The Family Disappointment

What did I think of the piece I learned yesterday?

Look for me in the bottom right corner of the video to find out! (I’m wearing the purple shirt.)



I like most parts of the choreo. A few parts really turn me off. And if I were to listen to the song enough, I would probably shove some needles through my ears. The piece is overall really gay, and I like gayifying dance pieces, but I’m not sure if I can do it as much as the choreographer did. But I’m sure (or I hope) I can get it and make it more tolerable for myself while keeping the piece’s original personality.



Sunday was a fun day, overall. Somehow, it slipped that I was jee-ay-why. I was driving Mimi and myself to the BART, and she was talking about all the gay guys in Funksters and the whole Funkbrella. So I figured it was an appropriate time to come out. She didn’t believe it, saying that I was a 0 on a believability scale of 1 to 10. (That was a nice ego booster.) But then I whipped out my senior prom picture from my wallet and showed her. It was probably the greatest news that she heard all day.

And for the rest of the day, she’d ask me, “CAN I TELL THEM BRIAN?” to which I would nod yes and to which she would immediately blurt, “BRIAN’S GAY [TOO]!”

I got to tell my coming out story to my parents for the hundredth time that day. I’ve told it and will probably continue to tell it so many times that I should just put it on the back of my business card*. And I’ve always told it the same way: One sentence like, “Yeah, things were crazy with my parent for the first few months,” and then a whole entire conversation about how amazingly cool they are about it now and how they cook food for Trung and invite him to family get-togethers and say hi to him when they walk in on me and Trung lying together in bed in the morning, etc.

(*Trung came up with the “business card” expression.)

Somehow, I learned to get really good at shutting out all the bad events that happened during the first four months of 2006. Of all my past blog entries that I would read from time to time, I would always skip past these months. I’ve never had to think about them in depth, until yesterday, when a fellow Funkster told me his story.

I’ve told my coming out stories a lot, but it’s been a really long time (years) since I’ve actually heard one from another person. His story forced me to think about what actually happened the night I came out. And I kinda got bummed out.

That night, I went home to a hot bowl of Pho sitting on the kitchen table. My parents were sitting on the couch five feet away watching TV, and they asked me if I went to San Francisco for my dance class again. I said yes, and they continued to play an elimination game with me to try to truly understand what kind of dancing I do. “Is it ballet?” “It is tap?” “Is it jazz?” “Is it contemporary?” “Is it classical?”

I had never told them I was taking a dance class in San Francisco. Three weeks into Summer Intensive, I was still trying to figure out how to tell them until my mom finally asked, “Have you been spending your weekends in San Francisco for that dance class?” She must’ve actually remembered the permission slip she signed back in May.

It was a relief that I didn’t have to tell them directly. I sorta had this irrational fear that this would’ve been family disappoint number three because instead of tennis, I chose to do dance. The first family disappointment, coming out, was so bad that I worried that adding any more to the number of disappointments would push my parents completely over the edge. They didn’t take the second one, and now the third one, too badly at all, but I still feel like my parents would occasionally think to themselves, “We wish it couldn’t have been this other way. Oh well.”

People tell me that I don’t need to, but one of these days, I will apologize.

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“Lunar New Year”
Written January 29th, 2006 (Excerpted)

It was midnight, and the Great Mall was pretty lonely. However, CyberHunt, an Internet Café, was still open, and there were a bunch of wanksters playing CS and stuff. They had a DDR Extreme machine, so I played a game. I AA'd Legend of Max on Extra Stage, got the Encore Extra Stage, and I passed it. Finally. After I was done with that game, I remembered, "What do I smell like right now?" Smoke, yes, cigarette smoke. I grabbed my bottle of Axe and sprayed it all over me.

When my dad came and I got in the car, I closed the door and could still smell it. I turned up the volume on the radio and opened the windows all the way down. My dad raised them up again because the heater was on. I simply muttered, "No," and I lowered them again. My dad didn't protest this time.

As we were driving home, we passed by an exit and my dad pointed out, "If we kept on going through that exit, we would've gone to my work." I was just kinda glancing out the window, but I still heard what he said. Usually, I would just shrug, "Whatever, that's cool," but tonight... I raised the window, lowered the music on the radio, and without caring how I smelled, I asked him, "So that's your new job? What company is it at?" He said it was at KOA, and I asked, "Didn’t they already lay you off and ask you back twice already?" He answered yeah.

A few seconds of silence passed, and I came up with another question. "So what do you do? You know, for a living?" And for the first time ever, I found out what my dad did. He said he was simply a technician who tested finished machine products and made sure that they operated correctly. And I asked him how was the Lunar New Year party, what happened without me, if everything was cleaned up at home, etc. He was speaking in Vietnamese while I was asking him my questions in English. However, as the conversation went on, he started to make an effort to speak English because I think he knew that I was more comfortable with English.

[The conversation] was nice. It has been a while since I've had a conversation with my dad that just wasn't, "Drive me to the mall."

When we were passing by a small accident on the highway, my dad started talking about not to make mistakes like David. I immediately spoke up and said, "Dad, I really don't like it when you compare me to David like that. I'd rather not hear about how David is not as 'good' as me. It makes me uncomfortable..." I looked over to see if my dad understood what I had just said. "...y'know, dad?"

He knew, and he didn't talk about David for the rest of the way home.

I had always wondered for a long time about how my parents would react if I told them that I was gay. Would they react on the same level? Or would one be upset while the other would be extremely upset? I figured they would react on the same level, but that they would react in different ways. My dad had always spoke highly of me. He would always tell me how he looked forward to meeting my wife, being there at my wedding, baby-sitting my grandkids... My mom, on the other hand, was closer to me, while there was always some distance between me and my dad. My mom had general ideas of what made me tick, what I liked to do, what makes me happy, and all that crap. She had cared for me more in the past. I think my dad would've been disappointed because I crushed his dreams, while my mom would've been upset because she thought she should've known sooner or that she made some mistake taking care of me.

When I got home, I took a shower and tried to really get the cigarette smell off of me. After I was done, I waited for my dad to go upstairs into the room with my mom, and I follow him in five minutes after.

"Hey, happy New Year!" I told them. My mom said that my relatives gave me sixty dollars and that there was food left over in the fridge. I was like, "Okay." I still stood there at the end of the bed, however. I started to form the words on the back of my tongue.

"Do you have something to tell us, Brian?" my mom inquired.

"Oh..." Here it was. Here it was... I was nervous, so when I said it, I muttered it really quickly so it sounded like, "I'm okay."

But I knew she heard me clearly when I heard her sigh, "Why?" I simply repeated myself.
"Are you gay... because you're gay?" she asked. I nodded. She and my dad glanced at each other and communicated silently. I was waiting to hear them ask, "Why... why are you choosing that?" But slowly, they turned their heads back to me and said, "Okay.... It's okay. Go to sleep now, it's late."

I said g'night, walked out of the room and closed the door behind me, completely confused. My hand was still on the doorknob when I froze. I finally put together what had just happened: My parents were okay with it. I could feel the tears coming. I went back downstairs and hurled myself into the couch and buried my face in my hands... I felt like crying, but only a few tears came out. So I got back on and worked on this blog entry. That was it. There we go.

EDIT: Okay, there we not go. When I finished this blog entry, I walked back upstairs, and when I passed by the door to my parents' room, the doors opened and they walked out. They asked if they could speak to me downstairs for a few minutes (which turned out to be an hour). I kinda knew that "Okay" would not just be it. I knew there was going to be more when I woke up in the morning, but I guess it couldn't wait.

We sat on the couch in the family room downstairs. My mom was sobbing heavily and had stuff coming out of her nose. My dad had his arms crossed and was quiet most of the time. The first thing they told me was that they still loved me, but they're number one concern is society. I know society isn't too fond of the homosexuals, but my parents take it way overboard. They think that everybody is out to get the homosexuals. All they really want from me is the assurance that I'll survive and I'll be happy in life. It was hard to convince them that I was happy and that people wouldn't mob me if I went out to the mall. I had to eliminate my parents' views that gay people don't always look and act gay and that straight people don't turn gay and gay people don't turn straight unless they drink the bloody piss of Jesus. I constantly reassured them that my gayness had no connection to schoolwork, friends, or my attitudes towards my parents. Other than, they just asked other questions like, "How long have you know?" "Why did you keep it a secret for so long?" etc. [[And later on in the week, my mom would ask, “Is something wrong with your penis?” Thankfully, she didn’t make me show her anything.]]

My dad wasn't all that convinced though. He was telling me that I should just shut away me feelings, and that it [was] "possible" to turn "back" straight. He suggested seeing a [psychiatrist], but I only agreed to when they agreed they would see him with me. Then I [would] laugh when the psychologist [would] bust out his scientific terms and start explaining to my parents how they're son is forever homo.

I've told my parents. I will tell my brother when I wake up later if my parents don't tell him first. Don't have to worry about the [Oakridge] crew because they've known for a long time. Peter, Miranda, John, Jion: Thanks for helping me through this.
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(By the way, never come out to your parents on a holiday or during the holiday season. Do not follow my example.)