Confessions of a Cat-holic (93)

I would not even start talking about the fancy things in the rich man's circle. Daryl took me to the Country Club next to Ocean Park once to showcase his VIP membership. I knew he was privileged, without his bragging about it. I knew how difficult it was to be a member of the Aberdeen Marina Club, the Country Club, the American Club, etc. My uncle, aka my father's elder brother, had been showing off his membership by inviting us to dinners at the Hong Kong Jockey Club since I was in elementary school. And then there was Sharon. Sharon had a thing for guys from international school, because she knew I had a family friend, Oliver, from CIS. Every day and night in elementary school, I would be hearing her stories about shopping at the most pricey shops in Lee Garden and her mingling with Simon Wong, a slightly dorky guy from South Island School, who later went to medical school in Australia. Sharon tried to lure me into taking tennis so she could officially make me blind by hitting me with a racket. She, always and forever, emphasized that she was a member of the Craigengower Cricket Club in Causeway Bay. I wouldn't know why Sharon tried to appear rich with her insurance-dealer parents who grew up in the public estate. But I went along with her self-inflating conversations anyways.

And then Clairol took me to the Eating Clubs she was enrolled at Princeton when I visited her on campus. I was at Columbia at the time. Even though I never thought of applying to Princeton, I kind of was glad that I didn't even bother to try. First, I didn't think I would stand a chance of getting in because I considered myself "not white enough". It was quite obvious that SPCC had a tradition of sending the best student to Princeton every year. Luminous, who was a year above me, was enrolled at Princeton on the reputable Hang Seng Scholarship. People always liked to think of me as her successor, which I could not agree. Then it was Clairol in my year. She was by all means a fit for Princeton, I reckoned. She was one of the most posh students I had ever known. The Eating Club culture at Princeton kind of resembled Hong Kong's obsession about memberships at certain exclusive clubs, which sometimes made it look like another freemasonry. I never intended to enroll at any of these privileged clubhouses, and I was completely fine about it. And because I had friends like Sharon, who really liked to appear higher than everyone else in the room, I had to constantly put off a show like I really wanted to be one of them. I could have been honest about my feelings and told them at their face that they were really silly by paying such a premium just to appear wealthy. But I chose to go with the flow and acted like an outsider who wanted to break in to their circle.

One thing I liked about Columbia was that we didn't have to rush for any sororities or fraternities. Greek life was not big in New York, and I kind of liked it that way. We didn't have to sign up for any of the Eating Clubs to spend an extra 10,000 USD a year for connections and bonding with fellow schoolmates. Frankly speaking, I was kind of put off by Princeton's predominantly white scene when I got off the train an hour away from Penn Station New York. Priceton was just a few stations away from Manhattan but it was a completely different town, serene and pristine like the Jersey version of Stepford Wife. I already got used to the ghetto neighborhood of Harlem and guess what, once you go black, you could never go back. I was sort of afraid of black people prior to landing at the states. I guessed college was like a black box, it could do amazing things to your brain waves by disrupting your stereotypes and pre-conditioned mindsets.

I saw a bunch of abercrombie-model-looking white guys half naked playing volleyball on campus at Princeton, and it mimicked a chick flick, like Bring it On or Ten Things I Hate About You. I was talking about blonde buff white guys ready to show off their athletic skills and masculine bodies.