/going to the gym is pretty screwed logic.
"You have a great figure,"
Thanks. *awkward silence*
"It must be the genes."
I was going to say that it was the Asian genes but then again in Hong Kong, I'm not considered skinny. I just laughed.
"What do you do?"
I told him the basics: school, field of study.
"I like your bangs. Who cut it?"
Technically my roommate gave me the haircut a long time ago but I trimmed the bangs myself. But I just said roommate so I don't sound like a narcisst.
It was obvious by then he wasn't really going to try and sell me a gym membership, so I turned to leave and said bye.
"Would you like my number?"
I laughed and said no.
I wonder why guys never take the initiative. Okay, in this case, perhaps this random gym guy did, but at the end, when he asked if he could give me his number, I thought to myself, whatever gave you the notion that I was interested in calling you? Why is it that I have to be the one who goes to people and not others to me? It's not a selfish thing I'm talking about, but it just strikes as odd that I do all the facebook/msn/aim adding and start all the conversations at church while others don't approach me. It's also the same when it comes to the actual body of the conversation itself- I do all the asking so much that it seems like they're just not really interested in getting to know me.
The other day, perhaps because the weather was heavy and grey and I was trying to suppress my cold, I was feeling really depressed about this whole Henry Cloud thing. On one hand, I feel like I'm making progress in terms of knowing people: name, school, field of study, age. Yet it seems that I may be spreading myself thin that I constantly forget what people are majoring in etc.
The other day I was surfing around Facebook when I stumbled upon a couple of blogs from the church I attend in NYC. Just reading some of the entries and looking at the people who commented made me feel incredibly like an outsider. It made me realize how little I know of them and how little they know of me. They all seem to know each other so well. Who am I to be on Welcoming Ministry when in my own life, my relationships are so shallow? How do I get to the matters of the heart when I see them once a week and there is so little common ground to create a foundation of a solid friendship? Though I think my conversation skills have 'leveled up' since I first started back in March, I begin to panic when I am around people I know little of and have little to say to after the basics are established.
I don't know where to go from here. I didn't come this far to get stuck in another social rut. One thing that has been encouraging so far came from both Henry Cloud and the Art of Seduction book, when it seems like the relationships you create are becoming dry/stagnant/stiff/cold, pursuing them a little more- pushing them a little more- will help get you over that 'hump'. It makes sense in my head but it seems a little less coherent when I write it down.
God, will you help me see people like You do? Reach out to people like You do?
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Consumerism #2: A Nostalgia that Never Is
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Yesterday after we were dismissed from class, my roommate and I threw our stuff down at home, changed, and went to a vintage show (just vendors from all over the States selling vintage/antique items). We saw this really cute Chinese girl (seen above with my roommate. She had a wig of curls and her makeup all done) and asked to take a picture with her. Upon entering the conventional hall, I became dizzy with just the sheer amount of eye candy. A lot of the stuff was beyond my spending power, but it was just nice to see how design, especially in fashion, as evolved through the past hundred years. There was this stunning 18th century cream gown for $1500 or so but my roommate I were so interested in seeing how consistent and precise the handsewing was: it really looked like it was machine done.
My roommate purchased a pair of snake skin shoes and a black bag while I bought a red 'whimsy' hat (it just perches on top of your head) and 1940's polka dotted cream coloured gloves. Yeah, useless I say, but I'll wear the hat to brunch down in Soho one day.
The funny thing about vintage, clothing and all this decadence, is that we feel a sense of nostalgia that never belonged to us.
Girls love to sigh as they watch Memoirs of a Geisha or Gone with the Wind, and wished we were 'back in those days' when women wore silk gowns, men wore top hats and were actual gentlemen. We wish for days that reflected the times when girls in Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' attended dances and Mr. Darcy's that wore cravats and tall boots riding on horses across the green fields of England.
Men wished that they could return to the days of cowboys, riding on horses or be placed in the battle lines, doing heroic deeds for the country they loved and for the woman he left at home.
Ads and commercials use this fantasy to create a sense of nostalgia: Marlboro cigarettes had handsome cowboys while fashion house, Shanghai Tang's ads are of thin Chinese women in qi pao's draped over a chair of lacquered cherry wood.
We always wish for the times that were but that we never ever participated in. I was not of the 1910's but so often my roommate and I would wish that we could 'return' to that period when men were actually dignified and well mannered (I blame it on the film, 'Count of Monte Cristo').
As Appadurai so perfectly says it in his chapter called 'Consumption, Duration, and History':
"...as far as mass merchandisation is concerned, does not principally involve the evocation of a sentiment to which cnsumers who really have lost something can respond. Rather these forms of mass advertising teach consumers to miss things they have never lost... In thus creating experiences of losses that never took place; these advertisements create what might be called 'imagined nostalgia,' nostalgia for things that never were. This imagined nostalgia thus inverts the temporal logic of fantasy.. Rather than expecting the consumer to supply memories while the merchandiser supplies the lubricant of nostalgia, now the viewer need only bring the faculty of nostalgia to an image that will supply the memory of a loss he or she has never suffered. This relationship might be called armchair nostalgia, nostalgia without lived experience or collective historical memory."
Frick, that was so insightful. I guess in summary, this is what we call 'romanticiziation'- we forget all the bad things that occured in that period and only heighten the sensual and visual aspects in how we like to perceive a time that we never personally experienced.
That's why commercials are so seductive- they speak of times that we never suffered, thus manipulating their ways into our hearts and persuading us to buy back a piece of history in an object that never existed during the time to give it some depth or meaning behind it in order to create an aura- a desire.
Want to see an example of faux nostalgia that's not of a girl's fantasy but of a guy's? My favourite music video by Jay Chou:Faraway.
Beautifully shot- my guess it's supposed to be from the 1930's. Besides that, it's a really cute, tragic love story. I like I like. And the cinematography is just yummy.
And no other medium does it better than fashion. Because fashion is constantly recycling old ideas, you'll always see references to the flappers of the 20's or the New Look of the 50's or the goddesses of the 40's.
Can you imagine, 50 years from now, how our children will perceive the time that we are living in now? What will they romanticize of our present in the future? I can't imagine it.
Ever since I returned to NY, I've been baking at least once a week. Cupcakes that I took to a cupcake picnic about a month ago.
Why is it so drastically cold all of a sudden? No matter, I baked a batch of blueberry muffins had made milk tea to go with it for lunch.
This week was a little surreal. Not like there was anything eventful, but it just felt a little strange. The other day I baked two small chocolate cheesecakes with a sour cream top and gave it to my Welcoming Ministry leader's workplace: a frozen yogurt shop where she treated me to some yogurt with blueberries and shredded coconut. Last night, I didnt have any plans but Jess suddenly calls me about this girl, who I met at a church picnic a month ago, whose birthday party was at 8pm at some Italian restaurant in the Chelsea district and asked me if I would go. Since I didn't have a present because I didn't receive an evite, I quickly packaged the other cheesecake with blue ribbon and a Japanese paper card. There were fourteen of us in total, everyone from NYU except me. Initially I didn't really want to go because I was tired and ill but decided it may be another chance to get to know NYU-ers.
At small groups, there were only a few of us because one girl got her toenail ripped out, another had spinal problems and had to go to the doctor while another girl found out her friend's best friend committed suicide so she and my UHS buddy, Betty, went to go and comfort her. And I had the cold so I was feeling really sluggish that day.
As I was walking home that night a really built guy with a tight fitting 'New york Sports Club' t shirt and his buddy asked me as I was passing by,
"Do you work out?"
I thought it would be some gym promotional membership thingie cuz there's one near where I live so I paused and took out my earphones and said "no because I like to eat" thinking they'd start preaching to me about how I should and the wonders of their gym. I know, my rationality about eating vs working out/going to the gym is pretty screwed logic.
"You have a great figure,"
Thanks. *awkward silence*
"It must be the genes."
I was going to say that it was the Asian genes but then again in Hong Kong, I'm not considered skinny. I just laughed.
"What do you do?"
I told him the basics: school, field of study.
"I like your bangs. Who cut it?"
Technically my roommate gave me the haircut a long time ago but I trimmed the bangs myself. But I just said roommate so I don't sound like a narcisst.
It was obvious by then he wasn't really going to try and sell me a gym membership, so I turned to leave and said bye.
"Would you like my number?"
I laughed and said no.
I wonder why guys never take the initiative. Okay, in this case, perhaps this random gym guy did, but at the end, when he asked if he could give me his number, I thought to myself, whatever gave you the notion that I was interested in calling you? Why is it that I have to be the one who goes to people and not others to me? It's not a selfish thing I'm talking about, but it just strikes as odd that I do all the facebook/msn/aim adding and start all the conversations at church while others don't approach me. It's also the same when it comes to the actual body of the conversation itself- I do all the asking so much that it seems like they're just not really interested in getting to know me.
The other day, perhaps because the weather was heavy and grey and I was trying to suppress my cold, I was feeling really depressed about this whole Henry Cloud thing. On one hand, I feel like I'm making progress in terms of knowing people: name, school, field of study, age. Yet it seems that I may be spreading myself thin that I constantly forget what people are majoring in etc.
The other day I was surfing around Facebook when I stumbled upon a couple of blogs from the church I attend in NYC. Just reading some of the entries and looking at the people who commented made me feel incredibly like an outsider. It made me realize how little I know of them and how little they know of me. They all seem to know each other so well. Who am I to be on Welcoming Ministry when in my own life, my relationships are so shallow? How do I get to the matters of the heart when I see them once a week and there is so little common ground to create a foundation of a solid friendship? Though I think my conversation skills have 'leveled up' since I first started back in March, I begin to panic when I am around people I know little of and have little to say to after the basics are established.
I don't know where to go from here. I didn't come this far to get stuck in another social rut. One thing that has been encouraging so far came from both Henry Cloud and the Art of Seduction book, when it seems like the relationships you create are becoming dry/stagnant/stiff/cold, pursuing them a little more- pushing them a little more- will help get you over that 'hump'. It makes sense in my head but it seems a little less coherent when I write it down.
God, will you help me see people like You do? Reach out to people like You do?
------------------------------------------------------
Consumerism #2: A Nostalgia that Never Is
Click
Yesterday after we were dismissed from class, my roommate and I threw our stuff down at home, changed, and went to a vintage show (just vendors from all over the States selling vintage/antique items). We saw this really cute Chinese girl (seen above with my roommate. She had a wig of curls and her makeup all done) and asked to take a picture with her. Upon entering the conventional hall, I became dizzy with just the sheer amount of eye candy. A lot of the stuff was beyond my spending power, but it was just nice to see how design, especially in fashion, as evolved through the past hundred years. There was this stunning 18th century cream gown for $1500 or so but my roommate I were so interested in seeing how consistent and precise the handsewing was: it really looked like it was machine done.
My roommate purchased a pair of snake skin shoes and a black bag while I bought a red 'whimsy' hat (it just perches on top of your head) and 1940's polka dotted cream coloured gloves. Yeah, useless I say, but I'll wear the hat to brunch down in Soho one day.
The funny thing about vintage, clothing and all this decadence, is that we feel a sense of nostalgia that never belonged to us.
Girls love to sigh as they watch Memoirs of a Geisha or Gone with the Wind, and wished we were 'back in those days' when women wore silk gowns, men wore top hats and were actual gentlemen. We wish for days that reflected the times when girls in Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' attended dances and Mr. Darcy's that wore cravats and tall boots riding on horses across the green fields of England.
Men wished that they could return to the days of cowboys, riding on horses or be placed in the battle lines, doing heroic deeds for the country they loved and for the woman he left at home.
Ads and commercials use this fantasy to create a sense of nostalgia: Marlboro cigarettes had handsome cowboys while fashion house, Shanghai Tang's ads are of thin Chinese women in qi pao's draped over a chair of lacquered cherry wood.
We always wish for the times that were but that we never ever participated in. I was not of the 1910's but so often my roommate and I would wish that we could 'return' to that period when men were actually dignified and well mannered (I blame it on the film, 'Count of Monte Cristo').
As Appadurai so perfectly says it in his chapter called 'Consumption, Duration, and History':
"...as far as mass merchandisation is concerned, does not principally involve the evocation of a sentiment to which cnsumers who really have lost something can respond. Rather these forms of mass advertising teach consumers to miss things they have never lost... In thus creating experiences of losses that never took place; these advertisements create what might be called 'imagined nostalgia,' nostalgia for things that never were. This imagined nostalgia thus inverts the temporal logic of fantasy.. Rather than expecting the consumer to supply memories while the merchandiser supplies the lubricant of nostalgia, now the viewer need only bring the faculty of nostalgia to an image that will supply the memory of a loss he or she has never suffered. This relationship might be called armchair nostalgia, nostalgia without lived experience or collective historical memory."
Frick, that was so insightful. I guess in summary, this is what we call 'romanticiziation'- we forget all the bad things that occured in that period and only heighten the sensual and visual aspects in how we like to perceive a time that we never personally experienced.
That's why commercials are so seductive- they speak of times that we never suffered, thus manipulating their ways into our hearts and persuading us to buy back a piece of history in an object that never existed during the time to give it some depth or meaning behind it in order to create an aura- a desire.
Want to see an example of faux nostalgia that's not of a girl's fantasy but of a guy's? My favourite music video by Jay Chou:Faraway.
Beautifully shot- my guess it's supposed to be from the 1930's. Besides that, it's a really cute, tragic love story. I like I like. And the cinematography is just yummy.
And no other medium does it better than fashion. Because fashion is constantly recycling old ideas, you'll always see references to the flappers of the 20's or the New Look of the 50's or the goddesses of the 40's.
Can you imagine, 50 years from now, how our children will perceive the time that we are living in now? What will they romanticize of our present in the future? I can't imagine it.
4 Comments:
oh man. i LOVE that random guy story... SO FUNNY!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA
but yeah.. its true.. you definitely have to give pushes when it comes to friendships. but you guys do have something very important in common.. Jesus Christ! hahaha. a little bit cheesy.. but its true! keep working at it! ADD OIL as we fobs like to say!! XP
exhibit #1:
"in this case, perhaps this random gym guy did, but at the end, when he asked if he could give me his number, I thought to myself, whatever gave you the notion that I was interested in calling you?"
exhibit #2:
"Why is it that I have to be the one who goes to people and not others to me?"
...i have no further questions, your honour.
Oh shush, Andrew. I meant people who I am interested in- not strangers right off the street. But fine, I'll do as you proposed. Happy?
I'd like to see you do it someday. Ask for a girl's number on the street.
i'd LOVE to see andy ask for a random girl's number hahaha....i know you'd LOVE to have my number samm =p
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