Starting the New Year with a New Business

Most of you know by now that I am in the U.S. visiting family and friends. What many of you don't know is how I'm really spending my time.

I have projects galore!

While in Oklahoma visiting my mom and siblings for Thanksgiving I completed my profile on Elance and began working as a freelance writer, editor, and researcher. 

I visited Dr. Robert Davis Con-Undiano at the University of Oklahoma, who gave me a lot of information on my research topic of how Americans view Mo Yan, Nobel prize winner for literature in 2012. 

I met with another professor at Oklahoma Central University and ended up being invited to present at the Asian Center for Development Program's (ACDP) national conference in Houston this coming March.

I decided to make a quilt top while in Oklahoma and two days later I was finished.

I then took a 16+ hour Greyhound bus ride to Holbrook from OKC. I met a man who had been shot eight times in his life, twice in the head. I even felt where the bullet is still lodged in his forehead. There was also a German-speaking, elderly Amish couple on board, and a girl who drank a 2-liter soda in three hours. The Greyhound truly impressed me as very American, to say the least.

I wrapped a suitcase full of presents and got more excited than the kids when it came time to open them. Fortunately, all the clothes fit, albeit some just barely ;) 

I got food poisoning.

I signed up for a 10k. I train at home and around town when I'm not helping my dad with food storage and feeding chickens.

So now I am gathering my research materials, getting in contact with more professors, writing articles for various blog posts, and I've started preparing presentations on China for my younger siblings' classes. 

But the thing that I just have to share with everyone is my new business--selling t-shirts! It's been my goal for a long time to sell shirts with my original designs. Since I'm starting small, right now I only have one design and 10 shirts. I have until March 16 before I head back to China and I'd love to get them all sold before then. For now, expect to see a lot of posts on Facebook and other outlets about these shirts. If you're interested in making a purchase, feel free to contact me through my Facebook page or my Etsy shop.

 

 

What do you think? Do you know someone who would like an English-Chinese character mix that combines American humor with Chinese aesthetics? If so, pass it on or leave a comment.

Happy New Year!

America "Gun" Wrong

My mom is an art teacher and this is the first year that teachers at her school have been required to complete training exercises in preparation for a school shooting. The school district where I grew up started similar training when I was in junior high, not long after Columbine. Along with regular fire drills, we had to practice how to fortify our classrooms against the possibility of one of our own wreaking havoc out of the seeming blue. I, for one, took it very seriously as I had encountered a classmate with a gun once (to this day I don't know if it was real or fake, but not being one of those colorful water guns, I didn't waste any time in telling my teacher). 

Then I went abroad. In whichever country I happen to be in, no matter how developed or (usually) underdeveloped it is, one of the first questions I get is whether it's true that everyone in the U.S. owns a gun. If it's not that question, it's whether or not it's true that people can walk around in public with a gun. I know how we Americans would like to answer these questions. It would be very grand to respond with a vigorous, "No!" While you can't judge the whole situation based on the regular reports of shootings that make it to the front page, we can't ignore the true answer to these questions. The answer is "yes," I'm sad to report. Yes, people can carry a gun in public places. Although restrictions apply depending on where you intend to carry the firearm or whether or not it's loaded, it remains true that only 6 states and the District of Columbia forbid carrying firearms at all. Furthermore, the law is not the same in all states. Of course, not everyone owns a gun. But according to some statistics 1 in 4 people do. Huffington Post's graphic on the topic points out an interesting comparison. While China doesn't even have 10 guns per 100 people, the U.S. reports 88.8 guns per 100 people. So the answer is yes. The ridiculousness that makes these shootings even more likely to happen does exist and on a significant scale. 

Besides being asked such questions while I'm abroad, what does the gun topic matter to me? I come from a tiny town of fewer than 200 people. My dad grew up there, as did his dad before him and his dad before him. In fact, ask any Chinese person and it's likely that they have just such a family village. It's very rare in such small towns for violence in the form of terrorism to occur. Yet it's been happening right across the street from my family. They, themselves, have received threats. All from a low-class, uneducated, possibly drug-induced man who also happens to own a few guns, one of which he brazenly carries in a holster attached to his hip. There is no 'why' or reason to his active disturbance of the peace. According to this person's brand of "freedom," he's allowed to do whatever he wants. Now that includes toting a gun across the street--police presence aside--to "talk." 

Last year I lived across the hall from two Sierra Leone guys who had both grown up during their country's recent war. One of them had hidden with his family in the bush for the better part of a year. As I mentioned in a former post, one of Tunisia's politicians was assassinated and DA3 was horrified, partly because that was only the second time that has ever happened in his country. My South Korean friends are more concerned about a possible attack from their northern counterparts than a gunman in their classroom (the feeling is probably mutual in North Korea) and, honestly, it's a very slight worry at that. The last time my Vietnamese friend went home, his mother was robbed while on her motorcycle (a risk in itself in Hanoi). From petty theft to nuclear warheads, there are things that will break up the monotony of our daily lives whether we ask for them or not. So my question is: why does stupidity need to be one of them? 

 

The way I see it, my Sierra Leone friends are halfway across the world from their homes and working to get an education in order to go back and help turn the country around. I cannot imagine either one of them wielding a gun against his neighbor. DA3 could not fathom why a person would feel the need to kill a stranger, but to pull a gun on your neighbor would seem to him even more absurd and cruel. I'm sure that half the reason keeping North and South Korea from going back to war is simply blood relations. Unless the government explicitly demands it, I don't believe that either party would go against their own ethnicity like that. So how is it that America is getting so off-track? As education takes more and more of a back seat, people are forgetting how to build life instead of destroy it. For whatever reason, people are not learning that to cherish and practice one's own freedom means the active protection of another's freedom, too. Such self-centered recklessness is literally happening in my front yard. 

人家的第二个家庭

昨天我的朋友将对象带过来我的房间给我介绍一下。我和这个人似乎合得来，她的性格很开朗也很热情。我们俩都喜欢拉家常，特别关于我们在中国的经历或对中国的看法。我们三个差不多刚开始聊天时，我朋友说他要马上回来就走了，把我们闪下。因为我对我朋友知根知底，因此我感觉到他来为征询我对他的选择如何看。反正，无论我怎么看他们俩，但我在这里要强调此时的感情。

这个情况使我认为我与我的朋友的关系变成到家人那样的信任。非常重要记住的就是我们不在自己的国家，而且由于在国外，所以有很多机会跟不同国家的人交流，甚至有时跨国爱情就实现出来。在这时中我们父母都不在我们的身边，而很容易忘记以前的责任，越来越改变自己的思想。这样的扑朔迷离的时光下，该有＂第二个家庭＂，就是说——你的周围该有你相信的朋友们。这样的话就供你立足之地，令你清心。

我为我的朋友快乐，对他和他的对象有望、乐观。我感谢他给我这个为他的责任感，或者说家庭感。