pingyima blog

FFF - Fuck Facebook Forever

2010-05-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

"There were times when he could not read the face he had studied so long, and when this lonely girl was a greater mystery to him than any women of the world...” Charles Dickens (1812-1870).

One and half centuries later....

"Dear Charles Dickens:

This is how the story ends: The boy went online and Googled that girl. He found her on Facebook. The boy needed to study no longer.
The End."

Things could have been worse if that girl turned out to be one of us on Facebook:

The Friendly Friends - We don't know you at all but we invite you to be our friends anyway.

The Face Collectors - Our hobby used to be stamp collecting. We had a stamp book. We've recently switched it to face collecting. We started collecting faces and now we have a Facebook. We never do anything on Facebook besides collecting faces.

The Liker’s - We are a bunch of positive thinkers. We like. We never dislike. By the way, it's the Facebook spirit: "You shall only like; You shall not dislike". One post received our 5 "like"s minutes after it's posted and it read "I just went to my bathroom".

The Oversharers - We share and overshare what we eat, where we go and how we think. We really care what you don't care and have no idea about, us, our kids, our grandkids, our great grandkids, our great great grand kids, our house, our dogs, our cats...

The Inviters - We invite you to our events 10 years from now, five thousand miles from here. You: Please RSVP.

The Suggestors - We have become a fan of our villages. Therefore we suggest you be a fan too.

The Noblers - We are in it only for the cause. As long as God lives, we will be on Facebook. The day when Obama quits the presidency, we will quit Facebook. Amen!

The Exhibitionists - We make a public display of our private matters. We proclaim "I love you!" on someone's newsfeeds just in case others don't know.

The Equal Opportunists - It's an equal opportunity out there for us. Think you have a special bond with us? It was a thing of past. We are now sharing those little things we used to share only with you with our other 2000 Facebook friends.

The Gamers - There are many hidden sides of us you have not seen us in real life. We are farmers, gangsters, pillow fighters, zoo keepers...

The Smart Ones - We have done our IQ tests consisting of 4 or 5 questions. We are convinced with our test results enough to publish our scores. The scores indicate we are genius.

The Horoscopers - We publish our daily horoscope with the lucky hour of the day. We really believe in those horoscopes. According to the horoscopes, our lucky hours are sometimes midnight or 3:00 in the morning. No wonder we didn't get the luck: We slept through it. Let's stay awake during our daily lucky hour from now on then.

The Movie Stars - We have just published the result of the quiz "which movie star do I look like?". The result is Marilyn Monroe or Demi Moore. We've forgotten this is Facebook and we have previously posted our faces.

The Group Thinkers - We can not think alone. Please comment so we can do some group thinking.

The Visibles - We refuse to be invisible. We need to be seen. We upload our photos from our cell phones wherever we go.

The Taggers - You have spent your whole life trying so hard to preserve your delicate image. You've painstakingly selected and deselected which photos to post on Facebook. With our one tag, it's all over.

FFF - Fuck Facebook Forever!

24 - A Day's Full Account with the Birds' Nest

2010-04-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

Previously on 24

In the morning, I found a bundle of soft moss on the front deck behind my newly built climbing rose trellis. I thought it was brought by the wind. I cleaned up the mess. In the afternoon after I got back from work, I checked on the deck, the little moss turned into circular bedding. By this time I realized it was the birds trying to build a bird nest. The planet earth is over-populated with people but not birds. I've always enjoyed the birds and their singing. Go ahead having more babies and bringing on your family symphony. However, this time their nest was in encrochment with mine. I demolished theirs.

Next Day

- 8:30am
I opened the front door. The birds just built a new nest on the same spot last night. Darn it. I don't want to be mean but....(Simon says). If you push me too hard, I will have to add you to my list of enemies in combat, in the same category as the other cute enemies, you know, deer, frogs…

- 8:35:am
The birds flew in. Male bird: "What the heck? Our nest is gone again, the third time.Where is the nest we spent the whole night building?" Female: "Sure you remember the place right? Should we stop and ask for directions from other birds around us" Male bird: "I don't ask for directions. I swear in our future children's lives, it's here.".

-12:00pm

I opened the door. The nest was built again. You stupid birds. Don’t you know you are wasting you time building here?! Has it ever occurred to you the reason why your nest kept disappearing was that someone didn't like it here? If you were smart enough to understand signage, I could even use some of my real estate arrow signs to redirect you to a comfy site in the woods a few feet away I found for you. If I had a surveillance camera, I would probably just let you had your way so I could make myself a Discovery Channel, but I didn't!

- 12:05pm
The birds flew back with more building materials. As soon as they figured out they had the right place this time, and all along, they knew it was not an accident. It was a terrorist act! Female bird: "We should not waste our time. Let's find another building site.”. Male bird: "We will not give in to terrorism. This is the place we will call home! Let's get busy."

- 5:30pm

It looked like a solid nest. I figured if I had come home a little later, the female bird would have been in labor. By then I would not have had heart to do anything because despite my meanness, 'I don't have a wooden heart'. I rushed to finish the demo work. It started to feel like racing against the clock with the birds. Jack Bauer (played by me on this episode) was on the mission.

- 5:35pm
The birds saw me. Male bird: "It was her, the terrorist! All the time we thought she was our friend. She fooled us as an avid bird watcher but in fact she was just spying on us all these time!" Female bird: "I feel the babies kicking. We are running out of time" Male bird: "There is no negotiation. Let's try again. Let's show her our determination and persistence. Maybe she will finally give up.".

- 6:00pm

I found several fresh moss on the front deck again. It was an easier cleanup thanks to my timely check.

- 6:02pm
The birds were really pissed and frustrated. I heard them chirping loudly. Made no mistake about it. They were not singing. Male bird: "The bitch did it, again!". Female bird: "She is more determined than us. Let's go. I beg you please for our babies' sake.". The male bird finally gave in to the female bird’s plead.

- 8:00am
I stepped out in my pajama. The desk was as clean as I last cleaned it. I was relieved, and tormented at the same time. How I admired the birds' persistence and amazing engineering feats.I couldn't help thinking if we have half of their persistence, what kind of feats we can achieve.

The healthy baby birds were delivered in the emergency room completed just in time, somewhere else. I hope so. I really hope so.

Words to Live By

2010-04-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

Quotes are over quoted. I mean it. Everyday I turn on Twitter, there are people out there who do nothing but quote someone else on Twitter. In the beginning, there were just a couple of them so I read their tweaked quotes every day. Pretty soon, the number of people became bigger. Eventually I could not keep up with the never-ending collection of wise and whimsical things people said for every occasion because some of them tweak quotes every single hour. It's not like I will think less of them if they run out of smart things to say. I don't even know them. I finally gave up on my quotes people. From Socrates to Confucius to unknown nobody, a lot has been said since the dawn of civilization. I might have remembered more quotes than an average American. If you don't know what I mean, here is a hint: We grew up reciting the Red Book. I have recently challenged myself and my husband to top a couple of my favorite quotes. I then realized we'd better quote someone else too because the best he could come up with to top my #1 quote below is "Shit happens.". Below are four of my favorite quotes, however subjective my choices are.

1. "This too, shall pass" - Unknown
These words have the ability to make a happy person sad, and visa versa. It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words. Its meaning to me is close to another my favorite Chinese saying "天下没有不散的宴席" (All good things must come to an end.) originated from the novel of "Dream of the Red Chamber", written in the18th century. These words have the effect of helping letting go of whatever we cling to. It's both sad and comforting to come to the realization that all things will come to pass, sooner or later.

2. "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" - Jesus
It's one of the seven sayings Jesus uttered at his crucifixion immediately before he died. He said it to the two murders to his left and to his right on the cross, and to Israelites and Jews who put him to the cross. I'm not a Christian, so I don't pretend I understand its meaning from the religious context. To me the saying has two parts. The 1st part of the saying is to point the source of all wong doings as: know not what they do - ignorance. The 2nd part is to ask forgiveness for all wrong doings because their ignorance. I remembered when I was a little kid in China, we occasionally went to a square where the criminals were all gathered for their hearings prior to their executions. Such an occasion was a public affair and watched by thousands of spectators. After a list of their crimes being read and death sentences being announced, they were taken to a truck, and then on to the execution field. A few times, I was just standing 8-10 feet from the criminals, who were in their early 20s because of their first horrific crimes. When their names were called upon and before they were taken away, they cried so hard that their tears touched their nose drippings. I sincerely believed at the time of their criminal acts they didn't know the extent of their crimes as well as the consequences. Had they known, they would not have done what they did. Sadly in their case, there were no second chances. Ignorance is a human condition. Understanding this makes forgiveness possible. "To understand is to forgive” -says Buddha. If I myself want to be forgiven for my wrong doings due to my ignorance, I should extend the same forgiveness to others. Forgiveness is humanity at its fair play. "It is in pardoning that we are pardoned." -Saint Francis of Assisi

3. "I don't know" - My then two-year old nephew
It was first amusing to hear it from my then two-year old nephew. He must have picked it up from some adults around him. I wondered who that was because that's a rare phrase in the adult world, where usually it's one corrects another, and one knows more than another. In the world full of smart asses, you know-it-alls please don't try to piss off us really know-it-alls. It's so refreshing hearing "I don't Know", this time from a two-year old. I could not help mimicking the baby talk for a while until my two-year-old dropped that phrase as his language skills progressed. And then I went back to my old self, the one who knows it all. There is an ancient Chinese saying "'知之为知之, 不知为不知, 是知也.”, meaning: "To say you know when you know, and to say you do not when you do not, that is knowledge. ". The opposite of knowledge is not ignorance but certainty/absolute. When you declare in absolute certainty that you have all the right answers to one god, culture, language, political or misc dogma, and when you therefore denounce anything else, you are not giving doubt a chance. "Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one. -Voltaire". Certainty is dangerous in that it does not allow room for doubts, curiosity, learning and mystery, the source of scientific discoveries and artistic aspirations. I remembered one time in my middle school math class, I asked my math teacher a question. My math teacher had no answer for it. She answered "I don't know." There was a long awkward pause in the classroom. Then the math teacher did something that was face saving to her at that instant. She did not know that I have remembered it ever since. She drew a small circle with her white chalk on the blackboard. She said inside the small circle it was your knowledge, and the darkness outside the circle was the unknown. Then she drew a bigger circle. She explained to us this was how it worked: 'The bigger the white circle, the more it touches the unknow darkness. Therefore the more you know, the more you don't know.' So here is a piece of the good news for us know-it-all smart asses, saying "I don't know" does not make you less smart. It just means...you don't know. Sigh of relief. Haha.

4. "Wherever you go, there you are" - Buddha
I looked it up online. Some people say the quotation is from Thomas a Kempis around 1440 AD. "So, the cross is always ready and waits for you everywhere. You cannot escape it no matter where you run, for wherever you go you are burdened with yourself. Wherever you go, there you are." But most people agree it is originated from Buddha "Most every wakeful step, every mindful act is the direct path to awakening. Wherever you go, there you are.” There is a similar Chinese two world phrase 随缘, meaning "go with it (fate)". For someone who has always had his way in life, this saying is a hard one to grasp. For rest of us, we know some things can be changed while other things can not. Accepting the things we can not change saves us from the wars of no ending and no winning. Learn to surrender to our destined path. Wherever we are heading to, and whom we will come across on the way, it's not as simple as just up to us or our effort. It sounds passive but if you are no longer in your twenties and thirties, you will come to appreciate the freedom from this active "giving up". Surrendering to voices is listening; Surrendering to differences is accepting; Surrendering to yourself is being comfortable in your own skin; and surrendering to war is peace (ok only if winning is impossible). Surrender to your chosen path. "Surrender to the flow.”- Mike Gordon

The Sweet and Lowdown of Being a Real Estate Agent

2010-04-08T16:15:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been crazy. I drove back and forth to Bellevue several times to sell houses there. "Best to wear out than to rust out" is my motto when it comes to business. I welcome any wear and tear opportunities in this economy. Not a morning person, I have to have an alarm clock to wake me up before 8:30am. Sure I missed many sunrises but I stayed awake for sunsets. The only exception to that rule is if you win a jackpot and need me out to write an offer for your next multi-million dollar house, feel free to wake me up at any hour: 4:00am is not too early for that matter. Real estate business is like a tropic rainfall: it's either none or a downpour. If real estate agents aren't responding to the highs and lows, and the twists and turns of the real estate market, they could miss opportunities, big time. So when the phone is ringing, they drop everything they are doing and are supposed to be doing next, to answer the higher calling from commissions. They wear out their bodies and their car tires. The question remains: Will they catch a little sunshine at the end of the downpour, ever? Here are some real estate rules I have concluded through my 6 year real estate practice.

- 10% rule. There is a famous 10% rule in real estate, i.e. 10% of the agents do 90% of the agents' work. Consequently, 10% of the agents make 90% of agents' earnings. It's one of the winner-takes-it-all fields. The published median expected salary for a typical real estate sales agent in the United States is $35,994. Real estate agents are self-employed, which means they are on their own, insurance and retirement wise. Good luck living on that entry-level salary being self-employed. There are starving real estate agents in any kind of market. Their almost ground-level property signs -"Price Reduced"+"New Price"+"Price Improved" need some ground clearance to add another rider for themselves "Will sell for food". If you don't happen to know everyone in town, to have either the banks (repos) or the builders (new constructions) on your side, you are destined to play the typical real estate game, which is "Who wants to be the next thousandnaire?"

- 24/7 rule. There are some part-timers out there who need an added income to their existing retirement, or to their regular 9-5 jobs; there are some builders and investors out there who also get themselves agent licenses to avoid paying commissions. Then there are your average housewives, high school graduates, college dropouts, and recent lay-offs. Real estate is one of those fields where it's too easy to get in and too many are in, and where anyone can get a real estate license and call it a profession. In the vast ocean of real estate agents, food is scarce; Sharks swim with shrimps -The stakes are high. If they want to be one of the top 10% agents and make a good living out of this profession, they'll have to go in full-time. When I say full-time, I mean 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. When their family needs them, their clients need them more. On any given evenings, weekends, holidays and vacations, be prepared to be on call, no matter where and when.

- Ass rule. To keep it short, it's all thing asses. In order to get their heads above the water, real estate agents have to give an ass to all that's required of them to build their clientele base. In order to stay above the water, they can not do a half-ass job. It's either no ass or full ass. In addition, they have to know how to kiss ass while kick ass.

- Attorney rule. Real estate agents are often viewed as money grubbing like attorneys, stock brokers, or bankers. It's the single most injustice to the real estate agents because 1) attorney, stock brokers or bankers don't pay it forward as real estate agents do (literally, real estate agents have to front their time and pockets for any potential earnings). 2) Attorneys and the alike get paid no matter what the results are. Whether or not they reach a deal or no deal in the end, is not part of their pay deal. Whereas, for real estate agents, deal or no deal is a big deal. Real estate agents only get paid if a deal is successfully closed. If not, they don't get a dime, not even a word of consolation from their clients. They consider themselves lucky if they don't get blamed at. 3) No one expects his attorney to give a rate discount or to provide free consultations but in real estate everyone expects real estate agents discount their commissions. When there is a concession to be made, the first corner to cut is real estate agents' commissions. Sadly, there are few desperate real estate agents (formerly Desperate Housewives on TV) who will cut their own throat just to get a listing or close a sale. I don't know why real estate offices are often viewed by public as visitor information centers. Not to mention there are those real estate users who use real estate agents as if there were public service representatives or tour guides. They seem to forget that real estate agents might have kids to feed and mortgage to pay, just like them. Real estate business is their livelihood. Most of the real estate agents will probably happily work for free if they can live for free. Next time when someone compares you an agent to an attorney, I suggest that you send him an attorney equivalent rate bill for all your work hours. That's what an attorney would do. If real estate agents can not fight an uphill battle against their poor public reputation, they better live up to it, which I'm cetain it's not a bad living. Look at any attorneys. In despite of all the attorney jokes and the general public concensus, they hold their heads high and their rates higher. Real estate agents should learn from attorneys if they want to making a living in real estate industry. Here is my new tagline for real estate agents: Think real estate agents, think attorneys.

Come On Baby Light My Fire

2010-03-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

I got home early this afternoon. The sun was about to set. The air felt fresh but still a little chilly. It was one of those days in the Pacific Northwest: it was not warm enough to stay outside; It was nice enough that you didn't want to stay inside. Solution: sit outside around an open fire.

That was the plan. It should be an easy plan to execute. We have built a brick fire pit a few years ago. Next to the fire pit, a big pile of chopped logs from us falling the trees on the property are neatly lined up painstakingly by me. They are an eyesore to the surrounding environment. We have offered the logs to our friends free of charge and some of our friends have expressed interest in taking them but none of them has acted. We figure we will have to burn them all this summer. It's just March. I know. But let's start a fire now.

I brought a long bench by the fire pit, preparing myself to a leisure afternoon around a warm fire into the night. Richard stacked a few logs in the middle of the fire pit and tried to light them. No luck. Then he sprayed some lighter fluid on the logs and threw a match inside the fire pit. The logs caught a big fire instantly and went strong for a couple of minutes, and then the flames went out leaving only the smokes rising from the blackened logs. He took out some of the bigger logs and chopped them to smaller pieces, and added some more Cedar wood because Alderwood is harder to ignite. After rearranging the stack, he tried lighting, aided by lighter fluid. All ended with the same result. "What happened?" I was just asking, not questioning. "I know my shit. I have done this a thousand times". He said. I know my math: many = 0; 100 = 10; So do the match. 1000 times is equalevant to, say 100 times. That's a lot even after the deductable. "Have you?" He asked (questioned). "Many times. I invented fire" I replied. I know my math as well as my history (I = We: Chinese).

We finally decided it was either because the logs were too wet, or there was too much moisture in the early spring air, there was no chance we could light a fire in this damn fire pit this afternoon.

We transitioned into the house. While settling tonight on the comfy sofa inside the house, I relived the short-lived flame in my mind, feeling the heat over my cheeks and ears against the cool air, watching the fire burning until the dying embers catching up with the stars in the starry night, and listening to the sound of the fire crackling, mixed with the coyotes' howling in the distance.

Nose knows...It's Spring!

2010-03-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

Washington State had the mildest winter this year. We only got a few hours of snow for a couple of days the entire winter, during which time the snow flakes didn't even stack into any measurable snow. In early February, it started to look like spring, which is very unusual. Now, spring is showing its signs of full arrival: spring bulbs blooming into flowers, new shoots growing out of the trees, green grass breaking from the ground, and humming birds slapping their wings around their feeders...It's official: Spring is here!

Nose knows it too. My nose gets itchy, stuffy and running as we enter into March. Washington is the evergreen state. The thick evergreen landscape and the blooming floras bring up heavy pollens in spring. I'm so blessed in spring than in any other season. "Bless you" comes in double, triple and multiple every time I step outside.

So do eyes. They know it too. My eyes get dry, itchy and red. Forget about eye makeup in spring. The second I finish putting on wet mascara, I sneeze. They always happen in perfect sync. The mirror reflects a new eye shadow effect that resembles a pair of panda eyes. I hope one day a fashion forward designer should integret that effect into spring eye makeup fashion. Since I can not single-handedly start a new fashion trend, I have to face the world with my bare eyes. The only eye makeup kit I need in spring is eye drops. Burn ban is not in effect yet but be prepared to switch your song from "Smoke gets in your eyes" to "Pollen gets in your eyes" on every outdoor attempt. Gazing upon the flowers, I "cry me a river". Why so sad? You ask. Coz I'm so in touch with the nature. Eyes can't lie.

My mom in China told me some trivia about sneezing one time. She says at the moment when you sneeze, your heart actually stops beating. She also says the violent act of head shakes from frequent sneezing affects memory. No wonder I'm getting forgetful. It's a relief to know my short memory is caused by my sneezing, not by Alzheimer’s disease or mad cow disease as I suspected. My mom is not a doctor but she reads a lot of magazines and papers in her post-teaching retirement in China. I usually dismiss her source of information as being Chinese folklore. However, I believe she might be right about sneezing. I even want to add to that trivia: sneezing can cause deaf. My sneezing produces the sound of ear-shattering thunder which can rupture the eardrum and result in hearing loss. If I missed your phone calls, it was because either I was busy sneezing or I didn't hear the phone rings. God's truth.

Can't smell; can’t see; can't hear; and can’t remember. Spring, as a season of new life, turns me into seasonal disability. When I finally seek treatment in hospital, the doctors tell me: There is nothing wrong with you. It’s just spring fever. The symptoms come with spring season for some people. Funny I also came with spring - I was born in spring. On one spring day in old China, I broke out of my mother's womb. I smelt, saw, heard, and remembered (ok "remembered" is a stretch. Who knows, maybe subconsciously I remembered being slapped on the bottom at birth and that's why I have had an urge to strike back with sneezing every Spring ever since).

There is no need to check a calendar. I can tell Spring is here. My nose knows. I just love Spring - a season that I can feel with all my senses. Yeah, I have the Spring fever.

Shrimp Spaghetti

2010-03-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

Many times I found myself standing in the middle of a grocery store, confused. I didn't know what to buy but I just knew my refrigerator was empty. Many times I pushed my empty shopping cart aisle after aisle in Costco, followed by some shoppers with their empty carts. I needed to wear that T-Shirt with the print on the back that says "Don't follow me. I'm lost too" in Costco. Then other times I found myself staring at my packed refrigerator, wondering "what's for dinner". "What's for dinner?" I knew that was the question but the question was what was the answer.

In an effort to avoid such confusion in the future, I thought about putting together a home cooking recipe book - my kitchen Bible that contains all the food recipes I've tried and loved. So next time when I need inspiration in the kitchen, I can resort to that Bible to take me out of Egypt. Eventually, I need to have a separate site for my food recipes.

Here is a dish I have cooked many times before. Each time I changed the ingredients a little bit depending on what I had to work with at the time. They all turned out delicious. How could you go wrong with spaghettis as long as you don't use the usual red tomato sauce? No offense if you are a ketchup person. Ha-ha. I just like white sauce in my spaghettis. That attached photo was taken from the dish I made yesterday.

Ingredients:
- 1 lb thin spaghettis
- 1 pound raw headless shrimp. Skin off
- 3 teaspoon olive oil
- 1/8 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon half and half milk
- 1 tablespoon white wine
- Four cloves of garlic, chopped
- One green pepper, chopped
- 4-6 mushrooms, sliced
- 3 green onion
- Cilantro
- 5-6 Sichuan pepper (prickly ash), optional
- Grounded black pepper
- Salt

Directions:
- Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a pan. Add chopped garlic and green pepper, stir until carmelized
- Add Sichuan pepper (optional). Add shrimp. Cook until shrimp turns color
- Add sliced mushroom.
- Add green onion and cilantro
- Put all the cooked shrimp mixture in a bowl

- Meanwhile, in a separate cooker, boil water to boil and add thin spaghetti.
- Cooked spaghetti to almost soft (about 10 minutes) in medium heat. Dump the cooked spaghetti in a drainer in the sink. Spray with cold water. Let it drain.
- In the empty pan you used to cook the shrimp, heat 2 teaspoon olive oil and butter, half/half milk and white wine under medium heat until simmering.
- Add the drained cooked thin spaghetti and mix well
- Add salt to taste
- Take them out to your serving plate
- Spread the cooked shrimp mixture on top of the spaghettis. Spread some grounded black pepper before serving.

The meal serves 4 if it's in a restaurant. At home it serves two.

How to Decorate Easter Eggs at Home

2010-03-14T16:14:00.000-07:00

Easter is almost here. It's decoration time! There are so many ways to decorate Easter eggs at home. If you want to paint on edible eggs, you'd better use food colorings. Otherwise any types of paint will do. Below are the photos of some of the Easter eggs I made last Easter. I will show you how. Read on.

What You Need:

- A dozen fresh chicken eggs in an egg container

- Water color paint

- Thin ribbons (easier with hard ribbons)

- A pair of small scissors

- A hair blower

Step by Step Instructions:

- Poke two tiny holes on the two opposite tips of each egg shell using one scissor blade.

- Blow air through one end of the egg using your mouth and allow the egg contents to flow out the other end.

- Let the emptied egg shell sit in the egg container to dry for at least 2-3 hours. It's very important to make sure no drips coming from the holes before you start to paint. Otherwise it will mess up your painting.

- Paint the egg shell according to the design of your desire. Some simple strap colors as a starter, or paint names on them. You can always use stenciles/stickers for cleaner and better results. They are not permanent artwork you'll have to hang in your living room all season long, or to be featured on a Martha Stewart's magazine cover. So they does not have to perfect. Just make them colorful and have fun with your hands.

- Air blow dry the painted egg. Place it back in the egg container. Let it air dry.

- If you want to add the hanging ribbons to the eggs, you will need to push the ribbon through the holes from one end to the other. Tie a cross at one end. Pull the ribbon straight and then tie the other end.

Remember the decorated Easter eggs are fragile. I find the best place to store them are the same egg container I got the eggs from.

The Secret - Law of Attraction

2010-03-10T16:13:00.000-08:00

One of my friends lent me the "The Secret" DVD the other day. Prior to watching the DVD, I was just instantly drawn to the icon image as shown on the left when I first saw it. As it turned out, my visual attraction led to the learning of the "Law of Attraction", a school of thought started from the book "Secret" written by an Australian television writer and producer Rhonda Bryne in 2006.

I still would like to read the book soon. So far, the video clips have resonated with me in the following aspects:

- Thoughts are energies. Energy attracts like energy.

- Every thought has a frequency. Thought becomes things. What you think about, you bring about.

- Everything coming to your life, you are attracted to it.
- What you resist persists. Always think what you want, not what you don't want.
- Feeling is the feedback mechanism for your thoughts.

As with every school of thought, "The Secret" has its merits. At the very least, it promotes positive thinking. However, "The Secret" suggests that the infinite and resourceful universe do not fail to deliver what we want. We need not to be concerned about how it's done. Our only job is to think what we want and visualize our thoughts. I'm not convinced that thoughts alone will bring in results, as suggested by "The Secret". Maybe it's more of a chain reaction: Positive thinking triggers the attention in that direction, then further triggers the positive action, and finally the positive results. This positive chain reaction echoes three of the Buddhism's Noble Eightfold path: Right View; Right Action; and Right Livelihood. So "The Secret" is really not a new revelation since Buddhism is dated back to 6th century BC. Even in Buddhism, it calls for right action. That's more like it.

I don't know whether there is such a thing as "The Secret" from the universe (for the lack of better words, let's call it universe). If there is, I have a hunch it has to be revealed to me directly, not through a third party, such as the author and the publishers of "The Secret", who made a fortune out of the people who have believed in "The Secret".

Mango Chicken Salad

2010-03-08T15:30:00.000-08:00

If you are a meat-minded person like me, you need an entree (usually a warm cooked dish that contains some kind of meat ingredients) besides salad to call it a real meal. Salad is a side course in your dictionary. Even after you pig yourself out with their all-you-can-eat salad in an Olive Garden, you walk out the restaurant stuffed but unsatisfied. Your taste buds for meat are insatiable and they can not be fooled.

Remember a few times when you ate out with your friends, after the waitress took your order, you overheard your friends ordering their vegetable salad. When their dishes were brought over to the table (For some reason, their food was always served before yours.), they poked their forks on the platefull of vegetables, making that crunching sound, a sign that they were really digging their meal. You wondered what in the world could make their salad more tastier than the steak you were about to receive. At the mouth level, you had no doubt you had made the right choice. At the head level, you were not quite sure, doubting whether you should have ordered a green salad like everyone else. You made a mental note that next time you would try salad instead of meat. You told yourself that you'd better start a healthy diet and also start exercising soon. Just before you were about to mentally denounce meat, the waitress brought out your sizzling hot steak order. Yeah. Diet; Exercise. Die anyway. The ends justify the means. At home, I have a decorative ceramic plate on my kitchen counter that reads "Eat what you want. Let the food fight it out inside". If that's the case, my food will have a better fighting chance. In the food chain of command, their food was what my food ate.

However, this salad which recipe I'm about to disclose changed my above salad belief. As it turned out, I made the salad a full course dinner one evening, and afterwards I was settled for the remainder of the night. I think part of the reason is that this salad dish does contain meat. After all, my integrity as a meat-eater is still preserved. The recipe for this salad is truly my creation because I just mixed and matched what was left over in my refrigerator one day. The odds that someone else has the same leftover in his/her refrigerator is almost zero. Of course, I'm aware that nothing can escape the internet scrutiny nowadays. Anything you've ever said or done, someone has perhaps said or done it before you, online. Without further adieu, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

- Chicken thigh (1 thigh)

- Luttuce (1/4 of a whole luttuce). Cut into smaller pieces

- Sweat Onion (a few slices). Cut into thin slices

- Avocado (ripped, one). Smash it

- Mushroom (5 or 6). Slice it

- Cherry Belle (5-6 of them. It's a small round radish with red skin and white meat). Slice them

- Broccoli (3-4 heads)

- Mango (one). Cut to cubes or slices

Ingredients for Salad Dressing:

- Soy sauce (1 tablespoon)

- Apple Cider Vinegar (1 teaspoon)

- Honey (1 teaspoon)

- Sesame Oil (2 teaspoon)

- Sesame seeds (1/2 teaspoon)

Instructions:

- Chop the chicken thigh to cubes

- Pan fry the chicken cubes with a few drops of olive oil until golden brown

- In a separate large blow, Mix all the vegetable ingredients

- Pull salad dress in the vegetable mixture and mix well

- Add mango and cooked chicken cubes

Blogging on Blogging

2010-03-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

I don’t know who invented this word blog. I googled the origin of blog everywhere including Wikipedia, all to no avail. One site suggests that the word blog takes from weblog: we(blog). However, I like to believe the word blog comes from blah log: (bl)ah+l(og). It's only fitting if that's how the word blog came into being.

Just as all the movies have ratings and some TV shows such as "24" and "No Reservations" have the "Viewer's discretion is required" warnings, here are some disclaimers about my blah logs - blogs:

- It's typing not writing. I don't have a typing certificate to prove it but I type relatively fast. My typing skills might have deteriorated over the years but even at the lowered speed (probably instead of 70 wpm, it's in the 50 wpm range), it's impossible to multi-task to include thinking. So I give away thinking to typing when I blog.

- "It’s not you. It’s me" – My blogs are for my own personal indulgings only. They represent partly my own opinions or thought flows at the time when I type, which may or may not evolve over time. Therefore, I can not solemnly swear I'm telling the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. I'm not interested in, nor qualified for taking upon the role of informing, inspiring, or educating you as the readers. If you dislike or disagree with anything I say in my blogs, remember I'm not blogging to you. It's me, myself and I that I blog to.

- I am not serious with blogs. I can not make myself serious, seriously. I am easily amused, even at the occasions where I'm not supposed to. That's why I've been afraid of attending funeral ceremonies since I was a child. Laughing was indeed an improper behavior at occasions like that but serious people do amuse me. I concluded that all my sufferings all boil down to the moments when I forget NOT to be too serious.

- Blah unlimited. I'm glad that blog is in the forum of unlimited monologue. Twitter is a form of monologue but it has a 140 character limit. Facebook also has the character limit. I don't think blogger sites have a length limit for a blog post. So far none of my blogs have been bumped unfinished in spite of the length. I have heard the saying "Brevity is the soul of wit". But for someone who is not aiming high for the soul or the wit, length is all I've got and length does its work for me. Lengthy blogging takes the same therapeutic cure as seeing a shrink. Blogging is a self therapy, a much cheaper (free is cheap enough) means of releasing dung. Hopefully, with length, depth will come.

- It's not a popularity contest. With Twitter, you are a loner suspect if you follow 1000 people but only 100 of them follow you back. With Facebook, besides being a loner suspect if you only have fewer than 1000 friends, you also run into a loser suspect if no one interacts with your newsfeeds by commenting or liking back.Blogging does not make you feel like a loner or a loser if there are no followers, no comments, or no viewers. Even if it's just for the people, by the people and of the people, the people in this case is just me, from me, to me, and for me. Finally, I have a place to save grace, thanks to blogging.

Book Review: Possum Living - Live Well Without Job and Money

2010-03-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

I grabbed the book titled "Possum Living" over a cup of coffee at the Barnes and Nobles, one of my best pastimes on a Sunday afternoon. The book title immeidately attracted my attention. Did I just name possum one of the annoying animals in my last blog? They sneek around my yard sometimes, leaving their dog-like dungs. Yike. What is possum living?

The author of Possum Living is an 18-year old girl who lived off the land with her father on their half an acre. They managed to spend about $1700 a year in the 70's. She argues in the book that even the most stupid and laziest animals like possum can live off the land, why can't us humans. "The Gods gave man an easy life, but man has complicated it by itching for luxury", says she.

For a lot of us, our well-being is at the mercy of fluctuations of the economy. This living off the land notion, especially in this economy, is very appealing. No more taxes and insurance. Layoff? No, you are fired first! Republicans or Democrats? Who gives a rat's ass! You build your own house from scratch using the resources off the land (that's to say no electrical, plumbing or inspection required for this type of primitive house). You grow your own vegetables, and go fishing and hunting. Of course there are still some essentials such as toilet paper or tooth paste you will need to buy from stores, but you'll have to do so very frugally. In return you live free and independant from the money economy. Shall we say greener too? It's not an utopia. I guess some people are really living like that. In my past real estate dealings, I have run into a couple of the buyers who asked me to find them a cheap remote rural parcel of land. They didn't care about whether the land had improvements or not because they didn't need power and septic to live. One of them showed me a book on how to identify edible berries, claiming he could live off the land. This kind of off-the grid self-sufficient possum living is eaiser than you think. It's for you if you are a combination of the following people:

- do not want to work as a work stiff in the 9-5 rat race
- do not want to accept charity/welfare/foodstamps
- do not have interest in joining a hippie communue
- do not intend to pioneer into the boondocks
- do not want to committ crime
- do not want to wheel and deal in business

Yes, I can identify myself to be one of those "do not" groups. The book was an interesting read until I moved on to the step-by-step possum living instruction pages half way through. The advice started to get on my nerves. The "Living Well" (so she thought) means reading her account books for evening entertainment since TV, car and vacation are out of the question. Ouch! That hurts. They won't work for me and most of the people who are flipping the pages of this book because of the promised title. Possum are really just giant rats. Even for all the "do not" people, we'd choose living with mortgage and marraige over living like a rat any day. I think the correct title for the book should be "Rat Living". Somehow I suspect if that book was titled as "Rat Living" instead of "Possum Living", it would have had a hard time hitting the bookshelf or ever becoming a hit.

Enemies in Combat - Animal Kingdom - Part II

2010-02-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

(continued from "Enemies in Combat - Human World - Part I)

Though I declared a no-enemy-zone in the human world, and sided with Boris on the active flee strategy in combat, I have come face to face with the animal kingdom. The animals in question are not those endangered species which I am supposed to protect, like bald eagles and pandas; nor those dangerous species which I shall gladly flee from as with in the human world, like tigers and wolves. The poor animals that I've taken on as my enemy combatants so far are those defenseless, yet somehow know how to damage my garden or scare me off for no reason. They are listed here in an alphabetical order: bugs, carpenter ants, deer, frogs, possum, spiders,...

The number #1 enemy has to be deer. At the height of my scare and self yard defense, I have pointed my BB gun to them, execution style. They are the only type of animals who have evoked me to the degree of gun voilence. Deer are really cute animals, as long as they stay where they belong: the woods, the parks, someone else's gardens..., anywhere but my garden. I used to adore them. Once when my friends and I spotted a few of them at daytime in a campground in Texas, we went on searching for them with our flashlight at night. I used to greet a deer with the same great joy and excitement as I greeted a long-lost friend "Oh my dear (deer)". Not any more! Ever since I moved here, the deer are no longer a novelty species: they are everywhere. During the hunting season, you'd better wear something bright walking in the woods if you don't want to be mistaken as a deer by the deer hunters. Though I despise hunting as sports or entertainment as a whole, when it comes to deer, I sometimes don't have as much sympathy as I should. I beckon you to see things from my point of view. You see, the soil in my yard is clay like. Adding to it, I don't have green thumbs (only yellow thumbs at best). Do you know how hard it was for me to dig a hole, to shuffle the smelly manure into that hole, to water that hole, to wait for the bud finally blooming from that hole, and then one day to wake up seeing the plant being leveled down to the top of that hole? My yellow thumbs reached out to my BB gun. "Deer, consider yourself warned this time. Don't come back again!" I yelled at them. Next time, I repeated the same hole process, and then there were the deer again! They really knew how to test my tolerance. I suspected they were the same deer because they all looked alike (as the Americans say about the Asians in USA, and as the Asians in China say about the Americans). When they were caught red-handed at the crime scene, they carried on with their crime as if they were carrying on with their daily lunch routine. "Who are you? We are having our lunch here" - They raised their heads occassionally, staring at me during their lunch break if I just stood there still, stunned. "I didn't do nothing. What did I do?” - They gave me that innocent look, citing ignorance as their innocent plea if I tried to make a move; “We didn’t steal; We didn’t kill; We just had a decent meal” - They differed with my guilty verdict if I confronted them with rocks. When all those attempts failed me, I FIRED MY BB GUN AT THEM! That worked because they dropped their food and ran. However, after the gundown, I usually found myself apealing for the deer's innocence. One voice says "They are just animals. They don't know better." Another voice says "They must know they were stealing. How could they not?! Even if they didn't know, a crime against humanity cannot be justified on the grounds of ignorance"!

The next tough animals to combat are frogs. Frogs are traditionally considered good animals. They feed on other unlikable insects, some of which are the above mentioned other enemies in combat. I don’t mind frogs if they stay where they belong, such as rice fields, ponds…anywhere but inside my hot tub. Is that too much to ask considering I'm the one who bought the hot tub? In the beginning, I used some tree branches to direct them away. “You, please run away, far away, back as far as the rice fields in China”. A few times, we relocated them in the far-away corner of the other side of the house, thinking we disoriented them enough for them to find a new hiding place. But no, those frogs like the northwest migrating salmon, knew their way back. Next time I opened the hot tub, the same frogs were at exactly the same spot where they were hiding before. It was not that I was against them having a warm comfortable shelter; It was just that the same spot they liked happened to be where my head liked too. Even if I chose to give that spot away to the frogs, and to lay down my head at one of the other three corners, I couldn’t know for sure they won’t jump into the hot water. For their own sake, it was way too cruel. So I wanted them to leave and I also knew I couldn’t let them leave alive. Finally I resorted to the old trick as a co-cospirator: Every time I opened the hot tub cover and saw the frogs, I just screamed and pointed, letting the man in the house decide their fate. I excused my presence during their fateful moments, but I kinda knew what happened to them and where their new hiding place was. From then on, every time I headed to my hot tub, I passed by their new underground hiding place covered with dirt. I couldn't help paying a glance tribute for their sacrifice before I was about to enjoy my relaxing spa experience.

Spiders are the next in line. There were so many of them around the house last year. Like frogs, spiders are considered good insects too. In most instances, their scary appearances make their fate unfortunate to humans. One morning last year, I massacred at least 40 of them on the fence alone with one rock and one shoe. Some of them were the rather ball-shaped fatty ones. Only by killing them, I discovered they were pregnant spiders. As soon as I smashed their outer round bodies to juices, the skinny spiders crawled out. I felt so disgusted, at them for being pregnant with more disgusting spiders, and at myself for killing the would-be moms and the unborn babies. I remembered longing for a long hot water shower to wash away the spider crawling feel on my skin days after that combat.

Even if I have thousands of reasons to declare the above enlisted animals my enemies in combat, by being a meat eater alone, my crimes against animals are ten thousand fold greater than what a few animal species have done to me. If animals are going to seek justice one of these days, I'm really in trouble.

I remember in the movie “Legend of the Fall”, the 2nd son played by Brat Pitt fought with a hungry lion in the jungle and in the end was eaten by the lion. When his father learned about how his most favorite son died, he called it a good death. I think I know why. It was based on the notion that the animal life forms should be respected and appreciated as the equivelent of the human life forms. It was the same reason why the indiginous tribe people used to praise the sacrifice of the animals before they ate their meat. It’s good and only fair that we humans return some of the animals' favors when the time comes.

When I was in the middle of the combat with the enemies from the animal kingdom, I was aware that I was just adding to that unfairness of humans to animals, the way of life on earth.

Enemies in Combat - Human World - Part I

2010-02-25T14:37:00.000-08:00

In the movie by Woody Allen "Love and Death", the nerdy Jewish new recruit from a Russian village - Boris played by Woody Allen, marches with other soldiers towards the enemy in a simulated battlefield. As soon as he sees the enemy, he turns around and runs like hell in the opposite direction.

Sonja: Boris, you're a coward!
Boris: Yes, but I'm a militant coward.
Sonja: What are you suggesting, passive resistance?
Boris: No, I'm suggesting active fleeing.

That movie I watched 10 some years ago still cracks me up when I think about it. I'm just a coward like Boris. If I were to be sent to a war, I would make sure to march in the back row when the "Marching" order is given. Further, instead of following my teammates running to the enemy, as soon as the gunshots start, I'd just pretend being shot and falling to the ground, faking death. And then I would flee at the first possible opportunity.

Sergeant: If they kill more Russians, they win. If we kill more Frenchmen, we win.
Boris: What do we win?

You get the picture: I'm pro-life! Like Boris, I don't know who my enemies are and what I can win in combat.

I have run a list of the crimes I have done and been done to, from the early crime of once cutting down a sugarcane in the farmer's sugarfield in the 8th grade to the later more elevated crimes, a couple of which in that list I wish to have an undo or erase button to undo or erase, or at least to have a shovel to bury the associated memory deep into the grave, never to be dug out again. However, if Albert Einstein is correct in his mass energy equation, also the theory of relativity E=mc² which says "all motion can be measured only in relation to the observer who performs the measurement, and time and position are all relative to the observer", then I should believe: 1): Everything happens for rhymes or reasons; 2): If the thymes sound off-tune or the reasons seem unreconcilabled. Therefore, I refuse to take an enemy combatant regardless of how I'm regarded as by the other side. I hear if you don't have an enemy, you have never stood up for something. If so, first tell me what I should stand up for. I also hear if you don't know how to hate, you don't know how to love. If so, first show me how to love. Until then, I'm fleeing with you, Boris.

Soldier 1: The idea is not to panic and run... then they shoot you in the back.
Soldier 2: I don't want to be trampled by a horse. What about you, Boris?
Boris: [sarcastically] Yeah, I want to be trampled by a horse. I don't even want to fight.

See my next blog Enemies in Combat - Animal Kingdom - Part II

Whine on Wine

2010-02-13T12:07:00.000-08:00

When asked about drinking status in any questionnaire, I often check the box for a "social drinking". According to Wikipedia, social drinking refers to casual drinking in a social setting without intent to get drunk. That's a close description because either of the two is true: 1) When I got drunk in a social setting, I didn't intend it; 2) When I intended to get drunk, I preferred a non social setting.

In the recent years, I seem to have broken the social drinking status with wine: I’ve had it in private moments, many times over. It’s quite enjoyable drinking a glass of wine, paired with cheese and crackers, either meditating on my own or conversing with good company. I can no longer play the drinking blame game on the temptress - usually the party hosts (They made me. I only said “yes please”); or on the social pressure - the pressure of being sociable (I don’t want to look like an uptight misfit). Since I can not blame anyone, I’ll just whine on wine.

As the saying goes, “In water, there are bacteria. In wine, there is wisdom”. Wine has some common wisdom with other alcoholic drinks, one of which being the tipsy effect, it loosens you up and makes you an eloquent speaker. Alcohol is said to have a damaging effect on the brain, especially if it's drank heavily. However, wine, especially red wine, when being drank in moderation, helps your brain. Not that brain power is important to me. If I'm really serious about improving my brain (for what I don't know), I have a better chance achieving this by working on the brain use percentage. Most of us use only 10% of our brains. Unless you are striving to be the next Albert Einstein or a rocket scientist (even Einstein used only about 15% of his brain), then your brain should be the least of your worries. On the contrary, for most of us, drinking is a pain medicine in exchange of the awareness of our intellecture waste. Isn’t it painful to realize that a big portion of your brain is never to be utilized to better yourself and mankind?

One time, I read an article about rosé wine in an in-flight magazine. It says rosé does not get old. It only ages. That’s some inspiration for a woman whose self reflection in a mirror starts to show signs of gravity pull. Now I not only like its pretty pink color and its pleasant flavor, more than ever, I like what it stands for. That's a doze of rosé wisdom some of us could use. We just age; We don’t get old.

Like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, in the hands of mastercraft wine makers, grape transcends into wine. Wine takes a culture (or may we say religion) of its own. Wine is differentiated from old world to new world according to region; from Pinot Nior to late harvest ice wine according to cultured grapes; from oak wood to stainless steel according to barrel; from aged to new according production year. Different wine goes with a different size wine glass. Different wine is also supposed to pair with different food in order to best bring out its flavor. Difference aside, all wineries have one thing in common. They all have beautifully construed grape vineyards and the equally beautifully constructed architecture. If you have never been to Italy, a trip to a fine winery gives you the closest impression of what Italy might look like. "Arrivederci Roma".

Against my better judgment, so far what I have written is an ode to wine. Am I supposed to whine on wine? Here I come. Have you been to a wine tasting in an estate winery lately? If you have not, mind you this is how it goes. All the wines in the wineries are award winning wines from different years. Before the staff pour you some sample wines, they go on speaking their sophisticated wine vocabulary, and I would not know how to repeat them. The only words that came out of my mouth during my many wine tasting sessions are the boring: "strong", "mild", "bitter" (this last one is often felt but rarely spoken), and then they tell you the wine you are about to taste has a hint of apricot, peach, pear, passion fruit, lychee, smoky, oak, peppery, cedar …in one word, any flavor except grape flavor. Are we tasting wines fermented from grapes, grapes, nothing but the grapes only? Has anyone truly and surely tasted any of those imaginary flavors, provided you are still sober? In case you don't know, here is how wine should be tasted: Swirl the wine in the glass; Close your eyes; Bring your glass underneath one of your nostrils; Breathe in deeply; Smell the aroma; Take the full wine amount in your month; Swirl the wine in your mouth; Swallow it (Thank God. Finally!). Every wine tasting room even has an empty bucket on the counter just for those who would do all the above, except instead of the last action, the only one action that counts -swallow, they spit the wine out in the bucket. Aren't we wine people among the snobbiest kind of all people? Wine, which is glorified grape juice at its best, is put on a pedestal for us classy but ignorant tasters to worship. Try that on beer people with their beer. I suspect they will either storm away from the tasting room or dump the free wine from the spit bucket into their stomach.

Some of the wine gift shops sell the banners which read “Whine a little, you will feel better”. Yep! I feel better already.

Happy Chinese New Year!

2010-02-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

The Chinese New Year 2010 falls on Feb 14th, Valentine’s Day. Happy Valentine's Day! Happy Chinese New Year!

In the city where I live, Asian makes up about 1% of the total population. I don't know out of that percentage how many of them are actually Chinese. Though there are 1.3 billion of us on the planet, I'm undoubtedly in the elite minority status here. I have only met several Chinese people around here so far. A couple of times when I saw an Asian looking person in the stores, I felt compelled to approach her/him for some quick chit-chat in Chinese. Usually I was approached before I made up my mind. Make no mistake about it. Though we lonely Chinese minorities here can't swing the votes, united we can stand voicing our native language in the stores. Having lived among the American communities for so long, I sometimes forget I am a Chinese. My American husband and a couple of close American friends claimed to have forgotten that too when they slipped their tongues by making unflattering remarks about Chinese goods or China in front of me. Only when they turned to look at me, my furious look reminded them of me being a Chinese. They would immediately apologize "Oh I'm so sorry. I forget you are a Chinese". When it comes to forgetting, it should be a double-standard: I can forget I'm a Chinese but you can NOT! However, most of the times, I don't have to worry about that. Just my face and my accent alone don't let me get away with being mistaken as an American even if I want to . When I first started with John L Scott real estate office as a sales associate, I solicited a few of the "For Sale by Owner" telephone numbers in order to prospect some new listings. As a rule, I had to identify the company name I worked for during the soliciting calls. Shortly after, my broker received a complaint from a FSBO Seller I previously called. "Shame on you! You are outsourcing your business overseas, to China?". And I didn't even mention to the Seller where I was originally from and where I was then!

5 years ago, on one weekend before the Chinese New Year's Day, I invited my American colleagues for a Chinese New Year's celebration dinner party. My broker volunteered his house as the venue. I volunteered myself as the Chinese iron chef. Since I have been educating my American colleagues all along that the Chinese food they have had was only American Chinese food, I was supposed to demonstrate to them how the authentic Chinese food should taste like by cooking for them at the party. Fearing my limited cooking skills will fail the authenticity part, I drove a couple of hours one-way and bought a lot of takeouts from a Sichuanese restaurant to the party. Along with the takeouts, I only made a couple of easy dishes. I didn't lie per se but I did lead them to believe I made all of them. Misleading is not lying, right? All the colleagues and their families seemed to love the food I "cooked". My broker wanted to keep the leftover "eye balls". That's how he called those white sticky rice balls, and everyone else started calling them "eye balls" also. That dish was actually called "Tangyuan" in Chinese. It was the single most traditional Chinese new year's dish made of sticky rice and sweet filler. One of my colleague's 3-year old daughter was a little traumatized watching us adults eating the "eyeballs". Several agents asked me to give them the recipe of some of the dishes they liked. A couple of them kept bugging me about releasing the recipes afterwards. I never did. How could anyone expect me to give recipes for the food someone else cooked? Oops! Hush. Can't really blame them.

We invited my Chinese girlfriend and her family from another city over for a hotpot dinner celebration on Chinese New Year's Eve this year. Hotpot is like fondue in Chinese sauce. I like it burning spicy hot but I will have to tone the spice down for others. This will mark the first time in USA that I celebrate the Chinese New Year with my Chinese people!

God bless America! God bless China! Happy Valentine! Happy Chinese New Year!

Tora! Tora! Tora! - Hainan

2010-02-09T18:21:00.000-08:00

Tora! Tora! Tora!- Hainan is on fire! Property prices are skyrocketing! Every inch of the waterfront is being built up! The rich and the greedy are invading the island! Avatar is playing out 3D live on my favorite place in China - Hainan!

Just learned from one of my girlfriends in China that the property prices in Hainan have skyrocketed in the recent months as a result of the Chinese government proclaiming that Hainan will receive special attention and incentives to be developed into an international luxury level destination. My girlfriend's budget for an ocean view retreat in the city last year is now only enough for an interior condo in a nearby county, and she needs to act quickly before the next price heat wave starts. The selling prices for some condo developments are already around $700 per square foot.

What a poof! I knew it! It had to come down to this. If you think Waikiki beach is overcrowded with high-rises and tourists, wait until you see Yalongwan (one of the nicest beaches in Sanyan City, Hainan) in a few years. Hainan has already undergone lots of development since I was there last time, which was...At this point, I have to do the math using my age as a reference point. So it was 14 years ago.

Memory plays tricks on us. I reckon the reason why we think of a dead person as always nice is that our memory is kind-natured enough to filter out the bad, and a dead person is not alive to do any wrong to prove our memory otherwise. I futher reckon that my memory of Hainan could be playing the same trick on me. Spaced out from another continent and 14 years time span, what remained of Hainan are only those fond memories: unspoiled sandy beaches, friendly locals, fresh seafood, cheap taxis, post-midnight eat-out, motorcycle riding with sandals on, endless shopping streets, palms trees, and fresh coconuts right off the trees... Let's not forget about the perfect tropic weather. Hainan was an ultimate romantic place where romance didn't have to involve men (or really?).

I'm sure even without the overdevelopment, Hainan was no longer the place as it was once before. All my gangs have moved somewhere else; The old streets must have been replaced with new constructions; The remote Moonbay beach, where we used to go for a whole day without running into another person, must be swarmed with people. Of course, even in the 80's and 90's, the major cities in Hainan were no lack of crimes, prostitution and corruption like the rest of the country. I don't know things in those aspects have improved over the years. I hope so. However, Hainan is the only tropical island in China, and possibly the only place where you can breathe fresh air in China. Back then outside the city outskirts, you were likely to find a slice of paradise .

As more and more mainlanders are descending on the island, Hainan is finally living up to its name "Oriental Hawaii" in property prices and tourist popularity. My China Connection through Hainan is thinning out as the new development wave is giving another facelift to the primitive beauty of Hainan. Oh well. Changes are inevitable. Hainan as well as the rest of China is too far away, and it's too early to think about where to retire. Even if Hainan were the same as I remembered, it would not have made any difference to me in reality because all I have is right here and right now. Spring is almost here. Bulbs and rose buds in my garden are coming out. A grape arbor needs to be built for the grapevines to climb on. My slice of heaven at backyard is awaiting my touches. Now here is the secret of gardening: whether you realize it or not, gardening is one's attempt to create sacredness on earth, in spite of the soil and location. If you have ever reserved a spot for a sacred garden in you, then nothing can take your bliss away. That's the way how we preserve the memory of a deceased beloved. That's how I will always remember Hainan, even when it's under tora tora tora!

I shall fight no more forever - to the unlived life

2010-02-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

The first time I read this line was right after I came to the U.S. One day as I was browsing a store, I saw a painting of a solemn and anguished looking old Native American India man, on horse with his feathered arrow down. Underneath the painting, it read "I shall fight no more forever." As an impulse shopper, I acted on my impulse. The painting made its way to my small apartment then. I often looked at that painting, not knowing who he was and what the painting was about. I just knew the painting spoke to me on many personal levels, in a good way. It helped bringing the inner peace in me. I later learned about Chief Joseph and his story.

Life is full of conflict. To live in one physical body form means to be at one place at one dimension at one time. It means we have to take side in the conflict, and then fulfill only one side of the conflict. Living means walking the path of one life, leaving the other life, for most our inner life, unlived. There is no way to run away from the dilemma. In order to avoid bloodshed and pain, something is going to give. Peace is born. Peace is not absence of conflict. It's the ability of taking side and then coping with the conflict. Peace (so is happiness) is also over-rated in today's society in my opinion. It should never be appraised as if it were the destination - the goal of living. It's just a way of living, a choice which a survivor ought to take in order to move forward. I don't know if all my peace talks make sense to you. But if you are left with any scars, you have fought the senseless battles.

The painting is now collecting dust in the garage after my last move but I still think of that painting whenever I'm in a war with myself. So an invisible spot somewhere on the empty wall is reserved for Chief Joseph. To my unlived life into the wilderness, I lay down my weapons and lay you to rest this lifetime. "From where the sun now stands, I shall fight no more forever".

The Pitfalls of Vacations, and Advices from Me - Traveller at Home

2010-01-30T22:21:00.000-08:00

If you are about to embark on a journey in the form of vacation, don't read this blog because it might ruin your psycho for it. I'm just saying... Don't say I didn't warn you.

See. I myself have not had a vacation for a while. Maybe I'm just jealous of anyone who is going to have one soon. Be that as it may. I will take a run of the pitfalls of vacations here.

Pitfalls

1. Hyped Expectations. Your vacation comes once in a blue moon. You are hyper excited about the selected vacation dates. Just thinking of it makes you sing. The mundaneness of daily life becomes more interesting. Expectation of your vacation gives you something to look forward to. You think of those selected dates as your time of ultimate freedom. If you have to classify your days in the level of freedom, in terms of freedom, Mondays through Fridays have the lowest level, equivalent to be sent to the capital murder prison; Weekends are better but not quite, equivalent to be transferred to a lesser security prison. Vacation is the time you are set free. But expectation, when hyped, hampers your ability to enjoy your vacation because your vacation is now under pressure of living up to that hyped expectation.

Advice: Remember "Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise". Or expect very little so every little thing on your trip comes as a pleasant surprise to you. Go wild but lay low. Don't expect a good meal when the waitress tells you your ordered food is great. When the food comes, and after you taste it, you will know.

2. Fixed Return Date. Unless you drive, you buy a non-refundable round trip flight ticket ahead of time. You always do. You'd better have a return-ticket. Besides logistic reasons, a one-way ticket might trigger the airport security alert for a suicide bomber. The set return date and pre-paid return flight ticket save you from unforseeable hassles and give you a peace of mind. However, when the return date comes, you are either too eager to leave, or you wish you could have stayed longer.

Advice: When you plan a vacation, prepare for a flexible return date. If it's the same airline and same flight time on a different date, airline companies usually do not charge you anything for changing the ticket.

3. News Broadcasting. "I'm going to Hollywood!". "I'm going to Hollywood!". In the last episode of American Idol where the audition took place in LA, those selected idol candidates were jumping up and down with their yellow sheets - their golden tickets to fame. Don't they know they are already in Hollywood! It's LA for God sake! After you finish planning your vacation, you are like those selected American Idols broadcasting your vacation news "I'm going to Pakistan!" "I'm going to Paskstan!" because you are now holding that yellow sheet - your reserved electronic flight ticket to a vacation destination.

Advice: Hush! Keep your vacation a secret so if you change your mind, you don't have the liability of correcting the news again. Also, when you broadcast your travel news, you are likely to encounter two types of responses: the skepticism and the advice. The skeptics feed you with fear: "Are you sure it's a good time to go next month: swine flu, terrorists, plane crash, earthquake, poor Haiti... Isn't that morally wrong to vacation in Haiti while the people there are suffering? " The advisers feed you with unwanted information you prefer finding out yourself: "Where are you going to stay? I stayed there many times before. They have this coolest waterfall pool and tram ride. Oh you should check such and such..." So don't broadcast your vacation news. After you come back, if they ask you what you did last weekend, you just say with an expressionless face. Not much. Oh. I almost forgot I went to Tuscany. Watch their reaction. They will do the post-trip news broadcasting work for you. "Can you believe so and so went to Tuscany last week?"

4. Pressure of Having Fun. Because of your hyped expectations and your previous news broadcasting, you are now supposed to have fun. You owe it to yourself, and everyone else you broadcasted to because they demand your fun update when you return. You are psychologically pressed to have fun. You've got to tan your face in the sun though you could have done that at home mowing lawn for the same result. You've got to get out doing things. You shall not fail yourself and others by just doing nothing? Act I: Actions. Go!

Advice: You don't need to jump into the go-go mood as soon as you check in the hotel. That's work. Remember: this is your vacation. Sleep in. Hang loose. Disguise yourself as a local, not as a tourist. Only then you will start to relax and enjoy your vacation.

5. Reporting to and Checking in with the Base. Have you ever encountered this situation? Just as you lie down on the beach, enjoying the warm sun and the soothing sound of ocean waves, you hear a guy behind you talking on the phone, reporting every move of his, to someone on the other end of the phone. "I got here last night. I just came to the hotel beach. Man. It's gorgeous! It's sunny, about 80 degree. I have a book with me. I'm laying down my towel on the beach and I will then take a swim. What are you doing?” If he annoys you, don't be like him.

Advice: If you are in an emergency, call 911. If anyone back home is in an emergency, they will call 911. You are thousands of miles away; there is nothing you can do about it. Unless you need bail money because you are thrown in jail, you have large sums of business money at stake, or if you are dying in the hospital, you don't really need to call anyone, reporting what you are doing and where you are. You are on vacation. Get lost. The more you are lost, you more you are able to embrace the new experience as it comes during a vacation. If you want to brag about how much fun you had, wait until you get back. Your phone takes away your precious vacation time, as well as not putting distance from the familarity you are trying to run way from. Usually if you still remember to call, it's a sign that you are not having fun. Not to check in the Base is the kind thing to do for your own sake and the Base people's sake. Really. If you hear your Base location is sunny while your vacation spot is raining, you will question yourself why you are here. If the Base people hear how much fun you are having while they are working, it just makes their misery more miserable. Leave your phone alone. If you have to check messages, do so first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening.

6. Peace Sign. If there are Japanese tourists around you, bet with the person next to you, that the Japanese will put on that peace finger sign above their heads when they take photos of each other. I guarantee you will win the bet, every time. What's the deal with the peace sign when people take photos?

Advice: The peace finger sign for photos is a Japanese girlish thing to do. It's outdated. We Americans are in a time of war. If your fingers are really itchy and they have to stick out during photo shooting, just the middle finger is enough. No more two fingers please!

7. Photo Shooting. You take a camera with you everywhere you go. If it's not a light-weighted waterproof camera, someone has to stay onshore just to watch your camera. You want to have as many images as possible to remember, and to show for after you return home. You don't watch the sunsets. You just shoot photos of the sunsets. In lieu of traveling, you photograph (Gosh, that's me!).

Advice: A vacation is a great photography opportunity. If you are a paid professional photographer, it's understandable you look at everything through your lens. Everyone else: why can't you just enjoy the quiet sunset moment and forget about posing for photo shooting for a change. You might want a couple of photos to remember that magic image forever, fine. But if you don't put down that camera, be still, hear your breath, and watch the motion of sunsetting, you might as well stay home watching the travel channel.

8. Bragging. You come home in one piece. For at least a couple of weeks following the trip, you relive your trip by sending trip photos, and recounting the events of the trip until everyone grows tired of it.

Advice: Go ahead bragging. Let others get jealous of, or hate you for having too much fun while they suffer at home the entire time. Haha. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Welcome to reality. Tomorrow is Monday. Go back to your capital murder cell!

Quick Easy Scannellini Bean Soup

2010-01-27T14:56:00.000-08:00

I saw some good recipes in a cook magazine at my sister-in-law's house the other day. I borrowed her magazine and tried them. This is one of the recipes I tried. I altered the recipe a little bit because I didn't find raw sweet Italian sausage in the store I went to. Nevertheless, the soup is delicious!

Ingredients:

- 3 links sweet Italian sausage (1 1/4 pounds), cut into cubes. The recipe says raw sausage but I didn't find it in Fred Meyer so I bought the fully cooked sweet Italian sausage. For that reason I added some bacon to add flavor.
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 pieces of thick lean pepper bacon, chopped to smaller pieces
- 1 bundle of head broccoli rabe, chopped to 2-3 inches. Broccoli rabe is not broccoli but you should be able to find it in a grocery store vegetable section.
- Chicken broth, 8 cups. That's 4 cans or 2 catoons. As you can, it's organic chicken broth that I bought.
- Two 15.5-ounce can scannellini beans, rinsed. scannellini beans are the same as white kidney beans. Next time I think I will try raw beans instead but then it won't live up to its name as being quick because cooking raw beans requires a much longer time.

Directions:

In a large saucepan, cook the sausage, breaking it up, over medium-high heat until browned, about 4-5 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Cook the bacon bits, transfer to the same plate. Add a tablespoon of olive oil, add the onion to the saucepan and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. Stir in the broccoli rabe and chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Cook for 3 minutes. Transfer the sausage and bacon to the saucepan. Stir and cook until heated through, about 2 minutess, season with salt and papper.

Bye Bye Toyota. Hello Mercedes!

2010-01-23T17:30:00.000-08:00

The subject title might be misleading, but I have to use it as a title since that's what's ringing in my ear. For those of you who didn't know, I didn't trade in my Toyota for a new Mercedes. That's upgrading. I sold my Toyota and kept my Mercedes. This is downsizing. If you still don't see the difference between upgrading and downsizing, let's hear it. Bring in music. Drums please. With upgrading, it's the harmonic "hallelujah!" chorus. With downsizing, it's the off the tune "What da heck" solo.

As I was just feeling a sense of loss looking at the empty dark space in the garage where my Toyota used to fill in, I heard this TV auto commercial from the living room "You should never replace joy with practicality". Da. You shouldn't! Da. I didn't!

If my Toyota were a lemon, then the downsizing could have been celebrated as if it were upgrading. But no. My Toyota has been as perfect as a Toyota can be. For you patriotic Chinese with strong anti-Japanese commodity sentiment out there, I confess I'm a traitor. But blame at them, the Japanese commodities. They are bad because they are just too good to resist. After 120,000 miles, my Toyota still runs and drives like a brand new car. Unlike all my American-made predecessors, this is the only car that has never failed me. With my Toyota, I've never been issued any traffic tickets flying over 60 miles/hr at a 40 mile/hr speed limit road, non-stopping at stop signs. Pure luck? Sure but I have never had such a luck with my previous cars. Okay. My Toyota is just a midsize SUV, not a Tank or Hummer as I really needed. It fell into ditches and got stuck in snow a few times, not to its own accord but due to the operator errors. What can I say? To err is human. I'm just a human. My Toyota is a machine. That 4-wheel drive machine always saved me out of my human errors without any outside rescue effort. Other than a few interior scratches inside the storage compartment, from me jamming it with the real estate signs/metal posts, and a couple of un-noticeable dings at the parking lot, my Toyota has been good to me. As a car bought specifically for selling real estate in mind, I have bought this car many times over with how much real estate I have sold over the years driving in it. It really earned that parking spot in the garage.

Now my Mercedes. Undeserving for any practical reasons. Vanity drives sale of brand cars. I swear I'm vain but in this case stubbornness might have to do with getting my Mercedes. The rational for getting this convertible second car: convertible and 2nd, is very irrational. It rains so much in Washington. No convertible time for me; My primary car Toyota never breaks down. No second car backup need for me. But it's not the need but the want always in my mind. I've always wanted a convertible. I've always wanted a second car. It's mind over matter. If I don't mind, it does not matter. But I mind so it matters. With that in mind, I bought this Mercedes for that matter. For the same mind vs matter, I once owned a Chevrolet tracker, a convertible wannabe. It was a wannabe because it's only manual soft-top convertible. Taking the top off and putting it back on was a job by itself. Because of the hassle, when I did take the hassle taking the top off, I usually left it off for a very long time. That was when I was in Houston. Roads in Houston are flat, and for most of the year it's warm and sunny so my Tracker was at least somewhat practical. Loved the warm air against my skin, the fresh smell of grass and the openness from the car every time I drove my Chevrolet topless. Remembered one time at a stop sign, a homeless black man at the crossroad danced along to my loud car music - Marvin Gaye's song "I heard it through the grapevine". To make the record straight, he heard it through the open roof not through the grapevine. I felt so good about that fact that the topless car not only brought joy to the driver but also to a stranger. Of course, many times, the tracker was completely soaked wet inside from heavy rains while parking on the office building rooftop. After that tracker, I knew I wanted an automatic convertible. Before my Toyota, My American cars always broke down on me, one thing after another. They always gave me a few days' commute inconvenience. That prompted my wanting for a second car as back up in case something happens to my primary car. This convertible Mercedes was only meant to be a dry summertime second car. Dry summer days in Washington mean a low two digit number. When I finally get to drive it, of course once a while during those low two-digit number days, with its hard top down, Boss music playing and warm breeze over my head, driving is believing. Nothing to do when the sun is up? let's go for a drive. Drive, drive, drive. Drive yourself free and sane. The rest of the time, my Mercedes was bored resting in the garage as a greeter and sitter to my Toyota after it was pulled in from a day's hard work. I imagine them carrying a conversation in the garage sometimes.

Mercedes: Hi buddy. How was your day this afternoon?
Toyota: Sucks! It was raining and cold out there. I was first on a bumpy logging road. It was so bumpy that my stomach hurts, and then on to a crush rock road. It was so dusty. I looked dirty and desperately needed a real bath as you can see but you know how our master is. She thinks rain is the car wash for me. Then we landed at this fixer-up for sale in the middle of nowhere. Can you believe my master drove me all the way to see that? So how did your day go this morning?
Mercedes: Sweet! It was nice and sunny. My master took me on a smooth paved scenic road. We stoppped at the cute coffee house. I saw other people checking me up at the parking lot and they told her they loved me too. There my master detected one tiny spot on my right eyebrow (windshield wiper) I didn't even notice but she cleaned it alway anyway with a soft tissue carefully. On the way back, the sky looked cloudy so my master hurried me home to the garage.

Some people say cars are only devices taking us from Point A to Pint B. That's car talk strictly from a practicality point of view, assuming we use cars as tools only for their functionality. That's my Toyota talking. Some people buy cars for their functionality and resale value. It's just a car. You only need it for transportation. That's all. I once questioned as many paint colors we had for car, why didn't we see a lot of vibrant color cars on the road. I was told it was easier for resale and repaint. It's the same way with houses. Fewer and fewer people are going with bold colors for their walls not because the neutral colors are their most favorite colors. It's because they are told that the neutral colors are better for future resale. That's well and good. But excuse me. Are you telling me you are living in someone else's future home? You argue it's practical. Practical? I turn my head to my Mercedes. "Don't look at me", my Mercedes seems to say. I hear myself reason on behalf of my Mercedes: If we purchase a commodity solely based on practicality, aren't we missing something? If we strip cars down to only the practicality level, we strip the joy out of driving. Case in point: If we strip clothing to warmth level, no fashion; Strip houses to shelter level, no decor; Strip sex to biological reproduction level, no romance; Strip living to existance level, no life. Think cave age. Think your great-great-great.. grandma. Then other people say you are what you drive. That's car talk from choice point of view, assuming that everything goes with us represents our choices. That's my Mercedes talking. Within means, in a certain scale, including but not limited to practicality such as personal finance, and car availability and functionality, we choose which car to buy after considering color, size, style, brand, ...The car you end up driving can be a temporary statement of you. Not completely and not always but perhaps in some degree and sometimes? After you drive your car long enough, your car even looks like you (to me anyway). We become what we drive. Don't we? Also, most of us judge/discriminate people for the things that go with us: looks, clothes, houses, jobs, bank accounts..oh and cars, or to be judged or discriminated by them. Don't we? I picture a shinny new BMW side by side with a badly beaten up Nissan pickup. Their drivers get into a road rage on the Highway. The BMW driver yells at the Nissan pickup "You Piece of crap! Never should be even allowed on the road!” The Nissan driver yells back at the BMW driver "You Snob! Think you have money you can buy a BMW but you don't own the road". There you are. Those two drivers don't even know each other. But do you see how the car discrimination is easily turned back to the people who drive the cars?!

I imagine if cars were animals, my Toyota was a working cow and my Mercedes was a pet dog. Now that the working cow is gone, I'll be forced to play my pet dog more. Haha! but... Can I expect my pet dog produces like a working cow. Let's see:

Yesterday as I gave a last glance of my Toyota after I handed the keys to the new owners, I started to envision my life thereafter without my Toyota. I imagine I am sitting in my office. A couple walks into my office. Finally, a walk-in buyer! They come in with a flyer of a house and they are adamant they have to see it right away. They tell me that they are pre-approved by their lender...ready to go! I jump from my chair. Let's go! I lock the office behind me. Wait!
- Ride with me? Sorry. No free ride. It's a two car seat, for me and my purse only;
- Any dusty dirt road to the property? Sorry no Mercedes on dirt roads.
As I watch them leave, I head over to my car. There goes my commission. Sigh. Here comes my Mercedes. Smile.

In Search for A Career

2010-01-13T15:15:00.000-08:00

I watched Chris Rock's standup comedy show from Johannesburg, South Africa the other day. Oddly enough, comedy sometimes is a better form of depicting things and getting an idea across. He said he used to have a job but now he's got a career. When he had a job as a shrimp scrubber, he couldn't wait for his work hours to end and time always seemed to pass too slow. Now he's got a career. He is eager to start a day and the working hours don't seem to be enough because they pass too fast. The funny man had his funny way of delivering this message so he didn’t say the exact words. While I was greatly amuzed at his funny deliverance, it dawned on me that what he said was so damn true, and the fact of matter is I need a career!

Face it. Most people have 9-5 jobs. They work at the jobs, not because that's where their passions lie, but because their jobs pay their bills. Before real estate, I took various regular 9-5 jobs. Most of the jobs to me were to accumulate unwilling hours for paychecks. The paychecks would NEVER, EVER make me independently wealthy but they ensure not to starve me to death either. Hanging to a job was just enough to hang my breath from paycheck to paycheck. The me I knew lived two lives: the life at work and the life after work. My life at work was like a dead woman walking. I only lived off work hours, i.e. 24 hours deducted by those working hours. Life is short. Life is shorter if 1/3 of it does not count. It makes sense to do only what you love doing so you don't cut your life shorter by your own choosing. The only jobs that did make me feel alive were several power plant field jobs. At least at jobsites, you saw with your own eyes the project progressing from bare beginning to finish. All what you did, small or big, contributed to the final products - power plants. With the rest of the jobs I took, I worked in the corporate offices shuffling papers, punching numbers, attending meetings, or staring at computers, purposeless between this assignment and that assignment. In general, I concluded the bigger the company size is and the higher your ranking in the company is, the more individual freedom you have. It's less miserable if you work for a Fortune 500 international company. A sheer number of employees in a large company makes you less visible. Nobody even noticed if I slipped away for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. In a small-size company, don't even think about it! No way! If you hold a management or executive level position, you dont' need to ask your staff's permission for leaving the office earlier and you will more likely travel to some meeting locations where everyone else wants to vacation. If you are not a manager, no way! I got about 10-12 days paid vacation a year. I used to mark my calender with the countdown days to my next permitted extended release from my cubicle, cell number ###. Of course, occasionally a job gave me enough things to occupy my time, and an occupied mind is a happy mind, so for a while I was happy. The rest of the time, I was not busy but had to pretend to be busy. Giving others an impression of being busy protects you from any potential layoffs. Since I had nowhere to run other than sitting in front of my computer "working" away, I had written some of my best uninterrupted long emails those days. Sometimes, paid business trips, free team building meals and company parties could also be fun. Sometimes, a work task could be seemingly challenging, giving me a temporary sense of accomplishment, especially when that accomplishment was noticed and acknowledged, enough to delude me to feel like a big shot in the work place. Born of a very competitive nature, no matter what job I took, I wanted to excel. My “Anything you can do, I can do better” attitude often earned me a reputation as a workaholic or an aggressive, the best kind of worker in a work place. Many times, the corporate ladders were on sight for me to climb only if I stayed and played the game. As it turned out, I usually left and didn't want to make that job a lifetime job - a career in my understanding at the time. When you first got into a new job, for the first few months there were new things to learn. Soon after you learned the new little tricks, a job fell into the boring routine again. The job veil finally unveiled to me one day when I learned from my part-time MBA program financial management class that the sole purpose of a corporation was to maximize the corporate shareholders' share values. So all the time, I as a non-shareholder, was just working for that sole purpose? So my purposeless work after all did have a purpose: that is to make someone else richer. My career fantasy, ie. making a job working for someone else as a career fantasy was smashed.

Ok. If we don't want to be a mini, tiny work force that adds to the maximization of the shareholders' profits, what options are there? Is there such a thing in the world that you can do and you love to do, and earn you a pretty good living? We have all heard those advices about following your heart and money will follow. So the first thing is to find your passion. What is that one thing that you are passionate about, above everything else? First of all, identifying that passion is a bit of a challenge for me, as I'm passionate about many useless things. Secondly I doubt in reality, making a living out of your passion would really work. There are no lack of starving artists. They followed their hearts or passions. Look what happened. Isn’t it like other people tell you to pray to God and God will listen? Then you realize you are God because you are really the only one who listens. Recently, I was making steady little income from blogging. Though not enough to brag about, I thought I peeped my possible career choice. Maybe I can make a career out of two things I enjoy doing: traveling and writing like Anthony Bourdain, or opening a cozy coffee house having live music, homemade pastry, good coffee, and all my useless arts and crafts? That thought was interrupted as soon as I looked around at the business people around me, and as soon as I read what Anthony Bourdain wrote in Kitchen Confidential: "The most dangerous species of owner ... is the one who gets into the business for love." Anthony is a smart business guy. So job vs career should not be that black and white. There might be a middle ground. That might be where job happiness meets money success.

My husband always tells me "Once you step your foot in real estate, you are unemployed". After these many years, I realize he is right. Actually, once you become self-employed and once you've tasted the freedom and sweet pay from being self-employed, it’s hard, almost unbearable to think about a 9-5 job. However, as real estate business in the US continues to gloom, my once seemingly sweet career becomes more and more a job without realizing it, until I caught up with Chris Rock's show. Now I am forced to examine my career choices and think what I should have started a long time ago. 1. What is my passion? 2. Can I make a career out of it? If 2 is negetive, then 3 where is the interface - the middle ground I can stand on?

Photographs and Memories III - Eye

2010-01-04T16:24:00.000-08:00

I recently retwittered a tweet I read: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eye". Photography to me takes the same voyage. It's all about developing good eye: the ability to spot, recognize, capture and construe beauty and magnificence out of the ordinary. Further, I'd like to think the "eye" here is not literally our understanding of eye as an organ eye. Of course, being observant is a given. I like to think the "eye" here refer more so to our third eye, the ability to transpire insight and to rise above ordinary. I just browsed my Flickr photos taken in the year of 2009. Didn't find any good third eye photos. There are perhaps a few of my literal good eye (organ eye) photos from 2009.

Dancing

Once tangoed to a sad ending

Coupling

Togetherness to sunset

Singing

Music notes unknown but sounds so pleasant

Failling

Fragile descending

A raindrop to a rose pedal

Trapping

The more you build, the more you are stuck.

Plunging

Throw yourself in to leave a trail

How to Make Christmas Sugar Cookies

2009-12-30T22:22:00.000-08:00

I can not profess to be an expert in cookie making. Actually far from it, I didn't know a thing about it until I made those cookies and it was the first time ever in my life I've made cookies (laughing uncontrollablely while typing this). Hey. Laugh all you want. The cookies were praised by everyone who tasted them. That earned me confidence, or credentials in writing this blog, right? By popular demand, I've made the second batch using the same recipe afterwards. Cooking with recipes is alien to a person who was born and raised in China. We didn't have those measuring tools (cups, teaspoons, tablespoons...) in a Chinese kitchen. Following a recipe using the measuring tools took me back to my lab testing school days. I felt more like a scientist in a laboratory than a housewife in my home kitchen. Good thing about a recipe is that it has everything down to a science so you can do something completely new and nothing will go wrong with it as long as you follow the recipe. It's cooking for dummies. A dummy, I was when it came to cookie making. Notice I used "was", not "am" (LOL).

Below are all the ingredients you will need for the cookie making. I used all organic. You can find the organic ingredients in most of the grocery stores or you local farmer's markets. So my cookies are actually organic cookies. Why organic? Because if anyone tells you cookies are not good for you, you can argue with them your cookies are organic, and anything organic is good for you!

Dough Ingredients:
3 cups of white flour, plus more for dusting
1 cup of butter (2 sticks). Heat butter in microwave until melt
1 large egg
1 cup of white granular sugar, plus some red sugar for decorating (Add more sugar if you like sweet a lot. You need a lot of sugar to make anything taste sweet).
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 tablespoons half/half milk

Icing Ingredients:
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound powdered sugar
food coloring

Instructions:

- Making the dough: Pull in all the ingredients in a large bowl, and mix well into dough. Wrap the dough with plastic or wax paper. Leave it in refrigerator to chill for at least 2 hours. Divide the dough into 4 parts. Roll out flat. Cut using cookie cutters into the cookie shapes of your desire. Remember to dust some white flour on the cutting surface and the top of the dough to avoid stickiness.

- Bake the cookies: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake the cookies in 10-12 minutes or as soon as the cookie edges start turning brown. Take out the baked cookies and flip them over. Let the baked cookies sit until hard and cold.

- Applying the icing: Mix all the icing ingredients well into thick liquid form. Apply icing evenly on the cookies according to your desired pattern. This is where your creativity shines. I colored the tree-shaped cookies with green icing, star-shaped cookies with red icing, and the stocking-shaped cookie with red and green stripes. I love how my simple stripe stocking-shaped cookie design turned out. Some more design ideas to consider: write the names of the people to whom you will give the cookies on the stocking-shaped cookies; add white icing on the tree-shaped cookies to make it like snow on the trees, and then dot different color M&M's to look like color ornaments.
- Spray red-color sugar on the cookies immediately after placing icing.

Here are a few photos of my cookie making process.

Photographs and Memories Part II

2009-12-16T16:19:00.000-08:00

So You think you can dance?

I think I can! I think I can! "You can only if you drop a few pounds". That's the advice I often got from my dance coaches and my skinny male dance partners. When we did the pair dances, a lot of high-tech lifting and spinning were usually required. But because of my weight, which was considered heavy at my height, we had to change the choreographs to suit the liftbiliity. However, we always managed to pull the dances through. I always did our design institute proud, bringing home the 1st place or the 2nd place award every year in many regional dance competitions. One year, I and another girl danced ballet to the Swan Lake music. We were too shy to bare our bodies in the ballet outfit in front of thousands of audiences so we came up with the ingenius idea of wearing some white tank-tops and leggings underneath. We were both chubby to begin with. The white sweater padding didn't work in our favor. They magnified our chubbiness. After that performance, I was called a "fat swan" everywhere I went. That nickname has followed me for a few years. I didn't mind because a fat swan is still a swan after all. Dancing gave me a kind of high that nothing else could replace. It's an opposite from singing in my experience. With singing, the longer I sing, the less energy I have. After a couple of hours singing, I would almost drop dead. With dancing, the longer I dance, the more energetic I become. Dancing is like feeling music with body movement. Eventually, my dancing crave came to a full halt and I withdrew from it. But now and then when I heard any music piece I ever danced to, even when I was sitting still at the time, my imaginary body moved with every beat of the music. Oh. You "Dancing Queen", having the time of your life!

那么你以为你会跳舞?
我自以为我会! 我自以为我会! "你只要掉几斤肉就成。" 我的舞蹈指导们和跟我搭舞的瘦滴滴的男舞伴们都这样忠告我说。跳双人舞常要求不少高难度抬举和旋转动作。由于我的体重属重量级，我们不得已常改编舞蹈动作以适应我的体重。不过话又说回来，我们总算是不负众望，年年在比赛上夺一二等奖，为我们设计院增光。有一年我和另一女孩跳天鹅湖芭蕾双人舞。我们太害羞，不敢在上千人众目睽睽下坦露秀体，于是想出一绝招，在套芭蕾服前里面加白色毛线内衣及内裤。我俩本来就不苗条，加了这白毛线内衬更显臃肿。自打那次舞蹈后，我每到一处被人称"肥天鹅"。这一外号跟我好些年。我当年也不把这一打击放在心里。肥天鹅就肥天鹅。好歹是只天鹅。跳舞给我带来的兴奋劲是做其它事无以取代的。在我的经历中，跳舞与唱歌相反。唱歌是越唱越没劲。唱个把小时就奄奄一息了。跳舞是越跳越来劲，跳疯为止。舞蹈是用身体动作感受音乐。后来还是歇息了，完完全全放弃舞蹈。(突然间看破红尘，悟出台上跳的是疯子，台下看的是傻子)。不过事至如今，每每听到当年曾跳过的音乐，即使是静坐着，身体在想象中跟着每一下乐拍跳动。唉，你这一舞疯又在尽享生命的辉煌瞬间不是!

(舞蹈 "是否": 是否这次我将真的离开你，是否这次我将不再哭，是否应验了我曾说的那句话:情到深处人孤独。句句是我当年的亲身感受)

(舞蹈 "一无所有"。当年确实一无所有啊。) 这第二个又是什么陕北民间舞来着?

我自然是姿势最标准的穿黑裤袜的一个

(真的是垫着脚尖跳的。芭蕾舞鞋尖是木头。刚开始学时角角如针扎。我是右边那只肥天鹅)

Flower Exchange Festival

The tropic island Hainan Island I lived has a well-kept secret festival - flower exchange festival. It's known only to most locals. On the New Year's eve every year, lots of local Hainanese walk in the streets of one small town, holding some fresh flowers in their hands. The festival was originally a dating festival but gradually became a festival of general socializing. The rituals in this festival are to bring some nice flowers to attract some like-minded people who want to exchange their flowers with you. You start with greeting a stranger, asking for exchange of flowers. Usually in the meantime you also hand out your business card and introduce yourself, in hopes of making some business contacts or some new friends in this unique process. Flowers in this festival are the media. I went to the festival with a local Hainanese reporter with Hainan Daily and his camera crew who went to report this event. They took a few photos of me marching in the crowd. One of them, I believe the one below was the one that was published next day on the Hainan Daily paper. The festival didn't go as expected. Most people were grabbing others' flowers, shoved theirs to others, and then ran out of sight. A lot of the flowers got broken in the grabbing process. Flowers were supposed to be the media but they became the main focus to the new generation of people. Much to my grief, the tradition was broken in the flower exchange festival I attended. I came home that night with someone's broken flowers. Oh, my "Broken Flowers", missing the gentler time of the past!

换花节

我居住过的热带岛海南有一鲜人知晓的节日，那就是换花节。这一节日大多当地人才知道。每年除夕之夜，很多海南人手持鲜花在一小镇的大街穿行。此节日源于男女相亲节，逐渐演变为普通社交节日。主要的礼节是持上精美鲜花，招引爱花人上来跟你换花。通常以向陌生人问好开场，要求换花，顺带递上名片并自我介绍，以此独特形式期盼结交生意上或社会上的新朋友。鲜花只是作媒体用而已。我当时是跟着一海南报社记者和他的摄影帮一起去的。他们去的目的是报导这欢花节。他们拍了几张我在人群中大步流星的照片。其中这一张上了第二天的日报。节日跟预想的不一样。大多数人是抢花而不是换花。他们把你手上的鲜花夺走，把自己的鲜花塞给你后一扭烟就跑得无影无踪。不少鲜花在这抢夺过程中惨遭损害。鲜花已不像往日成为媒体，而是这新一代的主体。我为这换花节失传而暗自感伤。当晚持着完美的鲜花入场，捧着某一陌生人的破损花枝回家。唉，我这枝破损花肯是留恋过去的温柔不是!

7 Pounds

When I was 22-23 years old, I went to London with a group of the senior engineers for an intensive one-month training with Llyods. Part of my job was to take turns with another engineer to do the translations for the team. Before the trip, we were each given 100 RMB, a lot of money at the time, to buy ourselves some nice clothes. I spent half of it to have two Qipao dresses made, one in white silk and the other in some black material. I thought I'd better represent our country in the traditional dress in a foreign land. The patriotic choice of clothing turned out to be an unwise one. We were given daily allowance during the trip for everyday expenditures, such as 7 pounds for daily transportation. Any money saved is yours to keep. From the most junior level personnel me to the most senior level officials (the older woman from Beijing, the 3rd from left), we all avoided the convenient London subways. Instead we covered all the grounds with walking. Some of them knew the map so well in a few days that they could give directions to the local Londoners. Qipao only looks good with high heeled shoes. I swallowed a lot of ankle pains for the 7 pound saving. Another place of saving our allowance is from food. We all had many bags of instant noodles in our suitcases. At the immigration check points, when we were asked to open our suitcases, inside were all instant noodles. Funny but very cute. We all dressed nice and looked after each like sisters and brothers. I lost contact with all of them after I left the design institute. Oh our "7 Pounds" friends, wishing you well whenever you are!

七英镑

我22-23岁那年跟一组高工去伦敦参加一月Lloyd急训。我的部分职责跟另一会英文的工程师合作轮番作翻译。出国前，我们每人发给100元购置衣物费。当时100元可是不小一笔资金。我花了一半定作了两件旗袍，一件白色真丝旗袍，另一件是黑旗袍。我想出国嘛应穿传统服装代表咱中国。这一爱国择服结果一点不明智。我们在国外每天日常开销有生活补贴。比如说，交通费是每日7英镑。任何节约下的费用是属于自己的。于是乎，从最低等辈的我到最高官的北京中央机械局代表(中间左数第3的中年女士)不例外，我们放弃伦敦方便的地铁不坐，每天步行南北。我们中有几位出国数天后把地图摸得精通，可给当地人指路。旗袍只能配高跟鞋才好看。我为了每天省这七英镑，吞了不少角跟痛。另一省钱的地方是食物。我们每人的箱子里都装满了无数包方便面。每到一移民检查关口叫开箱检查，我们的箱打开后都遍箱方便面。可笑又可爱。我们在国外到哪儿都衣冠楚楚很得体，大家互相像兄弟姐妹关照团结。我离开设计院后和他们所有人都失去了联系。唉，我的七英镑朋友们，无论如今在哪方祝你们好!

On Passport Aspect of Religion

2009-12-07T22:36:00.000-08:00

I know religion is a sensitive subject even in this country. So long as it's a sensitive topic, it indicates there is a long way to go to freedom of religion. In order not to get myself into hot water here, I'll just talk about one of my observations about religion: the resemblances I found between most people's religious beliefs, and the use of passports.

One time I was talking with someone who traveled overseas a lot about Neale Walsch's three books "Conversations with God". During our conversation about religion, he brushed off my excitement about my newly inspired view of religions from the books, with a simple response "Religions are just passports to most people." Now, many years later, I have to agree with him. If you examine the world religions, whether it is Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism, a lot of people use them in the way how passports work:

- Need procedures, be it praying, meditating, fasting, or performing good deeds.
- Need approval, be it by simply believing the one and only God, or practicing the "ways".
- Use to get somewhere: be it heaven, forgiveness of sins, immortal life with 72 virgins, or nirvana/happiness.

My old sister in China goes to a Buddha temple and burns incents, praying for good luck in winning her next Majiang game. One of my real estate clients in the States told me she had to pray for God's answer for a counteroffer price after we received an offer for her house listing. Ten years ago my mom told me when someone in her teacher group was introducing Christianity to other teachers, after hearing the stories about Jesus performing miracles such as healing the sick and walking on the water, some of the teachers came to grasp this new religion "Oh I see. Jesus is like a Kungfu master!".

I for one, although do not belong to any religious sect, love reading Bible, Buddhism and other religious teaching books. I read them no different than I read fiction, history or philosophy books. There are things that ring true to me on all these books. For any belief system to have existed hundreds or even thousands of years, and have millions of followers, no matter how faulty it is, is a direct result of demand and supply, a time in history, and a representative of collective consciousness/unconsciousness. A polarized view of a religion by total acceptance or total denouncement is equally naive. Even Hitler or Chairman Mao, without the demand, time in history, and their millions of followers, they would not have been able to begin what they have done. I have sat through many priest preaching sessions in Christian churches and meditation sessions in Buddhist temples. In the end, I didn't convert to anything, couldn't bring myself to be one of them, and walked away still a hopeless Pingist but I have hence gained deeper respect and understanding of religions. Christianity and Buddhism echo so much similarity. They both place ignorance the source of all sins and sufferings, which makes sense to me. Jesus says on the cross "Forgive them father, for they know not they do" while Buddhism emphasizes awareness and detachment because all our human sufferings come from our monkey nature ignorance. Maybe because of my Chinese upbringings, I'm more resonant with non-exclusive and non-vengeful Buddhism. Buddha's answers to many questions "I don't know" please me. I used to not understand Christianity because I didn't believe new born babies were sinners. Up until last year, I even contested I was a sinner. I also have had a hard time understanding that life is suffering because I myself have had many happy moments. However, through the years, gradually, every religion starts to unfold its wisdom to me when I examine things deeper. When you are in awe with the power and beauty in nature, art and music, and when you love and cry, what else and who else are revealing to you but…God.

A lot of people use religions like passports. Nothingness alone will drive most people crazy. In this regard, at least the atheists should be given some credit because they have to bravely deal with the nothingness. That's one of the reasons most people turn to a religion, for the benefit of a passport. If giving is for giving's sake, forgiveness is for forgiveness sake, believing is for believing's sake, and love is for love's sake, there are no promised destinations or rewards ahead, will you still give, forgive, believe and love just because you do? If so, then God is making you in His image as opposed to you making God in your image. If you do, you are a true religious/spiritual person in my book. Otherwise, maybe you are just one of the millions of passport holders, not much different from the self-serving non-believers, huh?

Christmas Trees, Fake or Real?

2009-11-28T14:05:00.000-08:00

Christmas trees, fake or real? That is the question. Sure. Santa won't mind one way or the other. If Santa, as a heavy figure, has no problem climbing down the skinny chimney, he surely would not mind bending his big belly to hide his gifts under any trees, fake or real. The question is for us home owners: which one do you prefer to have in your house this Christmas?

This year is our third year of using a fake tree. Before that, we have always used the real trees and believed in the myth of a real tree. But we find out in the fake vs real battle, this is the golden rule: once fake, always fake. If you used a fake Christmas tree one year, you will not go back using a real tree next year.

Reasons for a fake tree:

1. You have already inherited a fake tree you bought from last year. Why buy a real one?!

2. It has longevity. You can display your tree way longer. I started putting on the tree even before the Thanksgiving. You can even display it all year around if you are not afraid of being accused of being a redneck. Real trees stay green and fresh only about 3 weeks max.

3. It’s less a fire hazard in the house. You can leave it lit unattended without worrying about causing a fire. Plastic won't catch fire as easy as wood. A real tree gets dry after being in the house for a couple of weeks and becomes a fire hazard.

4. There is no watering. No need to check the water and add water every so often.

5. There is no needle shedding. Real trees shed needles. You have to clean the base area every so often.

6. There is no disposal. After the season is over, you don't need to think about how to dispose of it.

7. There are no spiders. Spiders hatch in the real trees and they come alive as soon as you move them from the cold outdoors into the warm indoors.

8. It’s more economical. You only need to buy a fake tree once and most of the fake trees come prelit. The best time to get a fake tree is right after the Christmas. We got ours at a 75% discount price. That alone should score a lot more points in this economy.

9. It’s less time consuming and less hassle. You save the time going around looking for a tree and bringing it all the way home. In addition, you save a lot of hassle hanging the lights on it.

Now let's give some credits to the real trees.

1. They look real. Obviously they are. (But come to think of it. They are real dead trees. The minute a tree was cut from its root, the life was taken away).

2. They give wonderful smell. (But for another $5-$15, you can get a tree smell warmer that emits any tree smell in the house).

3. You have a different tree every year. (But with the money spent on the tree itself each year, you could buy tons of ornaments, enough to cover the whole tree that you don’t even notice it’s a different tree).

4. They require no storage. You dispose them after Christmas so no storage is needed. (But isn’t that what your garage is for?)

5. Blank. I'm thinking. If you can find more, let me know.

Proudly present my fake Christmas tree 2009 I still hear those opposing arguments from the real tree believers. I live in a town which was once called “Christmas town of USA”, so often times when I tell people here that I have an artificial tree, they tell me what a shame. Other times, I got the look that made me feel as if owning plastic in a tree gave me the suspicion of having plastic silicone in some parts of my body. I also heard the arguments about which one is environmentally green. I think in that aspect, it's a wash. The plastics making process is maybe not green but tree cutting and water consumption are not green either. Believe me, I was once an all-things-real believer at one time. Especially, being a Chinese, besides the legitimate reasons of believing real things are better, I have my own superstitious reason in disliking plastics too. Plastic is not one of the five basic elements in Zen. Don’t use it because it’s a bad luck! Even many years ago when I had to be frugal in grocery shopping, I had no second thought in bringing home real cut flowers every week, and replacing real indoor plants diligently. I not only had to buy them fresh but also had to make sure they were out of the door when they were half way dead. When I left for travels, I had to either hire someone to water the plants, or risk the chance of having them all killed from drought. I denounced plastics because they were not beautiful, not fragile, not lively, and in one world, not real. Until I purchased my first fake orchid plant from Pier 1 Import a few years ago, the same year I got my first fake Christmas tree, I fell in love with the freedom and savings in plastics, and needless to say the plastic beauty too. From there on, I give plastics a second life. When you are young, beauty is all that matters. When you are at my age, practicality matters more. That's the main reason why I favor fake Christmas tree.

Fake or real, what's yours and why?

Chinese Prose "In a Hurry"

2009-11-19T20:27:00.000-08:00

Below is one of my favorite Chinese prose’s "In a Hurry", written by Zhu Ziqing in 1922. One Chinese man, two generations before me, had the exact same anxiety about time passing as I have now, and expressed his feeling of helplessness about time passing as precisely as I have been feeling all along. I used to be able to recite the full contexts but now I am only able to recite the first paragraph. I'm now attempting to translate the prose into English. I've done a lot of translations in my old days in China, mostly technical, and many of them have been in prints/publications. I'll be embarrassed if I see some of my old translations now. Who knows. This translation below might bring me the same embarrassment many years from now when I read it. Translations have their limits. It's inevitable to have the essence of the literatures "Lost in Translation". So I'm posting both the prose in original Chinese and my translated English here.

匆匆

燕子去了，有再来的时候；杨柳枯了，有再青的时候；桃花谢了，有再开的时候。但是，聪明的，你告诉我，我们的日子为什么一去不复返呢？——是有人偷了他们吧：那是谁？又藏在何处呢？是他们自己逃走了吧：现在又到了哪里呢？

我不知道他们给了我多少日子；但我的手确乎是渐渐空虚了。在默默里算着，八千多日子已经从我手中溜去；像针尖上一滴水滴在大海里，我的日子滴在时间的流里，没有声音，也没有影子。我不禁汗涔涔而泪潸潸了。

去的尽管去了，来的尽管来着；去来的中间，又怎样地匆匆呢？早上我起来的时候，小屋里射进两三方斜斜的太阳。太阳他有脚啊，轻轻悄悄地挪移了；我也茫茫然跟着旋转。于是——洗手的时候，日子从水盆里过去；吃饭的时候，日子从饭碗里过去；默默时，便从凝然的双眼前过去。我觉察他去的匆匆了，伸出手遮挽时，他又从遮挽着的手边过去，天黑时，我躺在床上，他便伶伶俐俐地从我身上跨过，从我脚边飞去了。等我睁开眼和太阳再见，这算又溜走了一日。我掩着面叹息。但是新来的日子的影儿又开始在叹息里闪过了。

在逃去如飞的日子里，在千门万户的世界里的我能做些什么呢？只有徘徊罢了，只有匆匆罢了；在八千多日的匆匆里，除徘徊外，又剩些什么呢？过去的日子如轻烟，被微风吹散了，如薄雾，被初阳蒸融了；我留着些什么痕迹呢？我何曾留着像游丝样的痕迹呢？我赤裸裸来到这世界，转眼间也将赤裸裸的回去罢？但不能平的，为什么偏要白白走这一遭啊？

你聪明的，告诉我，我们的日子为什么一去不复返呢？

In A Hurry

Swallows gone but time to be back. Willows dry but time to re-green; Plum flowers dead but time to re-bloom. The genius, please tell me why our days gone but never to return - Could they be stolen by someone? Who is that someone then and where is he hiding them? If they themselves have escaped, where are they now?

I do not know how many days they gave me but my hands seem gradually empty. Counting the days silently, over 8000 slipped away from my hands; Like a needle tip, a drop of water falls into the vast ocean, my days drop in the flow of time, leaving no sound, nor shadow. I could not help but sweating and tearing up.

Though let bygones be bygones and forth comings come forth, what a hurry is it between the comings and goings? In the mornings I get up, my little room is lightened by the slanting sun. The sun ah the sun he has feet too, gently and quietly divertes away. I also follow his movement, rotating blindly. So - When washing my hands, days are washed away from the basin; When eating, they are eaten away from the rice bowl; When gazing in silence, they are gazed away right in front of my gazing eyes. I notice his passing in a hurry. I reach out my hands to slow him down but he runs away from my fingertips again. In darkness when I lie in bed, he crosses over my body and flows through my foot tips effortlessly. Opening my eyes to see the sun off entails that another day has just gone. I cover my face and sigh but a new day casts away in the sighing.

In the days fleeting like flight, and in the world of million thresholds, what can I do? Only wanderings and wanderings only. In the hastily fled days of 8000 and more, besides wandering outside, what's left for me to do? The past days are as smokes, blown thin by the breeze, and as mist, melted into vapor by the early sun. What traces did I retain? Have I ever retained a trace as slight as a moving silk worm's mark? I came to this world naked, and in the blink of an eye I will be gone naked? But this is not fair. Why are we born to walk this circle in vain?

You genius, tell me why our days are once gone, never to be returned?

Thanksgiving Dinner 2009

2009-11-16T15:23:00.000-08:00

This will be our fourth year on the roll to host Thanksgiving dinner for our family. Our family so far consists of us and Richard's extended family. Richard came from a big family so our house was crowded during Thanksgiving dinners. I also invited one of my good Chinese girlfriend's family in Seattle - a family of five to join us this year. I assume as long as we don't move away to another state, Thanksgiving in our house will be an unwaiving family tradition. Most of the Americans don't take food seriously unless it comes to Thanksgiving. They'd rather vote for someone who used the change theme "Change We Believe In" all the way to the Whitehouse than to change their traditional Thanksgiving menu. In the past, I have suggested to spice up our menu a bit as to add a few of my specialty Chinese dishes perhaps but that bill was killed before it had a chance to pass for the House majority voting process. So this year I'm going to stick to the same traditional menu, which actually makes my hosting job so much easier. Richard is responsible for the main entrees turkey and ham, sweet potatoes, plus drinks. Speaking of drinks, I'm always amazed how well Americans are educated on wine and liquors, and how sophisticated their alcohol taste buds are. Except that some of the dishes are brought by guests, I'm responsible for mostly everything else. Below is the traditional menu in our household for Thanksgiving dinner.

Appetizer:

1. Deviled Eggs: To avoid hectic schedule, I make this dish a day ahead of time.

2. Cheese, Crackers, Smoked salmon: We like to use smoked or aged cheese. Whatever plain crackers work. and our local store has the best smoked wild salmon

3. Fruit Plate: whatever handy at the time, usually strawberries, grapes and mellows. I have planted strawberries and grape plants a couple of years ago but it will be a couple more years before I can harvest the fruits for Thanksgiving dinners.

Food:

1. Organic Turkey: Richard is an all thing organic believer so we are going to shop for an organic and the leanest turkey we can find this year. We never stuff the turkey for oven cooking. Instead we cook the stuffing stovetop separately with some fresh herbs and other vegetable ingredients. Richard believes that's a more sanitizing and scientific approach. I already bought the gravy from Trader Joe's a few weeks ago this year. My sister-in-law Amanda's mom Fay was a big help in gravy making but she won't be able to make it this year.

2. Spiral Ham: This is the only type of ham that we've known so far has real meat texture, not tasting smarshy or cardboardy. Richard also cooks some ham sauce to apply on the surface of the turkey before serving. We then use the bones to make soups with some of the leftovers after Thanksgiving.

3. Pork Roast: I will crackpot roast a big chuck of pork with sliced union, finger potatoes and dark beer for 6-8 hours. I will also cook this one day ahead, and then let it sit overnight in the refrigerator so I can take out all the fat on the top before reheating it on Thanksgiving Day.

3. Green beans: Fresh beans, not frozen kind. I sauté them with cold-pressed virgin olive oil, freshly grounded garlic and bacon bits.

4. Vegetable salad: Usually baby spinach and mango/orange, green onion and avocado; or lettuce and feta cheese, green onion, avocado and freshly chopped herbs

5. Smashed Potato: Richard's cousin's wife Elisabeth makes this. Basic ingredients are potato and butter

6. Cranberry Sauce: The best cranberry sauce is from Costco. Homemade cranberry sauce is not even as good as the one sold by Costco before Thanksgiving (of course a matter of personal opinion only)

7. Bread: I bake the dinner rolls before serving with butter. Spread a sprinkle of chopped fresh rosemary.

8. Sweet Potatoes: Richard says he will cook a lot more sweet potatoes this year. He boils them and then adds brown sugar, butter, and marshmallows

Desserts

1. Ice cream. I always use coffee flavor and vanilla flavor ice cream, topped with fresh blueberry and Carmel.

I'm not really a sweets fan so I have never really learned how to make desserts. But a meal without dessert is not a meal in the States. When Richard and I go grocery shopping, he usually has to drag me away from a small flower section, and I have to drag him away from a large dessert section. I never remembered having craves for sugar since my adulthood. I symbolically eat a tiny slice of cakes here and there at other people's houses. Richard craves for sugar the same way as I carve for Laoganmao hot sauce. His eyes sparkle at the sight of white frosty which I consider throw-aways. It's almost funny an organic and nuitrition enthusiast like Richard who is meticulous about reading fat and nurtrition contents on every grocery item we purchase, when it comes to sweets, he suddenly becomes blind-eyed. Richard’s mom and practically every American woman I know are experts in dessert making so they my lifesavers in our Thanksgiving dinner making. The desserts they brought over usually end up being:

2. Pecan and fruit pies. Richard mom Kari has some fruit trees and she made apple pie or blackberry pies etc previously. I have a jar of homemade apple filling from one of my girlfriends Gale. She made it from the apples she picked from her yard. I admire women who are that domestic. I might attempt to try making an apple pie this year. Scary thought!

3. Fruit cake. Kari already gave me a loaf she made last week.

We finish the dessert off with hot coffee and tea. We bought some pea berry Kona coffee from Kona, Big Island of Hawaii this summer. Starbuck Christmas blend is also very good. Every year I go to China, I buy some leaf green tea (That's a tiny Chinese thing I'll start trying to sneak into the Thanksgiving tradition as most of them are not used to drinking leaf tea).

Every time I mentioned to my parents in China I was to host a relatively large party or holiday dinner, they sounded concerned on the other end of the phone. They don't know their spoiled daughter learned a few cooking skills besides boiling water so they still have that trusting issue with me. Wish I could have them here for at least one Thanksgiving dinner to ease their worry. Of course, my parents and sisters in China are such terrific cooks, I would never be able to catch up with their cooking capabilities. My sisters have been making their own wines for a few years now, something I always wanted to do but have not started yet. Richard and I always say for the amount of money and time spent on Thanksgiving dinner, we could invite everyone to a nice restaurant for a feast. But then when you think about it, there are reasons why Americans make such a big deal about Thanksgiving dinner and its traditional menu. Thanksgiving dinner tradition gives us a chance to share food, entertain others and have family get-together. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner is not only a fun thing to do for the host and the guests alike, but also suggests a comforting thought of being surrounded by those familiar faces and familiar food in this ever changing world. That alone makes one feel warmer when the outside temperature is getting colder at that time of the year. On that note, Thanksgiving and Christmas are always my favorite holidays.

Solitude

2009-11-15T11:00:00.000-08:00

Solitude. I'm a sucker for this word alone. Amid the bombardment of information, communications, social networking, events, politics, religions, definitions, people vs food...., solitude calls me to it and draws my vision to water.

http://www.pingsun.com/pingyima/interiordesign

How to Make Soaps at Home

2009-10-24T12:09:00.000-07:00

Store-bought soaps that are said to be gentle or safe for sensitive skin are still made with lye. Made up of calcium hydroxide and lime, lye is a caustic chemical that is dangerous and corrosive. I watched a lot of soap making videos and picked the simplest instructions to try. I didn't follow their steps exactly but the soaps turned out great. I like kiss (keep it simple, stupid) instructions that don't make me think, so here you go.

Things you will need:

1. Glycerin block. I found out three types of glycerin blocks available for sale in stores like Joann Fabric, Michael's. They are: olive oil (transparent), cucumber (lightly green), goat milk (white). The glycerin blocks I used were olive oil and white glycerin blocks from Michael's. One glycerin block in Michael's costs $9 while the exact same glycerin block costs $14 in Joaan Fabric.

2. Food coloring. You don't have to use food coloring. I chose food color dyes because they are safe to eat and I want my soap edible. I got mine from Wal-Mart food section

3. Fragrance oil. I picked lavender, rose and gardenia. I got them from Michael's

4. Dried lavender and rose buds from my garden (my own extra addition. You can omit this)

5. Soap mold. I got them from both Michael's and Joann Fabrics

6. Utensils: paper cups (no one on internet or YouTube suggested paper cup. They all ask you to use double boiler but paper cups work the same if you use microwave), stirring spoon, knife

Instructions:

1. Cut the glycerin block along the premeasured lines to smaller pieces with a utility knife. Fill the paper cup with the cut pieces.

2. Microwave the paper cup for 40 seconds. Stop microwave and stir the cup with spool. Continue to heat the cup every 10 second segments until all glycerin pieces turn to liquid. (If you overheat it, the liquid will overflow so make sure to stop your microwave every 10-15 seconds after the initial 40 seconds and stir. I knew it because it happened to me several times.)

3. Add a few drops of your fragrance oil and food coloring into the cup and stir the mixture. (I also added dried lavender or rose buds). Gently mix it briefly otherwise you will see a lot of bubbles on the soap. Also when you add color, remember the color will look darker in solid form than in liquid form.

4. Pull the liquid mixture into the soap mold

5. Let it to cool for at least 1 hour. I let mine sit overnight.

6. After you pop the soaps out from the soap mold, spray a little alcohol on them. One reason is to make them less slippery, and the other reason I use it is for sanitation.

You are all done!

Just be creative and have fun with it. Love to see how your soaps turn out to be like.

Let There Be - My Next House

2009-10-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

Not that I don't love my current house (I do), and not that I can afford another mortgage right now (I can't). I love my beautiful house which already retains most of the qualities I have ever wanted in a dream house. But bear with me, let my imagination run wild. Let me dream the dream, the dream of my next house. Big or small, let there be

- light. Supposedly, God created light on the first day. My next house has lots of large windows to bring in that first creation. If the property is wooded, clear a half acre radius around the house so no trees can cast shadows on or fall into the house. No need to dress the windows with curtains unless in the bedroom and TV area. Building codes usually do not allow an all glass house but design as much windows as the codes allow.

- privacy. Out of sight, out of mind. If I can not see my neighbors, I'm in the country of Ping, indivisible under God, invisible to Al-Qaeda terrorists and immune to swine flu. I'm a castle, a solemn nation, as indestructible as the United States of America and China combined. So the house should have more acreage than 1.5 acres where my current house sits because I still see the tip of the roof line of one neighbor from my house. Probably a 5 acre ground will do.

- sun and water. I love the sun. I love the sun so much that my parents named me after it. If it's in a sunny and warm tropical climate, it does not matter if my house is just a grass hut as long as it's on the water's edge that I can walk to the beach to swim all year round, and enjoy the warm breeze all day long. If it's not waterfront, it has to have an outdoor swimming pool (salt swimming pool with solar or heat pump heating, unlike my chorine pool with gas heating). Some water features around the house are nice to have too. They have to be far away from the yard though so I can add chlorinate in the water without the overflowing water damaging the plants. Lessons learned from my current ones.

- fire. Install at least two gas fireplaces: one in the living room so during Christmas season I can have the socks hung along the mantel (as seen on TV), the fire burning with the music playing in the background, and the aromatic soups cooking on the stove. The other fireplace is outside the patio by the pagoda. By the way, it can be a single fireplace facing dual sides inside and out. Even in the south, there are still a few chilly nights for outdoor sitting.

- double ovens in the kitchen. Double ovens are a must for a modern kitchen. I can cook my heart's content and party with my 100 closest friends occasionally (ok I'd admit to make that number I will have to go find all the homeless people on every corner of the streets and drag them home) without running out of the ovens to heat the food.

- granite slab countertops (with sharp contrast flowing colors instead of black color as I have now), stainless steel, or glass granite slab countertops. The kitchen opens to the dining area and living room with the hanging stainless steel chimney above the 6-burner gas stove and three hanging lights above the bar area.

- dramatic lighting. Make sure there is one beautiful light above the one-piece wood dining table that sits at least 12 (My current dining table sits 8. We had to patch it with another table during Thanksgiving dinners). Another group of lights hang low above the coffee table in the entertainment area. Lights should be considered a part of the art works too. How they look and where they hang define the dimensions of a space.

- grapevines. I love the big leaves and their curly vines. The grape fruits not only look and taste good but they also allow me to make home wines with the harvest. It's also such a romantic thing to drink wine under the thick grapevines with grapes hanging down. It would be nice to have a manageable mini vineyard.

- yellow bamboo. That thick trunked kind of bamboo trees roaring over 15 feet tall (as seen in China and in many magazines. Don't know where I can get them though). Plant a bunch of them on one side of the house. Use landscape spot lights to shine on them. Bamboos are one of my favorite plants (grass indeed). They are so low maintenance, yet giving a Zen look while allowing the soothing sound in when the wind blows.

- a romantic garden. The house is not a dream house without a dream garden. A best garden is to contain the essential plants to you and then let the nature do the job. Essential plants to me contain some climbers, herbs and purple/pink color flowers. Plant some disease-resistant China pink and white tea roses climbing along the arbors. Roses bloom for a long season, especially in the south. Plant some fragrant rose bushes surrounded by all sorts of herbs, and all my favorite plants including purple lavenders and hydrangeas. The rule of the garden is to repeat the same plants, and to group them so the garden has structures. Set the color tones to make sure they don't look too busy together. Pick some of the other native plants and scrubs to edge the garden. The garden should have more evergreens than perennials and annuals so the garden always looks good with or without the flowers blooming. Oh, I forget that this house is in the south. Never mind about the evergreens.

- minimum decors. The decors bring a combination of spa and hotel lobby feel, a feel of intimacy and openness. A large front wood double door opens up to a water fountain mirror in the middle of the entryway, dividing the living room from the entryway. Install some dimmer spotlights on the ground covered by glass along the hall way. Let the lights shine on the plants (cactus?) in the planters decorated with pebbles. The colors for all the walls are different shades of gray, white and a tint of lime green. The house is furnished in a minimalist style, leaving room for mental play and imagination. A minimally furnished house draws the eyes to the house, not the furniture. Need to place a few of large clay and wood sculptures and one stone Buddha statue, and hang a few extra large dramatic abstract painting canvases all through the house (I can pull some color paints on the blank canvases, Ola!) and a couple of framed Chinese watercolor scroll paintings (frame the ones I have). A splash of color comes from the art pieces, not the furniture or the wall.

- a round soaking tub or a claw tub. Place it in the middle of the bathroom close to the large glass door opening to the outside. Modern and clean look European vanities (as seen in the Olympia Bath store). No door needed between the bathroom and the bedroom. Separating the two is a full glass tiled shower wall extending half way of the length. The roof right above the shower head is sky lighted so the sun shines through and you feel the warm sunlight on your skin when you shower. Sound also echoes well which is very important for someone who likes to sing in the shower.

- an outdoor hot-water shower and outdoor wired surrounding sound. Just as what I have now, the difference is since I live in the warm south, I can use the outdoor shower all year round. Outdoor shower is also one of the reasons why the property needs to be private.

I'm still dreaming so don't wake me up yet. Oh, last but not least let there be no mortgage. Let me match in and out of my bank free and clear, without feeling like paying visits to the real owner of my house. Let the epic battle against RMB yuan and US dollars be over. Once and for all, I'm free, free at last!

Oh, let there be. Let there be ...my next house!

Seasons Come. Seasons Go

2009-10-23T15:11:00.000-07:00

Spring: Growing Season

I was born on a day in March so I 'm a child of spring. In old China
there were no air-conditioners in summer or heaters in
winter. Many would-be parents had to plan ahead to deliberately have their children born in spring. It was no coincidence that both I and my young sister were born in March. Spring brought memories of wild yellow flowers on the hillside outside my dorm windows. Me and my girlfriends slicked out of our offices in the middle of the day. We lay on the hill soaking the warm sun. The spring sun brought out the freckles on my face so I hoped for the summer to sweat out the freckles. I watched the new buds coming out of the tree branches. I looked for signs of new life, and...I fell in love.

Time for a new life. Time to grow. Fell in love. Tasted sweet.

Summer: Blooming Season

My hometown Chongqing has been called an oven city because of its extreme hot summer weather. When I was attending the college, our campus was close to Yangtze River. Every year there were students drowning from swimming in the river. School rules forbade anyone from swimming in the river. But it was so hot, we always slipped out during the nap time to go swimming in the river. Hot days made people lazy too. No wonder they say people living in the tropics tend to be lazier than people living elsewhere. In those lazy summer mornings we woke up with our eyes just idling away. I used to travel a lot during every summer vacation. Hiked 40-50 miles a day along the deserted countryside under the burning sun. Came home all darkened out. Tanned skin was considered unattractive back then so I hoped the autumn would come quickly to pale my skin back.

Time for a splendid display. Time to bloom. Madly in love. Tasted hot and spicy.

Autumn: Parting Season

Leaves started turning color and then parted themselves from their branches. The ground was all covered with Canadian national flags. Summer bamboo mattress felt chilly on the skin. I put away my favorite summer shorts and skirts. Sentimental at sight of every falling leaf, reminiscing the passing time and missing my family and old friends back home. Moving in and out. Lost in the new city. Felt my artistic side and had an urge of painting and writing. The gradually shortened daylight made me aware of aging and dying, and the fleeting nature of life. Losing the other half of my heart to the half autumn moon outside the window. The full-moon festival in autumn heightened the sense of lost and loneness. The sky seemed to know how I felt too because it rained tears with me all the time.

Time for good-byes. Time to mature. Fell out of love. Tasted bitter.

Winter: Hibernating Season

I got to bed early as that was the only warm place for my cold feet. Felt the urge of peeing but spent rest of the night wrestling whether to get up in the cold to the only public bathroom at the other end of the long hallway. Hours later still laying in bed fantasizing how nice it would be if someday someone invented a container underneath a bed so I didn't have to get up and pee (20 years later, I heard this invention does exist and it's used in some hospitals for some terminally illed people).Waking up in the morning, my feet were still cold. It was freezing cold inside and outside. Time froze with it, so was my sense of self. I laid myself to sleep. I slept in that cold bed a lot. I hibernated.

Time for a rest. Time to recoup. Buried love. Tasted lumb.

Years later and oceans apart, the cycle of the seasons continues to season me.

Photographs and Memories

2009-10-14T16:59:00.000-07:00

Photos are nothing special nowadays. Downloading, sharing and printing photos are so easy ever since digital camera was introduced. I now use camera excessively to a degree that it is almost as if I rely on my camera to remember things for me. Guess I’m not alone in that aspect. Has anyone travelled without a camera lately? But just several decades ago, a camera is a thing of luxury. Back then I didn’t have a camera, without camera, a photographic memory was developed.

When I was in China, as a selected few from my school after graduating from junior high, I attended a boarding senior high away from the town where I grew up. I came home visiting my family on weekends. Traveling between home and school required one ferry ride, two bus rides and a lot of walks on foot. There were several hundreds of steps in the bank connecting the top of the hill where the ticket booth was located, to the bottom where we took the ferry across the Yangtze River. In today's standard, it's even unimaginable hassle and bastle to the young and healthy. Back then it was the typical transportation we grew up using, old or young. Although the distance was only 15 miles or so, the travel time was at least 3 hours long. I usually left home for school early in the morning on Monday. My mom or dad would wake me up and we got ready in a hurry. My sisters were still sound asleep. Without exception my dad succeeded in insisting walking me to the dock and seeing me off there. It was so early; The city streets were still empty. The early mornings in Chongqing were always misty and foggy. My dad and I walked in silence. We stopped at the booth. He bought me the ticket and handled it to me. After a quick good bye to him and I walked down the steps. No hugs. No turning backs. I counted the steps in my mind. Every time it was a different number so until now I still didn't know exactly how many steps they were. I walked on the dock towards the ship. After getting on board, I found myself a seat by the window. Looking out, I saw my dad still there, above all the hundreds of steps in the same spot by the booth where I left him. At a loud sound of the whistle, the ship slowly pulled away from the dock. As the ship moved, the dark spot where my dad was standing became smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared in the fog. I didn't know whether he was still standing there. At that moment, I felt like crying, but I always managed to force the tears back because of the crowd. It was my first experience with parting. For years, I had the urge of putting that dishearten parting moments into a painting. I never did. The white fog, gray ship and the black spot size dad above the countless steps have made their way into an unforgettable photograph in my memory.

After graduation from college, I was assigned to work in a design institute in another city, about 10 hours train ride distance from my parents' house. I usually went back to visit my parents during the holidays several times a year. Besides holiday travels, I also travelled often on business and leisure to many different cities, which usually meant several days' train ride. At that time, very few people could afford plane tickets so trains became the main transportation for long distance travels. Trains were always overloaded with people, especially during the holidays. Sometimes you could not even get a hard seat for part or entire of your train journey. If you got on a train during the holidays, didn't bother about using the bathroom in the train. Even if you pushed the crowds through your way there, the bathroom door was open but the space was occupied - by the people using the bathroom floor as a standing platform. It was a common scene in which people made beds out of the floor, overhead luggage compartments or the space underneath the seats. I've been there, done them all, at one time or another. The sanitation conditions in the trains were so bad, especially before the Chinese New Year holiday. One time we were not allowed to open the windows at some stops. The train was already full at the beginning station so no tickets were sold to those people at those stops. Poor people. I felt sad for them because they would miss spending the holidays with their families if they couldn't get on the train. At that moment I realized how lucky I was to be in the train, a lucky pig after all. Some of the people outside even tried to throw themselves inside through the open window cracks. It was dangerous because no one knew when the train was going to start moving. We were not even dared to open the windows for the next train stops on. It was unfortunate because we needed to buy food and water from the vendors outside the window at the train stops. Every time I got on the train, I told myself to transform my body temporarily to an animal, a pig for instance. I learned to shut off all my senses. Pigs didn't know the difference why should I if I were a pig. That was how I went through with the rides in ease. I told myself it was ok Ping because as soon as I got off the train, I’d be a human again. Each time when I stood on the station, waiting to catch my next train ride, I always imagined how nice it would be if the train was an archery arrow and I was the arrow tip. With one pull I was shot to the target - my destination. On those long train rides, to kill the boredom, people usually talked to the passengers around them. I often ended up engaging in open dialogues with the strangers next to me. Because we were all the same strangers under such a train condition, we forgot about our prides and our differences. Uninhibited from confiding to each other, we shared food and we also shared our life stories. It was that kind of candid and rare bonding I occasionally find later in life only on the roads of travels. For the remaining few hours or few days of a train ride, I felt for the first time so related to another human being. Time passed fast from there on until it was either my station or their stations to get off. Without saying goodbyes, they left me or I left them. The train started moving again. I suddenly realized we never exchanged names, or addresses, or phone numbers. Strangers remained strangers forever. From there on, I tried to stay awake. I told myself to remember this, to open my eyes, to look hard and deep at every face and every place flashing inside and outside the train windows because these people and these places were only there once. It was the first time and last time in my life I knew I would ever encounter them. Memory is like a glass wall: You can see through it but you can not get to it, so close yet so distant.

Photographs and memories, staying with me are those moments in time.

High Steel Bridge and Fear of Heights

2009-09-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

High Steel Bridge is one of the best-kept secrets in Mason County. As a Mason County resident and realtor of 5 years, I have driven almost everywhere in Mason County but have never heard of the High Steel Bridge until now. It's about 15 miles from Union. The roads leading to the bridge are also very scenic. You first pass the Skokomish valley where many cute farm houses dot the vast green landscape and the cattles leasuirely mind their own business alongside the paved driveway. I know from my past real estate dealings, the houses in this area are tough sell because the Skokomish is the most flood-prone river in Washington State but most of the long-time residents don't seem to be bothered by the flood. I kinda understand it. Flood comes and goes and it's only a few short period of inconvenience to them. Rest of the year this area is indeed very green and beautiful. After the paved driveway ends, we came to the gravel forest road. The forest road is the improved logging road by Simpson Timber Company, dusty especially if you are following another car in front of you. As our car climbed up the hill, from the window I got a climpse of the expansive view of the Skokomish Valley down below, Mt Rainier in the distance and the heavy forest all around you. Shortley after, the High Steel Bridge suddenly emerged itself from the middle of nowhere.

I have to say, this bridge is definitely not for faint of heart. You don't know you have the fear of heights until you come to this bridge. It spans 2500 feet long, 420 feet straight up above the canyon where the Skokomish River runs through it. You can park your car before the bridge and then walk on it. Although there are railings on both sides of the bridge, and although other people were leaning on the railings, I dare you to try that. If you dare, I proclaim you the winner of the Height Fear Factor challenge I now start. I tried to stay in the center line of the bridge. A few times, I did attempt crossing the center line, but when so doing I made sure I was just squatting, not standing.

As we were about to leave the bridge and leave our fear of heights unchecked for the day, we saw a group of people moved down the trail before the start of the bridge. We figured that must be the trail leading down to the bottom of the canyon so we followed them. The hiking downhill confronts your fear of heights on another level. This trail is not recommended with improper gear. Some accidents and rescues had taken place on this trail. One recent rescue was this June. Check the link out here. http://mosswalks.blogspot.com/2009/06/hikers-stuck-under-high-steel-bridge.html. Speaking about proper gear, I was only wearing sandals and carrying a camera on one hand. Any footstep mistakes are deadly. At places, I had to hang on the exposed tree roots to keep balance.

My fear was immediately dissolved at the delightful sight and the sound of the waterfalls. What a hidden treasure in my neck of woods that I didn't even know about until now. It's a three-tier waterfall. From there, you have a full view of the bridge. From where my photo was taken, another waterfall (not in the photo) continues to drop down to the bottom of the canyon.

My legs were sore for the next couple of days from hiking the trail. I won't recommend anyone to hike the trail unless you are an experienced hiker with proper gear. Ignorance is bliss. I didn't know how dangerous the trail was but I'm glad I went. If you don't know whether you have fear of heights, come to test it with this High Steel Bridge. It's the ultimate test. Now that you've been warned, just remember: "Fear the fear itself". As with all fears, it's all in your head.

Masterpiece

2009-09-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

I recently browsed through all the photos I posted on my Flickr site, in an attempt to possibly pick out any I could add to my pingyima site. There are perhaps 800 some photos in total, most of which are from my trips and holiday get-togethers with my family and friends dated back 8 years. I thought if I tried digging deep enough, you never know, I might find a good photo I framed in my camera by random luck. Tried as I might, the disappointing reality settled in at the end of the effort: Not a single photography could suffice my lowest standard.

This is how I think of a masterpiece in photography and any other art forms. Good photography to me has to present three things: 1) good eyes, 2) good technique, and 3) good luck. Good eyes discover beauty. It determines the material of an image. It's an "it"-nature factor. You either have "it" or don't have "it". It's what your parents gave to you at birth. Good technique dresses beauty. It polishes the material of an image. It's a "he"/"she"-nurture factor. It's what can be humanly trained and learned. Good luck is a "He"-God factor. It's what's at God's mercy-a right moment at a right time. "He" is the one who creates the material in the first place. When you present your parents, yourself and God in one photograph, then you get a wow factor - a masterpiece at last!'

One can travel seven seas and most likely take some magnificent shots but if we might only see 3) in them. To make what I want to say a little understandable, here is an example. For instance, we pick up our cameras and took some photos when we see a herd of sheep appear under a rainbow. Everyone's shots are in and they are all different shots of the sheep herd and rainbows except one. In this photo, it shows a single sheep with injured legs going the opposite direction from the herd (good eyes), seemingly lost under the shadow of the herd (good eyes and good technique), but undoubtablely heading towards the end of a rainbow in the distance (good luck). That, my friend, is my masterpiece I will get someday!

On Painting Clouds

2009-08-12T11:35:00.003-07:00

When I was in Houston, I signed up for an evening Chinese watercolor painting program. The venue was in the instructor's gallery in Chinatown. The instructor was an old Chinese man, probably in the mid 70's, who was also the owner of his gallery and taught in Rice University. Before the class started, he did a painting demonstration for us. It was an amazing black ink landscape painting which he just finished within a few short minutes in front of our eyes. Wow. I was eager to learn to paint like him.

To our astonishment, in our first class, our only assignment for the next 1 hour was to draw straight lines with our brushes. There were 5 of us students. I'm sure we all gave him that look "A 3-year old can do that, why are we paying our hard-earned money to learn it?". The old man explained that Chinese paintings were made of stokes, and strokes started from straight lines. To make an even straight line with a brush, you had to first relax and use Qi principle from start to finish. Making straight lines with a brush on rice paper were really not as easy as it seemed. One hour later, I had a stack paper of straight lines. Ok. I was getting better with the lines. Big deal. Enough of that, what's next?

In our next class, we were each given a nickle to put on top of our hands. Our assignment for the next 1 hour was to draw straight lines and circles with a coin staying on top of our hands. In the beginning, the coin kept dropping with each of my hand movement. Remember we had to hold the brush and in the meanwhile draw lines and circles. The coin forced you to slow down and to focus even you wanted to go faster. But who in the right mind would buy those stack pages of straight lines and circles?

Needless to say I never went back for the 3rd class. There was no refund for rest of my tuitions paid. I didn't think that instructor or his class was a total scam. It was just me. I was not cut out for the slow Chinese learning regiment. I went home and started drawing clouds. I remembered someone once told me that clouds were the easiest things to draw because clouds came with all random shapes and patterns. You couldn't go wrong with painting clouds. It turned out to be so true. I was satisfied at my first try of cloud painting without even having to learn a thing. As long as I stayed away from what the old Chinese man taught me about straight lines and circles, or any symmetric patterns I assume the old Chinese man was about to teach next, my clouds on the paper look just like the clouds in the sky. Boohoo! I felt free like a could, free at last!

I don't know what the morale of this story is but at least I can tell you this. If you don't want to study long and hard to learn how to paint, go paint clouds.

On Colors

2009-08-12T11:35:00.001-07:00

I remember to this date the discussions we had during one of the art classes I attended in my high school years. The topics are : What is your favorite color? What you think is the most beautiful color? What you think is the ugliest color? After the heated debate, this became clear to me:

- Every color is equally beautiful. No color is ugly by itself (Think about yourself) .
- While no color is ugly by itself, some colors become ugly when in combination with other color/colors. There is just ugly color combination. "Ugly" in the sense that they don't go well together (Think about your ex/exes you left behind). The reason why they don't go well together is that they are not presented in the nature so our eyes are not accustomed to (Think that you and your ex/exes are not meant to be in the first place).
- If you don't know how to combine colors, go outside to draw inspiration from the nature. White clouds on blue sky, yellow dandelions on green grass, rainbow... Red and green color combination has been tabooed by Chinese. I knew then that was so biased. Red roses on green leaves. Da?

Then I had better understanding on colors when I worked for a Hong-Kong based printing company. In their printing factory, there are two types of color printing machines: one is three-color printer and the other is four-color printer. All the colors on the color wheel are derived from 3 colors: not counting black, magenta-red, yellow and cyan-blue; or 4 primary color themes: magenta-red, cyan-blue, yellow and black. By changing the color percentage, you get a different color theme in a color wheel (Think about changing your attitude or lowering your standard for more options). From there you can find a whole spandex of color family and color harmony (Think about your family and your 100 closest friends). However, there is a group of stubborn colors that no other colors can mix into. They don't easily match with other colors. If you have one of those colors in your design, the printing company will charge you for a separate film cost (Think about those eccentric people you know). Those are specialty colors such as gold, silver, bronze...(Think about those of your rich relatives who have never lent you a dime.)

Often, colors are described as cold and warm as how we relate to the outside weather, as calm or lively as how we relate to our inner mood, or as soothing or loud as how we relate to music. Being color-blind is considered disability. Oops! Aren't we supposed to be color-blind when it comes to people?!

I read a joke in the Reader's Digest many years ago. A man walks into a bar. After sitting down with the drinking menu, "You have Blue Hawaiian and White Russian. What is the difference?" The man asks. "Da, color?" The bartender says.

Color is so essential to art, and to life for that matter. I won't be a bit surprised if one day this is in our dollar bills: In color, we trust.

pingyima website is launched!

2009-08-07T04:14:00.000-07:00

I've been glued to my chair in front of the computer for the past two days. Alas, the new website is almost done! I have not assigned a domain name to it yet but for new it's linked to my real estate website http://www.pingsun.com/. Here is the URL to the site directly: http://www.pingsun.com/pingyima. Before settling at the name pingyima which means Aunti Ping in Chinese (my American name as called by my two world's best nephews aged between 2-4 years old), I thought about keeping the same name as Ping Art Loft or Ping Loft I used before. But pingyima sounds more interesting as with yo yo ma, not that we are faintly related or whatever. So far, I'm happy with the design I came up with. It's colorful and playful, not zen as I originally intended to do. I still have to find space somewhere on the site to put the following mission statement:

We can not guarantee our things are the cheapest but we guarantee every one of them is original, one and only, and worth every penny of it. If our "things" appear a little inexpensive to some people, get over it. Suck it up. You only live once. We are responsible for any missing shipments but we are not responsible for your medical bills from banging against the wall if you miss out your buying opportunity. As all the pieces exhibited at pingyima site are the one and only originals, they are sold on the first come and first serve basis.

The goal of pingyima is..nothing, zero, nada. The paintings exhibited at pingyima site are either produced by myself or purchased from the artists directly by me for own satisfaction. The site is launched for the same purpose or the purposeless. Rather than a caricature, the Asian paintings presented at pingyima often leave some elements to the viewers' imagination. In fact, professional painters who produce realistic versions of their subject are not always as highly regarded as the scholar painters (or literati) who paint for their own satisfaction in a more "spiritual" style. Especially, in today's widely available photo technology era, this oriental art form is more and more appreciated. Yeah, I've done just about enough self-promoting by now. As you can see, that self-promoting effort is also evident in the twitter and facebook link on pingyima site. The twitter link is not working because I have not signed up on twitter, but I will, someday. The facebook link has the upcoming event announcement so far, but there will be more to come. I'm not exactly in the twitter and facebook generation. Remember the good old days when we used to try so hard hiding that little book we call diary that records every little happenings in our daily life, so hard as to sometimes draw symbols and create our own language so that in case the diary was found, it would not be understood by others. Now you publicize your diary. Go twitter. Remember the good old days we used to collect stamps. Now we collect friends. Go facebook. Sorry my twitter and facebook members, I don't mean to sound sarcastic because I'm one of you - the facebook and twitter people myself. It's just that life itself becomes an open book with the shift of the changing culture and technology. We follow the next thing like sunflowers turning towards the sun: no exposure is over exposure for individuals as well as businesses. Monks no longer need to seek solitude in the high mountains meditating for years. They get people pay to sit with them in group power meditation. Time has definitely changed. If you want to go with the time, and if it's for the good-spirited sharing and connecting, and best of all making a few bucks while doing it, why not. With that, pingyima website is launched.

Trip to Hawaii Part II

2009-01-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

I tried to link each of my 100 some photos posted on this site, to the mapping site on Flickr (by the way, you can click Map to see where the photos were taken). In case that mapping function does not work in your computer, the general vicinity is - Hawaii!

We had a fabulous time on this trip. But when we pulled our car to the garage, we knew it was still good to be back home. Home sweet home! There is absolutely no substitute, not even the famous down feather Hilton bed you paid over $249/night for, for the comfort of your very own old bed. There is also no substitute, not even the best views of sandy beaches, for the view of your very own backyard and all the familiar belongings you've accumulated over the years (things we call stuff).

If we had stayed home, we could have enjoyed the surprisingly long nice weather and our pool. But if we had stayed home, we would have missed all the new experiences and fun in Hawaii, specifically Maui and Big Island. You see, it's all good. Lucky are those who can balance a split personality between a homebody and a vagabond.

"The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endless changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." To spare time elaborating every photo and the story behind it, I will just mention some of the new things we did for the first time on this trip:

- Traveling with family members. My husband and I have been to Hawaii three times previously. This is the first time we had the pleasure of traveling with our family members. Saw the line on a Hawaii T-Shirt which reads "Relatives: a bunch of lovely coconuts." If that's true, guess in this case, my husband's older brother and my sister-in law are lovely. My husband and I are coconuts (nuts). Together we had very enjoyable time. Thanks, relatives!

- Canoeing. While staying at the waterfront Maui Lu resort in Maui, we saw some canoes passing by every morning. We thought it would be fun to try that so we started asking around. We learned there were no organized canoeing trips for tourists in Maui. The canoeing was for canoe club members only. Next morning we went there and asked them to bring us along. They graciously agreed. My husband and I were the only armatures. The boat captains put us into separate canoes. They gave us instructions and off we went. Canoeing with them was a real workout. They had their own set of canoeing rituals and the captains used Hawaiian language when giving orders. We saw many colorful corals and sea turtles while canoeing.

- Dolphin Watching. We have never seen dolphins in person and up close until this trip in Hilton Waikoloa Village on Big Island. They are just adorable.

- Kona Coffee Tour and Macadamia Nut Factory Tour. We toured 17 acre Bayview coffee plantation farm and Macadamia Nut Factory nearby in Kona.

- Cava Drinking. Cava is an ancient Hawaiian drink. The 'awa (also called kava) root was pounded and the juices were made in to a muddy looking water. Per the hippie girl who sold the juice to me, Cava was drunk by Hawaiian chiefs in old days. It was supposed to give them visions. It tasted like Chinese medicine to me so I drank the whole bowl in one breath. I didn't see any higher vision though, or maybe I already have the vision?!

- Boogie Surfing. There is a video clip at the bottom of the page. I had a few fun runs the first day I tried boogie surfing with the help of my husband. The second day I got nailed by the waves. You can hear in the audio background "Oh my God!" from my husband and see in the vido the lifeguard rushed to the shore.

Trip to Hawaii Part I

2009-01-15T13:48:00.000-08:00

You simply can not jump into a vacation zone after you get off the airplane. It always seems to take a few days before the mind and body start to unwind and relax. With my one-person operation business, I was constantly dealing with business phone calls and emails on this trip. So the so-called vacation qualifies for a tax-deductible business trip. Ah, on my next vacation I will have no luggage, no phone, no TV, no computer or no camera, or nothing to show for.

On the second day we arrived in Maui, there were some dark clouds in the sky early in the morning. Not a beach day. A good time to drive to Hana. Hana is about 3 hours one way from the hotel. Known for the treacherous winding roads leading to it, Hana boasts lush tropic forest and waterfalls, a paradise on its own. We’ve been there last time but didn’t go far enough to the end of Hana Rd to see the 7 Pools. With a convertible 4-wheel Jeep rental this time, we felt more at ease about driving further down to the road. Talking about the rental car, that's another story alone. I booked a Chrysler convertible online before we headed for Seattle airport but by the time we checked in the car rental place at Maui Airport, we were told that the type of cars I reserved were all rented out due to the high season. My husband argued Jerry Seinfeld’s point: It's easy to make a reservation. Anyone can make a reservation. The key is to HOLD a reservation. You get to HOLD it. Anyway, we ended up getting what we really wanted in the first place for the same price: a convertible Jeep Wringler. One striking thing about driving a convertible car is once you go topless, it's hard to go back otherwise. Back with the top on, you immediately feel short of breath and limited peripheral vision. So we decided to leave the top off and the heater on. We hit heavy showers so many times that we had to stop and hide out. We are from Seattle, the capital rainy city of the world. Why the hell do we need rain on our vacation? Believe it or not. We do. Thanks to the rain, we saw so many gushy waterfalls on the Road to Hana. The road for the most part is a one-lane road. We had to constantly watch out at the curves and wait for other cars approaching from the other side to go by at pullover spots. We wondered with so much tourist money pouring in each year and high local property taxes why they didn’t fix the road. Then we realized if the road was improved, there would be less attraction and thus less tourism. A big part of the Road to Hana’s attractions is the road. As they say life is about the ride, not the destination. On this rainy day, traveling on this familiar long and winding road. I couldn’t help singing the Beattles’ song. It goes:

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me her
Lead me to you door

We spent New Year's Eve in Maui. It was so lame. Maui is such a laidback city. Nobody seems to care about New Year celebration. We hopped from restaurants to bars, hopping to mingle with a party crowd to do some New Year's Eve countdown or watch fireworks somewhere. We stayed out as late as we could, watching on TV other countries celebrating their new years first, then it was New York's New Year, and then Seattle's New Year. It was still not midnight in Hawaii yet. We went back to the hotel with a bottle of champagne. My husband woke me up telling me it was a few minutes past Hawaii New Year. My most important holiday-New Year’s Eve this year thus passed me by with those confusing time zones that I didn't know which one to celebrate! For the first year in my life as long as I remember I slept through a New Year's Eve!

Big Beach, one of the best beaches in Maui. It's less crowded than Waikiki. Moloniki in the distance. Next to Big Beach is Small Beach, a well-known nude beach. We talked about going there and checking it out but in the end were chickened out. In our defense, perhaps mostly gays and lesbians went there anyway.

Cruise to Molokini Island - An afternoon cruise to Molokini snorkeling. The weather was cloudy. We didn't see much fish (or fishes) when we snorkeled and the water was a little chilly to me. However, it was a nice cruise trip. Along the way, we spotted turtles and whales. Then again we found it funny people rejoiced at the sight of turtles and whales. Back in my days in China, we ate turtles! We had turtle soup. Now you can buy turtles in Wal-Mart food section in China. Whales, we see them all the time in the waters of the Northwest. Beauty is a rarity thing. If it's rare, it's likely beautiful. Or it's in the eyes of the beholders. If I behold you, you are beautiful. Let me behold you at this moment then, my turtles and whales. The boat had a professional diver and cameraman on board. When they played the video the diver took, we realized we missed so many neat fish (or fishes). You had to dive down deep to find them, something I have not yet mastered. My body only floats. It does not sink. Maybe it's safer that way. We also discovered that day the Hawaiian Hanging Loose hand gesture is the same as we use for calling me, or drinking. That makes perfect sense in this order: Call me. Let's drink. Hang loose.

We took an unknown road on the road to Kula, wandering around aimlessly. This unplanned route winded up in the park dedicated to Sun Yat Sen, the founder of new China, my relative dated back thousands of years ago. Statue of Sun Yat Sen in the park, on the road to Kula. We found out from the locals in a tea house that Oprah has a house nearby. I read the article about Oprah's house in Maui and her house was featured as the cover photo on that issue of the "O" Magazine. I remember it's a modest Colonial house with green roof. However, we didn't spot it from the road.

You can find nice beaches and white sand at any other places, but Hawaii is Hawaii also because of its unique culture, largely Hawaii music. We listen to Hawaiian music so much at home just to feel like we are in Hawaii. We went to listen to the Olomoma band on Saturday night. They play every Friday and Saturday night at the Hilton. We went to their concert on our last trip a couple of years ago. It was as good as we remembered. My husband has been looking forward to this moment for over a year. He emailed to the male musician Jerry Santos before we came. My husband was upset because we missed the very first seat due to my delay in shopping. The fans at the front row were long-time band followers who knew every tune. I told my husband maybe they were more deserving to the front row than us. The Hula girl in the photo is a Japanese Hawaiian who dances traditional Hawaiian Hula. The traditional Hawaiian dance differs from the Tahitian dance in that the dancers' hand and body movement are much subtler. The dancers do not swivel their hips as much. It's less showy, more soulful in my view. The music and the dance are so captivating, so mesmerizing. Towards the end of the show, we advanced from the backseat to the front row. I was nervous seeing the Hula girl dancing in that narrow space between the stage and the first row, especially when she danced in front of us. Being 6.4' tall, my husband's feet stretched out more. She didn't trip after all, to my relief. Or we secretly wished she had tripped to our amusement?!

Hanama Bay is a volcanic cove. It's also a marine sanctuary. We had to watch a 15-minute video before being allowed to snorkel there although we watched it on our previous trip. Lots of colorful fish and corals in the water. A perfect sunny day for snorkeling, or simply lying under the sun.

Drinks at Dukes. Dukes used to be the Barefoot Bar. It still has that old Hawaiian charm with the grass huts on beach. We discover that the drinks are cheaper than other hotels on Waikiki. Drinks here like Lava Flow costs only $6.95 instead of $9.95 in other places. It has the best tasty Mai Tai as well. We drank as much as there was only room left for dinner. Dinner, where to? One thing for sure, I will be back!

Let's move to Hawaii. I can make a living by doing what I'm doing-Real Estate, or better, being a Hula dancer.

Happy New Year 2008

2008-12-30T14:11:00.000-08:00

Another year is about to be gone. The end is near! I long ago decided not to hang any clocks in the house to be reminded of the time passing. Clocks and watches are just human inventions which in spite of their obvious functions and good intentions, causing us so much stress and grief. But whom am I kidding?! Whenever I turn around in the house, there is time slapping right on my face. It’s virtually everywhere you look: computer, cell phone, microwave, oven, TV, stereo set... Run, Pingster, Run. I run to my car, here you go again. It's there in front of the dashboard as soon as the engine is started. Exhausted, then I come to the realization there is nowhere to run from time.

New Year's Eve brings the pinnacle of that reminder of time passing. Even though it's months before your next birthday, you feel you are one year older already. Every loud group count-down shout towards the midnight pounds on the weakening heart. You follow up with Happy New Year cheers but happy is not the exact mood in which you welcome New Year. You can be merry at Christmas because supposedly Christ was born but how could you be happy at New Year because the coming of New Year also means you lost the old year. What the hell did the past year go? Out of 365 days, it's really cruel being solo on the last day of the year. You need someone by your side who does not know the answer either. 2 "don't-know"s equal to 1 "don't-care". Cheers to marriage. In the first year after I moved to Seattle I had the New Year's Eve alone. I drove to the Seattle Needle a few hours before the midnight firework show. Impatient of the long waiting in a crowd of strangers, I drove home and cracked open a large Margarita bottle. Over half a bottle later, I felt tipsy to half drunk, and believed I was knocked out by alcohol to sleep before the midnight. Later that next year I told Richard about my previous New Year's Eve. Seeing that same leftover Margarita bottle, Richard laughed uncontrollably. He said it was only Margarita mix and there was not single alcohol content in it. I then read the label. He was right. If the conceived alcohol could make me so delusional as to feel drunk, why couldn't time?

I just read this of Max Ehrman's prose poems today. It came to me in a time of need:

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas 2008!

2008-12-24T14:09:00.000-08:00

Ho, Ho, Ho, Christmas is cancelled this year. Says Santa.

Let it snow. Those were the words on the Christmas cards I sent out to you all this year. That's what we have wished all along for this Christmas. But be careful what you wish for. It started to snow over one week ago, and there have been no signs of slowing down since. We've got about 2 feet snow around the house a few days ago, according to the measurement by the man in the house. The heavy snow days have turned us all Washingtonian callers into volunteer weather reporters (Guess we all want to have a meteorologist's job. It's not only economy proof, but also weather proof. A meteorologist can report to work while vacationing in Thailand because any mistakes they make, it's the weather's fault. What can you say.) You bet when a phone rings all you are going to hear is how much snow the other side is getting, or whether it is still snowing. People send in their snow shots around their houses over the phone. We do the same. You think you've got more snow than us. Look, we’ve got more than you. Now the results are in. Here are our photos. We won. Richard is worried that the roof of his parents house is going to collapse. We watch the snow piling into hills on the front wood decks. At first we are afraid they will give in, and then we remember we have home insurance to cover the decks. We find ourselves plan on the details about how to expand the decks if they give in, of course using the insurance money. Snow, please fall in more. We like the new deck idea.

After failing on my all-wheel drive car, Richard tried his 4-wheel pickup truck. It got stuck on our own driveway halfway. Luckily, one of our neighbors is the local Fire Chief. Think about it. Everyone else can be stuck in the house but not the Fire Chief. To ensure the Fire Chief be able to get out of his house, a contractor was hired to plow his driveway so as a collateral benefit, all of us neighbors on the same road got the free plowing service on our driveways. We are no longer trapped in the house.

With all the snow in the truck bed, it almost feels as if we are heading to deliver the snow whenever we take off. Snow anyone? At the corner of the road by the Walmart today, a young man was holding a sign that says "Homeless. Sleeps in the Car. Needs help." Felt bad for him standing there in the snow. But sorry guy, unless you need snow. We got a full trunk load.

While it might be too much snow than we asked for, it is still the most beautiful and peaceful sight. You don't look at rain the same way you gaze at snow. Rain falls down fast, and gets lost the minute it drops on an object whereas snow falls gently, and with each flake it accumulates until it creates such a perfect decoration on everything it touches. That’s quite a metaphor to the results of rushing in vs slowing down. Look around. You are the interior decorator of your house. The snow is the exterior decorator. Now it’s the perfect setting for the Christmas, only if we can get to the party location.

For this Christmas, I'm sure some people have to call it canceled simply because of the undrivable road condition, unfortunately. Ho, Ho, Ho. Not us! No way!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Trip to Tibet Summer of 2008

2008-09-01T14:01:00.000-07:00

A trip to Tibet this year is almost out of my need for time travel, in other words, to pay tribute to my early days. For most part of my childhood and youth in China, Tibet was my imaginary pilgrimage whenever I needed escape and comfort from reality. It's been one of those places on my "Bucket List" that I always wanted to visit before I said that final good-bye (of course, in a comfortable bed surrounded by familiar faces) but didn't really plan to get there because like everyone else unconsciously I thought I was immortal. It was one of those many things, I assumed when the opportunity presented itself, I would go. But opportunity neither came by itself nor by my waiting. So I never went. Finally, many years later after I regarded even my house a better pilgrimage, I decided it was about time to visit Tibet. Sounds strange but aren't things always seem to happen that way? It was as if some superior power was to test my will, this opportunity came at a bad time: Tibet had the uprising (It's not safe to go); Washington has the most enviable summer (It's a shame to leave for anywhere else in August); I got torn ligament in one foot several days before my trip and I was instructed to rest my foot for at last three months. Last but not least, when my husband and I opened the fortune cookies in a Chinese restaurant before the trip, mine said that I would soon taste exotic food and his said that he would inherit some money and jewelry (What was that supposed to mean? and the only piece of jewelry I own is my wedding ring!). It coincided with a good time in the Buddhist practice. In Buddhism, if what you do is based on some gaining ideas, either for self improvement or any concrete purpose, then you achieve nothing.

I didn't want to join a tourist group if at all possible: those airport signs, tourist buses, guides holding the small flags followed closely by the tourists, and those "been there, done that" photo shots. But what are my choices with my limped foot and limited time? As they say, beggers can not be choosers. Luckily, I convinced my younger sister to go with me at the very last minute. We are just 2 years apart in age and we have always been close. We two traveled a few times together in China in the past so I knew we would have a lot of laughter along the way.

We did. It's easy to enjoy a trip with a pleasant travel partner like my sister and we don't have those "should" or "shouldn't" expectations. I hear from most people who have visited Tibet that a Tibet trip is a one-time shot, once visited, never gone back. I guess it would be a disappointing experience for one traveling there out of curiosity, looking for traditional Wow factor sceneries, or expecting standard level of comfort. For me, the more stories I heard and the more I saw: precious cow shit (no bullshit about it. Cow shit is used as building material, food and fuel), wedding rituals, different types of burial rituals out of which I witnessed one (the photos are too disturbing. I saved them for future deleting), I wished I had read more about Tibet before the trip, and I would go back again someday, perhaps spending more time and of course not with a tourist group again. The highest altitude we stood on was over 5190 meters (16867 feet). We were told that the border petrol soldiers over there were featured each year on CCTV to greet the whole nation during Chinese New Year's Eve because that's the guarded ground on earth closest to the sky. One guy on our bus had to know the elevation from the Tibetan guide every time before he decided whether to come out in case of platau/altitude sickness. That made me wonder whether plataue sickness is just a mental thing for most people. Our first guide is from my hometown Chongqing. He seemed to be only interested in directing our focus on the superficial and bizzar sides of the Tibetan customs such as how often a typical Tibetan showers or what the origin of Lhasa came from, which were later proved to be all misleading. Fortunately, we were assigned to the 2nd guide - a Tibtan native who is fluent in Tibetan history and Tibetan culture. He says comparing to some metropolitan cities in China such as Shanghai, Tibet is at least 70 years behind economically. That makes how many years behind comparing to a major city in U.S. ? As I was trying to do the math in my head, I then heard the guide say no need to feel pity for the Tibetans because who are we to be judgemental. Tibetan people have freer and braver souls. We were told by the guide that a girl in ALi-a remote county in Tibet can set up a tent at night, inviting any passerby inside for the night as long as she likes him. It's nothing wrong in Tibetan's eyes. Try that anywhere else! We saw outside the city center, herds after herds of rattles roaming on the hills, and a few tents dotting along miles after miles of vast deserted platau in between. Wonder how lonely and how hard a Tibetan's life is. A typical rattler kills his time by chewing bags after bags of sunflower seeds for hours (their front teeth are usually zig-zagged by peeling sunflower shells like mine), and they talk to their sheep. The snow is cold and harsh, and the sun is burning and harsh . On the other hand, I saw old Tibetans in the temples worshipping their Gods for hours relentlessly. At my age, I could only do a few push-ups. I was amazed how humanly possible for those old Tibetans to continue on their worshipping routine like that. I understand it's a good form to have moments of quietness by yourself once a while. But imagine those Tibetans have lifetime of lonieless and hardship. Maybe they are richer spiritually by enduring them, therefore having a real understanding of suffering-a key element in Buddhism (note: these are all my pure worthless bullshit, not Tibet cow shit.). Though at times, it felt like coming home. After all, maybe Buddha nature is like original sin, it's in each one of us. Well, who knows?! But Tibet is now no longer a remote or a mystic land to me. I was asked after the trip whether Tibet was as what I imagined to be. I said yes because as much as I used Tibet as a refuge from the crowds or troubles in the past, my imagination only went as far as the imagination of the location. Now the imagination about Tibet after the trip is attached with those unforgetful images and memories. When the 20 some people in our group stepped out from the same bus, we saw the same thing but I believe what we experienced and took in were unique only to our own. That's the beauty about travel and especially travel to this place called Tibet.

Some insiders' scoops for Tibet travel:

- If possible, do not sign up with an organized local tourist group. It's an unwritten rule that the guides get kickbacks from the stores they take you to so they will arrange at least a couple of hours at the end of each day to visit at least 3 shopping desinations. Once you get to Lhasa, you can go to a car rental agency. You can rent a 4-wheel drive jeep including a local driver for a very reasonable price. If you are on a low budget, you can cut the price down by sharing the transportation with several other travelers. You will have no problem finding other travelers like you in Lhasa to form a small group (4-8 person group). That way, you will have far more freedom in your Tibet tour, and pay the same or less than you would have if you joined a large tourist group.

- Always have some small changes with you. When you go visit temples or take photos of some of the local Tibetans, you are expected to give a couple of RMB yuans. I don't particularly like this monetorized custom because it takes away some beauty and purity of the landscape and people in my eyes but everyone else does it. ng ihope this will change someday.

- Say what you mean and mean what you say. It should be a general rule in life, but admit it we all unconsciously give white lies due to social politeness, or use the middle-of-the-way "maybe" or "perhaps" to cover a harsh "no". Back home, countless times I have told a store salesperson I would be back to buy an item when felt pressurized but in actuality never had intention to buy that in the first place, nor have I returned in the end. It's politically correct and perfectly fine. However, be cautious using that white lie strategy in Tibet. Lesson learned. Example 1: As I got off our bus and headed towards the scenic Lake - Lake Namuso, a local donkey Tibetan vendor approached me, trying to loan me 5 minutes of his donkey for our photo shots in exchange of 5 RMB. We didn't want to do it but instead of a simple "no", I told him we were in a hurry to get to the lakeside but on the way back we would consider using his service. There were many bus loads of tourists heading to the same direction at that time, we thought he would approach other tourists and be completely too distracted by them to even notice our quiet exit on our way back to the bus. Of course, we were wrong. We underestimated the Tibetans' persistance. The same guy followed us all the way to the lake, waited us there and then chased after us as we were walking back to the bus. By then he wouldn't accept our "no"s for an answer any more and no way could we get away without either paying him without or with the service. We chose the latter. "You said...." he kept saying. He was right. We did say it. But God knows how many other things I have said in my life and yet never meant a word of them?!