Beauty and the Beast back story

Posted on by
Reply

Like most people, as a child I loved Disney movies; I still do today. But as an adult, I am fully cognizant of all the negative stereotypes that are perpetuated by them (e.g. gender and race stereotypes, massive favoritism for people of European descent). I loved the music and oftentimes sang along with the songs. My favorite Disney movies were Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and Aladdin. Beauty and the Beast was a particular favorite for me because Belle, the main female character, was a bit of an eccentric, a total bookworm who obsessed over endless books and libraries and wanted more out of life than her “poor provincial town.” I loved reading when I was young (as I still do), so I immediately identified with her.

After the latest remastering and release of Beauty and the Beast on Blu-Ray, several articles have come out on it, particularly regarding the history of the main lyricist who worked on the songs for the movie, Howard Ashman. I had read a lot about Alan Menken, the composer who worked on Disney movies, but nothing about Ashman until today. This is when I found out that Ashman was a gay man who was dying from AIDS as he worked on Beauty and the Beast, and he died eight months before the movie was completed. He contributed a lot of very rich ideas to the movie; it was his idea to staff the Beast’s enchanted castle with sentient appliances that had once been human. These objects all felt alien in their object/appliance bodies, completely dehumanized. I’d imagine that’s what Ashman felt as he was writing the lyrics for these songs while dying. Ashman also loved to cook, and so he expressed his love for cooking and culinary rhyme with the song “Be Our Guest.” He worked until his death from his gay-friendly hospital via a phone patch to communicate changes to recordings and emphases on certain words or enunciations in songs, all of which were honored.

These beautiful songs and movies I enjoyed as a child have such a rich back story that I’d only be able to fully appreciate learning as an adult. Beauty and the Beast is more tragically beautiful than I ever thought before.

 

 

Oolong tea

Posted on by
Reply

I love meeting people who love to eat, who are happy to try new things, and don’t have a laundry list of things they either don’t eat or categories of food they are avoiding (e.g. gluten-free, dairy-free, blah blah). That’s why for the last three years, when my good friend has held his Upwardly Global Silk Road of Queens food tour as a fundraiser for his non profit organization, I’ve been happy to attend. I love trying new food in the borough I once called home, and I like meeting new people and talking about food with them. Unfortunately this year, we had the smallest turn out, but it just made for a more intimate session together.

At the last stop on the food tour, we ended at Fu Run, this delicious Xinjiang-Chinese style restaurant that we actually went to last year. They are known for their incredible Muslim-style cumin lamb chops, as well as their sticky taro and sweet potato desserts. My friend didn’t originally intend for any repeats as that’s not what he likes to do, but he wanted to end with some unique dessert, and the Chinese bakeries weren’t really going to cut it for a sit-down treatment. The conversations and food were enjoyable throughout our afternoon together, but I was caught off guard when almost everyone on the tour started raving about the tea that was served.

I was raised drinking Chinese tea, and all types — basic oolong, chrysanthemum, green tea of five hundred varieties, Taiwanese oolong. You name it, and I’ve had it. But today’s tea was nothing special. It was just very basic, cheap oolong-in-a-teapot-bag fare, and it was slightly comical to me that my dining mates were all going crazy over the tea.

“What kind of tea is this?” One woman said, glowing. “This is phenomenal tea, and it’s free!”

“You can’t get this kind of tea at a regular grocery store,” another guy said. “When you buy black tea at the store, it never tastes like this!”

“It’s just basic oolong tea,” I responded. “You can get it at an Asian grocery store easily. This oolong is fairly generic. This is the typical tea they serve at any Chinese place.”

They all got excited, and one said he may try to check it out the next time he visits a Chinese grocery store. I get that most people who are not Asian don’t shop at Asian grocery stores; Asians even in Manhattan, unless they live close to Chinatown, rarely will go out of their way to visit Manhattan Chinatown because Manhattan living is all about convenience — going to the bodega down the block from you, the grocery store less than five minutes away, or getting dinner delivery. But what I do wonder is — does a food tour like this actually make you seek out this food that you’re not familiar with once the tour is over? Will you actually visit that Chinese grocery store like you said and buy that oolong tea that you found so interesting? Would you actually come to Flushing on your own and enter a restaurant where they speak only broken English?

The Trial of an American President

Posted on by
Reply

Tonight, Chris and I went to see The Trial of an American President, a play detailing the hypothetical trial of former President George W. Bush being charged with war crimes surrounding starting the Iraq War, which we now know was a complete waste of time and money, needlessly killing hundreds of thousands of American and Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi civilians. A number of real victims of the war who survived detail everything from the harsh realities of “waterboarding” to the horrifying treatment of prisoners held without legitimate reason at Guantanamo Bay. This play just made me feel even more angry about politics today. So many people would want an actual trial like this to happen, but it never will.

The play actually reminded me of how ridiculous all the anti-Hillary or “Killary” people are, saying she needs to be “locked up” for everything from her 30,000 missing emails to the four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador, who died during the Benghazi attacks in Libya in 2012. Why are these people making such a big fuss about e-mails of all things to the deaths of four Americans when George W. Bush caused the deaths of literally hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis in a war that was completely fruitless? He says he consulted with God frequently when deciding on the war. I love it when conservatives try to say that God gave them some direct message about the stupid decisions they make. It’s really amazing how people turn a blind eye on the things they don’t care about or think is important and zoom in on and scrutinize what really either isn’t important or has already been resolved.

 

 

Political passion

Posted on by
Reply

I understand why so many people would be apathetic to politics, want to ignore current events, and believe that their vote doesn’t matter. I don’t agree with it, but I get why people turn away from it. As someone who has been feeling things a lot more deeply in the last three years, I feel more stress when reading the news, when I hear of places in the Middle East being bombed, innocent people trying to find new homes in countries that don’t want them, including my own home country. I am angered by the corruption in politics, as completely exaggerated in House of Cards (obviously fiction, but I’m sure a lot of the stupid negotiations for votes on certain bills and others have to do with politicians just wanting to keep their seats in the next election), and made painfully real in the leaks of the Democrats led by DWS pitting the Democratic party against Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton. As a registered Democrat, I am frustrated, upset, and rightly embarrassed by it.

But I still think as people who are citizens and/or residents of this nation, we have a duty to inform ourselves of the facts, of what’s really happening in today’s world so that we can contribute to making the world the place we want it to be, a world in which we would be happy to raise children and leave behind for future generations. We have a duty to not only be informed, but vote and make our voices heard. And when I sometimes get so mad by the corruption and all the violence, racism, and sexism that still persist in the world that I want to stop reading the news, I am quickly reminded that there’s a reason we do all this. And I hear speeches like this one by Michelle Obama that inspire me and make me feel strength and purpose, and fill my eyes with tears because of the passion she exudes. She makes evident her love for this country and for the people of this nation and the world. I honestly have never felt any other political speech more deeply than the ones given by Michelle Obama. The first one was her speech at the Democratic National Convention this past July, and now, it’s this one in Manchester this past Monday. She’s an inspiration, similar to how I felt when I used to hear Hillary Clinton give speeches as First Lady back in the 1990s. I barely knew anything about politics back then, but I knew that Hillary was a strong, fierce woman, someone who was unprecedented in her actions and passion as FLOTUS. We need strong, stubborn, fierce women in leadership positions who have a “take no bullshit” attitude. I’m looking forward to seeing what Michelle Obama does after she leaves the White House with Barack Obama, and I’m also still hoping that America won’t prove to be as stupid as Bill Maher and Michael Moore keep saying, and will vote against the pro-sexual assault orange man.

Visiting relatives

Posted on by
Reply

Tonight, Chris and I had dinner at a modern Korean restaurant with his mom’s cousin and her husband visiting from Toronto. They’re currently in town for a medical conference that the cousin’s husband is attending, and so of course since they’re here, they wanted to catch up with us and check out a few lovely restaurants that this city has to offer. We had the usual discussion of things like what they were planning to do outside the conference, recent travels, Chris’s parents (including Chris’s dad’s disgust of using his hands to eat), and reflecting on our wedding back in March.

Every time I sit at the table with Chris’s relatives, particularly the relatives in the generation before us, I always wonder why they are so freaking normal. It’s as though I am subconsciously (or maybe even consciously) waiting for a moment when I can think, “aha! There’s a hint of dysfunction! Gotcha!” But it never seems to come. They seem like normal, optimistic, ambitious, hard working people, people who love life and their families and their friends, people who trust that the world is actually a good place and that their neighbor or neighbor’s neighbor is inherently good. We can have normal conversations about everyday things. I can’t even do that with my own cousins (at least, the three of my dad’s oldest brother); it always feels so forced and fake even when I try.

God, I love these people. They should visit more often.

Rolling pandas

Posted on by
Reply

Rolling pandas. Parrots perched on the shoulders of dogs without dogs knowing. Corgi dogs who get excited and yelp like crazy when they see their reflections in a mirror. Then there’s this recent video that’s gone viral of a kiwi girl having her very first taste of ice cream and completely lapping it up — a new experience, the first time enjoying sweet plus icy cold. These videos across YouTube and other forms of social media have millions, if not billions of views. The people who are a bit cynical and pessimistic think it’s all a waste of time and eye balls put to poor use. They think that everyone should be more serious and read real news and get with the current events.

I’d beg to differ. I don’t think that watching videos of rolling pandas shows that we don’t take life seriously or pay attention to current events or the disgusting and divisive state of our politics in this country. It’s not either / or; what about having and doing both? I think that this can all be enjoyed alongside being well-informed citizens. I love watching those panda videos; I’ll admit it. I don’t watch them every day or every month, but when they come up in my Facebook feed or on YouTube, why not? It’s a much needed light and fun break from a world today that is filled with so many problems, so much anger, and a political climate that literally is having me and so many colleagues and friends experiencing anxiety. It’s tiring and frustrating to see Trump’s face and the word “Killary” all over the news and social media every single day.

Chinese food in America

Posted on by
Reply

I finally started reading a book that’s been on my reading list for a long time called Fortune Cookie Chronicles. The book delves into the history of Chinese food in America, spanning all the way back to the 1850s when Chinese from Toisan (ya, aka Taishan, which is my paternal side’s region of origin) were trying to come to America in herds, looking for gold, riches, and opportunity. The book does a pretty good history lesson when reviewing newspaper articles and magazine publications at the time, denouncing these “strange” looking Chinese people with their even stranger and disgusting food.

Reading the quotes from these old articles in the mid to late 1800s, I couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of anger and disdain for the ignorant mindsets of local, predominantly white people of European descent at the time. They really believed that their boring baked potatoes and pot roasts were the true, civilized sustenance, and anything that had spice or was stir-fried (so novel at the time!) was filthy, made of chopped up rats, or encouraged promiscuity. Today, Chinese food is far more embraced by non-Chinese people, whether it’s for the “authentic” Chinese food I know and am still getting to know (I truly don’t think anyone on this earth, even those who live in China and travel all over China, will ever know ALL there is to know about Chinese food given how ridiculously diverse it is depending on the region you’re in), or for the generic Americanized dishes like General Tso’s chicken or stir-fried beef and broccoli. I still get frustrated when I hear people say that they don’t like Chinese food or Asian food because chances are that they haven’t had the “real thing,” or a true representation of how great the cuisine can be. But then I think, it’s really not all that bad. Ignorance will never fully be eliminated. And it just means I should appreciate people more who do appreciate cuisines that are different to what they grew up with and are used to eating.

Wellesley alum admissions interview

Posted on by
Reply

Tonight after work, I went to meet a prospective Wellesley student at a cafe near my apartment. And like I have been in the past, I was blown away by this girl’s intellectual curiosity, how she was able to link her philosophy summer sessions’s learning to the last two presidential debates, and how she’s at a history-focused magnet high school, yet is planning to pursue a STEM degree in college. What did she do the last few summers? She’s studied computer science at UC Santa Barbara, philosophy at Columbia, and been designing a choreography with her younger brother for the Hamilton musical. For the two summer programs at two different universities, she found these programs herself, applied, and got in. All I have to say is… Doing activities like that over my summer breaks in high school never even crossed my mind (and who would have funded these excursions? My parents would have laughed in my face). And I thought I was being ambitious by volunteering at an Alzheimer’s center. Nope. I never cease to be amazed each time I meet one of these “prospies” as we affectionately call them, and see how more and more driven, ambitious, and successful they already are at such a young age.

Presidential debate #2

Posted on by
Reply

I think that like other women who are following the presidential race this year, I am filled with anxiety, and these presidential debates are only fueling that anxiety for me. The more I see how incompetent and unfit for president Donald Trump is, the more I feel fear for the future (this is when it would be helpful to channel Tony Robbins and be FEARLESS). It’s not even just about the notion of him becoming president; it’s that even if he loses, which we hope will happen, that his getting this far as a candidate and winning the Republican party’s presidential nomination will fuel this developing and growing group of people across this country full of bigoted, racist, sexist beliefs, people who choose to see conspiracy theories as “facts” and cannot even tell what fact is from fiction. Then, it will be the rise of the next Nazi party in modern day Divided States of America.

I don’t claim to be an expert of history, nor would I ever try to give anyone a proper U.S. history lesson. But one thing that really stood out to me in showing how little Trump knows about how laws work in the U.S. is when he accused Hillary of doing nothing as a New York senator, that she didn’t change any of the laws. No, Moron, she cannot single-handedly pass any law as a junior senator in New York State. That’s not how it works. I at least know THAT.

Someone please needs to make all this stop. I feel so embarrassed for this country and even the Republican party every time I hear this guy speak.

Fearless

Posted on by
Reply

It was a rainy, miserable day outside today, so other than seeing a show down in Astor Place early in the evening, Chris and I stayed home most of the day, cooking, cleaning, eating, and watching Tony Robbins speak at the Dream Force conference. I never really knew much about Tony Robbins other than the fact that he was a very successful and wealthy motivational speaker, but today while streaming his talk that happened earlier in the week in San Francisco, I realized why he had been so successful at his job. Despite all the setbacks he’s faced in life, the negligent father, the abusive and drunken mother, the health episodes he’s had, he still keeps going and uses all of his life adversities to motivate his next steps in helping the entire world. He doesn’t have any self pity. He doesn’t have a single fear, he said. And based on the way he delivered his talk and the way he’s lived his life, I actually don’t doubt his sincerity at all.

The strongest people will never have self pity or self loathing for a long period of time. They might mourn the loss of a loved one, be frustrated temporarily by losing a job or having some inconvenient life event happen. But the strongest of the strong will see all these “setbacks” as motivators to do better moving forward, and the best will help others with their knowledge and experience. As sad as it was, I thought about my cousin in Brooklyn a little when watching Tony Robbins speak, thinking of his dysfunctional marriage and his young son celebrating his fourth birthday this afternoon. He will never be strong because all he thinks is “poor me” for every possible reason in the universe. People can only be positively affected by someone like Tony Robbins who are open to change and open to leading happier, more productive lives. Tony Robbins said tonight that most of our disappointments in life could be solved by replacing our “expectations with appreciation,” and I realized how true it was. The more we expect of others, the worse we will be and the more upset we will get because no one in the universe will ever meet *all* of our expectations. But when people in our lives end up doing things that we love that make us happy either for ourselves or for them, if we appreciated it and expressed that appreciation and gratitude more, we’d be so much happier and more fulfilled. I never thought about it that way, but it’s so true and resonates through my life and even my own parents’. So many people in my life could benefit from Tony Robbins’s teachings, but they would be deaf to hear him speak.