Reduced to a single sentence, no one knows how much he lingers.

Phasing in and out, the buzzing hums of the air conditioner fill the room with a sense of nostalgia, silent enough to remain unnoticed to a talkative mouth, but present enough to know that it is still there. It hums. 


If you are quiet enough, still enough, you can hear it filling up the room. Displacing the humidity that could of been, it commands the atmosphere, making it to be an exact 22 degrees Celsius.  The birds that have moved into my ventilation fan decide to chirp but only in the daytime. Perhaps this is the time that they rest in their nest since flying by day may cause them to lay victim to other hungry creatures that may eat them. This is what I imagine. I awake a bit. Lethargically blurred, I lay in my king size bed twisted between sheets and blankets unsure of what to do with myself. Too tired to move. I cough. Long faded thoughts of him surface causing me to be more awake than I want to be. I decide to shift my thoughts away from that into cloudless realms of disillusion about the future and such, streaming those memories into something else and phase out again. It hums presently.


---

@ Things,  a cafe in Saigon (will write review soon)

My art based reproductive health workshops for the trafficking survivors at the shelter start tomorrow. I haven't really thought of a clever name for the project but I am really excited for this. It sort of brings together the many intersections of my interests. Art, education and health. I am really looking forward to teaching the girls some things through fun creative activities that will help turn on their thinking skills and utilize skills that I know they all have but have yet to even tap into.

Each month, I will do one workshop on various reproductive health topics, with the support of other facilitators and people experienced in the field, including:

Healthy is beautiful: Identity & Body Image
Eating health: Nutrition & Exercise
Sexual Anatomy, Reproduction, & the Menstrual Cycle
STDs, HIV, Birth Control
Violence, abuse & building healthy relationships
Maintaining healthy relationships & Emotional well-being

These topics were based off of the book "Our Bodies, Ourselves" a very comprehensive book about women's health written by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective.

Tomorrow's will be the first one, so it will lay down the foundation for the rest of the series. I really just want to get the creative avenues brooding and their brains thinking about things. Basically to get them moving. So tomorrow won't be information heavy, the topic is healthy is beautiful, exploring body image and identity.

I'm going to try to capture this project on this blog along with the myriad of things that I do and see. I've recently bought all the art supplies for the first workshop, and it was quiet an adventure going to get them, from learning about the paint shops in district 5 of Saigon to knowing where to get good paper boxes in Long Xuyen City, to hanging out in the bookstores only to find some things for my own personal use (like a cutting mat and tracing paper).

The workshops will culiminate with the production of two books, which I've asked my graphic designer friend Donna Choi to help me out with, since she's also interested in the process of story telling and she's pretty good at this stuff too. One book will be a personal portfolio of the art work produced during this time, this one will be more of a commemoration gift for the girls to keep. I also know they will be making amazing things, and because it is pertinent that their identities are kept private, I think its important to read their stories through the images they produce. The second booklet, will be a small handbook made by young women for young girls about reproductive health. It will be useful to pass out to our future recipients if the booklet is written well. I also have this separate idea of a small exhibition for the girls to showcase their art. I'll keep you posted.

Also, I've recently began drawing lessons with a teacher at the Ho Chi Minh City School of Fine Arts - He's generously offered free lessons and I am grateful for them as drawing for me has always been a bothersome fear. I spent about three or so hours drawing a clear glass cup. The concentration and diligence drawing requires requires me to tap into a place of patience that I often do not tap into. It requires me to use my vision in a very anomalous (GRE word) way, to see deeper into what an object consists of, the light that hits it and how an environment effects the way the cup looks in my mind. Here are drawings from my first two sessions.

2nd try

3rd try

This is is after I fixed my first draft - keeping in mind that I must "look deeper"

The next day, my assignment was to draw all three of these! Took me forever. It's three objects on white cloth on a wooden chair...

I guess my last 6 months won't be so bad. I'm also preparing for my GRE's, taking them on June 23rd, just before my 24th birthday.

I've also had scattered thoughts about making short films about my life here, and video updates, but I'm as disorganized already and keeping this blog, art and photography on top of work combatting human trafficking in the Vietnam is about all I can keep up with right now.

Occassionally, or almost always I relapse into faded memories.

serious face*

Sometimes I slip between emotions and fall into a space that I cannot comprehend or convey with clarity. My favorite moments are those that I experience isolated, even when there is someone next to me.

"On the tip of my tongue

As the back beats cracks

I hit my drum

I get into my car"

It's more about the process, rarely about the result. 

If you reflect back on whatever memories your mind chooses to recall, it's selective, few, and unpredictable.  I surround myself with images, things I like, and visual things because well, I tend to forget a lot. I have a pretty good habit of collecting small items, such as ticket stubs, scribble pieces of paper, or receipt, throwing them in some drawer in case I may need it for the future. 

What if I want to remember? What if I need to show people, perhaps my grandchildren?

I think about these things.

She looks down because looking up may mean that she will see the blue hues not as how she intended it to be. She realizes that the possibility of giving up is probable but unlikely to happen. Relishing in moments of rising fears, her heart hears her breathe. Steady but heavy. Steady. But heavy. Heavy. She holds her breath. Pinches her nose so the water doesn't come in. Breathe. Steady. Leap.

And the blue hues swirled exactly as she expected.

Now being in Vietnam, my realizations are much more stronger, vibrant, and easily detected. Chosen displacement is a privilege and I take advantage of it. For the most part, I lay hidden and when my identity as a "foreigner" is revealed I cringe inside. A knot twists and I get over it. Annoyed but I'm over it. I've had many other realizations during my time here, too much to even begin to write down, but I suppose I must start somewhere.

• Our assumptions about people are always never complete.
• People process and reflect on things very differently from one another - this sometimes causes conflicts
• People don't think like me. Some do, but even when I think they do, they don't completely.
• Everyone has something to share - although the will to share is another story.
• People are very very giving.
• Sharing your life with someone requires a great deal of effort and opening on your behalf.
• You don't need to find love, really you just have to be prepared to accept it, it's all around you.
• There is no single right solution to complex multi-faceted problems.
• People only know as much as you share with them.
• Sharing requires a vulnerability from me that I am not really well prepared for.
• I create distance in order to not be disappointed by others. I get disappointed at myself instead.
• Children are a lot stronger than we think they are.
• People are a lot more resilient than I think.
• In order to really get the whole picture of a situation it requires time, access & understanding. The whole picture may never be achieved.
• Patience
• Sharing my thoughts and ideas is very difficult for me because I am highly afraid of judgement and rejection. Something I've conditioned myself with.
• The habits of my parents make complete sense.
• I wallow back and forth awkwardly between my identity as a child and an adult.
• I'm ready to fall in love.
• I am content with what is in front of me. 
• I lack discipline and often get lost in my thoughts or facebook. 
• Often times, the issues discussed in the first world never ever make it to the community being spoken of in the third world. They have no idea what you are talking about, what your life is like, nor do they care.
• Don't invalidate other people's experiences, thoughts, and opinions - yours is like that because of your background, theirs is like that because of theirs - find a middle ground. share.
• Adults don't remember what it's like to be in a younger person's shoes.
• I sometimes don't remember.
• People make up a lot of excuses for their fears.
• The Office is really funny.
• Being "silenced" because you don't know the language is a complete eye opener and transforms the way I think about "voice" To literally not be able to speak your mind is a very frustrating and disempowering process. It's liberating once you overcome it. 
• Express what you think to people, people cannot predict at all what you are thinking.
• Human trafficking is not going to go away.
• It's hard to "un-do" what a person has learned.

I've met amazing admirable people along my time here, and I am grateful to have made all the friends and acquaintances that I have made. I have learned that its not about wanting things and wishing it would be like this or that. Things do not necessarily come to you unless you are ready to receive it. I've also had the opportunity to spend  a great deal of time with older women, families, and strangers. Surprisingly strangers are really really nice to me. Even though its fleeting, it has shaped the way that I treat others in my life. 

*In real life, I actually cannot hold this look on my face for more than 10 seconds. I smile too much.

A tease of laos.

I am rarely completely in my state of ease.

A few places of ease and really free.

1. my room (for the most part)
2. a show of a music artist that I like (so deprived)
3. staring off into the scenery as a passenger

Growing up I used to be very crafty. I used to try very hard to make things with what I had. If I had a homework assignment with little room to be artistic I would flourish. I won grocery store coloring contests and got disappointed when I didn't. I had gone to the printers convention (because my dad's a printer) twice already and collected many papers of which I still have buried under the second draw to the right under my bed. That was where my imagination has stayed put. Suburbia.

There was something about mundane suburbia in sleepy southern california that allowed it to happen. And as I spent the following years after high school trying to move away from the stifling squareness of the inland empire suburbia I sort of miss the hours when my thoughts would run loose because I had nothing else to do. I lived for TGIF. Bobby's World, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Teen Angel. There is something about trying to escape, that I think everyone can relate to. Everyone tries to escape - wether it be through the computer, the tv, the radio, something. Some do more harmful things than others - drugs, alcohol, sex. Escape from our seemingly mundane existence. Our existence is only relevant in relation to one another. If someone else knows our story. For those that are extroverted, they want everyone to know their story. Their validate their existence on the reactions of others. This is how they are satisfied that with each day they spend living, they spend dying.

As for the introverted crowd (I am borderline introverted, extroverted, I bounce between the two depending on settings, but as of late have been introverted because people aren't that great. honest talk.) We gain validation through internal things, and this is not restricted to objects or things like music etc. Our story doesn't really need to be told, nor do we need to share our thoughts about something in order to process it or make a decision about it.

But introverts can be very emotional. And extroverts can very well be emotion-less. I'm an emotional introvert? Or maybe I'm a walled extrovert.


Or or...I'm just speaking nonsense for this sunny Saturday afternoon in urban metropolitan city where my imagination does not stay put.

Year of the meow you are definitely treating me very well.

After randomly talking about my love for music, these albums popped up in the last day or so. I suppose the universe is conspiring again.

Toro y Moi

The Strokes

Fleet Foxes

movements, shakers, salt, pepper.

My very own existence is rooted in many movements.

Maybe that's why I feel restless at times.

Tracing back to my Grandfather and Grandmother's link to mainland China, to my Mama and Daddy's refugee movements, to my own movement back to Vietnam these last months from America. I am at the brink of my own realization that I may be the final link to both of these movements, before they are forgotten amongst fleeting memories of black and white photos and echo in the faded distance of tongues -- essentially lost in translation and time.

"Your grandma really loved me you know that."

"I got the diamond implanted in my teeth so they wouldn't find it"

"These (empty lotus seeds) I used to pop them on my head for fun...see"

"People died"

"I fell off that bridge since my friend pushed me over. I freaked out for a bit"

"One time I rode my bike down that bridge, and then I pressed on the breaks really hard and my friend in the back when flying into the pavement. He lost some teeth"

"You kids in America have it so easy. I used to have to go to school very early then walk home at 10 am to 1 pm, the go back to school until 5 pm!"

"He tried to kill himself you didn't know that?"

Sometimes their stories don't really make sense to me. It sort of like when your turning the nob on a radio dial very fast. You can hear songs, but can't possibly comprehend what the song is, until maybe you slow down, and try to make the station clear.  Try to make it clear. Try, to make it clear. Try.

Year of the Meow

This pretty much encompasses how I feel about the new year. After Patricia googled "jumping cat" this is what she found. And this furry leaping kitten coupled with our impossible-to-overuse life phrase "BOLD MOVES" it's going to be a good one folks. Happy New Years! Chuc Mung Nam Moi!