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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

How to Make Christmas Sugar Cookies

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.





Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Photographs and Memories Part II


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!

Monday, December 7, 2009

On Passport Aspect of Religion

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?

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Christmas Trees, Fake or Real?

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?

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Chinese Prose "In a Hurry"

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?

Monday, November 16, 2009

Thanksgiving Dinner 2009

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.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Solitude

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

Saturday, October 24, 2009

How to Make Soaps at Home

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.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Let There Be - My Next House

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



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.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Photographs and Memories

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.

Friday, September 18, 2009

High Steel Bridge and Fear of Heights


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.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Masterpiece

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!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

On Painting Clouds

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

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.

Friday, August 7, 2009

pingyima website is launched!

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.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Trip to Hawaii Part II

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

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.
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