delightfulsweetsbluebird

[delightfulsweetsbluebird]

I Feel A Lot Older Than I Am

This is the phrase a lot of arrogant teens, who think they are way smarter than they are, would say. But when I say it, I mean it. I am 21 years old currently. Supposedly fresh in the adult world with nuances of responsibilities. But in my mind, I am at least 60 years older, one life-time older than who I look like. I am one of the unfortunate souls that caught Covid during the first wave. Adding to the bad luck, I became so unwell with pancreatitis I was put into a medically induced coma. According to my doctor, I was out for around 4 weeks before I woke up and slowly recovered. But in my mind, I have lived an entire lifetime before waking up. I can’t remember many details except the vivid feeling of living through that life. It was nothing like a dream. 

I can’t recall any details from it. Only when I think about it generally, I can feel the certainties of those memories. I can feel the thankfulness on the day of my wedding, happiness like I have never experienced before. I can feel the overflowing emotions on the day our first child was born, and then my second and third. The unconditional love when I held them in my arms. I can feel the worries of not being a good enough parent for my children, and the sense of pride on the days of their graduation. The feeling of how incredible life is when my first grandchild was born, of relief when I finally reached the time of retirement, and of boredom after that.

As well as the stressful uncertainty caused by job search after graduation. I can feel fear when my youngest fell sick. The devastation, anger, and helplessness when she was taken away too early. I can feel the relief of watching the rest of the children growing up healthy, and the frustrations of the generation gap with my teenagers. I can also feel the resentment, the hopelessness that engulfed me when I became single again, cursing at life for its cruelty. The darkness of alcohol engulfed me for some years. 

But that’s all that I can recall, feelings. When I try to think about the details of that life, I would get a skull-splitting migraine that makes thoughts impossible. My doctor explains that as a common sign among Covid patients who woke up from a coma. My mind, however, can’t distinguish between the coma and reality. I am constantly surprised by how young my friends look as they should be a lot older from what I remember. I can feel both a sense of familiarity and strangeness when I look at myself in the mirror. I still get reminiscent of my life from time to time.  

I am 21, turning 22 soon. But I lived at least 60 years during my coma.

[delightfulsweetsbluebird]

Unbounded

Today is September 1, 2626. With the advance of modern technology, human society revolves around HGI (Human General Index), a score that can determine your fate. For example, if you have an HGI below 100, you are likely to be arrested for the crimes that the system believes you will commit in the future, or if you have HGI above 800, the system believes you are part of the elite individuals and places you in a position of high privilege. Every aspect of your life is determined by your HGI score, from what primary school you will go to, who you will date, what social you will receive, etc. to how long you will live.

I, a person with a HGI score of 925, the top 1% of the human population, enjoy all the perks that this new world has to offer. The social circle that I am in is comprised mostly of 800 or more HGI score. I live in a 2000 square feet apartment by myself. I have a job that pays way more than enough. With such privilege, I have never questioned the working of this world.

It was May 1, 2626 when I first met her. Alicia was a new colleague that got appointed to partner up with me. She had a much higher HGI score than I did, a perfect 1000, the highest HGI score anyone could achieve. In fact, she was the first person that I had met with such HGI score. It was such a rare thing, but nobody around me seemed to notice, except for me. Perplexed, I did not give much thought about it. At around that time when I first met her, there had been more incidents of people’s HGI score falling below 100. But as the perfect world that it was, nobody seemed to care.

“Wee-oww...” *The sound of police siren*. “The suspect is on the run. He is heading East.”

I would have never expected this day to come. My HGI score falls down to 26, and I have no clue to how. I am on the run from the police as they are trying to put me into prison for my low HGI score. Out of nowhere, an arm reaches out from the shadow and pulls me into a small alley. The person tells me to shut up and follows her. It is Alicia.

We arrive at a secret place.

“Why did you try to save me? Your HGI score could very likely be affected.”

“6.”

“?” - I am wondering what she is talking about.

“The amount of people I have killed.”

I start to become terrified. I check her HGI score. Oddly enough. It is still at 1000. It is a well-known fact that once you have committed a crime, your HGI score will fall down to below 100, but this is the case for Alicia.

“I don’t intend to kill you so you don’t have to worry about that. I am born with a perfect HGI score. To test my HGI score and challenge the rule of this world, I have killed 6 people. The system just simply doesn’t apply to me. I also find out that I can also manipulate other people’s HGI score.”

“Did you also do this to my HGI score?”

“Yes.”

[delightfulsweetsbluebird]

Yellow Privilege

It was the year of 2020; a lot of things were getting more attention than usual as people were staying at home and having more time on their hands to be online.  Among those, racial justice was a very hot topic that got the biggest number of active discussions. It had become such a controversial topic that, in many ways, it had become a propaganda device used by the leftists and the rightists, two core opposing political views and ideals in the Western world, or at least in North America. As an international student from Vietnam who had lived in America and been living in Canada for roughly more than 2 years at the time, I often chose not to partake in this kind of discussion because of the shallow understanding of the social and political complex of many participants in this conversation. Nonetheless, the foreigner mentality also largely contributed to my unwilling participation.

“Lucky that you are Asian.” - said Adi, a friend of mine.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you Asians enjoy more privileges than we do? You guys have such higher SAT scores, higher representation in higher education, and lower representation in prison.”

“Yes, that is true I guess but...”

“And you know, it’s like you guys don’t experience social and systematic racism. Which I think you guys are part of the oppressors now.”

I was shocked at the conversation. To an extent, I thought this was a bit racist in itself. But before putting out any replies, I wanted to ask why he felt this way.

“But how does higher SAT scores, overrepresentation in higher education, and underrepresentation in prison correlate to Asians being more privileged?”

“Well...because you guys are systematically favored?”

At this point, I understood that he did not really understand his statement and could not formulate a sound argument to back it up. And to be honest, I was pretty offended by it. To say that Asian did not experience racism, especially during the pandemic, when crimes against Asians was approximately 8 times more than usual, was pretty ignorant in itself. And the fact that Asians had higher representation in education did not mean Asians were not systematically discriminated in education system. Asians were never part of the affirmative action that supposedly benefited minorities/POCs. Higher education institutions, especially the targeted ones, for instance, the Ivy League, were criticized for having different admission standard criteria, often higher, for Asian applicants. Asians having lower representation in prison did not mean that Asians were protected under the criminal law. It was just a fact backed by statistics that Asians had a low crime rate. And, even worse, many Asian Americans often got deported instead of putting into prison for their crimes.

It was true that Asians had better statistics than other minorities. However, to condemn this as Asian privilege for all the wrong reasons, in my opinion, was racist in itself.

Related media:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/k1vmqy/yellow_privilege/