Robin Riddle writes:

So websites can be serious things; we can turn them into great wells for us to cast our anxieties into, or stress balls for us to relieve the pressure of our lives. But a website can also be a delicately wrapped bundle of words and colors, with the express purpose only to make someone you love smile.

I love Robin’s perspective on creating website as a gift for someone you love. Although I design websites for a living, I also enjoy crafting small pages for friends, family members, colleagues, and acquaintances. Let’s take a trip down to the memory lane to see what I had designed as gifts.

As far back as I can remember, I designed the very first website for La Salle University’s Multicultural and International Center, where I did my work study. It was a gift for Ms. Cherylyn L. Rush, my mentor and former supervisor. Ms. Rush is still holding down the spot 20 years after I graduated. I still remember the distinctive homepage, which was a collage of faces from different ethnicities. It was inspired by a poster Ms. Rush had on the wall in her office.

One of my favorite spots at La Salle was the art collection in the Art Museum even though I was clueless about art. As a design student, I knew if I could get this site on my portfolio I would have no problem getting clients and jobs. I approached the director and chief curator of the museum to let me redesign its boring website. I told her it would be my gift to the school. She was grateful to hand over the keys (FTP) to the server. I remember the site was color coded to showcase different rooms and collections.

When La Salle’s Digital Arts first launched, I wanted to get into the program even though I knew nothing about arts and digital. Without any design foundation, I dived right in. When most of my classmates were learning Photoshop and Illustrator, I took up Flash. The combination of animation, music, and graphics made Flash an ideal tool at the time. When DArt needed a website to promote its program, I was chosen to design it. It was a gift for the program that launched my career.

In the summer during my college years, I often visited the Upward Bound office at Millersville University. The program had a website, but it was outdated. I asked Ms. Doris Cross, the director of the program and my mentor, to allow me to redesign the site as a gift for the program that gave me the opportunity to pursue my career in design. I was into Flash at the time; therefore, I created a fun intro with music loops, text effects, and photos of kids in the program. When I showed it to Ms. Cross, she danced to it and called all of her staff members into her office to check it out. It was such a wonderful feeling to see my work made them smile.

One of my favorite websites I designed and still maintained is I Love Ngọc Lan. It was a gift to the fans of one of the beloved Vietnamese singers whose life got cut short by multiple sclerosis. Like many of her fans around the world, I loved Ngọc Lan’s angelic voice as well as her breathtaking beauty. Even though she had passed away 20 years ago, her music is still alive today.

A couple of years ago when Jim Van Meer, a dear friend and former classmate from the graduate graphic design program at George Mason, started his own agency, he tapped me to create the website for him. Thinkpoint Creative was a gift for him and a collaboration between us.

A few months ago, I designed and developed the Educational Partnerships for Success website for Ms. Joy Tiên who is my life-long mentor. Ms. Tiên and I go all the way back to the Upward Bound program. She has helped many immigrant kids like myself succeeded in our educational endeavor. This little gift is to show my appreciation for her compassionate work.

When I chose Vietnamese Typography as my thesis to earn a master of arts in graphic design, I wanted to make it freely available; therefore, I chose the platform I know best. I created this website as a gift to the type community so they can support my native language. I hope I had played a small role in the increasing support for Vietnamese in the type community.

I wrote Professional Web Typography as an independent study for my MA program in graphic design. I chose the web as publishing platform and as a gift to the web community.

For my personal projects, I created a webpage as a gift for my kids to celebrate the day they were born. It is also a place I can look up quickly when I need their birth dates to fill out forms. In opposite to celebrate life, I also created tribute websites to honor those loved ones I lost. I created a tribute site for my father-in-law when he passed away in 2012. He had stage-four lung cancer. I created a tribute page for my father when he passed last year. He had stage-four pancreatic cancer. A month later, I created a tribute site for my mother. She passed away after a brutal battle with COVID-19.

As Robin pointed out, websites can be made “to make someone you love smile.” I know my parents and father-in-law are smiling down on me from heaven.

After reading about the rampage shootings that killed eight people including six Asian-American women, I was devastated. I needed to talk to someone and I knew the exact person to call. I reached out to my cousin who is a gun owner to seek his advice on how to get one for myself.

We talked for an hour. As he explained the laws and the mechanical details, I furiously took notes. From the sound of the gunshots to the smell of the gun smokes to the type of Glocks to the design of Critical Defense ammunition, the knowledge he passed on me filled with passion and enthusiasm. He often reminded me to “respect the gun.”

Although we have completely different perspectives on politics and policies, we have tremendous respect for each other. Over tequila shots and delicious Vietnamese dishes, we discussed openly about our positions during our late-night gatherings at our in-law’s annual family reunions. We could never convince each other, but we agreed to disagree.

Unlike him, I hate guns and I had never thought of owning a weapon, but I feel the need to protect myself and my family in this critical moment as violence against Asian Americans is rising and deadly. I urge all Asian Americans to do the same. If you’re qualified and eligible to own a gun, give it a shot. Asian-American women, in particular, need to protect themselves and guns give them the equal power in these life-and-death situations.

Let’s face the reality. Asian-American communities are one of the most vulnerable minorities in America. Even after eight lives were murdered, the cop said that the killer was just having a bad day. He was just a poor white guy with sex addiction. Get the fuck out the here. Sex is part of American culture as apple pie. From music to movies to media to magazines, sex is everywhere you turn to. In fact, most American men suffer sex addiction. There was an incident in which a writer at a respected publication caught jerking off during a Zoom staff meeting. Even a famous athlete had to seek therapy for his sex addition. For poor sex addicts, Pornhub is freely available 24/7. If you can’t control your sex addiction, get help. Don’t use sex addiction as an excuse to murder innocent people.

Let’s call the senseless killings for what they were—hate crimes. They were the results of white privilege fueled with sexism and racism. Until America can come together to #StopAsianHate, we need to continue to raise our voice and protect ourselves.

Jiayang Fan writes for the New Yorker:

A senseless massacre can be painfully clarifying about the state of a country. As the killing of George Floyd and countless other African-Americans have made clear, structural racism has become simultaneously mundane and pathological. The incendiary rhetoric of a racist former President combined with the desperation stoked by an unprecedented pandemic has underscored the precariousness of a minority’s provisional existence in the U.S. To live through this period as an Asian-American is to feel defenseless against a virus as well as a virulent strain of scapegoating. It is to feel trapped in an American tragedy while being denied the legitimacy of being an American.

May Jeong writes for the New York Times:

[T]he Asian woman became an object of hatred, and lust, a thing to loathe, then desire, the distance between yellow peril and yellow fever measured in flashes.

Việt Thanh Nguyễn and Janelle Wong write for the Washington Post:

Still, history tells us something important: The experience of racial discrimination does not happen for any group in isolation; white supremacy depends on pitting people of color against one another so they do not see their shared cause. Racial profiling does not stem from the same stereotypes for Asian Americans, Black people, Muslims and other groups, but it serves a common purpose — to define who is essential and who belongs to the nation. The case of Asian Americans shows the varied ways in which the boundaries of belonging are enforced through old ideas that circulate over generations. The best way to keep Asian Americans safe is for the United States to improve its economy and promote global equality for everyone, without fearmongering about the countries their ancestors left.

Jennifer Ho writes for CNN:

To be an Asian woman in America means you can’t just be what you are: a fully enfranchised human being. It means you are a blank screen on which others project their stories, especially, too often, their sexualized fantasies—because US culture has long presented Asian women as sexualized objects for White male enjoyment.

This happened when Chinese immigrant women first came to the US in the 19th century, kidnapped or bought for sale in China and shipped to America, or tricked into sexual servitude when the domestic worker jobs they were promised disappeared and the only job they could get was to have sex with men for money. They did not get to keep the money. That went to the men who bound them, sometimes in cages—forcing them to have sex with men. Many of these women died of disease, malnourishment, and abuse without being released from their sexual servitude –that’s the founding story of Asian women in America.

Christine Ahn, Terry K Park and Kathleen Richards write for the Nation:

Shortly after the mass killing in Georgia—including six Asian women—earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced the violence, saying it “has no place in America or anywhere.” Blinken made the comments during his first major overseas trip to Asia with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, where Blinken warned China that the United States will push back against its “coercion and aggression,” and Austin cautioned North Korea that the United States was ready to “fight tonight.”

Yet such hawkish rhetoric against China—which was initially spread by Donald Trump and other Republicans around the coronavirus—has directly contributed to rising anti-Asian violence across the country. In fact, it’s reflective of a long history of US foreign policy in Asia centered on domination and violence, fueled by racism. Belittling and dehumanizing Asians has helped justify endless wars and the expansion of US militarism. And this has deadly consequences for Asians and Asian Americans, especially women.

R.O. Kwon writes for Vanity Fair:

We’ve had to yell so loudly to even get national media and politicians to begin to believe there might be a real problem. I wept, as many of you did, the day last March when the previous president started calling it a “Chinese virus,” because we knew exactly what would happen as a result, the hatred those paired words would incite. We have been told this is new, that we haven’t really experienced racism, all while our entire existence in this country has been twisted, shaped, and contorted by forces like the 1875 Page Act, which halted the immigration of Chinese women on the stated pretext that they, we, were immoral. Were temptations. All while the Asia–ravaging forces of white supremacy, imperialism, and colonialism drove our people here, to this land our ancestors would not recognize.

May-Lee Chai writes for the LA Times:

The fact that Asian women are punished for the ways white supremacy hypersexualizes our bodies is not unfamiliar to me. I was 13 or 14 years old when white veterans first started coming up to me to tell me stories of the sex workers in Asia. When I complained to my mother, who was white, she would get angry at me, for complaining. “Oh, they like you!” she said. When I shared this story with other white women in college, they reacted with envy, “It’s not fair! They think you’re exotic.”

Pawan Dhingra writes for the Conversation:

There is a long history of suspecting Asian Americans of carrying disease into the U.S., which made it seem natural for people to avoid Asian American-owned businesses. President Donald Trump’s repeated public declarations that the “Kung Flu” virus came from China reinforced those feelings.

This race-based and erroneous assumption has resulted in Asian Americans having among the highest unemployment rates in the nation, though they had among the lowest before the pandemic.

It’s a fucked-up joke on mental issues. I worry that the glorified violence in this film could motivate real-life shootings, particularly the white supremacists. Having said that, I greatly enjoyed Joaquin Phoenix’s performance.

When I changed Vương’s diaper last Monday night, I discovered his penis was swelling. I freaked out and called his pediatrician. One of the on-call nurses advised me to take him to the children emergency room. My wife and I brought him in around 11 PM. The infection didn’t seem to bother him. He behaved well in the ER. He was diagnosed with Balanoposthitis. We didn’t get home until 1:30 AM. We were not sure how he got it, but we were thankful that he was doing fine.

I realize that I haven’t written about our him in a while. He’s two and a half years old now. He still smiles often. Because he is always surrounded by his older brothers, he develops fast. He talks a lot and can form complete sentences. He wants to join his older brothers with whatever they are into. As a result, he skips all the activities for his age. For example, he doesn’t play with toy trains like his brothers used to. On the other hand, he’s too young to ice skate; therefore, he often stayed with his mom while the rest of us hit the rink. I tried to train him, but he wanted to get out of the rink as soon as I put him in. I’ll reintroduce him when he’s ready.

With the pandemic, we haven’t thought about enrolling him into daycare. With my mother-in-law’s help, we have managed to keep the kids home. He enjoys being around his brothers and cousins. Just witnessing him play, laugh, and grow has helped me getting through the challenging time. He helped me stay grounded. I can’t do anything for my parents, but I definitely can do something for my kids. They are the focus of my life. They are the reason I have to move forward. I have the responsibility to raise them with the best of my ability and my resources. I don’t know how well they will turn out, but I hope that they can be happy with whatever direction they’ll heading into.

President Gregory Washington addresses the senseless act of violence in Atlanta:

To the Asian communities at George Mason University, I offer this: Mason is your home, and you are loved and supported here. Your safety and sense of belonging are of utmost importance to everyone. As always, our personnel are on watch to ensure your security and wellbeing, so you can resume what you came here to do: to simply learn, live, and grow to your fullest potential.

The day Dr. Washington became our president, he has been outspoken on racism. He has created the Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence to address these issues. I appreciate his effort and I am proud to be part of the Mason nation.

My heart breaks for our sisters who were murdered in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a hate crime fueled by white supremacy and racism against Asian Americans. We need to address these dangerous hates.

Since the pandemic, anti-Asian violence has escalated to 150%. Asian Americans across the country have been living in fear for being targeted. We have been mocked as the “Kung Flu.” We have been harassed in public. Our businesses have been vandalized. Our seniors have been attacked for simply walking on the streets in broad daylight. Our women have been sexualized, fantasized, beaten, and shot.

These hateful acts need to be condemned. Let’s come together as a nation to #stopAsianHate.

It’s only March and my blog has gone through three iterations. I am making changes to my website once a month. I can’t help myself. Whenever I acquired a new typeface, I want to put it to use immediately and my personal website is the perfect place to do so.

Last week I purchased Every, designed by Anita Jürgeleit, not only because it is such a damn fine typeface, but it also supports Vietnamese. I am setting the body text for this blog with Every Micro and I am using its thin instead of regular weight. It is a risky choice for readability, but I am going for it.

For the blog titles, I am using Job Clarendon, designed by David Jonathan Ross in collaboration with Bethany Heck. Job Clarendon is also released in March for Font of the Month Club. I always loved Clarendon and this interpretation is striking, especially its Vietnamese diacritics.

For user interface and small text, I am keeping Name Sans, designed by Stephen Nixon, from the previous iteration. I also keep Recursive Mono, also by Nixon, for coding samples.

The layout stays the same. Black text on white background for light mode and white text on black background for dark mode. There’s no switching button between dark and light mode. It all depends on the visitors’ preference set on their device.

Lastly, the wordmark has a bit of motion. A red light moves through each letter letters. I am just having fun with the SVG.

My wife said that I have way too much time on my hand. Of course, she’s being sarcastic. I was working on my website late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. It’s my passion as well as profession to keep my skills sharp.

Last Monday, my sister-in-law clogged her kitchen sink. After her husband tried to snake it unsuccessfully, he called a local plumber. When I asked them about the price, I was stunned. The plumber charged them $600 (with $100 discount) to unclog it. The process probably took less than half an hour.

Last Friday, a long-time client’s website broke. They asked me for help. After checking out their site, I predicted something went wrong with the SSL certificate. The browsers kept throwing out the unsafe warning. It took me several hours to figure out what happened. It turned out that their hosting provider had changed the DNS. The host sent out a notification, but my client ignored it. They didn’t realize it would affect their site. The host also installed a SSL self certificate, which caused the browsers to freak out.

I updated the DNS and replaced the self certificate with a Cloudflare certificate (Cloudflare rocks). When I fixed the issues and notified them, they simply replied with “thank you” without mentioning any compensation. I sat on it for a day and decided to send them the bill for my work. If a plumber charged $700 to fix an urgent issue, I shouldn’t feel bad charging the client for the time I put in. If the issues could be fixed in half an hour or less, I wouldn’t charge my client, especially if the client is just an individual. This particular client, however, is a small business. They can easily pay for the time I had spent fixing their website. I sent them the bill and they had no issue paying for it.

I am suck at doing business. That’s why my freelance gig hadn’t gone too well. I thought of doing freelance full time, but I will definitely fail. I don’t have the business mentality in me. I take on freelance projects because I am passionate about web design. I just don’t like the business side of it. I hesitated to charge for my services. When people charged me for their services, on the other hand, they showed no mercy.

I need to step up my game. If I am going to provide the services, I might as well get the pay I deserve. I didn’t charge $700 even for the several hours I spent. My price was very reasonable. I often hesitated to call a technician to the house because they would charge a ridiculous fee. As a result, I tried to fix it myself first via YouTube. A couple of years ago, a plumber inspected my house and recommended I replace three toilets. They were going to charge me $600 to $700 to replace each. I couldn’t afford to pay two grants to replace them and they were still working fine. I replaced one myself because it kept clogging up and I got tired of plunging it. I did it for the first time and the process was easy. A decent toilet cost around $150 to $200 and they were going to charge me $500 to $550 for an hour to replace a toilet. That’s simply crazy. I do not want my clients to feel that way; therefore, I tried to make it as fair as possible so my clients do not feel they were being ripped off.

I wish I could make the amount of money that I don’t have to to worry about paying for these types of services. I recalled the founder of Slack talked about the levels of wealths. The first level is when you don’t have to worry about paying bills like student loans and credit cards. The second level is when you don’t have to worry about the price at the restaurants. The third level is when you don’t have to worry about the price when you take vacations and travels. I don’t know where home-fixing services fit in, but they give me anxiety. Imagine if you make $10 an hour and you have to pay $700 for half an hour to unclog your kitchen sink. How do you justify something like that? I would just order from McDonald’s dollar menu until the damn sink unclogs itself.

Katherine Standefer’s life had changed completely when she was diagnosed with a genetic arrhythmia. She went from climbing mountains and teaching skiing to being inactive and carrying a defibrillator. Her experience living with a titanium box inside her body is so hard to read. In addition to her own health, Standefer writes about the environmental impact and the exploitation of low-pay workers to create the ICD device. Standefer also delves into the issue of our healthcare system and how her life could have been in jeopardy without Obamacare. The ending is quite shocking and I do not want to give it away. This is an eye-opening, heart-braking, and soul-crushing medical memoir. I love it and highly recommend it.