Boston Restaurant and Food Blog

How To Dress When Backpacking: Or, You’re Doing it All Wrong

Lingbo Li — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:48:42 +0000

At home, I usually pride myself as a reasonably put-together person. I may only wear one pair of shoes… but they’re a pair of platform wedges. I wear more dresses and skirts than the average college student. I at least attempt to swipe on black eyeliner and some concealer.

However, backpacking takes away all your pretensions. There you are, dancing away in light-up Minnie Mouse ears and sweatpants while some Australian dude spills a bucket of whiskey coke all over you. Oops. God forbid you get in the way when a Thai bartender slams a beer bottle on belligerent reveler, knocking him bloodied and unconscious.

So let me share my style lessons.

1) Flip flops. I’ve scaled steep, slippery rocks in a bikini and flip flops. I’ve motorbiked in flip flops. I’ve partied in flip flops. I would probably scuba dive in flip flops if it made any sense. Pro tip: after Full Moon Party on Thailand’s Koh Phangan, hundreds of flip flops wash up on the beach by mid-morning. Free flip flops galore!!

Looking like a rectangle is really hot this season!

2) Parachute pants. You see all those hippie backpackers with the dreads and funny looking pants. You laugh at them silently and think, gross hippie backpackers! I’m not like them! Then your hair gets all dusty and matted and locals ogle you because you’re wearing shorts and a tank top, plus it’s just really hot. Then you realize that parachute pants are God’s gift to backpackers: cheap, comfortable, cooling, light, and let you sprawl around without being indecent. Just be careful when getting on bikes or motorbikes – I always end up getting twisted around the back of the seat. Thank you, hippies, for letting me see the light.

3) Helmets. I have worn so many suspect motorcycle helmets. The top will be so scratched that it looks like the previous owner was tossed headfirst from a cliff. The buckle won’t stay buckled. The visor will be hanging off one hinge. Wear your damn helmet. And make sure the buckle works. Remember, don’t do drugs and go tubing/cliff jumping/rope swinging.

4) Viscose. Let me champion the cause of manmade fibers. These wholly unnatural fabrics will dry with amazing speed after a day of carting your 20 kilo (see, I’ve been away from the US too long) backpack and trying to haggle with tuk-tuk drivers by making silly duck faces after their ridiculous first offer. It helps me avoid getting angry, which is the kiss of death for haggling in these parts. So don’t get angry. Make weird duck faces, puppy faces, hop around like a rabbit, something. Laugh. Then, “You give me good price?” They will be so confused, they might just slip up. Also, if you just stay silent for a long time, then walk away, that works too.

Baby monkey!

5) Swimwear. If you pay the exorbitant fee to go walk in the shark tank at Bangkok’s aquarium, they give you a bikini for free. Free! For only the cost of a lame shark tank experience that could easily net you 2 real scuba dive sessions in a beautiful island dive site. Not worth it. But good for feeding monkeys in.

5a) Monkeys. They are not your friends!

5b) Monkeys, part II. Monkeys are like rats, but cuter and with brainpower and opposable things. Think about how terrifying this is. They will snatch your plastic bags and potato chips. If you try to feed the baby monkeys, the big monkeys will yell and take their food. However, they’re pretty cute when you throw them pineapple chunks from your kayak and they wash the food first before eating it. Repeat after me: Monkeys = not your friends.

6) Hair ties. Buy them at 7-Eleven. Or cut a section off your pantyhose.

7) Pants. Wear them when you ride elephants bareback. Their hair is really coarse and wiry. Also, you shouldn’t ride elephants bareback. At least, I don’t think you’re supposed to. But no one else was watching and the Thai guy said it was fine. “Will I fall off?” “No no,” he says, smiling. Good luck.

Biking through Siem Reap, Cambodia

8) Daypacks. Motorcycle bag snatches are not uncommon here. Sometimes, the thief will carry a knife to slash your bag strap as they make a 2-wheeled getaway. Always let go, or else you’ll get dragged into the street and I will cry. So, like the anxious wreck I am, I carry a small backpack everywhere. I bought it in Ipoh for like, 30 Ringgit. (~$10) Which was too much. I saw a pile at the discount store in Kuala Lumpur for $15 Ringgit. (~$5) I should have bargained harder! My backpack brings all the boys to the yard. Along with my juvenile Asian pencil case that I stick antibiotics, eyedrops, and bandaids in.

9) Skin ailments. Not usually part of my beauty routine. At least to not to this scarring degree. But I like to think my shoulders, once pristine and now populated with white, polka-dot like patches, are the new fashion trend. Backpacker skin FTW!

10) Sarongs. I already detailed why I love sarongs in a different post, but my love just never ends. They also make for good ninja disguises and neck rests on long bus rides. Also for posing in Khmer Rouge’s legacy of abandoned houses in Kep.

BONUS: 11) Tshirts. Wearing a “SAME SAME” (front) “BUT DIFFERENT” (back) shirt doesn’t make you cool.

BONUS #2: 12) Lobsters. They’re giant sea bugs. Just think about it.

I hope this list helps you.

Tips on Traveling Alone as a Woman

Lingbo Li — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 06:27:19 +0000

Hello from Kampot, Cambodia!

A college friend asked me a bunch of questions on traveling alone. I feel like there’s a dearth of good information on what it’s like to travel alone as a female, so I’m posting my responses here.

Keep in mind that my experience is unique and that I’m talking only about Southeast Asia (which is great for female travelers! Other locations are less so).

—————-

Hi Lingbo!

Thanks for responding to my facebook message. I think it’s awesome of you to venture out on your own. I’ve traveled alone for a few days this summer, and it’s definitely a strange experience, in that it both opens you up to new experiences but at the same time also closes you off (i.e. you have to look out for your own safety, so no accepting drink invitations from strangers). Below are a few questions. There’s no rush, so I’d love to hear your thoughts whenever you have any time.

1. How do you locate budget-friendly and female-friendly lodging? If you do choose to stay at a hostel, how do you go about picking a relatively clean/non-sketchy one? I tried staying at a hostel when I was traveling on my own in Amsterdam but was told that all the rooms were co-ed. One look at the many European boys in tattered jeans smoking on the front steps drove me to shell out $100 for a hotel room.

Ah hostels…

Well, there’s a key difference between Europe and Southeast Asia. That is, you can easily afford your own room ($5-15) in Southeast Asia.

That being said, hostels can be great too. They sometimes have private rooms or female only dorms. However, I wouldn’t wholly rule out a coed dorm, either. I think you’ll find that most of those seemingly sketchy European boys in tattered jeans aren’t all that bad. Sure, they smoke, but a lot of Europeans do. (I hate smoking. With a passion.) There’s always creepy men in every hostel batch, but most of them are probably just like you – bright-eyed university students looking to have a good time while traveling. You’ll probably find that loud partiers of any gender barging in at 5am a bigger concern than the presence of men.

Try reading reviews on HostelWorld.com and HostelBookers to see if you’ll like the vibe there. Some hostels are notorious for being all night parties, others are for quieter travelers. Pick accordingly.

As you travel, you’ll find yourself doing things that would be considered lunacy back home – squeezing 7 people into a 5 person car, driving a motorbike in the opposite direction of traffic, spinning fire poi naked – and that’s part of the experience. That being said, just keep a comfortable level of vigilance that allows you to be safe while still trying out new things. Remember, you can always switch hostels. Bring earplugs!

2. From your travels, it seems like you’ve had no trouble making friends with fellow travelers and the locals. I always feel a little hesitant approaching new people (or new groups of people), mostly out of safety concern. Do you have any advice on how to do that?

Make sure you read safety warnings in travel guides and online. Different destinations have VERY different guidelines for do’s and don’ts regarding safety. For example, in Mexico City, it’s imperative never to randomly hail a cab off the street. In Asia, this isn’t an issue at all. In India, the chances of harassment as a female are much higher, and you have to act/dress accordingly. In Thailand, if someone speaking English approaches you on Khao San Rd (a popular tourist spot) with some sob story or gem-selling scheme, it’s a scam. Etc. Etc. You just get used to these after awhile, and learn how to ignore them. You’ll find that looking Asian insulates you a bit from these, since people aren’t sure if you’re local or not. Just be sure to do some initial research so you can spot scamsters and know where’s safe to go.

Met up in Koh Phangan with a bunch of friends made through a Couchsurfing meetup.

Here are some rules for making friends safely:

1) Don’t try to break into large groups of men. They’re not that much fun, anyway – they usually want to drink as heavily as possible, talk about sports, and light things on fire.

2) Don’t go chat up that dude in his 50′s who’s sitting all alone at the bar, nursing a double scotch. He will think you’re a prostitute.

Other than that, it’s not so bad. Here are prime targets for friending:

1) Another female traveling alone. This is one of the easiest and most promising friendships to be struck. Try spotting her in a hostel’s common area or chilling at a cafe, reading her Lonely Planet.

2) A mixed gender group.

3) Another male, around your age, traveling alone who seems nice.

4) A couple. Good for a casual chat, but unlikely to become your sightseeing partner.

5) Go to meetups. Major cities all have weekly Couchsurfing events where you can meet locals and travelers.

You’ll find that giant social groups naturally form at hostels, but it’s easy to meet people anywhere. As far as safety, just use your common sense. If a dude seems creepy, he probably is. But don’t let that deter you from all the genuinely friendly, uncreepy folks out there. Not much can happen in a well-lit, public area with other people around.

Please, please read my friend Lena’s fantastic blog entry on rejecting pushy dudes for the socially awkward. I think any girl who’s worried about “offending” a guy will identify with what she says.

Conversation starters:

- “Hey, did you mention you’ve been to ____(Amsterdam, Outer Mongolia, Reykjavik)___? What’s it like? I was thinking about going there next.”

- “Do you know where ___ is?”

- “How long have you been traveling for?”

- “Where have you been so far?”

See fake engagement ring on my left hand. Yes, we’re making animal faces. No, I don’t have a better picture of my fake engagement ring.

I bought a fake engagement ring for $3USD in a night market. Not sure how much it has helped. It’s good for quick, easy to rejection at loud parties – just point to your ring finger and shake your head. But I’ve been traveling a lot with people that I’ve met on the road and generally haven’t had any issues.

3. What about meals? I’m sure you’re trying out local cuisine wherever you go. If you want to dine at a relatively upscale place, do you feel comfortable eating alone or do you find someone else? if the latter, how?

In Southeast Asia, upscale places are usually an expensive disappointment. The best and cheapest food is at street stalls, which are easy to sample by yourself. But I usually eat with someone else anyway. If you meet someone who seems nice earlier in the day, just casually invite them to dinner. They’ll say yes 99.9% of the time. Or maybe you’ll acquire a temporary travel partner. If you meet someone who seems cool and who’s heading in the same direction as you, try planning on catching the next bus together. That way, you’ll save yourself from boredom on long trips and have a new travel buddy in the process.

4. Packing, part 2. You’ve covered a good deal of the packing on the blog already. I had a few questions about packing a camera/laptop/other heavy equipment. There’s obviously a trade off between bringing along a fancy camera to take really nice travel photos and being able to carry all of that and walk for a few hours. What do you do about camera? Do you opt for a compact one? What suggestions would you have for people who want to bring multiple camera bodies/lenses but at the same time still only one backpack, like you suggested on the blog?

I would err on the side of less equipment, unless photography is a main goal of your trip. I have a DSLR with me and wish I didn’t. It’s fine if you’re taking a shorter trip and not moving around too much, but I’d rather have a high quality compact camera. I usually don’t even carry my camera around because it’s so annoying to have with me.

5. How did you pick your travel locations? Did you plan the whole trip out before you started, or is it more spontaneous? Where have you been?

I’m not entirely typical in that my entire trip has been spontaneous. I ended up in Malaysia and Cambodia by accident. I’d meet someone who mentioned they were crossing the border to X or Y and I’d think, hey, why not? My visa is expiring anyway. You’ll find that there is a well-worn route of bus stops and ferry links – the typical tourist trail, if you will – and that other travelers will be going/coming from the same places. So for overland travel, being totally spontaneous is very much possible. Flights are a little different. Fares vary wildly depending on when you buy them, so better to plan about a month ahead on these to grab the promo fare.

Not planning is fantastic because if you like a place, why not stay longer? Or if you hear about some other cool town, why not go visit? You have to trust that nothing will go too wrong. Because it generally doesn’t. Unless you’re so off-the-beaten-track that finding transportation is an issue. In which case, be a bit more careful.

The most helpful thing is to have a end destination in mind. For me, that’s Shanghai, where my return flight is. So I’ve been meandering across the continent, but I try to keep on a generally northward path. Having a full 4 months means that I never worry about the time.

6. What has your travel experience been like so far? I feel like female travel memoirs like Eat Pray Love or Wanderlust make it all seem so easy, but it’s actually much more difficult in real life (or maybe it’s just me). Have you encountered any difficulties? Memorable experiences?

Travel isn’t hard. Think about it this way: there are millions of other people your age, much stupider than you, who have successfully backpacked across Southeast Asia. In time, you’ll find that the occasional hard bits make for the best stories and memories.

Probably the most annoying thing that’s happened is my skin flaring up like crazy. Nonstop traveling is tough on your body, particularly in an unfamiliar climate, so I’ve been careful to pick rooms with A/C, get enough sleep, and give myself long breaks. The most likely difficulty you’ll encounter is getting ripped off. But I’ve felt myself really grow in this respect – I’ve learned how to bargain without getting offended about being scammed, and sometimes just accept that I’ve been scammed. (It’s just a few bucks. No big deal.)

The most important thing I’ve gained is a sense of humor and patience in dealing with unfamiliar situations. Sometimes a bus will mysteriously break down, or drop you off at some random travel shop for 2 hours while you wait for an unexpected transfer. You just learn to stretch your legs, buy some pineapple, and pet a local kitten. Bring a book to read – there are book swaps at most guesthouses once you’re done with it.

As a side note, you’ll find that frequently touristed places – like any major city or place listed in the Lonely Planet – are really, really easy to navigate. Tons of people speak passable English and signs/menus/schedules will be available in English. It’s also helpful to have a phone to meet up with all your new friends, either with a local SIM card or prepaid phones. I’ve been trying to get by on wifi and Skype, but this is proving to be antisocial and a Really Bad Idea.

As for memorable experiences, there are too many to count. Friendly people, beautiful sunsets, inexplicable scenarios, massive parties, and moments of unexpected awe.

7. Who takes your photos?

I take photos with my camera, but as far as pictures of me, usually a travel partner or staff member.

8. How do you fund your travels?

I happen to freelance as a web designer while I travel, so I can work from the road. However, there are a million other ways to finance your travel that don’t involve having technical skills and a wifi connection. Some people just save up before they leave. (You only need $30-50 a day to travel very comfortably in SE Asia. Less, if you’re willing to forgo some creature comforts.) Many hostels will let you work a few hours a day in return for free room and board. I’ve met people who taught English, played online poker, worked at hotels, or just lived at home and saved up some cash from a secretarial or bartending job before heading out.

What to Pack for a Southeast Asia Backpacking Trip

Lingbo Li — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:03:19 +0000

After 2 months of backpacking through Southeast Asia, I have my luggage down to a science.

The most important part of packing is to not pack anything. It’s too easy to just hear this statement and just go “yeah yeah yeah, I’m going to bring my travel-size hair dryer and travel-size hairspray and only 4 pairs of shoes because everyone needs their slutty pair of heels.”

No.

Put all your crap into your backpack. God forbid you bring a suitcase. Have you tried arriving at an island in a rickety wooden longboat, wading through waist-deep water, and then trekking for half a mile across a beach with a suitcase? Because I have.

Do you see those little boats in the water? And how they aren’t directly on the shore? You have to walk through that water.

Then go to the gym, turn off the A/C, and go for a brisk walk on the treadmill for 1 hour straight while sweaty weightlifters beat you up, mosquitoes attack you, and someone blasts ABBA in the background. (This is a frighteningly accurate depiction of arriving in a new city.) See how much you want your travel-size hairdryer then.

These are the clothes you should bring, and the ONLY clothes you should bring for Southeast Asia (list tailored for females):

- 2 tshirts
- 2 tank tops
- 1 pair of shorts
- 1 pair of light pants
- 7 pairs of underwear
- 2 pairs of socks
- 2-3 bras
- 2 bikinis
- 1 pair of flip flops
- 1 pair of sneakers
- 1 black convertible pencil dress from American Apparel

Don’t even THINK about bringing anything else.

Once you’re there, you should purchase:

- 2 sarongs

A sarong will save your life. A sarong is the most versatile and amazing thing in the world. It’s more awesome than Santa Claus covered in rainbow sprinkles.

That’s me, rocking a sarong on laundry day at the beach in Ko Lanta, Thailand.

You can wear a sarong as a flowing tube top. Or a halter dress. Or a skirt. You use it as a bag. If your sheets are kinda gross, you can lay it on top and not fear catching yet another weird skin disease. It’s a fantastic beach towel, head wrap, modesty shawl for temples, pillow case, and blanket for chilly bus rides. You can fold it up and prop your head on a windowsill. It is amazing, dries quick, packs light, and the possibilities are limited only by your imagination and manual dexterity.

Don’t forget to bring a first aid kit and sunscreen (sunscreen is not cheaper in Asia than at home). You can always buy this upon arrival at a 7-Eleven, but it’s convenient to have. Every single scratch and cut gets infected with alarming speed in the tropics.

I never really paid attention to cuts back home – they inevitably healed up without my intervention. But I’ve become an iodine nazi now, swabbing antibiotics every 2 hours and changing bandages twice a day. Because infected cuts ain’t fun!!

Equally important is HOW you pack your backpack. Remember this: plastic bags are your friend.

Put your tops and dress in one bag. Put your bottoms in another. Bring another plastic bag for dirty clothes. Bring zip-locks for your chargers, USB, makeup, first aid kit, and other miscellaneous items. When you arrive in your ganky-ass hostel, this will save you from having to dig up the entire contents of your backpack to find your swimsuit, only to repack it hastily upon departure. Just remove the plastic bags and put them back in once you have to go. Easy!

Now you are ready to go on an adventure.*

*And by adventure, I mean hanging out with drunken British teenagers on their gap year.

How to Make Apple Pie For the First Time

Lingbo Li — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 07:36:58 +0000

When I do something for the first time, I usually do a bit of research to make sure I’m doing it right. My first foray in pie-making – hell, baking in general – was great because I realized that baking isn’t some scary, landmine-ridden challenge. Somehow, people build it up to be a lot more intimidating than it actually is.

Making a pie is fairly involved (a lot of letting things chill in the fridge), but if you follow a few basic tricks and rules of thumb, the end product ends up totally agreeable. The most important is to keep the butter and/or shortening cold, and to not overwork the dough. This is to preserve those little lumps of fat streaked throughout, which will melt in the oven and result in that coveted tender/flaky pie crust.

I left California earlier this week, and am cooking in my friend’s mom’s kitchen out in the ‘burbs of Buffalo, NY. It is a somewhat improbable place to go on my year off, but has done wonders for skills cooking American classics (my friend Nick is wary of Asian dishes) and maintaining my San Francisco time difference. I just took a pie out of the oven at 2:30am and am blogging this at 3:15 am.

I had dinner at Nick’s friend’s house tonight. She served us a lovely California Cabernet and beef bourguignon over egg white noodles with freshly baked popovers. Her mother was a whippersnapper of an 81 year old who still ran her own business and gave many tips on baking the perfect pie.

I used a vodka pie crust recipe from America’s Test Kitchen, using a pastry cutter rather than a food processor. (Check out their new blog, America’s Test Kitchen Feed!) I precooked the filling (recipe) based on the pie expert’s advice, since the apples were a bit tart, but wished I had cooked them a few minutes less. I threw in brown sugar and extra cinnamon, just because. The filling ended up very soft while the crust browned too fast on top and remained a tad undercooked.

Still, I’m pretty proud of the finished product. The kitchen smells delicious, my friend Jason gave it his programmer’s grunt of approval from behind his setup of monitors, and it’s not bad for Pie Numero Uno.

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.

Should Cafes Ask Customers to Leave?

Lingbo Li — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 06:04:28 +0000

My favorite cafe asked me to leave last week. For the second time.

I’ll tell you why I feel sad: when I first found Crema Cafe two years ago, I fell in love. I spent so much time there, my sweaters absorbed its scent, an inexorable melange of lattes, carbs, and indie-pop Pandora playlists. The owners described it as a place between home and work; I took that quite literally. I proudly told my friends I was considering moving in.

Over the past two years, I’ve spent so many happy hours in that cafe. I love bringing my laptop to do work on the upstairs level. I’ve forcibly dragged friends there and bought them my favorites, just so they could be converted. I’ve blogged about them, plugged them on Serious Eats, posted photos to various food sites. When I signed up for Mint.com, I budgeted a very liberal portion for “coffee.”

If you ask me for restaurant recommendations, you’ll likely hear raves about their turkey-avocado-jicama-slaw sandwich or their baked-fresh-from-scratch pastries.

So I disappointed when I was asked to leave during a busy Saturday afternoon to make room for other customers. I’d been there for a little over 2 hours with my laptop, and had planned on taking a seat closer to a wall outlet when one of the owners stepped in. (I had polished off a medium coffee and a chicken sandwich.) He had promised that table to another customer; since I had headphones on, I hadn’t seen the line forming behind me.

He was apologetic. As I was leaving, he apologized again. And this was the second time – a month before, a different owner had asked me to leave, but relented when I bought another sandwich. I’ve generally tried to share my table or buy another pastry during marathon study sessions, but I know I’ve overstayed my welcome in the past.

And I understand why they’re taking a more aggressive tack. Mostly. They charge reasonable prices for freshly made food. They have high labor costs and rent; they depend on table turnover and volume to pay the bills. I ended up chatting that owner for about an hour about the trials of the business world and how to solve the problem of being too popular.

I’m happy Crema has done well. It clearly has no problem attracting loyal customers and long lines. But I’m disappointed that the same place that I cheered for and championed feels that its success is dependent on asking me to leave. Are the two really at odds?

Perhaps this Seth Godin (a well-known marketer) post about “best customers” summarizes some of how I’m feeling:

If you define “best customer” as the customer who pays you the most, then I guess it’s not surprising that the reflex instinct is to charge them more. After all, they’re happy to pay.

But what if you define “best customer” as the person who brings you new customers through frequent referrals, and who sticks with you through thick and thin? That customer, I think, is worth far more than what she might pay you in any one transaction. In fact, if you think of that customer as your best marketer instead, it might change everything.

If you’re a cafe lover, do you think cafe owners should ask customers who have finished eating to leave?

Cafe owners, how do you deal with slow table turnover?

This is the Pancake of Your Wet Dreams.

Lingbo Li — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 03:56:31 +0000

Google “pancake recipe” and you get nearly 3 million results. How do you sort through the mess, if you’re just lusting after a syrup-sodden flapjack of joy?

Enter MyStack. This is an entirely fictional Pancake Search Engine – the Google of pancake recipes – that allows you to delicately tweak ingredients, mix-ins, calories, and costs. It even calculates whether a pancake is qualitatively “sweet” “hearty” or “fluffy” using ingredient ratios.

Its backend, if it were ever built, would feature a hell of a lot of data parsing, web scraping, and hopefully tap into existing recipe database APIs, should they be made available.

Again, this website does not actually exist. I drew up this mockup in Photoshop (in a record 1.5 hours) for my CS171 Data Visualization class.

The Pancake Challenge prompt:

Mon Feb 7 – The Pancake Recipe Challenge

Google the words “pancake recipe,” and you will get more than 1 million hits. Looking more closely, there are actually many ways to make such a simple thing as pancakes.

In this exercise, we want each breakout group to pick some tasks that have to do with the variety of pancake recipes and to sketch a visualization that supports as many of these tasks as possible. The list of possible tasks includes, among others:

I have some ingredients at home, which pancake recipe can I make?

Which is the most diet friendly recipe?

What recipe will require the least amount of money?

How will pancakes turn out for the difference recipes? Taste? Texture?

To what extent do recipes vary? How much deviation is in the various quantities?

I am making pancakes — I wonder what recipe my friends recommend?

You can also come up with your own tasks. Note that the data is many pancake recipes and not just one, so your interface should scale to billions of pancake recipes (just kidding – but you get the point). At the end, you will present your design to the class and explain how the visual elements and possible user interactions are supporting the tasks you chose.

Unfortunately, I’m going to be out of town on Monday when the project is due.

This probably the one time I’ve ever wanted to present my homework… but I figured I’d let it into the wilds of the Internet, in case anyone wants to build the mythical MyStack and turn it into syrupy reality. (Slice and dice the full size mockup here.) What the hell, let’s throw in a handful of blueberries and add “tortilla” to the database.

1am at IHOP in Harvard Square

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.”

Pardon the dust – we’re redesigning!

Lingbo Li — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 16:55:25 +0000

If you’ve seen this site going through more makeovers than Madonna on fast forward, it’s because I’ve been experimenting with the layout for the past week. To go magazine style or not magazine style? Slideshow feature box or no slideshow feature box? These are the kinds of questions that occupy my mind.

Not to fret, we’ll be back to regular functioning capacity as soon as my mind does. Which is no real guarantee of anything. But you wouldn’t be reading my blog if you were looking for that. Because you know, it’s not happening. Anyway – I have a lot of food photos to share. So how about it:

My new obsession: Dorado Tacos‘ (in Brookline, on Harvard Ave) fish taco. This is their fried fish taco, holding a tender, golden-crisp core of Atlantic pollock set off with salsa fresca and Baja crema. Did I mention it’s very pretty, too?

Give it a good squirt of lime, pair it with some chicken tortilla soup, and you’re ready to GO PUBLIC. Er. I mean. CONQUER THE WORLD.

That would be this.

Here’s the pho from Xinh Xinh in Chinatown. I was more taken with their “goi du du” – papaya salad with shrimp – that came with three shrimp chips (those things that look like delicious disks of styrofoam) and chopped peanuts. But the pho made for a more sensual viewing experience.

More pics from Davis Square’s Journeyman if I muster up the energy later (no guarantees!!!) but here’s a sneak peek anyway – an endive, black rice, and steak from a 5 course meal at the unusual restaurant. It’s located in an an alley. It’s started by food industry n00bs. (Adorable n00bs!) And you can only order 3 to 7 course set menus. Dat’s right.

I highly recommend skipping the reservation and just sitting at the bar, where you get to directly face the open kitchen. That means the chef can literally look up and ask you, “So, any of you allergic to clams?” Priceless.

Because emotions are meant to be eaten.

Lingbo Li — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 22:08:52 +0000

I am happy to announce the beta launch of Shouldn’t Have Eaten, a website dedicated to …

things you shouldn’t have eaten.

The possibilites are endless.

Here are some of my favorites from real, live users so far:

the Hell Pasta with ghost chiles. Both my stomach (and my toilet) would be happier if I hadn’t.

an entire gallon of egg nog. I walked around the whole with Christmas joy and mild shame in my stomach.

One. Pound. Of. Almonds. In a day. Fucking Costco. Besides the nausea, what comes in most go out…

We’re moderating submissions for now, to keep the quality up (and spam down) so send us your best stuff.

We want this to be the pulse of America’s guilty obsession with food. To shine a light on a twisted cultural pysche. To expose guilt at the bacon-saturated grassroots.

And we want you to be a part of it.

Shouldn’t Have Eaten: what shouldn’t go in your stomach goes here.

For the nerdy: site coded from scratch in PHP and MySQL, voting and read more functions in Ajax. My partner, Shervin, did a really terrific job in the little time we had to pull this together. I did the graphic design in Photoshop and UI, so yell at me if something sucks and I’ll try to fix it. Stylistic stuff is basic HTML/CSS, a bit of Javascript. Stock photos taken from sxc.hu. Font is Museo Slab. I love me some slab serifs.

I’m very open to hearing critical feedback, since I’d love for this to take off and to improve on the original site (which was put together in 2-3 days total with a partner for my CS50 final project), so shoot me feedback!

Eating Toro’s beef hearts; Ken Oringer

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

Meet Felice, Creator of the World’s First Linux Birthday Cake

Lingbo Li — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:16:43 +0000

My roommate Felice is neither a typical Harvard student nor a typical pastry maker. When I first saw her, she was powder pale, with a green mohawk, combat boots, and no eyebrows. This will be interesting, I thought. Maybe we can do each other’s makeup.

We lived together entirely by accident – my roommate and I at the time were looking for some more people to make a room of 5. She gamely agreed.

Felice turned out to be the brainy lovechild of a punk rock Betty Page and The Odyssey’s Homer. In between translating ancient Greek texts for her senior thesis and poring over orgo homework, she watched a constant stream of L-word spinoffs and brutal slasher flicks.

One day, she’ll be a surgeon, a programmer’s wife, and proud mommy of the cutest pet rats ever.

Felice and her boyfriend, Yuvi Masory, hacker extraordinaire

Felice ended up being my favorite roommate my strange, wild junior year. The five of us in that doomed rooming group were an unlikely melange of misfits – “a flophouse” she aptly described it – and it wasn’t long before chaos swept our cinder block duplex.

One by one, like an Agatha Christie mystery, the room fell apart.

One girl left, amidst a swirl of unanswered questions. And then there were four.

For the rest of us, latent problems became crises. Annoyances became vendettas. I was literally scared to return my room, and when I did, I locked the door and braced myself for collateral damage. By spring semester, the bickering reached a fever pitch.

I spent most of my semester either in class or hopping from one food event to another, spending more time in Boston in a month than most Harvard undergrads do in all four years.

And then there were three.

Felice ended up being the mediator; her room was the bunker, the common room was no man’s land. After she listened to everyone’s problems with saintly patience, we laughed about the black comedy unfolding. In between complaints, I wrote my anthropology essays in her room decorated with 50′s pinups and queer icons as she Skyped her long distance boyfriend.

In a school where people frequently hide their insecurity beneath a shiny veneer of ambition, Felice was refreshingly genuine about both. She didn’t dye her hair funny colors because of some calculated counter culture attempt. She just liked dying her hair.

And she understood, perhaps better than anyone else I’ve met, about what it means to feel profoundly, deeply different without apology. She was silly and joyful about her quirks and didn’t bother to hide them.

She doesn’t collect business cards. (While I have so many lining my tote bag.) She has the same insecurities like everyone else, but doesn’t fall to unwitting flashes of cruelty when she feels down. It’s refreshing.

So when she takes a stab at baking, it is infused with an equally individualistic sensibility.

Yes, that’s a birthday candle betwixt her rouged lips.

For her programmer boyfriend’s birthday, Felice made her favorite stalwart Linux enthusiast a cake shaped like the operating system’s logo. Earlier, we had dropped by IHOP for dinner while he showed me his flashcard generator program, executable via the command line interface.

Different can be beautiful, and delicious.