Matthew Leung’s Rejecting [BLANK]
Matthew’s posing beside cars for the poster of Fast And The Furious 37.
Before Matthew left Vancouver for Hong Kong, he and I (along with another friend) decided to get together for one last time. We planned it on the day of the hang-out — and I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the idea of hashing out what we were going to do on a whim.
I think it’s fair to say that I was livid at some point in the day. I detest unpreparedness. I loathe spontaneity. I hate surprises. The fact that Matthew surprised me by spontaneously arranging a hang-out without any preparations days before obliterated my mind the way Krakatoa did in 1883. Regrettably, the temporary collapse of my nervous system wasn’t as historic as Krakatoa.
But long story short, it was actually a good June afternoon for me. Matthew dominated the group when it came to 8-ball at Commodore Lanes, wiping every striped ball out of view. I wasn’t good at billiards, so the advantage was with him anyway.
The pool was merely an excuse to talk in-person. My time with Matthew has mostly been confined to late-night Messenger calls, talking about things your mother shouldn’t be hearing. That June afternoon, albeit one that broke the Messenger norm, was an extension to our gross online conversations. I can’t divulge too much about our discussion since the bulk of it can cancel all parties involved. All I can say is that it involved balls.
There is no topic that Matthew and I would consider as off-limits. We’re not afraid to dive deep, no matter how disgusting, scary, cheesy or depressing the deep-ends are. We’re not afraid to disagree with each other either. It’s not that we hash it out like Capulets and Montagues, but I don’t think I’ve ever been hesitant in jumping in and saying ‘no’. He’d probably concur by saying the same sentiment.
One theme that we always unconsciously default to would be rejection. Perhaps it’s the fact that we’ve been rejecting (or rejected by) so many entities in our lives. I can recall the first instance when we talked about rejection; if I’m not mistaken, it was about my rejection of my own Frankenstein scenario. It’s called NorthMUN. Long story short, I created it, but now I want to kill it. Feel free to fill in the details on why I want to kill it. I don’t want to write about things meant to reside in landfills.
Matthew and I are in cohesion when it comes to hatred towards NorthMUN, although the level of his hatred towards it is more muted in comparison to my passionate activism. Nevertheless, we got to find one of our greatest common ground. It only shows how hate is an underrated tool for friendship.
My list of things I’ve rejected, however, is not as extensive as Matthew’s. I suppose that there’s not a lot in my life to reject; I’m pretty happy where things are placed at the moment. For Matthew, it’s a bit different. His life is full of things worth scrapping, and he’s more than happy to inform me about them during our conversations. I’m all for the loathing as long as I’m not on the receiving end of it.
Here’s Matthew posing for Forbes Magazine.
One of the things he loathes is being labelled as a boarding student. At the time of the interview, he was a boarding student at St. George’s School, residing in his rather bare-bones, organized room. Well, it was organized by guy standards.
He was luckier than most boarding students since he didn’t have a roommate. (He did have one earlier in the school year, but the rather long story is best left unshortened and unmentioned.)
Without another person co-occupying the room, he’s got the space to himself, which is a relief to Matthew. The thing is, is that his experiences with roommates have been ones that could have gone forever and ones that went down in flames (or at least in small embers).
For the most part, “if the roommate is chill,” then the room is scot-free from burning. “The first thing I hope from a roommate is that he doesn’t give a fuck what I do...I’m not gonna fuck what you do. Like if you wanna vape in the room, fine.” Unless the other person is “shitting in the room” or any other action of that ilk, then Matthew won’t care.
Again, for the most part, Matthew’s roommate situation was more or less successful in avoiding any flames. When things became more than embers, however, then it wasn’t the greatest time for him. Matthew could clearly remember the ones that became a treacherous hellfire when I asked him about his worst roommate (who will remain anonymous to protect their dignity). “I had this roommate...like he had good intentions, but he’s a really, really bad roommate.”
The roommate, Matthew described, would take items he didn’t own without consent. “In the fitness room downstairs — it was on the first floor — there’s this weight. Well, there was one day where he decided to take the weight for himself in his own room. He put it inside the washroom, in one of the fucking cupboards in the washroom.” Matthew’s reaction sums up what everyone would have thought of when faced with that predicament. “I was like ‘Bro, what the fuck. Like that’s supposed to be for every single person. Like why have you decided to take that one weight that the boarding house has and hide it in our room? Excuse me, what?’”
Another label he wants to shake off is the idea that he’s a “fuccboi.”
The fact that people think he’s a “fuccboi” is concerning.
Before we even describe the concern, we have to define what the term means. There are variations, so feel free to choose what you think best fits Matthew.
Fuccboi
slang, vulgar | ˈbilt - di-f(ə-)rənt
1 : a womanizer; a young man who sleeps with women without any intention of having a relationship with them. (Wiktionary)
2 : A bitch ass basic boy that does stupid shit just to get a reaction out of people. Fuccbois usually think that they are cool or suave, but they are not. They tend to be pussy ass bitches in most situations. (Urban Dictionary)
At first glance, one can say (with strong conviction) that he’s not a “fuccboi”. When I met him or at least saw him around MUN conferences, all I could say was that he looked like a total nerd. My assumption was that he was probably a STEM kid. (Turns out he is. He’s a biology nerd, to be specific.) Even when he’s posing in the suavest positions he could produce, no one would ever point at him and say he’s the coolest out of any police lineup. It just doesn’t happen for Matthew.
Here’s Matthew posing for his Tinder profile picture.
But Matthew, who lacks the look of a fuccboi, possesses a natural aura that makes girls gravitate towards him and get to know him on a deeply intimate level. “If you’re talking about just keeping contact online, I usually do that with girls,” he said in a hesitating voice, knowing all too well that such a statement will only enforce the fuccboi label even further.
It was clear that he was conscious about what he does with girls, so he would make a disclaimer that he wasn’t a fuccboi every time he was about to say something that would portray him as a fuccboi. “I would hop on a call with a friend who — again, trying not to sound like a fuccboi — but usually when I hop on calls and FaceTimes and shit, it’s usually with girls.”
The sketchy interactions between Matthew and the females don’t just end on midnight calls; he’s having one-on-one in-person hangouts with them. He’s having dinner and lunch with them. They’re calling not just once in a while — they’re calling often. Some relationships get so deep that it becomes uncomfortable for anyone outside the relationship. The girls and Matthew might as well be having sex.
Throughout our conversation, I’ve come to realize that despite any efforts to remove the labels on him, the labels will still be stuck on him. Matthew has actively attempted to not be seen as a boarding student by distancing himself from anything related to the label. The attempts have been unsuccessful; as long as he is still living in that boarding house, he will be a boarding student until the day he leaves the flock. He won’t be able to remove the fuccboi label unless he stops having those one-on-one hangouts with members of the opposite gender. The problems that arise when rejecting something only become more gruelling when the label or object in question is so ingrained in Matthew’s life that you can’t remove the thing from the person.
For instance, despite being born and raised in Hong Kong, Matthew abhors being labelled as someone who grew up there. Whenever someone brought up Hong Kong, he would jump into the conversation to say that he doesn’t want to talk about it. With his previous hesitations in mind, I didn’t bother thinking of questions about Hong Kong to ask him. So it was a real surprise for me that he even brought the topic up in the first place.
When I asked Matthew about his habit of shying away from anything related to Hong Kong, he admitted that he doesn’t want to associate himself with the place. It’s not that he hates Hong Kong. It’s just that having his life and personality be mainly based on his time in Hong Kong would be a detriment to his Canadian identity, which is one he has adopted when he came to Canada when he was 15.
“I don’t want to be a different person,” Matthew said. “Most people in [my school] were either born [in Canada'] or came here at a very young age. I came in Grade 10, and...when some people ask me when I came here, I say Grade 9.” He said he didn’t want to hear people thinking that he was some new international student fresh off the boat from Asia. He wanted to be treated like everyone else. “I’m a Canadian. I view myself as a Canadian now. I view my future in Canada or at least in North America.”
Matthew would never go far to reject his identity, however. He wouldn’t hide the fact that he was born in Hong Kong, but he feels that he has integrated into Canadian society to the point of no return.
Language would be the first thing he thinks of when it comes to his assimilation to Canada. “Language-wise, I don’t like speaking Cantonese anymore,” he confessed. “I feel like even if I were to go back to Hong Kong, I would still prefer to speak English.”
Aside from the mandatory use of Cantonese when speaking with his parents, he’s going to speak English to everyone else. Sometimes, his preferences for the English language become a cudgel against others. “Even there are cases where, for example, people from the boarding house who are also from Hong Kong. They start to speak to me in Cantonese. I reply to them in English because I’m just like: ‘Bro, this is Canada. Like, what’s the mother language here? English.’”
On the surface, such hostility towards Cantonese and Hong Kong culture, in general, is blatantly awful. For Matthew to state that he wants to be part of Canada, a nation of community, diversity and acceptance, he sure is going against the values of what he yearns to be.
I think that’s an easy conclusion to make about what he does to embrace his Canadian identity, and I wouldn’t blame anyone who would choose to do so. But anyone making that conclusion will most likely overlook the internal embarrassment of who he used to be, which is veiled by his cultural antagonism.
Here’s Matthew on a shoot for People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive 2021”.
He told me that when he first came to Canada, he had this “horrible Hong Kong accent.” His accent, he said, had a “heavy Asian” tone that sounded like he “didn’t know English that much.” Whenever he reminded himself of what his sound used to be, he cringed to the core. And as he spent more time studying in Canada, his accent started to shift away from the Hong Kong one he used to have. I’m not confident, however, in saying that he has a North American tone. His voice sounds like an Ariana Huffington situation — there are at least three different accents in it.
He did hate his former accent, but it would be too harsh for him to hate his birthplace entirely. “It's not that I hate that [Hong Kong]. It’s just that I've gone [away] and I’m not a part of [Hong Kong] anymore. Like if I stay in Hong Kong, I would never have this stance because I’m gonna do things that make me feel [included] in the Hong Kong community.”
When it comes to rejecting, Matthew has a lot to say. When it comes to getting rejected, Matthew becomes more muted to disclose the information. I can recall the days where he got rejected from the universities he applied to, which weren’t the most worthwhile. Talking to him around university decision season was like walking on eggshells. I didn’t know which word would trigger him, and I didn’t want to be the reason why he was upset. It’s not that he lashes out or throws tables at people. What he does is that he burns himself in torch fire for disappointing himself.
My interview with Matthew was just a few days before university decisions come rolling in, so I took the opportunity to discreetly gauge him on his level of tolerance for rejection to determine how he’ll react to any disappointments he’ll be served with after that call.
I finally got the clear answer that he won’t be taking the failures well when we talked about his unsteady experience with the concept of bestfriendship. I haven’t gotten the chance to have a best friend, so I wouldn’t know how it feels like to get one. I do have long-time friends and people I confide in, but maybe that the expectations I put on my friends are lofty to the point of unattainability. If my standards for friendships are so high, what good does it do for anyone to know what my standards are for best friends?
For Matthew, it’s not hard for him to get best friends. I have seen firsthand that he treats his best friends extremely well. Sometimes, it’s too well. I’ve felt Matthew’s warmth as my friend, and he’s really your sun when he’s willing to share his light with you. I can only imagine the excessive amount of warmth that he’d give to his best friends.
His light is what makes it all so woeful when I hear him tell me that none of his best friends stick around. “I guess, occasionally, I would have a really close best friend. But like, I don’t know if it’s because I’m unfortunate or my life is just this way, but they usually don’t last long. They never last long.”
“I’m a person who easily catches ‘feelings,’” Matthew said. “What I mean by feelings is not like dating. It’s not that. What I mean by ‘feelings’ is that I would regard someone as a close friend and I would trust someone easily. I would value someone, I would trust someone quite easily. If they vibe with me, if they vibe with me for a while, I would trust them.” With that much trust in his best friends, temporary emotional pain will be part of Matthew if they decide to “betray” him. “When something happens and I lose a friend, I’ll be super-super depressed about that.”
Sometimes, the reason why the friendship fell through would be unclear to Matthew. He told me about a specific person from Hong Kong who he used to consider as his best friend. “I [became] really good friends with this guy in [the] orchestra who had the same name as me. We were really close and shit.” He was one of the few best friends Matthew had that happened to be male, which Matthew claimed does not make him a fuccboi. Both of them were in the same orchestra friend group and got to connect with each other during the practices and tours they both went to, among the multiple times they hung out.
Matthew had to leave for Canada the summer before his Grade 10-year starts, but he eventually took opportunities to come back to Hong Kong to visit his family and friends—including the friend from the orchestra. “I got back and he suddenly hates me. For no apparent reason, he hates me.” To this day, he has no clue what person hated him. “It was weird and it did make me unhappy,” he said, “I got really, really depressed...If I were to have a best friend relationship with a person where I talk to them every day [and] they’re willing to talk to me and hang out and shit...Whenever shit happens, I get really sad.”
It’s a shame that his closest relationships only end in mysterious and devastating finales. I can only hope that what I have with Matthew, albeit one that’s not designated as a ‘best friend’ situation, will still linger on for at least a while. “I guess, at the end of the day, I just wanna be [included] in the environment around me,” Matthew told me.
It’s nice talking to a fuccboi, you know?
Recommended Song: Not Your Kind of People - Garbage
