Speaking of Holidays, I remember during the first Thanksgiving Black Friday, we were at the Bayparkway (Brooklyn) Bestbuy. A whole line of people lined up there. We didn’t have a car, so we basically just walked there, like 30 mins away. We got a cheap tv and some budget laptop, forgot how we got it home, but I assume one of our relatives came by and helped us move it home.

My aunts and uncles who lived around there said people would set up tents there the night before lol. Wait in line felt like 1-2 hours, maybe 3 hours, forgot. That was insane, but you kmow… poverty and people want cheap stuff.

Home would’ve been so much sadder without these stuff. Never had laptop before coming the US, new stuff, the novelty… it’s useful to look up a lot of unanswered questions kid-me had. Like space stuff, planets, looking up stuff was magical.

Like this was 2010s btw. Nowadays I think people just do online shopping.

Clearly, they hired kids as unpaid interns xD

Speaking of Time Square. I remember one time in Manhattan, like somewhere near 42 st, but maybe not that close. There was like a big toy store, Toys R US maybe? Forgot. They had this weird paper plane thing constructed from I think cardboard paper. Dude threw this paper plane and it kinda “bommeranged”, looped back back to the man and he caught it. I kinda wanted that thing, never got it.

I remember having a toy helicopter thing as a gift. Broke it during first flying attempt. If it were a modern DJI, it would never have crashed, that thing sucked, but I kinda got sad about it.

Also, I was in, well… not Long Island, but I’ve played at the beach in Coney Island. It was a fun beautiful memory. I think every time I was at the beach, I always try to make a model NYC Subway railway with the tunnel things, or it’s an amalgamation combined with a castle, or something… forgot…

I also rode the ferris wheel at Coney Island… Every been there? There was like the ones that move and the non-moving carts. The moving ferris wheel carts were in red or blue or something, the non-moving ones where painted white. The non-moving ones ends up higher at the top, so it was scarier for my fear of heights, but its non-moving so its less scarier in thay regard. My entire body shaked during the ferris wheel ride, so much heights. I remember riding the Q train (or was it the F train?) when we used to explore NYC, that coney island railway segment was layered on top of the F train, like taller than 5 stories of a building, and it was so high, I got scared that the train would fall off. I think they even paused the train when there were storms, perhaps it is possible for those trains to fall off?

Sorry, just to clarify, I didn’t mean to mention the drug use thing as an insult lol. I just kinda admire that Americans (and Westerners in general) are kinda rebellious, like in a badass kinda way. I personally kinda never dared to do that stuff.

there was one ride that I was a few inches too short for

Bruh, you reminded me of the opposite situation. When my family were new immigrants in NYC, the money situation was a bit of a struggle, so my mother often tell me to just pretend to be younger, avoid the MTA employee stationed on that stop, and just go through the turnstiles with her, as on, on one fare, which was allowed for uo to like 2 children accompanying an adult. But…

Eventually I got too old, but my mother keeps insisting. I felt so embarassed lmfao. I was like idk 11/12 years old, and I was growing taller. And also, my mother would pass the monthly pass through like the fence thing to my father, who then just waited 20 minutes and can swipe the card again (because they prevent double swiping in quick succession), I think it was against policy to give it to another person, but like… lmao. Personally, as a child, I was always taught to be obedient and obey laws/rules. but then this happens, so I feel so uneasy, lmao, I felt like cops were gonna show up and we’d get in trouble.

But I eventually got so big, I convinced my mom to just get me a separate fard card loaded with a small amounts of money (deducting money instead of being a monthy pass). (Just googled the site, apparantly it’s done by height not age, so I think that was always the case even back then)

So yea, that was NYC. Damn I think I spend so much time on the subways I have so much memories of it. It’s like a big section of those years, much more memorable than car rides when nothing notable happens. I always get so bored on those subways. I had no phone, smartphone didn’t even exist. I’d just stare out the windows and see things. Mind wandering through thoughts. Pretending there’s a monster in the tunnels. And the Manhattan Bridge. Can’t even call in the tunnels, so my dad or mom (whoever was with me at the time) would make a phone call to someone else, either the other parent, or my older brother who already got a cellphone (a verizon flip phone). Bruh I didn’t get one till much older after the Smartphone revolution already begun.

Damn, those were nostalgic. NYC was nostalgic. But I kinda hate it there. Trying to find a bathroom was a bitch, Manhattan doesn’t allow non-customers to use their store bathrooms, so I hate those storeowners. I remember my mom asking a fellow Chinese Immigrant who ran the store, to use their bathroom, they fucking refused, even though my mom already said she was already planning to buy something there anyways.

I just got so pissed at this transactional type of mindset, I fucking ran off to get my mom to stop spending money there.

I kinda disliked Manhattan ngl, even Chinatown, not Chinatown itself, but these fucking evil storeowners who wouldn’t let a little kid use their bathroom. Also MTA subway stations had NASTY bathrooms, oh lord.

But anyways, NYC, subways, I was basically always just observing the environment. No entertainment to stop the boredom. Except sometimes I ask my dad for the flip phone to play with like the few games that it does have. Snake? Tetris? Forgot… I remember one of the later feature-phones having an UNO game.

Oh wow I rambled so much now its a wall of text. It’s amazing how much memories got associated with just thinking about NYC Subway.

Um… 🧐

Bruh, y’all got wild teenage years. I still haven’t ever tried any drugs to this day. 😅 (Am Asian, drugs are very stigmitized in Asian families)

Damn, sorry to hear about that, now I’m starting to realize just how much more fcked up the scale of “good parent” vs “bad parent” is, mine are shitty, but far from the worst, so in a way I kinda lucked out. My parents aren’t that crazy, thank goodness, and I still have good memories of them, just kinda relationship-wise detached because of life circumstances. Basically, the older I got, the more school stuff kinda drained my energy, depression slowly built up, parents busy with their small bussiness… so eventually relationship just kinda silently fell apart, with the occasional “parents yelling at me out of frustration” sprinkled on top, clock hasn’t stuck midnight yet, hasn’t gone nuclear, still sort of a “cold war” in terms of relationship.

Damn, the “FBI Friends” is wild, again, sorry to remind you of that again.

Who cares. We’re colonizers, the natives lives don’t matter /s

(check history book lol, humans are brutal)

Bro found out the ban expired and immediately chose violence… 💀

God help us,

oh yea there is no god…

this is a suicide carriage, but I guess its useful for when I lose the will to live lol

But, does this make me immune from getting grabbed by a bunch of armed masked men? 🧐

No, that’s mario’s green brother going to Central Park, nothing to see here, move along.

Bruh usually I just use 0-9 then use the “RAM” in my brain to store the tens-place digit lol

Contempt (insult?) of cops should be legal.

Personal opinion. (It’s illegal in Taiwan)

Lol. Reminds me of a joke: If you go to Hong Kong and say 谁拆楼, is sounds similar to 死差佬 (in Cantonese), an “insult” to cops.

Chinese is good at making names short, but terrible at making names extremely short.

My name is ■■■, and its funny how knowing the number of characters does not deanonymize me an any way, almost everyone has 3 character names, its so standarized.

Except like those rare 2 character names, in which case society just deems you weird (not really, but I personally always notice the 2 character names more, but yes, you could technically make your name shorter. Or if you have 4 characters, people are gonna think you’re a Japanese (because last name having 2 characters is a very Japanese thing).

So if you go to a western country and have to use the Pinyin as your name, its usually gonna be 2-5 letters for last name, 4-10 letters for the given name, not too long, not too short, just perfect. You could say Chinese names are the perfect names, 3 characters, 3 4 三四 生死 life-death, 4 is death, 3 is life. So your name is kinda symbolically representing life. (Not sure if this is intended or I’m just attibuting meaning to coincidences)

But also: Names like 曹操 (Cao Cao) has a very short Pinyin name, if you are lucky enough to get these short names (or I guess you could change it, couldn’t you?)

(Also how does a Taiwanese get their name romanized? Taiwan doesn’t use Pinyin… 🤔)

Communism is revolutionary, Socialism can be reformative.

In the context of the United States, Democratic Socialism is perfectly compatible with the constitution and the ideals of freedom and democracy; Communism, on the other hand, requires overthrowing the existing institutions which make it incompatible.

Most historical “Communist” movements are vanguardist, and vanguardism doesn’t end well, they end up being authoritarian.

Average American can’t tell the difference between Communism and Democratic Socialism, Exhibit A: ⬆️

Out of Spite.

To be the anomoly of the world.

As a “fuck you” to the Communist Party of China who didn’t want me to be born for being the 2nd child.

As a “fuck you” to white supremacists and other political/reglious extremists that want me dead.

To make sure my abusive older brother doesn’t get the gratification of me being dead. To call dibs on my parents assets when they die, to make sure he doesn’t get my share.

To enjoy Movies, TV, Anime, read books, play videos games.

To explore the world one day.

To publish a book one day that people would want to read.

To form true friendships, real friendships.

And hopefully, when I find the financial stability and I win against depression, I kinda wanna start a family, to raise children that will grow up experiencing only happiness, and never ever ever have to experience the abuse I had when I was growing up, to bring more happiness into the world and thus making the world less sad.

The comment I replied to:

Really trying to change anyone’s mind online

Key word: “online”

If I met them in person, I’d be more inclined to listen to them.

Problem is I read comments from 3 separate users in the past few days that literally got banned within 24 hours for being a LLM bot lmao (read the modlogs, its getting crazier these days)

GDR is one tiny country.

Imagine every Chinese or every Indian started writing physical mail.