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Tap tap tap
My grandpa loved his typewriter. He used it to tap out notes to his children, share thoughts with his US immigration lawyer and conduct church business. Luckily for me, he preserved all his correspondence using carbon copies. Even better, he wrote in English so that his ABC granddaughter could read his letters a century after…
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Growing Season
Spring is the season for all things green and, in my case, grandiose gardening plans. This weekend, I bought 40 packs of seeds. Now the question is: will I execute this time? It feels like ages since the last time I had my fingers in the mud. Our trip around the world in 2019-2020 was…
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Montebello
Montebello, California: once upon a time the home to Franciscan monks intent on Christianizing the local Indians. From ranchos to citrus farms to oil fields, Montebello is a microcosm of how Los Angeles developed. Even William Mulholland, the infamous water developer, had a hand in naming my hometown after its beautiful hills. Our hill In…
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Sexy
Long ago, when I was young and sexy, guys would come on to me by confessing that they had a thing for Asian women. These guys were never Asian themselves. They were mostly white. They did not come from communities of color. To them, Asian women were exotic, exciting and, yes, inscrutable. I would of…
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The 36 stratagems
The 36 Stratagems is an ancient Chinese text. Like Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, it is a guide on military tactics. The 36 Strategems teaches us that deception is how to win a war. Supposedly, anyone in China (or raised in a Chinese household) would know this. Chinese children learn the 36 Stratagems the…
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Auntie May
Auntie May was born in 1919 to the eldest son of a pearl merchant. The family home was close to Tai Lake in Zhejiang Province. Auntie May’s life was molded by an extraordinary period in Chinese history: the final death throes of the Qing dynasty, the rise of Shanghai as the Paris of the East…
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The House Walsh Built
David Walsh is a gambler. He has a savant-like ability to count cards. For a while, that gift enabled Walsh to amass a fortune. Some of that money he’s spent on living large. The rest he’s plowed into buying art, a lot of art, so much art that Walsh had to build a special purpose…
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Mosaic
Lyric essay is a hybrid creature. It has the legs of memoir, the musculature of a polemic and the wings of poetry. Make it the way you would a mosaic out of fragments, shiny shards of memory and bits of string. Use a lyric essay to make an argument without ever stating your point or…
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I’m sorry I have to show you the next video
On February 1, 2002, jihadists filmed the beheading of US journalist Daniel Pearl. The film was black and white and grainy. Upon its release, the video went viral. Not since the days of the Greeks and Romans, had so many members of the public chosen to view a beheading. I couldn’t understand why anyone would.…
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Oh god
The god I grew up with was the Catholic God: all-knowing, all-powerful, fierce in his retribution and tender in his forgiveness. The gods I spend my time with these days are a whole other ball of wax. Petty, self-indulgent, more interested in a game of mahjong than the plight of mere mortals. Meet the Chinese…