“Son,” my dad pleaded, “this is a testing from above. And when you come out of it, you’ll become stronger and wiser. Not everything will go your way. In fact there will always be things that won’t happen exactly the way you want. There’s no way to escape disappointment. But that’s okay. It’s just the cycle of life. You win some and you lose some. Don’t let these failures defeat you. You can get back up from where you fell, you know. This is not the end.” I got this speech in various forms day after day.
Dad’s words were extremely difficult to swallow at first, but as I chewed on them, I slowly understood the wisdom in them. There was really no point dwelling on the past, since I had absolutely no power to change the situation with Warner. I gradually concluded that I should turn this experience into an asset of experience and keep moving forward. At the very least, my talent had been recognized, not once but twice, by two major music companies. That had to mean something. I should have taken this as an encouragement. My only way to repay the unconditional support from my family was to get up, wipe off the dust, and try again. Right there and then, I swore to create my own promise of a brighter day—a promise to put my past behind me and to make it into the music business, no matter what the cost. I determined to prove to the world that I was worthy.
Chapter 3
Changes
“Baby, whatcha lookin’ at?” Amanda tried to catch my attention. She could see me occasionally craning as I tried to catch a glimpse of a stranger who was about a block ahead of us in the mall. She swung my arm playfully as we walked together—trying to get my attention—but she could see that I was clearly distracted.
“Nothing really … I think I just saw an old friend that I haven’t seen for a long time. Let me go say ‘Hi.’ Why don’t you wait for me back there at the food court? Grab us something to drink at the bubble-tea stand. You know what I want. I’ll meet you there in a minute, all right?”
I gave a quick look both ways as Amanda disappeared around a corner and dodged my way through the mall traffic to catch up to Cheri and a couple of her friends. When she saw me, her eyes lit up. “Hey, baby! What’re you doing here?” she asked. “You stalking me?” She cocked her head and squinted her eyes coyly at me.
“Yeah, totally! I’m watching you, so you’d better be good! Nah, I’m just here with another friend.” I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled and looked me in the eye with a hint of suspicion. Man, she was pretty. Cheri introduced me to her friends, though I’m sure I had seen them before at a party or something.
“A ‘friend,’ eh? Better not be another girlfriend! You’re not allowed to mess around with other girls. You promised me that!” Cheri punched me gently square in the middle of my chest. I didn’t feel guilty, but I was a little nervous that I was going to get busted.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah … don’t worry. What are you doing here—just shopping?” I tried to change the topic.
“Yes, in fact, we are here to shop. Tanya and Brenda are helping me pick out something.”
“Well in that case, I better let you continue your mission. I need to get going too. Don’t stay out too late. See you tomorrow?”
“All right. Of course you’re gonna see me tomorrow! Call me before you go to bed. Love you!” She threw her arms around me and pressed her whole torso against mine. I could smell her hair and a gentle waft of perfume rising from her blouse. She really liked me—it was obvious. Over time, being a two-timing jerk was bothering me less and less. I was addicted to the feeling of finding someone new, and my conscience gradually faded behind the fog of my own desires.
I burned through girlfriend after girlfriend—I needed the rush of new feelings to keep me excited about life. Different types of girls attracted me in different ways. If they were taller than me or had money to flaunt, I didn’t let it intimidate me. All it represented was another challenge in a game that I was getting pretty good at—for a guy who used to be a geek, that is.
Some of my guy friends thought I was some kind of hero, but the truth of the matter is that maintaining the deception and constantly lying were completely exhausting. The exhilaration would keep me going for a while, but eventually I would long for a calmer and more honest reality. This I am certain of: a lot of this was overcompensation for my days as a social outcast. It was what you might call an “evil nerd syndrome”: high-school loser is suddenly popular and becomes a megalomaniac.
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I still remember my first impressions of Pinetree Secondary School in Coquitlam, BC, Canada. It was a beautifully built modern school surrounded by stands of West Coast fir trees and overlooking Lafarge Lake. I was very grateful to be able to attend such a great school in a beautiful part of greater Vancouver. The natural beauty of north Coquitlam—the mountains and the constantly fresh air blowing through the valley—stood in sharp contradistinction to the place of my birth, Hong Kong. All I remembered is the concrete. Never before had I seen so many living things (other than humans, that is). Real trees and plants everywhere I looked. For a city kid from Hong Kong, this seemed pretty exotic.
The educational system in Hong Kong was very stressful and competitive. Students were forced by their parents to have tutoring in almost every subject, just to make it to the top tier. My parents wanted to shield me from that environment. Further, Hong Kong was scheduled to be handed over from the United Kingdom to the government of China in 1997. This created a lot of uncertainty as to what Hong Kong would become. For all these reasons, my parents decided to move to Canada.
At the age of 15, I had a lot of anticipation about senior high. Feel free to call me naive, but I thought it would be something lifted out of a scene from High School Musical and My Super Sweet 16. Everything I had learned about Western teen culture had come from TV and movies, so I was certain that the formula for social success was (athletic + good-looking + fashionable + eloquent) x popularity = hot girlfriend + happily ever after. Notice that I took the time to factor my equation—Math 9 was not completely wasted on me.
To my horror, high school was not at all like a Disney movie, and for some reason, I had received none of the variables on the left-hand side of the equation. First, I wasn’t athletic. As a matter of fact, I was kind of a wimp. There I was, with skinny legs in gym shorts that didn’t fit right, doing the old 12-minute run … dying. I wasn’t good-looking. I knew very little about how to live in my skin, so to speak. No grooming skills. No confidence in my stride. And then there was my haircut—skillfully supplied for 10 dollars cash by some neighbour-lady who had a barber chair in her basement. I wasn’t fashionable. My entire wardrobe was from Wal-Mart. I wasn’t eloquent. My English was broken and heavily accented. I could never even finish an English phrase without punctuating it with so many “umms” and “uhhhs” that people did not want to take the time to listen.
Lacking all of the necessary ingredients for popularity, not surprisingly, I wasn’t popular. All of this led to a paralyzing self-consciousness and the complete inability to engage any girl, never mind the pretty ones, in any form of meaningful conversation.
Moving to Canada was like moving to another planet, except on this planet. Culturally it was so different. Even the Asian kids did not act like they did back home. They had been “bananified,” as they say. They still held on to some aspects of Asian culture, but they seemed to blend in pretty seamlessly with Western culture also. I didn’t know how to interface with people. It was like having the wrong power cable for your cellphone: it just did not work. In my primary school in Hong Kong, things had not been this way. I had friends, and I was not the quiet one. I seemed to be able to make friends with everyone. Even the principal seemed to like me, and I
