What DO You Do? (Part 1)

(Or, Trying To Explain That I Have No Career By Typical Societal Standards)


"So, uh, what do you do?"

The bearded man's eyes narrowed, piercing into my soul, as if he was on the brink of discovering a dark secret and cracking a huge case of criminal fraud.  His cute 6-month old daughter rested quietly in his arms, also gazing at me, her head tilted to the side, also waiting for my answer.  I started to sweat through my collar.  I hadn't expected an interrogation at a summertime country wedding.

"Well, I was a teacher for three years... Mandarin.  Oh and also a counselor for depressed kids.  But before that I was doing some writing, which was after I moved back from China.  I lived there for seven years and..."

He cut me off.  "Oh, teaching English?"

"No," I quickly corrected him: in fact, not every white-skinned person in Asia teaches English, you know.  I hate this assumption.  "I was doing finance... Stock options.  But not like stock trading, Wall Street stuff.  There was some HR and customer service, too.  Super low pay."

One eyebrow raised, his beady eyes looking more baffled by the second, he took pause.  "OK, so you're a teacher," he said as he put one finger up to his lip, "but you did finance?  What did you study?"

"Chinese history."

If a third hand had sprouted from my forehead and my eyes suddenly turned to pudding, it might have made more sense to him.  His baby understood as much of this conversation as he did.  Before his brain melted from confusion, I continued for this poor fool's sake.

"Anyway, so now I'm not teaching anymore.  I just got a job as an assistant editor for this online music database that provides metadata to big companies.  I'll be a writer and stuff."

"Metadata?  OK.  I guess that's cool.  At least it's temporary, until you find something else," he said, flashing me some sympathetic eyebrow furrows.  What else could an orthopedic surgeon offer to a low-wage humanities type?

"No way, this is a dream come true.  I LOVE music."  He cracked a pitiful smile.

Fortunately, his wife came over and exchanged a cold beer for the baby.  "Hi honey, this is Neil," he said, quickly catching the eye of an old colleague.  He scurried away, leaving his pediatrician wife.

"Nice to meet you," she said, extending her hand for a shake.  "So what do you do?"


Ever since I could legally receive compensation for work, I have been employed.  Save for a couple instances -- study abroad, volunteering, traveling -- I've been working for about two decades straight.

Growing up, I did not receive an allowance, an unusually cruel, yet fairly common, practice in old school immigrant Chinese families.  To his credit, my father was very generous and spoiled me with books, puzzles, and assorted blocks and bricks to stimulate my natural creativity and imagination.  But for the fun stuff -- action figures, video games, music -- I had to beg.

As many children of immigrants know, asking your parents for anything is a fearful process.  You may take days, even weeks, concocting the best pitch, like an entrepreneur with a VC angel.  Every word needed to be perfect (don't be flippant!), the flow had to have the perfect rhythm (start apologetic and pathetic, finish humbled and grateful), and it was imperative that the end result was a decision that shone your parent in a completely, utterly magnanimous light (as if this great gift was their idea in the first place).

"My son, you have proven yourself worthy and honorable.  Your progress report had straight A's and you are on the honor roll.  Other parents at church shower me with compliments for raising such an upstanding young man.  You saved our neighbors from that terrible fire and you're on the verge of curing cancer.  You may have one Ninja Turtle."

I knew better than to stray from the cheap and simple.  Never get greedy, or you'd risk destroying the entire operation.  If it wasn't my birthday or Christmas, one action figure was enough.  One pack of Upper Deck basketball cards was the limit ("$5 for paper?!").  While my white friends were getting new bikes for C's on a report card, I was writing grants (in cursive!) for the shot at one G.I. Joe.  I was not deprived at all, but my dad did not make it easy.

My final straw came in the late '80s.  The original Nintendo was finally on sale for under $150.  I had begged for months.  "My friends already had Ataris!  I've been patient!  It's Japanese!  We're all Asian!" I cried, pointing at the Sunday flyer.  "Look, it's on sale!"

SALE
The most magical of words in any Asian household
(beside "Harvard" or "doctor")

We drove up to Lechmere one evening after dinner and strolled into the store.  Back then, there were game sections where kids could be abandoned while parents shopped and pretended there wasn't an arcade in the food court.  Hordes of smelly pre-pubescent wannabe geeks and the pimply teens they admired, all congregated around the newest system, clamoring for a turn.  I knew exactly where my father was headed.  I almost pissed myself with excitement.

As he carried that black, red and grey box to the register, I thought to myself, my dad's alright.  We'll have so much fun playing Mario and Duck Hunt at home.  I beamed.

Once he paid that whopping amount (something like $300 today), he held that gorgeous box for his son -- lest I hurt my precious hands and be unable to use the controllers -- and we walked back to the car.  He stopped a few paces outside the store and looked down at me.

"This is MY Nintendo," he began.  Excuse me?

"Whenever you want to play it, you have to ask ME," he continued.

I looked like that foot surgeon from the wedding.  "Hunh?  What do you mean?"  My neck started to get prickly from the fire surging within.

"I mean this is not yours.  This is my Nintendo.  But you can use it anytime, as long as you finish your homework."

There are certain situations from the pages of life that one might relate to this one.  Losing a decisive battle at the last minute.  Traveling to a favorite restaurant only to see it has gone out of business.  Studying for days only to fail a huge test.  Losing a substantial lead during a championship game.  All of Alanis Morissette's "Ironic."  Blue balls.  I had no idea what the fuck was happening.

In hindsight, this was genius.  While my chums spiraled into video game addiction that tanked their grades, I had to ask permission.  I couldn't just switch on the TV and stomp some goombas.  I had to ask first.  But to an 8-year old who has just had the rug (and entire floor of the house) pulled out from under him, it was a vulgar display of power.  I vowed to myself that very day: as soon as I could, I would get a job and make my own money.  I could get my own goddamned Nintendo.  And I would never have to ask for anything again.


I've had many jobs over the years and oddly enough -- and purely unintentional -- they've all been different.  I've never had the same job twice.  Most folks have a career, something they studied for, worked their asses off to build, and sacrificed much to climb the ranks.  Of course there are other folks who do less and are content with working in coffee shops at forty.  To each his own.  I happen to like new things, unexpected challenges, and following my heart to new places.  As with everything in my life, I'll try anything once.  Work happens to be one of those things.

Over the years, I've been a lowly groundskeeping grunt, an underpaid cog in a larger custodial machine.  Child labor, basically.  I worked a register, I stocked shelves, I've seen the very worst of humanity: customers who come in a minute before closing and pay with coins and coupons.  I held Gandalf's sword and taught children why Shelob is not possible, so stop having nightmares.  I've been an IT guy.  A tutor.  I sorted dongles.  DONGLES lol.  I've been a drug dealer... by which I mean I worked in a pharmacy.  I built libraries in rural China when I wasn't strapped to my desk and a telephone.  I was a restaurant critic.  I was a teacher, counselor, and professor.

Over three decades in and I'm still not sure what the rest of life holds for me.

So what do I do?  I do whatever my gut tells me.


[Editor's note: this will be the first in a series of pieces about the different jobs I've had over the years.  After the past few frustrating months -- the longest I've ever spent searching for a job -- I thought it would be fun to go through the memory banks and think about all the silly things I've done while not crafting a responsible adult career.  As always, it's for writing exercise, personal posterity and for entertaining a very small, supportive audience.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed living it.]

Blood, Piss and Mr. Bean

(Or, Getting Examined in the PRC, Vol. III)

The old man looked at me and said, "Lift your shirt."

I complied, sucking in my corpulent gut. I didn't want him to think I was too slovenly, what with the multiple folds of flub decorating my midsection.

Rubbing his pudgy hands along my back, applying pressure here and there, he cooed, "Hmmm, looks good. My, you have wonderful skin!"

Embarrassed, I forced a sigh and a giggle. "Thanks."

Pointing south with his gloved hand, he asked with a playful smile, "You want me to check out what's going on down there?"

I politely declined, but he persisted. "You suuuuuure?"

"Yes, thanks." It was a little too early for me to get fingered by an old man. It wasn't Saturday night and I was quite sober, so this could only mean one thing. Yearly medical check-up time!

My old friend was clearly disappointed by my rejection, but there would be other soft-skinned foreign boys for him to bugger with his geriatric digit. He scribbled a note onto my checklist near his "Internal Medicine" section: "asshole and genital exam refused." He gestured for me to confirm with my initials, lest I come back later to sue him for missing my enlarged prostate or elephantitised testes. Breathing a sigh of relief, I exited his office and moved on to the next station.

A few minutes earlier, I was jabbed by something significantly less fleshy.

I had spent the previous sleepless night dreading that 0.4 second instant when the soft fleshy crevice of my elbow-pit would be pierced by the sharp glimmering needle, but it wasn't so bad. Even as my blood was being stolen from my very veins, I gazed calmly down at the pierced dermis, registered the foreign agent penetrating my life force, and didn't even faint or feel terrified. Never in my entire life have I been able to meet the gaze of a hypodermic needle, much less one rammed into my arm. How on Earth was it possible on this day? Because Mr. Bean was there to help me.

All I Need

Shanghai's Mei Nian (MN) Healthcare is one of the coolest clinics I've ever had the sweaty panicked fortune of visiting. From the outside, the all-glass surface of the cubical building gives it a modern edge that is further exaggerated by the dirty and dilapidated old hospital building next door. MN is just for check-ups, conducted in classic Chinese fashion: like an assembly line.

In the past, upon arrival, we had been given a piece of paper -- the checklist -- which we would carry to room after room, getting poked, prodded and examined like animals, just nameless faces in a steady stream of endless patients. One doctor in each room, one check-mark for each exam. When the hunt was finished, we would return the wrinkled paper to the front desk and go on our way with a hard-boiled egg and steamed bun as healthy rewards. At MN, we were given a clipboard with our checklist and an electronic sensor card. Then the fun could begin.

For the first time in my life, I could see the benefits of simple technology applied to such a routine task. Once I had my eyes checked, the doctor input some incomprehensible Chinese into her computer, swiped my card to save the data to my file, and instructed me to the next stop, the ears-nose-and-throat check. Above each exam room doorway, the name of the next patient in line would scroll across an LED screen, listing out all those pending in the queue for that particular exam. In such a furiously hectic and confusing country, this is a giant advance in common sense and convenience. I nodded to myself in delight and sat down on the brown patent leather sofas filling the central waiting area, waiting for my turn to check my blood pressure.

Everything about this place was designed to comfort and soothe. As Mr. Bean made a complete fool of himself on the big HD screen near the blood test area -- a perfect distraction for weak-kneed wussy boys -- quiet music was piped through the hall. Potted plants and flowers rested silently on clean glass tables. There was no rushing, no pushing, no commotion of the sort that I had experienced at past medical check ups in comparatively more outdated, Soviet-style settings. Everyone knew where they were supposed to be, everything spaced and timed for efficiency.

Even the urine test was a breeze. Often my favorite part of the day, simply due to sheer nastiness. At my last visit to a hospital in the suburbs, I emerged from the bathroom with a plastic cup of clear amber brew. The proud smile on my face (no spillage!) was shattered into a million bits when the piss-collecting ayi started to yell at me. "Too much! Agggh!" Then she grabbed my cup with her sticky-dried-piss hands, spilling some on the floor and my wrist. She ripped off the cap and dumped the excess into the garbage can, splattering my essence onto the filthy tiled floor, replacing the plastic cover and tossing the more-manageable specimen onto a table of samples stacked ten-high and five-deep. The smell could make a lesser man faint.

Shuddering at the memory, I was smarter this time. As I approached the bathroom, for one, it didn't smell like used baby diapers. The pee auntie sat at a desk patiently with a pair of tongs. I watched as she delicately lifted a cup of piss between those metal tweezers, pouring out the extra into a designated piss bucket. The splatter spray almost got me, but I nimbly skipped back to avoid the flying droplets. The rest was gently dribbled into a test tube with the patient's name on it. This was actually clean. Questions of sterility can't apply to anything in this country, so you take what you can get.

I hovered over the urinal with the plastic cup in my left hand -- there was a convenient indent on the edge just for our holding convenience -- and deposited just the right amount that I had seen her pour into the other test tube. I just wanted to make her day easier. Happy with the clarity and color, I slowly walked my properly-hydrated self over to the pee auntie, making sure not to spill. Instead of assaulting me with dirty pee hands, she smiled and received my cup. She seemed happy to avoid that communal bucket.

Apple Juice or Wee-wee?
(Hint: it's drinkable)

The morning passed with similar ease and efficiency. Before I could even ask the doctors where to stand and where to rest my chin, the X-Ray flash went off and snapped an intrusive look into my chest. Check.

The ultrasound goo gave me a tingly little chill as it was smeared across my abdomen, providing ample slide for the sensor that would confirm that all my organs were still in the proper location. Check.

The snapping pop made by the EKG suction-cup sensors as they were pulled off my chest made me giggle, as did the firm fondling I received by the doctor charged with examining my torso. Check, check.

After many times down this same road, I was delighted to finally have an experience that I would not need to disclose in therapy sessions 10 or 20 years from now. The only issue raised by any of the dozen doctors that had seen my quivering flesh that day had been that I need more exercise, as if I didn't know that already. Overall, a clean bill of health.

And really wonderful skin.