So in a joke to my coworkers, I said “Well, I’m almost 40 so you gen-Zers can just suck it”. The fact is, 36 is still a way yet, but rounding up and exaggerating is my jam. We’re in a culture obsessed with youth and beauty. So I’d be lying if I said I’m not a tad obsessed with my spare tire and my receding hairline. Every TV and movie ever made about women in suburban life is that they have this hidden boredom or sadness or that their husbands don’t desire them anymore (even the feminist ones where she rebels). It’s tired and old. I wonder whatever happens to the graceful but feisty woman in the suburb, she is with careers and with a life so mundane and undramatic that we all miss it. Guess that’s why no one made it into a movie.

The truth is I love my mundane suburban life. I like my garden. I like my home office. I like the parks and the bike paths. On most days, I like my husband too. (OK, kidding, I love my husband all day). As the world goes back to “normal” – i.e. we are all pretending that Covid never happened; there is this growing anxiety of me in the pre-pandemic life. The “normal” world was built for extroverts. It was built on the back of working-class people and exploitations. The “normal” work is built on dirty politics and polarizing elections. You escape the “normal” world by traveling to destinations like third-world countries where we exploit the locals for our escapism fantasy. 

People always say that marriage is about “waking up next to someone for the rest of your life” like it is always about someone else, always someone else’s responsibility to make you feel happy, feel whole. Aging is about “waking up with yourself for the rest of your life”. You are fully responsible for the happiness and the wholeness of yourself. Self-care is more than bathtubs and candles. It’s the admission to yourself that you’re flawed and broken and that is ok, as long as you continue to invest in yourself long enough to fix all those broken pieces. 

So I guess my life turns out nothing like I’ve ever imagined. I’m like a moderately interesting housewife living in a moderate size house with moderate size savings and a moderately successful career. I’ve come to terms with the fact that no one will make a movie about my perfectly moderate life. And that’s ok.

Part of aging is you are giving so many opportunities to acquire grace, and grief the parts of your youth wild imaginations of what it could be. 

And all the opportunities and tools in the world to build a world that is moderately resemblance what our human psyche allowed to be called “Happiness”

If you are in Canada/are Canadians, by now, you would be familiar with this story: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/751-unmarked-graves-discovered-near-former-indigenous-school-canada-180978064/  

There are no hot takes here (well, aside from the racist ones, thanks, National Post). But there are calmer, nuanced take that I have seen, such as this https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6815509761619062784/ 

I’ve reflected a lot (and discussed a lot with people on both ends of the spectrum). But as an immigrant to Canada, I want to offer a deeply personal, deeply emotional take on the issue. 

Can we still celebrate Canada, and Canada day, knowing this land not only offers opportunity, equality, and prosperity for people like me while burying and excluding the people who were here first? 

Let me start from recent history, my history. 2 of my uncles are Boat people. They fled Vietnam, back then a country post-war. My grandfather went to re-education camp. My mother was barred from university. My father was not allowed promotion in his job (he works for the communist in public train) because he married my mother. At least that’s what my mother believed. My grandparents believed it wasn’t safe for my uncles to be in Vietnam. One of my uncles got caught trying to flee the country as a refugee. He was in jail. 

Growing up, I would hear stories, saw pictures from my uncles. I imagined Canada to be of mountains, of rivers, of lakes, and of beautiful people, people who helped 2 young immigrant men, one of them teenager, to survive brutal Quebec winters, and supporting them to learn French, and allowing them jobs and careers and beautiful families and lives.

In 2006, when I first visited Canada, Montreal, back then, I was just a 21-year-old young man, deeply, deeply in the closet. My uncle took me downtown, and I saw 2 men holding hands. They kissed. And at that moment, I realized, Canada is more than just endless mountains, boundless rivers and lakes, and kind beautiful people. Canada means I can live my truth. 

I made the mistake of making the assumption Canada was perfect.

And I moved here in 2012. Stephen Harper was the Prime Minister. I fell in love with a (hot), public policy-obsessed, stubborn, argumentative Conservatives. In order to impress him, I started to read the news. In order to have intelligent conversations with him, I started to read history books and analysis. And I started to form opinions. And I started to unearth dark, horrible horrible truths, about Canada.

Of course, I can always take the easy way out of this, like many immigrants. “I wasn’t here.” “My ancestors didn’t do this.” “Hey, I’m oppressed too, you know.” But the day I stood in front of the maple leaf flag, swearing allegiance to the Queen, and willingly wishing to be a Canadian, I inherited all these wrongs that have been done, all these traumas that we as a nation have inflicted, to the very people who have been here first. I don’t need to have a degree in history or political science to dance around all this technicality of words to call all these injustices what they were: genocide, kidnapping, murder, broken contract and treaties, systemic incarceration, and systemic discrimination.

And let’s start with “It’s utterly shameful and totally unacceptable.”

I don’t need to be Indigenous to grieve and fight for the rights of our Indigenous Canadians who are still at a disadvantage and fighting injustices today. I don’t need to be a parent to be outraged at recovered children’s corpses. I don’t need to experience injustices to fight injustices. Far from it. The privilege to not suffer demands more responsibility to fight suffering in others. 

It is easy for me, as a newcomer, to know that I am a guest on this land. It is easy for me, as a person who didn’t have the baggage of a “settler” guilt and white guilt, to pass on the mic to the people who need it.

So, where do we go from here? Can we still celebrate Canada? Can we still love Canada?

Loving a nation is like loving a person. Loving a nation is accepting that a nation is a collective of myths, of identities, of histories. Loving a nation is loving it in all of its triumphs, all of its flaws, and all of its darkness. Loving a nation is desiring to make it a better place, for all, for the people who were here first. 

Loving Canada is loving the people who were here first, long before Canada was Canada, and in all their suffering and all their loss and all their grief, allow us to share and flourish on the land that their children were buried, hidden from them.

It’s ok to love and grieve in the same deep breath. 

It’s ok to look forward, as long as we know our foot walk on the same earth the children were buried, and swear the same old tragedies, the same old hates, the same old rhetorics, are never repeated. 

It’s ok to celebrate, as long as we know there is always darkness in every morning, and there is light in every dark sky preserve, and that our fellow Indigenous friends, family, coworkers, and even strangers, need us to amplify their voices, their truth, their trauma, respectfully and carefully.

As an immigrant, I will never have the same deep love Indigenous people have for the land. But as an immigrant, I know and I appreciate and I celebrate the people, the culture, and I want to hold and hold and hold all the trauma that they have suffered.

Because, once again, the Indigenous people were here first.

P.S: If you haven’t read it, I highly recommended this book: 

Happy Summer Solstice!

There’s this duality about Solstice that always gets me. Winter Solstice is the day when the days start getting longer. So while it’s the darkest day in Canadian winter, it offers the most hope. Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year, with the most sunlight, but it offers a hint of sadness as the days are getting shorter. 

Yep, “Sunshine boy” is literally moody based on the cycle of the sun. 

As Chester finished “Mass Effect” – the trilogy, I realized what we have missed in part of our childhood. The queer romance of the protagonist and his crewmate. We didn’t know it was even an option. In the second game, if you didn’t play the first game, said crewmate is defaulted to be dead. If at any point in time, you take on the countless advances of members of the opposite sex, this option is closed to you forever. Yes, in 2013, and even in 2021, being queer is an act of rebellion. You can shoot up aliens, save humanity, commit genocide in video games at a press of a button, but having authentic representation and authentic relationships is still an act of defiance.

 I know it’s not quite as romantic as one would imagine putting your husband and the pandemic in the same sentence. But hey, love transcends all grammatical barriers. 

The past 15 months of the pandemic, job changes, global racism wakening, world ending, life-altering, earth-shattering events, the only constant in my life has been waking up in the morning, looking over the snoring, bearded being next to me and thought “How lucky I am to be here.”

I have my garden for peace. I have tomatoes and squash and cabbage and cauliflowers and wildflowers and tulips and nautilus. And no matter how shitty the weather is, they continue to grow, to sprout, to fight against the pest, the wind, the snow, the south-facing sun. And life goes on. 

Happiness is a moment next to your husband, a moment in your garden

 John Donne proclaimed “No Man Is an Island” in an uplifting saying that we so often stole without attribution. With Covid, and work from home, and bubbles, and the political climate that we are in now, I am not so sure. 

The truth is, it feels increasingly like an island lately. I work from home 7 to 4 most days. I go for 2 walks, mostly with my brother, in relative silence. I exercise by myself. I haven’t read the news or Facebook in days. Linked In is my source of updates and social contact (I know, I’m becoming a boomer). 

My partner is back at work (physical, in-office) for an organization that I, well, let’s just say severely disapprove of. I am proud of him and all the great work that he is doing. I want to be the supportive cool hubby. I do. But it’s straining and it’s exhausting and it’s lonely when he wants me to approve his organization’s work, too. I know it’s straining and it’s exhausting and it’s lonely for him that I don’t love the work that his organization is doing. So as best as I could, I don’t talk about it. I don’t read about his organization anymore. It can get lonely.

My friend from the US (that I made in California, he’s back in Chicago now) reached out after the shooting on Wednesday to check in on me. I didn’t know what happened (again, haven’t read the news in weeks). I was with him during the George Floyd period last year. From my short time in America, racism and misogyny against women were very real to me. Especially for Asian and Asian Americans, it is that much darker because it was silent. Men fetishizing Asian women. The media demasculinize Asian men. We are seen as the silent model minority, as laundromat workers, tax accountants, software nerds, among other stereotypes. 

If anything, the events in the past years have created a silver lining – the Black community and the Asian community coming together. As Eddie Huang’s book once recalled, his black friend and he fought in a monumental moment in their childhood, when the black boy slashed out at the Asian for being good, quiet, and over-achieving. We, as Asian immigrants, are taught by North American culture that our indigenous and black brothers and sisters are brass, rude, and lazy. That is changing (at least from what I’ve seen). In the troubled fabric of North American society, woven by immigration, colonization, and slavery, the colors of our humanity are blending with the blood of our ancestors. It’s not perfect, but it’s vibrant in the sun.

From the movie – Minari

People who know me in my youth knew me as a hopeless romantics who bought in way too much of the notion of “The one”, and who showers his love interests with needless affection and over-top-grand gesture. People who know me in my late twenties – early thirties knew me as a cynic who was tired of love and romantic love and all the cliche over-capitalized notion of love to sell more chocolate. People who know me now should know that I’m incredibly grateful to have found love, and it’s either of those things above.

Love is someone who accepts the difference in your culture, background, and politics and inspires you to do the same. Love is going to church on a Sunday even when you are a Buddhist. Love is celebrating Tet and all the weird childhood tradition of popping balloons in place of firecrackers. Love is wearing Ao dai for your wedding reception and learning to paint at the wedding. 

Love is when someone who incredibly loves comfort will force themselves out of the comfort zone to move across the country to support their partner’s career and mental health. Love is when they inspire you to tell them to take a job working for someone you profoundly disagree with. Love is when we trust enough to be apart knowing that we always will be together.

Love is hard work. Love is everyday work. Love is having and holding the space for sentences like this “I’m fucking mad at you but I love you and I will never let these things make me want to leave you”

Love is Sunday morning when one refuses to be up before 8 and one loves productivity.

Love is when one grows the garden and the other doom-scroll on the internet.

Love is embracing the differences, and learning to occupy the spaces in between.

Love is whenwe hug, the world stops, and I learn to breathe and everything will once again be ok.

So Happy Valentine’s Day. I guess. Although another thing you’ll find out about love is that you don’t need a day in the Western calendar that is heavily advertised by capitalists to embrace the people you love and be incredibly grateful for that.

So when I quit my job at a fast-growing start-up, after 3 years of solid struggling and after I finally hired a junior team member, and while we are growing both revenue and headcount, to join a much much smaller company, my boss said “Of course it makes sense for you. You are Pure Adventure”. Sitting number 2 at my motto/manifesto/value, it says “Growth and comfort do not co-exist”

2 weeks later when my partner got a call from a head hunter for a job that would put us literally at different coasts of Canada once Covid is stabilized and people are allowed in offices again, I told him to take the call. I helped him review the resume. I cheered him on during the interview process. I told him he could take the job. I know. #pureadventure

That’s life. As “young” people, I am inclined to believe we are stronger and our relationships are more resilient than physical distance, than political divides, than viruses and circumstances. I’m inclined to believe love and marriage doesn’t mean two halves sacrificing to becoming one; it’s two wholes supporting the crap out of each other to achieve infinity. Dreams can come true. Dreams do come true. And marrying the person of your dream doesn’t mean letting go of all the rest; it means leaning on them to realize all of your dreams.

So here we are. 36. The later half of my thirty. Yet the spirit of adventure, the desire for growth, and the unwavering determination to build my a life uncompromised for both me and the people I love remained. The kid at 18 who left Vietnam on a one way ticket; the kid at 21 who went to Philly with 2 suitcases in the middle of winter; the young man at 27 who came to Canada with 2 suitcases and a scholarship; those personas didn’t die. They matured and evolved and learned. 

I am proud of where I am today. Terrified of change and uncertainty, of course, but I choose to be fueled by that fear, by that discomfort. I choose to continue to grow, to love, to support the people around me with the privilege and the support that I have.

Because, sitting on number 1 on my manifesto/values list, is “It’s all about the people and compassionate leadership”.

So here we go. 2021. 36. Whatever life brings. Adventure awaits.

#pureadventures

I started a new job today. It’s an amazing feeling. The fear, the uncertainty, the challenges of starting something new in the middle of a pandemic. It’s exhilarating. I know I’m odd. But that’s in my nature to get out of my comfort zone and grow. 

The last 2 weeks at my old work has been great. People have been amazingly supportive. My boss, being absent and with flaws during my tenure there, has been nothing short of amazing in providing feedback, advice, and well wishes for my growth.

Sometimes when people grow, they grow apart. 

So, there’s no sugar-coating this, 2020 has been a clusterfuck of dumpster-fires. From the pandemic and delays to our major life goals, to my having shingles and had to miss work for 8 days, to our ceiling leaks with water, and a bird family lived in our vent. Small annoyances to life-altering life decisions. 2020 has been a year of anxiety, frustrations, and stagnation. 2020, at best, was a year of being inside and feeling stuck and miserable; and at its worst, a year of watching the ourside world tear itself apart with racial injustice, political instability, and overall fuckary and descend into dictatorships. 

Yet, as 2020 is coming to a close, I can’t help but being grateful for the year that I had. 

2020 was a year of growth and soul searching when it comes to my career. As we are close to finishing one of the major flagship products of the company, and our hiring continues after 6-month freeze, I question my place and my growth path at the company. It is counter intuitive that when we boast a new investment fund, an impressive increase in 50 headcounts, and a promotion for my boss, that I decided that it was about time for me to move on. Sometimes, a business can grow tremendously and you can’t find a place in it. I’m starting a new role, in a much smaller, much earlier stage start up in the new year. And as terrifying and anxious as it is, leaving a comfy job in the middle of a pandemic for another job in Ontario, I’m extremely excited about the challenges that the new environment and the new role will bring

2020 was a year that we are forced to be inside, a lot, with very few people. And thanks to it, I know, that I have married the best possible person to be stuck with, for my whole life. Sure we argue over silly stuff and sure I’d rather he woke up a bit earlier in the morning and made me more motivated about worknig out, but being stuck with him for the whole year had been, at times amazing, and mostly pleasant. He is kind, and loving, and supportive of all my insanity and anxiety. But most of all, he is calm under pressure and adaptive under challenges. 

2020 was also a year that I’m forced to be stuck with one of the most challenging person in my life: my self. Sitting with myself has been hard. Being with myself have been hard. There were times when I literally ran out of the house, ran for 8 km. There were times when I lie on the floor, Grey Anatomy’s style, out of the sheer depression and emoness of it all. There were time when I literally just cry for no reason. And then I got up the next day, delivered a contact tracing app, 3 firmware releases, and 5 million revenue in hardware products. Functioning depression is the hardest kind of struggle, because it is so invisible to everyone, and it can get ever so lonely. 

2020 was a year of new skills. I learned to bake, mixology, to garden, to soulder hardware boards. 2020 was a year of familiar meditations: painting, running, hiking. 

2020 was a year of old friends. Jia En came to Canada! We whatsapp across 4 countries more often than most year. We talked about the wedding and how fortunate we are to have the wedding pre-pandemic. We realized we don’t have a lot of people and friends in our life. We realized the ones we have are absolutely precious and amazing to us.

Remember this? Remember people in one place celebrating things?

So 2020 was a mixed bag of emotions and a rollercoaster of a lifetime challenge. I think we came out ok. I think I came out a bit more sure of myself and what I can do. I think I came out a bit more sure of us, me and Dan, and even Chester, Jen, Alex, Drax and Lincoln, and what we can do as a family. 

The pandemic doesn’t follow Western calendar. 2021 is just a number. I suspect, aside from our renewed sense of hope and renewed faith in the human resilience, nothing would have changed.

But hey, if I can go into 2021 with a renewed sense of hope and a renewed faith in my own resiliency, maybe it would have been worth it.

Happy New Year!!!