Life
My thoughts on freelance writing
[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
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.
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Crowdsourcing my blog entries
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
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.
How not to date a foodie – A Valentine’s Day post
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.