Advice on Life, Creativity, and Making Meaning, from the Creator of Calvin and Hobbes

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as well-versed in the iconic comic Calvin and Hobbes as I should be. What little I've seen of it has moved me, and I mean to read more, truly. Bill Watterson is a rare talent. And he gives some pretty inspiring advice, too, both for creatives and for everyone else:

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3027095/4-tips-on-creativity-from-the-creator-of-calvin-hobbes

The four maxims Watterson presents are by no means comprehensive, but they do form a solid foundation for a creative life. And, even though it's clear from context that he uses "creative" to mean "artistic," I believe his advice holds true for any field involving passion and productivity, which is most of them.

Essentially, it boils down to: "Do something you love (no field is too small or esoteric), stay true to your vision, and give it 110%." Sensible for anyone, but especially for creatives who face a long, risky, uphill battle with no surety of success and with little but their own belief to light their way. It's true of artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators of all stripes -- one hopes to have the cultural impact Watterson did.

And then there's this, which was illustrated by Gavin Aung Than of Zen Pencils:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/08/27/bill_watterson_s_cartoonist_s_advice_in_comic_form_by_zen_pencils_aka_gavin.html

In its narrowest reading, this graphic interpretation of Watterson's words vindicates stay-at-home parenting -- for either gender. While challenging normative views of masculinity and patriarchy is daring and important, it isn't quite innovative today. Rather, the broader readings of this comic are more interesting: in a society where status -- as defined by a widely accepted slate of value judgments -- is in part determined by income and prestige of employment, Watterson and Than assert that one can viably choose not to take part in that hierarchy (or at least, choose to ignore it). If your idea of meaning and fulfillment cannot be met within the traditional system, it's legitimate to create your own. You shouldn't let society influence or shame you into pursuing a traditional path towards conventional markers of success.

It's an almost Thoreauvian way of living -- not necessarily the most practical or accessible, but a worthy goal nonetheless.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is what out dinner table looks like tonight:


At this point, our tradition is to substitute hotpot for turkey.


I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, with family and friends and much to be thankful for!

Christmas Tree!

Today we decorated our Christmas tree! It looks like this:

And here it is in the dark, with all of its multicolored, flashing lights:

It never quite feels like the holidays are upon us until we've put up our tree. Every year, my sister and I petition for a larger one, and every year, my mother insists that we buy a smaller one. This year, we compromised at "just a little taller than my father."

Even though I'm a "real adult" now, having a Christmas tree with some presents underneath never fails to make me feel like a little kid again. It's good to be home for the holidays. 

A Turkey-less Asian Thanksgiving

I read in the news that the President pardoned a pair of turkeys who would otherwise have landed on the White House dinner table tonight. Well, in an Asian household, we don't really eat turkey to begin with (my mom doesn't like the taste, and neither do all the other Chinese moms). Instead, this is what our Thanksgiving feast looked like:

Hotpot! It was delicious. Here's a picture of the pot itself:

The things floating in the soup are fishballs (the white ones), meatballs (the brown ones) and tofu cubes. The submerged orange things are pumpkin cubes.

I never quite appreciated being home for the holidays until I found myself eating dining hall turkey in college over Thanksgiving. It wasn't too bad, especially since I had friends whose folks lived too far away for them to celebrate Thanksgiving at home, but there's nothing quite like being home with the family. And having tasty hotpot.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

If I Used Twitter...

... I'd post this gem from last night:

Nutella is the spice of life. If I had to choose between variety and Nutella, I'd pick Nutella.

Words to live by -- a direct quotation from my sister, who loves food. (Seriously, she once said that if she were on Twitter, her handle would be something like "ilovefood".)

My Totoros Have Multiplied!

I now have two Totoros!

I acquired the blue one in Japan five years ago; my sister got me the grey one for my birthday just a few days ago. (I promise I haven't put the latter through the wash; it's just the texture of its fur making it look particularly disheveled.)

"My Neighbor Totoro," despite having a rather thin plot, is one of my all-time favourite films (this is mostly due to its sheer cuteness). Miyazaki and his co-conspirators at Studio Ghibli are geniuses (genii?).

Cover-a-Week #21: "Summersong" by The Decemberists

In the spirit of the holiday weekend -- after which it feels like summer is really underway -- here's a somewhat dark and incongruously cheerful piece about the season, by (who else?) The Decemberists...


http://youtu.be/Ckrwx_AyL1A

I had, for the record, a much more pleasant Fourth than the song would suggest; I spent a few days in Philadelphia with my family.

Baby Blanket (Knitting Project)

I should have posted this several months ago (when it occurred)...

My god-sister recently had a baby (as I mentioned in this video), and in anticipation, I knitted her a blanket:

Before:

After:

It was originally going to be 8x8 (the father is a chess player) but the squares ended up too rectangular, so I nixed the last row.

Also, the baby is a girl, but these were the nicest colors at the store. Pink is too hetero-normative!

Cover-a-Week #16: "Lullaby for a Stormy Night" by Vienna Teng

This one's for Mother's Day.


http://youtu.be/w9AL7-pdOCA

I can imagine playing this for a small child on a dark and stormy night...

If I Used Twitter

tonight's update would be:

My sister just said, "I am a compromising cow." Surprisingly, it made complete sense in context.

Abstruse Goose: The Beneficence of Others

My mother reads the Chinese newspapers, which are chock-full of articles that aren't quite news (recipes, health tips, celebrity gossip, &c.). There was recently a spate of (somewhat alarmist) reports about a few instances of people falling, or even being pushed, onto subway tracks here in New York; she has subsequently warned my sister and I, in all seriousness, that we had to hypervigilant, in case crazy people randomly went about pushing us into the paths of oncoming trains. 

I thought this Abstruse Goose was fitting:

http://abstrusegoose.com/479

From China (or Just Home), With Love

This is what my bed looks like this week:

You wouldn't be able to tell from the picture, but the bears, chicks, and leaves are actually embroidered felt patches. It's like I'm sleeping in a cocoon made of children's television shows and Sanrio-filled dreams. (I'm guessing that my mother bought the bedcovers/pillowcase in China.) Adorable, but makes me feel like I'm five again.

Look What I Got for Christmas!

A ukulele!

It's a concert-sized Lanikai (LU-21C). I did my research (looking at online reviews, mostly), and it seems like this is a solid choice for a beginner (good quality for the price, decent sound, etc.).

There's a story behind it. Remember this post (about the Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer show that I attended last month)? If you don't want to read the whole article (it's short, though), the relevant bits are: she performed her song "Dear Old House," which became one of my favorite pieces on the spot (give it a listen below), and then her "Ukulele Anthem," one of the most memorable lines of which explains that it only takes an hour to learn to play the ukulele, which is comparable to the time required "to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb." I was intrigued. I wanted a ukulele.

Then, my sister asked me what I wanted for Christmas. It appeared that my parents were a bit stumped as to what to get me. Ergo, I asked for a ukulele. They were a little confused as to what the instrument actually is (I don't imagine that "ukulele" is a word one would encounter in the standard Chinese-English dictionary), but I explained that it was a bit like a guitar, only smaller and Hawaiian. They were afraid it would be made of pineapples or coconuts or something [edit: there apparently actually exists a type of ukulele known as a pineapple ukulele], and I think they were secretly a bit relieved that it was a completely normal-looking, if slightly small, instrument. And so we went to the local Sam Ash when I got back to New York, and my father bought me one. I just learned to play "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. I'm working on "Dear Old House," too, but the chords are harder.

 And that is what I got for Christmas.

If I Used Twitter

tonight's post would be:

froyo + pickled egg + pickled pig's feet (the latter 2 in ginger + vinegar + soy sauce) = 3am snack with sister, 6 hrs before ski trip

Today

is the 141st anniversary of the death of Alexandre Dumas (the elder). Although he made his literary debut as a playwright, he is most famous as the author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

When I first read the Musketeers books and The Count of Monte Cristo, I wasn't quite old enough to pick up on all the greater themes that a literature class might have brought to the table. It was all swashbuckling adventure fiction in my eyes. I wanted to be d'Artagnan for a while (though I had enough sense not to want to be Edmond Dantès; I was never really a vengeful sort of child). I think I told my mum once that I wanted to take up fencing, but I remember she was properly horrified (thought it unbecoming of a little girl, probably), so I never brought it up again. Then I told my father I wanted a feathered hat, and he was amused, and told me he'd find me one for Hallowe'en (which was at the time several months away, so he forgot about it by October). This was my version of "playing dress-up" or "knights and ladies" or whatever small children played.

Anyhow, Alexandre Dumas, a significant influence on my childhood. I rediscovered this particular breed of fiction in my teens, in the form of Steven Brust's Khaavren Romances (also fun reads, and heavily stylistic). If you like one (and are open to some genre-crossing), you'll like the other.

NYTimes: What's in a Name?

Seeing as it's Thanksgiving -- a celebration of family and loved ones -- I thought that this would be an appropriate article to post; it's an observation on an inevitable quandary in naming trends, given recent (within the past several decades) developments in gender equality and increasingly diverse modern familial structures:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/fashion/babies-surnames-to-hyphenate-or-not.html?_r=1&ref=fashion?src=dayp

I've given this a fair bit of thought. As a heterosexual female, Western social customs would have me relinquish my surname in favor of my hypothetical husband's, if I were to marry at some point in my life. I'm not so keen on that, myself; I'm rather attached to my last name. It has a history behind it, a connection to generations of family and culture.

Ergo, one of my goals in life is to achieve a level of "success" (definition variable) such that if the time comes, it would appear to be logical (rather than vain or self-serving) to keep my surname. It's rather sad that society is still at a stage where a woman needs a reason to keep her maiden name, while a man may do so merely by virtue of his Y chromosome. I hope that someday, English-speaking society will have progressed such that women keep their own names as a matter of course, and some equitable system exists whereby children's surnames are evenly distributed between their sire and dam.

I'm not sure about hypothetical children (haven't given them much thought -- I'm many years too young for that!) but I imagine it would depend a lot on the ethnic origins of their father. Surnames in some languages lend themselves more readily to hyphenation than those in others. I'd want them to have a Chinese name, too. If the father were non-Chinese, I'd like to give them my own Chinese family name to use in contexts that would require it; phonetically deriving one from the father's surname seems a little cheap, next to a name with history and family.

Interestingly, in Chinese society, women retain the use of their maiden names throughout life; it's only when referring to them specifically as "wife of so-and-so" that they go by the equivalent of "Mrs." Gender equality is, in some respects (this is a pretty significant caveat), more apparent in modern Chinese society (i.e. beginning with my generation). I think it has a lot to do with the One Child Policy, in that if parents have only one child, they will give it the best they can in the way of opportunity and attention. There is much less opportunity for parents to favor sons over daughters (after the birth of the child; female infanticide is still a problem in some areas), because they typically only have one child to dote upon. The surname given to the child is still the father's, so it's not a perfect system, by any means, but in this specific practice, it's a bit closer to gender equality than in English-speaking countries.

If I Used Twitter

I would post, right now:

Writing a paper on Browning's "Childe Rolande" (quite creepy!), and G-chatting with my sister about secret elephants.

Chinglish and Other Amusements from China

I realized that I never posted the various amusing and interesting pictures I took in China. (Many of them are of Chinglish bloopers.) Here are some of the funnier ones:

This was taken in a mall in Hong Kong; I believe it was advertising an arcade or some such.

The circular, UFO-like thing on the ground is an information booth. I suppose that's one way to attract attention!

We found these in the shower of our hotel room. False excrement indeed (I should certainly hope so, given its intended use.)

I had opened the drawer expecting a sewing kit, or perhaps a clothes-line. This... isn't quite string.

I did not anticipate finding French fries or hash browns (especially smiley ones) in China, especially in the same box as chow mien and string beans. It reminds me of the cover of Watchmen, with the strategically-placed ketchup and all.

Liquid yogurt is a rather common drink in China; "living fungus milk," however, is distinctly unappetizing.

And this. I couldn't resist putting this up. It's my mother's big carry-on bag. Apparently it was a gift. (The arm in the picture is my father's.)

Never Praise a Toaster

The toaster broke down yesterday. In spite of my father's halfhearted attempts to resuscitate it, it is dead. My parents will be buying a new toaster this weekend.

This event was greeted by my father with a mixture of glee and indignation. The former was because they've been waiting for it to give out since 1983, so that they could get a new one. The latter was because he had remarked, just the other day, upon the durability of the toaster -- and then it broke down. He then solemnly vowed never to praise the new one, so that it won't get any ideas.

io9: Death by Fan in South Korea

As someone with an Asian mother, I'm no stranger to odd superstitions and health advice, especially quoted from "reputable" Chinese newspapers. This one's pretty good:

http://io9.com/5818197/in-south-korea-falling-asleep-in-front-of-a-fan-is-the-kiss-of-death

Reminds me a bit of my mum's "X causes cancer" line, where X is whatever I happen to be eating at the moment.