H. Hsu Word Salad

Good Evening Everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here on your occasion of celebration, your Sash Bash. And thank you to Dr. Yokoyama for her generous introduction. In my humble opinion, JFK is blessed to have such a phenomenal woman amongst its faculty.
Intitally, when invited to speak, I thought, surely JFK could find someone more impressive!
But, as I mulled it over, I thought, ‘who better to speak to you about the path ahead, than a relatively new psychologist like me?” I have only renewed my license three times thus far. I work closely with graduate students almost every day. So I remember, and am constantly learning about the psychology trainee experience.
Which is a unique worldview.
I mean, really-
What kind of masochistic people willingly take on such an ordeal?
• A challenge that lasts for years and includes
• Spending a year in an ethnographic placement in the most unfamiliar community you can find?
• Donating thousands of practica and internship hours?
• Incurring enormous financial obligations?
• Incurring the ire of your neglected loved ones?
• Reading thousands of pages of journals and texts?
• Completing a dissertation or doctoral project?
• thousands of hours of introspection and self assessment, which, let’s all admit, when done correctly, can be uncomfortable-even painful.
• And all for no guarantees of any kind for fame and riches!

Let me say this: I KNOW what kind of people would do such a thing.
People with the soul and the mettle to be leaders.

JFK is a favorite institution for non-traditional students. The kind of students I feel a kindred experience with, many of whom may have been told such messages as I was told:
“It’s not realistic for you”
“Who do you think you are?”
“Why do you have to expect so much? Can’t you just be a team player?”
Or my favorite:
“You work in what kind of places? Huh, you don’t look that tough”

As Dr Yokoyama mentioned, I want people to know I was a non-traditional student. I was admitted to graduate school branded as probationary status-because I had worked to support myself while juggling a double major, and had the lack of sleep and erratic grades to prove it.
But I believed in what I was doing.
I felt a fire when advocating for misunderstood, stereotyped, and underserved communities that had never before manifested in my education. I want people to know I haven’t been a straight A student probably since 4th grade - because I want to completely shatter the myth that only a certain “elite” can ever dream of wearing that cap, gown, and hood. As a clinical supervisor, it is now my privilege to play a role in guiding the next generation of psychologist advocate-leaders. I see the strengths and bright ideas you all are fomenting, and it is inspiring! I also have to bear painful witness to the homophobia, sexism, racism, ageism, classism and disability biases which both clients and students must combat regularly.

It was in 2008 that one of my trainees was told during an internship interview “you know we don’t really have many clients of color and we have no gay clients. I don’t think you’d fit n here.” It is in 2009 that my students still are given poor evaluations for speaking up about social justice and cultural issues in class. (not at JFk!)

Most institutions in psychology do not practice a commitment to multicultural values and community service as JFK does. Our field currently remains permeated with a vstigial vocabulary that betrays privilege, hierarchy, and bias in its very definitions. Identified patients, dysfunctions, irrational, abnormal, hysterical, enmeshed, not “psychologically minded”…I feel these are false relics from a time of fear and stigma. When we were too afraid to admit that at times we or the ones we love are patients, clients, consumers too.
What better way to spend one’s career than to care for the humanity of others? In my experience, working as a psychologist has allowed me grow deeper, become more patient, appreciative, and mindful. Working for the health and well being of others has sustained my own development and allowed me a job that is full of meaning, purpose, and growth.

I want a similar satisfaction to be yours. Fine tune that inner compass.
You have been trained in clinical and ethical issues. You have demonstrated the heart of a healer. As you now move away from your classrooms, supervisors, and faculty, you must be a reliable and steady guide for yourself and your peers. I met a dear friend and colleague, Dr. Susan Ono, at Asian Community Mental Health Services. We assisted one another in navigating early career challenges, confronting old power structures, and studying together for Board licensure. Dr. Ono was the one who introduced me to Dr. Yokoyama, and in turn each of us have introduced the others to like minded thinkers and healers and perhaps most importantly- doers.

I learned far more at Asian Community Mental Health Services from my clients and colleagues than I ever did in my formal education. I had co workers, mere para-professionals which some doctoral students or licensed staff looked down upon as “not doing therapy”. Even though some of these para professionals, mental health specialists, were the living breathing embodiment of resiliency. To work shoulder to shoulder with those who emerged from catastrophic trauma, and rebuilt lives and families and now served the community-this was what I needed to learn.
No more theory.
Real, authentic practice. It would have been much more comfortable to stay in my lofty “I’m a trained license track therapist” office. But I know my clinical efficacy, to say the least of my humanity, increased by stretching my boundaries to encompass different ways of knowing and healing.

Who could imagine that I, an Asian American Californian, liberal tree hugging granola bibliophile would find herself deployed to police stations in post-Katrina New Orleans? What on earth was someone like me gonna do within a para-military organization in the South?!
Up in a FEMA helicopter, all us SAHMSA volunteers went silent with ache and dread at the destruction which went on literally as far as they eye could see. The few civilians remaining in town guarded their homes with shotguns at the ready.

I had certainly never been trained for this.

But I knew how to create collaborations. I knew how to sit with trauma and remind people of the humanity extreme conditions can strip. I had a bit of street credibility hailing from Oakland…most importantly, I knew how to sit down and start a conversation over a bowl of Corn Pops, Bread Pudding, or 9th ward gumbo.
I knew how to help facilitate a poetry slam, a Motown review night, and do outreach at all hours. The Katrina Assistance Project was an acid test so to speak, of the meshing of formal education, with life experience. It was an opportunity to lend a hand to a community healing itself, and we all grew from the lessons of co-creation.

There simply is no current body of empirically validated practices for some of our most underserved communities.
You shall be the ones who help create it.
There is no place in our current healthcare behemoth to reimburse and fund community based interventions because they do not conform to that outdated medical, in office, isolated, individual model.
Once you get out there, if you can not find a space for yourself with a traditional employer-think big. Maybe it’s time for you to create that space for yourself. Perhaps you should follow your visions into fruition.

In graduate school, there was an African American couple, my dear friends Alexis and Shawn, who began to draw up plans for their own agency upon realization that there simply was not established agency doing what they felt was important and of interest.
A few years later, they founded their own: Fruge Psychological Associates. FPA is one of the only for profit training sites, and the first minority founded and owned site to have won a major contract with Alameda county in decades. Our founders and supervisors are all people of color who have spent the majority of our careers with underserved populations. We primarily serve youth of color through private contracts. And we operate a clinical training program because we see the value of training psychologist who are immersed in the community, who can learn to utilize their creativity and humanity in ways that exceed traditional classroom training.
What sort of agency or educational facility might you bring to fruition? I am eager to hear of it.

Keep your visions long and wide ranging. When I talk about community, I mean community-from your city block all the way to the international community. I have presented at conferences in other countries about the kind of multi-culturally informed, innovative work that we all do here, and the excitement in the room has been palpable. We have so much to learn from one another, and your voice is long overdue in this global conversation.

I had never dreamed psychology would bring me to New Orleans, to juvenile hall, hospice, the heart of Richmond and Oakland, La Familia Consejera, Buenos Aires, Havana and this Fall, Wuhan, China. Simply by remaining open to possibility and alert for new opportunities- incredible experiences and horizons opened up for me.
As they shall for you. Get on the list servs, nominate yourselves or one another for committees and boards, publish your papers and books, present at conferences and symposiums-our field needs to hear what you have to say! If your friends are too modest to nominate themselves, YOU can nominate them.

I’d like to wrap with a note of wisdom from one the more influential white males in my personal development.
Am I talking about Freud? No.
Not Jung, nor Beck, not even Carl Rogers or Michael White…
I am referring to, Mr. Fred Rogers.

Let us think of those who have liked you, accepted you, “just the way you are”. Ironically, that kind of acceptance leads us all to exceed our limitations.
Being SEEN and being validated in the now, allows the future to expand.

Why don’t we take a moment now to meditate together upon all the people who have supported us, cheered us, tolerated and prodded us, and simply loved us into being- who have guided you- culminating into this night’s milestone achievement.

In our hearts, or with our voices, let us say, Thank You.

Esteemed graduates, you have toiled for many years to attain this remarkable educational achievement. You have collectively given thousands of hours of yourselves to healing others, and being a bridge and a guide who pays it forward. Please don’t forget to practice your self care as you go forward.

I trust your lives have been transformed through this process, and indeed, you shall make important changes to our world. As is the motto of JFK University.

I am so honored to share in this evening with you, and so pleased to stand here and say:
CONGRATULATIONS you have earned it!
And:
WELCOME. What a happy moment to meet new colleagues who are fightin’ the good fight!

A decade ago, highlights included the junk in his trunk, and the fact that he lit candles and kept a box of Powerbars at hand.He paid for a phenomenal amount of Kamakura sushi, and held my hand stoically during brisk outdoor walks.When I fell ill, he brought over Cinema Paradiso & Mulan, accompanied by Chinese porridge for my tummy.

P was the one who re-formatted and printed out the book-length final draft of my doctoral dissertation, after I had collapsed in our office and simply refused to look at it anymore.

Six years ago, assets were displayed at the Mountain Winery wedding he co-planned and paid for and by the black “engagement RAV4” I drove.

We were the picture of happiness on our postcard perfect Belize lunamiel.We both had such great abs back then!He let me lead him to a country he literally couldn’t find on the map, and into the jungles and ruins where mosquitoes favored his fair skin.He plunged with me into shark-ray alley, and we took murky underwater photos in turquoise seas.

Ten years in, love, and making a life with someone, looks quite different.

It’s still important to me that he’s maintained his backside, and he continues to supply a massive quantities of sushi.

Yet these days, I am reminded how lucky I am when I get home from work at 9pm, and there is a hot pizza waiting and the garbage is already on the curb.These days, the stability of my love come from all sorts of experiences which I never even imagined back in 1999.

My travel dreams have come true with P as we hit 10 countries in 10 years.Fantastical places like Iguazu Falls, Tikal, Isla Ometepe, Buenos Aires, Angkor Wat, and Phuket.

Much more importantly, P is the only person who has walked with me, down numerous hospital corridors.He met Grandma Yang, boozed and laughed with her before she sunk into the depths of dementia and became lost to us.He stood awkwardly yet bravely by the Alzheimers bed of Grandma Hsu, and burned incense and paper money with us for her last year. It is P who has held my hand at multiple funerals, and cried as I delivered a wrenchingly painful eulogy for a friend I deeply loved.P is the only person who totally won my family over, to the point that I sometimes suspect they are in cahoots against me…

Married life as I understand it thus far is like this: one autumn night I may find myself on a cupcake and wine high, dancing with my love as we holler/sing 80’s songs across the dance floor.It’s someone who holds my hand in his lap throughout dinner and takes photos of me despite the 10 thousand we already have.The very next day may find us in a seething huff, his genetic inability to be timely, by genetic incapacity to be tidy-both people in a sulk.But it’s OK. Because inevitably now we understand, that for every F.O.O. fight (family of origin) or eyeball rolling moment, there will be a new adventure, a sweet gesture.

I understand now that it doesn’t matter if he makes fun of my “white music” and will not accompany me in triathalons.If he is not enraptured with fruits and books as I am… We have beloved friends and family to fill other needs.I notice when he passes me the nicer things (like eating the old leftovers while I get the new one, and taking the old ratty yoga strap for yourself while I again, get the new one).

Happy Anniversary to us! So what if the weather was crap and our Napa balloon flight was canceled?We didn’t pitch a fit, just went back to bed and later had an extraordinary day eating ourselves into a coma amongst friends at Oxbow Public Market.Here’s to many more glasses of wine raised in toast as the years roll on…

I’m a big reader, and it’s actually become an uncontrollable reflex. I’ll scan say, a BART station, and sometimes commercial slogans and messages pop into my mind faster than I realize where I read it. Then I have to re-peruse the walls to see the origins. Damn marketers. Got my attention even if it was to check and make sure these were slogans and not intrusive thoughts as my deteriorating mind. Advertising is a brutal field these days as they try to claw their way into an oversaturated atmosphere. Where else can an ad be slapped that isn’t already plastered over?
This month I find myself both amused and insulted by…tampon wrappers. Oh, yes. That is indeed what I said. Not a topic of conversation one ever decides to spend time upon. Run away not if you must. A quick glance before tossing something into the rubbish bin and my brain caught the phrase “You’re a take-charge kind of girl!”
Exclamation point and all. Geez, do these people in marketing and packaging have nothing better to do than come up with motivational mantras for tampon wraps? Am I a take charge kind of girl? What if the reader were in fact, a simpering doormat of a girl? I wouldn’t be having a cycle at all if I were a “girl” now would I?
What in hell else is there in this box…?
“Focus, focus, focus” On what, may I ask?
“Keep your mind and body flexible” well, I agree with that, that’s what yoga is all about.
“Get off the bench!” I did not realize I was on a bench. Nor a fence.
“Go for the win” but I’m in the loo right now…
“Go for your personal best” again, I’ll set a new personal record once I get out of the loo…and stop reading toothpaste tubes and packaging.
“Life is a sport…Play to win!” well, that seems awfully vague.
“Persistence pays off” what, is that a message for constipated people or something?
“Stop Stressing…start focusing” Hmm. Without a worthy thing to focus upon one just creates stress I think.
“Win or lose, play fair” OMG I needed my tampon to teach me about the golden rule!
“Ready for even the toughest challenge” WOW if this product can make me THAT tough I need to buy a dozen more…
“Celebrate a bold attitude” this one is open to all sorts of potentially dangerous interpretations.
“Game on!” am I on TV or something?! What are we playing?
“All you can do is your best” well that doesn’t sound very motivating.
“Live out your dreams” well actually, that would require either illegal activities or hallucinagenic substances…kinda not down with that scene no more.
Or here’s my favorite in terms of unintended ridiculousness:
“Go play. Have fun. Trust your tampon.”
WHAT!? Ah hahaha. Trust your tampon? I’m sorry, I really preferred “The force is with you” or “Just keep swimming”, or even ‘Hakuna Matata.”

This is what I get for buying something dolled up and marketed for “active women”. I don’t know what you’d call my life half the time but active is definitely in there somewhere. I am mildly offended and feel like I am being condescended to by a hygiene product. But I guess it’s no less infantilizing than the way they put pink flowers and fruits and crap like that on everything sold to women. A sporty take charge theme is somehow preferable to the fresh-as-a-flower -yippee-skippee theme normally used in female ads.
It occurs to me, as an aspiring writer, that it was someone’s job to come up with all these little tampon-as-fortune-cookie tidbits of wisdom. Probably someone else’s job to approve them and then format it for the wraps. Gosh would that be like a dream job in terms of cush or would it make a self respecting writer want to shoot themself? (”Yeah, I’m a freelance author. My last gig? Oh, well, I, er…wrote copywriting for a commercial product. What was it? Uhm….”)

Ah, the oxymoronic term of the week! Government, by definition these days, is not very organized.

A client vented yesterday about how angry the current economic situation was (I feel ya pal, we are all so there…)  “How is it that I have to work so hard all these years and they can’t even manage to do a budget?!”

Today I am online trying to sort out the arcane requirements of a small business. Whew. Talk about a challenge - no wonder so many people just work under the table.  I already passed my 2 licensure examinations and paid my $400+ per 2 years plus 36 unit hours for renewal as a psychologist.  Already established fictitious business name. Forked out $ for that every 5 years.  Got a business Tax ID. OK. Getting more confusing now, but I’m game.  My sublesser got us a fire department inspection. I think the inspection took 2 minutes since they firepersons can just stand at our door, glance around, and OK, that’s the entirety of our bitty office.

Right now I am trying to look at additional permits or whatever needed and I am astounded and at the level of categories on the state website.  Special permits for coaches, referees, and personal trainers, guide dog schools, pest control, dental hygienists…

In the job list I searched for my category. WTF? They had acupuncuritst, ice manufacturer, repossession services, photofinishing services (with the exception of 1 hour, why I can’t imagine), incineration for refuse, courier, brewery, winery, beef cattle feedlot, flavoring syrup manufacturer…but NO counselors, psychologist, therapists. What is up with that? Uhm….I guess acunpuncturist and medical doctor are the closest categories to what I do so I check those boxes.  Am led to a page with more gobbledygook.

This exasperation is on top of the morass of assisting my mother through her adventures with unemployment benefits.  The wise people there accused this senior citizen of fraudulently under reporting her puny temp job wage and not only tried to fine her hundreds of dollars, but also blacklist her! Yes, just go blacklist a 65 year old why don’t you, so that for 6 months she can’t access the legally entitled benefits she has worked for all her life.  Never mind that her one small error was due to your indecipherable forms and incompetent phone mis-advisors.  As if one could survive on the piddly benefits to begin with!  I mean, if she had no family to help out - how do people survive these lean times? I can’t imagine how many others with less family support at managing.  Hence our current trend on “going postal” ’round the country I suppose.

Mum’s situation cleared up a bit following a little circus that included nasty letters written by yours truly and her having to attend an actual court trial to explain her situation to a judge.  They rapidly concluded that it was all just an errror. So great, she has her pittance back and has vindicated her name.  Meanwhile, I am wondering how much taxpayer $$ went to this stupid farce and staffing the judge, reporter, etc, at court…much, much, much ado about NOTHING.

Breathe….the world is a better place due to the fact that P handles our taxes.  Because if it were me, there’d be no end to the griping and irate letter writing…the only silver lining of sorts in all this is that I am realizing how no one else know what they are doing half the time.  It’s kind of like how I felt when I began attending county behavioral health meetings.  I was intimidated until I realized we were all disorganized and clueless together.  Same for SSI, IRS, etc.  It’s a tad alarming to realize that we are not in wise hands, but that at least I can muddle through, and probably no one will be checking.

And no, I DON”T mean anthropolgie the clothing store. I mean anthropology as in cultural study, observation, analysis.

We found ourselves at the Golden Skate on a Saturday night for a friends’ birthday celebration.  “We are going to an ice skating place in San Ramon,” P said.  We meandered in the suburbs until he spotted the brassy neon sign in the night.  Golden skate? It looks like…a tavern.  Sure enough, inside featured a Western motif including mine shafts and saloon trim.  But the feature? An amazing, slick white floor with disco colored lights and a DJ. It’s not ice skating- it’s roller skating!

The local inhabitants were fascinating.  I scanned the food offerings which made one alternately fear diabetic shock or cardiac failure.  Pitchers of soda, licorice ropes longer than the kids sucking on them.  Scary cafeteria style nachos and pizza clotted with questionable queso.  Settled on a root beer float to fuel my field work.

There was the tall man who performed ice skate style socows, lutz spins, even a sideways bent over, “yoga on wheels” move with one leg extended out, another crossed over, and a torsa parallell to the floor at high velocity.  Then there an entire pack of rather obese indivduals who wobbled mightily as they danced and skated simultaneously.  P gaped. “OMG”  I had no idea that one body could jiggle in 4 different directions pretty much at once.  On cue the dj hit Sir Mix a Lot’s “Baby got Back” (which is so gleefully cheesy that I actually quite enjoy it as one of my run tunes).  After all, P and I are NO fans of skinny.  Nuh-uh, no flat butts need apply for my attention.  In our Asian home countries we are both actually toting what would be considered a serious wide load.  Apparently the locals have taught us the parameters of the “like big butts” tendencies.  The extra wide load did’nt really perturb me, but the pendulous guts immediately send my brain screaming into warning.  I suffer flashbacks of the fat enrobed internal organs we saw at Bodyworlds and shudder at the diseased look.

Afterwards, we found ourselves at an In-n-out at 11 pm.  Which is almost an outing on its own since I eat a burger maybe…4x per year at most.  The crowd consisted mostly of teens in identical sweatshirts.   Things got more interesting as a post-formal group of teenagers began trickling in.  6 foot gangly boys in tuxes and blonde girls in evening gowns which likely cost more than more people’s wedding gowns (or mortage payments).

One man sat alone, waiting for his order number to be called.  His entire skin was mottled with uneven pigment, one entire earside purple and knotty.  Blotches of red alternating with what one assumes is his normal Causian taupe.  The teens studiously tried to ignore him from the front, and stare from the back.  He studiously ignored everyone around him.

I told P that I think about this sort of thing when I am having a bad face day.  Yeah, most of you have bad hair days- but I am prone to exteme  bad face days when the hormones and stress run wild & I think the entire world is going to focus on a facet of my cystic acne.  I find myself wanting to call in sick to work and hide at home feeling sorry for myself.  But my self talk then kicks in.

“Oh come on, H.  You are so god damned lucky to be healthy.  What if you truly were disfigured or scarred? Would you give up your life and stay home? Get over yourself!”  I wonder sometimes if I would be brave enough to carry on with normal life if I has such disproportionate looks.  I truly hope I would  be.

P asks if we are on vacation again.  I don’t know what he means. Because we are eating a bunch of crap like on vacation mode? He points out that we are the only non-white people in the room again.  I look, and it’s true.  So funny. It’s as if we are again on Isla Ometepe or Crooked tree village.  Asian America seems like distant land in here.

Beside us we hear teen girls talking about a boy from school who “has gotten SO FAT, like twice, like double  his size, OMG…” P says he needs to leave.  I concur.  We dash out to the car laughing uproariously with the sheer joy of being liberated from high school forevermore.

I found myself mildly irritated by the tongue in cheek cover of my latest Bliss (from our spa to your skin) catalog. 3 super cute cartoon gals in spa gloves and towel wraps are portrayed protesting under the title “fight for your beauty rights”.Much like Barbie, they are portrayed as ethnically diverse in skin color and hair color – yet mysteriously have identical faces and proportions.The white gal is armed with a bullhorn and raising a fist, the others hold placards with such deep thoughts such as “Save Face (and the earth)!, Ban Cellulite, and Give “pores” a chance. Sigh.

As a rabid reader, I was fortunate enough to happen upon sociological and marketing treatises in my younger years.From these I realized how much brainwash us women are all subjected to, to spend all our time and money upon an elusive, synthetic, ridiculous aesthetic ideal.Can you imagine what political power women would hold if the multi-millions conned out of us by the cosmetics and fashion industries were channeled into Political action committees or environmental and social justice campaigns!?

Si Se Puede!

Instead, well educated women are critiqued for their pantsuits and hairdos…and I have caught myself devoting precious time and energy to insipid activities such as grooming minute hairs on my eyebrows, blending eye shadow perfectly, or dousing my head in noxious chemicals. Chalk three up to beauty rights and intellectual wrongs.

Well, let’s take a look at this Bliss catalog.Hmmm. If I go with the recommended daily skin care regimen, I would spend $671.00 on the products alone. (mid-range, NOT their priciest offerings).  Approximately $250.00 on make up, $175.00 for the shampoo, conditioner and hair masque, as well as $180 for the curling iron and $169 for the uber hair dryer.So let’s see, that takes us to a total of $1,445.00, with 3 of those item categories requiring replenishments a minimum of 3x a year…which brings it to $4,684 to maintain my beauty rights. All this not including basic body care (shower gels, shave or wax paraphernalia, moisturizers, nail care) to say the least of the more exotic wares (anti cellulite creams, self tanners, fat-reducing sandals and shoes).

You know, for about 5 grand, I could take a luxurious vacation (for two) to Belize, Nicaragua, or Thailand again, and the benefits for my sanity, serenity would be phenomenal.I would learn about other cultures, experience nature, share quality time with P, get exercise, and relax.Trust me, that is the most guaranteed manner in which to relax these frownie lines on my head!  Rather than hole up in the bathroom alone with my 5 grand worth of over priced potions “Hope in a Jar” (there is a book titled thus for those interested in the history of the industry).

Yesterday P and I went to the local park for a run around the 2.2. mile lakeside trail.There was the chatter of birds, the sound of water and wind, the feel of heart and lungs working hard, and the presence of my beloved beside me.   The sun was warm, skies blue, and there was a mild glee in passing other runners.  It was bliss.And it cost no $ at all.

Simple Question: How was the conference in Cuba?

Short Answer: Good.

Real Answer: It was a one week version of going away for camp in a socialist, propaganda tinged, musically magical country, in a city that is a historical marvel, with a bunch of absolutely brilliant 50-ish year old therapists from at least 5 different countries (12+ if you count the countries of origins for us immigrants) gone wild and entranced by the dancing and rhythms and mojitos and cigar smoke that could only be Cubano.

I met some famous (in the psych field) authors, whacked one in the backside with a door whilst he stood innocently at a urinal, danced the conga with Ukraine children affected by Chernobyl in a building beside a beautiful beach, and was served coffee & given art created from dried grasses and a Johnny Walker Red box at a school for juvenile offenders.I was a peon presenting in a panel among giants about post-disaster trauma work.I was on the receiving end of the most intimate and wonderful therapeutic consult as I learned from wiser mentors- particularly the superwomen who shared their views on working mommyhood (or not).

I ate lobster and drank cocktails in a land where the average citizen is rationed limited rice and beans.I brought packets of soy sauce and siracha, Chinese and Japanese green tea bags to ease my longings for Asian food.We networked with Cuban social workers by dancing.Canadians were running wild all over Havana.We were welcomed to come inside by the President of the Hebrew community, and I found myself inside a Cuban Jewish library and synagogue. There was a park with long waves of leaves that draped seductively like hair or curtains.We sat through powerpoints that ended with quotes from Fidel Castro.Children dressed as bumblebees danced and sang in the convention hall where we, and sometimes parliament meets. We watched a psycho-ballet, Los Van Van, and the dazzling Tropicana show which once entertained old time mobsters.I drew piripos, calls of “China Linda”, invitations to dance, dine, and wondered if I had ever been hit on with this sort of frequency, within one week before in my entire life…which at near 35, is pretty darn funny.

WeI sought out Barrio Chino, where women screamed out “Ni Hao!!” and I photographed a little open air shack that served as a hardware store (P’s familia business is a Chinatown hardware store).After something like 14 years of being tobacco free, I smoked a cigar.We laughed like idiots as if we were in high school.We talked about clients and spouses.Walked in the footsteps of Hemingway.Questioned each taxi driver and tour guide about their views and personal experience under 50 years of revolution.I rode in a dinky Skoda, a Czech car I had never heard of before, as well as a red 1954 Chevy (with original engine!).I ran my hands over Italian marble, dense and gorgeous, and no longer available in Necropolis de Christopher Colon.We visited the grave of Amelia, an unofficial saint of sorts, and made a donation and wish for goodwill.I fed a little skinny street cat a sizable portion of my fish dinner because she looked like a version of Mimi who I bought for mom, and because she was graceful with luminous, if hungry, eyes.I was foiled in my goal to walk along the entire Malecon seawall – because freak weather was sending waves crashing over the wall clear onto the cars.I introduced myself to a table of 4 Chinese youth, who were in Cuba for 10 months from Xian.I ate fresh pink guava and dreamed of Taiwan.I took close to 500 photographs, and it would have been 700 if I had had a better flash.My last Havana night I decided to forgo sleep entirely for live jazz and Cuba Libres instead.At 4:30 in the morning my New Kiwi friend and I drank double espressos, watched a Mexican standoff of bad manners regarding the shuttle transport, and had a good laugh before spending forever in a communist length queque and then spending our last CUC’s on Che and Havana Club shirts. Outside of the club were young men in blue vest reading “Promotor de Salud” handing out condoms.I bought maracas and claves.We wondered if we were being followed.Policia encircled the hotel at all hours, and it was whispered that Fidel himself sometimes stayed in one the nearby gated mansions.I handed out over the counter meds, soaps, pens, pencils, every possible item I could expend without maxing my luggage weight limit (actually air Mexican let me slide with a slight excess) to those in need.My new friend Jaime exclaimed “God Bless you” for my generosity, but I felt choked up about the opportunity to give. I have such a good life.In places like these I am acutely aware of how rabidly, randomly, fortunate I am…I have so much to share.I came home fuller in the head. Lighter in both wallet and luggage. With the music of Chan chan in my heart, and my quads and abs knackered from undulating.

A magnificent twilight zone. I can not wait to go back. Havana, is indeed, the siren she is reputed to be.

And back at SFO : a handsome man and a loving mom awaited with hand written signs:

Latina back from the Revolution & Asian Food available here!

I have been marinating in the phrase “an embarrassment of riches” all season.

For personal enrichment as of late, I have been reading about communist China.  For journey preparation, I have been reading about post-embargo Cuba.  And in my weekly work, I visit some might embattled communities within Richmond and Oakland, CA.  Often I am asked whether I find this sort of thing is “depressing”.  Rather, I find that it keeps me grounded. Keeps me from sweating the small stuff, so to speak. I am getting that familiar feeling again…the one we got whiffs of in Buenos Aires, Nicaragua, and Thailand, but which permeated my very being in Siem Riep, Cambodia.  That feeling, a stew of guilt and sadness, overwhelmingness (I know it’s a made up word), avoidance, truth, and embareassment.  That urge, to take off everything I am wearing and carrying and bestow it on others.  To try and cover the hole of human compassion in my chest, salve that ache with material offerings.  Even though I know, everything I own, would not be enough.

Here exists the keen knowledge that despite all my years of toil, in truth, the pleasures of my life are not really due to merit.  The accidents of birth that send us all careening on a certain set of paths were kind to me. No more, no less.  As an American citizen, I flaunt my freedom of speech mocking “The Decider” and know I won’t lose my job (or go to jail). I lament with P that we have so MANY delicious desserts at home, surely we will get enormously fat, and how do we decide which one to consume first??

Oh, yes, tasty dilemmas.  The origami wrapped Japanese desserts our Aikido dojo friends sent for New Years’? Or the Buenos Aires Brownie from Michigan stuffed with authentic Argentine dulce de leche? Perhaps the red velvet cake or peach cobbler K8 bought us from Gregory’s in Oakland?  Packages of snickerdoodles or Ritter chocolates I got at Cost Plus?  Plum powder covered dried Guava from Taiwan?  Phillipine dried mango? Salted exotic caramels from Vosge’s? Chewy, gooey Dutch stroopwafels paired with tea? And the teas…varieties from no less than 5 different countres to choose from.  Loose leaf or bag? Herbal or Black or Green?  Maybe some of that dark chocolate shaving Williams and Sonoma hot chocolate Kev gave us for Christmas?  Or perhaps the chocolate soymilk or apple carrot juice…  Amazing we don’t keel over in diabetic shock upon a weekly basis, really.

I’m not about to go all “Into the Wild” (fabulous book by the way), burning my money & setting off to die alone upon the Alaskan tundra, but it helps me to know my place in this world, in this life.  I do what I can to earn my keep.  I don’t need religion to want to serve others, and pay forward the gifts and kindnesses bestowed upon my thick head.  And I truly remind myself to savor every delicious moment and calorie in this house, in this life. I was quite surprised in 6th grade to have won a writing contest at school.  It was a holiday essay about the purpose of the holidays or some such.  What I remember about it are just these 2 things: Garden Gate elementary had made a stealth call to my mom, so she took the time out from work to be there at the assembly. (or was that for when Matt Q. and I were voted “most athletic”?) and the only actual line I remember writing, was that when it comes to helping people who are homeless or poor, “it’s not much, but if every family helped out, it would eventually be enough.” Inside the Curmudgeon of H, I guess there has always been a little socialist liberal…and so, I have gratitude for this bounty.  And I am arranging my stockpile of giveaway objects for my upcoming Havana trip.

Food travels…and winds up at my house.

“The world in my dining room” is what goes through my head as I examine the row of fixins’ assembled before me on Thanksgiving morning.A row of little tubes, powders, bottles, and fresh bits.Coriander, fish sauce, kaffir lime (galangal), garlic, ginger, lemongrass, cashews, and more.I dice onions until I am teary eyed.I use scissors to snip the thinnest, finest possible bits of kaffir lime leaf, while fantasizing about a food processor.

Manchurian/Guangdong Mom drives on over with an all American Honeybaked ham crusted with sugar.The Chinese Southerners (as in Georgia and Kentucky) come over and help me fry up Thai corn and tofu fritters.Besides their culinary expertise*, they bear Chilean wine & Kahlua bundt cake.

I modify a Chinese American Pineapple fried rice recipe with vaguely Indian flavors using imported curry powder & cashew nuts, and throw in some Mexican grown bell pepper.

The turkey we won last weekend is baked after a drenching in Australian Chardonnay, Italian Olive Oil, and seasoned with Peppercorns my former student brought from  her hometown in Vietnam, and Bay leaves from Turkey.

A tomato and onion stuffed Pilipino fish arrives with my beautiful nieces, who are more interested in eating mini Nathan’s hot dogs which I’ve baked into Pilsbury croissant dough, or in the Central American bananas.The turkey skin winds up being a big hit with the kids as well.P’s cousin comes with Thai snacks, sugared and dried Tamarind fruit pods and spicy cuttlefish strips.

We drink shots of 21 year old Scotch and brew green tea leaves from Taiwan, chamomile from Poland, and serve Heineken beer and Italian blood orange soda.

Geez. No wonder it’s so difficult to be a locavore!

*ancient Chinese / Atlanta secret:

How to tell if the pool of oil in your wok is hot enough to properly fry stuff like corn fritters in yet.Stick an unvarnished wooden chopstick, yeah, one of those cheapo restaurant ones, into the oil.If a mass of little bubbles form around it, it’s ready for fryin’!

Regular readers will recall that DM the legitimate spouse, of my beloved office spouse, was my Guns ‘n Roses cohort.Imagine my joy when he invited me to Metallica, one of the only, one the greatest bands, DM has not yet seen in live action.Office spouse says that “angry” music like Metallica and Rage Against the Machine etc. makes her feel “agitated”…kinda stressed.I suppose I can understand that.After all, angry music sometimes works to power me up Mission Peak around the Lake Run with B is not available to keep me company.

DM is teased by office spouse as “mild –mannered” (a term that always brings to mind Clark Kent).But he says that after a big, screaming, loud and nihilistic show, he feels almost sort of cleansed.James Hetfield pretty much put it that way himself when he ended the encores by whipping up the pit-to-rafters jam packed stadium into a participatory frenzy:

“You don’t have to take any of this energy home, leave it all here-that’s what we’re all here for tonight isn’t it!?”Then he prompted everyone on how to scream the three word chorus to SEEK AND DESTROY.

Cheery pre-Christmas outing!

The summary:

DM and my office spouse have the 2 cutest kids ever.Not that I am biased or anything.Little D and I have talked about Star Wars for ages, and this weekend he was discovering Bakugan.I took the family for a dinner at yummy Mint Leaf in Alameda (lemongrass chicken & garlic noodles, coconut rice claypot… mmmm) & then off to the show.Rain check to office spouse for a boozy girls’ night out sometime when she isn’t child caring.

Dinner with little ones ran late and we missed opening band #1 Sword.We took a long hike in from the outer fringes of the lot and immediately into a wall of pot smoke.Waited outside with the sold out crowd to be let slowly into the building, as a little army of Coors Light cans and bottles accumulated beside the line.

We caught the last part of Lamb of God, who were frankly totally unintelligible.But they looked pretty freaking awesome, wailing away like construction workers on their instruments, 4 long-haired, sweat-flying, screaming dudes.What they were screaming was beyond me, but the crowd was appreciative and they looked killer.

As DM and I sought our seats, more smoke of all kinds, and I feared we’d both have to drive home to our respective honeys with a contact high.DM keeps walking down, down, down the winding stairs. Much to my disbelief.I’ve been on a grad school budget most of my life, and always have nosebleed section tickets.Despite coming to shows in Oakland since I was 16, I have never sat this far front.

We are a mere 6 rows back from the mosh pit, where pasty men are gleefully throwing themselves at one another, elbows out, teeth bared.Close enough to see the action without being a part of the coronas of sweat emanating from stage and pit.Hats and clothes and beer cups and humans are flung about the pit, and our row chuckles at the side show.DM talks about a previous mosh pit experience which entailed total body muscle exertion merely to stand ones ground. “I think I was sore for like a week after that show.”

At long last…Metallica!Metallica whose magazine photos were up in my Cupertino high school bedroom.Metallica, whose Master of Puppets T-shirt was one of my favorite tops.Just as loud or louder than any other metal band, but with the musical, lyrical, and topical skills to outlast them all.This is after all, the band that has performed with the SF symphony, Sinofonica, and Montreal Orchestra.I made P watch “Some Kind of Monster” with me last week, the Metallica documentary.It was a fascinating view of these Gods of Metal going through intensive group therapy, playing with their kids, stumbling through the creative process etc.And while it was not so cool to see them dressed like dorks loping around their ranches and studios (not the handsome, scary, muscled & black clad junkie hardasses of their youth), I had new respect for them as talented musicians and newly sober and creative adults.

We are close enough to see every facial expression on band members, and to feel the blasts of heat from the flaming pyrotechnics that stun us all as the opening to “One” (the only music video that has made me want to cry). The thousands of fans rock to all songs with glee, but we all go crazy when the first few chords of our faves are played like

“Master of Puppets” (of course), or “Enter Sandman”.

When Metallica does lasers and pyrotechnics, it’s not like other shows.The lasers here are pinpointed beams timed with music, the flames are dangerously hot and high.Gigantic coffin shapes (as on the cover of Death Magnetic) fixed with more light effects come swinging and rotating down from the edges of the huge stage.

I can’t help but ponder not only the incredibly agile control of the musical instruments, for which they are well nigh world famous, but also the fantastic quads of one Trujillo.He’s the newest member, with the long dark hair of a romance novel cover boy, and one hell of a bass player.One never actually sees his quads since he wears long shorts, but he spends the whole show bending over backwards, or squatting, or otherwise contorting so incredibly that I suspect he could kick my ass in yoga…all without missing a note.

At the end of the rowdy encores, the crowd roar echoes off the stadium walls and huge black beach ball orbs emblazoned with “Metallica” come pouring out of the rafters.People jabbing their devil horns and fists punch them around and the band kicks them off the stage, but soon fans are grabbing and hoarding the giant balls as souvenirs.

Suddenly, stage crew bolts acrossthewide stage, with….cream pies in hand??Before the crowd even registers what’s changed, drummer Lars Ulrich is tearing across stage and into the gray are between bouncers and crazed mosh pit.Within a minute, he’s caught, and finally walks onstage so utterly creamed with pie and shot with silly string that he looks like a snowman and I wonder if he can breathe.With glee, Hetfield says “we’ve all had birthdays on the road, but my friend Lars here gets out of it by having a December 26^th birthday when we aren’t touring.”He then leads thousands of people in a raucous round of “Happy Birthday” to Lars, while Lars hugs his bandmates in great, big, cream smearing gestures.

We were close enough that I can’t quite hear anything right now…except through some fuzzy tunnel…That was AWESOME.

Eh….?? Are you talking to me? I can’t hear a goddamned thing!P had asked if I was bringing earplugs to the show, to which I scowled a serious “P-shaw!”I did notice them in the ears of many around us, including the teen boys in row 5.

DM drives as I phone P. “Better than Guns ‘N Roses?” he asks.

I pause.

“Yes.”I turn and tell DM P’s questions.

No pause.

“Yes!”