On grief: we are strong, we are resilient, and yet ~

tw: violence, sexual violence, gun violence, racism, misogyny, white supremacy

This week has been really difficult. To the families of the victims of Tuesday’s mass shooting that targeted Asian women & sex workers, I am so sorry. To the victims and survivors of sinophobia and elder violence over the last two years and beyond, I am so sorry. This violence is not new, and while it shakes me to my core even to speak of this, I feel compelled to.

The onslaught of violence against people who look like me, who could be my mother, my aunties, my grandparents…it is difficult to reconcile the recognition in the media (finally) with tremendous pain I feel seeing constant reminders of these violent acts. Beyond the surface, these events have also unearthed trauma from years of violence perpetrated by men (white and otherwise) on my community and on me personally. It terrifies me to write publicly after being doxxed by a white man in the past, so please read with a kind and forgiving heart.

To my sisters & nonbinary siblings - who have found themselves grieving privately this week and beyond, I see you. Every time we are fetishized, belittled, spoken over, or worse, threatened, grabbed, spit on, harassed, accosted…raped - we are shown how much less human others see us to be. And if we speak up, we are often met with another round of dehumanization - we are doubted, questioned, interrogated, tone-policed, accused of taking up too much space from “more pressing concerns.” We have been taught that other peoples’ pain is more important than ours.

We are resilient and we learn from each of these moments - it is our survival. So we begin to anticipate our dehumanization - we protect and insulate, we keep doing our work, we keep on surviving. We do not expect others to treat us as humans, and so we shrink, and so we harden.

And when we encounter the rare friend who sees us for who we are, behind the armor, beneath the rubble, we hold on so tight. Like our lives depend on it - because they do. For too long we have only been able to rely on ourselves - sometimes not asking for help, sometimes not receiving it. Here we are. We are strong, we are resilient, and yet, we are soft, needy - human. Both can be true.

To the rare friends who see me for who I am - thank you. I am relying on you to keep believing women & non-binary folx. To keep speaking up when it’s easy for you and hard for others - but do your work to learn from the activists, advocates, scholars, artists who have done a lifetime of learning already. Please continue to do what you can to dismantle white supremacy & misogyny - daily.

A closet full of unopened presents: Reflections from a chronic and recovering overachiever

As we come up on a year of quarantine in Los Angeles - and a full year since I put in notice at my old ~corporate~ job / career - I find myself reflecting often on what the passing of time has meant in my life. As a chronic & recovering overachiever, I have spent a lot of my life manufacturing deadlines, goals, milestones: neat little packages of achievement that have doubled as a quick way to assess my self-worth.

Imagine a closet full of unopened presents - stacked neatly, yet precarious. For a long time, everyday I would think to myself - what is missing from my beautiful closet? What do I need next? What will make people say - WOW, now that's an impressive closet!!! As if there was the perfect little package out there that would make it all worth it. As if looking outward would make me feel whole.

And it wasn't enough to simply accrue the packages - I had to have them NOW. Yesterday, in fact. It wasn't just about the contents of the closet. It was about how quickly I could assemble them - how impressive a list I could accrue for a young woman my age. Time was simply another way of measuring my worth.

Though this may seem bleak, I had really convinced myself collecting achievements was my superpower. That gathering wrapping paper, the right box, a beautiful bow (e.g. all the learning, the setbacks, the discovery) was what life was about. Doing it quickly simply allowed me to do MORE. There was really nothing like arriving at the final product - that championship, test score, nomination, job offer or promotion. For an actor - getting the audition, callback, booking....applause.

I'd be lying if I said I don't still yearn for these achievements, these little packages, these moments of external validation stacked up in my closet. What I am beginning understand, however, is this: inside these little, unopened packages live big, powerful gifts. Gifts I have been collecting for years, gathering dust in my proverbial closet.

This past year has gifted me the opportunity to shut out some of the external - placed very real limits on, say, what wrapping paper & cardboard boxes are available to my person. I have, instead, been given the time to look inward - to dig through what I already have - what lives in my closet. As I discover & unearth the gifts I have tucked away in the past, I also see that many of them no longer hold meaning. What once could have been a very precious possession, now, five, ten years later, is but a trinket.

I meet you today with two commitments:

1) to let go of those trinkets (and their associated packaging) that no longer serve me

2) as I bring new packages into my home, I vow to open them immediately. to enjoy the gifts now and let them affect my soul. then, and only then, will I make room for the next

TheHomeCookTravels: Shrimp, Chicken & Celery Dumplings!

Been missing your favorite dim sum and dumplings from your local neighborhood Chinese restaurant while under quarantine? Learn how to make my classic recipe this weekend, and you'll have amazing dumplings at the ready for months to come.

Follow me on @thehomecooktravels on Instagram for more play-by-plays and recipes! Tag me in your stories and posts if you've tried this recipe!

Note: I adapted this from the Pork and Cabbage Potsticker recipe from Lisa Lin (who you should follow!)