This is a nice little article I enjoyed writing for the upcoming edition of the East-West Center Cookbook, a collaborative effort of East-West Center participants from all corners of the Asia-Pacific region. There is a fantastic variety of delectable recipes every year in the cookbook, but since all of my recipes involve using a microwave I was told submitting an article might be more useful. So here it is. Food. Culture. Two very important, and seemingly different, aspects of our […]
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The State of the Internet at Hale Manoa
This is a State of the Internet address I made by e-mail to the East-West Center participants in late 2005 in response to a number of people on the listserv complaining about the slow internet connection. If you don’t know what the East-West Center is and never lived in Hale Manoa nor faced the wrath of the quarter nazi at the front desk, you might want pass on this one. However if you love your irony thick and juicy, and […]
read moreRice University Asian Studies Letter
Although my primary focus of study at Rice University was Mechanical Engineering, my fascination with Asia and my four study abroad sojourns there as an undergrad helped me to attain an Asian Studies degree as well. I didn’t really need the degree, and I certainly didn’t think it would be of any use in the job market. But I was certain that I possessed a much greater interest in Asia than in engineering, and planned to spend a fair share […]
read moreRoots :: a poem
Roots I had roots once… I hated them… They tied me down… They kept me in the same place… I wanted to break free… I wanted to explore the world… I had places to go, people to meet… The world was mine to conquer… I didn’t need my roots… I cut my roots… I pretended it left no scars… I traveled the world, far and wide… I met people, dark and light… I forgot about my roots… […]
read moreMean Mr. Altitude
This is a travelogue e-mail sent to my family after returning from a head-splitting trip to Litang, the highest town in the world. Or so the locals claim it is. The nasty altitude sickness I had to deal with made their claims much easier to believe. But the horse races I attended there were pretty darn awesome! I took off for a month of travel on July 29. I started off by heading out to a huge Tibetan horse race […]
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