This is an old clip of Vietnamese-Chinese “mychonny” from Melbourne, parodying his mum and dad re grades and career choices. I don’t think they speak much English or he would be in SO much trouble ok… (Parents – HOW many of your Czechoslovakian as a second language-learning kids might be Youtube stars among the Czechoslovakian-speaking internet community at your expense <cringe>); Haha kidding and sorry about some of the language.. skip the first 30 seconds to get to the bit about grades and career choices:
So guess what he did after “B+ Again” went viral?
He made T-shirts! (pic from districtlines.com – yes he then put up an online store)
(Ok so I guess it’s his mum who is from China and dad is Vietnamese :P)
Also I think the dad really wore that shirt a lot, I remember an old clip somewhere where the dad actually opened the door to his bedroom while he was filming, seemingly unaware the camera was rolling and asking (in… Vietnamese?) whether he’d been doing his homework or something…
Here’s a parent-teacher one:
He started making those clips when he was 17 and got Youtube-famous not too long after. My Crazy (older) Sister got him tv interviews… (Yes I posted this before, way back when the Queen was born…)
…and standup comedian spots at film festivals… and a movie contract (Wait, what?)
There was an interview somewhere, where mychonny said his parents still wanted him to go the traditional career route despite all this so he figured eventually when it all died down…… “A” for “a dentist”..? 🙂 )
What’s my point?
1) Besides the ‘affirmation that Parents, Some Of It Does Stick Even If It Looks Horrendous On A T-Shirt (they’re doing all this in their own home without going out to Melbourne Lan Kwai Fong or something ok, can even see the family altar in the background – there’s another couple teen Youtubers who are quite obviously doing this in their own home)…
2) It illustrates the extent to which jobs and a career really don’t look all like they used to when we were growing up. In several school talks over the years they give parents the variation of the statistic whereby our kids are going to grow up to compete for jobs that haven’t been invented yet.
It’s not that this hasn’t happened before, though – a certain student of the Classics (Literature, History, Archaeology of Greek, Roman etc ancient histories… I suppose the stuff about mythical creatures that she has described studying would be thrown somewhere in there as well…) went on to write a certain children’s book series about a boy wizard. Before Harry Potter however, there were very few people who would have thought to turn an otherwise “useless” degree choice into a multi-million dollar franchise of book series, movies, and probably Mc Donald’s Happy Meal collectibles somewhere in the world.
One of Rockstar’s friends has an elder sister who studied….. Geography I think it was. During her thesis about Arctic sea ice melting (please forgive me the horrible way in which I can still barely reproduce her detailed explanation of her chosen vocation), she was inspired to make getting on the National Geographic and conservation teams her goal.
I have a close friend whose niece loves music and pursued a degree… So she convinced her niece to take a few modules in child care and her niece is now doing post graduate studies in music as therapy for special needs kids.
Passion, motivation and interest sometimes trumps simply results, in the sense that if you really love what you do, you are more likely to fight to find a way to make what you love your livelihood…
3) The cliche (but very true) “If you choose a job you love you will never have to work a day in your life”. Or rather, you have to be able to take the worst day in your job. My dad’s older brother is a heart surgeon, and staying in his house in Bishan during exam times over the years (was quieter to study there than in the student hostels) I would think omg your worst day at work is someone dying. How could I ever be able to do something like that for a living?
To. Be.. Continued….
