Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings is filled with major thoughts. From an Asian-American lens, Hong provides a clear-eyed view on race and racism in America. Hong breaks down complex issues with her impeccable prose. Her investigative profile of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, in particular, is heartbreaking. I want to get my hands on Cha’s Dictee. Reading Hong’s personal, historical, and analytical accounts, I am glad that she represents Asian Americans. We need more voices like her. This collection of essays is a must read not just for Asian Americans, but anyone who is interested in the race issues in America. She is a damn good writer and thinker.

Sớm mai thức giấc, nhìn quanh bực mình. Hôm qua nay cảm giác căng thẳng và chán chường. Việc công và tư chồng chất lên nhau. Thiếu ngủ nên tinh thần càng thêm não nề. Nghĩ đến đường đời càng lúc càng vô vị. Cha mẹ mới ngày nào đó mà đã lần lượt ra đi. Người bị ung thư. Người bị nhiễm dịch.

Sống trong âu lo để làm gì rồi kết cuộc cũng chỉ trở về cát bụi. Biết như thế nhưng vì trách nhiệm và bổn phận nên cũng phải ráng phấn đấu. Trong tôi dường như lúc nào cũng mỏi mệt và mỏi mòn. Tôi không chịu được áp lực trong cuộc sống. Tôi thiếu tự tin càng không khéo dùng bàn tay. Ngoài làm vi tính, tôi không làm được những việc khác. Lại không khá giả cho lắm để thuê người khác làm.

Nói tóm lại là những áp lực không lớn nhưng đã khiến tôi lo lắng. Không biết những áp lực lớn sẽ ra sao. Tôi không thể nào quay lưng đi được. Thôi thì chấp nhận vậy. Tới đâu hay đến đó. Tôi đã quá mỏi mệt và trái tim vẫn không ngủ yên.

After more than a decade of using an outdated calendar system for the law school, we have finally switched to a modern calendar system using WordPress. When it comes to calendar, WordPress has tons of choices to choose from. After some researching and experimenting, I selected The Events Calendar plugin.

The Events Calendar has a simple interface that is integrated with WordPress’s UI. It also has a decent layout that adapts well with our existing theme. It took me a few hours to set up and moved the events over. The nice thing about being powered by WordPress is that we can invite law school members to post their own events instead of sending them to us.

My supervisor is happy with the new calendar. We can finally sunset the expensive and outdated system. I am not sure why we waited this long. I should have take the lead and just do it. Take a look.

After seven months, my mother’s monument had finally arrived and had been installed at her gravesite last Tuesday. I was anxious and nervous. I prayed that it would turn out the way I had expected. We had worked so hard on the design and I wanted to make sure that every detail was correct. On Sunday, I took my family to visit her grave and I was relieved that her monument turned out perfect. The black granite headstone shipped from India looked gorgeous. The smooth, curvy shapes added a nice touch to the headstone. The heart-shaped jade was firmly recessed into the stone with epoxy. Finally, the typesetting was excellent.

When I shopped around for my mother’s monument, I needed someone not only I could trust but also someone with patience and understanding. Even though we had to paid a bit more, I went with Heritage Monuments, which is a division of Charles F. Snyder Funeral Home that provided exceptional funeral service for my mother. I worked closely with Kathy Snyder Guidos who was very patience and understanding, especially when it came to typesetting.

At first, I did not understand the process; therefore, I wanted to set the text with Queens, designed by Sebastian Losch, to match the tribute website I had created for my mother. It turned out that I couldn’t use any typeface I wanted. I had to choose one of the typefaces from the catalog. I went with Garamond, but it didn’t work either because I wanted to set the text in a block. The only typeface that could accommodate the block was Modified Roman, which is a modified version of Time New Roman. Ms. Guidos and I went back and forth countless of iterations to make sure the alignment, the words, and the Vietnamese diacritics were correct. I didn’t want to be an annoying client, but Ms. Guidos had reassured me that they won’t start the project until I was completely satisfied with the design. I was grateful for her accommodation.

In addition to the text, I wanted to include a heart-shaped jade (my mother used to wear) on the headstone. Ngọc (Jade) was her middle name and my cousin, Karen Huỳnh, had shared an important detail about Jade. She wrote:

[W]hen our grandfather (her Dad) gave her the middle name, 玉 (Yù) in Chinese, translated to Ngọc in Vietnamese, he had in effect shaped her person, inscribed, etched, and carved her personality, character, and temperament. This beautiful name 玉 (Yù) or Ngọc means Jade in Chinese. In Chinese tradition and culture, 玉 (Yù) represents “fair, pure, and graceful (as in a woman).” Your Mom is the embodiment of these wonderful qualities… Looking back at your Mom’s life, I believe that her life experiences undeniably reflect the qualities of jade described above. What a special precious gem your Mom was! As a person, as a daughter, as a mother, as a grandmother, as an aunt, she truly lived a life befitting the name, 玉 (Yù).

I cried with tears of joy that her monument turned out well. It was the last thing I could do for her. I love her and miss her everyday.

Ten years ago, Kanye West and Jay-Z put out a monumental collaboration. Watch the Throne has top-notch productions as well as lyrical substances. For his part, Jay-Z proved to be a lyrical genius. Kanye West who played the role of curating the beats also stepped up his word game. He landed punchlines in almost every song. I started noticed his wordplay on “No Church in the Wild,” in which he rhymed:

When we die, the money we can’t keep
But we’ll probably spend it all ’cause the pain ain’t cheap.

No money can cure the pain, but Kanye also played on “pain” as in expensive champagne. On “Niggas in Paris,” he bragged about being real:

Doctors say I’m the illest ’cause I’m suffering from realness.

The contrast yet similarity between “illest” and “realness” worked well together. On “Otis,” Kanye responded to Jay-Z’s line, “I got five passports, I’m never going to jail,” with:

I made ‘Jesus Walk,’ I’m never going to hell
Couture-level flow is never going on sale
Luxury rap, the Hermès of verses
Sophisticated ignorance, write my curses in cursive.

The reference to the record that made called ‘Jesus Walk’ was just brilliant. I am also impressed that Kanye knew about typeface classification called cursive. On “New Day,” Kanye addressed his son:

And I’ll never let my son have an ego
He’ll be nice to everyone wherever we go
I mean, I might even make him be Republican
So everybody know he love white people.

“New Day” is a heartfelt record, in which he told his son not to do the things he had done like when he addressed George Bush on TV after hurricane Katrina:

And I’ll never let him ever hit the telethon
I mean, even if people dyin’ and the world ends

Or when Kanye provided his son advise on love:

And I’ll never let him ever hit a strip club
I learned the hard way, that ain’t the place to get love.

It could a swipe at Amber Rose, but he sounded genuine. Kanye never shied away from offending white people and strippers. If he is a racist, he admitted it on “Who Gon Stop Me”:

Heard Yeezy was racist, well, I guess that’s on one basis
I only like green faces.

Kanye doesn’t give a fuck about any race except green faces. Then he went hard as a motherfucker on “H.A.M.”:

And if life’s a bitch, bet she sucked my dick, huh
And I bet she fucked the whole clique, huh

Kanye compared life to a bitch; therefore, two bars above were not intended to be sexually explicit. Just when I thought he was not being misogynist asshole, he dropped two vulgar lines:

Had a few white girls, asses flat as shit
But the head’s so good, damn, a nigga glad he hit.

No wait, he actual referred to white girls as cocaine and not as sexual objects. On “Joy,” he injected another wordplay:

I never understood Planned Parenthood
‘Cause I never met nobody planned to be a parent in the hood.

That’s a good one. Kanye had proved that he is witty as fuck. I am sure his new release, Donda, is filled with witty punchlines. I just haven’t had a chance to get my hand on the album yet.

I was in Vietnam when my mom called. She asked me, “Haven’t you heard what happened?” I replied, “No.” She said, “The terrorists crashed airplanes into two tall buildings in New York.” I was numbed and devastated. I couldn’t recall what we talked about after that.

Then it was all over newspapers and TVs in Vietnam. It was the topic at restaurants and coffee shops. I listened to family, friends, and strangers talking about it, but I had nothing to say. I was in my homeland, and yet I missed my home in America. Even though I just went back to Vietnam for the first time since I migrated to the U.S. a decade earlier, I wanted to go home to America to grieve with my fellow Americans.

A few months before the tragic attack, I graduated from college, but couldn’t find a job in web design. I took a trip back to Vietnam to see my dad and to see if I could make a change with my life. The 9-11 tragedy made me realize that I was an American. Vietnam had become my past. America was where my heart was. I went back to America to start my career and my life.

Twenty years have gone by, but the memories will always remain. We will never forget the deadliest terrorist attack on our soil. It broke us, but also brought us together and made us stronger as a nation. Our skin color and our political view didn’t matter. We were the United States of America.

Unfortunately, we’re now deeply divided as if we’re living in the same place but in a different universe. I hope that the twentieth anniversary of this tragic event reminds us that we can still come together despite our differences.

A few months ago, I ordered some pickled cucumbers to complement a glass of drafted hard mango cider. I didn’t know what it was called, but I loved the crunchiness of the cucumbers with a slightly sweet and sour flavor. It went well with the drink.

Last week, I wanted to recreate something like that, but with bitter melon instead. I searched for Korean pickled cucumbers and came across this video on YouTube. I modified the recipe a bit and made two batches of pickled bitter melons. In addition to the crunchy and vinegary taste, I loved the bittersweet flavor from the melon. It might not be suitable for anyone who can’t handle the bitter taste, but that is the reason I made it.

Ingredients

• 3 bitter melons
• 2 tablespoons of sea salt
• 1 teaspoon of purée garlic
• 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
• 1.5 tablespoon of honey
• .25 teaspoon of lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 3 chilly peppers
• 1 tablespoon of chopped green scallions
• 1 cup of water

Split the bitter melon in half, scrape the seeds off with a spoon, and slice them into big chunks. Place the chopped pieces into a big bowl, add 2 tablespoons of sea salt, and mix them up. Set it aside for 15 to 20 minutes.

In another bowl, add purée garlic, apple cider vinegar, honey, lemon zest, salt, chili peppers, scallions, and water. Stir everything up well and sprinkle some freshly ground black peppers. Taste to your liking.

Rinse the bitter melons with cold water to remove the salt, place them in a container, and pour in the liquid. Let it sit in the fridge for 12 hours. Enjoy!

I launched a webpage to provide a space for the law school community to reflect on September 11, 2001. Some heartfelt recollections have been posted. Amy Sarina writes:

As a country, we vowed to never forget but America has forgotten. I remember a sense of unity and togetherness after 9/11. That’s not the America I feel today and the insurrection on January 6th reinforced my feeling of despair for this country. “We will never forget” – I feel so alone in those words. America has forgotten. Cognitively as a country, we remember for history’s sake. But it isn’t in our bones and in isn’t in our spirit anymore.

I have similar sentiment.

Cuối tuần vừa rồi gia đình qua nhà chị vợ ăn tối. Chị nướng nguyên con gà nhìn hấp dẫn. Vừa đặt lên bàn ăn thì thằng cháu cắt ngay hay cái đùi gà cho vào đĩa không cần biết bà ngoại và những người lớn xung quanh. Con nít không ai trách cả. Là vai trò người chú, tôi định góp ý với nó nhưng thấy cha mẹ nó im lặng để thằng con thưởng thức cặp đùi gà nên tôi cũng không lên tiếng.

Chiều hôm qua bà xã nướng một khúc cá hồi nhìn khá hấp dẫn, nhất là miếng da giòn rụm. Vừa đem lên bàn thằng Đán lấy ngay miếng da cho vào chén. Tôi nói với nó rằng con cắt một miếng thôi hoặc con hỏi bà ngoại, ba mẹ có ai ăn không cho con xin. Dĩ nhiên người lớn sẽ nhường cho con nhưng con phải hỏi. Nó giận lẫy bỏ lại cả miếng da và chỉ ăn cơm trắng với nước mắt. Tôi cũng mặc kệ nó.

Ngày xưa mẹ thường nhắc nhở tôi khi ăn phải nhìn trước ngó sau, nhất là khi có người lớn. Lúc lấy đồ ăn cũng phải để ý đến người khác. Tuy lúc còn nhỏ không hiểu lắm nhưng tôi cũng làm theo lời mẹ dặn. Lớn lên hiểu được những gì mẹ dạy là lễ phép và tế nhị. Dù ở Mỹ hay ở Việt Nam, chúng ta cần phải có ý thức tuy giờ đây thức ăn không thiếu thốn.

Lúc hè, tôi trò chuyện với cô giáo dạy kèm cho thằng Đán. Tuy là người Mỹ nhưng cô vẫn nhắc nhở nó rằng khi ra đời nó là người đại diện cho cha mẹ. Những biểu hiện của nó sẽ phản ánh đến người lớn. Tôi cảm ơn cô đã thay thế tôi dạy dỗ cho nó không chỉ những bài học trong trường mà luôn cả những ý thức trong đời sống.

Last Friday, a new version of Loretta, designed by Abel Martins and Joana Correia, landed in my inbox. When I found out that the latest release supports Vietnamese, I was ecstatic. I have invested in a handful of typefaces from FutureFonts, but Loretta is the first completed family with Vietnamese diacritics.

Of course, I wanted to put Loretta to use and this blog is the perfect place for it. To complement Loretta, I immediately thought of Captura Now, designed by Anita Jürgeleit. Captura Now is also one of my recent acquisitions. When I combined them, they looked great together.

For this new design, I wanted to simplify the layout to just one narrow column with generous white space. But then I decided to bring in photography for a change. I played around with Unsplash Source to load random images that are related to typography. This direction brings back the good old days of web design, especially for blogs.

I hope you enjoy this new design and continue to read my rants.