Autonomous Oral History Group (AOHG)

Interviewee: Ming Yan Gu

Interviewer: Hailey Loman

June 17, 2016

Conversation:

HL: How do you support yourself financially?

MYG: I have never asked for money from my family. I get an allowance once a month. So, I budget and when I was younger my grandpa would give me money. If he knew I was going somewhere he would give me money. I ended up not really using the money. It was a lot of money for a little kid. When you’re that age you’re more careful of that. I remember my first actual memory of buying something with my own money was when I was four. I grew up with my grandparents. They didn’t give me an actual allowance, but my grandpa would give me all his change every time he had coins. In Chinese money they have a dollar in coins, which is really common, and they have 50 cents and 10 cents - no penny.

HL: What was your first big purchase you can remember?

MYG: It was the first boba place that came from Taiwan - Lollicup. They are one of the original franchises that started in Taiwan and it was close to where I was living. My other house not the one I grew up living in. So, I gathered four dollars in change with my cousin. Everything else if I wanted something I was always with someone and they would pay for it. But that was the first time I used my money and it was a big purchase for me.

MYG: The money came from someone. I saved up. It would just magically appear out of somewhere (laughs)

MYG: I have a part time job. In China if you are making good money it is your duty to give your family some of that money. It is a traditional thing. That usually works when you are living at home. My cousin’s great aunt forced her child to give them money out of their paycheck. It increases based off paycheck. Sometimes parents don’t spend the money. It is a way to save it for their kids. But the idea is for them to spend it.

HL: Do you think about dying?

MYG: I am pretty realistic person and not very fearful. I am scared of heights. When you’re on a bridge that is really high that doesn’t really have a fence - it has an exposed hood or just a rail. In my head I will tip over or step over the rail. I feel like I would fall and die.

MYG: It’s been better now. When I am on a bridge and I am in the mountains it is scarier for me. Or one of those hanging bridges that is just hung by a chain. I have this vision that a lot of people are back and forthing and the other end breaks off and they all fall and die. We see a bunch of people screaming. I have the image every time I am on them.

MYG: Or tourist places and towers like Sears tower where they have glass floors on the very top level, so you can look down. I cannot step on that. Or be anywhere near that. I know that physically it is impossible but when I get close to it I have an image of the glass breaking. The whole thing falling through, and I fall through.

MYG: I avoid these spaces. Avoid things. That is how I deal with these problems.

But I never think of myself dying. I am not at that point yet in my life. I’m not at that point yet where I think that I have lived long enough to contemplate this.

MYG: But generally - well, the first thing that comes to my mind. Um. I guess the way you die. When you see road kill and they die in this weird position and you are frozen in that moment. It might be a little bit different then the moment you die but then you get frozen into that position. It is very hard to move a body once it’s dead it just retains that shape. I see animal road kill all the time it is very common in the country and you can kinda see what their body looked like and you can tell how they were killed and if they were in the middle of something. It is obvious the reminiscence of their last moment.

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Reviewed by Hailey Loman July 17, 2016

Edited by Hailey Loman July 24, 2016

Ming Yan Gu

Bio./Hist. Note

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