Booger

My good friend Braeden just reminded me of quite possibly one of the greatest Hong moments of all time. This was maybe 5 or 6 years ago, before the "Shave Your Balls" story. I was in a band with Braeden, my brother, and a couple other dudes (and a chick). It was pretty regular for everyone to sleep at my house on weekends, to the point where they were (overly) comfortable in my house. One of the guys, Stephen, had a Led Zeppelin t-shirt on (I can only explain it as the one with the guy farming). While Stephen was brushing his teeth, he dropped a bit of toothpaste right on the guy's face as Hong was walking by. Hong stopped, pointed at Stephen's shirt, and said:

"Led Zeppelin has a booger!"

Which sounded more like:

"Lesssepplinhassaboooooogah!"

Now whenever Braeden sees Hong, he shouts the aforementioned phrase. Thanks, dad.

Hong's A Financial Miracle

My cousin David sent me a message today with a Hong story and I asked him if he wanted to write a guest entry. He gladly obliged:

So I was on the phone with your dad, this was sometime in 2007. I think it may have been fire season because my dad asked me to call and see how everything was going to make sure you guys weren't homeless and at that time, I had orders in to trade some oil so I'm on the phone with your dad, and he goes, "Let me tell you something...." and as he's telling his story the price of oil is collapsing and all my orders to buy keep getting filled and I'm going "Uh huh, uh huh" as I'm watching my position get slammed. He keeps telling the story and then the price starts reversing and I'm wondering when he's going to get off the phone so I can call my broker and tell him to sell. So he's still telling his story, and suddenly I'm back to even. He keeps telling the story and I'm up $500. By the time I got off the phone with him, I think I was up like three grand. That's when I realized your dad is pretty cool.

Moral of the story: If Hong won't stop talking, then something good will happen to you to make up for it. He's a luck charm in the shape of a chatterbox.

Magnet

Not only does Hong get a kick out of embarrassing me, he loves to embarrass my friends as well. You see, I have this friend Allan. Allan doesn't have much luck when it comes to women. Hong knows this and, well....

"Allan some guys have magnet which attract girls. Tell me this, why you have no magnet?"

Sorry Allan, it's not personal. It's just the truth.

Back When

Hey guys, since starting this blog (last night), I have received a huge amount of quotes from my friends and family that deserve to be on here. I'm not gonna post them all at once, but here's one to start.

This was in the car with my dad and three other friends. He was driving us somewhere and he began to talk about me shaving (I was 14 at the time). He says:

Hong: "Andrew, you shave today?"

Me: "Yeah."

Hong: "Andrew, you shave your balls?"

Of course, my three friends told everyone, and that quote followed me all the way through high school.

Shanghai Noon

My roommate just reminded me of another one I have to post before I forget. This one came up when we were talking about family history and I found out that my great-great-grandfather worked on the railroads in Montana as a Chinese immigrant in the 19th century:

"That's right. You're a Shanghai Noon descendant."

Introduction/Like A Kennedy

The purpose of this blog is to share with the world what I call Hongisms. Hong is my dad and he tends to say some things that I would like to have written down for memory purposes. It's like Shit My Dad Says, except my dad is a Chinese immigrant, so the English language tends to take a hit every so often. Whether it's a simple remark about Gilmore Girls or profound knowledge to be passed down to my children, Hong always makes me smile with his one-liners.

I just got off the phone with Hong and we were talking about family history (for a paper I have yet to write) and he talked about how he left China and worked hard in college so that I could have an education and make an impact on the world. So to start this blog:

"I worked my ass off so that you could have everything handed to you on a silver platter and do some good with it, like a Kennedy."