3D Experience

It takes half an hour of internet research and traveling to three separate movie theaters to secure five tickets to Toy Story 3, just in case you were wondering. Totally worth it, just in case you were wondering.

While a picture may be worth a thousand words, I feel this one deserves some explaining.

Having spent so long in Beijing, while we may look like foreigners, my family likes to pretend we've earned the title of residents. In order to secure this title, we try to avoid looking like the stupid tourist as much as possible. This means not standing in front of the subway map for more than thirty seconds, not pulling out a translation key for typical Chinese dishes, giving a knowing smile to those who call us lao wai (foreign devil) behind our backs, and just trying not to stand out in general. Although my family was being rather American by taking pictures of ourselves in our funny 3D glasses, we tried to remain quiet. In the midst of this, my dad decides to stand up, and ask all of the people (whom we have to sit through an entire movie with) to all place their glasses on so he can take a picture of them. It took a lot of prodding to get Ben to crawl out of his chair for the picture. My dad sacrificed a lot of face to capture this moment.

The men in my family have recently discovered they all missed their calling in life and should start a Swedish electronica band. If they can pull off an album cover in the amount of time it took me to say "Look over here, guys", it must be what they're meant to do.

再见, 亲爱的

Gan Bei to New Outlets

Everyone seems to be an artist of some sort. I’m trying to remember something doesn’t have to go on paper or have been threaded to have details, a concept, beauty, and a desired outcome. Sometimes, that outcome is simply trying to meld all the pieces of yourself together, learn to appreciate a trial, or just find out why on earth everyone in America is so wrapped up in American Idol.

I have taken it upon myself to find those details in my life, no matter how small, which make it sparkle. Perhaps by show casing those small details and archiving them if only for myself, I will learn to appreciate the sparkles which will make up my neon sign in my life to say “Look here! This kid, despite being tangled up in cultures, has a few additions to make to this world also!”

Here are my first two culture confused additions.

Somehow, this looks slightly familiar. Oh, I remember where I've seen this.

Was there nothing else they could come up with that comes in red?

And finally...

I bought this at the Zoo Market today. It was simply too good to pass up.

再见, 亲爱的.