Being Mature

[Erased. I recant.]
I reread this post today and was embarrassed of it. I know I am better than this.

Stay classy. :)

A Grand Day

I spent a really awesome Saturday at my grandparents' place, and sat with my 96 year old grandmother for a long talk. We discussed everything, from the daily mundane stuff (how she hates to eat fruit) to a heart-to-heart on life (see below). She dispensed advise that seems quite obvious, but when you've been survived wars, been orphaned, seen your children die, dealt with a stodgy stingy old husband for 75 years, settled in a foreign country, and have seen the world change so much... I will respect everything that you have to say. I will not brush off her opinions as old-fashioned, in fact they are distilled from a culmination of all those life experiences. My grandmother is a very modern lady of her time. She finished high school on scholarships, worked in Shanghai in a bank away from her Jiangxi village, dated and picked her own husband, raised 7 children by herself, got her college degree at age 70, is a highly accomplished artist. Feisty, independent, free-thinking, if she were born in this day and age then I really believe there is no limit as to what she could accomplish.

- 你要記得永遠要看得開，可以讓就讓。
- 不要把錢看成很重要，夠用就好了。
- 你找的男人一定要老實，這基本上就好了。（我：哪有那麼容易！）
- 每件事情要成的話就要有天時地利人和，不能勉強的。
- 一定要快點買房子。（我：呵呵，但我沒有錢？）

She held my hand while saying all this, I savored her warm and firm grip.
We also had a really funny chat with Andrew that I recorded on my phone. It has a hilarious moment when we eat an unripe persimmon together and all unceremoniously spit it out. I'll put it up on my blog one day, it's a gem. :)

My grandfather asked me whether he would actually live to 100. He is 99, and his birthday is in May 2013. I said "Of course, and I'm flying back to celebrate with you!". But he asked so bluntly that I almost choked, and my answer was of course, uncertain. I don't know whether he asked me because he wanted reassurance, or whether he asked to ready my expectations. Knowing that this is a question that he thinks about really broke my heart. How do you face death? And how do you celebrate life at that age? And can I imagine life without him? Or that the loved ones I have beside me will one day leave me? I've been blessed to everyone whom I care about be by my side still, and I wish I could freeze moments like these forever. Just typing this out and knowing that it's impossible makes me want to cry.

Hail Mary!

Uh oh... only ONE WEEK before the 2012 Shanghai Marathon.

I am only doing the halfie, but still so so so screwed. :(

I've been doing a bit of Hail Mary "training" in Queens right now -- at this point my goal is just to finish the race without blowing out a (or both) knee(s) and/or collapsing a (or both) lung(s). I have not properly trained at all, and in fact have gained 5 lbs since landing in New York. Go me! :D I signed up 2 months ago with my friends Vivi and Amy because we thought it would be fun to set a physically challenging goal, and also be able to run around the entirety of Shanghai without fear of getting flattened by crazy Chinese drivers. I am still super excited about the race despite my full realization that I am not in tiptop shape. It'll be nice to say that I've "done it", like a notch on my headboard (fuck yea). 

Running in Forest Park is a such a luxury, I truly love this place. It's just across the street from my Mom's apartment, and I'd run here almost everyday if I lived here (but I pray that will never happen). I used to hate running until around a year and a half ago when I started training for the Great Wall Half-Marathon. At that time I was struggling with a lot of issues, and running helped me maintain my sanity -- being alone in nature makes you realize how insignificant most of our "problems" are. First world problems melt away quickly when you feel small and in sync with the bigger picture. Plus, running is therapeutic because it lets your mind relax as your body works hard. I always feel mentally refreshed after a challenging run.

I'd pick deciduous forests over soggy tropical rainforests any day. I felt like Pocahontas with all the incredible flecks of colors whirling around and the leaves crunching under my feet. I'd whip my hair around  in the wind if it were actually long enough. ;) And the air! THE AIR IS SO BRISK AND CLEAN. I don't think I ever appreciated clean air until living in China, but wow the difference is incredible... I'm never taking this stuff for granted again. 

Mom exercising with me... walking backwards around the track. 

We shouldn't be surprised that old Chinese people do the same strange things all around the world.

WAH!

.... to be continued. Pant pant pant...

Happy Thanksgiving!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING  from Kew Gardens, New York! Here is Mom's famous itsy bitsy turkey. It is THE best. :) She invited her friend 小汝阿姨 and her family of young strapping men to join our feast -- it was nice to have all these extra stomachs take care of all of our food. 

Ta-da ~!

媽媽，妳太可愛了吧？！

Thanksgiving Strategy #1: Offer to carve the turkey so you can snatch up the best bits. ;)

Chinese style Thanksgiving!

You can tell based off the proportion of greens vs. protein.

Hallo brudder!

Btw I just found out today that this kid weighs 5 lbs less than me. Sads.

Okay, sleepytime.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat...

Gently down the stream.... :)

This is the story of five girlfriends in Zhouzhuang (周莊), the "Venice of China".

Two weekends ago, Jess came up with the idea to drive to Zhouzhuang, which is a "water town" (水鄉 shui3xiang1) near Suzhou and just 1.5 hours away from Shanghai. Zhouzhuang is a very famous "AAAAA Grade" tourist attraction that is known for its maze of canals, which wind through this rustic and quaint little town. Our friend Lu was in Shanghai on a business trip and we all haven't seen each other in quite some time, so we all said why not?! It was something new and much more fun than catching up over the usual mani/pedi session, hahaha. 

Quite honestly I wasn't expecting Zhouzhuang to be that nice since most tourist areas in China are horribly jam-packed with people on the weekends (straight from a claustrophobic's worst nightmare)... but boy was I in for a pleasant surprise! The weather had turned slightly chilly and it had rained the day before, so we had most of the town to ourselves. Let your imagination run wild jumping across the rooftops like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon... :) 我想成為小飛俠！

四位又美麗又厲害的姑娘。

Karen, Lu, Jess, and Tina.

Zhouzhuang is famous for its 蹄髈 (ti2pang2) dish, which is pig hooves. Sounds gross, but you're not eating the pads, instead mostly the calves/ankles. It's packed with flavor and simply divine when paired with a nice fluffy bowl of white rice. It's also supposedly good for your skin b/c of the gelatin, so Chinese women are especially wiling to gobble it down to achieve boingboing skin texture.

Local handmade sweets.

I brought a bunch of the sesame candies (the ones in the pan) back home for my Mom. Back in the day they didn't have Sour Patch Kids or M&Ms or ice cream... I don't know if I would have been such a sweet tooth if I were born in that era. :p Not the biggest fan of ol skool Chinese candies.

Everyone loves babies!

Zhouzhuang and the surrounding water towns were traditionally fishing villages before they became commercialized for tourism. We were told that entire households used to live, sleep, and work on their boats, the same size as the ones that brought us through the canal tours. Yikes, that sounds like a hard knock life. I can understand why they appreciated Communist government intervention.

Then of course we had to go a canal tour, which was FABULOUS. The town is so beautiful and it's quite romantic to be floating down the stream flanked by rows of adorable houses, ducking in and out of mini stone bridges that have stood for hundreds of years. We also asked our lady boat captain to sing us several folksongs. LIKE.

And what boat trip would be complete if the Pirate Captain were not at the helm? ;)

I am so giddy here, such a dork.

Ok Jess you can try too.

I do need to train a First Mate. HAHA.

OK, I'm totally on Team Jess if we have another Cultural Revolution.

Costco-sized rice wine (黃酒 huang2jiu3).

SO YUMMY. I bought a jar back for Gramps, hope he likes it as much as I do. I'd trade rice wine for ol skool Chinese candies any day.

Since we were already out in Jiangsu Province, we drove out to Yangcheng Lake (陽澄湖) to feast on hairy crabs (大閘蟹 da4zha2xie4)! Okay so you're thinking -- what the hell are hairy crabs. The name is self-explanatory -- they're crabs that have these weird little tufts of hair on their claws. And just so you know, hairy crabs are a pretty fuckin big deal in China. People here go nuts over them, like they probably demolish millions of hairy crab each season (around October). One of my friends even ate 23 of them in one sitting, but had to be sent to the hospital shortly after. That's what I mean, it's a crustacean craze because apparently their meat is sweet and they have lots of yummy innards to slurp on. It's good, but I give it a 7.0 out of 10 because I'm an American who cannot appreciate such fine things in life. And I don't really like stuff like crabs and shrimp to begin with for weird personal reasons.

So in Yangcheng Lake they have these restaurants along the water that farm their own hairy crabs. We got to go take a look at the goods before their hot fiery death.

This one was my victim.

Crabs look like aliens, so I gave it a hat.

Thought Depository 3

Bai, lazily reaching out a fuzzy paw.

Poom.

I'm home at my Mom's place watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade on NBC, putting me in the right mood to be reflective and blog. I have so many backlogged pictures from all the adventures over the last few months, you can expect a sudden burst of productivity over the next week! :) Also mainly because there's nothing to do except watch Korean dramas and comment on the endless series of cute baby animal pictures Mom likes to show me.

I've managed to come to NY probably 3-4 times a year due to work reasons. It's very frequent, which lessens the pressure to perform a musical chairs mad diner dash each time. Inevitably however, as much as I try to meet up as many friends as I can, I still end up missing a huge swath of people. I just hate reciting a Wikipedia entry of my life (tired of listening to myself), and it helps a lot when people clear out their schedule to make things work. It makes meeting up easy and natural and a no-brainer.

There's really nothing tragic or personal about not being able to see someone. I know that I've been weeded out by others through the years. Each relationship is like a Venn Diagram, each person being a circle. Circumstantial friendships occur when the overlapping area between the circles occur due to outside environmental factors. Deep friendships occur when the overlapping area between the circles are factors that are inherently immutable between the two individuals, whether through interests, values, perspectives, humor, etc.

Perhaps this is a bit premature to say, and even disappointing to hear, but it's pointless to "fight" for an tenuous relationship. The only exception may be for my immediate family (and that goes into cultural values and defies any mode of logic). Relationships are connections between mutually dependent people. Certain needs are extremely deep, such as ones between parent and child. Certain needs are conditional, such as between employee and employer.

But it is always painful when someone pulls away when you still need, want, or value them... this is social Darwinism, and it's good to remind myself that THIS. IS. HEALTHY! We deserve to be surrounded by people who love and cherish us, either of our choosing or theirs. It's not a bad thing to change things up when it increases our availability to those who are willing to maintain a connection, to bring value into your life.

However, there is never ever any need to "destroy" a relationship unless you're trying to make an ego-based power play. That is quite selfish and short-sighted. Since a relationship is a connection between two people, it exists both in positive and negative form. For a relationship to not exist, theoretically all it requires is for someone to peacefully walk/fade away. Any move that breeds hurt strengthens and compounds this relationship into another monstrous version that, well, can haunt us for a very very long time. That's obviously not the best rational choice.

I really want to find Peace in everything I do, in how I treat others and how I strive to achieve my goals.

Even if something upsets me, I hope I can always be strong enough to deal with that pain myself, not let it multiply onto others. Every action that we take, big or small, should be of worth. I realize that perhaps the thought processes above have been echoed in my past blog entries many times, but writing all this out helps me really organize them into something more solid, and hopefully actionable. These last few days I was really challenged but I think I did a good job in overcoming some primal (spectacularly destructive) impulses. Thanks Vicki. :)

I am thankful for a healthy body and mind.
I am thankful for my family, who have always been so supportive even if they don't agree with everything I do.
I am thankful for the many wonderful friends that have made Shanghai feel like home.
I am thankful for the many wonderful friends in New York who welcome me home.
I am thankful for the many wonderful friends I have around the world who make anywhere feel like home.
I am thankful for opportunities to refine my goals and desires.
I am thankful for challenges that allow me to grow.
I am thankful for being able to live a comfortable life where I can indulge in little luxuries without too much guilt.
I am thankful for having the resources to go on adventures and fill my life with as much experiences as possible.

I am thankful for the chance to seek answers with God.
I am thankful to be alive! :D

Happy Thanksgiving y'all.

Window

6:40am, in Mom's bed.

Woke up facing this, first thought being "how did I get here?"

Is it weird that I find scenes like these incredibly beautiful? Almost poetic?

I swear it's not that time of the month. ;) 

It IS Fall season for NYC however, and I really missed being in a place where the leaves change color, where the air is crisp and rejuvenating. 

Batty Cattoween

Now I really meant it when I said that Halloween was spectacularly fun this year. I ordered FIVE catsuits for my girlfriends Janet, Amy, Elaine, and Viv (replaced with Nicole), with TWO really horribly fitting batsuits for our intrepid young male friends (AJ and Kun). I got a bazillion packages from Taobao delivered to my office the week before Halloween, all with a scary assortment of catwoman accessories that looked like S&M props. Some of them were actually S&M props (hello, whip). And now I get S&M ad cookies whenever I log onto Taobao, so very NSFW.

None of us knew how the costumes would really turn out because  pictures on Taobao can be very misleading. I think all the girls were pleasantly surprised at just how comfy and flexible our one-pieces were, however our Batmen looked like a very unfortunate and unfashionable lot. I would say that our retro heroes looked like they had wedgie diapers on, but hey... can you really complain with this bat-cat ratio? I think not. :)

Getting ready in my Cat Cave!

Bats getting frisky there, time to change the sheets.

AJ and Korwin hailing a cab outside my apartment. Korwin is dressed as an overworked banker getting on a redeye.

I find this picture so funny. I laugh at uncomfortable situations, and Diaper Batman ofc.

Around 20-30 of us circusfolk gathered at Pizza Marzano to be rowdy and drive out all the other customers. We demanded lots of carby sustenance before our grand entrance through the haloed tourist trap of...XIN... TIAN... DI (新天地).

Oh hai, Boss Lady!

Okay you win.

Then began our self-made Annual Halloween Parade!!! This was my first year joining this tradition, but apparently this was the fifth (if not more) time that this group of friends have done this event. I don't know how they came up with this idea, but it's brilliant. Basically Xintiandi is where all the tourists mill about, especially around dinnertime because there are a lot of al fresco dining along the pathway. So we marched from one end of Xintiandi to the other end, taking our sweet time to cause all sorts of chaos and bottleneck traffic as the crowd converged upon us.

If you didn't know this already, China is a place where the herd mentality reigns supreme. If one person finds something remotely interesting and pauses for a second, soon another will be curious to see what is going on as well. And then again, and again, repeated and exponentially, until literally just 10 seconds later you are literally encircled by a mob of bystanders. That is why this tradition is awesome, because everyone wants to take photos with us and we feel like supastarzzzzz! Even though most of our costumes are not that creative! Halloween costume mediocrity in China passes with flying colors!

Holy shit, Ailin you are a scary bitch!

Batbaby and his two daddies.

Yea, this is totally a random kid that we stole.

In case you didn't believe me when I said we were hot shit that night.

How many Weibos do you think we were on?

After we finished making our round through Xintiandi, we flocked towards the Bund for a party at Cuvve. Not the biggest fan of Cuvve, but everyone was totally decked out and I saw some pretty fantastic costumes. Yay for the expat community in Shanghai! All the locals think we're nuts!

Sir, I think your batcave has been infiltrated.

在上海過萬聖節實在太有意思了。

Frankencutie

Alex and Susan, my nephew and niece.

Disclaimer: if you're deciding to marry me based on this photo, by no means can I guarantee that I will be able to push out progeny as ridiculously good-looking as the examples above. But I have other awesome traits too, like... a great personality.

Holy crap Annie's kids are so damn cute. THIS my friends, is what us women aspire to when we think about which man to merge our genes with. For many Asian women, we are presented with the opportunity to spawn hapa children, which can go so wrong or so right. And Annie, you did good. Real good. You'd better lock Susie away when she starts crushin on boys. And I am so close to flying to Austin right now and abducting Alex. :)

Konbanwa, Halloween! ^_^

Helloooooooooo, NURSE!!!!

Yes, he really went there.

Halloween was great this year, I have a freakin fantastic group of friends in Shanghai who really know how to have fun. :D There were actually two parts to Halloween this year, the first was on Saturday for Min's/Cat's Birthday and Enoch's House Party. The second part was an enterprising Batman/ballerina themed parade down Xintiandi on actual Halloween Day. Just shows that you can never get too old to dress up and play make believe! ;) Or you just have to be lucky to know others who also have Peter Pan Syndrome.

In case you don't know who I'm supposed to be here, I'm just a generic Japanese animation schoolgirl. I just wanted to rock a crazy wig, so I searched on Taobao.com and found this blue baby calling my name. The wig only cost about $12 USD and the outfit $5 USD. I cannot believe I used to shell out over $50+ bux for ready-made costumes back in the States. I LOVVVVVE TAOBAO. You can seriously get anything on it all for much less than retail. You can buy Haribo gummies. You can buy a motorcycle. You can buy a humidifier. You can buy fashionable clothes. You can get the most random and awesome stuff, probably even a kidney. I would even go so far to say that being able to navigate Taobao.com is one of the best things I got out of learning Chinese for 2 years. You will never find me shopping in real life in China if I can help it.

Anyways back to Halloween -- Enoch and Cat pulled the stops for their Halloween house party, where Dave definitely took home first prize for forgetting to shave his legs, with Ty at a close second for showing everyone his true colors (yellow on the outside, white on the inside). As expected, the night rapidly deteriorated into utter chaos thanks to our stop at Mook, measured by the steady entanglement of beautiful blue locks of hair. Hahaha.

Tastes like toilet water?

This is my favorite picture of the night even though it happened in the first 15 minutes.

Dave makes a good O for the ladies.

You know, men should know that in reality it should take more than a little fondling to get that sort of reaction. Hahaha, really.

Some crazy husband n wife dynamics going on here!

Op op op op oppa gangnam style~

Just a little tug won't hurt. ;)

Ok I admit I was trying really hard to be in character!!!

I LOVE my girls Viv and Julez. 

Missed you Trace!!!

Going, going, going.....

Gone.

Happy Bday!