Welcome to Saturday Morning Cartoons, a segment where four artists take turns delighting you with their whimsy, facts and punchlines on Saturday mornings! Our esteemed cartoon critters are Cameron Glavin, Anna Bongiovanni, Megan Praz and Yao Xiao. Today’s cartoon is by Cameron!
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Cameron is an illustrator hailing from Ohio. When she’s not drawing, she’s probably very, very quietly having loud thoughts about: queer things, her eventual shop, what to watch next on Netflix, food, names for her future pets, and tumblr.
Cameron has written 76 articles for us.
I LOVE THIS AND THIS IS SO REAL FOR ME ON SO MANY LEVELS. I am crying a little bit out of joy, true-y-ness (NOTE: not “truthiness” a la Colbert), and also probably PMS.
Only you know what’s best for you in terms of how to handle being called the wrong name, but whatever you choose you have my complete sympathy. Not being recognised for who you are in such a basic way ranges from annoying to heartbreaking, sometimes within a single week. It’s ridiculous that the simple action of getting a birthday greeting from a family member—with the right name on it—is such a big deal that one breaks down crying, but can absolutely be that big a deal.
I’ll never understand why some people have such trouble accepting something so simple. I went to a wedding once where I couldn’t understand why a whole lot of people were introducing themselves to me a relation of XYZ. Who was this mythical XYZ? It turned out it was the bride. Her family all used a name that wasn’t on any of the invitations, signs, menus, etc. Everyone else used her chosen name. I don’t know if she was perfectly fine with that and told them to keep calling her XYZ, but it was very jarring to watch/listen to once the toasts got started, especially given the different pictures that emerged of these two people who were really one person.
<3
I loled at #13 for 2017.
11 and 13 are so real.
Love this. fantastic fantastic fantastic artist.
tiny you w/simba is adorbs
i hope you get to make dumplings
if my grandma allows me this rite of passage, i’ll send you dumplings made with my OWN TWO HANDS and you can admire how perfect they might have been before the inevitable pummelings of international transit.
i’m going to have nightmares about getting food in the mail
I love this. Especially the naps.
???
I have a dumbass question. Does the usage of “Popo” differ from the mainland? I’m used to “Popo” being mother-in-law, not Grandma. On the mainland, I usually hear “Waipo” for maternal grandmother (or “Laolao” in the north which makes no goddamn sense but whatever). It wouldn’t be the first time usage differed. I’m just curious.
I wish I could go to Taiwan too. I’ve been there once and it was awesome. I wish I could have stayed longer but I had to go back to the mainland/work. My buddy is in Taipei right now doin’ cool stuff. I hope you have fun and enjoy the good things about family time, such as they are.
WELL. In my memory, most of my cousins who share my maternal grandmother call her Nai Nai. I asked my mum about it (like you do) and she said, “They’re wrong. Only {cousins with Grandma as paternal grandmother} should call her Nai Nai. You call her Po Po.” But she also said that everything you said was correct and didn’t know if it was a regional thing.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@glavinder Yep, Nainai is only for Dad’s mom. The patriarchy is baked right into the language, there LOL But more seriously, what to call people drove me flippin’ bonkers in China, especially because names weren’t often a thing. I literally did not know what to call my guide’s wife, like, ever, so I settled on “da jie” (big sis). The only people I really did first names with were the other grad students. Amazingly, though, my best friend over there has an awesome nickname, “big dog”, I learned about from her volleyball teammates. I’ve stylized it as Big Dawg and now she’s my Dawg and I’m her Kat. :)
P.S. Your art rawks
Aw, this is great :) I have to say particularly because of the small detail that I HAD/HAVE A SIMBA TOO, possibly like many other people born around the same few years. He was officially my favourite – the one I carried around everywhere, slept next to, etc. One foreleg became all floppy from the thinned out stuffing, and the fur became all bobbly, because thats where I always carried him from :)
Good luck with all the things you are worried about!! Your comics are always amazing.
Last time I went to the Taiwan airport I couldn’t find a fork anywhere. Had to use chopsticks. Which I suck at. But if you have some time to kill the airport is kinda cool to see though. I had a four hour layover there once. Even had a Hello Kitty shop with couture bags in the terminal.
I’m from Taiwan as well (born in the states) and I enjoyed this SO MUCH. I’m actually on the plane to Taipei now and I’ve been thinking a lot about some of these things as well. The good thing is I’m meeting up w my two tattooed cousins (one of which is also queer) and I’m really looking forward to this solidarity lol. But I think overall I’m looking forward to spending time w family in Taiwan and I hope you have lots of fun there. Happy holidays!!!
I’m back in Taiwan for the holidays too! As a tattooed queer cousin obvi. It’s an interesting time to be on the island given all the marriage equality stuff happening.
This cartoon gave me so much joy. CNY is the best time to be back. Hope you have an amazing time!
Re: marriage equality– RIGHT? My queer cousin is all up in it and I’m so proud. Reallllly pulling for some good news soon.
HAVE FUN IN TAIWAN
This was so great. The tattoo thing made me laugh so hard. And man did we not appreciate names enough as kids…
Oh also “if my ears pop on the plane is it going to be forever” is a concern I still have as an adult.
Taiwanese food has a strong vegetarian culture (bc Buddhism), so you might be able to get away with not eating meat. Messenging apps using wifi will work as long as you have wifi at home/at some random cafe: iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger. I hope your extended family are cool with the gay/job/name/clothes things! Fwiw Taiwan is a bit more progressive on the LGBT front than many Asian countries, as you likely know, but ymmv depending on your own family. Hope you get lots of red packets so that you can spend Taiwanese money on your own/hiding out if you want to!