Confessions of a Cat-holic (94)

To give you an idea about how different the two schools were, I would confidently say that New York was definitely an eclectic city and I did not recall encountering or even seeing an Anglo-Saxon during my four years of college life at Columbia. The only white guys, or I would say, pale-skinned guys were Jewish, and they formed a big chunk of the student population. They would only play frisbee on the tiny courtyard in between buildings.

Then it would be the Asians. Yes, Asians and Jews made up the majority of the student body. I sometimes thought that the Affirmative Action thing was surreal.

But I did remember seeing a very hot blonde girl in school when she was doing on campus jobs at the fitness center as a receptionist. Her name was Kate McKinnon. I saw her perfomance at the Varsity Show, which was the signature annual campus event at Columbia. She stood out as the prettiest actress in the cast. And for the longest time, I thought she looked like Rachel McAdams, starring in Mean Girls.

So we did have a few white people on campus at Columbia. But they were very rare to come across. I had more white friends in Hong Kong than I was at Columbia. That was the myth about an Ivy education. They said it was a fairy tale wonderland where you could meet a Saudi Arabian Prince or an oil rig owner from Lebanon at an Ivy League college, like everyone could be the next Priscilla Chen. I had to say with utmost sincerity that while there could be some hidden annonymous billionaires in school, you would more likely be surrounded by dirt poor people before even dreaming of making contacts with Mark Zuckerberg. Sad enough, I had to say that I met my poorest friends, all during my time in college. Edmond was one. He grew up in the brothel district slum in Hong Kong and he insisted that I was a good match to his academic talents, because no girls could say no to a New Haven Yale legend. Then it was my first year roommate, whom I later found out that she had been living in the caged houses in Wanchai and had to pay off her rent through sex trades. I heard she was human trafficked with an organ sold in the black market just to prove that she could afford a Valentino clutch and an Ivy brand on a free-ride financial aid package.

Most of the people I saw in New York and at Columbia particularly were Jews, brown-haired, light skinned and physically lean. To be honest, they were not even considered white technically by many standards. They were middle eastern. And the Asians could be Tibetans, Laos, Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodians, you name it. The only kind of white guys at Columbia were the jocks, but they lived in a different world and I was mostly just hanging out with the Asians. I kind of regretted not having been to any of the homecoming events at Columbia. The only game I watched was a basketball game of Columbia vs Yale at New Haven, and I did not like how I was thrown a gummy bear by a kid in the court when I cheered for my alma mater.

I knew Daryl wanted to try an Ivy too, given that he spent that much money on tuition in a boarding school like Kent. But he didn't get in, for some reasons. I heard he came back to Hong Kong to attend Hong Kong International School for two years before attending Pepperdine in California. It was a religious school. Pepperdine was a Christian institution, not sure if it was Jesuit or not. That could be another reason why I would not intend to date him. His sister, Denise Tso (I could have gotten her name wrong), went to Brown University and she was good friends with her co-year, Sylvia Ho, from Cornell. Denise married an Asian American pastor from the states.

I had a feeling that Daryl did not know me well enough and even though he seemed like a nice guy and had every intention to be closer with me, he didn't have a clue about my true self or real thoughts deep down, as much as I felt distant about his frequent appearance with Keith's companion.

I heard Daryl was kicked out of his high school because he got into a fight with his peers at Kent.