Another poem

This was going to be a short story, but somehow it turned into a poem... I never thought of myself as a poet.

To Catch a Dream 

She cast a line into the sea to try to catch a dream;

Instead she caught a thrashing world,

glistening blue and red and green.

Out of the salty depths from which it had been submerged,

for forty days and forty nights it flowed and weaved,

unseen.

She held the glowing world in her hand’s palm

and listened to the rumors of ghosts

and the throbbing of its heart’s calm.

The world, in its turn, cast off the shadows and the doubt,

revved up its spirit, Life, and warmed the

            healing balm.

She wore the world close to her heart

upon a silver string;

kept its secrets for herself and whispered

her innocent tales of cabbages and kings.

Nature’s bounty sparked and bloomed and showed the world

in tresses of newborn Spring.

She modeled the world upon her breast

in her changeling years,

and loved a boy who broke her heart,

that honest Puck, that maker of tears.

The world convulsed and burst with songs of faith and hope,

            dispelling shadows of offense and fears.

She carried the world upon her brow

            set in a golden crown,

and beside her strolled the shining vows,

burnt with the fires of her eyes.

They followed her wing glides in the clouds

            and framed her fearful symmetry. 

Upon the twilight of the her days

            When the stars began to fade,

the world pulsed bright in the darkening sky

            and then began to serenade

the flights of lore, the tales of yore,

            and the perfume of life’s bouquet.

She walked the well-trodden road to sea

            with the world curled in her hand,

and with the wisdom of her feet

            by way of the footprints in the sand.

To the world she whispered, go gentle into that

            good night, and returned it from the land.

Pokemon Go

I downloaded the Pokemon Go app on my phone the day after it was released and was hooked. I wasn't a huge fan of Pokemon, though I did watch all the English-version episodes of the original Pokemon series during the Saturday morning cartoons line-up when I was a kid, and I did collect and trade Pokemon cards with my friends in elementary school. But I never played the Nintendo Pokemon games (mostly because my parents never bought me and my siblings any games or gaming consoles).

I loved those cartoons though and I watched it every week with my little brother and sister. So I guess Pokemon Go was attractive for its nostalgia factor, and the fact that it didn't need me to purchase a separate device to play it. 

What I didn't factor was all the walking the game required, and the fact that the game made me want to go outside and walk. I'm not a big exercise person. And I don't like to walk, especially now that it's the middle of the summer and it's sweltering hot outside. Pokemon Go made me go outside and take walks, and enjoy it. I had to be moving in order to capture different types of Pokemon, and to go places in order to get items and train at gyms. I had to be physical in order to earn achievements, which is a great exercise and rewards system. 

And I think one of the best things about the game is that, because it's augmented reality, it takes you to real places and to places you might never have gone to otherwise, or walked passed every day without noticing it. It opens up your eyes to the neighborhood around you. When I started playing that weekend, I found treasures in my neighborhood that I never noticed before. There are a lot of churches and statues, and also private gardens and tributes and remembrances. That is the best thing about augmented reality games like Pokemon Go, it takes people outside and takes them away from their insular computerized worlds to experience some part of the real world. It teaches you to appreciate what you never gave a second glance to before. Or at least it did me. 

Here are some treasures I found in my neighborhood: 

Somebody's private Buddhist zen garden

Tribute to victims of Sandy Hook shooting

Tribute to U.S. Marines and model of the Statue of Liberty

Update on Letters for Black Lives Matter

Powerful readings by everyday voices

Quick update about the Letters for Black Lives Matter. Here are the voice recordings of the letter in multiple languages by a diverse group of people, adding their ordinary yet powerful voices to an important movement. 

This is how we can begin to contribute to the #BLM movement and begin to effect change, by educating members of our family who may not have questioned their prejudiced views and beliefs. 

Letters for Black Lives readings: https://lettersforblacklives.com/readings-5b1ec771c11b#.bhqu8k8q7 

Follow Letter for Black Lives and get updates from the group doing this wonderful and necessary work: https://lettersforblacklives.com/ 

One Chinese American's Thoughts on #BlackLivesMatter

As the second post on my new blog, this topic is rather heavy. In the past year violence against Black Americans in the United States has seemed to increase, with news of yet more police shootings or brutal police behavior appearing in the news at least a few times a month. In the past week alone, there have been at least two fatal police encounters resulting in the death of Black men. It is NOT the case that violence against our fellow Black Americans have increased in the past couple of years; it IS the case that violence and prejudice against our fellow Black Americans have never truly subsided. It has just been more visible due to the advent of smartphones with cameras and the internet; the violence is just more visible to more people.

But this increased visibility has shown us that violence and death is not the most tragic thing that has occurred to our fellow Americans. To me, the most tragic thing is that despite all the evidence, all the coverage, all the voices of our fellow Black Americans telling us that this terrible thing is happening to them, and has been happening for generations on American soil, in the land of the free, THEIR VOICES ARE NOT BEING HEARD. What is tragic is that for many other Americans of Color in the United States, and I mean many in the Asian community (especially, from my experience, older Chinese immigrants and older generations of Chinese Americans) cannot set aside their own prejudices and see that our fellow Black Americans are no different from all the rest of us. We are racist, too.

As an Asian American, and especially as a first generation Chinese American, it pains me to see that my friends and fellow citizens suffer from such discrimination and racism. It angers me that my parents and grandparents, my aunts and uncles, have such superficial and prejudiced views against people whom I grew up with, went to school with and work with, that I call my friends, my family. But no amount of discussions or arguments or reasoning seem to be able to change their stubborn views and fears. It certainly doesn't help that my Chinese was basic at best and that I did not have the vocabulary to truly convey my views and feelings.

Whenever I read about another shooting or another instance of brutality against Black America, I am saddened and angered. I want to lash out at the governments, institutions and prejudices that allow this to continue to happen, over and over again. But I never know what I could do that will make any significant difference, that will not diminish the voices of my fellow Black Americans. After all, their experiences are not my experiences and their history is not my history.

But their anger is my anger and their fight can be my fight, too. I don't have to shed silent tears of sadness and anger.

This piece has gone on longer than I expected it to be when I first started writing it. It was meant as a prelude to a crowd-sourced letter that has emerged out of a collaboration by people of many backgrounds, people who care about the Black Lives Matter movement. I felt that, when I learned about this letter, there is finally something I can do to help, no matter how small my contribution: I can share this letter with my family, with my parents and in-laws, and try to help them understand the importance of caring about this movement, of caring about what happens to our fellow Americans.

A few weeks ago, my father called me up on the phone to complain about a tenant renting one of the apartments in his house. The tenant is Korean, staying in the U.S. as a law school student. She had been renting the apartment since before my parents purchased the property some months ago. The reason for my father's complaint was that she now has a live-in boyfriend, and he is black. Without learning anything about her new roommate and boyfriend, he tells me that she is going to be trouble, simply because she invited her black boyfriend to live with her, simply because her boyfriend is black. As I rolled my eyes during the conversation, I tried once again to convince him that he has no basis for his prejudiced opinions, and once again he was not completely convinced. I am hoping that this letter, the Chinese translation of which I have shared with him, and which is far more articulate than I could ever be, will, at the very least, open up his mind just a little bit and perhaps help him to rethink his views.

Here is the letter: https://lettersforblacklives.com/dear-mom-dad-uncle-auntie-black-lives-matter-to-us-too-7ca577d59f4c#.d4uwva87p

Is this the beginning or the middle?

It is certainly not the end

I have tried keeping up online journals and blogs before, but they have never ended well. The blogs are always neglected or forgotten and then, when I remembered that the stuff I had written at a certain point in my life about my life was still somewhere out there on the public web, I searched them out and...expunged them. They are no more (as far as I know, but there may still be traces of them lurking behind dark webs, waiting to spring out and frighten me when I least expect it). The diary entries from my teenage years were embarrassing (whose weren't?) and some of it was probably a little pretentious. The stuff from my college years were less embarrassing and contained many posts and photos from my study abroad trip, some of which would have been a nice addition to this blog, but unfortunately, those have also been deleted or somehow gone missing. Somewhere in between was an attempt at an online journal that was meant to be a writer's notebook, of sorts, but that was neglected since almost the very beginning of its existence and has been lost to time. And finally, there was an idea for a professional-type blog that never even left the ground.

And so, I am now trying again, with a new blog, which will also be a Writer's Notebook as well as a Journal of Musings about wondrous or terrible things, a Diary of One Person's Journey of professional change, and the Log of an Aspiring Writer's Struggles and Achievements. This is a tall order and it is a promise to myself. I hope I can keep it up.