February 6, 2009
the goldening of America
i've written here before about interracial relationships and racial identity, but just in a few short years much has changed. there are now a million more Americans identifying as mixed-raced than only 8 years ago, in 2000 , when the United States census finally allowed people of multiple races, like myself, to come out of the "Other" shadows and into the more honest daylight of "Check All That Apply." the dawn of the Obama presidency has caused an immense amount of national reflection on race & identity, and i rejoice that the most powerful and public face of America is not only dark-skinned, but a mixed-race and mixed-culture one at that.
Continue reading "the goldening of America"
Posted by hadashi at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)
December 31, 2008
new year's litany
it has not been an easy year. certainly there were many good things about it, and much to be grateful for, but especially due to the events of the last month (in which i lost three people who were extremely dear to me only weeks apart from one another), i find myself simply wanting to quietly say goodbye to 2008. and as i just as quietly say hello to 2009, i'm glad that i know that at least i am a stronger person than the one who greeted 2008 a year ago.
what i've realised this year is that it's too easy to recite a litany of all that is lost -- people, dreams, health, hopes -- until i feel lost in the howl of grief, crushed under the weight of my own fear and sadness.
however, it is also easy to recite a litany of all that i've gained -- from the generosity of others, from my own life choices, from the hand of God, and yes, even from the losses.
it is entirely my decision if these litanies become a pleading against fear, or an invocation of gratitude. both are part of my story. both must be acknowledged.
but i'm leaning towards the gratitude side...
Posted by hadashi at 5:53 PM | Comments (2)
November 17, 2008
goodbye, Bobo
this morning, Yu-Ying Eva Lee Chan(g), known to her grandchildren as "Bobo" -- the English transliteration of a Chinese word for "grandmother" -- quietly died. to everyone's surprise, most of all her own, she'd made it to 99 years old, or 100 Chinese years old, since you are counted as 1 year old at birth. she was in her own bed, sleeping (not in the hospital connected to a bunch of tubes), and most of her family had said their goodbyes. she knew she was loved. we knew we were fiercely loved by her. her life was rich and amazing and full of courage: from fleeing the Communist advance in Shanghai to making a new life with a new language and culture in America; from rejecting the old ways of her parents by getting an education and becoming a Christian, to working in nursing until well past traditional retirement age...and most of all, raising my mother along with many other children, both hers and others' -- Eva Chan was a phenomenal woman. i hope i can pass on even a fraction of her strength, faith, and love to my own children.
i'd like to think that this morning when she woke up in heaven, she was quite delighted. Jesus would lean over her: get up, Eva. get up, Yu-Ying, you're home! he'd say. she would laugh: ah, finally! it's about time i got here! Jesus chuckles: it's those long life noodles you ate all these years, he'll kid her. look, you made it to the ultimate Chinese long life year, ninety-nine! my grandmother will lean into Him, still laughing, His arm around her now straight and tall shoulders. Yu-Ying, He'll say, come and see your new home. it's got an amazing kitchen, and i know someone who grows the best tomatoes this side of heaven. i think you'll like seeing him again...
goodbye, Bobo. the day i come join you, i won't be surprised if you're waiting for me there, like you always did here, with a fresh homemade batch of char siu bao...
Posted by hadashi at 7:56 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2008
grown-up kid
yesterday T.T. and i celebrated our wedding anniversary. it was a little rushed -- i've been working pretty steadily on another show, so after wrapping, i rushed home and did my Hadashi's Lightning Makeover, in which i go from being tech girl in show blacks and boots to being a fabulous young thing going out on a hot date with her splendid husband. we had a lovely dinner out, and enjoyed the summery-feeling night (we must take advantage of our SoCal weather, after all), lingering over our meal and catching up with each other...until about 10pm. honestly, we were just too sleepy to stay out any longer. later, as i brushed my teeth, i thought: wow, i'm ending my Big Night Out at 10pm, celebrating a Wedding Anniversary (not a dating one), planning when to do laundry tomorrow, and taking the WaMu collapse rather seriously. how adult! how old!
but looking in the mirror, i still saw a girl staring back at me, toothpaste foam and all. she seemed pretty mischevous -- too much so to be a "woman" -- and clearly was enjoying the discomfiture of her own brain. how could i be simlutaneously a responsible adult and a crazy kid? how am i someone's wife, have a long and satisfying career, and be a responsible grown-up, but still feel, deep down inside, like a barefoot little girl who's just happy to be outside in the sunshine?
recently, i came across a list in a women's magazine titled "you know you're a grown-up when...". i was vaguely horrified to discover, that according to this random collection of criteria, that i was most definitely a grown-up. "you retire your short-shorts, even though you've got great legs, if you do say so yourself." uh, check. "you pass up the cheese fries with the ranch dressing not because they're fattening, but because they're not good for you." check. "the idea of staying in is just as appealing as the idea of going out." well, now that i live with that hottie boyfriend of mine, sure. "it is completely impossible for you to ignore a sink full of dirty dishes." double-check. "rocking out along with the radio no longer embarrasses you. in fact, you turn it up." hey, yeah, check! this one is when it all made more sense: being a grown-up doesn't necessarily mean being boring or having no fun. maybe it's that you're old enough to have the confidence to be who you are without apologising so much for it. and understanding that practicality and joie de vivre are not mutually exclusive.
sure, this is not an earth-shakingly new discovery or a deep new philosophy -- it's something i've suspected for a long time. but somehow, there in the bathroom with a toothbrush in my mouth, it kind of crystallised for me: being a grown-up isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as i don't lose the girl inside me. as author Ursula K. LeGuin has said, "the creative adult is the child who has survived. " maybe being an adult really just means knowing when to throw some pragmatism into the mix so you can live to play another day.
anyway, i'm still trying to figure this all out, but not too hard. besides, i have a sink full of dirty dishes to deal with -- but i'm going to crank the music and sing along at the top of my lungs while i do them.
Posted by hadashi at 5:01 PM | Comments (0)
August 31, 2008
the omnivore's hundred
last night, over a lovely meal that Ms. Jen made (involving an heirloom tomato, dates and manchego, and an '06 Zinfandel), we discussed Michael Pollan's excellent book The Omnivore's Dilemma. this morning, i saw this meme on Maki's excellent blog, Just Hungry. here's the idea:
-take this list of one hundred edibles and boldface the ones you've eaten.
-cross off the ones you'd never consider eating for whatever reason.
-Maki put the ones she loves in red. i think this is an excellent idea. i'm going to put the ones i love in a slightly larger font.
-you can then link to your list at Very Good Taste, where this meme originated, check out the initial follow-up of results, and have all questions related to it answered. yes, it's kind of Anglo-centric; it was meant to be. no, i did not know what all these foods were, and that's part of the fun! so here goes:
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Posted by hadashi at 3:45 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2008
maybe i need GPS
since the show i am currently working on is an NBC Universal property, we shoot quite a bit on the Universal Studios backlot. now, if you're a normal human, you probably would love being there -- you get to see cool things like the phenomenal carnage of the giant plane crash site from War of the Worlds, or the Bates Motel from Psycho, which, very oddly enough, immediately adjoins the cartoony marshmallow-looking snowy world of Whoville from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. however, if you're me, you do not love being there. no, i am not some crusty jaded below-the-line crew person who does not care about movie magic; it's because the place is best seen by professionally-driven Universal Studios Backlot Tour trams. it is not meant to be navigated by innocent non-crusty crew members in their own car, as i learned last night.
now, the last few times we have shot there, crew parking is at the gate, and we're shuttled in to location, usually becoming completely disoriented by the time we get there. however, for reasons still unknown to me, we were told this time to drive all the way into the depths of the backlot to "Falls Lake" (most recognizable as the giant artificial lake where Jim Carrey ends up at the conclusion of the The Truman Show), where our big nighttime shoot was going to be. the gate guard told me (and i quote) "follow James Stewart here straight into Six Points Texas, turn left at Steven Spielberg, and go up the hill to Falls Lake." um, okay. at this point i should explain that Universal Studios is huge (230 acres or so) and old (been there since 1915) and pretty much built into wilderness land (so it's an incredibly confusing, hilly, twisting layout that is random film sets surrounded by brush). so yeah, these directions were pretty much useless.
but off i went, hoping to actually just find "Steven Spielberg." luckily, a tour tram turned right in front of me. sweet! i thought, i'll just follow that! this turned out to be an amazingly bad idea, as it was only at the last second that i realized i was about to drive straight onto the Jaws dock and get attacked by a giant rubber shark. i awkwardly reversed, ignoring the stares of the tourists, and squeezed around the tram, humiliated.
T.T. will be the first to tell you that when it comes to being directionally challenged, i am VERY directionally challenged. i admit this freely. so is it so surprising that next, i managed to somehow get stuck driving in circles around Jurassic Park? when another tram passed me, i wretchedly hoped that it wasn't the same one that watched me almost follow them into the gaping maw of Jaws. quickly becoming a tragic tourist attraction myself, i finally found a nice security guard on Wisteria Lane at Desperate Housewives, who told me he'd been there only a few days, but that Rosa down the hill and to the right could help me. thankfully, Rosa did, and i managed to barely make my call time.
now, remember that i said this was a nighttime shoot ? we wrapped sometime around 3am, and boy was it DARK. you'd think i'd have been more nervous about finding my way out, given how much trouble I had getting in, but i was cold and tired and just wanted to go home. instead of waiting to follow a less directionally-challenged person out, i foolishly peeled out of the parking lot thinking of nothing but a hot shower.
had I been starring in a horror movie, this is where the menacing music would have started. there were no streetlights. a light fog blanketed the roads, reducing visibility to barely a few feet. condensation was obscuring my windshield faster than my defrost could keep up, and i almost immediately took a wrong turn. a very wrong turn, as i found myself suddenly trapped... in a tunnel.
not just any tunnel - a claustrophobic "stone" tunnel from The Mummy, only as wide as my car, with no way to turn around, and ditches on either side. i stopped the car in disbelief, thinking oh craptastic, i have to actually drive through this. i slowly crept forward.... and my headlamps illuminated NOT the end of the tunnel, but a huge, riveted iron door. great, i thought, if this was Indiana Jones, right now would be when the giant boulder would start rolling towards me and i'd be crushed in my faithful wee Honda and dear God how am i supposed to get out of here? i had to inch my way backwards, visibility almost zero, out of the evil tunnel. despite the cold, i was sweating when i finally emerged and turned around. and that's when the coyotes started howling.
no, seriously, there are packs of wild coyotes that roam free on the Universal backlot (remember this is wilderness land) and when they start baying, it pegs the creep-o-meter right off the scale. completely spooked and exhausted, i blindly drove ahead, just wanting to put the tunnel behind me. as I passed the massive wreckage of the crashed War of the Worlds 747, i thought oh please do not let me get lost near the Psycho house where is Rosa when you need her?!?! only there were no Rosas. not even at Desperate Housewives, which i thought ALWAYS had security around. apparently not tonight, because after aimlessly weaving around Wisteria Lane, i began to completely resent Universal Studios, all stupidly named roads of Universal Studios, and any show or film ever shot on Universal Studios. oh yeah, and all coyotes of Universal Studios.
somehow, thank God, i miraculously popped out into Six Points Texas, the western town, which blessedly signaled to me that I was close to the gate. after making my way through saloons, wooden clapboard houses, and hitching posts, i emerged, exultant, at the exit gate. i knew i had just escaped certain creepy death by fog tendrils and coyotes, and cheered quietly for myself.
too bad i then spent the next 35 minutes pathetically trying to find my way onto the correct freeway going the correct direction...
Posted by hadashi at 12:25 PM | Comments (2)
July 2, 2008
connection
some of you may remember that about about a year ago, T.T. had to undergo neural reconstructive surgery to repair the damage from a botched outpatient procedure in which a major nerve was severed by a surgeon we'll call Dr. X. he had lost all use of his left trapezius muscles, and his left shoulder was caving in from the atrophy. initially, we were told we would know in about six to eight months if it was a success -- what was actually meant was that it would be a minimum of six to eight months before we'd know anything. for there to be any hope of him regaining movement and usage of that shoulder, several things needed to happen. first, the graft would have to "take," then the nerve would need to "wake up," and then the slow growth process would have to begin: nerves grow at the snail's pace of one millimeter a day. if all that happened, THEN we would have to wait and hope that the deadened trapezius muscles would not be so atrophied beyond repair that they could not begin to regenerate with the newly firing nerve.
in these long intervening months of waiting, T.T. has been doing physical therapy to try to keep his left shoulder in the best condition possible, but there has been no conclusive evidence anything was happening. this is when we really appreciated everyone's patience and concern: you would ask "how's the shoulder?" and we'd have to say: "no news yet." meanwhile, i watched T.T. struggle with the new reality of the landscape of his body: men relate to theirs so differently than women, and there were many times when i could simply feel him grieving, or letting it go...again, or even gathering himself for battle against the creeping dread that there was nothing happening under his scarred skin. there was nothing i could say, though; no magic words of consolation that would do any more good than simply putting my hand on his ruined shoulder, or gently kissing the white, twisting line that now runs down his neck.
my own private grief would sometimes bubble to the surface in odd ways, but mostly i have kept it to myself, because hope is much shinier and easier to carry like a shield in front of your tender parts. my faith tells me this is not self-delusion; this is how life is and i can either choose to trust that there is some kind of good even in the smelliest cesspool of circumstance, or i can give up and wallow. (honestly, wallowing could be easier, but i'm just a stubborn ornery girl sometimes and that's saved my sorry arse more than once from despair.) we're still fairly newlyweddish, i think, enough so that it has been scary learning to navigate the big wide chasms of soul distance that yawn wide when you look at your beloved and realise: as much as i could drown in these eyes, i will never, never see the world through them and thus i am essentially alone. but, cheesy as it sounds, love does build a bridge over those pits somehow and we have learned to be closer through this. i still can get a little emotional when he comes back from surfing -- rehab in and of itself -- and i can tell by the way he holds his face a little too steady, that he desperately misses the days when paddling out to the break wasn't the Herculean effort it is now. but i've seen his back become less hollow; he can put shirts on now without contorting to get his left arm in the sleeve, and his range of motion has improved. we've remained hopeful -- he's a stubborn ornery guy too -- yet subsequent visits to the neurosurgeon have been inconclusive. so it was decided to schedule another neural conductivity test.
Posted by hadashi at 5:37 PM | Comments (0)
June 3, 2008
relieved
i didn't realise quite how much i was invested in the presidential race until tonight, when T.T. and i were having a nice boba milk tea and the tv monitor in the coffee shop suddenly started flashing the words "Barack Obama" and "presumptive Democratic nominee" together. i suddenly realised i'd been more or less holding my breath ever since Super Tuesday.
i don't normally wear my politics on my sleeve, or my (woefully-underposted-to) blog, but this election feels like such a crux for the state of affairs not just in America, but for this weary globe, that i'll go ahead and just plead:
please, if you're an American citizen, get informed. be part of the dialogue. get registered. and for heaven's sakes, VOTE.
if you're not, do as T.T. does and get informed. be part of the dialogue. get other people registered. get them to vote.
as exhausting as this year's election cycle will now continue to be, don't opt out.
(yes, i've been an Obama supporter from the beginning, ever since i read Dreams From My Father and later, The Audacity of Hope. but i've continued to solidify my position over the course of the long Democratic primary slog, especially after that speech on race in America that i think should be required listening for all American highschool and college freshman. there, now you know.)
Posted by hadashi at 12:48 PM | Comments (2)