Family video hangouts every two weeks

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Since the COVID-19 quarantine has begun, Chris and I have been participating in a family hangout with his parents and brother every two weeks on Thursday night. It’s been fun to see them and to hear all the usual Jacob family banter about travel (or lack thereof), airline status, wine, and food, and this time around, we played Jackbox.tv and of course, inevitably experienced the Jacob brother competitiveness. It made me think about my own family and how a) we’d never want to do a video chat unless it was to focus on my cousins’ children, and b) no one would ever be up for playing a game of anything other than passive aggression.

The one time a cousin called me during this period, it was his wife who rang me for FaceTime so that I could chat with his young son, who wanted to see my bedroom and the view from our kitchen. Sadly, the call just made me feel odd and out of place, as I realize that I have very little functional relationship with any of my cousins, other than my dad’s younger sister’s son.

All three of my cousins seem deficit to me in some way. That sounds pretty arrogant and judgmental of me, but it’s how I feel about them, which has evolved over the last 34+ years. My oldest cousin is a mama’s boy, void of understanding anything that has any real depth. As my mother so crassly put it, “when he has sex with his wife, he reports back to his mother on it.” She partly said that out of jealousy because she’s mad I don’t share details about anything with her, but that’s another story. He loves to show off money and status, and the second you try to question his family’s decisions on anything, he becomes extremely defensive instead of receptive to feedback in the slightest. Thus, we can’t have any real conversation about anything that isn’t superficial.

My second cousin and I have never had much of a relationship. Since I was young, he was constantly condescending and flippant with Ed and me. He had no personality, no interests, nothing that made him even remotely interesting. It would have been more interesting to have a conversation with a rock. He’s also one of the cheapest people I know. When he started dating his now wife, he tried to be more personable around me when she was around, but I knew it was all an act to make it seem like he was a family kind of guy. When they married and had kids, he predictably dropped off the face of the earth, rarely acknowledging any of our family members, even his own brothers and mom, because his wife controls every aspect of his life, even when he wants to take a call from his own brother. He has no say, no opinion, and lives to obey his wife. That’s exactly the kind of man I’m sure many women would love to be with, but holy crap, grow some balls and speak up for yourself.

My third cousin on my dad’s side is probably the most childish, the most like a child in a nearly 47-year-old body. He is awkward, cowardly, and cannot speak up for himself or stand up for anything he really believes in. He lacks a voice and any strong will for anything. He hates the world, hates the U.S., hates all white people, especially white men, and says they are the reason he hasn’t been as successful as he could have been in life. He constantly complains, refuses to take any responsibility for what he could have done differently, and says he and his “kind” (as in, Asian American men in the U.S.) have it harder than any other group other than black women. He used to call me so often during my college years that my friends would say he was like a jealous boyfriend. Now that we live in a world where texting is the primary form of communication, he texts me randomly, “white trash,” “I hate white people,” “all white people should die,” among other hateful things (I mute his texts). Because I’m sure that doing all this makes him feel so much better about himself and his life circumstances.

The more I have thought about it, while there is something to respect about everyone in my family, overall, I don’t find any of them particularly good or likable people. My aunt is likely the one who truly means the best, but she’s so blinded by her beliefs and also, her lack of depth, that she’s impossible to have a real conversation with. All of this sounds horrible and maybe exposes my own arrogance, but I can’t really help it. Once, my therapist from years ago asked me, “Do you like your parents as people? Like, if they were not your parents and you just met them and interacted with them, would you genuinely believe they are good people?” I didn’t hesitate for a second. No, I responded. I would not want to be friends with them or have anything to do with them. We don’t have the same interests, the same values. We definitely do NOT have the same way of looking at the world.

That’s why you have friends and other families that become yours. You can find those other people you can bond with, can see eye to eye with, and genuinely respect all around.

Kopi Luwak

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When we were in Indonesia in December-January, we got to try Luwak coffee, or Kopi Luwak/civet coffee, twice, once in Jakarta and once in Bali. The concept seemed a bit strange around what is reputed to be the most expensive coffee in the world. The concept behind it is that many years ago, Indonesians noticed that a native cat called the Luwak (or civet in English) loved eating coffee berries, but would not be able to fully digest it. As a result, they pooped the berries out whole, but in that process, the coffee berries were fermented going through their digestive track. Always the resourceful ones, the Indonesians took the berries, disinfected and treated them, and attempted to make coffee out of them. Lo and behold, the coffee ended up being smoother, more robust, and fruitier as a result of going through the civet’s digestive track. They found a new industry: Luwak coffee!

While the coffee was quite good, it wasn’t good enough for us to want to buy it (and pay the very high price for it), so we ended up not buying any of the beans to take home. This week, I finished editing a YouTube video showcasing my first experience drinking this prized coffee. “CAT POOP COFFEE,” we called it.

Out of curiosity, after I posted the video, I did a quick Google search on civet coffee and was a bit appalled at what I found. Many articles have been written about how civet coffee/Kopi Luwak is basically like olive oil, in that over 90 percent of the “Kopi Luwak” on the market is actually fake; no cats pooped these coffee berries out. And what is arguably worse, the civets that actually do eat these coffee berries are oftentimes mistreated and force fed coffee berries, similar to what is debated to be done with ducks in order to make fois gras. So the warning of the articles was all the same: when going to Indonesia, stay away from Kopi Luwak.

Maybe I should have researched that more deeply prior to going. But hey, live and learn, right?

The thing about issues like this is that in countries like the U.S., meat eaters get all crazy about eating animals they deem cute and cuddly, like rabbits or whatever arbitrary animal they refuse to eat, but they don’t think about the entire meat processing industry and how poorly animals are treated, given very little space, no room to exercise and live natural lives, forced to eat food that is not normal, and then killed after just a few weeks of life. I’ve seen photos and read quite a bit about how terrible the meat industry is here in the U.S. Do I still eat meat? Yeah. But I don’t turn a blind eye to the practices and pretend that these animals are given glorious short lives whereas animals like civet cats or ducks making fois gras are tortured. It’s all really the same thing. You can take it for what it is and eat what you want, or just remove meat completely from your diet.

A little part of me does try to be a better consumer, though. I try to buy meat, dairy, and eggs that are organic, as I’ve read that it’s more likely these animals will be fed and treated better, not to mention given space to move around outside. It’s hard, though, living in this country where the “laws” are so loosely interpreted, and food companies can just choose bullshit labels like “free range” when they don’t actually mean anything in the real world. The USDA’s definition of “free range,” for example, is that birds must have “outdoor access” or “access to the outdoors.” Well, that doesn’t mean much at all because that could easily mean that the animal have fresh air coming out of a “pop hole,” with zero full body access to the outdoors and no real space requirement. That is like if I said, as a human, “I have access to the outdoors” when what that really meant is that I had to stay in a dark, windowless room all day and all night, but I had a 6-by-6-inch square that was carved into the room to allow me THAT MUCH light and air from the outside. Pretty “free-range,” huh?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie fan girl

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I’m almost done reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book Americanah, and I’m completely in love with her writing, her prose, and her insightful perspectives on race, color, and gender in today’s world. With many books, it takes at least the first 50-200 pages to really get interesting, especially with fiction, but with this book, I was taken immediately from the first page. I also watched both of her TED talks, The Danger of a Single Story, and We Should All Be Feminists. She is clearly a very talented story teller, as both are talks told with personal and heard/learned stories extremely seamlessly and thoughtfully. The Danger of a Single story had me tearing up throughout it. The idea behind it is that if we only ever hear one story of a person, place, or thing, that will fully shape our understanding of it, resulting in ignorance, lack of complete understanding and the full picture of that person/place/thing. The second talk around why we should all be feminists — it seems very straightforward, as “feminist” merely is a person who believes that women and men are equal. Unfortunately, we still live in a society today where people shy away from that label, and even worse, where people, consciously and subconsciously, do not genuinely believe in the equality of the sexes. But as she is a writer, she asks thought-provoking questions and adds different perspectives to really force us to think.

I started doing more research on Chimamanda and reading interviews that she’s given. I’m definitely a true fan girl of hers now. These are some of the things she’s said that I really love:

“I want to say what I think, and it’s lovely to be liked. And I like being liked, but I don’t need to be liked. I think that also sort of has been a thing for me where because of that, I say what I think, for good or bad.”

“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black, and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable. It’s true. I speak from experience.” 
― Americanah

“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are.” 
― We Should All Be Feminists

“Some people ask: “Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?” Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general—but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.” 
― We Should All Be Feminists

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” 

“Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.” 

“If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here’s to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.” 
― Americanah

“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.” 
― We Should All Be Feminists

“The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.” 
―We Should All Be Feminists

“Race doesn’t really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don’t have that choice.” 
― Americanah

“A woman at a certain age who is unmarried, our society teaches her to see it as a deep personal failure. And a man, after a certain age isn’t married, we just think he hasn’t come around to making his pick.” 
― We Should All Be Feminists

Asian vegetables, pre-COVID vs. now

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Having lived in three major metropolitan areas that have a decent sized Asian population, I have been quite spoiled when it comes to having Asian food nearby. I would always read food blogs of writers of Asian descent and how they relocated from a place like New York or California to a place that considered bok choy an exotic vegetable, where getting Indian spices like fenugreek seeds or coriander powder is at least an hour’s drive away; they would have massive nostalgia for being able to have these precious ingredients so close. Why would they relocate from what they loved so much? I always thought to myself.

At Wellesley, whenever I craved Chinese or Vietnamese food, Boston or Cambridge was just a quick 40-minute bus ride away. In San Francisco, you don’t even have to go to Chinatown to get Chinese food, as “mini Chinatowns” popped up in multiple areas, from Clement Street in the Richmond District to Irving, Noriega, and Taraval Streets in the Sunset. Here in New York, Manhattan Chinatown is a quick subway ride away from us; Flushing Chinatown is always a favorite destination of mine, but that leaves out Elmhurst’s budding mini Chinatown, Sunset Park in Brooklyn, and multiple Asian business studded streets of the Bronx. But without going to any of these so-called Chinatown-type areas, East Village, “Curry Hill” (Lexington in the 20s), and Koreatown (32nd Street between Broadway and 5th) are all extremely accessible and provide multiple options for Asian ingredients for home cooking. That doesn’t even include the random Japanese grocery stores that are sprinkled throughout the city.

Now, I have a slightly similar feeling to those relocated food bloggers I used to wonder about. Being in quarantine due to COVID-19 has made me feel more trapped than ever before when it comes to accessing foods and ingredients I want. While we are very lucky and have a full pantry, not to mention a packed fridge and freezer, there are always things I’m going to crave that are not going to be easy to get because Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Morton Williams, or Western Beef is not going to have the right market for Asian vegetables like water spinach/morning glory/kong xin cai, or dou miao/pea shoots. If I’m near the end of my beloved shiitake mushrooms, I can’t just hop on the subway ride down to Chinatown to get another bag of them. When I want to make Chinese taro or radish cake, well…. that just isn’t going to happen unless I can source Chinese radish or taro from a grocer that is willing to do delivery to my zip code. When Chris’s aunt posted on my YouTube channel, saying that she was still waiting for my mapo tofu video, I responded and told her it was nearly impossible to get the correct Sichuanese broad bean paste (pixian bean paste actually made and imported from Sichuan province!) that was needed to make authentic tasting mapo tofu during a time of shelter-in-place, so until I was able to source it, I wouldn’t make it a video for it because it just wouldn’t be right.

Some people probably would think I’m crazy to say that I am craving different vegetables right now because we don’t often associate “cravings” with vegetables. We usually associate it with comfort foods, which are normally carby, bready, meaty, fatty, filling. But I actually am having them now. My biggest craving is definitely for water spinach, as it’s one of my all-time favorite vegetables. I would really love to have yellow chives now. I would love to get my hands on some Thai basil and steam some gai lan / Chinese broccoli. But… these things will have to wait.

Once upon a time, I really was spoiled and super privileged to be able to have any of these above items and more pretty much a quick subway ride away. I felt like I could get nearly anything I wanted whenever I wanted, with the quantity I wanted. Now, that luxury has been taken away, if only temporarily. So when I finally do get my hands on some water spinach, I will hold it like it’s gold and chew it just a few more times to savor it all.

taking time off?

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I was looking at the calendar today and realized that if the COVID-19 pandemic did not hit, in ten days, we would have been leaving for Honolulu to attend our friends’ destination wedding. I had meticulously made a list of restaurants and hole-in-the-wall spots to potentially film food videos at, and we had already booked our flights and hotel months ago. All of that has been cancelled. The food list has been de-prioritized in my bookmarks list for perusal. I ended up cancelling my planned days off for the wedding/Hawaii long weekend.

My manager has been strongly suggesting that we take at least a day or two off in April, just to unwind and not think about work given the pandemic. I’m not even sure I’ve ever done that — taken a day off just to stay in the city and not travel. That feels like a very foreign idea to me, especially since it’s not like I have kids or elderly parents to take care of. What would I do all day — just cook, read, and walk around the block?

Buying dosa batter for the first time

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As someone who has prided herself for making even the most laborious dishes from scratch, I was hesitant to buy dosa batter. I’d made it at least three times in the old apartment, old and wretched with who knows what growths there, and my dosa batter, since the first try, always fermented properly and yielded delicious, sour, crispy dosas. But Chris’s aunt, who took us to an Indian grocery store near her house in December, insisted that every Indian family buys their dosa and idli batter now. “Everyone does it,” she said to me. “Don’t feel bad. We don’t have time to make all this from scratch anymore! We’re too busy!” I looked at a container she pointed at, which she said she bought. I scanned the ingredients list to see what it was made of and was pleasantly surprised to see that no artificial ingredients or preservatives were listed. The only ingredients that should be in dosa/idli batter, which were the only ones listed were these, in this order: water, rice, urad dal, salt, fenugreek seeds.

I thought about it then, and I decided that at some point, when we returned to New York, I’d check Patel Brothers to see if they sold a similarly pure dosa batter and try it out. So the time came, and we added it to our Mirchi Market order this week. It was delivered yesterday, along with a number of other goodies, including my happy mangoes. I left it on the kitchen counter and photographed it for my social media, then left it there while eating dinner. Then, when Chris got up to get something from the kitchen, he returned to the couch to see splatters of white batter everywhere — all over the counter, the back of the couch, and even on the couch cushions! I realized that the batter had come from the dosa batter container. The dosa batter was so bubbly and fermented to the point of developing so much pressure that it popped the container lid off!

Well, I guess that means this batter won’t be a failure after all, and maybe this small trial was worth it.

Three year work anniversary

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Today marks three years that I’ve been working at my current company. In June, I will mark 12 years being employed full time after graduation. It’s strange to think in some ways about how far I’ve come. It’s not as though I’ve aggressively climbed the corporate ladder (I haven’t), but I think more about how green and naive I was when I started 12 years ago, and how jaded and skeptical I am now. Three years ago, I knew very little about the real SaaS world since this was the first real SaaS company I’ve ever worked at. I’ve learned more about the software space, more about how internal politics works (that’s not necessarily a good thing), and more about how fragile work relationships are. You come in thinking you can remain friends with people once they leave, but for so many of us, once you leave a company, you leave behind everyone there, as well. You say you will be friends with these people, but the odds are against you. In the last three years, endless colleagues who I was friendly with have left, and I’ve only genuinely stayed in touch with maybe three of them. That means I’ve stayed in touch with one a year, which is more than I can say for all the other places I’ve worked at.

After all these years working in digital marketing and SaaS, I feel a lot more empathy now, more than ever, for working moms, for stay-at-home moms, and for women in tech who eventually leave the tech world permanently. It’s really hard being a woman in tech, and even harder being a woman of color in tech, because you have no idea how much your last name, your face, your gender, play into whether you are liked or disliked, promoted or given a raise, or pigeon-holed into certain stereotypes and roles. And as a woman of color over the last 12 years, I oftentimes feel misunderstood or betrayed by white women in the workplace. And it’s not like you can openly question it that way because then you’ll be accused of using the “race card or “gender card,” which for really perverse people, they believe that you have a leg up as a Asian or as a woman (because, as Ali Wong once said, that’s always been a winning combination in this world!).

But I do recognize I’m far luckier than so many people I know. And I’m grateful for that. But I do not feel like the tech world is changing at a rate I am comfortable with. It seems more like every day, I have to choose from a crappy situation to a crappier situation, as opposed to a situation that I actually feel is good for me, or good for future women in tech who come long after me.

Yes. This is 2020.

Being “rich”

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Once upon a time, in a land and time far away, the idea of having a million dollars seemed like a big deal, like really really big — so significant that when you finally reached that amount, you could label yourself a millionaire. Wow, I’m a millionaire! Yippee!

That time, at least, for “middle class,” white-collared professionals, particularly ones living in particularly expensive and dense areas such as New York City or the San Francisco Bay Area, has ended. Now, what does a million dollars buy you — a crappy, dilapidated two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, crawling with roaches and full of lead-filled paint? A one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side? Is that what you would consider “rich” today?

It’s a depressing thought. I used to always imagine I’d have a comfortable house, maybe four or five bedrooms, with a huge backyard where I could plant fruit trees, endless flowers, and have a section just for vegetables. When I was young and dreamt of that, the idea of money and building wealth wasn’t top of mind. I didn’t know the real worth of a dollar then. I don’t really want that anymore, but I do still wish I had some outdoor space. Who has that while living in New York City?!

Now, in a time of the Coronavirus pandemic, the idea of “richness” to me has changed in meaning. Now, I think about being rich in terms of food and toilet paper. Tonight, we had a third delivery from Mirchi Market, an Indian/Pakistani grocery delivery service, now a standard delivery for us during this period, and when Chris opened up the boxes, I marveled at all the fresh fruit and vegetables, the dosa batter, even the Indian mixture snacks he got. I especially widened my eyes when he unveiled an entire flat box of 16 beautiful yellow mangoes, fragrant from being nearly ripe.

I was so excited. “We’re rich! We’re rich! Look at all these mangoes!” I exclaimed. We’ve had to store some of the mangoes in our coat closet, and as a result of this, as the days have passed and they’ve slowly ripened, when I open the closet, I am immediately greeted by the floral, sweet perfume of their juices nearly oozing out.

This is what it means to be rich, to have so many gorgeous, delicious, sweet mangoes that you don’t even know where to store them all; to have a freezer so full that you have to hesitate before considering adding yet another frozen item to your shopping cart while at the grocery store; to not make another dish until you have more free space in your fridge. This is what it means to be rich right now.

Central Park bird watching

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Since I was young, I’ve always loved birds, especially since I was a proud owner of a particularly cheeky and smart parakeet. Traveling to different parts of the world, particularly in Southeast Asia, Brazil, and South Africa, was eye-opening in that I finally got to see some of the most colorful birds I’d ever seen before. In South Africa, I remember the moment while on a safari, we saw the bird that Zazoo from The Lion King was named after, the red-billed hornbill; this bird had at least a dozen different colors on its vibrant feathers and was quite the looker!

But without really thinking about it, right here in New York City, a concrete jungle, exists over 270 different bird species that come and go in Central Park. While pigeons, sparrows, and American robins, and blackbirds are common sightings throughout, other lesser known beautiful birds flock all over the park, particularly in the springtime when it is mating season. I didn’t realize at least half a dozen different sparrow species existed, nor did I realize that there are endless swallows all over Central Park. Very briefly, I was able to spot a cute and plump barn swallow, noted for its deep blue coloring all along its back, a white breast, and a reddish-orange throat. I’ve also seen at least four different wild finch species, ranging in brown and white colors to even red, blue, and yellow. And somehow, what they all have in common is that their preening looks top notch, as though they are extremely healthy, and they are all quite plump and fat! What the heck are they all eating?

I’ve also had the time to observe them taking their sand baths to help with their preening and shedding excess oils on their feathers. It’s quite a sight to see them fluff up and bury all parts of their bodies into areas that are quite sandy and dusty. I suppose this is what you miss during the daily hustle and bustle, even when you are taking the occasional stroll through Central Park. You miss moments in nature like these. But I guess now I can appreciate them more during my daily walks there, listening to podcasts and observing others around me, jogging or taking their own casual walks, masks on face.

“Civil liberties”

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I look at the way countries like Taiwan and South Korea have handled COVID-19, and I am constantly in awe at how people in some societies just obey orders they are given, barely question it at all, and stay inside. This type of collectivist mindset, while not great for innovation and producing independent critical thinkers, is extremely productive for global pandemics like the one we are currently facing.

Unfortunately, American dipshits in this country think that these stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are a violation of their civil liberties, of their ability to “live free and die.” An Orthodox Jew recently sued the state of New York for not allowing him to participate in Jewish gatherings, whether that was a wedding that got disbanded or Passover, because it was a violation of his rights as a citizen of this country. Others are going to their state capitol buildings to protest to end the shelter-in-place in their state, saying that these orders are more politically driven than anything. “This is not being done out of need because we’re being overly paranoid about how serious this virus is.” “It’s not that bad.” “Not that many people have died.”

And I’m sure that the people who are saying this either have not gotten the virus, have no loved ones who have gotten the virus or has died from it, nor do they work on the frontlines of these hospitals combatting the virus and treating patients needing ventilators and blood donations. These people are absolute idiots, and the world would truly be better off if they themselves were eradicated.

I understand that this is hurting the economy. Not all of us have the luxury of being able to work from home. Many people are out of work. It’s awful to not be able to put food on the table or not know when you will have health insurance again (yeah, THAT thing, which is its own can of worms). What they are being selfish and ignorant about, though, is that it’s not about caring or not caring whether they catch the virus or not; it’s that they could have the virus and give it to people who are weaker or older than them and have THEM die. COVID-19 is asymptomatic in so many people, so many of us are likely walking around with it and have no idea at all. And it’s not like there’s enough tests to go around just to check to see if we have it. So, the safest thing for all of us to do is to assume we have it and stay inside, away from everyone else, unless absolutely necessary.

So I’m not really sure if I should feel sorry for these people with their ignorance or just hate them. I think I’ve settled with hatred here, though.