I’m right now at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA).  It’s a conference dedicated to the scholarship of the fantastic in the arts, and I am so grateful to have been invited to attend this year as a Creative Participant.  Unlike most academic conferences, ICFA tries to keep a balance of academics and creative writers to stimulate intellectual and creative growth, and the best part is that we all have a deep love for science fiction and fantasy.  So awesome.

I’ve always heard good things about ICFA and am excited to be here.  My first night I was lucky to have dinner with independent scholar Kathryn Allan, who has kindly introduced me to awesome scholars at ICFA.  She and I met a few years ago through my friend Na’amen at Worldcon in Reno, where she was contemplating editing an anthology of academic essays centering on disabilities in science fiction and fantasy.  It was a fresh, unexplored topic and a project that excited me, and we bonded quickly.

The fact that Kathryn was an independent scholar inspired me to write and present papers as an independent scholar at a couple academic conferences, including the most recent EATON conference, where my laptop died literally one hour before my presentation on time travel in international television shows.  And I did not have a back up.  Thankfully, Kathryn kindly loaned me her laptop so I could have some sort of visual aid to share screenshots of from Korean time travel dramas.

Kathryn is not only brilliant, she is a kind and generous soul, heavily invested in helping underrepresented people in marginalized spaces.  I’ve enjoyed watching her grow in her scholarly career.  She’s traveling in an untraditional manner, having left institutionalized academia to forge her own path that’s dictated not through tenure but through pure passion and advocacy.  It’s a scary journey, but Kathyrn has been able to make independent scholarship viable by supplementing her income with her private tutoring and editing business.  Not only did she managed to publish her anthology, but she also is the first ever Ursula K Le Guin Fellow in Feminist Science Fiction.  

In short, Kathryn is a rock star scholar in the making, and I feel so thankful to have known her since the beginning of her career.  During our first dinner at ICFA, she said that she found the confidence to finish her anthology because Na’amen and I were so excited about it when we met at Worldcon.  I was honored and humbled in learning this.  It also made me wonder about the power of personal cheerleading, the happy spark that starts a bonfire of creativity.

Sometimes that’s all it takes, a bit of genuine, excited support, to encourage individual creativity to blossom.  It reminds me of a quote by Kurt Vonnegut:

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

This quote can be interpreted as a warning towards how we choose “what we pretend to be,”which implies we not only have a choice in identity, but that we also can become something that perhaps we were not originally.  It’s a nice thought, this agency.  Yet the reality of identity is that it often influenced by people around you.  There are so many people who can be unsupportive and toxic, draining your energy to the point where you might become your worst self.  But when you surround yourself with awesome people, those who give you positive and/or constructive energy, those who encourage you to become your best self, then often good things happen.

Thank you, Kathryn, for being an awesome person to me and inspiring me to be my best self in return.  May our sisterhood of awesome continue to flourish.

 

 

I’m delighted and thrilled to share that my first picture book Summoning the Phoenix has received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews!  This the first book review for both April and myself AND it’s the first Kirkus starred review for our book’s first editor Renee Ting and for our publisher Shen’s Books, the newest imprint of Lee & Low Books.  Special thanks to our book’s second editor Louise May for her eagle eyes and Hannah and the wonderful marketing staff at Lee & Low.  Summoning the Phoenix is not even officially published yet, and it’s wonderful to know that someone out there likes it.

The Kirkus reviewer calls Summoning the Phoenix an “informative and gracefully illustrated twin debut” and says:

“From the booming paigu to the delicate strings of the ruan, the lutelike pipa and the yangqin, or hammered “butterfly harp,” a lively medley that will expand the musical boundaries of most young audiences.”

Read the entire starred review at Kirkus!

When I travel, I love having the opportunity to write anywhere. This means I also need access to my files anywhere I go. While the cloud is convenient, it requires reliable internet connection, which isn’t always possible. So I researched my options take my files with me pretty much everywhere I go.

Here are five tiny, super portable solutions for storage:

Kingston Digital 32GB DataTraveler Micro USB 2.0 (DTMCK/32GB)

This little flash drive comes with a cover to protect the drive and is one of the smallest USB drives available.

 

SanDisk Cruzer Fit 32 GB x2 = 64GB USB Flash Drive SDCZ33-032G-B35-2PK w/ Everything But Stromboli (TM) Lanyard

Like the Kingston DataTravler, the San Disk Cruzer has a tiny base and a tiny cover.  But this one comes with a lanyard so it’s easier to find.

LaCie PetiteKey USB Flash Drive can fit on your keyring and looks like a tiny key!  So cute!!  It’s made of stainless steel, so it won’t break off your keychain.  Currently available in different storage capacities of 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB.

LaCie CooKey USB 2.0 Flash Drive uses the same concept as the PetiteKey, but slightly bigger in size.  There’s an option to unlock your computer using this USB key.

 

AirStash® A02 SD Card Flash Drive for iPad, iPhone, Android (memory card not included)

This gadget is not flash drive, but it’s so cool, and unlike the other options, it has a potentially longer usage life because it uses SD cards.  The AirStash creates its own wireless network so that whatever is stored on the SD card can be accessible to up to 8 devices total, while data streaming is limited to 3 devices.  So 3 phones and/or tablets can stream 3 movies from the AirStash.  It’s a bit pricey, and you need to provide your own SD cards, but if you’re traveling around, it could make a super useful tool to share photos, music, movies.

I love traveling with these tiny drives!

 

 

I want to start a jar of awesome, where you write down something great that happens to you on a little scrap of paper and then store it into a jar. Then at year’s end, you read all those scraps of paper and remember how awesome your year has been. I am in love with this concept and a little worried about it. My problem is I have a terrible memory, and I often don’t remember details by day’s end. Even if I write them down when I think about it, somehow those little scraps of paper will get lost before they ever reach the jar. And I might misplace the jar somehow, or maybe it will break, or if I move again, it might get lost to adventure in the land of lost things. Because if I were a jar of awesome, I would rather go off and have glorious adventures than sit dully on the shelf.

But I think it’s worth it, to document those little joys, those small moments that make you deeply happy. Like when you read something that changes the way you think about the world. Or watch a show that makes you laugh and cry and laugh and cry. Or hear a phrase, a song, a sound bite so stunning, so beautiful, so thrilling that makes you stop and drop everything you are doing and just be.

Sometimes I focus too much on the big picture when the reality is, life is the sum of small moments. I’m hoping my jar of awesome will help me remember to embrace life with gratitude.

All the boarding school narratives discussed here on Crossing Cultural Borders feature girl protagonists.  While boys also attend international boarding schools in real life, apparently they do not in fiction.   But yes, American boys travel in books, too, though their experiences abroad prove to be more externally conflict-driven than the boarding school adventures of American girls.  Here are a few travel narratives featuring young male protagonists.

In Danger Zone by David Klass, Jimmy Doyle loves basketball.  When he joins the “Teen Dream Team” that will be representing the United States in an international basketball tournament in Rome, he is one of the few white players on a predominantly black team.  As he travels with his teammates to Italy, Jimmy learns about prejudice, racism, and politics.

In Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, a high school graduate from Harlem, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and must fight the war in Vietnam, where he experiences first-hand the terrors of battle and the American racism towards the Vietnamese soldiers and American black soldiers.

Another conflict-driven narrative is featured in The Flame Tree by Richard Lewis.  American missionary boy Isaac lives in Indonesia in 2001.  After the attacks of September 11, 2001, his family decides to send him back to the United States.  But before he can leave Indonesia, Isaac is kidnapped by fundamentalist Muslims, who try to indoctrinate him.  Warning: some graphic violent descriptions near the end.

Finally, a book that is over 100 years old, Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  Half-American, half-British Cedric must travel to Britain, where he learns how to be a lord from his paternal grandfather.

 

All these young men leave home with a clear job to perform while abroad: basketball player, soldier, missionary, lord-in-training.  So while they are not receiving formal education at a boarding school, their experiences abroad are still educational, though typically of a more violent nature.  It’s especially notable that the boys’ informal educations occur when they must deal with conflicts between their American culture and the culture in which they currently are visiting, whether it be the overt conflict of war or a more metaphorical but still competitive context of sports.

Special thanks to Claudia Pearson for helping with the list!

Next post:  American Teens Touring Europe

Recently I had a conversation that addressed this question:  Why bother writing a blog?  There are so many blogs out there, and will mine really be able to make a difference?  My voice is tiny and will never outshout the cacophony of the blogosphere.  Plus, there are always writers who are funnier, smarter, more popular than I could ever hope to be.  It takes quite a bit of time and energy to write something passably articulate and meaningful, and when there are zero comments, it can be especially discouraging.  Blogging often feels like a futile task.  I might as well go the way of Emily Dickinson and store all my scribblings in a locked trunk that will be discovered only after my body has been buried in the ground.

There is a good answer to “Why bother writing a blog?” and it’s the same answer I tell myself when I’m completely down and ready to give up writing fiction, which happens more often than I would like to admit.

Why DO I bother?  I’m writing to reach my Audience of One, my Dearest Reader, who is searching for a perspective just like mine.  I’m writing for someone who feels like they never quite fit in, someone with a love of words and music and whimsy, someone who feels, sees, hears deeply and is just a little, or overwhelmingly, shy (like me).  I’m writing for someone who will probably never leave a comment (because shyness), but someone who finds a true pleasure reading this blog.

So even though it feels like I’ve created a sink hole of a blog, there’s still that tiny speck of hope.  My hope is that you, my Dearest Reader, my Audience of One, have found me.  Every week I am writing for you.  Thank you for reading.

Originally, when finding books about children traveling from the United States to other countries for Crossing Cultural Borders’ Stranger in a Strange Land, I was looking for the arc where the mainstream American travels abroad for the very first time and must redefine her own American identity while immersed in a foreign culture. The breadth of experience lends itself better to the novel format than the picture book format, and a safe foreign setting for a young female protagonist is a boarding school, where the character does not need travel around but stays in one place.

Blow out the Moon by Libby Koponen is the first book that fits under the criteria.  Based on the author’s own experiences in a London boarding school, this book stars a spunky American girl named Libby who initially struggles with conforming to English culture but eventually adapts and learns proper English etiquette. Great photos of actual letters, book illustrations, and objects of the author’s childhood related to the trip add another layer of depth to the reading experience. My favorite aspect of the novel is how the girl Libby is steeped in literary references. For instance, when she first learns how to ride a horse, she keeps thinking of scenes in Black Beauty. She falls in love with the archness of Pride and Prejudice, and she has a discussion with her British friend about which character she would be in Little Women.  Connecting to new experiences as a child through reading is something I can deeply understand, especially since these were also some of my favorite childhood books.

The other example I want to highlight is Bloomability by Sharon Creech. After her sixteen-year old sister became pregnant and her older brother was jailed, Domenica aka “Dinnie” is “kidnapped” with her mother’s encouragement to go the Switzerland boarding school run by her uncle and aunt. Though her family tells her it’s a wonderful opportunity, a homesick Dinnie’s struggles to learn how to speak Italian with a smattering of Japanese and how to ski. After growing through her lessons and friendships with students from Spain, Japan and America, Dinnie leaves Switzerland with a strong sense of hope and seeing bloomabilities wherever she goes. Also, while learning Italian at boarding school, Dinnie discovers her grandmother originally was born in Italy.  Therefore, this story also has an element of reclaiming one’s cultural heritage, which aids in her discovery of self.

It’s interesting how the young female protagonists are sent to boarding school against their will. Why are they all going to boarding school? One answer would be that the authors themselves have experienced attending boarding schools and are simply writing what they know. Addressing it on a story level, for the child protagonist to really come into her own and truly face the otherness of a foreign culture and herself, she must experience the country without the safety buffer of her parents. A boarding school is a great setting that gives the child a social structure and protection without the need for the parents to be physically present. Charlotte of Charlotte’s Library wrote a great post about American girls at English boarding schools.  Also, special thanks to Alvina Ling for providing recommendations on the original blog series.

Next post in the Crossing Cultural Borders series: American Boys Abroad

 

It’s Multicultural Monday, and I will update this blog later today for Crossing Cultural Borders.  But first I needed to write about #NotYourAsianSidekick.

I’ve recently returned a long hiatus from social media and I started slowly, dipping my toes into the vast ocean that is Twitter.   I’m so glad I did.  Sunday morning, thanks to retweets from Saira Ali, I discovered #NotYourAsianSidekick, the top Twitter trend.  Led by Suey Park, thousands of people Tweeted about Asian-ness, sharing their experiences and debunking stereotypes.  Yes, there were tweets from trolls and people dismissing the trend, but their voices were drops of drizzle in comparison to the deluge of people, Asian and not Asian, truly participating in support of #NotYourAsianSidekick.

The range of topics discussed was huge, so I cannot possibly summarize it all, but here are some that stuck with me:

• Asian Identity — so many people consider only East Asians as Asian when there are South Asians, Southeast Asians, and Middle Eastern people who also are Asian
• Debunking the myth of the model minority (Asians are not naturally smart. They have to study hard), and how Asians truly are People of Color
• Alienating statements from strangers that one often receives as an Asian-American or Asian living/traveling in non-Asian countries (“Where are you from?” or “You speak English so well” or “Are you Chinese or Japanese?” because they’ve never heard of Korea, Malaysia, Cambodia, etc.)
• Language and speaking with accent issues
• Asian women being fetishized, overly sexualized, and therefore dehumanized, while Asian men are often portrayed as weak, feminine, overly nerdy OR a martial arts expert
• Body Image issues — Asian women modifying their faces (esp. eyes and skin) to look more white and less Asian, not all Asians are a size zero.
• Media representation of Asian – whitewashing Asian characters in film, yellowface makeup on white actors, demonizing of darker skinned characters
• Asian people of mixed heritages, some who can pass for non-Asian, some who cannot
• Asian diaspora experiences that include family immigration stories, legal and illegal, and Asian children who are adopted into non-Asian families
• Damaging internalized identity issues resulting from white imperialism that are especially prevalent in previously European colonized countries like India, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, etc.
• Queerness — how is it never discussed yet it exists, dating challenges
• Asian-American & People of Color feminism — If you belong to one minority group, that does not give you automatic understanding/acceptance/support of another minority group.  While you are both minorities, the actual experiences are vastly different.

A lot of this was rather obvious to me, since I’ve lived a lot of it, but much of it was new to me.  So I read more than I Tweeted.  I was so immersed in #NotYourAsianSidekick that I was even a tiny bit late to my choir’s pre-concert rehearsal.  After my choir concert finished hours later, I checked Twitter again and saw, much to my delight, #NotYourAsianSidekick was still going strong.  Then I discovered that Twitter has a virtual jail because Suey Park was put in Twitter jail almost 12 hours into #NotYourAsianSidekick.  I still don’t understand why.  Then others like Juliet Shen and Jaymee Goh continued leading the trend.  It’s kind of amazing how much people have to say.

Here are my own top contributions to the Twitter discussion:

1)  Ang Lee said to his son: If you want to act in better Asian-American roles, you need to create those roles. #NotYourAsianSidekick

2)  #NotYourAsianSidekick b/c my childhood Asian-American friend had double eyelid surgery to make her eyes rounder & bigger.

3)  I write an Asian character in each of my stories b/c everywhere I go, there’s always an Asian person in the room (me). #NotYourAsianSidekick

The first line was a gem I learned from an interview with Ang Lee on NPR.  The second was something that always bothered me, since my friend had double eyelid surgery when she was 13.  This last line, though obvious, was a recent revelation, a quotable gift from an author friend Suzy Morgan Williams, who had heard a similar saying from her author & filmmaker friend Craig Lew, who always included an Asian character in every screenplay that he wrote.

I’ve thought long and hard about the importance of including at least one Asian character in every story I write. While I do try to write mostly Asian protagonists, it doesn’t have always to be the protagonist because some characters that speak to me are not All Asian All the Time.  But it’s important to have representation. And Ang Lee is right.  We need to write the characters we never see and want to see.  We need to be in charge of our own companies and publish the stories and produce and direct the movies, TV shows, Youtube videos that reflect who we are.  We need to create the roles we want to play.

A huge thanks to Suey Park, Juliet Shen, Jaymee Goh, Saira Ali, Alyssa Wong, and many, many others I’ve met through this amazing movement.  As I write this blog post, #NotYourAsianSidekick has been a top 10 trend on Twitter for over 24 hours! Amazing!

Now that so many complex internalized issues have been exposed and explored in #NotYourAsianSidekick, it’s my hope that we can start solving them.  To achieve this, it’s important for Asians to continue to speak out and create new art.  Let’s celebrate diversity and redefine Asian for ourselves.

Read more about the impact of #NotYourAsianSidekick:

Blogher – Asian Women to Twitter: I’m #NotYourAsianSidekick
Buzzfeed – #NotYourAsianSidekick Unites Thousands To Discuss Asian American Feminism And Stereotypes
BBC News – #NotYourAsianSidekick goes global
The Stream – #NotYourAsianSidekick lashes out at stereotypes
Salon – #NotYourAsianSidekick ignites massive conversation about race, stereotypes and feminism