Tonight, we finally went to see Hamilton the musical. While it would have been ideal to have seen it when Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator/song-writer, was in it, that ship had unfortunately sailed years ago, but tonight’s performance did not disappoint. I will say that I did read up on Hamilton and his history and legacy prior to watching the musical, and I feel like if I hadn’t, some of the topics/songs being sung would not have made as much sense to me if I had not had this prior knowledge. Plus, it can be difficult to rely on songs and raps that go so quickly for all the bits of information unless you either do pre-reading or pre-listening to the songs. Now, I understand why so many people I know listened to the soundtrack over and over before actually going to see the musical. It all makes sense now!

But now that we’ve finished watching the musical, it’s truly amazing 1) how diverse the cast was (purposely done this way by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and 2) how high energy the entire production was; it was as though there was no calm, no real break in dancing/high energy singing to be had. Lin-Manuel Miranda was quoted saying that he made the cast diverse to really highlight what Hamilton was all about as an immigrant himself from the West Indies. And if you want to highlight that, what better way to do that than to show people of different colors and backgrounds on the set of the show? It’s most definitely one of the most notable Broadway shows I’ve ever seen — the rap and music made it so, so unique and different from anything else I’ve seen before.

This is one of those soundtracks that I’ll likely be listening to over and over again on Spotify, similar to how after I saw Phantom of the Opera, I listened to the soundtrack for months and months after. Seeing the musical has also made me want to learn more about Eliza Hamilton, who was Alexander Hamilton’s wife. She sounds like a force to be reckoned with.

Tonight, we went to Carolines on Broadway to see a comedy show by Hari Kondabolu. I actually didn’t know who he was before tonight, as Chris had booked the show. Last year, we saw a number of comedians from lesser represented backgrounds and geographies featured on Netflix, and it actually widened my understanding of what the comedy scene was like globally. For the most part in the U.S., comedy has been dominated by (surprise surprise) white males… with the occasional black male like Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock. Even white female comedians are lesser known, and of the ones who are known like Amy Sedaris, they tend to have smaller audiences. In recent years, we’ve had more people of color represented, such as Trevor Noah, Hasan Minhaj, Ronny Chieng, and even Ali Wong, who I’ve really enjoyed and appreciated not only as an Asian American female, but also as someone who was born and raised in San Francisco. It’s been a refreshing mix not just in terms of ethnicity, but also the actual topics that are being discussed.

Hari Kondabolu is ethnically Indian but born and raised in Flushing, New York. Of course, given his upbringing, race and ethnicity are big topics for his shows, as well as identity, inequality, immigration, and politics. (It is always laugh-out-loud funny when Indian people poke fun at white fragility). But sometimes it’s the little things that people joke about that somehow stand out to me, the things you never even think are worth discussing but come out in comedy. He joked about the shape of Q-tips, for example, and how ridiculous it is that doctors always warn you not to put them in your ear because you could push ear wax deeper into your ear canal and thus cause a blockage… well, if that’s the case, then why would you make it so that it just perfectly shapes the ear canal, then?!

That is so true.. and something I have personally wondered to myself…!

I thought I was having a pretty productive today on my day off. Since I get Martin Luther King, Jr., Day off from work every year, it’s always been one of those quiet days when I can wake up leisurely, have an extra long workout, go around the city, run errands, and spend time during the day with friends I’d normally never seeing during the weekday daylight hours. I worked out, cooked and cleaned, and headed down to Chinatown to pick up a handful of items in preparation for some Chinese New Year foods I want to make this year. I thought it would be relatively quiet since it would be a weekday and a lot of people would be at work… and then I was proven wrong almost immediately. The subway cars were full getting on and off at Grand Street along the B train. When I got to Hong Kong Supermarket, it was as though it was totally mobbed by people of all ages, not just the grandmas and the great-grandmas of the world. The surrounding areas were decked out in Year of the Rat signage and other red good luck Chinese signs and lanterns. The lines in the supermarket were so out of control that they had to open registers in areas that I’d never even seen registers before! I can’t remember ever waiting in line that long at this market.

I also stopped by my favorite Vietnamese market, where they had several freshly made varieties of banh chung, or Vietnamese steamed sticky rice tamales for the Tet Lunar New Year. They had the sweet ones filled with ripe banana as well as my favorite mung bean and pork belly ones in multiple shapes and sizes, so I picked up the savory one to bring home and steam. For some reason, I felt so embarrassed when the man selling them tried to address me in Vietnamese, describing the fillings to me, but I could only half understand what he was saying and had to respond back in English. “You aren’t Vietnamese?” he asked me in English. “Well… I am, but I can’t speak it,” I responded sheepishly. Well, at least I know what the food actually is! These are the moments when my level of “Asianness” is always in question, both internally and externally.

This brief exchange suddenly reminded me of a friend I made while I was in Shanghai over 13 years ago; her name was Dong Mei (the literal meaning of her name in English is “winter plum”). We met at the university where she was studying, where I had my exchange program for a month. We became friends because I was randomly interviewing locals on campus, and she took a liking to me, and we started hanging out regularly. I complimented her on the shirt she was wearing; within two days, she showed up at my room with a similar shirt in a different color! I told her at the time that although I had just started learning Mandarin and the actual Chinese written language just a year before that I felt at home in Shanghai. I couldn’t really explain it at the time, I said, and my Mandarin wasn’t anywhere near proficient, but I felt very comfortable. It was just a feeling I had. She responded to me, “Well, of course you feel comfortable here. You are Chinese in China. It doesn’t matter if you were born in England, the United States, or anywhere in Europe. You can be born any place, but your face is Chinese. You look in the mirror, and you will always have a Chinese face staring back at you. The blood in your veins is Chinese. The blood running through my veins and everyone else’s veins here is Chinese. That is why you feel at home here.”

I always remember that conversation for some reason. Is that really why I would feel “comfortable” — because of racial homogeneity around me? Or is it the fact that the cultural “norms” that I have more or less followed around foods, ethnic traditions, just stand as they are and warrant zero explanation to anyone, because everyone there just “gets it” — it is literally just part of their DNA? Because in moments like with the banh chung seller, I didn’t really feel “at home” — if anything, I suddenly felt foreign with someone who looks just like me. Am I an outsider to him because I don’t speak the same language as him, or does he just get me because at least we eat the same foods and look the same?

It is always said that you “get what you pay for,” and that is usually the case especially with things like technology. Almost a year ago, I purchased my microphone for cooking videos and travel vlogging, and for the most part, it’s held up pretty well. But today, while going over footage shot in a windy outdoor market in Amsterdam, I started realizing the limits of this $50 microphone. It picked up more of the wind than my voice, and I’m hesitant to even use this specific footage because.. what’s the point if you cannot hear what I am saying? I might as well put music over it and add in subtitles, and I’m not totally sure I want to do that.

So I started researching other higher quality microphones that other vloggers use. Some are clip-on; the majority of higher end mics allow you to test and see what the sound is like while you are recording; that way, no time is wasted and no waiting period to see whether your sound quality is passable or good. But the one that really won, hands down, was a lapel mic that could capture your voice, crystal-clear with nothing else, no interference, even in the loudest wind tunnel on the top of a mountain. How much does this microphone cost? $700!!!

I’m not vlogging at a level where I’ve worked hard enough to deserve a mic that costs that much money. Maybe when I have hundreds of thousands of subscribers or am getting sponsored posts, I can do that, but until then, this $50 mic is going to have to do its thing. I need to start setting goals for subscribers, and once I reach those, I can “reward” myself with new or upgraded equipment.