Niijima – Tokyo, the Island!

A small island off the coast of Tokyo, thats actually considered Tokyo. The small island was the perfect getaway for us high schoolers after an intense year.

We got there by boat, and once on the island, we walked with all our luggage for an hour to the campsite. We set up our tents, rented some bikes, and stayed there for three days, biking around the island and visiting beaches.

Mooncakes and My Grandpa

The other day, my mom brought moon cakes home. They tasted terrible, as most Chinese and Vietnamese things do in Japan. We hated how we couldn’t find a single true Vietnamese restaurant in Tokyo, so my dad opened his own restaurant last summer!

The classic Vietnamese beef and noodle soup

It’s called Little Saigon Kitchen in the Ueno/Okachimachi area and my daddy’s food is the best ever! (Here’s the link: http://hitosara.com/0006008551/) Anyway it made me miss my Chinese side of the family and it got me thinking about my grandpa, and, from what I heard, how he and my mom were all about mooncakes.

If my brother and I, or anybody in the Phu family tree, go to Saigon, the people there would take good care of us without question. My grandpa,  was a well respected figure in Saigon.

He once said, “Gi yao ko ka.” or “Wherever you go, go to a free country.” He fought in Chinese army during the revolution. His brother decided he hated China, and so he went and joined the Taiwanese army. To their surprise, they met at battle when his brother was about to be caught but my grandpa let him go. After his battle, on his way back home, there were villagers waiting for him telling him not to come home because the Red Army was there waiting for him. He immediately turned around and moved to Saigon, Viet Nam, now Ho Chi Minh but that’s what it was called before it became communist. There, he met my grandma and opened a restaurant. All the cooks in the other restaurants would have nobody but my grandpa cook their lamb because he was the best. He had all eight of his kids go to a private school, and on top of that, he built a public school for kids who weren’t very fortunate.

He had a huge sense of pride and knew how to make things right. During the Viet Nam war, he sent my dad and two of my uncles to America so they could help the rest of the family flee to America over time. Like them, there were many people trying to escape. My grand-uncle’s wife tricked some of these villagers by making a deal with them where if they paid her in advance, she’d hook them up with a ride out. Instead, she took all the money and escaped by herself with my grand-uncle. My grandpa repaid every last person who was played, even if some of them refused to accept the money, and he ended up broke.

He died in 1995 of lung cancer.

I haven’t had a chance to ever meet him, but I love him so much and I’m so proud of him.

Date A Girl Who Reads

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

– Rosemarie Urquico

I’m currently in love with this quote. I came across this just last night. It gives me a peaceful and beautiful image of what I would like to picture my life to be. I picture myself sitting by a window, with a cup of warm coffee, reading books that make me happy on quiet snowy morning. I want that kind of simple and happy life.

I actually do have a list of books that I wish to read. Here it is:
1. Looking for Alaska by John Green
2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
3. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
4. The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (again)
6. The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha
7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (current read)
8. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (actually finished this morning)
9. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (40 more pages)
10. Lord of the Rings Series by J.R.R. Tolkien

I can’t wait to get my hands on them!