when words signify nothing

I'm frustrated. I've been trying for months to write something thoughtful about crafting, production and consumption, to go along with these pictures, but I've only ended up irritated with my own writing.

It made me think of this passage from Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation:

If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy.
If you write for men-- you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while.
If you write only for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.

So perhaps I post this entry somewhere between "writing" for myself, for men and for God: Disgusted with my own words, craving to make some noise, but also sensing a deep joy from being able to create these objects that I know comes from God. And because of that latter joy, maybe these pictures can give you some pleasure as well, as they certainly give me child-like delight to post. (Past pictures can be found here)

So perhaps, it's appropriate that I limit my words in an entry that's designed to be about what cannot be made with words.

(By the way, if you feel so inspired to learn to knit, I'd be more than happy to show you. The offer doesn't stand for sewing though, because I'm still fumbling about. I am writing a lot for an entry that isn't supposed to be about words... )

Note: For some reason, a huge space is showing up between the text and the pictures on my browser. I have no idea how to fix it. Sorry!

	charade socks knit as a christmas present for my mother
	socks knit for matthew during our move-in; they were started during a very tense afternoon of combining and attempting to organize our book collection...
	socks knit for matthew during our honeymoon
	elijah the elephant, also dubbed roger the republican because it is an election year; knit for my brother as a birthday present
	ms. marigold; knit for myself; I started the vest in august of 2007 and did not finish until june 2008 because I was intimidated by the prospect of picking up stitches for the neckline
	the backside
	reversible winter capelet; knit for myself after two failed attempts of using that same yarn to make a halter top
	clementine shawl; knit as a belated mother's day gift this year; this is a picture of it blocking on my ironing board; lace shawls require blocking in order to stretch out the holes and give the pattern more definition
	the finished product
	a quilt made for charity, completed at quilting group at narberth presbyterian church; my real first sewing project
	an apron for myself; the first thing I made with my sewing machine-- this apron is incredibly good use considering the amount of mess I make when I cook & eat
	a rosetta t-shirt converted into a halter top
	a basic a-line skirt made in a class at the sewing shop spool located at 19th and south in philadelphia
	a pincushion :)
	the start of another quilt for charity; this is just the top-- it still has to be combined with the batting and the back and then quilted

imagining china

If cities have gods, then so must nations. With the 24 hour NBC coverage of the Olympic Games, I can’t help but think what mythical being presides over the vast land of China? What is the spirit that guides this imagined community?*

Let me caveat all this by saying that I make this sketch of China from my very biased and limited viewpoint, amalgamated from my own impressions of the country, conversations with upper middle-class Chinese family and friends and perhaps a few taxi drivers and shop owners, and my reading of American media, which seems quick to pounce on China's weaknesses. Nevertheless, this is my opinion of China, a country for which I still feel a strange affinity for, perhaps indicated by my slightly inability to fully cheer for the American nearly all blond women’s gymnastics team.** The faces of the Chinese women’s gymnastics teams strike me both as familiar and foreign, reminding me of my elusive birthplace that I have only visited as a tourist.

On the surface, China’s deity stands proud. It has come a long way since the devastating mass famines of the 1950s or the social upheavals (the closing down of schools, the relocation to the countryside) of the Cultural Revolution. My parents left China in the mid-eighties. At that time, few families possessed any common household appliances that marked America’s successful 50s: microwave, refrigerator, television set, washing machine etc… However, when my parents returned in 1993 and 1994, they were amazed to find that nearly all their relatives owned them. They remarked that there was little they had that the Chinese did not (aside from having two children!). In little more than a decade or so, many, my extended family included, have risen out of poverty and have decent middle class lives, no longer living cramped six people to a room with no running water.

And visually, China’s cities reflect this economic success-- the impressive glowing skylines, the rapidly expanding network of highways, the sleek shopping centers and lively nightlife. As a result of both this and the continued nationalistic propaganda (if I’m not mistaken, elementary school textbooks still include numerous flattering portraits of Mao ZeDong and other key revolutionary heroes), many feel proud of what China has been able to accomplish from so little.

But China’s pride may also prove to be its downfall. Pursuing some unrealistic vision of modernization, China has been demolishing historic slum-like inner city neighborhoods and replacing them with sleek high rises and shopping malls. While America tries to lower automobile usage, China promotes it, restricting bicycle usage on certain streets. Its rapid industrialization has also filled the skies up with smog. Some may have profited from the economic development, but many remain left behind, supplying the labor for the sweatshop factories and filling in the informal economy.

Its nationalistic pride also suggests hidden insecurity. Though China lavishly demonstrates to the world its success and power, it also seems to yearn for praise and acceptance. Its previous attempts at manufacturing and coordinating a utopian society have failed. Communism in China was a disaster that killed millions. Previous state-down attempts at controlling the population with the one-child policy have created a new set of problems, with the increased pressure on only children to support their parents, and the outnumbering of males to females.

Perhaps China is so quick to curb criticism and repress free speech because it needs to continue to sustain its own myth. Exiled Chinese author Ma Jian, as cited in this article, comments that in China, there is "inflated pride; the fusion of years of nationalistic propaganda, with the economic powerhouse China has become, has created a feeling that it's now the centre of the world, and that foreigners come to them with begging hands." However, "the root of this desire to put on a great show stems from the authorities' own loss of faith in themselves. And they also realize that, despite the great rise in nationalism, the people don't believe in this empty ideology either."

And so China’s shiny, proud exterior façade (like the recently erected walls designed to hide Beijing slums) conceals an interior disillusionment and insecurity. While Chinese Olympic athletes who win gold take home glory and wealth, what happens to the 249,550 (with injured bodies and insufficient education) who do not?*** What other bodies are lost in the spectacle of those chiseled, carved and engineered Olympic bodies?

The state already disappointed the people with the collapse of the communist dream. Along with that, many promises, including health care, state pensions, welfare, jobs, justice, and equality, have been broken. Individual well-being is always curtailed for some purported collective good and elusive nationalistic glory. (Service and sacrifice for the nation is always enforced, rarely voluntary). While China celebrates hosting the Olympic games, factory owners are forced to close up shop, slum-dwellers suddenly find walls surrounding their neighborhoods, and students are told to stay away from Beijing during this time. When China was awarded the privilege (not the right) of hosting the Olympic games, it was partly for the hope of improving the human rights situation in the country. But many have commented that the situation has only worsened.

The Chinese people may rhetorically display plenty of nationalist pride in their imagined community, but their actions suggest otherwise. A spirit of practicality dominates the real China. From my aunt who questioned me on why I did not take a job with a higher salary, to a Chinese Chinatown bus companion who kept insisting that I must do business with China because I spoke both Chinese and English and could become very wealthy, it all comes down to money and security for oneself, and one’s family.

Students spend their childhoods and adolescence confined to classrooms and study halls, preparing for their college entrance exams. Other families make huge personal sacrifices in order to send their children abroad. Factory workers choose to work long, grueling hours in order to provide better for their families. Individuals rarely make true financial sacrifices for the sake of their nation. Over one billion people scramble to try to make ends meet, and improve their standard of living, perhaps without any thought as to whether or not they are serving or bettering their country.

And so perhaps China really is just an imagined community—a story , a fable, a myth, a distant deity to whom one pays homage, but certainly not a god who will come to one’s rescue, no matter how desperate the prayer.****



* The term “imagined communities” comes from Benedict Anderson’s definition of nations. He describes nations as imagined "is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion".
** Okay, I wrote that before the gymnastics all-around. I’ll admit it-- by the end, I was cheering for Nastia Liukins. After all I am a newly minted U.S. citizen! And if I don’t cheer for the US, what country can I cheer for? I can’t quite cheer for China, and Canada’s performance at this Olympics has been rather disappointing. “You have to be ambitious to win the Olympics,” says my mother, “The Canadians! They’re too laid-back!”. I also asked my mother which country she was cheering for more—US or China? She said it was tough, but the US more.
*** I’m averse to China’s state training of athletes where children as young as 3 can be taken from their families. But then I wonder about how sports often work in America—Children aren’t forced to train by the state, and yet only those who can afford the classes, the practice and the coaching make it to the top. I could spin it and say that atleast China gives children and families who have never had an opportunity a chance for Olympic Success. But once again, I must wonder about all those athletes who didn’t quite make it to the top but still had to subject themselves to the years of grueling training, injuries and separation from family. The New York Times article also suggests that even former medalists don’t always fare too well after the Olympics and the glory has faded.
**** I am cognizant of China’s demonstration (both government and individual) of care and compassion after the SiChuan earthquake, so I’m not saying that the government will not assist people at all. Once again, I am speaking of in general terms, so naturally exceptions exist.

how to identify a hipster*

that is if you care…

In the movie Adaptation (starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep), New Yorker magazine writer Susan Orlean ends up in an affair with John LaRoche, an unlikely match given that he lacked the sophistication and cosmopolitanism of her usual circle of friends, who seemed rather concerned about hosting interesting dinner parties and mocking others. Perhaps what drew Susan to John was precisely what her group of worldly and successful friends did not possess—a passion for something. Susan notes in the movie: I suppose I do have one unembarrassed passion. I want to know what it feels like to care about something passionately.

If I were to find a distinguishing characteristic that would separate a hipster from someone who is not, that is what it would be. Someone who cares passionately, genuinely and sincerely about something other than themselves is not part of this death movement of Western civilization.

And sometimes I find myself precariously on the edge of that distinction—as noted in my profile, I have many “hip” interests, amongst which are riding bikes, buying thrift shop clothing, listening to independent music, knitting and sewing. In addition, I live in a trendy neighborhood and work for a nonprofit. I don’t think I am cool, but no hipster ever admits to being one.**

But what troubles me most is how hard it can be for me to care passionately about something. There are definitely people/themes/ideas that spark my care—urban poverty, labor injustice, food economics, sex trafficking and immigration. However, it’s been hard to turn those moments of thought and emotion into more concrete and consistent action, especially in a society that writes off those who care passionately about something as obsessive and extreme (perhaps we do this so that we don’t need to confront how meaningless our lives actually are). Our society preaches moderation, balancing passions with security so that we can live in guilt-free comfort.

But I know that Jesus called his disciples to abandon their fishing nets (their livelihood), and rely upon him, without the security around which they had built their former lives. And in knowing this, in my comfortable post-college life, I find myself craving something to care about passionately.

So I hope this time of unrealized good intentions will be an incubating period for a more defined passion. Of the many things that I could be (the existential crisis afforded to me by my privilege and education), I would like to be something other than hip. I want to commit myself passionately to something, so that I can live for more than just myself, or rather, so that I can be part of something that is greater than myself. And I guess therein lies the answer, I can start by caring passionately (once again) about God, and maybe everything else will fall into place.



* You might also try the book Field Guide to the Urban Hipster (a little outdated now though as the book's usage of the category hipster is more broad)
** Consider for instance this conversation, from the Adbusters article:
Standing outside an art-party next to a neat row of locked-up fixed-gear bikes, I come across a couple girls who exemplify hipster homogeneity. I ask one of the girls if her being at an art party and wearing fake eyeglasses, leggings and a flannel shirt makes her a hipster.
“I’m not comfortable with that term,” she replies.
Her friend adds, with just a flicker of menace in her eyes, “Yeah, I don’t know, you shouldn’t use that word, it’s just…”
“Offensive?”
“No… it’s just, well… if you don’t know why then you just shouldn’t even use it.”
“Ok, so what are you girls doing tonight after this party?”
“Ummm… We’re going to the after-party.”

in praise of being like a child (as opposed to acting like one)

Today’s consumerism has made possible an extended childhood, justifying selfish pursuits and immediate gratification in the guise of self expression, customer satisfaction and economic growth. However, many seem to be waking up from their shopping frenzy, realizing that it is perhaps time to grow up.*

But I don’t think our only problem is that we act too much like children—we also need to become more like children. I don’t want to idealize childhood innocence—I don’t believe it exists as any parent would note how quickly a child learns how to say “No!” and “Mine!”. However, there is a quality of being a child, that seems to get lost in the endless deluge of evaluation and judgment to follow from peers, parents, and authority figures over the course of one’s coming to age.

When I flipped through short stories I wrote in elementary school, I remember how free I felt printing out those characters on paper, and how I never wondered whether or not it was actually good writing. I wrote because I loved to write and not because I desired any acclaim or approval from others.

I remember spending hours playing make-believe in my own backyard and journaling fantasy worlds in my diaries, unashamed of what a silly “waste of time” that must have all been. It was fun and it didn’t matter what the rest of the world thought.

I remember crawling into my parent’s bed on a Saturday morning, to cuddle and feel safe. I was free from worry about whether or not they would put food on the table or a roof over my head. It would be done. I could depend on them.

Where has all this freedom disappeared to? When did it get lost in all the worries of the world? Now instead, I am stuck in the adult world of second guessing, pride and shame, doubting, mistrust and approval-seeking. Childish in my wants and complaints, but unchildlike in my faith and hope.

I don’t really want to grow up and become an adult. That is not a desirable solution for my childishness. I don’t want to feel like I am in control and capable of managing my own life, hiding my insecurities with a paper fort of resume achievements. In fact, there are moments when I am quite glad that my entry into the “real world” has been beset by confusion and surprise, instead of success and clear direction. I am glad because it has given me the opportunity to become smaller and more child-like, so that God can become larger.



* Some interesting articles on this topic:

From Adbuster’s Too Comfortable to Take Risks:

Social critic Mariko Fujiwara blames the breakdown on the collapse of the family system, among other factors. The baby-boomer parents achieved a level of middle-class comfort. They had fewer children so they could sustain that comfort – and they gave their children everything, except the strength and guidance to navigate the myriad choices and uncertainties of the twenty-first century.

“Japanese kids today feel that if anything goes wrong for them, it will be disastrous for the entire family,” says Fujiwara. “So they don’t even want to try. There is a mismatch between their aspirations and their willingness to work to achieve them ‘no matter what.’ They thought material and digital connections would be enough, but they’re discovering that they and their parents were wrong. Today’s Japanese kids are incredibly unhappy.”

What if Japan, the face of the future, is showing us who we are becoming – as a kind of proverbial ‘canary in a coal mine,’ a Cassandra of our trans-cultural futures. Consumerist, protectionist Japan is now celebrated worldwide as the Asian arbiter of cool, even chic. But at home, endless consumer choice and cleverness is starting to look hollow.

Evangelion auteur Hideaki Anno, now 47, believes that the problem may not lie exclusively with Japan’s younger generation. Instead, he says, there is no adulthood for them to grow into. “We are a country of children,” Anno recently told a reporter from The Atlantic Monthly. “We don’t have any adult role models in Japan.”

I predict that the dilemma facing Japan – how to create a sophisticated adult culture in a capitalist society that has less need or room for one will – become commonplace in the coming years.

From Against August from David Warren Online (article courtesy of Nick):

It might even be said that the “rights of childhood” -- I am trying to form this idea in contemporary terms -- have been transferred, by successive Acts of Parliament, from children to the childless.

What are these rights? Chiefly, the right to play, often away from mature supervision; the right to breathe, away from traffic and similar threats; the right to live in a fantastical world of one’s own invention; the right to refuse responsibilities; the right to demand entitlements, and to receive the fruits of others’ sacrifices; the right to be taken care of, and empathized with, whenever something goes wrong.

These were all, in previous generations, among the solemn rights of children, but today belong almost exclusively to a much older class with large disposable income, which is to say, “Dinks” (double income, no kids). To which we might add, “Shinkeroaks” (single high income, no kids, eschewing relationships of any kind). And I have noticed that the sound of a noisy child is extremely unwelcome in the environments they have created for themselves.

While this last remark might be taken as carrying a political edge -- and it is true that the (mostly urban) childless provide the demographic backbone for all “liberal” and “progressive” parties today -- it should be said explicitly that the Left has no monopoly on dinkish and shinkeroaksome behaviour. It is available to anyone who wants to buy into what the late Pope called “the culture of death,” in which we live only for ourselves, and for the moment.

Adbusters also has a feature article on hipsters, the Dead End of Western Civilization, the epitome of today's culture that combines childish consumerism with adult cynicism:

An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.

...

We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.

Speaking of hipsters, have you checked out the hipster Olympics yet? Or the appropriately named Stuff Hipsters Don't Like.

garbage dump

I’ve just returned from vacation in cool California and am returning to the humid weather of Philadelphia and my overflowing “Word Document” where I amass all the articles and quotes for this blog. So I thought I would clean my plate as I did previously before posting again (currently in the pipeline are some scribblings on the birth, adolescence and middle age of Philadelphia, crafting and consumerism, and rather reluctantly, on the topic of being Asian American, since I am technically now an American. I suppose I could consider taking topic suggestions as well).

First of all, this cartoon is incredible, though I can’t seem to remember where it is from:


A similar graph from this White Courtesy Telephone blog post also suggests the inanity of much research.


Also, on an academic note, it’s been all over the news that Peter Enns has resigned from Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) in what appears to be a theological difference. In my completely amateur opinion, it marks WTS’ move away from academic scholarship and more as a denominational training ground. Institutions, like cities, have personality and character. They are born, they change, they age, and eventually they also will die.

There’s been more talk about the students who are receiving elite educations. An adjunct faculty writes about the spirit of entitlement that dominates Harvard University. The article has been hotly contested and debated, so if you’re interested, run some searches on it or check the additional links on aldaily.com.

So given the state of today’s academic environment, the recent passing of Russian writer Alexander Solzhentisyn should merit attention. Solzhentisyn was a bold writer who openly criticized and denounced the Russian communist regime, in particular writing about the horrors of the gulags. Articles from the Inquirer and the Economist.

It was also refreshing to see an SFMOMA exhibit on China “Half Life of a Dream”. The artwork seemed meaningful because it actually seemed to have something relevant to say – perhaps because China has more of a contradictory national narrative, than the postmodern fragmentation of the American narrative in recent years. The Philadelphia Inquirer has featured three stories spanning two decades about a Chinese woman who has now become a corporate executive. 2008, 1999, 1987.

Speaking of China, the Olympic Games are coming up. I’ve never been super into watching these competitions—and part of me is always devastated by the amount of havoc it can wreak upon a city—economically and ecologically. For the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, the city plans to bulldoze through a rare forest. There’s more coverage of China’s Olympic Games and the corresponding environmental and societal issues at the same site.

On the environmental note, as gas prices hike, bicycling has also finally been gaining the spotlight. There’s a useful Philadelphia Inquirer article with practical tips about bike commuting, as well as an Economist article on bicycling and its implications on street planning and safety.

My few words of advice from my on year of experiencing the indignities of commuting by bike: it is okay to wear skirts that are longer than skirt length, changing after you get to work is highly advisable, and it’s better to be slow and safe. Be respectful of motorists (e.g. don’t run red lights when they are trying to get through the intersection) but remember that you have a right to be on the road. However, if your safety is threatened (e.g. angry, aggressive driver), you may need to slow down and get off the road.

Meanwhile, I am reminded of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities with a recent Mercedes hit and run accident in the Philadelphia area. Hit and run accidents make me very angry. However, the murder of a four year old this week strikes an entirely different level of emotion, something akin to numbness.

Despite the violence in this area, Philadelphia still remains a great city to live in. Surprisingly, it is a lot safer than what one might imagine. Props to this recent college graduate who wrote for the Inquirer why he has decided to stay in Philadelphia and contribute to my continued ambivalence about the gentrification of this city.

Speaking of Philadelphia, I have been fairly satisfied with Nutter as our mayor, but that did not prevent me from feeling saddened about reading about the death of Jesus White, a homeless man who ran in the mayor primaries last year.

It’s especially striking that Jesus White worked a regular job, but still had no home. It saddens me that when the economy does well, it takes years for the minute benefits to “trickle down” to the poor. Yet when the economy suffers, the impact is felt immediately and most severely by the poor.

Speaking of policies, Barack Obama’s recent support of faith-based programs has also been on the minds of many. This Opinion article Why Obama seized the faith-based mantle by Amy Sullivan from USA Today traces the history of faith-based initiatives, something that surprisingly despite being one of Bush’s signature policies, stemmed from the Democratic party.

This other opinion article from the Baltimore Sun makes a argument against more funding for faith-based programs, but instead advocates more collaboration between religious congregations and secular nonprofit organizations. The writer’s argument is solution-oriented and forward-looking, which I appreciate, but he also assumes the necessity to professionalize care, something that I am not entirely comfortable with. While professional help may be valuable and important, we run the risk of evading responsibility ourselves, and pushing it off to a third party, outsourcing compassion if you will. While Bush’s ‘compassionate conservatism’ has not been successful, I am pretty sure that putting the burden of caring for the poor entirely on the shoulder of the government will also fail. Institutionalized compassion will not bring about transformation. (Does institutionalized care even qualify as true compassion?)

All this talk about politics makes me remember once again that I am now a U.S. citizen and will be voting in the upcoming election! Perhaps more significantly, I have almost been married to this man for 6 months.

On a lighter note, Wordle.net is quite amusing. I ended up with this for this blog:

I'm also tired.