Asian American Immigration - My Parents' Story

Claire at Hyphen Magazine put out a call for Asian American immigration stories to "celebrate" the 20th anniversary of The Joy Luck Club.  I put celebrate in quotes, because Claire says "although it was wonderful for people of my generation -- who were reaching adulthood just as Joy Luck was hitting the bookstores -- to finally see Asian immigrant families in fiction, the book also limited a generation of writers to a particular narrative."  I read the book twenty years ago and I loved it for its rich storytelling of Chinese lore.  I grew up hearing my mother's stories, but none of them involved mythical tales of ghosts and superstition.  This story of my own family's immigration is from my mother's point of view.  I tried to keep it to the 300 word requirement, so maybe someday I'll tell a longer version.  Since my mother is getting older, I think she finds solace in telling me these stories and passing on her legacy.  Check all the stories at the Hyphen blog.

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My parents Linda and John were both originally from China but moved to Taiwan when they were teenagers during the Communist Revolution.  In Taiwan, Linda attended the prestigious Taipei First Girls' High School.  Many of her classmates were well off and their parents sent them to the United States to attend college as it was fashionable to do so.  Her family didn't feel she needed to attend college in the United States, so she studied Chemical Engineering at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan where she met my father John.



John and Linda graduated in 1959 and looked for ways to attend graduate school in the United States.  They found advertisements in science journals for the University of North Dakota which offered full scholarships.  They applied to the Chemistry department and were accepted, but had no money for air travel.  Linda's father decided to give money to John for airfare in 1962.  After a year, Linda was given the airfare to go.  They often said that they picked North Dakota because they wanted to live someplace cold because Taiwan was so hot.  In 1963, they married and in 1967 they had me.  Since they were both in the midst of their PhD theses, Linda's mother came over to help take care of me.  John's parents, who could not afford to travel, wanted to ship me back to Taiwan to be raised (egad! no offense, but I am way too American to imagine any other life).  My mother would not hear of it and kept me in the United States after my grandmother left. 



She said the early days in the US were quite a struggle.  They had to make ends meet on a stipend, learn to drive, and deal with Midwest discrimination.  Even now, it is hard for my mother to realize that she no longer has to struggle and to stop and enjoy the present.





Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Love Thursday - O's

Here's another wonderful conversation with Dova, our precious five-year-old:

Dova:  Mom, do you know what my favorite thing in the whole world is?

Mom:  What?

Dova:  O's.

Mom:  O's??

Dova:  O's, and X's too.

Mom:  Oh X's and O's!!  You're so sweet.  Give me an O.

Now we regularly call hugs and kisses by O's and X's and always give them to each other freely.

Side note on the gel window clings.  I normally don't cave for such bling, but she really enjoys rearranging all the sparkly hearts.  We are two months late (or 10 months early) getting this up for Valentine's Day, but love never goes out of style.

See more Love Thursday on Chookooloonks.

Hello Me!

Over at I ♥ Faces, Angie and Amy made several collages from last week's self-portait challenge and I happened to see myself! How cool is that? If you haven't checked out their blog and community, it is a lot of fun. Since I rarely take photographs without people in them, it is the perfect place for me to learn more about photography.

WW - Dova Discovers Bejeweled

Visit by Wordless Wednesday or 5 Minutes for Mom for more participants.

All It Takes Is One Click

Gone are the days of candid photos of the kids. One click of the SLR and our kids instantly start performing bouts of silly faces. Perhaps they know that Silly Monkey Stories Tuesday is coming up?

First came Adam with the monster mash.



Then Dova quickly joined in.





Then Adam pretended to be dead.



But revived to become a zombie tickle monster.



Who's being silly? You are!



Dova couldn't keep a straight face.



Just another day in zombie land.




Hosted by Karen at 3 Garnets and 2 Sapphires.

PSF - I Am a Hungry Fish

Normally, I post my dreams on geek sleep, but since I have the perfect photo of our goldfish Orbit for this story, I had to post it here.

Last night, I dreamed I was a fish. I could dart back and forth and glide easily through the water.  I lived in a pond and the water was mostly dark and green.  The darkness didn't matter, I just loved to swim fast from one place to another.  But I was hungry.  Where was the food?  I saw someone above the water pointing to where some food was.  So I quickly swam over and saw a bunch of tiny translucent fish.  I opened my mouth wide and swooped over them.  I didn't have to chew, I just swallowed them.  I was still hungry so I looked around for more fish, but couldn't find any.  The person who had pointed out the food, felt sorry for me, so they went to Google Maps to search for fish for me.  From the map of the United States, they zoomed in on my pond which was in New Hampshire.  They saw that there was no food left.  In neighboring ponds, there wasn't much food either, and it wasn't until you looked in the ocean, that you could find plentiful food.  You could see different size fish representing the fish population in all the water areas of the map.  In the ocean you could see the tiniest krill to huge whales.  The person wanted to move me from my pond to the ocean so that I could have more food, but I really wasn't sure if I wanted to live in the ocean.

Good thing I didn't get put in the ocean, I would've died from the salt water!  I guess I had this dream because I sometimes have to coax some of our dim-witted fish towards the food when they are hopeless darting around the wrong corner of the tank.  And the Google Maps part?  Total geek.


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

WW - Dova helps me wash my dogs

My Nintendogs, that is!

Visit by Wordless Wednesday or 5 Minutes for Mom for more participants.

The Ten Plagues of Spring Portraits

On Easter this year, we actually celebrated a Passover Seder with Doug's family. Since the kids dressed up, I took the opportunity to get a sibling portrait. Last year's portrait came out beautifully, but this year, there was no such luck. First, I was plagued by weird yellow lighting caused by the sun reflecting off the wood floors. Then the kids managed to pull a whole new slew of portrait antics. Since part of Passover is hearing about the ten plagues of Egypt (blood, frogs, locusts, boils, etc.), I now bring you the ten plagues of spring portraits.


Yellow lighting. If I turn the color temperature down much more on this, everyone turns green.


Wagging tongues.


Uncontrollable laughter. Two out of three people in my family look fantastic in this photo.


Inability to sit up. Adam apparently went boneless shortly before this shot.


Surprised face. Adam was shocked to hear that Doug actually didn't look right in a previous (deleted) shot.


Crazy eyes.


Monster mash. Apparently Adam's crazy eyes possessed Dova to do the monster mash.


Urge to lick sisters. Must be related to the plague of wagging tongues.


Sad face. This occurs after I threaten to take away video games for not behaving for this portrait.


Cow licks. OK, this is a half decent shot, but all that horsing around left Adam's hair a mess.


Hosted by Karen at 3 Garnets and 2 Sapphires.

I Can Have Bio Now?

This photograph is the winner according the results of my head shot poll. This shot doesn't qualify for the I ♥ Faces self-portrait challenge this week because I used a tripod, so check out this self-portrait from the same session where I am holding the camera.

I needed a new head shot my BlogHer speaker bio. Now that I have the photograph, I'm still at a loss for what my bio should actually say. There are so many accomplished writers and mompreneurs with actual experience influencing the internetz.  Professionally, I am a software engineer with excellent credentials and experience, but this has nothing to do with mommyblogging.  I'm a bit in awe of the witty, kick-ass bios that are already published for BlogHer '09. What on earth do I say about myself?  Until I figure that out, please stop by my session "MommyBlogging: 'Balance' is a Big, Fat, Lying, McLiar LIE for Moms who Blog (and the rest of us too)" if you're going to BlogHer '09. Oh, I guess I do have experience in not sleeping!


During the head shot poll, I had this funny conversation with a friend who is a former co-worker.  I stupidly forgot to save the instant messaging conversation, so here is a reasonable facsimile:

Friend:  Can I ask what criteria you are looking for in your head shot?

Me:  Something that looks like me and is flattering?

Friend:  I'm asking at risk of offending you by thinking of a co-worker in that way.

Me:  Huh?

Friend:  Well it depends on whether you want to look professional, motherly or hot.

Me:  LOL
Friend:  In the window looks most motherly. I know where those gray hairs come from.

Friend:  The blue shirt looks most professional because it has more light dark contrast and would look best when scaling down.

Friend:  In looking up (above), you have an impish look in your eyes which make you look kinda hot.

Me:  OMG, I'm totally ROFL!

So hot it is, thanks for voting!  Now, to make up some words for this hot mommyblogger...

PH - Purple

I dug into the archives for this week's aptly themed Purple Photohunt. Many bloggers have gone purple this week in honor of Maddie Spohr, and I even wore my purple paisley shirt on the day of her memorial.  If there is only one post you read about Maddie, see her dad Mike's remembrance.



So what the heck am I doing blindfolded in a purple bandana in a purple shirt hanging from a rope? See my gone fishing team building exercise.

Here's a picture of Doug and Adam in matching purple shirts from 2006.



And not to be left out, here's Dova in her purple jacket with a purple boa constrictor around her neck.




Hosted by tnchick.com.

PSF - Disqualified!

Here's a conversation I had with 5-year-old Dova:

Dova:  Mom, you're disqualified.

Me:     Oh really?  And what does disqualified mean?

Dova:  YOU'RE FIRED!

Obviously, we've been watching too much Celebrity Apprentice.


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Love Thursday - Knitted Hearts

A friend of mine recently had open heart surgery to repair his mitral valve.  When I went to visit him in the hospital, I brought him a knitted heart in honor of his new heart.  Being an mechanical engineer like me, he likened his new heart to a rebuilt engine in a car, "I now have a Porsche engine in a VW body."  He described being able to feel the blood pulsing in his head and in his toes for the first time in his life.  It was awesome to hear that the operation was a success, but also distressing to see him in pain when he coughed.  He has a long recovery ahead, but many people who support and care about him. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

For the knitting pattern, see Mochimochi and my modifications here.

See more Love Thursday on Chookooloonks.

Sadness and Renewal

If you're tuned into the blogosphere, you know that Maddie Spohr passed away a week ago. I spent hours pouring over posts written about her and gazing at her amazing eyes. I couldn't bring myself to post about it, as my words couldn't possibly add any more to everyone's outpouring of support. Her loss has touched so many and has created much awareness on the fragile existence of preemies. Giving money doesn't bring her back, but it does ease the burden on her family as well as support a worthy cause. So please consider giving here:

And on the heels of Maddie, I heard about Thalon Myers, who passed away this weekend.  I am at a complete loss for words.  Please visit whoorl for her tribute.

As I walked outside this week, pondering the meaning of all this sadness, I noticed something quite normal, yet remarkable.




Taken with my new Panasonic DMC-TZ5.

Spring is finally here in New England. May these young souls be at peace and may the rest of us experience renewal.