The Mysterious Author

When I was a child, I was quite a bookworm (or, from a badly-translated bootleg Fullmetal Alchemist sub, "a book-eating monster"). I read many books that have been since forgotten for similar reasons as others: among them, the vicarious hedonism of being transported to another world.

With the decline in use of physical books, I reminisce warmly on when I read for leisure. Now, my reading is mostly filled with technical and professional education materials mixed with the hullabaloo of the Internet.

Amy Tan I
A Chinese-American author always stuck with me. Although I never read any of Amy Tan's books due to procrastination, thinking that I wasn't old enough at the time to understand or appreciate them, I still haven't read The Joy Luck Club due to my self-disdain of lengthy time commitments like reading a novel. This is despite finding copies of her early novels in the house; as irrational as it seems, I don't want the obligation of finishing a book weighing on other commitments.

Passing Affairs with Asian Literature
I never finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha although I was enchanted by it, but I finished the 656-page Brothers by Yua Hua in a record 3 lazy summer days years ago, gripped by its illuminations of the rapid change in China and its people. I considered Ties that Bind, Ties that Break about a girl's struggle against foot binding enough old Chinese historical lore for middle school, and the obscure Japanese book The Spring Tone now seems to be like a Haruki Murakami ripoff judging by the things that a friend who has read his books tells me.

I must admit that I am biased, but I relate strongly with Asian books for their similarities, implicit understanding, and culture.

The Library as a Tomb
The library is a peaceful, productive place I love in all of its forms, but its functions have confused me. Clearly, the majority are non-profit, but it boggles the mind that it is impossible to read or watch everything in a library. In fact, I wonder how many materials are even cycled through, about the people who devour the most obscure, rigorous, and technical texts, or how many times a passionate romance fantasy by a small-name author is even read in an oversaturated genre.

Time cannot be taken back, so only the readers will know what they gain from the experience.

Writing can be easy as virtually everyone who is literate can do it as I am now, but I think that many words, worlds, and knowledge will scarcely be opened, sort of like being contained in a tomb. The same goes for published works of the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, etc. and the passing and transient minds who made their ideas known.

The Mysterious Author
One personal touch I find entertaining is the book jacket. In a valiant attempt to hook the reader with a cliff-hanger, the author's description usually follows. Often times, it reveals funny quirks usually involving habits or pets of someone who devoted so much time writing something for purpose or profit.

Amy Tan II
Revisiting her website, I read her brief autobiography and felt many parallels and understanding of her Chinese-American life to mine. One of her books' author descriptions mentions being part of a band of famous authors called The Rock Bottom Remainders. Many promotional materials mention this funny and colorful fact regardless of its seriousness, but I think it inspires one to live a creative, interesting, and full life.

Blueberry Fields Forever

This is the Parlee Farms petting zoo in which it seemed like there were only goats. The hungry goats behaved like dogs, looking up and eagerly awaiting for food from the dispensary.

So, with a month before school rolls around again, it seems that my activities have become increasingly cheesy. This weekend, my family and the dog went to Parlee Farms in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, to pick exceptionally large and delicious blueberries.

Flower field

Surprisingly, the "low-hanging fruit" were not all taken, but there were enough pay-by-the-pound blueberries to go around for the crowds there. Several families filled their buckets to the brim.

Blueberry bushes

My bucket stock photo

There must be a special note for the unusually high number of Chinese families there, many equipped with sun hats. I have an honest theory. 

Life may have began in the sea, but, for many Chinese, life began in the countryside. There is a Cantonese word (I don't know Mandarin unfortunately) for the romanticized, agrarian, and bucolic old ideal of living a simple life farming and tending animals. It is like "hillbilly country" that can be meant in either a positive or deprecating way, as in old-fashioned, run-down, or underdeveloped. Anyways, some people told me stories of getting education early on farms as part of the Cultural Revolution. In addition, China developed and modernized very rapidly, but heavy urbanization was not always the case several decades ago. The existing connection to agrarian ideals in a modern society is quite fascinating and made for a fun day.

To conclude, here is a picture of a big blueberry. After washing "the fruits of our labor," the berries were extremely fresh with all of them sweet, which is unusual especially compared to hit-or-miss supermarket blueberries that make one wonder about the long, mechanized supply chain to bring food from a farm to the table. Kudos to Parlee Farms!

Biggest blueberry I found

Peach Farm Restaurant

On 5/26, we went to Peach Farm in Boston's cloistered Chinatown to celebrate a birthday. I have been to so many Chinese restaurants sometimes repeatedly and not many other types since my family mostly patronizes them out of familiarity and comfort, and the restaurants are usually not good deals compared to other delicious cultural fares and cuisine. Hey, it's whatever floats their dragon boat!

Peach Farm was unique, or maybe because I started taking pictures now, in its delivery of authentic Chinese food. However, it suffered from the native culture syndrome where the food just wasn't as good as food in the homeland, and I try to disbelieve the location effect since people think Apple makes high-quality products even though they are made in China. However, with Chinese food, it really tastes better in China, and I will describe how.

Pictured are, to the best of my fuzzy memory, Peking duck, spicy fried shrimp, oysters, and some pork meat thingy. For some reason, the Peking duck tasted more stale, less fresh, and more plain than in China, but it was still satisfactorily good.

This was probably the largest oyster I've ever seen, and it was fluffy.

For a new view, going from noon clockwise, there is saucy pork, Cantonese-style lobster with ginger and scallion, soft shell crab, a vegetable, soy sauce chicken, and clams. Unfortunately, since my food excursions are out of order, I don't fully recall my feelings and opinions on the food beside considering that it passes as Chinese food. So, I guess this post is more of an unfortunate, short-run pictures dump rather than a good review. Well, enjoy anyways!

Chinese Dreams

Don't judge me, I was hungry...

I have a hazy, distant memory of stuffing my face at a buffet at a hotel in China. After, when we were walking down the stairs, live music greeted us. A pianist played smoothly while a "pretty woman" (said in Cantonese by a girl in the group as "liang lui") was singing in clearly enunciated, near-perfect English. She was singing to almost no audience as the hotel was near-empty on a Thursday night, which made me romantically recall this time. Currently, I am writing for almost no one and mostly for the joy of myself.

This made me wonder, glistening, neon metropolis, how you can have a time and place of such emptiness and loneliness for reflection, in a city of millions of people? China is both poor and wealthy. I wanted to stay and listen, but that would be awkward, and we had to part.

Lonely night

ASNS2245, Cultural Awareness, Dragon Ladies, and Defense Against the Dark Arts

My open note materials

After taking the final exam at the lovely 8:00 AM time slot on 4/28/15, I would like to reminisce on probably the most culturally relevant filler class I've ever taken for a level 2 elective. My knowledge of Asian Americans expanded deeply by actually doing all the mandatory readings at the gym.

I feel much more culturally aware but not quite liberated and especially not liberated from debits and credits. However, I must admit my skepticism of academic subjects like the Asian-American experience due to reading too much from academics with too much time who think too much and rarely apply real, lasting, and prominent practice beyond radical eras like the 60s. Still, the class discussed many important and thought-provoking sociological questions.

Anna May Wong, the stereotypical Dragon Lady

To me, the most funny, memorable, and extreme stereotypes were of Dragon Ladies and Fu Manchu. From "Ideological Racism and Cultural Resistance" by Yen Le Espiritu (91) referencing Frank Chin and Jeffrey Chan (60, 1972): "Dr. Fu, a man wearing a long dress, batting his eyelashes, surrounded by muscular black servants in loin cloths, and with his habit of caressingly touching white men on the leg, wrist, and face with his long fingernails is not so much a threat as he is a frivolous offense to white manhood."

However, my unabashed skepticism is related to a potentially sad conclusion. Slightly late in packing up my materials, I overheard another student asking the professor about his future plans. He said he didn't know if Northeastern will offer this class again, to which I remarked in my trademark aloofness, "Is this class like Defense Against the Dark Arts where they change the class and teacher every year?" We all laughed awkwardly. 

I hope they continue this class, but I unfortunately don't have time to protest in solidarity with my Asian brothers and sisters. I'm also a little like a passive Asian who doesn't cause agitation except for with LinkedIn. This will probably not be my last post about Asian America similarly to my multiple references to Blade Runner.