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Burning Man 2011: Or, I Can’t Believe This is Happening

Lingbo Li — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:58:11 +0000

I spent a week in the desert for Burning Man 2011.

Burning Man, by its nature, is hard to describe. It’s a festival of 50,000 people in the desert, where participants leave no trace and commerce or advertising is not allowed. It’s not a barter economy, but a gift economy – people give things away, ranging from food, to alcohol, to performances, to trinkets, with no expectation of receiving anything in return. The only things you can buy there is coffee and ice – you have to bring all your own food, water, and camping supplies with you, and all your trash out at the end of the week.

It’s a farmer’s market, for free, in the desert. Duh.

One of the most incredible things is how fully-realized “Black Rock City” is. There’s a post office, 3 publications (BRC Weekly, The Shroom, some other one), street names, villages, and police. One camp set up a farmer’s market, where they gave away fruits and vegetables, as well as serving up homemade chai and hand salads. Improbable, interactive art structures dot the landscape, inviting you to climb or contribute. There are incredible parties that happen at all hours of the day (whether it’s 3am or 10am). This is the land where drinks are free (just bring your own cup); the dubstep blasts at top volume; the people are gorgeous; and everyone’s respectful of your personal space. I felt a lot safer here at night than walking around around Boston during the day.

The environment is intense. The hot, dry air immediately wicks away moisture, which proved hellish for my skin. They recommend you drink at least a gallon of water a day, which isn’t an exaggeration. You have to carry goggles and a bandanna at all times in case a dust storm kicks up, reducing visibility to 10 feet.

The temple, before being burned

The temple, in a choreographed burn.

Conversely, it’s also some of the most beautiful landscape I’ve seen. Biking around the playa as the sun sets is breath taking: the gasoline-slick of sky slipping behind the mountains, bikers in fantastical outfits criss-crossing the desert while white dust rises like fog. Look around, and you’ll see a stunning two-story temple built out of wood (which will be artfully burned to ashes at the end of the week), a Trojan horse, and of course, The Man – a wooden effigy that is burned on Saturday night after a frenetic fireworks display and 200 foot-high mushrooming green flames, putting every action movie to shame. At night, the playa lights up in all directions, a cross between an amusement park and an acid trip’s rendering of Vegas.

Photo by Bruce Miles

Imagine all this, while art cars – moving vehicles you dance on, ranging from sharks to yachts to octopi – blast their best dance music around a screaming throng of thousands. Some art cars carry giant propane tanks so they can spew 30 foot high flames into the night sky while they serve you drinks. The heat from the flames is actually somewhat painful, reminding you that yes, this is actually happening.

———

Photo by Bruce Miles

I ended up at Burning Man on total whim. A friend of mine from Harvard was organizing a theme camp and described it as an “art festival in the desert.” I was looking for things to do in my year off after college, so I shrugged and figured going with her was a good bet. It wasn’t until after I bought my ticket that I had this conversation:

Me: So, uh, what about running water?
Natalie: Well, you bring all your own with you.
Me: Oh. So what about showers?
Natalie: There aren’t really any, but we’re going to have a solar shower for the camp!
Me: But there’s electricity, right?
Natalie: No. But some people do have generators!
Me: Wifi? Cell reception?
Natalie: Nope.
Me: AM I GOING TO DIE?
Natalie: No.
Me: [hysterical] I’M GOING TO DIE. AM I GOING TO DIE?

I haven’t gone camping in over ten years. I was more nervous than excited as I rolled onto the playa in an overloaded sedan with Natalie’s friends from Berkley, CA.

The car engine immediately broke into pieces. We fretted for a few minutes, then the 5 of us pushed the car for 3 hours until we reached will call to pick up our tickets. They wouldn’t let us push the car the last two miles, so we hooked up the sedan, all of our luggage, and all 5 of us to the back of a Budget truck with nothing more than nylon rope thinner than my pinky finger. Miraculously, it held.

It was an inauspicious beginning, and my first full day on the playa beat me up physically. Scorching dry heat and high altitudes make you feel like crap. I drank some water, wandered around, went to bed early. My tiny tent and sleeping bag that night felt more luxurious than any 4 star hotel.

The hardest part to deal with is not the heat. It is the superfine, alkaline white dust. It coats everything and stays there, even if you rinse off your hands with water. Your fingers are perpetually chalky, and you’ve never had a worse hair day. There’s a coating of dust on your cooking supplies, dust sneaks into your sleeping bag, and dust grinds in your contact lenses.

My skin revolted, my feet ached, my hair felt like plastic. I gave up on makeup.

To my surprise, I didn’t die.

——–

I normally wrestle with a perpetual baseline of anxiety. Sometimes I’m aware it’s there, sometimes I can’t even perceive it. Like many others, I’m always attempting to control the world around me, and sorely disappointed when it fails to comply. Friends flake despite followup emails; it rains during a barbecue; my taxi sits in traffic before an important meeting.

Time exists fragmentally at Burning Man. Few bother with clocks. There are no cell phones, so you can’t text someone demanding to know where and when they’ll show up. Strip away the controls, and you find that social machinery still churns, with even more life and verve than before. I met the most incredible people by accident, and soon, accident became fate. People there, as a rule, are incredibly friendly and helpful.

At the same time, Burning Man only exists a week a year. The entire city is transient, burned or carried away with beauty and sullen efficiency. I caught myself pining for certain moments to be extended. It’s strange. So often, I feel saddest when I’m happy, because I’m thinking about how that particular source of happiness will end. That’s what I took away from the eponymous burning man at the end of the week: that beauty exists for a certain finite period in time. Its end is inevitable, even desirable. It is a gift to experience happiness, and it is wisdom to let it go.

No related posts.

A Belated Fourth of July Update

Lingbo Li — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:49:50 +0000

Warning: bodily functions ahead.

I am skeptical of Large Group Things. Like concerts, movie openings, and crowded clubs. Something so many people like must not actually be very good, my logic goes.

I am not sure where my logic comes from, but that is another story.

This is before all the doom and disaster happened. Just finish reading this post.

Anyway, my friend Evan decided he wanted to float down the Charles River to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. I gamely agreed. Meanwhile, my brain was thinking: “WTF. How lame. Fireworks and a boat? I’ll fall asleep and get shit on by a bird.”

Evan carrying the boating equipment

But it ended up being surprisingly fun. First we blew up the boat using an air pump. Then I practiced my rowing skills.

So skilled! Yah.

Evan and his Olin College alum friends waved to some fellow Oliners floating down the Charles on… couches. Don’t ask me how they got couches to float. It’s those crazy engineering students.

Bad things were about to happen.

The sunset was beautiful – and there’s nothing like a sunset that totally surrounds you and reflects off the water. I paddled along, careful not to get overturned by the wake of larger boats.
Meanwhile, I wondered if I was incredibly boring. Evan was not replying to any comments I made. Occasionally, I’d crack a joke and he’d just be silent.

My questions were answered about half an hour into our journey. The two of us were crammed onto a tiny, inflatable boat, so it was very obvious when leaned over the side and began vomiting the contents of his stomach.

I patted him awkwardly on the back, and dug frantically through my tote bag for tissues and mints. He continued throwing up, then washed off his mouth with some of the lake water, looking pale and fragile.

“You must feel so much better!” I said, filled with optimism. “I’m sure you’ll be fine now!”

“Yeah,” he said, not sounding convinced. “A little bit.”

Half an hour later, we were floating in between giant boats, the periphery of where the fireworks were going to go off.

He leaned over and began retching again, except this time, it was just dry heaves.

The very nice lady on a neighboring boat offered us some Coke.

We decided, at that point, to paddle over to the dock. It was around 9pm and the banks of the Charles were teeming with tens of thousands of spectators. The teenaged Asian girl, who must have staked out her spot hours before, tried to chase us away.

“You’re not allowed to bring boats here,” she said.

I almost believed her, especially when I heard a police boat yell at someone on a megaphone to move away. “Is that at us?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

Evan, poor soul, had his eyes closed and was doing breathing exercises.

I figured out she was lying, and ignored her. Evan and I sat on the edge of the dock for another hour until the show started. We had stolen front row seats, thanks to our water route. He no longer felt seasick, and the fireworks were indeed incredible. Especially since they timed them to Katy Perry.

After the show, the streets of Boston looked like the zombie apocalypse had hit. People were climbing over barricades and spilling across the crosswalks. The streets were littered in trash. Evan and I packed up the boat and decided to have some dinner at a sushi place in Back Bay.

The sushi ("pink lady" roll) was not that good, so the restaurant is not being named for lack of remarkability.

I am proud to report I neither fell asleep, nor was soiled by a wild animal.

My Post-Harvard Life, Part 1

Lingbo Li — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 08:06:59 +0000

Dear Internet,

WTF. I owe you an apology for never posting – or maybe you’re thankful I haven’t besmirched your walls with more image-laden food posts. (Then again, 4Chan and Space Ghetto really have me beat in the besmirching department. I’m not linking to them for a reason.)

My college roommate Felice, on Space Ghetto: “Don’t look! It’s a dead woman… in a bathtub… [redacted]”

Me, covering my eyes in genuine terror: “Oh my god! Tell me when there’s a picture of a kitten.”

What has happened in the past… oh, 6 months?

WIth the inimitable Quincy House masters, Deb and Lee. Thank you for the incredible support and being totally candid about life/the universe/42/evil people.

For one, I’m now a “real person.”

My last semester of college was a blur. I took 3 computer science classes and ran a full-time freelance web design business. Mostly to test the theory I’d be able to support myself without a real job. (Verdict: Can definitely afford my sub-$500 rent on my Allston sublet. Rock on, Craigslist.)

A week of rabble-rousing, two days of graduation ceremonies, one 6 a.m. wakeup call, and one red enveloped diploma later, I am a Harvard grad. I have a degree in Social Anthropology, and it’s actually kind of useful as a designer and business person. Eat it, doubtful Asian parents! (Not my own, they didn’t care what I majored in.)

Dat's right. Hot dog fried rice.

So now I’m subletting in Allston, cooking Thai food in the sticky, poorly-ventilated kitchen, reskinning a little corner of the Internet for mostly startup clientele, as well as working on a website concept with some friends. Who knows what will happen at the end of the summer, but I have a nice setup for now.

I drink bubble tea everyday and cook Pad Thai for my friends. We don’t have a living room, so they have to eat sitting on my bed and drink out of foam cups.

One of my two pairs of heels (~$20 from Forever 21), an American Apparel lace print dress worn under a skirt with zip back from China.

I only brought along 5 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of jeans, 5-7 shirts, and a few dresses. I don’t have a hair dryer. I clip my nails with my Swiss Army Knife scissors, a graduation present. I clean floors, dishes, and toilets; it’s great. My only luxury: borrowing $300 Bose sound-canceling headphones from my Belgian friend… indefinitely.

Coco the Rat ISN'T SHE CUTE!

My roommates are also eminently likable, another Craigslist victory – Chinese nationals heading into consulting gigs who are charmed by the pet rat in my room (I am pet sitting Felice’s white rat Coco Chanel) and who blankly ignore my attempts to use Mandarin vocabulary. When I break out coconut milk or tamarind pulp to cook, they are fascinated – as I’ve brought home a chimp speaking in a particularly idiomatic Queens accent.

Sometimes there are particularly unfortunate translation problems.

Anna (name changed): Do you have any uh, I don’t know how to say this… wei jing?
Me: Pads? Don’t have any. I do have tampons.
Anna: What?
Me: I have tampons, do you want one?
Anna: What?
Me: Are you talking about your period?
Anna: What?
Me: You know, li jia [Chinese for period].
Anna: What?
Me: [Finally dawning on me] OH. YOU MEAN MSG.
Anna: What?
Me: [Grabbing a jar of Ajinimoto MSG off the shelf] Here. MSG.
Anna: Ahh, yes. What do you call this in English?
Me: Uh, monosodium glutamate…

I’m glad she doesn’t understand everything, so I can get away with pretending I didn’t embarrass myself.

Despite my spare closet, I still manage to put together some outfits from what I had on hand for a graduation photoshoot (taken by my friend Sam and his trusty Nikon):

SWINGS! I hurt my hands on them in elementary school... today, no improvement.

One of those well-timed hair-adjusting moments.

"Ok, done weaving my hair into the flower bush. Time to pretend I'm in a perfume ad." ...

... OR THAT I'M COCO THE RAT. (Body con dress from Bebe)

While I was taking some of these photos on Widener steps,an Asian tourist kept very obviously circling around Sam and me. Gotta love them and their urine-soaked John Harvard's foot touching ways.

Something I was supposed to have done more of in college.

Side note: I’m in love with the Urban Renewals thrift store in Allston. I got a cute yellow Abercrombie skirt (wool and cashmere blend, with a silk lining) for $2! $2!!! I spent $4.76 buying a drink from Starbucks! That’s like, two skirts and a pair of sunglasses! Unreal.

So to take us back to the food topic of this blog:

I had a really nice dinner recently, sponsored for media, at the newly opened Nubar in the Sheraton Commander (Harvard Square). Outside of the swordfish being a bit bland, the other dishes were great: creamy, rich polenta topped with spinach and fried egg, its yellow yolk oozing; lobster arancini with morels, arriving as a softball-sized vehicle of joy. Arancini is one of my favorite dishes (rice! fried! with cheese! you can’t go wrong).

Polenta and FRIED EGG.

I think the polenta is a stiff contender for favorite topped-with-fried-egg-appetizer in Harvard Square. The former title holder being Russell House Tavern’s crispy poached egg on brioche. Nubar’s appetizer is closer to entree-sized, and sufficiently heavy-handed with the fat content in the polenta that it renders any prior distaste for polenta superfluous.

Rock on, appetizers. Just don’t confuse the MSG with tampons… that would be bad.

Why Being An Artist is Uncreative

Lingbo Li — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:39:38 +0000

I received an interesting message from a reader about my How to be Your Own Tiger Mother post.

Ronald asks:

I found myself surprised by the end of the article. I agreed with it all the way until the very end, when you said “that it’s not about picking the most creative field. It’s about being the most creative one in your field.”
To me, that sounds like justifying a less intrinsic life route. That makes me question, are you willing to negotiate your true passions to appease what society tells you? Or were your passions too flimsy to withstand the test of time (it doesn’t matter what your teacher said, if you love art, you love art; that’s the way my experiences have been at least).

My response:

“Creative” fields can be paradoxically uninventive. You might love fashion and want to pursue it… but find that the vast majority of all designers actually copy higher end brands who have done all the creative thinking beforehand. Working in film may seem creative, but chances are, you’ll be executing someone else’s vision down to the letter if you’re not the head honcho. And even if you are at the top, it’s not necessarily “creative” – the nature of creative fields is that they’re still businesses that need to be run profitably, and this means that risk taking if often cast aside in favor of another reality show or formulaic action flick. Yes, you might find smaller opportunities to be creative – a buckle here, a piece of a scene there – or the work fulfilling, but the point I’m trying to make is that the gross distinction between “creative” and “noncreative” fields is somewhat illusory.

For the record, I’m glad I never pursued a fine art degree. Yet, I still love to doodle on my iPad during class. (All the illustrations were drawn in iPad’s ArtStudio and Doodle whilst in computer science class.)

Let me relate a story: a friend of mine once wanted to be a novelist. He majored in literature, worked as a journalist for many years, published a biography, and even obtained a masters in creative writing. Finally, he had a novel he began shopping around with a top agent. The marketing people at publishing houses turned it down, saying it wouldn’t appeal to women (who buy 80% of books). Disillusioned, he got into a top law school and began practicing law, figuring he’d still write on the side. To his surprise, he loved it. It challenged him and fulfilled him. Maybe he’ll write that novel one day, but for now, he’s perfectly happy.

Which is why I don’t believe that just working in the field of your purest creative passion is necessarily the right career choice. I believe that you should always pursue that passion in some form or another, but for many, navigating the networking/marketing/financial realities of a creative field will distract or ruin a perfectly good thing.

And you know what? I’m now working as a web designer. I have freelance work up to the gills, and I love it.

I think my creativity is not in web design (which I don’t plan on doing in 30 years time), but in constructing empty spaces in my life for creative projects to grow. The future is awash in planned uncertainty, and I refuse to compromise on that point.

How to Be Your Own Tiger Mother

Lingbo Li — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 23:08:34 +0000

I never saw myself as a Harvard type. “You have a duty to go to art school,” my high school art teacher told me sophomore year, holding my pen and watercolor sketches in one hand. It was delivered with the same weight as “thou shalt not kill.”

The shock from his comment warmed me. I went home that day and started researching art schools: FIT, Parsons, Pratt, RISD. What bothered me was their breezy academic requirements. After all, I’d been getting straight A’s since elementary school – would they even care?

I was really trying to ask: am I too smart to be an artist?

Then, I saw my future as a dichotomy. Either I’d end up fingerpainting in a rented cardboard box, or weeping myself to sleep as a doctor-banker-lawyer. Even worse, this mental prison was entirely self-imposed.

I’m a first generation immigrant, but my parents are not the Amy Chua type. I told my father recently that I was foregoing full-time employment in favor of traveling for a year. He was cool with it. Similarly, when I agonized over the stray A-, my mother told me I was being too hard on myself. Their endless support and forgiveness is, in many cases, unwarranted.

External judgement came instead from a classmate. I find it hilarious that TV shows show jocks and cheerleaders as the tormentors. A ditzy cheerleader would never lean over and comment to a classmate that my Physics midterm grade “wasn’t very good,” or that my hard-won 85 on a brutal AP Chemistry test was unacceptable. The worst were the arguments in front of mutual friends, where I had to fend for myself. High school breeds peculiar bullies: so perfect they seem self-manifested.

My parents never issued a curfew. This was because I rarely left my room. Sometimes I wondered if I was mildly autistic during my teen years. Social interactions were confusing and infrequent; while other people trolled the local mall on Friday nights, I would design websites, write novels, or update my Livejournal.

Being totally clueless had its advantages. I was free to whatever I wanted, after all, no one cared. Somehow, I ended up writing articles for the local paper. I had never conducted an interview before, but it was in journalism that I lost my fear of cold calling strangers with no idea what to say.

It was an exciting but lonely endeavor. I liked talking to drug dealers, doctors, and marginalized teens. I was writing a piece about local teens using drugs when an English teacher pressured me to not make the school look bad. I continued reporting in college, where prominent academics berated me, a movie star flirted with me, and the House of Blues kicked me out after a tense conversation.

It can be isolating to believe that no one cares, but I found it be my most useful piece of rhetoric. It’s how I conquered my fear of talking to strangers, of entering a beauty pageant, of a million social failures. No one cares. Your real friends get over it. When I become too deeply engrained in something that I lose that naivete, I’ll make some major change to bring it back.

I love the stories and experiences I’ve collected as a result. The ex-con in a New Haven bus stop who opined on racism in jail. Walden Pond in the dark. Eating dinner with locals in Pudong, and the stew of beef bones that made my stomach churn later.

Still considering art school, I went on a college tour junior year of high school. The Harvard student guide was a tall, spindly blond named Ben. As we walked through Memorial Hall’s yawning corridor – where I’d arrive late to Ec10 three years later – he complained that high schoolers were now on Facebook. Of course, I resolved to friend him. I listened to the admissions spiel, feeling chills course through my body. Maybe it was the steady drumbeat of sunshine outside, the stained glasses casting fractal rainbows, or the creme-de-la-creme culture. Suddenly, I had something to aspire to.

My family and I were staying at friend’s house in the suburbs. I drank cup after cup of tea at dinner and couldn’t fall asleep. My SAT scores raced through my brain.

For better or worse, when I want something, I pursue it with the ferocity and grace of a high-speed bulldozer.

My unvarnished ambition is not a particularly feminine trait, which I was reminded of when I heard through the grapevine that an acquaintance remarked, “I hear she gets what she wants.”

I was upset. “Would he say that if I were a guy?” I asked my friend, not sure what it meant.

I ended up getting into Harvard. It was December 15th, a data I had circled, then tore out in my calendar to represent a nuclear bomb crater. It was just in time, since my soul had already been tractored from reading too many posts on the College Confidential forum by neurotic overachieving applicants. After a week of joy, I promptly fell into a tailspin, decided I wanted to go to Brown instead, and passed through senior spring like a hospice patient. The bully delivered a quickly forgotten speech at graduation; I fidgeted with my robe and felt no nostalgia.

I ran into the art teacher again before I graduated. We chatted about college, and he said something offhand about remembering I was a decent artist.

Remembering his near-religious conviction two years prior – and how it’d nearly ended changed the course of my life – the remark felt like a blade revealing nothing in a balloon but stale air.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine said something really interesting. “I realized,” he said over Thai food, “that it’s not about picking the most creative field. It’s about being the most creative one in your field.”

The Origins of a Foodie

Lingbo Li — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:36:20 +0000

For a foodie, I had a spartan culinary upbringing.

Perhaps it began in utero, when my mother ate tomatoes by the bushel during her pregnancy, believing it’d lead to a smarter child.

Out I came, eight pounds of screaming joy, born to China’s new breed of post-Cultural Revolution, university-educated brethren. Becoming American was an unlikely reinvention for my father, whose family, up until a few years ago, lived in a two-room concrete building heated by a coal furnace. Chickens still roamed the dirt roads.

My family held onto every dollar, never forgetting how difficult they were to come by. While my father was a Ph.D. student, we rented the top floor of an old house in upstate New York, wearing jackets indoors to save money on heating and faithfully finishing the leftovers.

I didn’t feel so different from other kids back then.

In elementary school, I qualified for a free school lunch, and I ate the same food as everyone else. Later on, my mother would pack strange lunches—fried rice with oil leaking out of the takeout container—and I remember feeling ashamed as I saw how my classmates’ lunches were so sterilized and scentless, so perfectly contained and uniform.

My parents did their best, and for the most part, I was very happy with what I had to eat. I never went hungry, and I did like my mother’s unambitious but earnest Chinese home cooking. When we wanted to celebrate, we would predictably choose one of the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets nearby, no matter what the occasion. The $12.95 price tag seemed exorbitant at the time.

As I got older, the feeling of being different grew.

Read the rest on TheCrimson.com

The Ugly Truth About Beauty Pageants

Lingbo Li — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 22:44:54 +0000

Looking at this 2011′s Miss New York USA’s top 7 unearths no new memories. The white-garbed winner, Amber Collins, took the lead. About one year ago, I entered and lost my first beauty pageant in that same hotel – and I’ve mentally walked through every moment of that weekend five times over.

What you don’t see from looking at the photos or watching Miss USA in the spring is how these women get there. How low rent state-level competitions are. How the contestants who never get anywhere look. It’s a bizarre and fascinating experience, one that I wouldn’t dissuade any woman from trying out herself.

I can only describe it as a brain-bending, empty calorie endorphin rush, like drinking a pink can of Tab in one enormous gulp. It’s watching the water turn brown as you wash off the pancake makeup. It’s the exhaustion as you perfectly turn out one false eyelash for the fifth time. The headiness of a post-workout glow, then staring yourself down in the gym mirror, hair wispy and skin sallow. Then you look around and realize that all your efforts are for naught – the girls who end up in the top ten rigged the genetic lottery in their favor.

Truth: A State Pageant Isn’t Glamorous

Mostly, though, it is realizing what a cheap, tawdry spectacle a state pageant is. The audience is filled with family members; the runway is in the same room a million bored hotel guests have brunched in; the vast majority of contestants are not Amazonian, but rather, perfectly ordinary girls with cellulite snapped into prom dresses. It’s produced suspiciously like your high school talent show, but with a $1000 entry fee and everyone’s talent is walking in lucite platform heels.

What are these girls even competing for? The prize package is getting your entry fee reimbursed, plus some donated baubles and a small scholarship you’ll never use to a school you’ve never heard of. You get to spend a month doing photo ops and rehearsals in Las Vegas in hopes of becoming Miss USA. If you win Miss USA, you try to win Miss Universe. And then… You’re a beautiful woman. Paparazzi snidely speculate on your plastic surgery. Congratulations – you spend your days traveling, doing charitable work, making appearances, and maintaining the good lucks that won you your title.

I gave it my best shot.

Of course, you can use your title for good, to advance a cause you believe in or use the appearance schedule to groom your public speaking. Maybe it will help you land a modeling or acting job you’ve always dreamed of. Some incredible women, accomplished in their own right, have won crowns too.

The rest end up with a gift bag or a plaque if they’re lucky. In photos, outsiders only see the one girl who won out of 200 entrants. The ones who don’t win are infinitely more interesting.

Truth: They Don’t Actually “Select” You.

… If only because you can smell, at the grassroots, the booming heartbeat of the beauty industry. Why do so many women fork over $1000, pay for their own expensive evening dresses and swimsuits never to be swam in, to walk down some cheap runway for a crown unlikely to materialize?

It’s because contestants truly believe they were “selected” to participate after applying and getting an email telling them they’ve been “accepted”. That the color of their money, to a producer, is different than anyone else’s. This is not every contestant, but it is significant proportion. I would see some girls so clueless that I would offer to lend them hair curlers and makeup to assuage my guilt.

My own optimism swung wildly from one pole to the other, coupled with uncomfortable feeling that entering a pageant seemed to give classmates the provisional right to judge me.

Truth: The Swimsuit Portion Is Not That Hard

To announce you’re entering a pageant is to open the floodgates of judgement. It is every student’s worst fear – making oneself vulnerable to strangers, to fail so spectacularly and publicly.

I will never regret entering Miss New York USA 2010, however, because I found that no one really cared that much I had failed. It was an instructive experience. No one had really expected me to win, I think, and there was something incredibly freeing about that. I was more fixated on my small gaffes – swinging one arm too much walking in swimsuit, awkward interviews with judges – not on the crown I had never felt was mine in the first place.

And for the record, I found that one doesn’t feel ashamed onstage in a swimsuit so much as blinded – the lights are bright; they say your name, you walk, shivering with anxiety, stomach taut and starved. Then the camera flashes. You are done. You feel euphoria, relief.

This is what they call “everyone is a winner.” You’ve just survived, or you’ve been suckered. It’s not hard to see why the first option is more appealing for most.

Advice to Harvard freshman (the hardest part is getting in)

Lingbo Li — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:25:15 +0000

A reader, Vivian, emailed me to ask for advice to incoming Harvard freshman, particularly in regards to writing. This is my response, with the caveat that it’s aimed towards a particular personality type. (i.e. if you’re hyper driven and prone to biting off more than you can chew.) A lot is applicable to college students in general.

Advice to incoming college freshman

Lesson 1: Life sucks sometimes. Get over it.

My first year of college was divided into first semester (good) and second semester (bad). The first few months I spent living in The Crimson’s newsroom, banging out news stories at blistering speed. I would obsessively refresh my email to be first to respond to story pitches. I rose fast. I drank the (gently spiked) Kool Aid.

Along the way, I made a friend who seemed motivated by the wrong things, or at least, things that I didn’t want to motivate me. We had a falling out, and second semester, my social life took a serious nosedive. I panicked. I had no friends to block with, it was like being picked last for gym teams all over again. I won’t even get into details of what happened. It worked out, but not without a lot of rejection.

At the same time, I cooled down my Crimson involvement, struggled in my classes, and removed myself from campus as much as possible.

So what happened?

I made new friends, some of whom I ended up close with. I went from hardcore Crimson reporter to occasional reporter to finally, fall of junior year deciding not to shoot for an exec position.

Today, I write two columns and am really happy about it. This is not to say the Crimson won’t be right for you – it’s a wonderful organization in many ways, and it’s been a brilliant training ground for a lot of students. If Jennifer 8. Lee had never showed up my freshman fall and told me that I HAD to write for News if I wanted to be a reporter (that’s what I wanted to be, back in 2007), things might be different today.

Ultimately, I learned a lot, met some great people, and figured out that large organizational politics just weren’t my thing. However, I probably would have freaked out if you told me this when I first started writing for them and cried about never becoming an NBC president or Pulitzer Prize winner.

Lesson 2: Keep in mind that you’ll change, and what you want to do will change.

And that’s a good thing. Embrace it, run with new ideas. How do you think this blog got started? It was utterly unplanned – I was redesigning my portfolio site and thought, hey, I’ll just throw up a blog. Why not? You can be strategic about it (“I’m going to start a blog about food and become a food writer!”) but sometimes, these things just happen. I always just thought I was weird and obsessive about eating out. Not entirely incorrect.

A lot of opportunities sprang up as I got deeper into the food writing wilderness, and this blog has been one of the best investments of time I’ve ever made. Never underestimate publicly doing something you enjoy to the best of your ability. Even if its payoff isn’t immediately obvious, you’ll eventually be glad you did. For example, one interviewer was sufficiently impressed by my blog to offer me a competitive internship. The job had nothing to do with food or blogging. I got contacted by a foreign TV producer once about hosting a travel segment. (That fell through, but it was cool to even be contacted.) I got an offer to join a food-related startup that will capitalize on a lot of the connections I’ve made blogging. And a bizarre number of people have invited me to eat dinner with them – and eating dinner with interesting people is one of my great pleasures in life.

This may sound obvious, but it’s worth keeping in mind: make sure you do what you want to be doing, because if you end up succeeding, you’ll be doing an awful lot of it.

Lesson 3: If you’re not happy, cut your losses and get out.

I’m still not great at this. I grew up in a clean-your-plate family, where you finished all the food whether or not it was any good. I comped a lot of organizations and halfway through the comp, wondered why I was even bothering. I should have just viewed my invested time as a sunk cost and left. I did an internship once that was a total sinkhole of my time and energy, offered no interesting work, and had a totally dead office environment. Connecting the dots in retrospect, I should have left and done my reading for class.

Lesson 4: Haters gonna hate.

In high school, I was absurdly miserable on the marching band’s color guard, but deathly afraid to quit. Most sane, rational people agreed I should quit, but some people judged me and told me as much. Which brings me to a valuable lesson: haters gonna hate. Then they go to MIT and you hopefully never hear from them again.

I’ve also realized in the course of writing a food blog that I don’t know everything about food. After this frightening realization, you then realize that NO ONE knows everything about food. People will only attack you if you have a reputation for something established or if they feel threatened, in which case, good for you. For every success, there are a million unsuccessful naysayers.

Accept advice only from those who have your best interests at heart AND who have similar values and goals as you. If you find people like this, keep them close – they’re rare. Even your best friend might have your best interests at heart but completely different values and goals for you, in which case, take it with a grain of salt.

Most people speak about what scares them and what they wouldn’t do. This doesn’t mean that it has to be what you’re scared of.

So, you want to write stuff at Harvard?

If you plan on being a professional writer, it’s a good idea to comp the Crimson, join writing-related organizations, and stay friends with the people in those organizations. A lot of them will end up working at publications you want to work at, and this world runs on connections.

Organizations might include: The Crimson, The Independent, The Voice (who The Crimson hates, and vice versa), Let’s Go (summer editing, Boston research term time, staff writer, etc.), The Advocate, Tuesday Magazine, The Lampoon, plus other random stuff. Things like Harvard Political Review or Economic Review are more likely staffed by people who are interested in the topic rather than pursuing careers specifically in writing.

If the idea of being friends for connections feels dirty, just keep this in mind: do a good job. Treat other people well. The rest will follow.

Keep an eye out on email lists for writing opportunities. Trawl the student employment office for job postings and check out Office of Career Services postings for places you’d like to work for.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that not sleeping and feeling miserable = sign you’re working hard enough. Seriously. Tasks fit themselves into the time you allot for them. Prioritize relationships and sleep.

I can’t emphasize this enough. People LOVE to brag about how miserable and unhealthy they are. Don’t be like them. Writing a paper, going out for dinner, sleeping for 7 hours, and still hitting the gym is only impossible if you convince yourself it is. Every once in a while, impress yourself because you can.

To make fast, easy money, bartend for Harvard Student Agencies. You don’t need ANY bartending experience; all you have to do with open bottles and pour things. It beats cleaning toilets x 3030297.

And similarly, don’t be afraid to start your own thing rather than trying to rise the ranks of an existing organization, especially if you’re looking to do something similar in your professional life. The similarities (recruiting, funding, managing, envisioning) are endless. Plus you skip all the boring politics. Spin entrepreneurial experiences like these in job interviews to your best advantage. Don’t be like every other person who did all the safe, “right” things with their college career – unless that’s who you actually want to be.

As an addendum, creative writing classes are really hard to get into here. I’ve been rejected twice so far. It’s easier to get in if you’re an English major, but if you’re not planning on writing a creative thesis or anything, keep your expectations in check.

Gluttony as Work: Interning at Serious Eats

Lingbo Li — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:58 +0000

[For Joanne Yao who requested a post about what it's like to work at Serious Eats on my call for blog entries]

Working at Serious Eats is, pardon my pun, serious business.

What are aren’t paid in wages we’re more than compensated for in amazing food – the creme de la creme of what New York can offer. I’ve sampled NYC’s top 7 falafel sandwiches, 11 bowls of the best Taiwanese shaved ice, and countless sandwiches.

Whenever editors travel, they tend to bring back regional specialties – chess pie from Kentucky, cheesy bread from Brazil, candied jalapenos from a food fair. They’re all fantastically nerdy about food and generous with their knowledge.

Ed Levine, Serious Eats Overlord, surveying the cupcake spread in his “Phat Beets” tee. Because of his diet, he (wisely) opted out of the tasting.

A typical day at work might begin with a bag of peanut brittle on the table, courtesy of the manager’s mother. Maybe an intern made a pizza; I munch on one slice, then another. Around lunch, the UPS guy comes with a delivery; or maybe it’s a PR person dropping off some lobster rolls – free rein on that. Finally, in the afternoon, an intern runs out and comes back with 2-3 sandwiches for our “Sandwich a Day” feature and I saw them up into bite size pieces. They disappear. If you’re still hungry, there are 8 bags of potato chips in the cabinet from a kettle-cooked chip tasting organized by intern Aaron Mattis awhile back. Maybe Adam Kuban left pizza in the fridge. And don’t forget the bag of frozen Sushi Poppers in the freezer, ready for defrosting. Although no one except me has touched those.

Then there are regular tastings: the best hot dog, best American cheese, etc. The photos in this entry from the Best Cupcake in New York tasting organized by super badass fellow intern Leah Douglas. Leading up to last Friday’s cupcake tasting was sampling treats from dozens of bakeries.

Yep, Magnolia got unceremoniously cut early. Crumbs crumbled. I developed a bizarrely discerning palate.

And as far as what I actually end up writing about is mostly due to whatever I dream up. The idea of eating a butt-ton of shaved ice was my own beany, beany idea. Carey, the NY editor, gave me a go-ahead on a Flushing food court roundup, so off I went on the LIRR toting my new DSLR.

(My new life insight: the difference between an eccentric Asian girl snapping food photos and a journalist? A proper camera.)

Ed and Melissa from Cupcakes Take the Cake shaking hands over the cupcakes. I call this photo “The Treaty of 2010 Cupcakes.”

More photos of our epic cupcake tasting after the jump.

Meta-photo! We see Robyn in some form of photo-taking about 55% of of the time. No one bothers to take photos because Robyn is so good.

Prepping cupcake tastings is absurd work.

Robyn Lee in action! She is hilarious and talented with a camera.

One bite at a time, baby.

Chichi leaning over Leah’s shoulder, ready to eat some cupcakes.

Melissa from Cupcakes Take the Cake

Melissa’s amazing doodle! (I am the one documenting everything, of course). Robyn is on the floor hugging a beloved manatee, she also write a blog called “occasional manatee.”

“LEGALIZE FROSTITUTION” (duh)

Asian Girl Cooking: Growing Pains

Lingbo Li — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:02:18 +0000

I didn’t want to be that sad person, standing bare footed in my mother’s kitchen and eating a Bisquick-and-parmesean-cheese creation straight over the cast iron pan.

But here I was, eating my cheesy biscuit thing. The Bisquick was at least 4 or 5 years old. Yeah, I know.

Cooking in my mother’s kitchen, with her pantry, presents a unique set of challenges. After leafing through two cookbooks, one from a mythical land called Middle America (The Pioneer Woman Cooks) and the other from Sex-and-the-City-ville (The Pleasure is All Mine), I was reminded that to prepare Western food in this kitchen would be an uphill battle.

Eating this random thing was almost an act of defiance. It would have been too easy to make a bitter melon stir fry, or to wilt a head of bok choy and stir fried an egg, steamed some white rice, called it a day.

We have no crushed tomatoes. (Our pastas never feature red sauce, and there’s not a box of elbow macaroni in sight.) We have no cheese. If we do, it is 1) moldy or 2) frozen, breaded mozzarella sticks that will never be eaten. We have no basil, but we do have star anise, Szechuan peppercorn, and dried chiles.

So I bought crushed tomatoes. San Marzano, the right kind. I figured I’d make a cast iron skillet pizza on the stove, or turn the pan upside down as a makeshift pizza stone and crank up the broiler. I bought fresh mozzarella and parmesean. I even bought a basil plant. (“It’s so smelly,” my dad said distastefully. Basil is not big in Chinese cooking.)

Then I tried to start today, while my mother is out, and it’s a unique sort of culinary torture. Ran out of flour. Yeast hidden away, unfindable. Left with a jar of fancy tomato, wondering if my dad was lying about there being garlic in the house. I flip through the cookbooks, trying to find something to make.

Meatloaf? Nope. Mac’n'cheese? No mac, unless you count the soba or cold Korean noodles. We out of avocados and tomatoes – though we’ll often have them. Buttermilk? Ha! As if.

The fridge is full, the crisper bin is overflowing, the freezer is well-stocked. The pantry is crowded with glass jars; the cabinets have ready-made packets for stir fry sauces; we have 12 varieties of tea. A kitchen full of supplies and nothing to cook.

That is how I ate half a protein bar and two cheesy biscuits. Maybe the white flour is hidden away somewhere, along with the yeast. And then I’ll make my pizza. I hope it doesn’t suck.

My thoughts on freelance writing

Lingbo Li — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:06:45 +0000

[Requested by Vivian from my open call for blog entry requests]

more carefree days, when I didn't have to commute to work.

For awhile, I seriously considered being a freelance writer. I took a few books out of the library and talked to other freelance writers. And just to check in, I’ll still chat to freelancers about their decision to skip a steady paycheck, so I have a reasonably informed sense of what the job is like.

But I’m not going to be a freelance writer. At least, not as my full-time occupation.

There are definitely very successful and happy freelancers – but they tend to have built up a professional reputation in the industry before taking the leap. One freelancer’s biggest piece of advice was to keep your day job and write on the side. That, or have a spouse to support you.

Which brings to my next point – financial independence.

I’ve always felt an enormous drive to be my own person, whatever that could mean. That’s part of the reason why I haven’t given big consulting firms a try. (Although I’ve done my research on that, too.) And as much as I might daydream about letting someone else pick up the slack, I think it’s incredibly important – and as a woman, even more so – to make my own money. You can definitely make a full-time living as a freelance writer, but it can be a bumpy ride, and even if you “make it,” the financial payoffs are comparatively slim. But what about psychic rewards?

I love writing, and will always be writing in some way. But after having written in various capacities for a somewhat obscene number of outlets, I’m not sure I want to do this full-time – and I also want to succeed in a few other ways beyond writing. I find blogging rewarding enough that it satisfies most of my writing urges.

I can definitely see myself doing some freelancing part-time, but with an ever-shrinking number of publications willing to pay its writers, it’s harder cobble together a decent income. I once emailed a food writer for advice. Her reply was short and concise. “Not to be discouraging, but it’s probably one of the worst times to go into food-writing. The traditional media outlets are disappearing as we speak.” The amount of money you can make from a blog post just can’t compare. So you really have to write for whoever will pay you.

At that point, I’d rather write for myself, for pleasure.

What about you? Do you think I’m totally wrong? Leave a comment!

How to convince people that your liberal arts degree is useful

Lingbo Li — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 01:39:25 +0000

A souless yuppie in American Psycho

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with an American expat.

We happened to be at a faux-exclusive club in Shanghai with shark tanks and a glittering, ghostly clientele. It was a clear night, save for the fuzz of smog that filtered the 24th floor view through the violet gauze of pollution.

He asked where I went to school. I was a rising junior at Harvard at the time; he had graduated from Georgetown a few years back. Then he asked what I was studying.

“Social anthropology,” I said.

“That’s nice,” he said, eyes widening. He paused to collect his words. “But that’s not like, something you could build a house with.”

He settled into his velvet seat with a cigarette and a shit-eating grin, looking pleased with his metaphor.

I forget how I replied.

The truth is – and I’ve learned this from those smarter than myself – that what you study in undergrad probably won’t be directly applicable to a job. And if you’re a humanities/social science major like myself, you’ll occasionally have to converse at length with douchebags in suits (DBIS). Disclaimer: not all corporate dudes in suits are like this. But a few are. They’re probably rather young, and high on their own importance.

If it’s a short conversation, it’s better just to nod, smile, and escape. But if you’re stuck across a dinner table from a DBIS, you might want to build a convincing argument that you’re an intelligent life form, too.

Here’s how.

1) Be confident.

Smile, but don’t bend. Show no fear. Angle your argument as a friendly, thoughtful meditation, not a personal attack. Only insecure English majors sulk in the face of DBIS-ery.

2) Ask about your DBIS

“It’s interesting you say that! I was actually thinking about this topic,” you’ll begin before asking for their occupation and college major. It’s easiest to make a DBIS understand your argument if you craft it around his/her own self-centered DBIS existence. Chances are they majored in something “practical” like business, accounting, or finance. In a pinch, they might be an econ major.

3) Flatter them.

Say something like, “I can tell you’re great at what you do, so….”

3) Have them dig their own grave.

Ask the DBIS what makes someone in their industry good at their job. They’ll likely cite a bunch of soft skills – networking, being comfortable with numbers, analysis, working in a team, knowing about the industry, etc. If they name more specific skills, you’ll easily be able to reduce them to similar components.

4) Point out that they’re mistaken.

They’ll admit their soft skills were probably learned doing something like bartending or playing on the sports team. And they’ll probably allow that you can pick up industry lingo by reading a trade paper and attending a lot of mixers. As for analysis, doesn’t reading 30 research papers and writing a 20 page report account for the same thing? When it comes to numbers, point out more number-heavy majors that aren’t topically related to your DBIS’s job. I would probably BS a bit and claim that social anthro involves numbers, too. (Well, it could. If I wanted it to.) If they claim they’re an Excel ninja, just roll your eyes.

4) Kill them off with some stats and anecdotes.

Like that one about people switching jobs 8 times. Then cite some anecdotes: the History major who works for Goldman Sachs, the molecular biology major who’s now a cookbook author, etc. (All true.)

5) Bask in your liberal arts glory.

Done! If they have any more objections, use your analytical and argument-building skills developed from reading Beowulf to slash any objections.

Unfortunately, my DBIS was a lost cause. Later, he went on to say that he saw no point in befriending women and that women shouldn’t be in positions of power.

He did allow, however, that I had a good grasp of the English language.

Crowdsourcing my blog entries

Lingbo Li — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:04:05 +0000

A cool photo my friend Sam took that I'll put here for no real purpose other than looking good in it.

Hi denizens of the Internet, Asian women, unseemly lovers of Asian women, Harvard students, and their ilk:

I want to try something out.

Actually, I want you to figure out what I should try out.

After all, you know better than me what to do with stale cake, why Chinese food is so damn cheap, why I’m wrong for eating innocent whale flesh, and where to grocery shop in Boston.

So I want you to leave me a comment below – it’s easy! it takes two seconds! – letting me know what you want me to write a blog post about.

Have you always wanted to hear what I think about pickup lines? The best places to study in Harvard Square? What that molecular food class at Harvard is like? My picks for hair products, chopsticks, lip glosses (I have many), cookbooks, nonfiction reading, or best-looking celebs?

Whether I’ll do another beauty pageant? My favorite self-tanner? The thrills of slurping Cantonese-style congee?

Part of this comes from realizing that an awful lot of you like to click the “life” tab on the navigation rather than the “food” tab. If you want to hear about life… let me know what topic you’d like to hear about.

I can’t promise that these will all get done ASAP, but I’ll get around to all of them eventually.

A few ground rules:

1) Nothing inappropriate, based on my judgment. I like the fact that my parents and employers read this.

2) Nothing horribly expensive.

3) Um, if I think of anything else, I’ll put it here.

Please! If no one leaves me anything to write about, I’ll eat my foot. Mmm, foot.

Drinks at M Bar at the Mandarin Oriental

Lingbo Li — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:25:51 +0000

M Bar at the Mandarin Oriental reminds me of Shanghai’s slickly overproduced watering holes. The difference is that in China, these kinds of establishments stock only the most svelte and snowy-skinned of waitstaff, the kind with faces that inspire as much protection as possession.

(The physicality of Chinese beauty hits you in a very different way from Western beauty. Even at its most objectified, the former maintains a certain distance from its sexuality. It’s softer – it doesn’t assault you from the front so much as it circles an arm from behind.)

In honor of last summer, I ordered their Mo-del cocktail, which featured notes of rose and lychee, very Shanghai. I appreciated the generous helpings of sugared almonds and olives, which helped cut a very stiff drink.

I could almost imagine those were expat men lining the sill of the bar and spilling over the banquettes. I was never sure what to think of them last summer, to see them as so many suited malcontents, or to envy how some were mindlessly adept at making the city their jungle gym. Somehow, it felt unfair.

No related posts.

How not to date a foodie – A Valentine’s Day post

Lingbo Li — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:51:50 +0000

You better try that spicy beef tendon.

“Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.” – MFK Fisher

One of my friends is a half-Asian stunner who loves food as much as I do. We were sharing some very forgettable Indian tapas and swapping stories about our love lives.

“He’s great, and so sweet,” she said of her boyfriend. “But I know he’s not the One. He doesn’t like to eat.”

She imitated his face when she forced him to try something new. It looked like a beaten puppy. “He’ll at least try it,” she allowed.

Wedding bells were not in their future.

Another foodie friend, along with a requirement that prospective dates should take regular showers, stipulated the following: “[He] can’t blanch at the idea of eating a roasted pig’s head.”

I feel their pain. I once tried to turn a carnivore onto the idea of eating vegetarian pizza. Nothing scary – just a Mexican black bean pizza smothered in cheese, beans, salsa, and guac, on an addictive flatbread crust. I scarfed down a scrumptious Portobello mushroom pizza while a third of his dish remained untouched.

I will never forget what he said next.

“Do you know what would make this better?” he asked. “Meat.”

“You didn’t even finish it,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “I already ate.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t think I would like it,” he said.

“Ah,” I replied, aghast.

The thing is, as many of my foodie friends have expressed, it’s not so much the literal crumbs that you’re willing to put in your mouth.* Conduct at the dinner table is all to expressive of conduct elsewhere – and indeed, the self-professed carnivore was equally dogmatic on other matters.

And it’s not just about what you’re willing to eat. It’s also about why you’re there in the first place.

There have been beautiful meals I’ve eaten with soul-shreddingly horrible conversations. I remember one of them – the food was inventive and beautifully presented. The service was flawless; the dining room perfectly balancing elegant and unpretentious.

But dinner conversation consisted of him talking about the money he made and the venture capitalists he tried to impress. “I’ve dated legitimate models,” he mused, then recounted accosting a blonde, South African lovely.

As my spoon broke the surface of the creme brulee, his reaction was to whine that I’d stolen his next move. The food might as well have been sawdust.

Being a food blogger adds another twist in the story. Dining companion’s reactions to my camera is a litmus test of sorts. And those reactions run the gamut, everything from, “I should bring my LSR next time! Here’s my plate. Do you want to photograph the bread basket too?” to sullen tolerance, sabotaging the plating before I finish, and outright sneering.

Maybe it’s petty for me to add a third party to the relationship, but if you can’t love the camera, mealtimes will be very, very awkward.

“Eating is such an intimate act,” one dining companion complained as I did my rounds.

In one shot, he’s caught looking into the camera with an expression somewhere between death and surprise. Possibly closer to death.

My gorgeous friend? When we caught up two months later, she and her boyfriend had broken up.

People are what make the food. But some of us need the right people to eat well.

* Lingbo’s note: I got a comment from a reader about the ethics of using the quote included, without context, “I always order the equivalent of steak and potatoes,” in a column for The Harvard Crimson. I initially thought that I did something wrong and removed the line. But actually, there is nothing unethical about it, and I regret that I edited the post – which was my misstep. Here’s how it appears originally: A guy who says, “I always order the equivalent of steak and potatoes,” no matter what the restaurant is expressing a generalizable facet of his personality.