1) Compost bin for a flower shop in San Francisco Chinatown. 2) Perks of working from home: treating myself to Humphry Slocombe’s vietnamese iced coffee ice cream on a warm day. 3) Parts of a McFish, after some time in the fridge. (Yes, I put a Filet-O-Fish in the fridge because it was two for $6 and one was already $5 and I couldn’t eat two.) 6) Lunch at Tay Ho, Oakland Chinatown. Garlic noodles with chicken skewers and an appetizer plate. I love that appetizer plate — all sorts of goodness.
These photos were taken in early April when I took a road trip to Manzanar National Historic Site, the former internment camp, to write this essay for NPR. 1) Vacancy sign in Cartago, CA along U.S. Route 395. I had to drive the southern route from the San Francisco Bay Area because the northern route was impassable due to a storm. This added 2 hours to the drive. (Total drive time: about 8 hours). 2) Recreation of a guard tower at Manzanar. There had been eight. 3) The remains of what was once a garden at Manzanar. Residents built gardens to make the camp seem a little more normal. 4) Offerings by the Manzanar cemetery and monument. 5) The post office in Independence, CA, the closest inhabited area to Manzanar, about six miles north.
I have a personal essay on Catapult about my relationship to swimming and how it helps me get through chronic headaches and writer’s block. This essay has been many months in the making. Though part of me is wary of putting something so personal out in the world, I’m thrilled to be in Catapult. If you don’t know it, be sure to spend some time on there. The site is full of great writing.
art by Ellen Orseck / image via brad, flickr
After a decade-long break from journalism, I returned to the field and realized that I needed a better-looking online portfolio. I’ve been keeping links to my writing clips on this website, but it’s rather text heavy. I tried adding one image per story, but the page looked rather disorganized since it’s essentially an article format with images and story descriptions piled up vertically one after the other. So, I explored portfolio sites out there for writers and journalists.
What I looked for:
The portfolio sites I considered:
For all the sites, you can add a clip by simply entering its URL. The sites do all the work for you, grabbing the headline, an excerpt, and an image for you. (Some do a better job at this than others. I found myself having to upload images for some clips.) All of them have editable fields in case you want to change the text or upload a different image. For stories that don’t live online, you can also upload a PDF. All the sites also have spots for your social media handles.
At first I tried to get away with just looking at existing samples of these sites. But I realized that in order to truly understand how they worked, I had to sign up so I could experience it myself first hand.
In March, I traveled to Mexico. Most of these photos were taken in Puerto Vallarta. Inspired by the colorful buildings there. And I loved eating paletas every day.
1) A tree grows by street construction, San Francisco. 2) I’ve tried many times to take a photo of this building, preferably without a bin in front. But there’s always a bin in front. John F. Kennedy Towers, San Francisco. 3) How I get started working on my annual lunar new year cards.
Five years ago, I started making cards to send to friends for the lunar new year. I started in 2013, Year of the Snake, cutting snakes by hand out of colorful, patterned scrap paper.
As my mailing list grew, it became unrealistic to make each card by hand. So in the Year of the Horse, I decided to make a drawing and send it off to a printer. By draw, I mean stick figures. Over the years, I’ve learned what kind of paper stock I should print on (not uncoated matte stock, which gets beat up in the mail) and I picked up a small water color kit too.
Here’s last year’s postcard for Year of the Monkey:
This year, I didn’t feel like making a card. I wasn’t feeling celebratory because of the election results and the combination of anger and anxiety I’ve been feeling every day since. But my partner convinced me that we should make a card, even though they would be late. And then I came up with an idea I was excited about: a giant fire-breathing rooster among protesters. Enter Resistance Rooster. (My partner came up with the name.)
When I went to pick up the postcards in person, I was surprised by the weight of the box. Turns out, the printer gave us about five times what we ordered. (Thanks, PsPrint!) Was it a mistake or did they do it on purpose because they liked our card? In any case, we had lots of extras to share. We posted to our Facebook networks, asking if anyone would want a postcard. Lots of people did. Some asked for stacks. Others asked if we had T-shirts for themselves and their kids.
And so, here we are. We have shirts and more over here. This lunar new year, show that you will stand up and fight, just like the rooster. And don’t give up, like I almost did. Keep on doing your thing and encourage those around you, too. All proceeds from sales will benefit the National Immigration Law Center.
1) Dunkin’ Donuts has made it out to Northern California; no longer a treat reserved for East Coast visits. 2) Ringing in 2017, San Francisco. 3) Coyote Hills Regional Park, Fremont, CA.
This month’s photos are from San Francisco Chinatown. It makes me happy to be in Chinatown. I love hearing the language I grew up with, even if I can’t understand everything, and seeing the elders in their pattern-mixing outfits, and people hustling hard the way immigrants do. Also, the tasty treats. 1) Eastern Bakery, an old bakery in Chinatown, and its utilitarian coffee counter, brightened with plants. 2) The owner of Eastern Bakery is from Peru and his brother owns rival Golden Gate Bakery. Eastern’s dan tats (egg tarts) are creamier than Golden Gate’s. 3) The most popular dishes at Capital, one of my favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Chinatown.
I interviewed director Jon M. Chu a few weeks ago. He shares how his immigrant parents’ restaurant helped his filmmaking career, how he felt destined to direct the movie version of Kevin Kwan’s hit book Crazy Rich Asians, and whether protests against whitewashing in Hollywood have had any effect on casting.
Headshot of Jon M. Chu by Bryan Dale/BuzzFeed
