/ on delight /

A recent episode of On Being, called Tending Joy and Practicing Delight, has been inspiring me to think more about the ways in which I find joy in everyday life. In the conversation with Krista Tippett, Ross Gay talks about writing an essay about something that delighted him each day for a year. My interest in these types of awareness exercises stems from a desire to avoid the pitfalls of constantly chasing the next best thing, which doesn't actually lead to more happiness. This is known as the hedonic treadmill—"the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes."

A quick sketch of the hedonic treadmill from The New York Times.

Since we seem destined to accept our current states of existence, I'm interested in how mindfulness and awareness can both elevate and ground my everyday life. Instead of relying on external factors to contribute to my "highs", can I find ways of noticing and appreciating the things that are already within and around me? Photography has been critical to this practice, since my style of personal documentary necessitates an awareness of beauty and interest surrounding me on a daily basis. Studying product design also made me increasingly aware of the physical objects and systems around me. Learning history enables further insight (and as a result, appreciation or criticism) into the current state of the world. These moments of awareness and recognition are my ways of "tending joy and practicing delight." Learning and understanding new connections between things is perhaps one of my life's greatest joys, even if the complexities of the world’s problems are sometimes overwhelming.

In the episode, Ross Gay goes on the describe the connection between joy and dying. He says:

The connection between the dying and the joy? Well, part of it is just the simple fact of the ephemerality of — and maybe this is a little veering off, but there is this thing of, if you and I know we’re each in the process, [laughs] there is something that will happen between us. There’s some kind of tenderness that might be possible — not always gonna happen, because I might just get scared and do something else. But there’s the potential, I think, for some kind of tenderness.

And this is the thing that’s been interesting about writing that Delights book, is that it has articulated for me a way that, “Oh, my question is joy.” My question that I could see that’s a life question is, “What is this joy?” Or, “How joy?”

But in the process of thinking about it, I have really been thinking that joy is the moments — for me, the moments when my alienation from people — but not just people, from the whole thing — it goes away. And it shrinks. If it was a visual thing, like, everything becomes luminous. And I love that mycelium, or forest metaphor, that there’s this thing connecting us. And among the things of that thing connecting us is that we have this common experience — many common experiences, but a really foundational one is that we are not here forever.

And that’s a joining — a “joy-ning.” So that’s sort of how I think about it."

I find his reflection fascinating because awareness of death is also a significant motivator for me in practicing gratitude (and in turn, delight). My favorite part of On Being is the constant exposure it provides in mechanisms for mindful living. Much like learning skills (guitar, piano, photography, writing) or building strength through sports and exercise, kindness, empathy, and conscious living are also aspects of life I find incredibly valuable to work on for personal development and wellbeing.

other updates

• Trying to build different habits since working remotely can lack structure sometimes — I’ve been experimenting with reading for 30 minutes every morning with a cup of tea before starting other work. It’s nice to start the day off with some learning and allows me to make progress on books even when I’m busy. The downside is that it’s hard to focus right after waking up.

• I started doing TRX training at home—I like working out but don’t really enjoy gym environments, so this seemed like a good alternative. My whole body hurts but it’s been fun.

• I’ve been realizing how much random stuff I have at home since moving back and consolidating everything I owned in Boston with all my childhood things here. I was slightly neurotic about my belongings when I lived in Boston due to a few stressful moving experiences (I kept an updated Google Sheet that listed every item I owned and why, if that counts as neurotic), but became a lot more lax about it since my family’s house is much bigger than my previous 325 sq ft. studio. However, I miss that mindfulness and simplicity regarding material possessions, so I’m doing a fair bit of selling/donating now. Books are my weakness.

reflection question

What five words would you use to describe yourself? What five words would you want to be described as? (If those words aren’t the same, why?)

nostalgic / boston

Sorry for the sketchy phone photos…mostly kept the camera tucked away during this trip.

Doing a little “live blogging” here at Logan Airport while eating a salted chocolate chip cookie from Taco Party. I got here on Thursday for my brother’s White Coat Ceremony at Boston University and stuck around for a few days to spend time with friends and see old coworkers.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already August. I last flew out of Boston on September 28, 2018 to travel around Ireland, London, Toronto, Jasper National Park, and Victoria before heading home.  It doesn’t feel like that long ago that I wrote about my new year resolutions or my confusions about where my life was headed. Returning to Boston in a healthier mental state of being has helped confirm for me that I made the right decision in taking time for myself and moving back home. I feel that I’ve been able to grow into myself more—to engage in my personal interests, strengthen meaningful relationships with my friends and family, to take care of my health, to spend time doing the things I love.

Boston may never have felt like home in the way that California does to me now, but I’m still grateful for the intellectual challenges it provided me and the life lessons I learned here. Harsh winters taught me how to prepare for the unpredictability of life. Being thrown into unfamiliar situations throughout my time here without the safety net of familial comfort cemented my confidence in my ability to survive as an independent human. While self-sufficiency is undoubtedly a good life skill, I have a lot of gratitude towards the fact that I don’t have to face everything on my own anymore. It sounds silly, but it is incredible to recognize and accept that it’s okay to allow myself to let other people make my life better—it doesn’t make me any less whole.

to do your best is no longer good enough

Interesting things from the past few weeks:

The 1975

I really appreciate this release from The 1975, a fun but shallow band I pretty much associated with drunken white-boy pretentiousness prior to this. I think it’s important that they’re using their platform to encourage their (fairly large) fanbase to think about global climate issues (media coverage has called this move “political”, but I want to continue to argue that environmental action really should not be political—these are issues that will affect every single human on earth regardless of your political stance). On this track, they worked off a speech from 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who speaks powerfully. Worth a listen:

compassionate vs passionate love

I skimmed The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt a few weeks ago, which is essentially an exploration of psychological theory through time. Having read a decent amount of pop psychology/behavioral economics over the years, I didn’t find a lot of new information in the text. I did, however, appreciate his thoughts on companionate (also known as compassionate) vs. passionate love in romantic relationships. He writes:

True love exists, I believe, but it is not—cannot be—passion that lasts forever. True love, the love that undergirds strong marriages, is simply strong companionate love, with some added passion, between two people who are firmly committed to each other. Companionate love looks weak in the graph above because it can never attain the intensity of passionate love. But if we change the time scale from six months to sixty years, as in the next figure, it is passionate love that seems trivial—a flash in the pan—while companionate love can last a lifetime.

events in hong kong

I’ve been trying to follow the despairing news from Hong Kong’s battle for their legal rights and greater democracy. My good friend, Natalie, who is based in Hong Kong, has been documenting the unrest here. I really appreciate her perspective and thoughtfulness in talking about the current issues, and I really recommend taking a poke around her photoessay if you want a unique and personal glimpse into what’s happening over there.

vulnerability

This has been a common thread of thought for me over the last year. Choosing to write and share an incredibly personal piece of writing last October about my father’s death was a major step in learning how to talk about the parts of my life that have largely shaped who I am today. The heartfelt responses I received in sharing that piece shifted my perspective on writing and showed me how vulnerability (while terrifying) can enable the most meaningful of human bonds. I’ve been working on more intimate forms of vulnerability, choosing to share not only to a faceless audiences over the internet, but directly to people closest to me in my daily life. On a physical level, the desire to confront specific fears has led me to swimming pools and ocean waves. I have a pretty strong aversion to water stemming from multiple near-drowning experiences, but I can confirm that exposure therapy with people I trust and love has been effective in fighting both emotional and physical fears.

film shots from roadtrip to san francisco

other misc updates

• Headed to Boston for a few days this week! Curious to see what it will be like to return as a tourist rather than a resident.

• Saw The Farewell (not at the premiere thanks to horrendous planning by Sundance) — emotionally wrecked me a little but so grateful to see these Asian-American stories being told on-screen. Found it difficult to watch at times because I have a really close relationship with my grandma and the thought of life without her is devastatingly sad.

• Enjoyed this 99 Percent Invisible episode on sand, a resource that is critical to human civilization but one which we generally give very little thought. During that episode, they talk about an emerging building material called mass timber (okay, so it’s wood, and that’s not really new), and this was a really interesting interview regarding fire-resistance of mass timber buildings.

Reflection questions for you :)

What prompts you to self-reflect?

What was the first time you felt romantic love and how did you recognize what you were feeling? What was the first time you expressed romantic love to someone? How did you do it?

When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone?

24 / misc

I turned 24 today, one of the first birthdays I've had unburdened by projects, work, exams, SATs, or AP tests in a long time. It was also the first birthday I've spent with my family since my 18th.

My family and I spent the weekend around Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo. We went kayaking, ATV-ing, and hiking, and also ate a lot of hippie vegan food and açaí bowls. I visited Hearst Castle for the first time, saw some peregrine falcons, tried to speak seal, felt an earthquake, listened to the new Vampire Weekend album, and downed a bag of kettle corn. I took a lot of film pictures on the Leica M2 and Olympus XA4, but those won't be developed for a few days.

Kayaking on Morro Bay!

Birthdays are quite arbitrary, but tend to provide some framework for reflection. A year ago, on my birthday, I went to dinner at Red Lentil in Watertown, MA with some very important people in my life. I ate a lot of cake, vanilla bean ice cream, and was excited for the start of an eventful summer full of New York trips, GRE flashcards, and bike-building. Three years ago, I stayed up studying for a manufacturing exam and had two exams and a project due on my birthday. This year, I'm grateful for quality family time, surprising and meaningful relationships, and California landscapes. I'm excited for a continuous process of learning more about the world, pushing on various facets of personal growth, and enjoying summer nights. I’m still processing a lot of the changes that have happened within the last 365 days, but I think one of the most fascinating things about life is its unavoidable propensity to move forward, despite how dire or unresolvable problems may seem at the time.

First time ATV-ing at Oceano Dunes near Pismo Beach, California.

Short book update:

Endurance by Scott Kelly

I think this is worth reading if you have a particular interest in space... I found it a bit too dry, which was disappointing given how much content he had to work with. Still, the perspective of becoming an astronaut who spends a year in space is pretty interesting no matter how mediocre of a storyteller he is.

Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Perry

This is one of the most emotionally-sensitive narrative nonfiction books I've ever read. I really admired what Perry was able to pull from the situation he spent so much time researching. A beautiful book about a heartbreaking tragedy.

Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist by Eli Saslow

Super interesting account of how the son of the founder of Stormfront distanced himself from the white nationalist movement after growing up at the forefront of it (and was, for most of his teenage years, expected to lead it one day) . The book can be quite disturbing at times, but did provide an insightful look into the ideology of white supremacy. Important read.

Question for you all:

Tell me some of your favorite birthday stories! Best birthday you ever had? Worst birthday you ever had? Strangest birthday you ever had?

so close / joshua tree

“The desire to go home that is a desire to be whole, to know where you are, to be the point of intersection of all the lines drawn through all the stars, to be the constellation-maker and the center of the world, that center called love. To awaken from sleep, to rest from awakening, to tame the animal, to let the soul go wild, to shelter in darkness and blaze with light, to cease to speak and be perfectly understood.”

— Rebecca Solnit

Joshua Tree National Park, and the areas surrounding it, will always hold a special place in my heart. A little more than a year ago, I flew to Palm Springs from Boston for a field research project. I took the opportunity then to take a weekend trip home, and it was during the drive from Twentynine Palms to Orange County that I realized I needed to move home. I wrote about it here, in the context of one of my favorite movies, Lady Bird.

I returned to Joshua Tree this past weekend to camp for the first time since returning to California. I was accompanied by a dear friend I met a few months ago through sheer luck and the courage of sharing. We reflected on shared experiences and existential questions. I have been constantly reminded of the power of the internet, social networks, and the access we can have to people when we're open to vulnerability. Since sharing my piece, You Were Too Young to Remember, in November, I've connected with a wide variety of people, many of whom would not be in my life in the same capacity had I not had a split second of reckless fearlessness and thrown a little piece of my story into the world. This blog has also been an ongoing exercise of vulnerability, and I appreciate all the ways that my ramblings on here have fostered or enriched conversations in my daily life. I'm still constantly surprised by the various people in my life that have found a way into my little home on the internet, but if you're here, thank you.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

another lifetime / light leaks

Happy First Day of Spring! Thank you to all those who have left me subtle or not subtle messages about reading my blog.

“Hope is a belief that what we do might matter, an understanding that the future is not yet written. It’s an informed, astute open-mindedness about what can happen and what role we might play in it. Hope looks forward but draws its energies from the past, from knowing histories, including our victories, and their complexities and imperfections. It means not fetishizing the perfect that is the enemy of the good, not snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, not assuming you know what will happen when the future is unwritten, and part of what happens is up to us.”

— Rebecca Solnit, Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises

I accidentally light leaked the roll of film I shot at Big Bear, which was disappointing but also resulted in some intriguing images, like the one above. These were taken with the Leica M2 and 7Artisans 28mm f/1.4 on Fuji C200 (pretty much my go-to film) over the past few weekends. I’m still obsessed with the colors and textures of California, and I sincerely hope that I never get over it. Also, mountains, lakes, and my grandma are basically my top 3 favorite things, so it’s been a good time.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The last 2 weeks in books:

Educated by Tara Westover

It feels like everyone has heard of or read this book by now. It’s one of those memoirs that reads like fiction because growing up in a Mormon fundamentalist household in Idaho probably won’t be too relatable. Westover’s life is incredible, and she writes about it incredibly.

1984 by George Orwell

Slightly ashamed to not have read this book until now. I’m not really going to try to write a review of this book because that seems daunting, but I’ll say that it was unnerving to read because it is disturbingly relevant at times.

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

I have so much admiration for Michael Pollan. The way he is able to engage readers in the food/plant world is incredible, and I owe much of my interest in the food industry to the first time I read The Omnivores Dilemma a few years ago. This one was a fascinating history of potatoes, apples, tulips, and marijuana. It’s about plants and food, but it’s ultimately about the symbiosis of life.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

I read this after some reviews of Wild by Cheryl Strayed suggested this book. Bryson is amusing, but it felt more like a long, entertaining trip than the epic physical and emotional odyssey that Strayed took. Still worth the read for anyone interested in long-distance backpacking. Oddly motivational.

Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li

This book is an imagined conversation between a mother and a teenage son that committed suicide. I think it’s important to know that Li’s child committed suicide, and she wrote this the months following his death. It’s a lot, but it wasn’t depressing. It’s a confrontation of loss and unanswered questions, but it’s also a fascinating discussion of language. Li has such a unique voice.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

I don’t think I’ve adequately digested this book yet. I don’t know how to talk about it. There’s so much within it’s pages about family dynamics, regret, racism, trust, afterlife, and the unbreakable bonds of reliance and gratitude. I’m not sure how I feel about the way the characters developed (or didn’t develop), but Ward crafts an unforgettable story.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

I was honestly a bit disappointed by this one given how much I’ve heard about it and how many “best of” lists it’s been on. At its core, this book makes you think. There are so many sides to take, so many perspectives to consider, and I love that there are no clear answers. Everything is a little bit of a debate. It’s a complex web of moral ambiguity. Beyond that, I wanted a little bit more out of the characters. Maybe I’m placing unreasonable pressure on Ng, but as a woman of color, I wanted her to make her Asian characters more interesting. I wanted some sort of indication that this wasn’t written by another white author, but she never really got me there. For that, I was disappointed, especially because she does make the effort to Chinese characters. They fell flat. Still, it’s a very well-written book, and definitely worth a read.

Response prompt for you if you’re still reading this:

When was the last time you felt pure happiness (even for a split second), and what triggered that feeling (if anything)?

perspective shifts / (sweet music)

I started a new job last week. It's taken a lot of mental work for me to be comfortable talking about it.

I felt like a failure when I moved home. I felt ungrateful. I felt lost. But mostly, I felt like a failure. I had graduated from a top university, landed a decent job, rented my own apartment alone, and gained independence in every sense of the word. And yet, I was miserable through the core of my being in a way I'd never been before. I couldn't even identify it at the time. It is only in retrospect, now, when I am aware of the happiness and gratitude I can feel on a daily basis, when I notice how much more easily smiling comes to me, that I am aware of the darkness of the past year.

I've been reading a lot. Books are what I gravitate towards when I am lost. I seek guidance from authors whose words have the power to embrace and heal me. JB MacKinnon's The Once and Future World provided a healthy dose of optimism and perspective-shift about the changing planet. In They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Hanif Abdurraqib's exploration in music and culture gave me a deep appreciation for Carly Rae Jepsen and the power of essays. Both he and Michelle Obama (Becoming) revealed the deep confusion and uncertainty they felt in their 20s, and I've held onto their words with great hope. They made my confusion feel normal, maybe even positive. Ken Liu has inspired me to write, although my struggle with fiction seems eternal, as my own true stories constantly push themselves through.

I felt like a failure for moving home because I was afraid that it seemed like regression. More accurately, I felt like a failure because I thought of it as a regression. It took a few books, but I've finally realized that the decisions I've made in the last six months have led to more personal growth than I've experienced in years. I feel more open and vulnerable to the human experience, to questions of history, identity, and purpose. I feel compelled to learn about a variety of subjects, take on personal projects, write, exercise, and engage in my community. In the context of a logical career, perhaps I've regressed, but I've gained so much more.

I went from working at a design consultancy in Boston to working at as a film processing technician at a small photography lab in Irvine. The former required a degree from a top university, internship experience, and a significant amount of luck in timing. Landing that job was difficult, and for a few months, I felt spoiled and ungrateful for walking away. The job that I have now requires a high school diploma and a passion for film photography--both things that I had before I left for MIT more than five years ago. This fact alone makes it difficult for me to explain what I'm doing now to other people, particularly those who I don't believe will take the time to understand my decisions (or are unable to due to their own life experiences).

For now, I've given up a nice salary, a sense of independence, a clear career trajectory, and the status of a steady corporate job. I've gained proximity to family and friends, knowledge about an aspect of photography that I'd otherwise never be exposed to, experience in a job that requires mostly physical capability, comfort of living at home, time to pursue my own hobbies and passions, and an increasing sense of clarity about what matters to me in the world. I've been able to spend time with friends, old and new, in ways that challenge my perceptions and intellect. I love being able to eat dinner with my mom on a daily basis, to see my grandma every weekend, and to hike in the mountains whenever I want to feel sunlight on my skin. Maybe it sounds like I'm running from real life. Maybe I am. But maybe I've just decided to choose a slightly different path than the one I thought I was meant to take, and maybe that's okay.

Mary Oliver wrote in Upstream: Selected Essays : "The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time." For the first time since high school (when I promptly squashed it), I feel the call to creative work, and for the first time in my life, I'm allowing myself to give it both power and time.

someone crimson

I don’t know how I found this artist but this song is making me feel lots of things.

Basically just posting to say that I updated my about me section. It’s taken a bit of time for me to acknowledge my confusion and current lack of direction in my life right now, but putting that out there was pretty therapeutic. For whatever friends that don’t know, I moved back home to Orange County a few months ago. I was struggling mentally in Boston and wanted to be closer to family. I liked the work that I did in design, but want to take the time to learn more about myself, explore other possibilities, and develop a stronger sense of what I want to tackle and accomplish in my 20’s. It hasn’t been easy. There’s many days where I wake up and feel utterly useless. It’s taken a while to detach my sense of self-worth from my job title. I still don’t think I’ve completely reconciled the work it took to get my degree and what I’m doing now. I tell myself repeatedly that it’s okay to be confused, to be lost, to be young and a little clueless. A lot of the times, I don’t believe it. Today, I did.

older / next adventure

I’m leaving on Monday for another month-long adventure in Hong Kong and China. This is my first time doing winter travel with a 22L pack (I did 19L for a month in Southeast Asia in the summer, and 50L for my last trip to Europe and Canada), and also my first time shooting exclusively film for more than a week. I’ll be off of all social media for the duration of my trip, so hit me up on WhatsApp, WeChat, or good old SMS if you want to reach me.

Reading list includes:

• From the Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra

• How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

• 21st Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

• A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

• Very Good Lives by JK Rowling

• Gweilo by Martin Booth

Will probably toss in a few more things depending on my mood, but I’m excited to just disconnect for a bit, think about life, write, read, and absorb the world around me.

Yay, packing pics:

hot heavy summer

(New Ben Howard song - absolutely in love with this one.)

Sometimes I don’t know if I write because I want to convince myself to feel a certain way, or I’m actually writing about the way I feel. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. 

Tomorrow is Friday, September 14. In two weeks, I will be moving out of Boston. It’s hit me, sort of. I’m counting down the days, but I’m not sure the reality of it has truly set in. 

Boston is the only place I’ve ever lived in as an independent adult. It’s the place I learned to take care of myself and a place that has forced me to grow faster than I ever imagined possible. Each year in Boston has felt like a distinct adventure. I love Boston for it’s size, it’s intellect, it’s autumn colors, and it’s spring breeze. It’s a place that can be painfully beautiful and utterly depressing, sometimes within days of each other. 

I know that I’ll miss it here. Despite all the hate I give it for it’s terrible weather and it’s distance away from most of the people I love, everything else about the city is genuinely lovable.

I’m scared to leave. I’m nervous about living in a place that isn’t so walkable, so small, so safe, so convenient. I’m nervous that I won’t fit in with the culture of Los Angeles anymore, or that I’ll lose some of the values I’ve had instilled in me here (an intense curiosity and desire to learn). I’m scared to leave, but I know that it is the best for me. Boston, despite all that it’s given me, has also been the place I felt the most trapped. When I moved here, I gave up a lot of what I enjoyed and wanted for things that I thought I needed, or things that I thought I should be doing. Moving to Boston, or more specifically MIT, is when I started falling into the traps of peer pressure. It’s the place where I started devaluing myself, and constantly wishing I liked different things. Sometimes, even wishing I was a different person. 

I don’t feel that way anymore, but I’m still living in the aftermath of many decisions I made under the pressure I felt at MIT. I haven’t given myself any opportunity to reconsider myself, what I want out of life, and what I have to give to the world. I’m fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do that now, and I’m taking it. In two weeks, I’m leaving for Ireland, London, Toronto, Jasper, and the Pacific Northwest. I’m taking that time to read, observe, reflect, write, and potentially rediscovering parts of my brain that I have left dormant for the past several years. I’m scared of what my brain will come up with without bounds, but I’m also incredibly excited. 

crazy rich asians, a reflection

I saw “Crazy Rich Asians” a few days ago with my mom, and my family has spent a lot of time talking about this movie, what it means to us, and why we resonated with it so much. I was aware of this book when it came out in 2013, but I had some skepticism about its content, and didn’t really bother exploring what it was about. I thought it had to deal with rich Chinese people from China, which, now living in Orange County, I am all too familiar with.

When I found out that it was being made into a movie, I was excited that an Asian cast would make it to the big screen, but otherwise, didn’t think too much about it. It wasn’t until the trailer came out a few months ago that I realized this was not the type of Asian representation I was expecting. It was significantly more.

To explain my connection to this movie, I have to explain my family’s rather complex immigrant story. My grandparents on my mom’s side met in Fujian Province in China. My grandmother has spoken Fujianhua, or Hokkien, to me since I was a child. Although I don’t speak to any degree of fluency, I can completely understand conversationally. My grandparents were part of the Chinese diaspora to Southeast Asia, residing in Hong Kong and Indonesia. My mom lived in Palembang, in the South Sumatra province of Indonesia (where they faced all sorts of discrimination) until she was 18, and then moved to Hong Kong. She speaks Mandarin, Indonesian, Cantonese, Hokkien, and English - these were the languages I was surrounded with growing up. My dad’s side of the family immigrated to Northern Ireland when he was young, where Chinese people made up less than 0.2% of the population. He grew up there, eventually studying engineering in London, and then moving to the United States to work at JPL. My parents met in California, where my brother and I were born.

I grew up as a Chinese-American, because that’s what I was - I was an ethnically Chinese person who grew up in America, but I always felt different than other Chinese-Americans. I received confusing looks when I entered kindergarten. My English pronunciation was off, but not because I didn’t know how to speak, but rather because I was used to hearing Northern Irish, UK, Hong Kong accents, not American ones. I was put in ESL until I could speak “correctly”. I didn’t understand why “colour” or “favourite” were wrong ways to spell. I listened carefully to how other people said “aunt”, and tried my best to emulate. I attended Chinese school and am still proficient in Mandarin, but felt alienated because Mandarin was not the primary language for anyone in my family. My parents wanted me and my brother to speak Mandarin because it is the most widely spoken, and did not speak any of the other languages with us. Other than when she was talking to me, my mom was always speaking Cantonese, Hokkien, or Indonesian. My grandmother on my dad’s side speaks Cantonese to me, and I answer in Mandarin. My aunts, uncles, and cousins speak to me in English with their unique Irish/Cantonese accents, and I respond in my Americanized English. Throughout my entire life, I have never met another Chinese-American with a background even remotely similar to mine. I’ve mentioned that my family is from Belfast and that I have UK citizenship, and received blank stares or laughs. Most people think that I’m kidding (would that be a funny joke?). I’ve been asked whether I was adopted, or if I’m actually half white and just look full Asian. When I was younger, I would mention foods that I would eat at home, like pempek and gado-gado (Indonesian foods), and get confused when my Chinese friends didn’t know what I was talking about. I had no idea where cultural boundaries lay in my incredibly multicultural home.

Crazy Rich Asians hit almost every component of my cultural identity. The movie is about Asian-Americans, British-Chinese, and Chinese people in Southeast Asia, and I resonated with every single one of those groups. The grandmother, like my grandmother, grew up in mainland China and is more “traditional”. The mom, like my mom, aunts and uncles, carry a distinctly Southeast Asian experience - not quite as Chinese as their parents, but not fully anything else either.  I understood the American jokes, the Cantonese jokes, the Mandarin jokes, and the Hokkien jokes. I resonated with this movie more than I ever reasonably expected to resonate with anything in mainstream media ever, and that feeling is incredible. If there is ever a question as to my representation is important, it is this. I’ve never felt more seen. 

kina grannis, montreal film shots, fujifilm 16mm f/1.4

I just returned from my fourth Kina Grannis concert, which inevitably means I am filled with all of the emotions. It’s hard to believe how quickly time has passed. I can’t count how many times I have listened to Stairwells, or how many associated memories I have with her music in general. I listened to Stay Just a Little on repeat when one of my best friends was moving away at the end of middle school, and even made a little video to that song to record our last hangout together (at the time). The Goldfish Song reminds me of weekly drives to piano lessons in Arcadia. There are so many little memories wrapped up in each of her songs, and I feel like her concert is just one giant time capsule.

This one - History - is one of my favorites off her new album, although there are many gems in that one. My favorite thing about Kina is that she always forces me to think about living in the moment, about gratitude, about what a privilege it is to be alive.

Feeling very grateful, very lost, but very okay tonight.

---

Here is a quick grid from Montreal. First time shooting the Leica M2 and the 7Artisans 35mm f/2, and I'm really happy with the results. Using the camera, as expected, is much less point and shooty than I'm used to with the old Contax or the Olympus XA4, but I really enjoyed the mindfulness and I'm looking forward to shooting the next roll with it. 

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

And here is much more lo-fi grid from the Olympus XA4, from Colorado and various daily shots around Boston and Cambridge. I realize after shooting the Leica how distinctive the XA4 shots are. 

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

I'm really loving the film rhythm that I've gotten back into, but I've also been shooting more digital! I recently got a 16mm (24mm eq) on the Fujifilm, and it's been real fun to shoot with. Here are some NYC shots. 

awake / pride

Film dump from Pride and Colorado trip, plus some random others. Shot on Olympus XA4 and the Voigtlander Bessa R3m that I didn't keep.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

thin (live) / colorado

Spent the last few days in Colorado with the family. It was a good blend of hiking/relaxing/family time, and I enjoyed it a lot. 

Some photos below: Experimenting with the slideshow because uploading each image takes forever. The main things we did were Garden of Gods, Pikes Peak, Cave of the Winds, and Paint Mines Interpretive Park. Other than a few thunderstorms, the weather was pretty much perfect. I took a lot of pics with the Olympus XA4 so there will probably be a second wave of photos at some point. Now...back to work...

real peach / film updates, leica m2

I realized I never updated the blog with some film photos from various trips over the past few months. 

Yesterday, I went to a Henry Jamison and Haux concert at The Middle East in Cambridge. Both groups were awesome, but the tone was a bit jarring since Henry Jamison's set was really lighthearted and fun, whereas Haux was a lot more somber and serious. 

I spent today re-leathering my new Leica M2. I kind of regret my leather color choice because it's a lot more obnoxious than I intended, so I will likely get some black leatherette and make it more subtle. This camera definitely had the most stubborn covering to get off of any camera I've ever fixed up. Getting all the vulcanite off took more than an hour, but I think it was worth it. Definitely doesn't look like a 50% of market price Leica anymore. 

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

what i need / nerd updates

New Ben Howard and this video made it hard to pick a song for this post, but this video gives me life and also this song is definite summer jams. Also it's Pride month, so this is more appropriate. 

And it's summer!! It's hard for me to fully grasp that the weather is actually consistently nice and my heating bills won't be more than $200 dollars anymore... This month has been pretty exciting overall. I finished my first project at work, which was generally rewarding. I definitely learned a lot about the design process and about my own working/learning style. I'm realizing more and more how much my personal passion matters to me in my daily work, which makes me feel like general design consulting might not be the place for me. I'm lucky to have incredibly supportive and caring coworkers though, so I'm still very much enjoying my current work environment.

I went to New York City for Memorial Day weekend, which was a welcome escape from Boston. I always love visiting New York - everything feels so much more alive, and also the food is incredible (special note of love to Absolute Bagels and Buddha Bodai). It was nice to just walk around and feel life in the city, and also to catch up with some old friends. I finally went to the American Museum of Natural History as well, which made me think about my small existence in the universe. 

Other than that, I've been cleaning out my apartment a lot and really thinking about what I want to do this summer. I have a lot of film rolls that I'm excited to develop - I recently trialed a Bessa R3m, which is a M-mount rangefinder camera made by Voigtlander. I got it from KEH new in box, but the metal shutter was a huge turnoff and I found it very jarring to shoot. That was a shame, because the 1x viewfinder and other mechanics/feel were quite delightful. I ended up returning it and scoring a Leica M2 on eBay for $600 after some crazy discount codes and things. It's supposed to be in working condition, but even if I have to send it for some repairs, I'm pretty psyched about it. I've had a picture of a Leica M2 on my wall at home since 11th grade. I cannot really afford true Leica glass at this point, so I'm waiting on a 7Artisans 35mm f/2 to hold me out. 

I have been shooting digital a lot less, which may explain the lack of photos in this post. I ended up returning the 0.95 aperture lens I talked about in my post from March. My Fuji kit only contains the 18-55 and 23 at this point. It's very functional, but even after all this time, I recognize that my joy in photography mostly comes from shooting film. I've been using the Olympus XA4 extensively, which is by far my favorite point and shoot camera. The 28mm view, easy zone focusing, and tiny size make it the best everyday carry camera I've found (and I've tried too many to count).

I've picked up (or continued, I guess) more nerd hobbies and acquired a new mechanical keyboard. I got a cheap blue switch 60% keyboard (MagicForce 68) a few years ago because I'm all about the tactile things, but that thing is super loud and I wanted something I could potentially take to work or use in a busier environment. Since I'm all about compactness and efficiency, I opted for a 40% ortholinear keyboard. As you can see from the picture, this means the keys aren't staggered. I was a bit worried about typing ability, but I've had about a week to practice and am pretty much at my normal typing speed. It takes a few minutes to adjust when I go back to my work laptop, but it's been really fun programming specific keys and making new short cuts and things. This will probably make zero sense to the majority of people reading my blog, so I'll stop now. Brown switches are way nicer than blues though, fyi. 

Looking forward to...

1. Haux concert! (Thursday)

2. Colorado trip with family (Starting next Sunday)

3. Summer nights and bike rides (ALL SUMMER)

4. Leica repairing and refurbishing (Probably right before Colorado)

5. Vegan sushi in Montreal (mid July)

6. Visiting Grandma in Ireland (October?)

7. Moving closer to home (Late October???)

lightning + gold

Found and charged up the old Zune HD this past week so I'm living with a healthy dose of throwback music right now. This song reminds me of senior year of high school.

I went hiking the the Fells Reservation near Somerville last weekend. It was lot nicer than expected, considering it sits dead in the suburbs. 

Otherwise, have just been cranking away in life. My current project at work ends at the end of the month, and I'm looking forward to a trip to NYC before summer really kicks in. I'll be going to Colorado Springs with the family in mid-June. I also found out that I was admitted to a 7 day agroecology class at Concordia University in Montreal! That'll happen in July. I'm very excited to learn more about the economics/politics of local food provisioning (and eating a lot of vegan sushi). Other summer goals include actually sitting down and learning DaVinci Resolve so I can start playing with video editing, biking a lot, practicing more creative storytelling, and taking more pics.

I have four rolls of film at the developing lab right now from a few recent adventures, and I'm excited to get those back. 

This was a very disorganized blog post but thanks for reading anyway! 

arms, painting projects, spring is here!

New Paper Kites is always welcome - this song is so soothing.

For as long as I can remember, I've loved taking things apart to examine how they worked. There's something about knowing exactly how something works that makes me a lot more comfortable owning it. I don't know if that makes any sense... basically, I like knowing that I can fix any of my own belongings if they happen to break.

This doesn't always work, because most things are a bit too complicated for me. For a long time, that's why I preferred shooting film - I knew how those cameras worked and trusted myself to put them back in operating condition if anything ever went wrong. Not so easy with digital...but I've gotten over that one (maybe?). I also enjoy painting things, customizing things, and generally making things "my own". I find that once I do that, I get really attached to things and want to keep them forever - otherwise, I generally have very little attachment to objects and probably buy/sell them at a questionable rate. 

Anyway...bikes! I bought a "mini-velo" about 2 summers ago. I like small wheeled bikes for their maneuverability, light weight, and small size. I wanted something that could fit into my dorm in the winter and be easy to carry up stairs if necessary. Small wheels are also way more fun to ride in the city (albeit quite a bit slower). BMX bikes can be a bit sketchy to ride, so I found one of these mini single speeds. They're super popular in Tokyo and other places with smaller living quarters, but there's only a few companies that make them in the US. I chose this one because of the geometry and steel frame. 

This bike has been through a lot. This is what it looked like (with some soap on it for cleaning, because I forgot to take the picture of it covered in mud). 

The gaff tape is to cover the logo of "Respect Cycles" - the name is ironic because apparently they have terrible customer service and a lot of people who order them never receive them. Sketchy, but I still love my bike. Getting rid of that logo was a big part of why I wanted to paint it in the first place.

Stripping the bike of all components was more difficult than expected. There's so many tools required, but with the help of a local bike shop and a new bike toolkit, it eventually happened.

And now...paint. I thought about a variety of different colors but yellow is the color of friendship and it makes me really happy so it wasn't much of a real consideration. I sanded down the frame with some medium fine grit sandpaper before spraying in the booth at work.

The spray booth didn't really fit the whole frame that well, and getting to all the corners was a bit difficult. I eventually got most of it, but there are some parts that look slightly green because I didn't get enough coats in before I ran out of paint. Most of those spots are on the bottom or covered by other components though, so it's okay. I got the paint from a company called "Spray.Bike" and their paint dries super fast, so I was able to reassemble it about 12 hours after painting.

Final product! I need to get new brake cables so that's still a work in progress, but the photo is cleaner without brakes anyway. I'm really excited to bike and enjoy the above freezing weather that has at long last arrived in Boston. 

Sunset at a park new my apartment with the creepiest looking trees and a nice view of the Boston skyline.

SF Chinatown on a work trip a few weeks ago.

A wonderfully textured shot of the Charles River at exactly the right time of day. 

thin, lady bird, crippling self-doubt

It's probably posts like these that will one day convince me to make my blog more private, but I'm pretty sure I know the few people who actually keep up with this regularly (love you all), so I'll just go with it. 

I've been thinking a lot about life lately. It's a very normal thing, I'm told. So much of life has been spent going through school, with little time to think about much else. Graduation felt like being fired out of a canon, the summer a blissful freefall. And now I feel like I've landed in an empty field. The dust has slowly settled, and I am lost.

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I'm brought back to a room. My old room at 1425 Lyndon St, in South Pasadena. This, as I am realizing, was such a defining space for me. It was here that my various dreams were both hatched and buried, where broken hearts were mended, and where I slowly began to learn who I am. 

I've been feeling so indescribably lost lately, and it took a movie for me to find the words. I watched Lady Bird back in November, mostly due to excitement about a few of the scenes being filmed at my high school and the local coffee shop where I went often (and where I had my MIT interview). Leaving the theater, I didn't really think that much of the movie. It was definitely good, but I focused a lot on the embodiment of the characters and setting, not about the emotional responses, which were the heart of the whole film. I joked that it was a really "white" movie. And that was it for a while. 

I got incredibly homesick in January. I sort of expected it, with the miserable Boston winters, lack of sunlight and all. I missed the sunshine, the beach, the moonlit drives, the feel of a longboard on smooth concrete. I missed the warmth of friendships, the exquisite pain that comes from laughing too much, and the feeling of wanting to bottle up beautiful moments to save for later, and for forever. 

I see my past so visually and so vividly. It's painful and lovely at the same time. Memory and photography are so inherently tied for me that it's hard for me to explain the difference at all. I guess the major difference is that I press a shutter to take a picture, but there exists thousands of clips in my head that never make it onto a film strip or sensor, whether real or imagined - strangers' smiles, sunlight reflecting off buildings, ocean waves, drifting snow. 

In 9th grade, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to make movies. I spent the majority of my free time reading about screenwriting techniques and watching cinematography reels on Vimeo. I dreamt about going to USC film school and becoming a DP - making the visual nuances that make me so happy come to life for everyone. I made a few random videos on my own or for school projects, but I never allowed myself to fully immerse in a world where this dream seemed like a feasible reality. I started taking photos as a less serious alternative, deleted my video editing software, and went on to search for new dreams. Did I want to be a dentist? Yes, until I had to wash people's mouths for 8 hours a day. A biologist? Oh, I never took biology. I went to an MIT summer camp, became interested in mechanical engineering (because I started fixing cameras), and the rest happened how it happened. 

MIT was an incredible place, for many, many reasons, but it's also the place where I felt like I lost myself the most. I made some truly wonderful memories and met some of my favorite people in my life, but in retrospect, I felt forced to believe that I wanted something I didn't. I feel horrible writing this because I know that MIT is a lifelong dream for so many people. I really wanted it, too, and I was lucky to have genes from incredibly smart parents and also parents that created an environment for me to build a strong work ethic and intense self-discipline. I wasn't sure about engineering when I went to MIT, but I wanted to be sure about it. I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps, to show him how well I turned out, and to prove my own value to myself. I wasn't sure about engineering when I was at MIT, but I didn't have anything that I really liked that much more, until I started taking more social science classes towards the end of my time there. I got into product design, which was something I liked because I could use the engineering I didn't really want to do, and combine it with the social science parts that I did enjoy.

And now here I am. 

I went home last weekend since I was out in Palm Springs for a work trip anyway. I rented a car and drove back on Friday, right through sunset. The shades of pink, yellow, blue, and purple in front of the sandy mountains was more than my heart could really bear. I smiled the entire way home. I suddenly thought of Lady Bird - the last scene, where she calls home and asks her mom whether she got emotional the first time driving through Sacramento. The memory of that scene just hit me so hard. 

I got home, and was able to spend a few days in Irvine and around South Pasadena. I saw the aforementioned coffee shop, and scenes from the movie came back to me again. It was weird, because the locations were just triggers - I started identifying with the subtle emotional trajectories of the characters, months after I had seen the movie. And then I would recall the way it was filmed - the colors, the sunflares, the tonal quality - and it reminded me of the ways I construct my own memories. 

There's another scene that hits me really hard from the movie (sorry for anyone who hasn't seen this movie, it's hard to explain how the delivery changes the meaning, or how spectacular Saoirse Ronan is): 

“Mom: I want you to be the very best version of yourself that you can be.
’Lady Bird’: What if this is the best version?”

This scene kills me. I've never had this sort of conversation with my mom, but this sentiment is something I struggle with internally on a daily basis. Not the idea that I won't be better, but the sense of crippling self-doubt. 

I've always prided myself on being able to go for things that I want, and my ability to be willing to pick up new skills and try new things. While I still think those things are true, I'm coming to terms with the fact that I've never actually tried that hard for the things that I genuinely love doing with all of my heart. I'm actually really scared of putting my all into something and realizing that I'm not that good at it, or that I'll never make a difference with it. Since college, I've been working towards things that provide stability. Job security, good income, ability to support myself, insurance, etc. I was convinced  that once I had those things, happiness would follow, but...

“Money is not life’s report card. Being successful doesn’t mean anything in and of itself. It just means that you’re successful. But that doesn’t mean that you’re happy.”

— Marion McPherson, Lady Bird

It's weird - I never really understood people that loved their jobs, or wanted to work more than they had to. This judgement, I've realized, comes from a bitterness within myself. I think, deep down, I just really envy people who work just because they love it. This doesn't apply to people who have to work for financial stability or people who attach their self-worth to a paycheck or external validation - I feel for those people. But working for enjoyment? That's completely foreign to me, and it's only now that I realize that it's because I've never let myself even try to turn something I love into a job. Yes, I've done some freelance photography, but not before I grossly undercharge to eliminate any real expectations from me, and this just worsened during my time in college. I'm so terrified of disappointing myself by trying too hard and failing that I've built an entire separate track of my life that walls off life productivity from personal happiness. As a result, I'm judged for things that I don't feel that strongly about, so if I fail, it's easier to move on from. It's easier to pursue the things I love in my free time, away from any actual responsibilities or ability to make a real impact, and that's sort of cowardly. And I convinced myself that this was desirable. 

“We’re afraid that we will never escape our past. We’re afraid of what the future will bring. We’re afraid we won’t be loved, we won’t be liked. And we won’t succeed.”

— Parish Priest, Lady Bird

To be honest, I don't really know where to go from this realization. I'm proud that I'm able to support myself with my education and skillset that I built for my career, but I want to push myself to take more risks, expressively. I'm working on my photography a lot more now, and eventually do want to become a well-established photographer. Shooting for a magazine or a website would be really cool. I want to make a documentary one day. Maybe even work on a film. I want to use the food knowledge that I'm gaining to make systematic change. Most of all, I want to empower people through the way I see the world. And one of these days, I want to be able to let go of an expected 9-5 job to pursue, in full force, something that doesn't have me checking the time every half an hour. I want to be someone who gets up excited to do something with their day, even if that day is challenging as hell. I want to think about something 24/7, not because it's stressful, but because I know that it truly matters to me. To be honest, I just want to feel some of the fearlessness I used to feel, before logic, fear, and an expectation of what my life should be led me to a very stable emptiness. 

never mine / website updates

Hello hello! My website was getting a little dated so I did a color change, removed some old pages, and made two blogs. From now on, personal posts will remain here, but I'll be writing more about the books I'm reading over here. In the last month, I have read The World is Blue by Sylvia Earle, American Catch by Paul Greenberg, The End of the Line by Charles Clover, Everybody Lies by Seth Stevens-Davidowitz, and Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. I am trying to distill all the knowledge and write something coherent soon. In the meantime, here are a few pictures from around the neighborhood. We had our first snow in Boston on Saturday! Still hate the cold, but at least it's pretty for now.