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List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
Ok. I am going to keep this post relatively short, at least as short as possible. I feel like I babble on too much, & get totally off track from the main topic. So, I’m supposed to list three books that have had an impact on me. It’s hard to narrow down my (not-very-extensive) list down to just three books, but I will try. Um, do Japanese comic books count?
I read the book Harriet the Spy as a young pre-teen, generously gifted to me by my dad & his Book-of-the-Month club subscription. At first, I started reading the book because at the time my dad was nagging me to get into the habit of reading books like he did, & he wanted me to take more of an interest in reading instead of watching so much TV. I just wanted to get him off my back, plus I had nothing else to do in my room, since my parents would not let me have a TV or a stereo in my room like my siblings did. Little did I know, I would eventually fall in love with the character Harriet M. Welsch.
This book, at the time, really inspired me to start writing. I really wanted to emulate the book’s main character & write down absolutely everything happening around me & everything I saw. Of course, I was also going through some faux angsty phase, & I mostly wrote in my journal about how unfair my parents were being & how mad I was at them. Still, this book really shaped my life as an amateur writer. I don’t write down everything about other people. Instead, as evidenced by this blog site, I write down everything about myself. There is one other thing, however, that I’d like to mention. This book never got me to try tomatoes. I didn’t discover the deliciousness of tomatoes until well into my adulthood.
Hector and the Search for Happiness was a light & happy read. I really connected with the main character Hector & his quest to find the meaning of happiness. At first, after reading the book, I thought to myself that I might want to try my hand at studying to become a licensed psychiatrist, but I decided against that notion, because I realized that I had to root out all of my own personal issues before I could diagnose & sort out other people’s issues. I’m not a particularly complex or troubled person, but there are some things rooted in my life that deserve more than a few family counseling sessions.
Reading this book had me assessing all of the things in my own life that made me happy. I was surprisingly impressed that I matched up with most of the observations listed in this book. I genuinely felt, & still feel, happy in my life. I was emitting happiness & attracting happiness in many aspects of my life. This book helped me to realize that even those that appear to be happy on the surface could be struggling with finding their inner happiness as well. That thinking gave me much needed comfort. As I’ve gotten older, I have learned to not compare my happiness so much to others’ happiness.
I read Bringing Up Bébé while I was incubating my offspring. I have to confess something. I originally bought this book because I wanted to become a very informed woman before I ever got pregnant. Also, I was attracted to the colorful book cover. I was thinking it would be a long while before I ever got pregnant, so I bought this book for some future I never expected would happen so matter-of-factly.
This book helped me understand so much more about motherhood that I thought I had already figured out from my many previous years of experience in childcare. I had already thought that I was pretty well-equipped to become a new mother. I mean, taking care of other people’s children for so many years of my life really gave me a sense of experience; that is, until I read this book. This book really taught me a lot about having to be very flexible, not having to compare your child-rearing with other people’s experience, & not to worry about meeting age guidelines/expectations.
I highlighted so many passages from this book, it practically looks like a school textbook. I even tried to make the book’s gâteau au yaourt (yogurt cake) from its recipe. This book answered a lot of my lingering motherhood questions & somehow calmed my fears. I would definitely recommend this book to any lady who wants to get knocked-up & procure a tiny human beean into existence. This is a really good book written by an anxious mother to other anxious mothers, in the tone of an anxious mother, not the tone of a college professor, or stuffy parenting expert, or certified pediatric doctor.
I know I’m only supposed to pick three books in this post prompt, but I couldn’t leave out the book Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. I watched the cult classic movie adaptation of this book & its widely panned sequel Battle Royale II: Requiem before I ever read the book. So, I already knew what the story was about. I had seen the first movie at the request of a close friend of mine during our first attendance to an anime convention. We both fell in love with this movie, & subsequently returned to the convention the following year dressed in cosplay costumes of characters from the movie.
Reading the book gave me more insight into the storyline, rather than only watching the movie itself. Yes, I loved the movie & understood its meaning, despite the bloodiness & gore being the center of everyone’s attention. However, I felt more deeply for the characters while I was reading the book. I would read this book on the subway during my commute back home after work. I would get so engrossed in the book that I’d almost miss my transfer station.
This book, Battle Royale, taught me the meaning of friendship & how much would I sacrifice to protect a person I loved & cared so deeply about, also about trust & loyalty. This book also taught me that cunningness can be both an intelligent trait as well as an evil trait, & that you don’t have to “play the game” to win the game. Having a pure & honest heart can really guide you down the right path to freedom. Yes, sacrifice is difficult, but also necessary. To this day, I really, genuinely, wholeheartedly value & cherish my close friendships. I have a few different groups of friends that I am close with, & we all would throw down for each other if necessary. We are each other’s tribe.
Ok, this is the last one. I promise. I know this isn’t technically a book, but I still read it, & it still impacted me. I have never been a fan of the fantasy or sci-fi genre ever in my life, until I read this 漫画 (manga/graphic novel) series called xxxHolic. I stumbled upon this graphic novel series, not knowing it was a parallel storyline & companion series to another graphic novel I fell in love with called Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, which was a spin-off series to my favorite 漫画/アニメ (anime/manga) series Card Captor Sakura…& all of these different series were created by the famous artist group called CLAMP. I swear things get less complicated from here.
I fell in love with this graphic novel series from the moment I read the first page. This book taught me so much about Japanese culture, tradition, & folklore…better than any textbook or historical novel could. From the moment I started this series, I couldn’t put the books down. Some of the volumes I have read more than once. This book, just like Battle Royale, taught me about trust, loyalty, & friendship. On the flip side, it also taught me to respect the afterlife. I am re-reading this series again, just to refresh my memories of this storyline & to re-ignite my passion for reading graphic novels again. I hope I can glean some new insights after reading this series again & be able to apply it to my life.
Until the next one…I am now currently packing to head back to Los Angeles for the weekend. One of my cousins is throwing a 100 Days Celebration party for her newborn son. My little family unit will only be down south for a quick weekend getaway. I am trying to get Jian to save up all of his precious few vacation days for our ginormous end-of-the-year family trip overseas to Japan. Jian & I haven’t been back to Japan as a duo since 2013, & I, personally, haven’t been back since 2016. We haven’t seen my relatives in years, & we would really like our little bean to meet the other half of her extended family.
I have not been this excited to go on a trip or vacation in a looooong time, & I am super pumped. However, in the back of my mind, I honestly wish we were vacationing somewhere in Europe, somewhere we’ve never been to before, instead of always defaulting to Japan or China. Yeah, I know we have a lot of obligations to pay a visit to our extended families in Asia, but I wish we could sometimes take these precious overseas trips to visit somewhere new rather than go back to the same places.
No matter what though, I am extremely grateful that we can even afford (in various ways) to travel at all. I will never take any trip/vacation, no matter how small, for granted. So, I’m going to enjoy this little weekend jaunt to Los Angeles with my little bean, & that’s all I’m going to say about that. Until the next one, cheers…
Today’s song of the day:
Who would you like to talk to soon?
There are two music artists who I am currently very much admiring right at this moment, & they have become quite a bit of an internet infatuation of mine recently. One out of these two artists, in particular, has captured my attention intensely. He’s an extremely talented percussionist guitar player, a bit too young for my age, but on the inside I don’t feel like my actual age whatsoever, so that’s how I justify my admiration for this artist.
I have been following not Insta-stalking his social media pages recently, & have become a moderate fan of his music. I would really like to get to know this person on a deeper level, since he only shows the very serious/reserved business side of himself in public interviews & on social media. I would genuinely like to talk with him one-on-one & get to know him personally, hopefully form some sort of friendship or personal association.
This artist seems so unique, interesting, & complex from the tiny bits of information he reveals about himself every once in a blue moon. It would be incredibly interesting to learn about his points of view, especially from a foreign perspective & understand his personality. (Side note: this artist is from an Eastern European country.)
I truly admire this artist’s talent & skills when he plays so passionately on his guitar. He really blows me away with his musical abilities. If I could describe him simply, I’d say this artist is like the guitarist equivalent of world-renowned pianist Lang Lang. He also just seems like an overall cool person to be around. So, talking to him would be something I’m very interested in at the moment…not some historical figure from the past, or a politician, or a Hollywood mega-celebrity; just this guy, with his unbelievably stunning acoustic guitar, his amazingly 1990s hairstyle, & his well-manicured hands of gold. That is all. Cheers.
Today’s song of the day:
What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?
Amongst my family & friends, I am an avid watcher of the Olympics. Summer, winter, you name it, I am watching it. Now, I don’t follow every popular athlete or sport, & I don’t watch the entire competition from start to finish. There are a few select sports I watch & athletes I follow a tiny bit outside of the Olympic Games. However, I will not, under any circumstances, miss watching the opening & closing ceremonies in their entirety, as well as dissect each & every performance. I LOVE the opening ceremony the most out of the entire Olympics.
Ok, so I was prompted to talk about my favorite sports during these Games. In terms of Summer Olympics, I love watching all the main water sports, even though I myself do not enjoy physically being in water. For example, I don’t like to swim (or lay on the beach), I have never rowed a boat of any capacity, & heights freak me out, so diving is out.
However, I still enjoy watching other people in the water doing sporty things. My favorite water events are: individual swimming, group relay swimming, solo & synchronized diving, & rowing. The other non-water events I enjoy are: men’s/women’s gymnastics & all the track & field events. Pretty much everyone watches the Summer Olympics just to tune in to the gymnastics parts ’cause sports media is always hyper focused on whose going to be the next Simone Biles.
When it comes to the Winter Olympics, I enjoy watching most of the skiing events & now some of the big-time snowboarding events as well. Some of my favorite events are: ski jumping, moguls, all the downhill or whatever you call the events Mikaela Shiffrin/Lindsey Vonn competes in, & the events with the fancy tricks. This applies to snowboarding as well. I enjoy watching those athletes do the most impossible tricks on what is pretty much a wheel-less skateboard.
I’m not a skier or snowboarder myself, although I have tried skiing when I was a young child. My dad helped me learn some basics, but ultimately decided that skiing was too dangerous for his fragile daughter. So, I ended up not taking an interest in skiing like my siblings did. Instead, I turned my interest toward ice skating. I was pretty good at it too, & took a couple meaningful years of lessons, but did not advance enough to learn how to axle-jump or spin.
Which brings me to my next favorite event. My mom & I are huge fans of the figure skating events during the Olympics. We love watching individual men’s & women’s competitions, ice dancing, pairs skating, & now the team event. That’s pretty much our favorite part of the Winter Olympics. We get really into it too, dissecting all of the judges’ scores & all that.
On top of that, I love watching some of the sports that my family finds to be weird. I love watching all of the bobsled, luge, & skeleton events even though Jian thinks they’re boring, & my mom finds them too scary. Every time I watch the Winter Olympics, I’m always crossing my fingers, hoping the Jamaican bobsledding team will win a medal. Hey, I can keep my movie dreams alive, right?
I also enjoy watching curling. Nobody in my household, except myself, enjoys ice bocce with Swiffer brooms. However, I’ve just developed some strange fascination with this event. I know it can be pretty boring to watch, but it’s fun to have this as background TV noise while you’re cooking or working.
When it comes to cheering for athletes or teams, I tend to cheer for the underdogs or standout favorites. I don’t always cheer for my home country’s team. I like supporting athletes or teams that win in an event for the very first time. Those moments are some of the most fun to watch, or even the ones where a veteran athlete wins that one elusive career medal before they announce their retirement.
When I watch an Olympic Games, I try to really watch from a fan perspective & not make too many political judgements. I know it’s hard to separate what you see or read in the news about certain countries who host Olympic Games from the actual Games & its meaning of clean sportsmanship. I had a hard time watching the Summer Olympics in Brazil after watching so many news clips about all the displaced impoverished citizens of Rio de Janeiro. It was hard for me to see all these beautiful scenes in the Olympic village, while knowing that just over the brick wall is a slum city & government officials are constantly downplaying the severity of that public image.
I really try to enjoy watching the Olympics without too much judgement going into the Games. It’s fun watching this sporting event happen every four years (or every 2 years if you’re watching both summer & winter). Lately, there’s been quite a bit of news about the decline of the Olympic Games, & many major cities dropping out of hosting the Games. I will admit that those news stories kind of dimmed my interest in the Olympics a little bit, but I still get excited every time I see a commercial for the upcoming Games on TV, & cannot wait to watch the next opening & closing ceremonies.
Today’s song of the day:
Rabbits & Foxes 
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