APA Month Conclusion Vlog!

Welcome to a special TUESDAY post at A Nudge! I hope you all had a fun, relaxing Memorial Day weekend filled with good company and good food.

Today's post is brought to you by Sophia the Writer and me, Krispy. We both have been wanting to try out this vlogging thing, and as you know, I've been celebrating Asian Pacific-Islander American Heritage Month all of May. So we thought it would be appropriate to combine our first time vlog with our conclusion to the APA Month celebrations.

So without further ado, I give you our first vlog where we talk about boba, living in fantasy worlds, and random reveals. Hope you enjoy (and hopefully we'll get better at this vlogging thing)!



(cross-posted at Sophia's blog: Boba-go-go APA Month Vlog)


P.S. I won't be blogging tomorrow since I'm blogging today. So see you all Friday!

Foodie Friday: Foods of Taiwan

Oh, I managed an alliterative title and everything! As promised, I have another picture-filled post of the delicious morsels I gorged myself on in Taiwan during the trips I took in recent years. They may make you hungry. You have been warned.

Taiwan: Food

Drinks

Pink Boba (tapioca balls) to go in Milk Tea

Chrysanthemum tea with Ai Yu & Boba Milk Tea

Street Food

Popular street food dish: oyster omelette

Taiwanese Sausages

Actual Food

Tu Hsiao Yueh: a famous noodle place originating from Tainan

Tu Hsiao Yueh's signature dish: Dan Dan noodles

Tu Hsiao Yueh dishes

Din Tai Fung: signature dish xiaolongbao (dumplings with soup in them)

Split Pot Hot-Pot: You get 2 different broths to cook things in!

Desserts

Douhua (soft tofu dessert) with boba

Grass Jelly with various toppings

Donuts at Mister Donut, a Japanese donut chain

My favorite: snowflake shaved ice! (The shaved ice is extra fine and super fluffy!)

Gigantic regular shaved ice w/ fruit topping.

This place is famous for giant bowls of shaved ice, as you can see.

That's all! Hope you enjoyed this food tour. Have a great Memorial Day weekend! What are you up to this weekend? Have I wetted your appetite?



P.S. Sophia and I will be trying very hard to figure out technology this weekend so we can give you a vlog when you all come back! We're still open to questions!

Wordless Wednesday: Taiwan

I'm back from Berkeley and had a wonderful but tiring weekend in San Francisco. So in place of a word-filled post about my ancestral homeland, I will simply show you. (You know what they say about how many words pictures are worth.)

Taiwan
(not to be confused with Thailand. Yes, I've had someone ask me before if I was Thai when I talked about Taiwan.)

Northern Taiwan

Taipei 101

LingJiushan: where a temple to Matsu, the sea goddess is located.

Hualien / Taroko Gorge

Danshui waterfront at sunset

Sudden summer rainstorm in Taipei

Shilin Night Market: food, clothes, cutesy accessories...

Example of a night market stand for cutesy accessories.

Remains of Longteng Bridge, part of the Old Mountain train line.

Central/Mid-Taiwan

Inside a temple in Taichung.

Southern Taiwan

Tainan: Chikan Towers w/stone tablets from the Ching Dynasty

Ancient remains I studied during my internship in Nanke.

On the Ferry from the Chijin District of Kaohsiung

National Scenic Area in Kenting

Very southern part of Taiwan: Kenting, known for its beaches.

Lastly, some of you may recall an old profile pic of mine where I'm glancing off to the side all angelic-like. Well, here's the actual pic, which I had done in Taiwan. So yeah, all that is professional camera & make-up magic.

There's a whole trend for studio pics in Taiwan that started with wedding photography and grew into other areas - family portraits, glamor shots for young people. A few of my friends did it, and it seemed fun, so I did it too. I bring this studio pic thing up because not only does it seem to be a recent Taiwanese pop culture thing, but Grace Lin's author photo in the jacket flap of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is also a Taiwanese studio pic. I thought it'd be a fun fact to share.

See you all Friday when I will continue the pic spam, but this time with FOOD! I had way too many pictures of that to include here. LOOK FORWARD TO IT!

P.S. If you've got any burning and/or random questions, there's still time to ask me or Sophia, and we'll vlog you our answers!

Recipe: Spicy Tuna Hand Rolls and A Call for Questions!

Happy Friday, friends! As you read this, I will be at my alma mater, celebrating my cousin's graduation. So I apologize in advance if I'm a little scarce from the blogosphere today and weekend.

Also, before I get to today's recipes, I have a teeny tiny favor to ask. For APA Month, Sophia and I wanted to do a joint vlog. We've both been separately contemplating with the idea of vlogging, but neither of us knew what to vlog about. So we thought we'd go into it together and in MAY for APA Month.

So, if you would be so kind, throw your best QUESTIONS at us. You can ask APA-related questions, writing questions, book/reading questions, or really random questions (like what's our favorite pair of shoes or if we have a favorite font or what it's like living in LA). We will do our best to answer, and maybe we'll try to answer them as fast as possible. I don't know. Would that be entertaining? Rapid-fire questions?

In any case, we need QUESTIONS first. You can leave them in the comments or in my email or in my Tumblr Ask box (it can be anonymous there) or send your questions Sophia's way. THANKS in advance!

Now, here's the recipe as promised, and it's actually somewhat related to my return to campus this weekend because this recipe is from my one of my roommates, Shelly, who is a crazy good cook. It's because of her that I neither starved nor ate only instant noodles in college. She's another amazing Asian American lady I'm so glad to have met.

I hope you enjoy this, and have a fantastic weekend!

For more recipes, restaurant reviews, and food tours, check out her blog: Shelly in Real Life.

(Long post below)

SPICY TUNA HAND ROLLS
Recipe by Shelly

makes about 10 hand rolls

Warning: The measurements listed are kind of arbitrary as I don’t really measure everything out, and it’s all up to you and how creamy & spicy you want your tuna to be.

Ingredients
SUSHI RICE
1.5 cups of sushi rice
.5 tablespoon of mirin

SPICY TUNA
.8 lbs of raw sushi-grade tuna, defrosted, partly frozen
1.5 tablespoons of kewpie mayo (see right)
a healthy squeeze of sriracha (depending on how “spicy” you like your tuna)
1 spring onion, thinly diced
a dash of sesame seed oil, less than 1/8 teaspoon (optional)

GARNISHES
1 avocado
1/2 of a cucumber, julienned


Instructions

First, cook your sushi rice. Make sure you wash the grains until the water runs clear, basically that means you’re washing all the starch off of the grains, which helps it from sticking together later in the process. I cook my rice in my rice cooker with a 1:1 rice, water ratio.

As your rice is cooking, start preparing your spicy tuna. I found that it is easier to dice your tuna when it’s still partially frozen, so that you don’t turn your tuna into mush. If your tuna is completely defrosted, then pop it in the freezer for 10+ minutes. Now, add the kewpie mayo, sriracha, sesame oil, spring onion to the tuna. The kewpie mayo has a completely different flavor than regular mayo or miracle whip, so please don’t substitute. If you have a taste of the kewpie, you will know what I am talking about. After you mix your ingredients, have a taste of the tuna, you can adjust the seasonings as you like, some might like it more creamy (add more mayo) or more spicy (add more sriracha). Now pop it in the fridge while you make your other preparations.

Wait until your rice is done cooking and let it cool down to room temperature. I like to cover my rice with a wet paper towel to prevent it from drying out. Once it is cooler, you can add the mirin to the rice. The mirin helps separate the rice into individual grains. You don’t want your rice to be drenched, just lightly coated. Also, I don’t add mirin to all the rice, I like to make it in batches, just in case I don’t use it all, that way, I can still eat the sushi rice as regular rice later on.

Final step – now that the rice and spicy tuna is prepared, it’s time to fill, tuck and roll! For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out how to make good looking hand rolls, which direction to roll, how to fill it up, etc etc. Now that I’ve finally figured it out, I hope these pictures will help you guys!

STEP 1 - Fill

Cut your nori sheet in half, and start on the lower right corner by filling it up with a bit of rice. Just a little is enough as you don’t want to overstuff your hand roll! Next, layer a few pieces of cucumbers and avocado. I find that cutting the avocado in quarters (the long way) helps in cutting prettier looking avocado pieces. Finally, spoon in the spicy tuna mixture. Notice in the picture above, I have an arrow for the direction in which you should fill your roll. While I used to think that it was pretty intuitive in how a hand roll is rolled, I learned that it is not! Masago is optional – if you like to add that bit of crunch, you can, but I don’t even taste it when I put it in so I choose not to.

STEP 2 - Tuck

The key to making a “tight” roll is to use your thumb to tuck that corner of the seaweed into the roll, it really does help, so tuck that baby in!


STEP 3 - Roll

Finally, after tucking your sushi, just roll it and then help the last bit of seaweed stick to the roll by putting a grain of rice at the end. That will help you seal your roll together.

Volia, you’re done! Just repeat steps 1-3 until you finish all your tuna, or you can refrigerate and eat it again later. As a warning though, the sushi rice is probably not gonna keep as well as the spicy tuna mixture, so be careful of that!
Serve with soy sauce and wasabi (Did I really need to write that?). We finished these rolls so fast that I didn’t even get to take a picture of my finished product!

(re-posted here with permission; originally posted on Shelly's blog: Spicy Tuna Hand Rolls)

From a Different Shore...

Okay, friends, here it comes - my SRS business post for APA Month. You might get another before the month is over, but we'll see if I have another one in me.

This post is going to be a personal reflection that kind of has to do with Asian American identity and self-image. (EDIT: Gennia's comment makes a good point that it also kind of relates to the national conversation on immigration.)

---

In the summer of 2008, I packed my bags and went to Taiwan, the land of my parents and ancestors, for an internship that involved "digging stuff up" as my fellow interns and I liked to say because it was an archaeology internship. The reality was there was less digging and more cataloging. This is also how I found myself taking afternoon naps for a week in a warehouse full of ancient burial pots (used for the burial of babies). Yeah, creepy.

I hadn't been back to Taiwan for a decade, and I had never been there alone, without my parents or relatives. It was also my first time in the southern region of Taiwan, and I was rooming and interning with completely new people. So my experiences going back this time around were very different from my experiences of the place when I was last there as a child.

My internship group became fast friends, and we'd venture out in pairs and groups after work to try new restaurants and explore night markets. We helped each other with our varying levels of Chinese literacy (my language skills are kind of shameful) - by which, I mean, the one guy in our group who could actually READ Chinese translated menus for us so we could decide what to order. The experience was tiring and fun and dang, did it improve my speaking skills!

But something my new friends and I realized while we were there was that being in Taiwan, in the place where, based on appearance, we were the majority, we felt more American than ever.

For one, as I've mentioned, most of us aren't Chinese literate. If you ever want to know how sucky being illiterate is, go to a country where you can't read the signs or order things at McDonalds when there's no picture because you can't read what's on the menu. But that aside, the feeling of difference was more prominent when it became clear to the locals that we weren't literate. They almost always reacted with confusion or surprise because we more or less looked Taiwanese/Chinese.

Continuing on the language topic, for some of us, our accents gave us away as non-natives. It became a game my roommate and I played every time we went somewhere and someone asked where we were from. We kept tallies of how many times someone thought we were Korean or Japanese, from Hong Kong or Singapore. No one ever guessed the U.S. because hey, we sounded foreign but we sure as heck looked Asian.

We dressed a little different and acted a little different. We wore tank tops and flip-flops, strolled bare-armed and bare-legged in the sweltering, summer heat when most Taiwanese girls wore outfits that were much more put-together (flip-flops? way too casual) and made sure to cover their arms and faces to avoid getting tanned. We were loud - talked, laughed, shouted loudly, and when we were together, we spoke to each other in slang-ridden, organic, fluent English and called each other by our English names, which for most of us is the name that counts, the name with which we identify ourselves.

I'd never felt more American than when I was there that summer, surrounded by people who looked like me and watching people on TV and in ads that looked like me (hey there, Asian beauty icons and pop stars and movie starlets!).

To all those people in the U.S. who like to throw around the phrase, "Go back to where you came from," I'd like to say, how can you ask that? Taiwan was not where I came from, and going back there now would only emphasize how AMERICAN I am. The U.S. has always been a land of immigrants, and by rights, I could tell an American descendent of one of the original colonizing families to "go back to where they came from" because his/her forefathers came from England. And let me pose this question here, how would that descendent feel back in England? Would they ever think of themselves as English, as belonging there? Could they possibly think of England as home?

Because I love Taiwan and maybe if I weren't so Chinese illiterate, I'd like to live there for a bit, but I could never call it home.

On the flip side, when I'm back here in the U.S., where I was born and raised, I'm very aware of my Asian roots. I'm very aware that I'm Asian-American or Asian American, but not since I was very young have I thought of myself as just "American".

How can I when I have childhood memories of kids in my class slanting their eyes and making jokes (nevermind that I don't even have small or slanted eyes)? How can I when I hardly see Asian faces as part of mainstream media? How can I think I'm just "American" when people will still, often innocently, ask me where I'm from and when I say, "California," they'll say, "No, I mean where are you really from?"

I don't get offended about the latter because I know most people don't mean it in an offensive way and they just want to know my ethnic heritage, but really, think about this. Do people commonly ask you "where are you from?" and are unsatisfied when you answer with "New York" or "Minnesota" or "Las Vegas"? When you're asked "Where are you from?," do you ever expect the asker to actually mean "Are you from Ireland/Spain/Russia/South Africa/France/Ethiopia?"

"HERE, I'm from HERE," I want to say in answer to that question, but usually, I just smile and say, "I was born here, but my parents are from Taiwan."

A question as innocent as that ("Where are you from?") reveals the persistant societal attitude in the U.S. that Asians will always be some kind of "other."

So yeah, I'm aware of my Asianess in America, but I'm aware of my Americanness in Asia. And so there's always this push and pull to Asian American identity and self-image, this inextricable duality. I don't angst about it (no identity crises here), but the awareness of the duality of my identity is there and I acknowledge it.


Thanks for reading my somewhat more serious piece. Hope it was interesting. I'll see you all on Friday with another recipe, courtesy of my awesomesauce college roommate!


P.S. For another personal perspective on the topic, check out XiXi's Asian-American Self Image post at From Elysium.

Recipe: Ai Yu Bing - Taiwanese Dessert Drink!

Good Monday, friends! As you probably experienced, Blogger was mostly down on Friday, going around eating posts and comments alike. So, you get my intended Friday post today!

We're talking about food today, specifically making it. I have 1 recipe for you for a delicious summer drink/snack. I learned this one from my mom, and it's so ridiculously simple that even I can't screw it up.

Ai Yu Bing

Photo credit/ JUN on Flickr

Ai Yu is a clear-ish jelly made from a variety of fig found in Taiwan. I've only ever seen it as jelly, so I had to go to Wikipedia for this tidbit. Anyway, it's common in Taiwan (and Singapore too apparently). You can go to any night market and there will undoubtedly be a stand selling the Ai Yu drink, which I'm going to teach you how to make now.

This is basically the Taiwanese equivalent of lemonade for those hot summer days.

Ingredients

1 can of Ai Yu (preferably made in Taiwan)
1 lemon or lime
1-2 cups of water
Ice cubes
Honey / Some kind of sweetener (sugar, agave nectar)

Optional substitute for sweetener: 1 can of 7-Up / Sprite / Canada Dry
Optional ingredient: 1 can of almond jelly

Directions


1. You can get cans of Ai Yu (and almond jelly) at most reasonably stocked Asian supermarkets. When you open the can, the jelly will be one big slab (column?) of jelly.

Photo credit: Protocol Snow

2. My mom usually makes enough for 4-5 people, so that's like a regular pot-sized amount of this. I think she uses an entire can of jelly. If you're just making one bowl of it, use half the can-slab.

Cut the jelly into smaller pieces (whatever size you like for eating/drinking).

Do the same for the almond jelly if you're using that too.

3. Add as much water as you want. This depends on how much you want to drink/eat and how many people you're serving.

4. Squeeze lemon juice into the mix. Again, this is to your taste. If you like more lemony flavor, use the entire lemon. Stir a bit.

5. Add honey/sweetener to taste. Stir it all up.

5a. Instead of using a sweetener, my mom adds a can of 7-Up/Sprite/Canada Dry. The sweetness from the soda works as the sweetener, while also giving you more liquid (you can use less water). It also has the delightful side effect of making the drink bubbly.

(Traditionally, the drink is made without the soda.)

6. Then ice cube up the entire thing like you would lemonade.

Then you get a nice bowl of this:

Photo credit/ Benny2006 on Flickr

Enjoy! See you all Wednesday!

Random- Oh heck with it!

As most of you know, Blogger was out of commission all of yesterday. So try as I did, I could not put up a blog post today, alas! I guess Friday the 13th was bad luck for Blogger.

Instead of writing a post, I went out for boba and chatted with Sophia about her trip to South Carolina and Tennessee.

However, fear not, dear friends! I will be back on MONDAY with the post I was going to put up today. It will be filled with deliciousness!

Have a great weekend, and see you for a special Monday post, May 16th!

Double Book Review: Silver Phoenix & Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Last year for APA Month, I did a few brief features on Asian Am books I had enjoyed, but most of those were general fiction and contemporary. Now, in general, my reading habits skew towards speculative - I love fantasy! - and I've often wished there were more fantasies that made use of the rich culture and mythologies of Asia.

So it's nice to see in kidlit the emergence of fantasy rooted in other cultures. Today, I'm giving you 2 (yeah, TWO) brief book reviews of books that root themselves in Chinese folklore and culture.

This is unusual for me because I don't really like writing reviews, which is why Alz is the resident book reviewer here. I wanted to do it this time because I just finished Where the Mountain Meets the Moon last month and really enjoyed it, and the set-up reminded me of Silver Phoenix, which I read last year.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.

Book Blurb (from Goodreads): In the Valley of Fruitless Mountain, a young girl named Minli spends her days working hard in the fields and her nights listening to her father spin fantastic tales about the Jade Dragon and the Old Man of the Moon. Minli’s mother, tired of their poor life, chides him for filling her head with nonsense.

But Minli believes these enchanting stories and embarks on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man of the Moon and ask him how her family can change their fortune. She encounters an assorted cast of characters and magical creatures along the way, including a dragon who accompanies her on her quest.

Review: I picked this up from the library after I saw it sitting on a shelf with a big Newberry Honor sticker on it. Then the blurb hooked me because there is nothing I love more than novels that play around with mythology and folklore, and this is one of those novels.

The story is formatted like your basic fantasy quest story, and the people and creatures Minli encounters is the stuff of legends. The writing style is simple, but this quest format and simple story-telling style absolutely works because Minli's story is itself, essentially, a new folktale made from old ones.

One of my favorite features of the story (and something I thought was so clever) was the way Grace Lin interwove other stories within the main narrative. Alz gave me the term "nested stories" - basically, story within a story (alternately, play within a play). While this can be a bit jarring, especially for tales that appear to be little more than colorful bits of world-building, the technique pays off as Minli's narrative continues and expands. It turns out the tales told have lessons and clues for Minli and include characters who then recur in Minli's own quest. I loved how the nested stories blurred the lines between reality and myth, how they added depth to the quest. I loved making the connections.

Grace Lin mentions in her afterward that she wrote this book as an expansion of the many Chinese folktales she had read as a child, tales that in translation seemed a little sparse. So she filled in details with her imagination. While she drew from Chinese folklore, she created something original here that has the feel of the real deal.

Some notes: This book is MG, and the simple narrative style lends itself to that. As such, I can see it possibly reading too young to some, but I felt the style and tone was perfect for the folktale feel. On that note, the folktale feel does create some distance between the reader and the characters. This also isn't a Percy Jackson-type mythology-riffing MG novel, so don't expect heart-pounding action and kick-you-in-the-teeth plot twists.


Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon

Book Blurb(from Goodreads): No one wanted Ai Ling. And deep down she is relieved—despite the dishonor she has brought upon her family—to be unbetrothed and free, not some stranger's subservient bride banished to the inner quarters.

But now, something is after her. Something terrifying—a force she cannot comprehend. And as pieces of the puzzle start to fit together, Ai Ling begins to understand that her journey to the Palace of Fragrant Dreams isn't only a quest to find her beloved father but a venture with stakes larger than she could have imagined. Bravery, intelligence, the will to fight and fight hard...she will need all of these things. Just as she will need the new and mysterious power growing within her. She will also need help.

It is Chen Yong who finds her partly submerged and barely breathing at the edge of a deep lake. There is something of unspeakable evil trying to drag her under. On a quest of his own, Chen Yong offers that help...and perhaps more.

Review: I actually read this last year, so forgive me if I get something wrong or am unnecessarily vague.

Silver Phoenix, while having elements of folklore (e.g. Ai Ling encounters quite a few supernatural/mythological creatures), the story itself is not trying to present itself as a folktale; it's a YA fantasy. The point of view is close. There's more focus on the characters' emotions and a greater sense of danger. The journey also skews more towards the personal.

The writing style is straight-forward and easy to read. I think the beginning was a little slow but picks up soon enough. The characters are likable, and a character I totally thought would annoy me turned out to be quite fun. I think the best part of this book though is the world-building elements. Cindy Pon draws from Chinese culture and myth, and for people new to Chinese folklore, the book serves as a nice introduction to some of the weird and creepy creatures wandering the ancient landscape. There aren't actual tales of these supernaturals presented in the narrative (as in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon), but we learn with the characters by scary experience about the nature of these supernaturals.

Also, another world-building detail I have to mention is the FOOD. Cindy Pon does her Taiwanese roots proud because if I can tell you anything about Taiwanese people, it's that we love our food. So aside from providing a fun intro the to creepy crawlies of Chinese lore, Cindy Pon gives you a mini-food tour of Chinese cuisine. I will say the food descriptions are sometimes a little much (like maybe she dedicated too many lines of story to food description / eating), but they did make my mouth water (and my stomach growl), not gonna lie.

Some notes: The thing is the writing style is kind of simple and straight-forward, and I think combined with the linear forward-motion format of the Quest narrative, something about it all just made it hard for me to really connect with the characters. I liked them well enough, but I always felt a little distanced from them. The plot too, while filled with tense moments and interesting characters/creatures/settings, didn't really grab me. I often compare this to my feelings towards the Narnia The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie: Once the kids are in Narnia, it becomes a steady rush from plot point to plot point. I liked the movie, but the plot was like a straight line and I watched the characters run along it from a distance - where I sympathized with them, but I didn't empathize.

Basically, that's kind of how I felt about Silver Phoenix; we just moved along from plot point to plot point towards a foreseeable end-point (a la a final battle / confrontation). Also, that's another, personal gripe of mine: the foreseeable end-point was... weird, and therefore a little anti-climatic.


Have any of you read either of these books? What did you think? Do you have any non-generic European medieval fantasy to recommend? See you all Friday!

Randomosity on Fridays: Asians in the Media Edition

It's Friday!!! I had to stop myself just now from continuing with the lyrics to that awful song. Speaking of which, did you know there's Chinese cover of it? The cover basically proves that the song is ridiculous ACROSS LANGUAGES.

Ahem, this is actually a nice segue into today's Asian/Pacific Islander American themed Randomosity! Let's talk about Asians in popular media because it's kind of been a good year for them - as in, hey! more APA musicians getting airplay (like Bruno Mars) and more APA faces on TV (Jenna Ushkowitz on Glee and Maggie Q starring in Nikita)!

Here's a few you might have seen/heard (either recently or not so recently), and if you haven't, maybe check them out? ;)


1. Zee Avi - She's a Malaysian singer-songwriter with a cute folksy-pop sound. Her songs have been featured on the shows Private Practice and Parenthood.




2. Priscilla Ahn - Another folksy singer-songwriter, she has had songs featured on TV shows, commercials, and movie soundtracks.




3. Far East Movement - You've probably heard their song "Like a G6" all over radio in late 2010, early 2011, and you've probably heard this one too. This Asian-Am group originated close to my slice of SoCal - Los Angeles.




4. Rachael Yamagata - Another lady singer-songwriter from Virginia, she's got an Indie, bluesy sound, and her songs have been featured in TV shows and movie soundtracks. She also did a musical cameo (as it were) on (one of my favorite musicians ever) Jason Mraz's song "Did You Get My Message?" on his Mr. A-Z album.




5. Harry Shum, Jr. - If you watch Glee, he plays the dude with the smooth dance moves, Mike Chang. He's also in the web series The LXD, which features a huge cast of amazing dancers.



That's it for this randomosity feature, and thanks for your enthusiasm in my last post! Some of you gave me post ideas (Connie, sharing recipes is a brilliant idea!), so thanks!

Got any music/media recs for me? People I should look out for? Is there anything in particular you'd like to read more about during APA month here?


Have a bright, beautiful weekend!


P.S. Randomly, I realized that I should make more use of my Tumblr's "Ask" function. So if you have any questions (doesn't have to be related to APA month) for me or Loquacious Luce, but you don't want to email or leave a comment here, feel free to ask at my Tumblr (no, you don't have to have a Tumblr and yes, it can be anonymous), and I'll answer here or there.

TUMBLR: Scribbles from Wonderland / Ask

APA Month 2011 Kick-Off

Happy May, peeps! Can you believe we're already 5 months into 2011?! It's crazy!

As some of you may know (especially if you've been hanging out here a while), May is also Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month! This is near and dear to us here at A Nudge because we are Asian Americans, who think that part of our heritage is pretty frikkin' awesome.

So all through the month of May, we will be posting on APA-related topics. Last year, we had some book reviews, short essays on relevant issues (e.g. racebending, the importance of ethnic studies), and people/groups/blog features. This year, we hope to bring you more of the same, but better planned!

That's not to say we're going to be 100% SRS BSNS (don't worry!). There will be plenty of randomosity and funny as well - like posts about my favorite Taiwanese desserts or how I spent a week sleeping in a warehouse full of ancient babies in pots (trufax and relevant!).

So, we hope you will join us in celebrating APA Month, either by stopping by or making posts yourself!

If you are doing APA posts during May, please do let me know because I'd love to link you!

For more info on APA Month, check out the Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month website and the White House's new AAPI blog.

P.S. Also, HAPPY STAR WARS DAY! May the Fourth be with you! (Yeah, I went there.)