can you tell that I love pho?

my bowl is OVErflowing and I’m freaking out about our low basil count. damn I love pho. you should join our new blog FUCK YEAH PHO! the party is here! Adriene is there, you should be too!

fuckyeahpho:

YUM YUM Video with Tricia Wang!

I’ve always wanted to be one of those lucky people who get called onto to give up their economy seat for a business class seat. I fly an average of 30 flights a year = that’s 30 chances to be bumped! But it never happens to me…that is UNTIL the first time it happened to me on my 15 hour flight from shanghai to newark!

COntinental overbooked and thank god to my US Government purchased $3902 roundtrip economy refundable and changable ticket, I was chosen to be bumped up to first class! I NEVER wANT TO go back to economy! It’s luxury up here guys!

fully reclinable seats, soo much leg room you can’t even reach the leg bar, you don’t even have to touch the skin of the person next to you or wake them up if you need to use the restroom!

I was so excited about being bumped that I couldn’t even fall asleep when I tried. I just kept thinking “omg I’m in first class for the first time on a 15 hour flight- that’s awesome!” I just kept asking for wine, ice cream, and toasted warm nuts! It was so obvious I was one of those people who never fly business class and was trying to make the most of it - I think the attendants were super annoyed that I didn’t fall asleep. I loved most my swivel tv and glass plate and silverware! Here’s the description for one of our appetizers: A demitasse of duck consomme with quenelles accompanied with a savory crab cake and vegetable dumpling with sweet kiwi chili sauce. I don’t even know what half of those words really mean except for duck, vegetable, kiwi and sauce!

it was just a magical day to begin with because when I arrived at the Shanghai airport I ran into my friends Kavi and MAtt in the check-in line! ISn’t THAT CRAZY to run into your friends that you had NO Idea you would see? I knew they were in the country and I had hung out with them 3 weeks earlier in Beijing - but we both didn’t know that each other was going to fly out of Shanghai and into Newark on the same day! Well actually I was supposed to fly out a week later but had to change my ticket cuz of family stuff - so even crazier!

all I can say is that first class is better than my own home. I never wanted to land. I loved being served food and wine every 5min. It was awesome.

It’s 1 month into my life in Beijing, China and I am on the quest to become healthier. One of things that I have done this past week is the Stomach Fireburning. I have never done this before so it was so exciting to try!

Every Chinese Doctor I have been to says that I have cold energy in my stomach. So I am always willing to try anything to get rid of this cold energy. Rather than living a healthy life of constant physical activity, restricted computer use, and all the other modern things that we do to make us unbalanced creatures - I chose to put myself through ancient practices - like STOMACH FIREBURNING or MOXA (mugwart) steaming!!!!

Now contrary to what may appear as a stunt to prove my fearlessness, I am actually undergoing the fire stomach process for the purposes of rebalancing my energy.

So the philosophy behind fireburning is that the fire’s heat will warm up your stomach - it will start moving the cold energy out and help you restore your yin energy. After 5 times of lighting a fire and putting the fire out on my stomach - I felt so wonderful. Here’s a rough explanation of the process.

The doctor first wraps my stomach in saran wrap. Then he lays down cloth soaked in medicinal herbs and alcohol.

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Then I am doused with a oil. The doctor strikes the match and lights the oil on fire. The oil is glazed on me in various patterns. The first pattern is the “heart-to-stomach” pattern, as seen in this photo to the left.

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In between each fireburning, the doctor massaged my stomach - it’s the best feeling in the world. It felt as if he was caressing every part of my large and small intestinal track and giving it lots of love and care.

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And then after the massage, the next fire is lit!

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And the best part is that in the end- when the fire burning is done correctly - he takes off the saran wrap, medicine cloth, and starts Doggy Paddling down from the top of my stomach to the very bottom of my intestines - you can HEAR A RIVER of activity going on inside! it’s totalllly FREAKY - I could hear a river gurgling - as if he was totally giving me a full plumbing system overhaul!
he said that when performed with the right type of fire shapes, the doggy paddling takes all the released coldness and moves it out.

the whole entire time I focused on using qi gong breathing techniques - because I am super sensitive to energy I could feel the cold air flowing out of the bottom of my feet.

okI lied, I was TOTALLY FREAKED OUT about being burned alive! This was my first when the fire was lit the first time.

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But here’s my face post-treatment - see I’m alive!  The rest of my fire stomach photos are here.

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While I was being lit on fire, I kept thinking that I was inadequate as a human being for even go to the Chinese doctor for this. It just reminds me of how out of touch I am with my body, the earth, and the stars.  So going to the Chinese doctor  for me is like a form of rebirth and a bit of self-punishment (for not being healthy when I am living in the states).

But then I think - is it only when I travel - when I’m farthest away from everything and everyone that I intimately know - is that the only time I feel that I can take care of myself without feeling guilty? Is it only when I am unreachable that I recover from everyday life in the states - when my family stuff is so far away that it is absolutely out of my control?

Then I start thinking that’s stupid tricia - peace is where you are - but sometimes I feel that the only way to really extract myself out of my own life is to leave the country and cross an ocean away.  I wonder if this is a pattern of modern life now - middle class people overworking and then leaving for a few months every year or few years to prevent burn out and just to re-balance. It certainly has become a pattern in my life - is the amount of traveling we do equivalent to the amount of stress we have at home?  sometimes I think so…

well anyways this is seriously the best form of self-punishment - when the doctor tells me that my yin-yang isn’t balanced - it actually makes me really excited to become more balanced again. I am always excited for them to say:

ok here your energy is blocked, so that’s why your hair is turning white or that’s why your bowel movements aren’t regular.

When they tell me how unbalanced I am, I start thinking about how I can take better care of myself.

AFter fireburning, the doctor told me of all the herbs and foods that I should eat to heal my body. for example, I need to eat more lemon peels.  This time the doctor told me that my health was pretty good, but my back and neck is messed up from years of sitting in front of a computer. Plus I haven’t been meditating or dancing as much lately :(

So I love this herbal/ancient practice - only in china…only in china. In India I tried going to the medicinal doctor - I actually went to 3 of them because I really wanted to give it a chance - well each on told me that I was too much of a “pita” and they threw my naked body on a slap of hard wood and started dumping herbal oil on me and then the woman rubbed the oil on me forcing my bones into the wood table and I slid around like a dead fish - I tried to grab onto the wood but it was impossible! - may  sound wonderful-(hmm hands + oil) BUT NOT!!!!!!  it was painful and the worst part was that  I didn’t feel more balanced afterwards.  SO I’ve decided China is the place for me to go for medicinal care.

oh and here’s another fire-like treatment called Moxa - I did this the week before. It’s much less scarier than fire stomach treatment.

I’ve been raised with the idea that any exposure to sun rays will kill me if I don’t cover myself completely. Ever since I was little, my mother told me that I would get skin cancer at 20 years old, with the cancer mestatizing and killing me before I turn 25years  old - therefore she made me avoid the sun as much as possile.  The second reason why sun was a no-no is because of all the wrinkles you get. My mother told me that if I survived my 20’s without getting skin cancer, then I really had to worry about wrinkles - that I would like 80 years old when I was only 29 years old.

SKin Cancer + Wrinkles = ASIAN FEAR OF SUN. This is why all ASIAN WOMEN - especially Chinese ones - are SUPER freaked out about getting sun on them - oh and let’s add that having darker skin comes out of a long history of racial prejudice.

The obessesion with remaining light skinned and anti-sun means that there is a lot of $ to be made in fighting off the sun….such as this new mouth and neck cover my aunt bought me! In my mother’s dream world  I would also wear a  FOB-ASIAN sun visor at the same time that pulls down to cover your entire face with sunglasses to cover your eyes from UV damage and arm covers to prevent your arms from getting skin cancer first and from being darker than other parts of your body.  Would anyone walk around with me if I actually looked like this? My mother walks around like this everyday - in and out of Target - in out and of grocery stores. Well the mouth cover is a new addition to the family.  But I think we have officially joined FOB land now.  ps - annie this should make my mom is such a fob!

Everyone needs an alter-ego animal personality that they chose. I was born in the year of the metal monkey - so naturally I am already a curious, urban, vivacious creature but I also have other sides of me that are not captured fully in my Monkey zodiac sign.

Tricia the Wolf as an altar ego is connected to my Chinese upbringing in America as a Taurean Metal Monkey.  My Grandmother always encouraged me to like water -  reflecting the Chinese culture of don’t rock the boat - don’t speak up - don’t bring attention to yourself - it’s better to remain visible than seen - don’t wear bright colors - don’t be loud——essentially - blend in! On one end this has served me well because my grandmother always emphasized that it was more important to focus on the work at hand or on others than on myself.

But I’m a metal monkey - and monkeys are jumpy, loud, playful and tricky. We metal monkeys are the jumpiest of all monkies!  We are metal - we are stable -  but we REACT! Look at my wolfish grin that started emerging when I was 4 years old - that’s tricia baby wolf.

Now I tried my grandma’s philosophy -  be nice - be passive - blend in. But when we moved from the diverse SF Bay Area to the homogenous all white gated communities of Sacramento around age 11 - this whole “be quiet and blend in” philosophy didn’t work so well for me. I was getting beat up for being Chinese. Kids would make fun of me - telling me to go back to China - yelling at me for being a Communist.

Something switched in my after 4th grade because I think the Monkey in me realized that we weren’t returning to San Francisco and that I was officially stuck in racist-ville. SO in fifth grade I started beating kids up who would try to harass me. I think I enjoyed it. That was another step of Tricia Wolf.

At the same time I was getting the “be like water” philosophy from my grandma, my grandfather was telling that I should never trust anyone and that only after 10 years of knowing someone do you really come to find out if they have your back. So I grew up with this in my head- that essentially I was and still am very wary of people but at the same time I basically want to disppear in social situations.

So now that you understand the formative years of Tricia the Wolf -let me tell you how I came across Tricia the Wolf’s famous wolf hat!I found my wolf hat in Soho with Tymeisha. A woman was selling animal hats on the street and I found a wolf hat that fit me perfectly! I bought it and since then I’ve been wearing the hat! I brings out the don’t mess with me side of Tricia - and it’s also the side that says It’s ok that i don’t blend in - i wear this hat for myself, not for others.

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I posted lots of photos of me as Tricia the Wolf with my new hat. One day DogWelder found my photo on flickr and rendered this photo of me on Adobe illustrator. This rendering fully cemented Tricia the Wolf. Ever since then I’ve been drawing upon Tricia the Wolf as my altar ego. I loved seeing the picture of me as a  fierce, red, cannibalistic, meat eating (i’m 99% vegetarian as a human except for when I eat duck and lamb at restaurants) fire producing WOLF  - I just knew that the angels of buddhaland had brought dogwelder to me from lotus world. I have no idea who Dogwelder is - except that he’s my flickr contact (only after he made this), appears to be fierce and may live in Canda. He is a mysterious force that was brought into my life - thank you for seeing the real me DogWelder - it took a internets stranger to fully bring out my altar ego - with the hat and your artist work the Tricia Wolf transformation was cemented forever.

My red fire Ticia the Wolf photos declares to the world that blending in is boring, eating humans is more fun!  it’s the side that says being nice is not being yourself, rather being wonderful and playful is being your true self. Tricia the Wolf challenges the culture that we are raised in to be drones in a capitalistic economy and to be another statistical input - Tricia the Wolf challenges the bureacratic ways that wear us down in everyday life. And by putting this up online - it shows that I have no shame in being playful.

Some people say - oh Tricia what if an employer finds your Tricia the wolf pictures? well DUH I have tagged them my name so they SHOULD find my pictures if they do a proper 30 second background check to confirm my identity. My point is that if a company discriminates against playfulness and fun - then I don’t belong there - no Wolfism please! I would like to add that I have a healthy resume and cv and never have had a problem with any employer questioning my wolf identity. If they can’t handle Tricia the Wolf as an altar ego then it’s not a place I should be hired. Same thing goes for putting up my Pussy Power manifesto - I twant it to be found and read. I want people to re-think how we talk about women because it manifests itself in how we treat women. Same thing goes for Tricia the wolf - how we talk about our altar egos or the concept of play among adults manifests itself in how we play and how we life. Having an animal totem is a wonderfully psychologically releasing act - it allows you to draw upon a source of energy that is not reinforced in our culture - the energy of pure, innocent fun - no drugs, no stimulation, no consumption - just simply your IMAGINATION. just find your way to be inspired by life - my way is to talk about Tricia the Wolf sometimes - you gonna judge me for that? if so then then run away for I shall eat you alive.-

In addition - the wolf draws on many important qualities of wolves that I actually identify with, such a having a metabolic rate

Wolves are very social. They live in packs. I live in a pack - I absolutely love my support network - I believe in having amazing girlfriends and guyfriends - I believe in weaving myself a strong social fabric - and most importantly I believe in my grandparents as my pack leaders.

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in addition  - one of my favorite and most creative friends is also a woolf - Steve Woolf - the other half of Epic Fu the most amazing blog in the world! He is the only person I would marry in the world only so that I could take the last name  - yah zadi I want your husband’s last name! :)

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I am a fashion loving obsessed creature. I document fashion titillations and titicacas. Well guess who else got on the Wolf train too late? Bergdoff Goodman! (thanks alaina brown for that tip!). YES! BERGDOFF loves wolves too - they featured the Wolf manniquins in their 2008 Winter window art display! So keep in mind I was a wolf before the fashion world declared it was haute couture.

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Oh and one of the most coolest stop frame videos  is about a wolf and his piggy friend in Japan.

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Also one of the greatest geniuses of our time is a wolf - Stephen Wolfram - the founder of Mathematica and the brains behind the most super galactical computer software of our time  - Wolframalpha! Stephen rocks because he named his most personal product after his last name - that is soo cool - and his name (wolf + ram)  destined him to be a wolf of the computer software modeling/computation world and now Wolframalpha he’s just pure legacy beyond the business world - this truly is amazing. HAve you tried Wolframalpha - play with it! Here’s my previous post about it.

And can we acknolwedge please that one of the leaders of wireless technologies, Qualcomm, also draws on the power of the wolf for delivering wifi technologies around the world! They helped me find my relatives, the Wolf-Pigeon! Check out this video where they demonstarte how they implant wifi base stations into their wolf-pigeons - Qualcomm has fused animal genetic engineering and mobile technologies (this is not joke, believe what you see). Qualcomm I love you - this is why I study cellphone technologies - you get the power of the wolf!

and yes I do wear my wolf hat everywhere I go - it makes me happy. you will find me often on my foldable bike in my wolf hat. I eat pedestrians when I am riding.

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and you know what’s the best think about being a wolf? GEtting all my friends (of all ages) throughout the years to participate in my playful world - thank you - the wolf hats always brings out the best in everyone:

ps check out Shakira’s new song, She Wolf!

i wrote about why I visited the school here on my academic blog, cultural bytes - Setting Up Fieldwork Site

I visited a school for children of migrant families in Wuhan, China. This school is government certified and currently has 800 students from 1st to 9th grade. Fees are 300RMB ($50) every semester (two semesters each quarter). The students are children of migrants. These students pay to go to school because their parents have taken them with them out of their village where school would’ve been free to the city where they are working without an official identity registration (hukou card). Without the hukou card, their children cannot gain access to any of the social services provided to residents of a city. Therefore several hundreds of these schools have been started independently by migrants throughout these migrant-receiving cities in China. These schools must charge a fee so that they can hire trained teachers, buy books, rent a classroom and perform administrative duties.

Here are some pictures below from my visit yesterday. I went during nap time so many of the students are sleeping in the photos. but once they woke up they couldn’t stop jumping! well maybe I couldn’t stop jumping :)

I’m flying into beijing in 3 hours. My grandma is making me bring this mouth-cover. these don’t help. She made me bring this to Canada during the height of the panic 3 weeks ago. Well wish me luck throught the health checks in Beijing! I definitely won’t be wearing this when I go through :)

On my most recent trip to Oaxaca a few months ago I had the chance to finally spend 2 days in the city! I was obsessed with documenting the ground - it was filled with fresh flowers and different kinds of human-hole covers that tell so much about the city’s infrastructural capacities.

Josh and I spent a few hours in DC jumping around for Obama. ACtually Obama invited us to the White House! We topped it off with a stop at Julia’s Empenada.

I wrote this ode to Jetblue with my 2nd (#72 - yes #51 is dead) Arrow Ring from DresserJohnson.

arrow me to stay away
but the Jets carry be home
every time my Blues turn gray
brooklyn I come back to you no matter how far I roam

Jetblue wrote me back and said:

Dear Ms. Wang,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter to JetBlue. We appreciate your kind words and are grateful to know that our service and product are worth writing a poem about.

Stay true to JetBlue and enjoy your future jetting experiences!

Sincerely,

Angie
Customer Commitment Crew
JetBlue Airways
Crewmember 79270

How cool is jetblue! I’m in love with your jfk terminal! Muji - sushi - drinks - borders - dunkin donuts and beautiful design - I could live in your terminal! Kevin says there is an iphone dispenser - I will have to check that out.

About Arrow Ring - I’ve lost two of the - now #72 is dead also. I’m buying my 3rd one and soon I will be arrow-happy again. Check out Flickr Arrow ring group here and my own Arrow ring photos here with an explanation for the cultural significance of this design. and then order yours from kevin asap here!

I believe in the power of quotes. I rely on quotes at my best and worst moments. Quotes become my meditations.

So I finally started my own quotes blog called Dichos y Vida! (Dichos y Vida means Quotes and Life in Spanish) - one place for all my FAVORITE QUOTES!   I tend to like quotes that aren’t cheesy - that have substance - that speak about life, buddhism, zen, race, following your true self and at times a light quote here and there about urban ecology.

I’ve been doing it for 2 months now and I love that in tumblr you can schedule posts in advance! I blog my fave saying, quotes from my friends, and themes that I am meditating on for the week. I also reblog (another tumblr feature I love) lots of my quotes from other quote-blogs. My favorite ones that I follow and reblog a lot from are Quotes Book, Blinks of Life, Reluctant Buddha and Film Quotes.  Ok Come and follow me at Dichos y Vida!  oh and I also use this blog to practice my spanish by translating my fave quotes.

I just received this notice today in my email that my Dahon Mariner d7 may have problems and that I need to stop riding it! OHMYGOD WTFF!! I LOVE MY MARINER!!!!!!

Nothing bad has happened to me in it so I wonder what is going on?

Well here are pictures of how estatic I was when I bought my mariner. The two videos below show how I can fold and unfold it in under 30 seconds, and then take it out of car and go to a cocktail party in heels. I will keep you posted when i found out what’s going on! These are pictures from my flickr set about my folding bike.

Watch me fold and unfold my dahon mariner in less than 30 SECONDS!

Watch me take it out of my car!

kenyatta reblogged (via glenda) a great post on the 7 Thing NEVER to Say to Asian-American Excecutives.

I would like to create a list called 7 Things a stranger should NEVER Say to Asian-American Females.

(btw - these are all true below - I’ve had strangers - usually white males - come up and say this to me. Or within the first 10 minutes of some introduction from a colleague, the white male will ask one of these questions to me. og and this only happens outside of NYC and SF)

1. you must be super flexible.

2. my friends and I have a bet about which Asian country you are from - we can’t seem to agree - can you tell us?

3. never say anything about our features!  “wow your cheeks are pretty big for being Chinese - I couldn’t sworn you were Korean.”

4. “I have a Thai (or whatver country) wife so I know a lot about….” Don’t preface any of your Asian knowledge with our Indian or Korean or Chinese wife - it does not make you an expert on Asian cultures. Just say what you know and stop using your ethnic wife as a your IKnow-About-Asia-license.

5. What does your last name mean?

6. From where are you visiting?

7. “Wow you sounded so different on the phone! You look different in person - from what I was expecting - I was expecting someone else - I  thought you would be like a blonde or something.”

8. Why are Asians so successful? There are so many at my college!

9. Do you date white guys?

10. What would your parents think if you dated a black guy?

ok so the list grew from 7 to 10.

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7 Things NEVER to Say to Asian-American Executives

1. “You must be the IT person.”

2. “You aren’t like them You don’t act very Asian.”

3. “Asian Americans are not risk takers.”

4. “Where are you from? No, where are you really from?”

5. “Oh, you speak English good!”

6. “You’re not a minority because all Asians are rich and successful.”

7. “You’re not Asian, you’re from India.”

I’m back - tricia wang is breathing again! for the last few years I forgot how to breathe - but i’m breathing again - truly - the core of me is moving wtih the birdies and the octopuses. I am a wolf reborn, and in the night I found my breath as I was hunting little dolphines.

How do I jump so high you ask? becuase I feel this way - exactly this way in the picture when I jump. this is a real photo - no manipulation except for some animal and text additions. I jump as a birdy flying through the skye! IIII AM ALIVE! my body organs are functioning really well and I’m circulating all the blood through my veins with my breath!