posing with his new passport
baozi (green bean filling)! YUMMM
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Chi's 21st
I'll put up one of the more PG ones...JK JK, they're all PG, except for the pictures that weren't caught on camera.
Sporting our bibs like a boss at Enterprise Fish Co.
Sporting our bibs like a boss at Enterprise Fish Co.
Harry Potter Premier
This happened a few weeks ago, but it was definitely one of my best memories since coming back home (going to the farmer's market and being a groupie for Amber, the street musician, was also pretty up there). A few friends and I went to one of Santa Barbara's Historical landmarks, the Arlington Theater, for the HP7 II premier. It is indisputably the best place for a midnight premier in town. I dressed up as Moaning Myrtle because of a last minute emergency costume change, and my good friend Amber dressed up as emo Harry Potter. My friend Chi was Nagini, and Gina was zip-me-up Ginny from that awkward moment in HP7 I.
Such a Great TIME!
Emo Harry Potter getting ready in the bathroom (haunted by Moaning Myrtle (read: moi) of course)
Julia shows up on time--yes, it shocked us all.
Chi and me forcibly unzipping zip me up Ginny
Nagini eating Harry, LOL
Such a Great TIME!
Emo Harry Potter getting ready in the bathroom (haunted by Moaning Myrtle (read: moi) of course)
Julia shows up on time--yes, it shocked us all.
Chi and me forcibly unzipping zip me up Ginny
Nagini eating Harry, LOL
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Book Review
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (fiction) by Junot Diaz: recommended!
Diaz is a Dominican born Dominican-American author who won the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for this book. It's always hard to summarize good books, but pretty much the book is written from the perspective of a very insightful adolescent boy who well talks like a Hispanic version of Will from the Prince of Bel Air. Knowledge of Spanish is helpful because use of Spanish slang is common and sometimes entire phrases are written in Spanish.
What's so Great about America (non-fiction) by Dinesh D'Souza: recommended!
I first came upon this author in high school European History class. For homework, our teacher assigned us a chapter out of this book in conjunction with a chapter from Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel". Both authors tries to explain why the Western civilization currently dominates the world. Whereas Diamond emphasizes the environmental factors that have allowed the Western civilization to thrive (thus refuting the argument that the Western culture has dominated because it is superior), D'Souza argues that civilizations and cultures are not created equal, and that the Western civilization has prospered because it is superior to other cultures.
This controversial contention alone could be fodder enough for an entire book, however, D'Souza's arguments are numerous and far beyond just a refutation of the cultural relativism argument. For one, I like the book because D'Souza is an Indian-born Indian-American and he does an excellent job of considering all criticisms against America (in his first chapter Why They Hate Us) and refuting them one by one (the Left, the multiculturalists, the Islamic Fundamentalists, and the Third Word intellectuals are all among his targeted audience). D'Souza isn't an author that I agreed with consistently (him being a conservative Christian fundamentalist and me being a liberal agnostic, our views are bound to differ at some point), but it is fun to appreciate his point of view and consider his arguments. His scope of understanding and knowledge is very expansive and despite the points that I disagreed with him on, I concede that he is one very smart guy.
For one, I agreed with him on things about race and immigration. As an immigrant to the US, I couldn't help but nod my head in agreement with some of the differences in cultural attitudes that he has perceived between the US and the developing world/traditional societies. His argument against affirmative action was also very compelling and caught my attention. He uses quotes from civil rights leaders such as M.L.K. Jr, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington to frame his argument. He argues that what King was fighting for in the 1960s, was the chance for everyone to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. In contrast, affirmative action is precisely an institutionalized method of judging one's merit by the color of their skin.
The existence of affirmative action reminds me of the children story "The Emperor's New Clothes" in which everyone bends over backwards to tell the Emperor that his new robe is breathtaking when in fact it is non-existent and the Emperor is nude. D'Souza is the boy who is honest and speaks out despite the risk of embarrassing everyone else. He's really doing society a favor by speaking out about this problem. Affirmative action is not only reverse racism against people who are not in the benefiting ethnic groups (as an Asian American, I can straight up say that I felt the unfair nature of affirmative action during the process of applying for colleges), but it also hurts the ethnic groups who supposedly "benefit" from it. This really stuck out to me when watching the mandatory Freshmen Counselor training videos and the Deans of multiple cultural houses addressed how Freshmen from "benefiting" ethnic groups readily doubt the validity of their own previous success and are likely to attribute their bad grades at Yale to them "not belonging" (aka being admitted because of Affirmative Action).
D'Souza's idea is that affirmative action should be eliminated, but I would say that the idea of helping students who are disadvantaged is a good one, but it should not be based on race, but rather socioeconomic class. To say that someone is disadvantaged simply because of their race is racist, but to say that a poor kid who grew up in a bad environment should be given some extra consideration is fair.
Diaz is a Dominican born Dominican-American author who won the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for this book. It's always hard to summarize good books, but pretty much the book is written from the perspective of a very insightful adolescent boy who well talks like a Hispanic version of Will from the Prince of Bel Air. Knowledge of Spanish is helpful because use of Spanish slang is common and sometimes entire phrases are written in Spanish.
What's so Great about America (non-fiction) by Dinesh D'Souza: recommended!
I first came upon this author in high school European History class. For homework, our teacher assigned us a chapter out of this book in conjunction with a chapter from Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel". Both authors tries to explain why the Western civilization currently dominates the world. Whereas Diamond emphasizes the environmental factors that have allowed the Western civilization to thrive (thus refuting the argument that the Western culture has dominated because it is superior), D'Souza argues that civilizations and cultures are not created equal, and that the Western civilization has prospered because it is superior to other cultures.
This controversial contention alone could be fodder enough for an entire book, however, D'Souza's arguments are numerous and far beyond just a refutation of the cultural relativism argument. For one, I like the book because D'Souza is an Indian-born Indian-American and he does an excellent job of considering all criticisms against America (in his first chapter Why They Hate Us) and refuting them one by one (the Left, the multiculturalists, the Islamic Fundamentalists, and the Third Word intellectuals are all among his targeted audience). D'Souza isn't an author that I agreed with consistently (him being a conservative Christian fundamentalist and me being a liberal agnostic, our views are bound to differ at some point), but it is fun to appreciate his point of view and consider his arguments. His scope of understanding and knowledge is very expansive and despite the points that I disagreed with him on, I concede that he is one very smart guy.
For one, I agreed with him on things about race and immigration. As an immigrant to the US, I couldn't help but nod my head in agreement with some of the differences in cultural attitudes that he has perceived between the US and the developing world/traditional societies. His argument against affirmative action was also very compelling and caught my attention. He uses quotes from civil rights leaders such as M.L.K. Jr, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington to frame his argument. He argues that what King was fighting for in the 1960s, was the chance for everyone to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. In contrast, affirmative action is precisely an institutionalized method of judging one's merit by the color of their skin.
The existence of affirmative action reminds me of the children story "The Emperor's New Clothes" in which everyone bends over backwards to tell the Emperor that his new robe is breathtaking when in fact it is non-existent and the Emperor is nude. D'Souza is the boy who is honest and speaks out despite the risk of embarrassing everyone else. He's really doing society a favor by speaking out about this problem. Affirmative action is not only reverse racism against people who are not in the benefiting ethnic groups (as an Asian American, I can straight up say that I felt the unfair nature of affirmative action during the process of applying for colleges), but it also hurts the ethnic groups who supposedly "benefit" from it. This really stuck out to me when watching the mandatory Freshmen Counselor training videos and the Deans of multiple cultural houses addressed how Freshmen from "benefiting" ethnic groups readily doubt the validity of their own previous success and are likely to attribute their bad grades at Yale to them "not belonging" (aka being admitted because of Affirmative Action).
D'Souza's idea is that affirmative action should be eliminated, but I would say that the idea of helping students who are disadvantaged is a good one, but it should not be based on race, but rather socioeconomic class. To say that someone is disadvantaged simply because of their race is racist, but to say that a poor kid who grew up in a bad environment should be given some extra consideration is fair.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Sequoia and Topkah Falls
Smoke from a forest fire
dad relaxing ahead of us by the Topakah waterfall
what an incredible view at Topkah Falls--surrounded 360 by steep cliffs and melting snow. oh yeah and one giant waterfall pounding next to our years. Also totally secluded to ourselves as it was nearing dusk and we were among one of the last groups to embark on this hike. A little bit of heaven all to our selves. :)
Support the large rock with my awesomely spectacular muscles
Mom doing a handstand
Vacation at Tahoe Lake
Family vacay at Tahoe :)
My dad's new little chipmunk friend. awwww
love these succulents!
Saturday, July 23, 2011
All nighter, DC style
A few days ago, one of China's bullet trains (the same ones that have been called the pride of China and the Chinese people) derailed in southern China due to a lightning caused power outage. 16 died and more than 100 were sent to the hospital. My sympathies goes out to the families of the deceased, but at the same time, I feel anger because I suspect that the trains weren't built with the necessary safety precautions. This is the second time this month that a bullet train has suffered difficulties due to "lightning caused power outage". While these bullet trains should be lightning fast, they should not have been built lightning fast (as safety precautions were ignored) and they should not be so easily derailed as by a lightning storm.
What does this have to do with my DC reference in the title you ask? Well, it reminded me of the direction DC is heading towards right now.
One thing to take away from the bullet train tragedy is that things accomplished at the last minute, under rapidly approaching deadlines are never the best (a statement which I'm sure many of my friends will happily protest, but afterwards...in the shadows of their own guilty hearts admit as overpoweringly true). In order to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Community Party, the day before 7/1 (the day of the party's founding anniversary), the officials in Beijing unveiled the shiny bullet train system connecting Shanghai and Beijing. Many doubts were whispered about the bullet train because they were simply constructed too darn FAST.
In the States right now, with 8/2 as the rapidly approaching deadline, the government in DC is trying put together a solution that will solve the current debt ceiling crisis plaguing the US economy and the US government. A quick update for anyone who has been living under a rock, if the US federal government doesn't raise the debt ceiling by 8/2, it will have to default on its payments, including payment to government employees, social security, debt interest etc for the first time in history. What does this mean you ask? Well, no one knows since it has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE but Economists everywhere do predict economic apocalypses that might dwarf what happened in 2008 after the US housing bubble burst and the whole world spiraled into an economic crisis. Oy vey, and we're walking straight into this one.
Anyhoo, I give Obama big ups for trying to be a responsible adult and trying to bring both parties to the table. At a time like this, he is simultaneously standing his ground for what he believes in(aka raising revenue by cutting subsidies for big oil companies and raising taxes for millionaires)and making tough compromises that will no doubt bring a lot of criticism onto himself from his own party (aka cutting funding to entitlement programs like social security). Between a rock and a hard place is not an easy place to be...For a short update/summary directly from Obama watch this video. I feel bad for him, because he isn't to be blamed for leading us into this predicament, instead, as The Onion so cleverly noted in the article "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job", "as part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind." Got to love The Onion
Whatever they accomplish will be necessary, and at the end of the day, it will have to be turned in. However, it won't be like our stupid college all-nighters at all. For us, at the end of our day, that essay will HAVE to be turned in and that test will HAVE to be taken. No matter the quality of the essay and our performance on the test, it will be over and done. Except, it's not the same this time in DC with something as important as the national debt. This time, if they don't handle it well, we might have to revisit this crummy predicament a few months down the road. Revisiting would be very annoying, but probably still one of the best case scenarios at this point. A worse scenario is the US credit being downgraded...and I don't understand economics so well so I can't explain how, but according to what's been said, this will result in higher interests rates for consumers (which in my head means spending more money for something that I used to pay less for). Even worse, we might pass a law that says in order to cut budget for entitlement programs, we only need 50% of Congress to agree, but if we want to take away the subsidies for big oil and gas companies, we need more than 2/3 of Congress to agree. But even worse than that is probably a potential economic crisis.
In some ways, this is just another example of America's recent borrowing addiction, a tendency that I can't wrap my mind around, possibly because of my Chinese upbringing which emphasizes saving and anxieties about borrowing. The problem has been a long standing one, that started post WWII and we're finally at the end of the line, where we are forced to do something. Thomas Friedman, a baby boomer, says that this crisis is one created by the baby boomer generation. While watching the economic crisis play out in Greece, Thomas Friedman writes, "Indeed, if there is one sentiment that unites the crises in Europe and America it is a powerful sense of “baby boomers behaving badly” — a powerful sense that the generation that came of age in the last 50 years, my generation, will be remembered most for the incredible bounty and freedom it received from its parents and the incredible debt burden and constraints it left on its kids." (A Clash of Generations).
With all this race to find a solution at the last minute, I do hope that we find a good one. Currently, Republicans are trying to push the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act through Congress. They have already won in the House and are now pushing their way in the Senate. While I agree with them that there needs to be a long term solution to control US borrowing, and that an amendment to the constitution requiring balanced budgets and controlling Congressional spending is key to getting the federal government out of this borrowing addiction and habit of overspending, that's about all that I agree with. The spirit of the Cut, Cap, and Budget Act is that they recognize our current economic crisis, but they are telling the poor and the middle class to BUDGET while not in the slightest bit affecting the lifestyles of the rich (aka the oil companies and the jet owners). That I have a problem with.
What does this have to do with my DC reference in the title you ask? Well, it reminded me of the direction DC is heading towards right now.
One thing to take away from the bullet train tragedy is that things accomplished at the last minute, under rapidly approaching deadlines are never the best (a statement which I'm sure many of my friends will happily protest, but afterwards...in the shadows of their own guilty hearts admit as overpoweringly true). In order to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Community Party, the day before 7/1 (the day of the party's founding anniversary), the officials in Beijing unveiled the shiny bullet train system connecting Shanghai and Beijing. Many doubts were whispered about the bullet train because they were simply constructed too darn FAST.
In the States right now, with 8/2 as the rapidly approaching deadline, the government in DC is trying put together a solution that will solve the current debt ceiling crisis plaguing the US economy and the US government. A quick update for anyone who has been living under a rock, if the US federal government doesn't raise the debt ceiling by 8/2, it will have to default on its payments, including payment to government employees, social security, debt interest etc for the first time in history. What does this mean you ask? Well, no one knows since it has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE but Economists everywhere do predict economic apocalypses that might dwarf what happened in 2008 after the US housing bubble burst and the whole world spiraled into an economic crisis. Oy vey, and we're walking straight into this one.
Anyhoo, I give Obama big ups for trying to be a responsible adult and trying to bring both parties to the table. At a time like this, he is simultaneously standing his ground for what he believes in(aka raising revenue by cutting subsidies for big oil companies and raising taxes for millionaires)and making tough compromises that will no doubt bring a lot of criticism onto himself from his own party (aka cutting funding to entitlement programs like social security). Between a rock and a hard place is not an easy place to be...For a short update/summary directly from Obama watch this video. I feel bad for him, because he isn't to be blamed for leading us into this predicament, instead, as The Onion so cleverly noted in the article "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job", "as part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind." Got to love The Onion
Whatever they accomplish will be necessary, and at the end of the day, it will have to be turned in. However, it won't be like our stupid college all-nighters at all. For us, at the end of our day, that essay will HAVE to be turned in and that test will HAVE to be taken. No matter the quality of the essay and our performance on the test, it will be over and done. Except, it's not the same this time in DC with something as important as the national debt. This time, if they don't handle it well, we might have to revisit this crummy predicament a few months down the road. Revisiting would be very annoying, but probably still one of the best case scenarios at this point. A worse scenario is the US credit being downgraded...and I don't understand economics so well so I can't explain how, but according to what's been said, this will result in higher interests rates for consumers (which in my head means spending more money for something that I used to pay less for). Even worse, we might pass a law that says in order to cut budget for entitlement programs, we only need 50% of Congress to agree, but if we want to take away the subsidies for big oil and gas companies, we need more than 2/3 of Congress to agree. But even worse than that is probably a potential economic crisis.
In some ways, this is just another example of America's recent borrowing addiction, a tendency that I can't wrap my mind around, possibly because of my Chinese upbringing which emphasizes saving and anxieties about borrowing. The problem has been a long standing one, that started post WWII and we're finally at the end of the line, where we are forced to do something. Thomas Friedman, a baby boomer, says that this crisis is one created by the baby boomer generation. While watching the economic crisis play out in Greece, Thomas Friedman writes, "Indeed, if there is one sentiment that unites the crises in Europe and America it is a powerful sense of “baby boomers behaving badly” — a powerful sense that the generation that came of age in the last 50 years, my generation, will be remembered most for the incredible bounty and freedom it received from its parents and the incredible debt burden and constraints it left on its kids." (A Clash of Generations).
With all this race to find a solution at the last minute, I do hope that we find a good one. Currently, Republicans are trying to push the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act through Congress. They have already won in the House and are now pushing their way in the Senate. While I agree with them that there needs to be a long term solution to control US borrowing, and that an amendment to the constitution requiring balanced budgets and controlling Congressional spending is key to getting the federal government out of this borrowing addiction and habit of overspending, that's about all that I agree with. The spirit of the Cut, Cap, and Budget Act is that they recognize our current economic crisis, but they are telling the poor and the middle class to BUDGET while not in the slightest bit affecting the lifestyles of the rich (aka the oil companies and the jet owners). That I have a problem with.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Finally home!
Today was my second day in good ol' Santa Barbara, and it was fantastic! IT IS SOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!!! In the morning, my mom, dad, and I went to an early Yoga class at Paseo Nuevo, and then went for a fun stroll along the beach, browsing through all the artworks on sale at the art walk.
Paseo Nuevo:
A final summary of my experiences in China has yet to be written...
Paseo Nuevo:
A final summary of my experiences in China has yet to be written...
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