As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

"That Guy"... Wednesday, November 14

Yet another situation where I wasn't "that girl", like talked about in yesterday's post, but I also wasn't "that foreigner" either.

I was at Tim Horton's today, I went there after coaching in the morning, when a situation occurred involving an older white man and a younger Asian kid.  I think he was possibly Chinese.  Anyways, the man said the kid pushed him so he took upon himself to body slam him against the shelf, causing everything to go flying.  

I didn't see it all go down but I was sitting on the other side of the shelf and heard it all.

I'm not going to exhaust myself and go into details because I've been asked enough about what went down but I will say this, I didn't get involved beyond keeping my eye on the white guy and asking if the Asian kid was okay because I figured it'd only escalate the situation.  The white man played the victim roll as if it were scripted, as if it was his fair right, and I felt nothing but annoyance by him and I felt bad for the Asian kid.

Two wrongs don't make a right but try saying that to those involved.  Exactly. 

I knew that if I had said something, the white guy would lash out at me, maybe not physically but definitely verbally and, in my mind, that'd be enough for me to physically hit him.  I'm not "that girl" anymore who hits.  I keep my fights in the ring, I'm trying hard to keep my fights in the ring, but it's so hard when people do stupid things.  

Just because you say you're the victim doesn't mean you're the victim.

Welcome to Asia, where personal space isn't always presence, hence why in countries like Japan and Korea they actually have workers paid to push you on the subway.  Don't come to Asia if you have an issue with personal space and don't come to another country if you want to enforce your country's rules and social norms upon it.  Sure, maybe that kid did push him, doesn't give him the right to push him back and it definitely didn't give him the right to talk so rudely to not only the Tim Horton's manager, staff and the security officer on duty.  I doubt they allow that in his country.  Funny how he thought it okay to bend the rules and apply to only those that fit his assumed victim position.

This is Asia and this is the Philippines.   It's not your home country so learn to adapt because survival isn't guaranteed and ignorance isn't bliss when you're a foreigner.  It gets you pulling stupid stunts like this.

I, for one, was on the Asian kid's side, if it wasn't already obvious.

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