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Recently I have found myself drawn to background noise videos on YouTube. Sometimes I will listen to Lo-Fi beats or soft café jazz music. Other times I will play a stream of sounds from a busy coffee shop. Even more recently, however, I have been very much enjoying city street background noise, especially the ones with light rain. I will put on a long-stream video & let it play in the background while I’m puttering around the house doing chores, or while I’m click-clack typing away on my computer. I know ambient static noise has become quite popular these days (i.e. white noise, brown noise, pink noise, etc.), but I have really found these everyday background sounds to be the most soothing/calming for me personally.
I live in a very stereotypical, quiet American suburban neighborhood. Sometimes I can catch the sounds of a delivery truck or a neighbor speeding up our hilled street, or the sounds of a lawn getting mowed. If I am in my backyard, looking out past the wooded area behind my house’s property line, I can not only see the freeway overpass, but I can hear the distant noise of the cars & motorcycles whizzing by. Every once-in-a-while, an airplane from the nearby airport can be somewhat heard flying over our neighborhood.
I would love to be able to crack open a window in the house & listen to all the sounds coming from outside, but I can’t for various reasons. For one, my mom dislikes anyone opening a window unless someone is cooking & it’s making the whole house smell. Secondly, she has a fear that someone will forget to shut the window at night & a random intruder will sneak in to burglarize our house. On top of that, my mom has removed all the screens on all the windows for easier window washing. So now we can’t find half the screens for all of the windows, which means bugs can get inside if we open a window…& not just one or two, but an annoying amount of bugs. Plus, we don’t get much ambient outdoor noise except for my next-door neighbor’s super irritating dogs barking at everything. (She has 4 fur balls.)
That’s when I discovered this completely new-to-me rabbit hole on YouTube of random background sounds. I have been listening to the Café Music BGM channel & the Chillhop Music channel on YouTube for the past couple of years already, but I have never thought of putting on ambient noise before now. This latest idea originated from something completely inane that I have already been doing for years, but never gave it much importance. It’s one of life’s small, yet impactful, pleasures that really brings me comfort & joy…listening to the sounds coming from an open window. Yes, it really is that simple, generic, & kind of dumb action that we take for granted every single day.
I started consciously & actively doing this from the time Jian & I started traveling together. Whenever we stay in a hotel somewhere, if there is an openable window, I’m going to open it. I love letting the everyday sounds from the outside waft in to our room while we’re settling in & unpacking our suitcases, or open the window when we wake up in the morning to circulate the air in the room. Obviously, due to hotel regulations, the windows do not open wide enough to get a full breeze circulating around the room, but at least we can feel a modest flow of air.
When we take breaks in our hotel room, I like to crack open the window & listen to the sounds coming from outside, rather than always have the TV on in the background. Some of my fondest memories are of the times when I’d accompany Jian on one of his work trips, & I’d be on my own for most of the day while he was working. I’d explore the city on my own for a while. Then, I’d grab an afternoon coffee & snack, head back to the hotel, & just listen to the sounds from an open window while putting my feet up on the chair & taking a relaxing break.
Jian is not too keen on my penchant for window-opening. He likes to colorfully express his fear of pervy voyeurs peering into our room, especially while we’re getting dressed or getting ready to take a shower. It doesn’t matter if the hotel room is on the 3rd floor, 20th floor, or 50th floor, or even if the windows are shaded. He believes there’s always someone out there trying to sneak a peak at us, either partially or fully in our birthday suits, perhaps with an HD resolution, military-grade, telescopic lens. Much to his chagrin though, I still enjoy cracking open that window, however much the hotel regulations allow. As long as we can hear the sounds from outside filtering in to our room, or we can feel a slight breeze, that makes me feel content.
Seeking these kinds of little pleasures in life is what truly lifts my spirits. It gets me in a good mood & puts a smile on my face. Like Gen Z aptly puts it, it’s giving chill vibes AF. I’m in my “vacation mom” era. Ahem, I’m only kidding. I don’t talk like that in my everyday life, let alone write it out. Let’s forget all that nonsense & just enjoy the ambient tunes of idle café chatter & cars passing by some nondescript city street, pretend we are people-watching as we sip our iced lattés at the sidewalk table under the awning. It’s getting closer to happy hour, & the sky is no longer a vibrant blue. Shades of pink & orange are starting to streak across the skyline. The 21 and over spot next door just put out their $1 dollar oysters sign. I’m about to reheat some leftovers for tonight’s dinner. Until the next cup, cheers!
My little family trio just got back from Los Angeles (again). I was excited to finally meet my cousin’s new baby, but that still did not spark my interest in going back to Los Angeles. The amount of times per year my little family unit has to travel to Los Angeles for family events has now become a chore. Yes, we love going to visit our extended family based down in Southern California, & we love spending time with them, but it’s just become an obligation at this point. In case you’re wondering, none of our relatives from down south ever come up to visit us in the Bay Area…at least nobody from my generation, except for my siblings, & my mom’s siblings.
Well, however that may be, our little trip still had a fun time this past weekend. We had a typical Chinese family dinner with our aunties & uncles straight away, to pay our respects to the older generation. Then we took some time for ourselves as a little family unit before we had to attend the all-important (& the reason why we came in the first place) banquet dinner celebration of the newest addition to our ever-growing family. My cousin & her husband, along with her two sisters, coordinated a warm & wonderful party to celebrate our new nephew’s 100-day milestone. The 100 Days celebration is a popular tradition among many Asian cultures.
The party was raucous & fun, & I was totally shocked when my little bean adapted to the lively festivities like a champ. I mean, she barely had a decent nap in the car, at most 30 minutes…when she normally naps for at least two hours. Then, she normally freaks out at seeing rowdy kids, but this time she was cool as a cucumber. The only time she freaked out, even a little bit, was when we had to change her diaper in an empty banquet room (’cause the restaurant didn’t have a diaper changing table in any of the bathrooms).
Overall, we spent the weekend at a pretty chill pace. The weather was actually not hot for once, & it actually rained a tiny bit on the day of the big celebration. We ticked a couple of eating spots off of our ever-growing list of “Want to Eat” places. I was on the hunt for more interesting/unique children’s books for my little bean’s already full bookcase. More surprisingly, we ordered room service for breakfast each morning, mostly because there were no western style breakfast spots or coffee shops with breakfast-y foods near our hotel. Jian is usually the one who dislikes ordering room service, thinking the prices are a rip off & the food is mediocre at best. However, he was the one to suggest room service breakfasts on this trip.
In other news somewhat related to this post, I did a mini haul of stationery goods. I didn’t go nuts on shopping this time like I have done in the past. I didn’t get much of a chance to hit up many of my favorite spots, so there really wasn’t much opportunity for me to go wild anyway. I made sure that my purchases were modest & intentional. I mean, I honestly have a huge stationery supply already. I couldn’t possibly use everything in my collection, even within the next 10 years. So this time I picked out a few much-needed everyday use pens & added 2 more sticker packs to my does-not-need-to-grow sticker stash. Also, more recently, I’ve been really into collecting mid-size to large format vinyl decal stickers.
See below images for reference.
Well, that was my small rant-to-recap of my family-packed weekend. I am seriously counting down the days until my little family trio goes to Japan. We just received our little bean’s very first passport in the mail the other day, & that got me super excited. I mean, that’s just one more thing to solidify our big overseas trip. The moment we actually book our flights, that’ll be the final piece to our planning puzzle. By then, it will finally sink in that we are going on an epic adventure abroad, taking our kid on an airplane for the first time, going out of the country with our kid for the first time, also our first big-format travel plans since the pandemic happened. I hope that I will be able to take enough photos & get enough content to put in one of my long-format blog posts. Until the next one, cheers!
Today’s song of the day:
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:
Rabbits & Foxes 
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