the importance of having my own private bathroom
I am loving my ensuite bathroom and the privacy it affords me to do all the hundreds of little crucial things that we girls need to do to make ourselves look beautiful. It was a real struggle in the past... hopping/catching/ferrying/dripping between my room and the bathroom, trying not the hog the bathroom, and avoid being caught in a state of undignified deshabille.
I had a conversation with my colleagues once about the policy of having separate marital bedrooms/bathrooms... and found it shocking and unfathomable that so many people wanted separate bathrooms, even above wanting a separate bedroom. I didn't understand this European concept of toilet privacy. I was used to the very Asian extended family, barrierless paradigm which did not recognise the concept of personal space within the family, especially between man and wife. What's your is mine and vice versa. Communal property and space. At least, that was my perception, although my mom always locked her door when she dyed her hair... which is actually very European... (and come, to think of it, my mom and dad slept separately for many years too)
But it's funny how, with time, I'm beginning to understand that need for private, personal space. I'd very much like to keep a part of me separate, to keep some little secrets so that I will always be mystically and magically beautiful for my man. Not that I'm expected to be perfect in all ways of course since I am only human. But I want him to see the shiny, sleek and sexy lines of the sportscar, not the engines, the oil, grease and mechanics that go into creating and servicing the sex on wheels. How different it was from the days when I used to happily barge into the bathroom with my then-boyfriend on toilet, chatting in blithe oblivion.
On occasion, I suddenly notice these subtle, almost imperceptible differences that have crept up upon me over my seven years in this little cold grey island of mine - not only my attitude towards beauty/personal space/privacy, but also how I've become more reserved, less fidgety and gesticular, requiring more alcohol to lubricate social situations etc.
Cavé had once remarked how one of our mainland chinese colleagues had changed dramatically over the couple of years she had been in the bank: from being a really almost loudly offensive person who shoots her mouth off randomly... to someone who did that less (although she still has very limited concept of what is appropriate or not to talk/ask in public), and whose dress sense improved dramatically, albeit from a very low base.
I had asked him if I had changed much. He thought for a while and said: yeah you have, less than [other colleague] but yeah you have a better concept of privacy now etc. and the changes are less dramatic in you. I don't think he was being entirely just polite, since I don't think I was that much of a basket case.
But I have become more groomed over the years and more European... in a way that Cavé can perhaps identify with more. He says he doesn't understand Asian people and thinks we're all crazy.
I am now deeper in limbo then, than I have ever been. Not Asian enough for most Asian people/Asian-enthusiasts, too (surprisingly) Asian for some Europeans who know me and think of me as essentially European, but with yellow skin.
I had a conversation with my colleagues once about the policy of having separate marital bedrooms/bathrooms... and found it shocking and unfathomable that so many people wanted separate bathrooms, even above wanting a separate bedroom. I didn't understand this European concept of toilet privacy. I was used to the very Asian extended family, barrierless paradigm which did not recognise the concept of personal space within the family, especially between man and wife. What's your is mine and vice versa. Communal property and space. At least, that was my perception, although my mom always locked her door when she dyed her hair... which is actually very European... (and come, to think of it, my mom and dad slept separately for many years too)
But it's funny how, with time, I'm beginning to understand that need for private, personal space. I'd very much like to keep a part of me separate, to keep some little secrets so that I will always be mystically and magically beautiful for my man. Not that I'm expected to be perfect in all ways of course since I am only human. But I want him to see the shiny, sleek and sexy lines of the sportscar, not the engines, the oil, grease and mechanics that go into creating and servicing the sex on wheels. How different it was from the days when I used to happily barge into the bathroom with my then-boyfriend on toilet, chatting in blithe oblivion.
On occasion, I suddenly notice these subtle, almost imperceptible differences that have crept up upon me over my seven years in this little cold grey island of mine - not only my attitude towards beauty/personal space/privacy, but also how I've become more reserved, less fidgety and gesticular, requiring more alcohol to lubricate social situations etc.
Cavé had once remarked how one of our mainland chinese colleagues had changed dramatically over the couple of years she had been in the bank: from being a really almost loudly offensive person who shoots her mouth off randomly... to someone who did that less (although she still has very limited concept of what is appropriate or not to talk/ask in public), and whose dress sense improved dramatically, albeit from a very low base.
I had asked him if I had changed much. He thought for a while and said: yeah you have, less than [other colleague] but yeah you have a better concept of privacy now etc. and the changes are less dramatic in you. I don't think he was being entirely just polite, since I don't think I was that much of a basket case.
But I have become more groomed over the years and more European... in a way that Cavé can perhaps identify with more. He says he doesn't understand Asian people and thinks we're all crazy.
I am now deeper in limbo then, than I have ever been. Not Asian enough for most Asian people/Asian-enthusiasts, too (surprisingly) Asian for some Europeans who know me and think of me as essentially European, but with yellow skin.
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