Superwoman's Book Exchange

Happy April Fools! Currently, I’m flying back from Kansas, so I thought I’d catch up on my blog.
My love of books began in first grade. Since then I have always tried to read a little for pleasure, even if it meant staying up past my bedtime. Last week, I was able to finally finish a real masterpiece about a Chinese POW during the Korean War. Wartrash by Ha Jin was a book I probably wouldn’t have picked up except that Superwoman, a good college friend living in DC, sent me a copy as part of a book exchange. The protagonist pulls you in right away, revealing that he has a tattoo on his belly that says “FUCK U…S…” He’s afraid that the immigration officials would ask him to pull his shirt up and deny him entry. But he arrives in the U.S. fine and begins writing his memoir of the Korean War in English. He speaks and writes in English well because he was taught early on, I think through a missionary. His ability enables him to rise in the ranks of the Communist army even in the POW camps. Fellow prisoners rely on him to ask the GIs for information and to read the scraps of American papers thrown in the trash. Though his English skills afford him some protection, the Communists continually test him while exploiting him since he had attended the Nationalist military school before being forced into the Communist army. I should clarify that he isn’t a Communist, but is forced to follow them to protect his family: his mother and his fiancé back in China.

His memoir describes how he is used and how he is expendable to the army. It also shows how the entire army and all the POWs that are calculated as statistics and psychologically maneuvered as expendable lives. Fatalities are planned and used as bargaining chips, a way to show that the Americans are treating POWs unfairly to force concessions. You start to wonder how he gets out of the POW camp alive and whether he chooses to go back to China, to Taiwan, or some other country. It’s a sobering book and very well-written. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize if that means anything to you. Once you start reading, you might forget that the book is fiction because it is so well researched.

As part of the book exchange, I in turn, sent Superwoman The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler. Now if you live in or know the L.A. area, a Raymond Chandler mystery would be a fun read. They are usually set in L.A. and mention several landmarks and freeways. There are sly dames, tough baddies, and a sarcastic, witty private eye. If you’re smart enough, you might even solve the mystery before it’s revealed. These books are sexy, stylish, and have the unmistakable detective noir feel. I have only read three, but my favorite is The Long Goodbye. Superwoman told me she was engrossed in the book after being exhausted from reading texts for graduate school. I am always happy to help a friend.

Marysville Bok Kai Festival

Like most students, my spring break is one week. I would usually spend the entire week at home, but I had a Crane performance up north so I flew back to Sacramento on Thursday. I arrived in Marysville, an unimpressive town about an hour north of Davis, on Friday evening.

The Bok Kai sponsors were quite generous since our little group was paid for this gig and they put us up Friday Night at the Holiday Inn Express. The rooms are pretty nice with comfy beds, nice tub/shower, mini fridges and microwaves, free continental breakfast and no bedspreads. Who wants bedspreads right? If you watch those investigative news stories they find all sorts of nasty stuff with UV light. Instead, there are just nice fresh, clean sheets.

We were booked to perform at the 127th Annual Bok Kai Festival. I learned that it's a festival in honor of Chinese-Americans that came to work in Northern California. There's even a small Chinese temple in the town which I visited. It also sort of doubles as a Chinese New Year celebration since the posters for the festival always shows the zodiac animal for that year.

"The Bok Kai Festival, honoring Bok Eye, the Chinese God of Water, pays tribute to the many Chinese who worked the gold mines in the 1800s. The rare Bok Kai Temple, recently listed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of the country's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, came to be a symbol of gratitude and hope for the Chinese who had left their homeland with hopes for a better life in America." Festival web site.

I didn't expect such a small town to give so much recognition to a minority group but it was nice to see. Our first performance was in front of about 15 people, but we were warned that the Bok Kai organizers were asking $10 admission to see "Lord of the Cranes" so we didn't expect much of a turnout. We had even fewer people show up for the Saturday afternoon performance, and half of them were relatives of our narrator. But really it didn't matter because the best part of the trip was Saturday morning's big parade through downtown Marysville. I had no idea what it would be like but it was a huge deal with maybe 500 or more people lined up and down to watch all these cars with local dignitaries, beauty queens, organizations with their own floats, martial arts club, marching band. It was so impressive coming out of this little beat-up town. And we got to be a part of it! All of us dressed up in our costumes and us cranes danced and frolicked in the streets for an hour. It was exhilerating and I'd do it again if could. All the little kids were happy to see the cool costumes and the dancing. I thought this must be what dancers in a Disneyland parade must feel like. How fun! The other actors in our play had their masks on so people were curious as to who they were supposed to be, but alas, it did not generate enough interest to pay $10 to see the play.

The big parade finale was a 150 feet dragon which arrived among drums and exploding firecrackers thrown at its entrance.




















Those parade guys must have been exhausted running around for over an hour carrying this thing, and they weren't running slow either because it's supposed to be a scary dragon. Every time they stopped to run around in a circle, they'd set off firecrackers so you constantly heard them going off. At the end of the route near the grandstand, they set off so many fireworks that it sounded like cannon fire. Kind of frightening actually.

Marysville also opened it's new Chinese-American Museum on Saturday and many people flocked to the museum after the parade. Some smart vendors camped outside the museum and temple's entrance and sold these big red plastic goodies with 5 or 6 small pinwheels in different colors. The day was really nice and breezy so I would see little old Asian people carrying these big red ornaments around with the pinwheels spinning like crazy. I loved it! and I had that feeling little kids get when they want something impulsively because it looks so fun. I also thought it would look great on the balcony near my plants on a windy day. But they were $5, and my practical side took over and I didn't end up with a cool pinwheel ornament.




















Some older Asian folk resting their feet while admiring their pinwheels. I was jealous.

Lyrical Thrash

I started ballet/tap classes when I was 6 years old. I've kept it up since then, taking a summer off here and there when I can't find good dance classes in the area. I am so thankful that I know of the Jimmy DeFore Dance Center in Costa Mesa near my parent's house. They have all sorts of dance classes for adults and the teachers are always great.

Tonight, I wanted something different from ballet since I can take lots of ballet classes at Davis but not good jazz classes. Lyrical Jazz 3 sounded good since it was an intermediate class. To my surprise, the instructor was a tall lanky man. He really liked contractions (sharp abdominal contractions common in jazz dancing) and there were lots of them during warm-up which is cool. Then came an extension and balance exercise, and the rest of the class was dedicated to a long combination. It was really fun and just the right level for me while still challenging. I was the odd one with pink ballet tights, leotard and ballet shoes. Everyone else was wearing more modern dance clothes and jazz shoes, but I didn't let it bother me like I would have when I was younger.

The music sounded a little bit like country but more poppy. Although it was a slower tempo there was a lot of of quick sharp movements to accent the song's dramatic moments. The teacher was excellent at demonstrating since he was so dramatic. He was thrashing and contracting really well and it gave me a good idea of how he wanted it done. I struggled with all the contractions and timing for most of the class. But then he split us into 3 groups and near the end of the hour-and-a-half class, he had each group watch the other ones. And when I had to perform, everything came together. I hit almost all the highlights, even the difficult spots where most people missed, and I had a great balancing side extension at the end. It felt so good. She-Hulk likes to thrash!

In celebration of the fact that I'm in the best shape I've been in since high school, I caved and bought some sweet gym outfits for my birthday. I figure that I can only justify buying expensive clothing if it's for work or for the gym since those two places will be where I will spend most of my time in the future.























As you can see, She-Hulk, like most superheroes, always wears tight and skimpy clothes when she's ready to kick ass. My muscles need freedom to work at maximum efficiency. Now that they are getting bigger, I decided to reward them with the following:

Other shopping goodies included another pair of booty shorts in black and a cropped hoodie with a sweet ghetto fabulous hood. Pics of those later. I must spread them out among the posts so you guys will be continually entertained.

Crane's First Performance

A fellow crane and I at this year's first "The Lord of the Cranes" performance at an elementary school. Why the anonymous faces? I like to have a secret identity. Our costumes are pretty neat with the winged gloves. I really like dancing with them since they add a nice visual effect onstage. The kids were a good audience and applauded after our dance even though it was in the middle of a scene. While I was rehearsing I was bitching inside about how this was a little sad; a bunch of old adults who aren't professionals, performing for free. (Well this one is for free, but the ones next week aren't, and a lot of other performances are discounted.) Anyway, the long rehearsals were getting me down, but the first performance really lifted me up. Having an audience makes a difference and everybody was a bit more on. The principal came backstage later to shake hands and thank everyone. She was sincerely grateful and said that many of these kids don't get to see live performances since they are from low income families. So even though I had to wake up at 7am to perform at 9:30, I thought it was worth it, unlike when I have to wake up for Immigration which I missed 3 days in a row now.



That same night I broiled myself 1/2 lb. of salmon doused in lemon juice, olive oil, sherry, mashed garlic, salt & pepper, capers and dried basil. I sauteed some spinach for some veggies.
I only finished 1/2 of the salmon though since it was a big piece.

She-Hulk Moment of the Day: I was doing weighed lunges with my back foot propped up on a stepper to put more weight on the front leg and make the exercise more difficult. I'd gone up that day to 22.5 lb dumbbells so I was taking it nice and easy. I left after two sets to grab water and came back.

My dumbbells were gone!

I was annoyed. I couldn't find them on the racks. I became upset. VERY UPSET. I was GREEN WITH RAGE. Wasn't it obvious that someone was using the weights? People don't just leave big dumbbells near the cardio machines and next to a stepper. Determined to find the culprit, I scoured the gym twice scowlingly walking to find the person, most likely a male since most females do not carry around that kind of weight. I was so mad that my routine was interrupted I had to do some curls to get it out. I returned to the racks and found the 22.5s put back. So I finished my set, but was disappointed that I didn' get to call someone out on their bad gym etiquette.

• Well, no big workout today since I just flew home. I did walk on the beach with my parents though, and later we went out to eat. Usually we go out for Vietnamese or Chinese/Vietnamese. If my brother is home, maybe sushi. But I was thinking Korean. Problem was my mom had never eaten Korean and I wasn't sure if the idea would fly. Somehow, I brought it up during our walk and she said a lot of her friends like it and had told her about this one place on Brookhurst and Dale. Super. We had dinner at Tofu Village. I had beef soondibud, she had blue fin crab soondibud, and my dad ordered egg and tofu pancakes. The restaurant called the tofu soup "SoonTofu," but I think that is an americanization of the word since I'd never heard my Korean friends say it like that before.

• They gave each of us complimentary steamed egg in a bamboo cup. Delicious! Then all the random small plates. My mom, having never eaten a place like this before, asked the waitress "what does this go with?" since none of the main dishes had been served yet. The waitress looked confused so I told her my mom had never eaten Korean before. hehe. The pancakes came out first and they were excellent. Then the soups with green rice. The rice was really nice with delicate tea flavor. The last time I had soondibud was with my sister when I was home last month, and I had stuffed myself then. Tonight was no different. I just can't let myself let the good broth go to waste even if I could take it home. My mom was really happy and my dad liked everything too. I think they will go back to try the cold noodles. My dad told us about this one excellent Korean BBQ on the same street that was always full of Vietnamese people, so maybe we can visit that restaurant later. Yumyumyum in my tumtumtum.

• I seem to turn into a little kid when I'm home by myself with my parents. Today on the walk, I was galloping and skipping and just doing goofy moves. I dunno if it would be the same if my brother and sister were there too. Something about being home on my last spring break.

"Green Gold" Ahuacate

The past four days, my skin has looked great. I would say the best it has looked in awhile even compared to nights when I use my sample packets of Philosophy's Microdelivery Peel. And it's all due to eating a lovely fruit called ahuacate, or avocado, as California farmer's named it in 1915 to make it easier for non-Spanish speaking gringos to pronounce. The farmers also wanted to dissociate the fruit from ahuacate's Aztec meaning which is testicle, and other unappleaing names like "alligator pear." Whatever its name, I am now convinced that it is the best quick skincare remedy I have used. Best of all, it's natural and cheap! One avocado will set you back "fiddy cent" if it's on sale, or a little more than a dollar.

Why is it so good for the skin?

"As a bonus, the natural oils of the fruit are good for
your skin and provide a refreshing alternative to over-the-counter facial
products." - NPR story

It is also loaded with vitamin E, and has the highest protein content out of all fruits. We all know She-Hulk loves protein for her bulging muskels. In fact, I believe if I were a fruit, I would be the ahuacate: tough muskely exterior, but on the inside smooth and full of delicious nutrients, oils.


Follow the quote's NPR link to find some interesting ahuacate recipes at the end of the article.

If you don't like to eat avocados but what the skin benefits you could mash half an avocado up, spread it on your clean face and leave it on for 15 minutes. Rinse off with warm water, and voila! Refreshed, plump skin. OR, you can wipe the inside of the avocado peel on your clean face using gentle upward strokes for an instant moisturizer. Leave it on all night or rinse off in 15 min with warm water.

And if you do a little web research, you'll find that it can help with puffy eyes, dry hands, and dull hair. I know the fancy shampoo I use has avocado as an ingredient.

I ran out of avocados to put in my sandwich today, but I still wanted something fancy, so I spent a little more time than usual on my packed lunch and this was the result:

















Ham sandwich with sauteed portabello mushrooms and spinach, sliced tomatos on garlic and parmesean bread. First time making one, and it was great! Please click on the photo to see how much better the food looks close up.

Fruit: Cut pineapple and dried figs

For extra protein to snack on: Almonds

For my carb cravings: Kashi TLC crackers

Healthy and yet still delicious.

I am REBORN.

Today is the beginning of a great blogomentary. She-Hulk's Hobbies will henceforth be available to millions of nosy surfers, unscreened from domineering Xanga's protective veil. I MUST BE HEARD!

I just want to have a blog again where I can post without having to worry about who reads. THUS, this blog will be pretty tame. No juicy gossip or personal vents, but rather a vehicle to display my rich inner life of hobbies and extracurricular activities. I hope you all will be interested and amused enough to leave comments or thoughts. PEACE