pumpkin pies! pumpkin latte! pumpkin spice!
What says more holiday than pumpkin?
Fall in love with our soy candles again & Enjoy pumpkin souffle without the Calories!
We will be @ the Oakland's Grand Lake Farmers Market on Halloween featuring our new holiday scents: Pumpkin Souffle & Jack Frost
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
China Again... and China Out!
Hello Everyone!
More on my China trip and reflections. One thing I like to say.... China was ROUGH and enjoyable! Even though i stayed in larger cities Shanghai, Hong Kong, Xian instead of the rural areas. People often ask how does it feel to go back to your country of origin? The birth place of your parents? The land they escaped from?
The immediate answer will be "I don't know" but with a question like that I guess I should feel something... I guess I do. Truthfully I felt "nothing." Born in America. Grew up as a Chinese American. Proud of my Chinese ethnicity while enjoying my American passport and citizenship here i was in a country full of people whose features are the same as the one in my mirror yet we are unalike. I am not sure of myself. I knew i was in the "Motherland" but it felt foreign. A place I only heard stories of and never seen. I am overwhelmed. Nervous. And Confused. I grew up speaking Cantonese(a dialect from a Southeast region in China) , writing Chinese characters, reading Chinese characters. Before coming, I sincerely believed I can "handle" China. Even if the national language was Mandarin but with my Cantonese background I should be fine. And if anything I am Chinese. I'm one of them. I WILL be fine. I know how to read and write in Chinese. It shouldnt be tough! I will survive. I am one of them after all. Oh....was I WRONG. Off the plane and through the gates. We take a bus back to my sister's place. I was in a bus filled with faces similar to mine. I did not speak. I listen but I hear nothing. I hear them speak but can only make out a few words. A women with a hand full of cash and another with receipts pushed through the crowd exchanging cash and receipts along the way asks me for something and not sure what to say, I stared at her and came up with an expression "huh?". My sister cuts through and speaks to her. We, like the others exchange cash for receipts. The women stares at me and continues on. For the rest of my trip I was stuck on holding on to one of my sisters and making hand gestures while trying to speak mandarin. I was a foreigner to my Motherland and they treated me as one. I tried speaking less. When I speak, consequently an alarm goes off alerting them of my foreign origin. We were asked often "where are you from?". Interestingly, that is the same question we are asked in America. I tell them I am Chinese. "No, you are not Chinese. What part of China are you from?" is the usual response. I tell them I'm from America. "You dont look like an American." Hmmm.....
Back from our trip tired and exhausted, my brother picks us up from the airport. We go straight to a local diner and he begins with "Have you heard of what happened at the awards with Kanye West and Taylor Swift?" Ellen receives a text and lets us know Raymond Lam (a Chinese Hong Kong entertainer) will have a concert at Reno and she is most definitely going. Huh... You may ask what does those two things have to do with another. Nothing. I was home. We are different. A different kind of Chinese people. Chinese American.
More on my China trip and reflections. One thing I like to say.... China was ROUGH and enjoyable! Even though i stayed in larger cities Shanghai, Hong Kong, Xian instead of the rural areas. People often ask how does it feel to go back to your country of origin? The birth place of your parents? The land they escaped from?
The immediate answer will be "I don't know" but with a question like that I guess I should feel something... I guess I do. Truthfully I felt "nothing." Born in America. Grew up as a Chinese American. Proud of my Chinese ethnicity while enjoying my American passport and citizenship here i was in a country full of people whose features are the same as the one in my mirror yet we are unalike. I am not sure of myself. I knew i was in the "Motherland" but it felt foreign. A place I only heard stories of and never seen. I am overwhelmed. Nervous. And Confused. I grew up speaking Cantonese(a dialect from a Southeast region in China) , writing Chinese characters, reading Chinese characters. Before coming, I sincerely believed I can "handle" China. Even if the national language was Mandarin but with my Cantonese background I should be fine. And if anything I am Chinese. I'm one of them. I WILL be fine. I know how to read and write in Chinese. It shouldnt be tough! I will survive. I am one of them after all. Oh....was I WRONG. Off the plane and through the gates. We take a bus back to my sister's place. I was in a bus filled with faces similar to mine. I did not speak. I listen but I hear nothing. I hear them speak but can only make out a few words. A women with a hand full of cash and another with receipts pushed through the crowd exchanging cash and receipts along the way asks me for something and not sure what to say, I stared at her and came up with an expression "huh?". My sister cuts through and speaks to her. We, like the others exchange cash for receipts. The women stares at me and continues on. For the rest of my trip I was stuck on holding on to one of my sisters and making hand gestures while trying to speak mandarin. I was a foreigner to my Motherland and they treated me as one. I tried speaking less. When I speak, consequently an alarm goes off alerting them of my foreign origin. We were asked often "where are you from?". Interestingly, that is the same question we are asked in America. I tell them I am Chinese. "No, you are not Chinese. What part of China are you from?" is the usual response. I tell them I'm from America. "You dont look like an American." Hmmm.....
Back from our trip tired and exhausted, my brother picks us up from the airport. We go straight to a local diner and he begins with "Have you heard of what happened at the awards with Kanye West and Taylor Swift?" Ellen receives a text and lets us know Raymond Lam (a Chinese Hong Kong entertainer) will have a concert at Reno and she is most definitely going. Huh... You may ask what does those two things have to do with another. Nothing. I was home. We are different. A different kind of Chinese people. Chinese American.
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