I have so many guilty pleasures in my life, but one healthy guilty pleasure is to read Young Adult fiction or even Children's fiction, especially Newbury Award-winning books meant for a younger audience. I feel like children's books are a lot simpler to digest and understand the themes of innocence, growth, success, fairness; the stories are very relatable because kids usually have experienced some of the same things, like going to school or being at home with their parents; once we become adults we branch off in thousands of different ways that make it difficult to relate to adult books like "the future of AI," or stock market investing books, or MJ's newest craze, self-help books. Oh and children's books are SO much faster to get through and finish; I often dread starting an adult book for fear it will not be good and I will have wasted my time. I especially like Newbury Award-winning children's books and make an effort to read all of them, including 2016's "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill. I also think children's books can get to a point quicker and more efficiently, which is the art of writing: requiring less deep dives into character development and long story arcs to get to a point- children's book authors can express their ideas and themes in less words, sometimes even pictures to go along with their chapters.
If there's something I like even more than young adult fiction, it's young adult fiction about Asian Americans, especially Chinese Americans who grew up like me: which is the theme of the book series "Year of the Dog" and "Year of the Rat." We all relate to people who are like us, and the author, Grace Lin, grew up just like me: in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood with native Chinese speakers for parents and the need to adapt to American society. There's lots of things that other Americans can't really relate to from their childhood, like 1.) going to Chinese school on Saturdays, and it's ALL of Saturday to mostly learn Chinese but also to be in a community of other Chinese Americans and a chance for parents to interact. I just remember I wasn't very athletic in gym class normally but when I went to Chinese school, I was actually relatively tall and played well enough for the coach to call my parents to ask if I was coming to basketball class. I also learned how to play Go during Chinese school, so plenty of good memories. 2.) weird-smelling food: Chinese people refer to themselves as having "soy sauce stomachs" if they eat a lot of Chinese food and have that type of palate. 3.) Reading a lot. I think other cultures emphasize reading at a young age too, especially when I was growing up in the 1990's at the tale end of the pre-Internet generation, but Chinese people seem to have a culture emphasizing reading books, where scholars are said to have read so and so many books to hone their wisdom. I remember being a voracious reader as a kid and my parents having to interrupt my reading for dinner. 4.) We take Chinese New Year (MJ likes for me to call it Lunar New Year since Korea also use the lunar calendar, not just the Chinese) very seriously, preparing for days, maybe even weeks, for the big day and lots of different food and red envelopes. I remember gathering around to make dumplings from scratch by folding the meat-and-chives-based filling into the dumpling skins, a truly family activity. 5.) the awkwardness of not knowing if you're an American, or a Chinese, or somewhere in between, a Chinese American. The author of "Year of the Rat," Grace Lin, actually has an added complexity of being Taiwanese and having to distinguish that with people from mainland China, but for me I felt conflicted what to tell people: I am not American enough for Caucasian people as I have a Chinese face and Chinese customs and Chinese parents, but for Chinese people I grew up in America and didn't understand China, didn't go through the same things Chinese people do. I still experience that now, where native Chinese people I work with often tease me for not knowing certain Chinese words or phrases (I secretly strongly dislike this type of flaunting but don't openly tell off the Chinese person telling me this). It's difficult being in the middle of these 2 cultures, but also I probably don't realize how much of a blessing it is, to understand both cultures and being able to relate to values both cultures embrace, and taking the best parts of each and incorporating it into my own daily life habits, or at least try to.
Finally, the "Year of the Rat" alerted me to the presence of a Chinese character I'd never given much thought to before: the Double Happiness character. 囍 It's not really a word, I've never seen it in a sentence before. It's just the symbol for happiness, placed side by side to each other, often at weddings to symbolize happiness in both bride and groom. An original idea by Chinese scholars to emphasize the pursuit of happiness, I guess, but predictably it's been commercialized and different companies are using it as part of their brand. If only I had both AAPL stock and TSLA stock in the last 3 or 4 months, I would have had double happiness while my portfolio value also doubled.
Speaking of the Year of the Rat, Chinese New Year comes early this year (in January!) and it will be the Year of the Rat and the beginning of a new cycle of the zodiac, as the rat was the first animal to finish the race in zodiac lore. Apparently with the beginning of a new zodiac cycle there should be many new changes.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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