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.

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!

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?