November Favourites

Mad Men - In October, we had a strike that lasted far too many weeks. A couple days into the strike, I was informed by a classmate that Mad Men had returned to Netflix. I've seen Mad Men in the past because of its styling and wardrobe, but now it has me hooked for entirely different reasons. The dynamic characters, the social issues, the ad culture. The fictional agency of Sterling & Cooper does a great job at showing what ad agencies are like (and namedrops a lot of the original greats). Super interesting, super informative. Still super beautiful to watch - both in wardrobe styling and in cinematography. It's easy to understand why it won so many awards.

Dr. Jart+ Cicapair Tiger Grass Cream - This is a very expensive product. The plus is that you don't use a lot of it at once, and it works. My skin is likely my biggest insecurity. Lupus paired with rosacea leaves my skin so, so damaged. Not only is my skin inflamed but it is also dry and puffy. I have used products from high and low to try to fix and regulate my skin. This works. The gimmick is that tigers used to roll around in this grass (tiger grass) to heal their wounds. It is a very thick cream that I have to be very careful balancing because just as likely as it is to help with the dryness on my cheeks, it can cause breakouts on my T-zone. I am happy with it for the most part. It's a favourite.

The Ordinary line by The Abnormal Beauty Company - I see this company showing up on more and more bloggers' recommendations. I've only been using them in the past few months off some recommendations from friends and Into The Gloss. Currently, I have about four The Ordinary dropper bottles sitting around my room. The thing about The Ordinary is that it does high-quality serums and oils for a very affordable price. If I remember correctly most of the products are under $20, and these same products are much, much more expensive elsewhere.

Amongst my collection, I have: 100% Cold-Pressed Virgin Marula Oil, Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5, Lactic Acid 5% + HA 2% and Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%.

Communication Arts Advertising Annuals - So back in September, I started an advertising copywriting program at Humber College's School of Media. We're told to really dive into the advertising culture and see what that's all about. To do this, we should go through annuals and see what award-winning work looks like, what the mindset is. I've been through some of my professor's annuals, but I love Communication Arts. I picked it up at an art-focused bookshop. I find their selection of ads to be great, the articles helpful and insightful. The price point is also not bad for an annual since some of them can be upwards of a hundred.

Swipe Art + Design - Speaking of Communication Arts, I picked up my copies at Swipe. The shop is the official bookstore of the Art & Design Club of Canada. It is beautiful. Every time I go in, I want to buy everything. I can't because most art and design books are expensive, but the dream is a coffee table and a shelf stacked with books found at Swipe. Really, it's all art and design books. A space in my head looks like Swipe.

AGO membership - At the beginning of the month, I saw my friend Tara who ended up convincing me to get a membership at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Membership is $45 for students, and this includes entry to the gallery and many of its special exhibits. We went to see the del Toro exhibit specifically. Although art is no longer my main focus these days, it is great having the chance to go and have my viewpoint and mindset readjusted.

Double Cup Love by Eddie Huang - Full review here.

Mom's shaggy maroon jacket. 

On love and race, race and place

Eddie Huang is someone I have a lot of respect for. He has a unique voice in a space that can feel convoluted and overdone. From Vice to Fresh Off The Boat and now to Double Cup Love, I find his voice refreshing. And more than that? I think it's necessary.

I find myself reflected in some of Eddie Huang's writing. It's so hard to find myself reflected in mainstream media, something I'm sure so many children of immigrants understand.

Double Cup Love is Eddie's journey to China with his brothers. Following the success of his restaurant Baohaus, his Vice show and first book Fresh Off The Boat, he wanted to see if his food expertise will hold up to Chinese palettes. He wanted to see whether his success would've been possible if he was born in the Motherland instead of America. Simultaneously, he also addressed the question of dating someone who wasn't Asian, and if it was possible to still reach some kind of mutual cultural understanding.

I think Double Cup Love will be mandatory reading for any serious future boyfriends and potential life partners. (I'm assuming that most of these guys will be Caucasian if history proves to repeat itself.)

There are two major points that I think he addresses in the book that really hit home for me:

1. Time and time again, I've thought to myself that if I was not born and raised in Canada, I would not be as lucky as I am. I would not have been given the opportunities I've had. I think there are people out there who are smarter, more creative and more hardworking. But simply through the luck of the draw, I am here and I can do all this. I have so much at my disposable, so many resources to draw help and inspiration from. That is luck more than skill. I am deeply thankful and so humbled by this.
   
   One quote that really struck a chord from the book: "We are both Chinese, but so much in between, so much changed because you were born in America. I have lots of things I want to do. I have dreams, too, but I will never get to see them happen because I am born here with the parents I have."
2. Growing up in Toronto, I've always been exposed to so many different cultures. Within a 30-minute walk, it is possible to pass through neighbourhoods that span continents. That's incredible. Because of this, it has never occurred to me that other cultures can be daunting or scary. People and their stories are so rich and so fascinating. People are the best stories in themselves.
   
   As I grow older though, it has become more of a concern when I date. Is it possible to grow at the same pace as someone else over a lifetime? Is it possible to meet at one intersection, travel together and stay travelling together? How do we come to meet at that one intersection in the first place? How does it work when we start off at such different points?
   
   The reality is that my dating history is mostly white. Parts of it are even stark white, bleached two or three times over.
   
   I am the child of two Chinese immigrants. I am the first in my family to get a university education. And although it is not a thought that comes to mind often, English is not my first language. My parents are still not fluent English speakers. I still go with them to medical appointments to translate. This is a part of my history that I've never shied from. I am immensely proud of my parents who courageously came to a country they didn't understand, to build a life from scratch. The immigrant story is a powerful story.
   
   How do I translate this experience to someone who has a wholly different one? How do I understand their experience? How do I communicate the vulnerabilities, insecurities and prideful moments that come out of my history and existence? How do I understand the vulnerabilities, insecurities and pride that arises from another existence? How do we develop a mutual understanding and carve a new path? Where do we find the acceptance in all of this?
   
   These are questions I ask myself every time I date; every time there is ambiguity resulting out of a difference in (cultural) understanding. I know these will be questions I ask when I decide I've found my person. Eddie does a great job encapsulating these questions. (Spoiler alert: he figures out how to appropriately address these questions. He works through them, finds out what's important to him. It works out for him - kinda.)

An essay on breakups and funerals

It feels strange to be here. It feels strange to continue on. Mostly because of how simple it is to do just that. Wake up. Go to work. See friends. Feed yourself. Indulge in goodness and then some bad. Sometimes it feels like sadness overwhelms you, but mostly it is unbelievably easy to move on. The sadness, the ugliness of that part of life - we compartmentalize that away.

It hasn't been so long but it is already so easy to not see that part of my life, and then it becomes easier to forget that it existed at all. The part of a breakup that bothers and scares me so much is how much it resembles a death. It feels like dying. Only there is no burial or funeral process.

In a breakup as a funeral, it is a loss. Someone who became so important can become gone. It is strange, so strange how we stop talking. How is it that one day I will know all the mundane and intimate details about a person? But at another day, I cannot begin to say hello. The vain side of me hates that he can forget me so easily. The vain side of me hates that I can die, that I am dead in his world. A creased existence in his life.

I'm so bad at letting go. It makes so little sense to me when I have to. I don't want to.

In the past weeks, I have moved on. I see friends. I go to parties. I've gone on a date. I have done things that make me happy. Indulged in food, in wine, in sweat. In the positive attention and light of people who feel good. In many ways, it is surprisingly easy to move on. That part of a breakup is strange too. It is so easy for life to return to normalcy. For something that feels so devastating and dramatic in one moment, to leave no trace on any other aspect of life. Nothing else slows down or really changes. All the pieces that were there before continue to be there. All these other aspects; life unchanged. It is shocking how quickly and easily life can embrace someone and then how just as quickly and easily, it can spit someone out. No traces like they were never there to begin with. Like they will also never be there again.

In something I've seen recently, it said something like, our systems are designed to compartmentalize. To contain our bad moods, our sadness because otherwise, we would not be able to live. We have to be able to continue living. We cannot be so consumed by sadness that we do not move; cease to exist. Humans, in this way, are so resilient. Built to withstand the different destruction our world puts us through. Heartbreak cannot kill us. Not really. It's possible to forget. It is shockingly easy in fact. More inevitable than a possibility.

Soon, he is little more than a distant memory like the others have become. Visited only occasionally just like a burial site. It doesn't matter how well designed or how much money is put on a tombstone. Someday, a tombstone is just that. A tombstone, barely connected to memory. Barely visited.

I will become this to him. A tombstone in a graveyard part of his life. Little more than a distant memory no longer visited. I hate that I will be this to him. But we are the resiliency of the human spirit.

THE GALLERY WALL

I wanted to show off my gallery wall. Made up mostly of memories, personal paintings and art exhibits and galleries I've visited.

From the top, left to right (artists listed where they could be found):

1. A postcard from Tate Modern ("Hate and Power Can be a Terrible Thing" by Tracey Emin)
2. A print from the Ontario College of Art and Design
3. Petra Collins' solo exhibit at CONTACT Gallery ("Anna and Kathleen")
4. Postcard from San Francisco
5. An ad for Coppertone ripped out of a book
6. Instax photo of Charlotte and I at Voodoo Child Cafe in Toronto
7. An art postcard from ArtToronto 2015 ("Hypernurnia" by Mathew Borrett)
8. A photo strip of Charlotte and I at the Drake Hotel
9. A postcard from the Getty Centre in L.A.
10. My own watercolour painting
11. Instax photo of a potluck a few years ago (top), Devonte's going-away a couple years ago (bottom)
12. My own watercolour painting and collage 
13. A postcard from Tate Modern ("Untitled" 2003 by David Shrigley)
14. A postcard from the AGO ("Don't Tread on Me" by Basquiat and Andy Warhol)
15. Instax photo of a Starbucks holiday party two years ago (top), Mishi and I at North of Brooklyn Pizzeria in Toronto (bottom)
16. A photo of the mountains in Vancouver, 2017
17. A postcard from the AGO ("Anthony Clarke" by Basquiat)
18. A postcard from the AGO ("Study of Perspective - Tiananmen Square, Beijing" by Ai Weiwei)
19. A magazine cutout likely from Vice Magazine
20. A postcard from a local shop called I HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Something to think about.

1. Physiological needs - hunger, thirst, warmth, pain avoidance, sexual release, and others
2. Safety needs - housing, clothing, financial and physical security
3. Love and belongingness needs - social acceptance and personal intimacy (Maslow argued that much of mankind's frustration stemmed from inadequacy in this area, since lower-level needs had been met. People can often say that they have eaten enough or own enough clothes, but who can say "I am loved enough"?)
4. Esteem needs - feeling of adequacy and achievement, approval, prestige, social status
5. Self-actualization needs - the need to understand, cognitively and aesthetically; the ultimate integration of the self and realization of one's highest inner potential