year in review: 2019

Well, well, well, if it isn’t Y2K the sequel. This is now the second decade I’ve lived through, but even though 2000 was the end of a millennium, this one feels much more significant because I’m actually aware of the magnitude of the closure of the decade. I know it’s pretty arbitrary, but it just makes you pause and think a little bit more than the passage of any ordinary year would. When I think back to 2009, I remember a person that feels completely different from the person I am now. On a cellular level, you are a different person than you were seven years ago. That’s always so wild to me. I don’t remember too much from 2009—a lot of eyeliner and excitement at entering high school. But thinking about the decade in terms of numbers makes it all the more noteworthy.

Places I’ve called home: 4. San Diego, the idyllic coastal city I’ve always known and loved. Santa Barbara, the quiet beach town with a wild heart that I fell in love with for four wonderful years and still miss. Singapore, the little island that felt so foreign when I arrived and so much like home when I left, and taught me so much about freedom and cultural idiosyncrasies. And New York, my current city and my favorite place always.

Times I fell in love: 3. I learned so much about myself and relationships and what it means to love someone unselfishly. I learned that timing is the worst, but it’s not necessarily a death warrant. I learned that I used to stay in relationships for the wrong reasons and that being the exception to patterns of behavior is not a good thing. I learned that it’s important to know how to argue constructively and with respect, and that really good chemistry does not equal a good partnership. I learned that love is a conscious choice that we have to make every day, but when you find someone that you want to continuously choose and that chooses you, it’s a beautiful thing.

Countries I visited: 18. I was lucky enough to go so many new places, each marked with a thimble and a story to tell. I traveled internationally by myself for the very first time (and lived in a new country by myself!). Thanks to the working holiday visa and to my newfound independence, I visited places I’d always wanted to see and places I’d never even dreamed of: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Cambodia, France, London and Scotland, Costa Rica. I also saw more U.S. cities (Chicago, Portland, LA), which I always say I need to do more often. I gained so much respect for other cultures and customs, and an awareness of how small I am and how big and lovely the world is. This decade reaffirmed my love for travel and everything it has to offer, and it taught me the importance of really understanding a place and its history to travel better and more intentionally.

It’s also times like these that I become acutely aware of my privilege, because I think 2019 was one of the ugliest years in recent memory: in mass shootings, in tyrannical governments that necessitated a wave of global protests, in the desecration of our own democracy. But for me, it was a great year. Nothing too significant happened, but everything was just...good. I didn’t experience any life-changing events, good or bad, and I think being shielded by privilege is a big part of that.

So this year’s theme is contentment. I’m happy with the past 10 years of my short but very wonderful life, and this year was no exception. I felt more empowered than I ever have on a trip to Costa Rica, when everything went wrong but Rekha and I were still resourceful enough to enjoy it. I got to see my sister graduate college. I moved to a new apartment and adopted a kitten. I feel like I’ve made a real home in New York at this point, despite always feeling at home in New York. I ate so much good food and laughed so much with so many people I love. But at the end of the decade, it all feels indicative of good times to come next year.

2019, here’s to you.

quick links

things i did in 2019 • things i ate in 2019 • things i read in 2019 • things i loved in 2019 • final thoughts

things i did in 2019

big bear

Kevin and I spent the first couple of days of the new year in Big Bear, just for fun. We didn’t ski or anything; we just wanted to get away, since both of us have very large families, and anyone with a very large family knows that it’s lovely but also necessitates alone time. And Big Bear was the perfect place.

We walked around Big Bear Lake, admired all the ice and remnants of snow, spent a little time in Arrowhead Village, and played a lot of Super Mario Odyssey on our brand-new Nintendo Switch that we bought ourselves for Christmas.

Okay, small tangent for anyone that owns a Switch—I highly recommend Odyssey. If you played Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, you’ll know exactly what it’s like; the controls and structure of the game are very similar, but this one is fun because you can play as Cappy, Mario’s hat, instead of P2 just being consigned to starcatcher. The levels are definitely interesting and appropriately challenging and if I didn’t have Kevin to do some of the harder levels it probably would’ve taken me the same amount of time as it did to beat Galaxy (I think it took me around a year, but also I am a very inconsistent gamer and go through random obsessive periods of playing and then I forget about it for a couple of months). But we beat it in less than 20 days. And we’re still finding new Power Moons. Kevin likes it because he says it has a lot of the same motifs as the Super Mario 64, and I like it because it’s a really solid adventure game that you don’t need to be an intense gamer to play. 10/10. But also, Broodals are super annoying and the worst.

found the hot duck

Yes, we found the Mandarin duck everyone is obsessed with. And how could you not be? He’s beautiful. My favorite thing that has come from this is the actual news coverage that he has generated. And probably the best one is this profile from The Cut (yes, the duck had a profile written about him, including his political affiliations).

costa rica

God, I love Costa Rica. Going through all my pictures makes my heart legitimately flutter at how incredibly beautiful and picturesque it is. I miss it all the time.

surprised marisa for her graduation

Kevin and I flew back to California to surprise Marisa for her graduation at Chapman; I deliberately waited for her to greet the rest of my family first, and she was feeling a little sad because people kept asking her where her older sister was, and then I popped out! It was a lovely moment and she was completely taken by surprise. Tears were shed.

We’ve come full circle, because I surprised her for her high school graduation also.

wrote an oral history of my family

I worked on this project for a whole year and published it just in time for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month; I’m super proud of it, and you can read it here!

governors ball

Kevin and I went to the The Governors Ball Music Festival at Randall’s Island Park, affectionately known as “Gov Ball.” It’s cool because you literally take a ferry to the island and then everyone goes back to the city or Brooklyn when it’s over, and you can see the city skyline in the background lit up at night.

I was most excited for Mitski, Florence + the Machine, Major Lazer, Zhu, and The Strokes. I realized I’ve never actually gone to a music festival before; I had considered Outside Lands in 2016, but ended up not going as I was moving to Singapore shortly after, and I’ve always regretted it.

What an experience. The first two days were amazing—we didn’t make it to Mitski but we saw Brockhampton, Lil Wayne, and Tyler, the Creator. The second day was my favorite—we saw Saba, who was actually so much fun. I had these amazing fried pickles. We saw ZHU, who if you remember from my experience last year was incredible live.

And Florence, which is always a surreal experience. We were so far away from the stage, because we wanted to leave early for Major Lazer, but she just projects this soft, quiet energy from all the way up on stage. What an angel. During “The Dog Days Are Over” she asked everyone to put away their phones and jump for the chorus and I have never seen so many people jumping at the same time. Half of them weren’t even in the actual crowd; they were spread out all over the festival grounds, but they were all watching her and jumping and singing their hearts out by themselves. So much joy. So much fun.

The last day was a series of very interesting events, because there were so many choices we could have made that would have made our day much, much worse. We got very lucky. What happened was that they actually postponed the festival until 6:30 pm, which was a terrible call because it was supposed to start raining at 6 pm, not to mention that half the artists simply got cut out. We debated whether to go or not, but decided we wanted to see Kaytranada and The Strokes, so we hopped on the ferry and got to the island at around 8:30 pm. We caught Louis the Child’s set and we were searching for our friend the entire time. When it ended, we found him, but then there was a festival-wide announcement that we were to leave the island due to “severe weather conditions.” We debated just not leaving in case they un-canceled it, but begrudgingly got in line for the ferry. We hopped part of the line and ended up getting on the ferry minutes before a torrential downpour. It was the hardest I’ve seen it rain in years. It was raining so hard that we could only barely make out the entire Manhattan skyline coming back. It was insane. There was lightning striking down all around us and thunder rolling so loudly the windows of the ferry were shaking. People were chanting “refund” and singing songs on the ferry, and we later heard that people who had been stuck on the island were tearing down the art installations and the fences. It was like Lord of the Flies. Or Fyre Festival, to which a lot of comparisons were made. It was especially crazy because had we got to the island just a little bit later, we would’ve been immediately turned away. Had we left later or not hopped the line or walked the Manhattan Bridge instead of taking the ferry, we would’ve been caught in that thunderstorm. Again, very lucky. But not so lucky as to get a full refund for the day back.

attended The Strategy Super Sizer Megaclass

I actually won a scholarship to this event—I was trying to get my agency to sponsor me to go, but then the organizers (the incomparable Julian Cole and Mark Pollard) emailed us calling for scholarship applicants. I really admired their efforts to get underrepresented communities into strategy, because I meet so few Asian female strategists, so it was nice to see someone actually making a tangible commitment. I wrote about the invisible barriers to success for the Asian-American community that go unaddressed because of the “model minority” myth:

They are consistently promoted less in the workplace (called the “bamboo ceiling”), have no diversity initiatives catered to them, and their mental health is frequently ignored (first-generation Asian parents often don't believe in the concept of mental illness and think that it can be overcome with hard work and focus). “Otherism” or “perpetual foreignism” also contributes to isolating them from other minority communities like the black community and the Latinx community.

It was a great workshop. We learned about different mental models and did a lot of exercises, including a “live action strategy” session that was very inspiring to witness. You can read this excellent recap of the event from strategist Laura Redmer.

maine

For our one-year anniversary, Kevin and I went to Portland, Maine and it was unbelievably beautiful. Probably one of the prettiest places I’ve ever visited, and it’s amazing that it’s just tucked away in the Northeastern corner of the country. We got to watch the sun rise early in the morning, at the very edge of the world, and it was breathtaking.

toured the glaciers in alaska

After last year’s family vacation to the Baltic, we decided to revisit another old favorite—Alaska. It was a very sobering trip, just because the effects of climate change were very apparent. But I’m glad I went, if only to spend time with my family and to see the last of the glaciers before they disappear completely.

discovered silent discos

I went to my first silent disco on the cruise in Alaska and I was so psyched about it that I made a bunch of my friends go with me to one on the Hudson River. And it was so fun. It was a very wholesome event—we all got dinner together and went sober and we danced and watched the sun set over the Jersey skyline. They played Latin music and R&B and Top 40 and actual disco and I killed the Electric Slide, which was quite impressive considering I only really learned it from watching my grandparents do it at weddings. I plan on making this a summer tradition.

danced our hearts out at a wedding in san diego with kevin’s whole family...

Kevin and I went to his cousin’s wedding, which was at the Children’s Museum in downtown San Diego! It was very nostalgic for me, because my mom used to take my sisters and I there to play. There’s a big truck out front that you can paint, and it’s still there! Covered in at least 20 years of paint. It was a beautiful ceremony, right at sunset, and it was wonderfully short, the way his cousin had specified (she’d refused point-blank to make a big fuss out of typical wedding things like cutting the cake, which I respected). And the reception was actually inside the museum, a little dance floor with lights strung up all around it. There was a lot of Spanish music and the food was delicious. And we were home by midnight. It was a great night.

...and at kaaboo del mar with mine

My mom bought me and my sisters and Kevin KAABOO Day 1 passes for our early Christmas gifts. I was mostly excited to see my mom at a music festival. My mom and I (naturally) went straight for the free sunscreen samples from this brand that we both like, and Marisa and Kevin bonded over their love of IPAs. And we made Kate be our photo model for all of the experiential displays.

We only really saw a tiny bit of Silversun Pickups and Wu Tang Clan + Snoop Dogg (Wu Tang Clan would’ve been cool, except there was some problem with their microphones and no one could hear them?). But here is proof that my mom actually went to a Snoop Dogg concert.

And then my mom went Day 2 with just her friends, managed to convince a bunch of vendors that she and her friends were mom influencers, and came home with a bunch of free branded stuff.

moved to long island city

Out of all of the things that happened this year, I think this was the most surprising. I definitely had no plans to move out of the city so soon. We were all set to put down a deposit on a place on the Upper East Side, and then at the last minute we toured this building, and applied immediately. I actually love it so much, which I never expected to say about anywhere other than Manhattan. Long Island City is perfect—not too far from Manhattan (my commute is actually a bit shorter), and nice and quiet, but with everything that we need nearby.

Mia is a very happy little kitty, because she has so much more space to run around, and I am happy because of our gorgeous kitchen and light-filled living room. My quality of life has gone up 1000% since moving from my Murray Hill apartment, and I feel relaxed and happy whenever I get home at night. There’s a dance studio that’s only an eight-minute walk from our building, a gym downstairs, and just so much more space, a luxury I did not anticipate having. But I find I’m much more motivated to spend time in the apartment and do things, like unwind in the evenings by stretching in the living room or baking on the weekends. It’s lovely. And just in time for cold weather! We’ve cozied up with candles and blankets, arranged our tea cart in the living room, and purchased a small Christmas tree, and it feels more like home than any other apartment I’ve had so far.

Apartment tour coming soon! Decorating is going to be a process, so it’s a very gradual thing.

adopted a kitten

And...meet the newest member of the family! This is Fish, who we adopted from Brooklyn Animal Action (the same place we got Mia) at just four months old. He is teeny tiny, with giant bat ears and a little round belly, and we are in love. We named him Fish just because we thought the idea of a cat named Fish was hilarious. But we frequently refer to him as “demon” because he’s also a pain in the ass that you can’t let out of your sight; in true kitten fashion, he will destroy absolutely everything he can get his little paws on.

But he’s so fun, because he’s a kitten so he’ll essentially let you do anything to him, like put him in a mini sweater you made from a sock. He is the exact opposite of Mia. Mia is smart, regal, discerning (she doesn't find many toys amusing), easily spooked, and takes a very long time to love you. She's very cuddly with us now and sleeps in between us every night, but it took her almost a year and a half to get there. Fish is super friendly—the day I picked him up he ran straight to me. He trusts us implicitly, even letting me give him a bath on his third day home. He's not afraid of anything and craves attention; sometimes he gets distracted by us or Mia and just forgets to eat. He's a bit dumb but we love him so much.

Mia is not as thrilled. She usually likes other cats, but Fish is too hyper for her; he has so much energy, and he’ll jump on her just to get her attention or because he wants to play, which she does not like. She’s strangely very intimidated by this tiny little fluff ball. He’s actually grown significantly since we got him—we used to be able to pick him up with one hand but he’s since gotten a little chunkier, and he’s definitely losing his kittenish appearance and now just looks like a very tiny adult cat. But he’s still our baby. We posted him on Reddit and he went semi-viral and my sisters thought I should give them an Instagram (for the free stuff), so follow them at @fishandmia!

hosted a housewarming/holiday party in our new apartment!

This was so much fun. We still have like zero furniture and we wanted to do something low-key, so we just invited all of our friends to come over in pajamas and told them to bring cookies for a cookie swap. It was so nice—we all just sat on the floor around our little coffee table. All of my friends are so lovely and got along so well; I am so lucky to have such amazing people in my life. I had friends from high school, college, and New York there, and everyone got along seamlessly. It made me so happy. Kevin and I spent all day preparing (I was terrified of not having enough food, so we made Samin Nosrat’s buttermilk-marinated roast chicken from Salt Fat Acid Heat, japchae, my mom’s scalloped potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts, Molly Yeh’s scallion pancake challah, and homemade Oreos from the Bouchon Bakery recipe), but thanks to some very good planning the night before, I wasn’t stressed at all, which is a truly incredible thing, knowing me. I’ve realized that the most difficult part of hosting isn’t actually cooking, but timing. I have no idea how my mom manages to do this every single holiday (and even every Sunday for casual family dinners). I was talking to my friend who had just prepared Thanksgiving dinner for her family for the first time, and we were saying that we have a newfound appreciation for parents/family that can prepare a whole meal and have it all on the table ready to eat. But this felt very relaxed; we had our Christmas tree and lights up and our little decorations, some hot apple cider and Abuelita hot chocolate on the stove, and FKJ on our Sonos. We ate dinner, traded homemade cookies, and played Taboo and Decrypto until 2 am. It was perfect. I can see why my mom loves hosting parties so much—there’s nothing like getting people you love together over good food.

laser tag

This was my family second annual Christmas laser tag tournament, a gift from my mom to all of my cousins and I since everyone is now too old for toys. It was so much fun. I love laser tag; I feel like I always forget exactly how much I like it until I play again. But it’s actually pretty reasonable if you’re just buying in individually (like $8 a game or something) so my sisters and I have promised to go more often during the year when I’m home. Unfortunately, I did not win, as my younger sister and younger cousin absolutely dominate the game every year and no one (including them) knows how they do it.

things i ate in 2019

new tokyo style shōyu ramen from ramen ishida

This ramen is...incredible. It’s one of the best bowls of ramen I’ve ever had, for sure. The broth is truffle, which I thought would be overwhelming but it is not. It’s still a light, thin soup with nice, springy noodles. It’s topped with these delicious bamboo shoots, mushroom paste, and some expertly-seared char siu. It’s all so flavorful and it’s the perfect food for a rainy day. It also helped that it was a 20-minute walk from my Chinatown apartment.

“garage noodles”

I can’t remember how I found this recipe but I’ve made it several times and it’s always great. It’s designed to be a cheap recipe that you can make on “rent week,” or the week when you have no money left, and despite using instant ramen, it’s pretty healthy.

maple bbq salmon with brown butter couscous

This was so good and so easy to make! We substituted honey for maple syrup and it was delicious; seasoned and cooked perfectly. The brown butter couscous was simple but genius, and it was the perfect complement to the salmon. We’ve had to impose a rule that says we can’t make it too often, because neither of us wants to get tired of it.

The creator of this recipe is one of my favorite bloggers (she inspired the creation of the Minute Thoughts series), and she has a Facebook group called The Pretty Dish Book Club, and it’s literally just me and a bunch of middle-aged white moms posting pictures of the recipes that we’ve made and it’s incredibly wholesome.

pork and chive dumplings from shu jiao fu zhou cuisine

My friend James introduced me to these a couple of years ago, and they’ve been a favorite of mine since. I've literally recommended these to people on the street (a very nice Korean-Australian couple that asked for directions). They’re so delicious, and you get a plate of 10 for $3.50. Really unparalleled Chinese food. And because I lived in Chinatown for a bit this year, this place was right next to my apartment, so I had them at least once a week.

oolong and milk tea swirl soft-serve with mini boba from bar pa tea

I’ve meant to try this for so long and I never did, because their boba is only okay. But the soft-serve is delicious; the tea flavor is very strong and the coldness of the ice cream keeps the mini boba chewy. It’s the perfect dessert.

scones at Oscar Wilde

Kevin and I went for afternoon tea here (I’m writing a guide to all of the best afternoon tea spots in New York City, so more on this later), and the scones were the best I’ve had in the city. Perfect and buttery and crumbly and fragrant. Everything a scone should be.

lamb noodles from Burp Bowl Café

My friend from LA actually told me about this place; I love it because it’s exactly what you think of when you think of the businesses that have built New York. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall place that you find by stumbling upon it or by word of mouth; very close to my office, and everyone working there (and eating there) speaks mostly Chinese. For $8 you get a huge steaming-hot bowl of delicious, chewy noodles in an amazingly flavorful broth. I often wonder how places like this stay in business among rapid gentrification, and I think it’s just the incredible loyalty of their customers. So I really hope this place stays open, and I try to support it as often as I can.

milk tea and hojicha kitkats

Unfortunately, I don’t know where to find these in the States...my roommate Amy brought these back for me from Thailand, and they were amazing.

things i read in 2019

I’m very satisfied by my reading list this year; I read a lot more thanks to participating in book clubs at work, and finally applying for a New York Public Library card! I love it so much, because I can check out books and read them on my Kindle, and then if I decide I want to buy it, I buy it at Barnes & Noble. So if you were ever wondering how to reconcile owning a Kindle and avoiding giving money to Amazon, that is how.

between the world and me by ta-nehisi coates

I read this for my book club at work, but the truth is I’ve had my eye on it for a while; it was one of the most acclaimed non-fiction novels in recent years and I’d read his interview series with Obama. The way he writes is just so exquisitely beautiful. it’s not just the language he uses, but a couple of chapters in I realized that the rhythm of his sentences was what made it so compelling—the way the sentences dip and flow and rush and retreat, like an ocean wave; the way his words sometimes march like soldiers along the page driving a singular point home; it was almost musical. It keeps you riveted. Without traditional markers like chapters, the book is written as a letter to his son, and at first feels a little odd. But you quickly find that you don’t mind rereading a couple of sentences every time you pick it back up again after putting it down.

This book put me on the floor. Some of the best authors can extract directly from your brain feelings you've always innately understood but could never articulate, and Coates is one of them. He transports you to another world, another body, to introduce to you feelings you’ve never felt and will never feel, and it makes you ache with distance. It’s really extraordinary.

If there’s one thing it taught me, it’s that it’s okay not to understand. The struggle of a black male in America is something I can never fully understand, and that’s intentional. I was talking to a friend and fellow strategist of mine (who is a black male), and he told me, “Yeah, my friend read that and told me it was for white people.” Which is absolutely true. It’s not written for people who have lived it. It’s for people like us, outside of the experience of having a black male body, to listen to. It’s to give a voice to those stories, because they are stories worth hearing.

the immortalists by chloe benjamin

I wish I’d read this book last year, because it’s about four siblings who are given the knowledge of their own death dates by a fortune-teller, and I was being a little melodramatic about quarter-life crises and death last year. But I really enjoyed this book. I like the idea of life and death and also the idea of family stitched together with what you have; it was a very creative way of illustrating different attitudes toward death and the ways in which they color our lives. It's one of the reasons I insist on talking about death and being comfortable with the idea of death—I don't think you should let the fear of death rule your life, nor do I think you should live with an air of invincibility, because death could come at any time. It's yet another delicate balance that we as humans have to grapple with:

Their prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11, hoping to control fate; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

educated by tara westover

A story about a woman going to school is not inherently interesting. But when a woman, raised in a Mormon survivalist family that has never believed in schools or doctors, attends her first day of school in college as a seventeen-year-old, that is extraordinary. Moreover, following her transformation as she becomes educated—reading about her journey and the changes in attitude and perspective of the world is just fascinating:

I had started on a path of awareness, had perceived something elemental about my brother, my father, myself. I had discerned the ways in which we had been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others, a tradition of which we were either willfully or accidentally ignorant. I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose sole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others—because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward ... never again would I allow myself to be made a foot soldier in a conflict that I did not understand.

Her commencement speech to Northeastern University is also very worth a read. It’s so crazy because it feels like fiction when you read it, but then you remember that these are real people with real lives. Her siblings have left reviews of her book on Amazon, testifying to its accuracy. The book has become a lightning rod for controversy—people debate whether or not it is real and whether or not she was indeed abused, but none of that matters because it’s really just an incredibly story from a beautifully eloquent writer.

intimations by alexandra kleeman

This was such a weird book, in the best way (it’s her second book; I read You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, which was written in a similar style, but I didn’t like it as much). Her writing really made me examine what makes good writing, and reminded me that clever use of language can be playful and fun. in junior year of high school, my friend Daniel and I wrote a series of short stories that only we found hilarious, because we imbued them with a lot of fake symbolism and tried to make them as ridiculous as possible, so that one day when we published them, some pretentious literary critic would read them and try to pick apart all of our metaphors, when really it was all nonsense invented by two 21-year-olds. Intimations reminds me of this, except you get the impression that it’s incredibly deliberate.

This is a strange book. But once you accept the absurdity of the narratives, you can really appreciate her writing. She writes a bit “like an alien on an anthropological mission to earth,” The New York Times wrote...she describes things as though she's seeing them for the first time and deliberately chooses words that make the phrase jarring, but this is much more interesting than annoying. She also has a knack for describing particular sensations extremely well—sounds, colors, feelings—and she’s created these great characters with very relatable thought processes. Her characters often come across as having just been dropped into fully-formed situations without any information as to how or why they’re there. It’s delightfully absurd and a really great read.

My favorites are You, Disappearing; Intimation; Jellyfish; I May Not Be the One You Want, But I Am the One For You; and Fairy Tale.

trick mirror by jia tolentino

Of course I read this book. And of course I’ve talked about it nonstop since. I loved it so much and thought about it so much that I did a full review on it, which you can read here. My favorites are “Always Be Optimizing,” “Ecstasy,” “We Come from Old Virginia,” and “The I in the Internet.”

evicted: poverty and profit in the american city by matthew desmond

Gwendolyn recommended this to me and I expected it to be a slow read but it was an incredible book. The narratives were well-written and compelling, and it raised a lot of points about systemic poverty and redlining. One of the biggest revelations is that slums are not a byproduct of laziness or systemic poverty, but actually deliberately designed by city planners and upheld by greedy landlords trying to turn a profit. Another thing that was astounding to learn about was the mental and emotional toll—the lack of job, school, and community stability; the loss of personal possessions; the psychological toll of being constantly viewed as subhuman or unworthy—that really affected every single person in the book. And it was just a cycle of losing jobs and not being able to make rent, of being evicted and then having to apply for another apartment or another job with an eviction on your record. Anyone who can make it out of this cycle has a strength that I have never known.

The persistence and brutality of American poverty can leave us cynical about solutions ... These problems are neither intractable nor eternal. A different kind of society is possible, and powerful solutions are within our collective reach. But those solutions depend on how we answer a single question: do we believe that the right to a decent home is part of what it means to be an American?

american dreams in a chinese takeout

This is an excellent piece, and the article it references, “The Kitchen Network” in The New Yorker, is also very well worth a read. Both attempt to answer the question no one thinks to ask: If Chinese takeout is so popular in the U.S., why do we know so little about people in the industry? The truth is sad and well-articulated by the writer, Katie Salisbury, who also has a photography project called Thank You Enjoy, which documents the lives of Chinese restaurant workers in New York City:

The great irony of working in the restaurant industry as a Chinese immigrant is that your labor plays a direct hand in preserving an iconic, much beloved staple of U.S. culture—Chinese takeout. And yet you are almost wholly excluded from American life because of your inability to communicate. There is never enough time to learn English, and there are few resources and connections available with which to navigate mainstream society.

It makes me sad, because I always think about the time that Kevin went to buy balloons for my ye ye's birthday in Chinatown, and the woman at the counter apologized for the price, explaining that the price increase was necessary. The balloons were only 40¢ each. There are a lot of poor people in New York, but unlike many of them, Chinese restaurant workers will never be upwardly mobile, while all around them, rents and prices increase and other people become wealthier. Chinese restaurants remain “authentic” by keeping their original recipes, working their employees hard, and keeping their prices low, but the concept of authenticity is an invention of a culture that systemically excludes them. And yet they still hold onto the idea of this American Dream.

how millennials became the burnout generation

This...explained...so much. It explained why, although I’ve never really felt much pressure from my parents to succeed, I’ve always felt very stressed about my future. I thought it was just my imposter syndrome, but it’s much more logical that it’s due to an unusually precarious set of socioeconomic circumstances.

how san francisco broke america’s heart

God, this piece made me so sad. I think I always dreamed about going to San Francisco after New York—it always felt like a quainter city with equal cultural zeal and one that held a special place in my heart since I was born there, but now every time I visit I recognize it less and less. Now, to me it feels foreign, isolating, dirty, and dangerous (and I am always astounded that I can say this while living in New York), but what makes me the saddest is the gentrification. It’s true that it happens everywhere (I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Brooklyn), but the wealth disparity in San Francisco is so prominent that you can’t help but feel resentful toward people making billions of dollars from inventing dumb and useless things while people sleep on the streets and leave needles in plain sight. It’s tragic to me personally, but also devastating how dehumanizing the city has become to poor people (a very broad categorization given that anyone making under $70,000 is technically impoverished).

a betrayal

If you don’t know ProPublica, it’s a website dedicated to reporting fairly with as little bias as there can be in reporting. This piece just won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, and it was absolutely bleak. It’s one of a series of features of how children with ties to MS-13 have been affected by the current administration, and it does a great job of reporting how the current policies and anti-immigrant rhetoric hurts innocents every day. It’s heartbreaking. These are kids that born anywhere else could have a great life, but they were born into these circumstances.

millennials kill everything

I love everything The Pudding publishes, but this was one of my favorites, if only because it exposes the ridiculousness of baby boomer journalism.

How to Be Happy? A Nearly 90-Year-Old Has Some Advice

I feel like this is very common advice, but it’s a nice reminder, and very eloquently written:

When I was younger, I spent too much time obsessing over what would make me feel better or how I imagined a certain set of circumstances would magically transform my life and career. But I learned, though it took me a while, to look around and pay attention to what—if I’d let it—could make my life feel better right here and right now. My book Nearing Ninety opens with a wonderful quote from philosopher George Santayana, whose proposition all of us should heed: “To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.” I believe he’s telling us that instead of wistfully looking back at what we once had, or anxiously imagining what might come, we ought to be seeking what satisfactions, what pleasures, what meaning, the season we’re in has to offer us.

on ariana grande and the politics of ambiguity

So many thoughts on this that I have an entirely separate blog post in the works, which I will finish once I find the right coherent thread. I’m definitely biased because I didn’t like her to begin with, but to me this perfectly articulates why she is not only not an ally to people of color, but in fact explicitly profits from the exploitation of other cultures and her ability to be diplomatic in matters of white supremacy and xenophobia. And although she darkens her skin and adopts a blaccent, she is and will always be a white woman concerned only with white feminism.

hideous men

Some of the most sobering reminders of the effects of the #MeToo movement are accounts from people like E. Jean Carroll, women who have endured the burden of what they believed was their knowledge and theirs alone, and the shame of being gaslit and silenced for so many years. It’s a testament to how interactions with these men shape us, even unconsciously—our worldviews, our personalities in public (the reason “Cat Person” resonated with so many women)—but we can refuse to let them define us.

Before, and After, the Jogger

This is such an important story. Retellings of the Central Five Park are necessary when shedding light on the flaws of the criminal justice system and the court of public opinion, but they leave out the original victims—the women. The author says it best: “Looking through a cracked mirror rendered the other victims—the other women assaulted, raped, and murdered between the fall of 1988 and the summer of 1989—invisible. Any real, proper reckoning with the injustices done to the Central Park Five can't happen until we change the narrative and put the women, living and dead, first.”

The Best Way to Tour a City Is Through Its Grocery Store

This piece resonated with me so much; my first stop in every country is always the 7-Eleven or the local corner store.

Flavor Is a Language, and Like Wine, Candy Has Its Own

The first in an interactive series of “The Candy Issue” of The New York Times Magazine, this was written by Samin Nosrat, the host of Salt Fat Acid Heat and my uncontested favorite “Joyful Expert.” There’s such a richness to food language and it’s something I always pay attention to when reading restaurant reviews, because I simply don’t have that vocabulary, but it’s so wonderfully sensory.

hooked

The story of how a former Boeing engineer robbed banks for 30 years to feed his heroin addiction. This story is...absolutely insane. And also a dark cautionary tale of addiction and how it can happen to literally anyone.

‘They Were Conned’: How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers

This was a very long read, but I couldn’t put it down. And seven months later, I still think about it all the time, especially with the ubiquity of taxis in New York and hearing people complain that Uber has killed the taxi industry. Ridesharing certainly didn’t help, but the fact is that there are more significant factors at work dating back to a decade ago, and it’s largely the fault of the predatory taxi medallion loan industry, which is something I had no idea even existed.

Inside the calculated race to create the next drink of summer

I’m always interested in these things because it’s mostly my generation and Gen Z driving culture shifts like this, but it just goes to show that even that choice you think you’re making is not just choice and it’s not just signaling; it’s often a marketer working behind the scenes for a very incentivized reason.

Ketchup Sandwiches and Other Things Stupid Poor People Eat

This piece echoed what I learned in Evicted—that poverty is a terrible condition that affects every aspect of a person’s well-being. The author points out that people are often quick to give to the homeless (the “lost cause poor”), who only ask for spare change, but have little empathy for people who work full-time jobs and can’t afford basic necessities (the working poor), and that is what conservatism and capitalism endorses.

The Future Of The Culture Wars Is Here, And It's Gamergate

This was fascinating, one of the most interesting and educational things I read this year. My knowledge of Gamergate was limited to female game developers getting doxxed because of a jealous incel-type ex-boyfriend, and I had no idea that the implications of it were indicative of a much larger problem. This piece was a fantastic piece of journalism. So well-reported, and it ties Gamergate into the mainstream cultural discourse (and a terrifying prediction of what is to come):

All culture wars strike these same chords, because all culture wars are at bottom about the same thing: the desperate efforts of the privileged, in an ever-pluralizing America, to cling by their nails to the perquisites of what they'd thought was once their exclusive domain.
What we have in Gamergate is a glimpse of how these skirmishes will unfold in the future—all the rhetorical weaponry and siegecraft of an internet comment section brought to bear on our culture, not just at the fringes but at the center.

things i loved in 2019

allbirds wool runners

All of the girls in my office have them and talk about them constantly, and I was fully a fan of them before Kevin got me a pair for my birthday last year, and now I love them. My sisters and I even bought the Tree Runners for my mom for Mother’s Day—she called them “the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever owned,” including her FitFlops, which she’s worn for years, and I have to agree, because they’re truly the comfiest shoes I’ve ever worn in my entire life. I like that they’re wool so they’re a bit warmer than my Nikes on cold days, and they’re probably about half the weight, which is amazing, because my Nikes are already very light. And as much as I love the clean look of the Nikes, I like that Allbirds don’t have a logo on them (although I can still spot them on the street from a mile away, so very good branding on their part).

Katie & Kelly Frilisa Sandal

I can’t remember what possessed me to buy these (I think I had a DSW gift card or something) but I’m so glad I did, because I wear them almost every day to work in the summer (when I’m not wearing my Allbirds or Nikes). They’re delicate-looking but they’ve got a thick rubber sole that’s comfortable for tromping around the streets of New York, and they look equally great with floaty summer dresses and a nice cropped pant or shorts.

uniqlo stretch pile-lined fleece full-zip hoodie

This is...legitimately one of the best purchases I’ve ever made in my life. I bought it on a whim when I was looking for another jacket, and it has proved its worth 10 times over. It’s covered with soft and fluffy fleece on the inside, and it’s windproof and waterproof. But it’s also super light. I wear this when it’s in the low 40s/high 30s and it’s wonderful, because everyone else is wearing these heavy down jackets.

krave beauty great barrier relief and Kale-lalu-yAHA

Since I’ve started investing more time and money into skincare, I’ve started to understand what works for my skin and what I need vs. buying products that had a cult following. And it’s mostly worked, because I don’t wear foundation on a daily basis anymore, which feels amazing. I realized that one problem was that my skin was moisturized on the surface, but the moisture barrier was destroyed (the fatty part under the skin that gives it its good elasticity). It’s similar to Stratia Liquid Gold, but I like the feel of this one better as I think it’s a little bit thinner and absorbs better. And I actually like the tamanu oil scent. An honorable mention is the Kale-lalu-yAHA, which I also love but is too strong for me to use every day.

Mount Lai Gua Sha Jade Facial Lifting Tool

I tried not to buy into the hype, I really did. Skincare trends are often very short-lived and lack any real effectiveness so I usually ignore them, but this little jade tool intrigued me so much. And I love it. I use it at night after applying my serums and it feels so nice and cool and relaxing. I like that I can actually see the blood start flowing in my face afterward, because I feel like your skin really doesn’t get that much circulation otherwise. It’s also nice to use when you’re idly watching TV or something, like a little massage.

eco nuts soap nuts

I’ve been more interested in sustainability and zero-waste this year (mostly inspired by Lauren Singer, who a lot of people credit as the founder of the mainstream zero-waste movement). As someone with OCD, I know a zero-waste lifestyle is not entirely feasible for me, but there are areas of my life in which I can reduce waste. For example, in laundry detergent. I hate buying it, I hate the idea of so many chemicals ruining my clothes, and I hate that it comes in a big plastic container every time. I started researching alternatives and found these Shark Tank-approved “soap nuts.” I was definitely skeptical of whether or not they would actually clean my clothes, but thanks to their website + some corroborative digging, I was reassured. They’re amazing. I would highly recommend them. I also like their bamboo reusable paper towels; they’re a great replacement for actual paper ones.

great jones dutch oven in blueberry

I am completely, unequivocally obsessed with this thing. Before I owned a Dutch oven, I used to think, What’s so great about a Dutch oven? Isn’t it just a heavier and more expensive pot? And the answer is yes, but it’s also so incredibly useful that I cannot believe I waited this long to get one. You can use it for soups, rice, pastas, fish, whole chickens, and (I’m most excited about this) you can bake bread in it. Plus it’s cast iron and retains heat wonderfully well, and this particular model looks beautiful on your kitchen counter. And it’s so easy to clean. I just bought mine two months ago and I’ve already used it more than almost anything else in my kitchen. So yes. Buy the Dutch oven. There are much cheaper versions, if you’re not willing to shell out $145 for a—and I cannot stress this enough—life-changing pot.

secret eyelash nyc

I had never had eyelash extensions until this year. I’d toyed with the idea many times, because I really only wear mascara and eyebrows on a daily basis. But the idea of having something glued to my eyelid was a little terrifying, and the idea of shelling out a couple hundred dollars for something that would only last two to three weeks had never appealed to me. But then I had two events right next to each other—Marisa’s graduation and GovBall—and my roommate Amy told me about this place in the city that did them for really cheap. So I got them. And now I’m completely addicted. These are amazing; the basic set is the perfect balance of natural and noticeable, and they feel like nothing (I hate false lashes because they feel so heavy—I’ve tried everything from individual lashes to magnetic lashes and I hate them all). You’re not supposed to get them frequently because a) they kill your real eyelashes and b) you can’t use oil-based cleansing products. But I never had many real eyelashes to begin with, and I still double-cleanse (but very carefully) so it’s not a huge sacrifice for me. I’ve found that you can make them last about a month and a half when you take good care of them. And waking up with beautiful, fluffy eyelashes and never having to remove mascara or wear falsies is very much worth the investment.

uniqlo DRAPE CREW NECK SHORT-SLEEVE T-SHIRT in white

This has quickly become one of my favorite shirts. It’s so simple, but the silhouette is perfect; not too loose and not too fitted. I’ve searched for a perfect white t-shirt for years, but all of the “best t-shirt” lists wanted me to buy an $80 one from Madewell, which is...absurd. This one is soft and breathable and goes with literally any outfit, and I like that the silhouette is casual but a little feminine.

dyson v8 animal

I’m at the age at which all I want to talk about is housekeeping. At our housewarming party, I spent at least ten full minutes raving about it to my friends, and I sold it to my mom so well that she bought one on Black Friday. This was one of the first things we bought for the apartment and it remains one of my favorites. I’ve never minded vacuuming as a chore, but this makes it so easy that I literally do it all the time now. It’s cordless, which is super convenient, and it’s so light that it’s easy to just take it out for some quick spot-vacuuming. And it’s super effective and easy to clean; I’m consistently amazed at how well-designed it is. If you’re down to invest a good amount of money in a nice vacuum, I highly recommend this one.

decrypto

This has beaten Scattergories and Taboo as my favorite party game. It’s so much fun. Kevin and I learned it from his friend Zach, and we’ve been obsessed with it ever since. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but essentially you have four code words each and you draw cards with permutations of three of them. You give clues to your partner to help them guess the order of the code words, but the catch is that the other team is listening too, and so your clues have to be good enough for your partner to understand them but obscure enough that the other team doesn’t catch on. It requires a lot of strategy and creativity, and it’s a slow game, so it’s not as frantic as Taboo. We spent four hours playing it with our friends Annie and Christina, and my sisters and I bought it for our mom for her birthday because she liked it so much. It’s a great game. I also convinced Gwendolyn to buy it; she said I should get a referral code for it, and I agree.

los espookys

This is genuinely one of the funniest shows I’ve ever watched. I can’t even really describe the essence of the show, but the basic premise is of four friends who get jobs manufacturing horror and thrills for clients. The humor is extremely weird and offbeat and I love it and Julio Torres so much. The whole show is very much tongue-in-cheek, if you’re into that kind of thing.

booksmart

This was truly one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a very long time. Just some really excellent writing, direction, and acting. I’m really impressed with the quality of the humor—the reason I never liked Bridesmaids that much was that I thought it was kind of The Hangover, but for women, and I’ve never really been a fan of that kind of humor. But this was smart, witty, and very feminist. I thought it was one of the more realistic portrayals of Gen Z that I’ve seen to date.

hustlers

I was primarily interested in this because I read “The Hustlers at Scores,” and I loved it. First of all, Jennifer Lopez looks incredible, and the entire cast was so talented. It was such a thoughtful movie from the costumes to the soundtrack, but mostly, I was so emotional seeing a movie that passed the Bechdel test with flying colors. Not only was it focused on women, but it was actually gender-flipped, in that all of the men were mostly ornamental. Maybe it’s an indictment of my movie-watching track record, but I realized I’ve never seen a movie like that, and I liked that the most important aspect of it was female friendship.

the haunting of hill house

I actually hate horror movies because they give me nightmares, but Kevin made me watch this one and I actually loved it. The writing and the story were just...so good. The character development is what made it. It was worth watching, even if I had to keep all the lights on. I’m very excited for The Haunting of Bly Manor, and I’m glad that Victoria Pedretti is coming back because she had so few scenes in Hill House but she’s such a fantastic actress.

cambodian rock band

My mom took me, Kate, and Gwendolyn to see this show a couple of weeks ago. I had no idea what to expect, but this show was amazing. I was deathly ill, and it was still completely worth it. The cast was so incredibly talented and it was only comprised of six people—they all played instruments and acted as multiple characters. And to see six Asians on a stage at once! That made me a little bit emotional on its own, because Asian representation in entertainment is still a bit of a rarity. But seeing such complex characters was such a treat, and I really didn’t expect to be so emotionally invested in this show. But after actually going to Tuol Sleng in Cambodia two years ago and learning about the genocide, it was particularly sobering. You don’t really hear a lot about Cambodia, so it was such a triumph to see play written by an Asian-American playwright exploring immigrant stories and generational trauma, and it was great to see that it actually educated people about the horrors of Cambodia’s past. I highly recommend it. I’m seeing it again in February when it comes to off-Broadway in New York, and I’m so excited!

fleabag

I heard so much about this show before watching it, but it somehow still lived up to expectations. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a brilliant writer and actress (she’s also the showrunner of Killing Eve!) and it’s her personality that dictates the wonderfully absurd events of the show. It’s a deeply uncomfortable show (I couldn’t figure out why I hated all of the men in Season 1 until I watched this, which unpacked the female experience of navigating “pathetic male egos”), but also very relatable to the being a millennial woman in 2019. I can’t even really describe what exactly I like about it (although, Fleabag’s facial expressions are pure comedic gold), but I burned through both seasons in like five (exceedingly lazy) days.

parasite

This movie was...not at all what I expected. I thought it was one thing and then it was an entirely different thing. But it’s a really spectacular film; it explored class relations and the “guilty paradox” of hiring help, but what I found remarkable were the small character quirks and ordinary moments that made this film feel so real, contrasted with the sheer absurdity of the subject matter. It is not a horror film, as I originally thought, so I watched it already having read the plot summary, but it is a very, very tense thriller that will still surprise you even if you can guess what’s coming (but you won’t). It was also a lot funnier than I expected? It was just a really great example of quality filmmaking—beautiful cinematography, incisive social commentary—and it was clear that its creation required a lot of thought. The cast was also fantastic; I actually don’t know why I don’t watch more foreign films since I prefer movies and TV shows with subtitles.

luigi’s mansion 3

A late entry into this list, but a worthy mention because I’ve spent at least a full 18 hours on this game, and I only got it on Christmas. I think Kevin regrets giving it to me, because now he understands what it was like watching him play Pokémon Shield for a week straight. The upside is that he let me name all of his Pokémon. But I digress. I confess that I did not know there was a Luigi’s Mansion 1 and 2, but I do really like 3. If you’re expecting, like I was, to go into this game, using the same controls as you do for Mario games, you will be wrong and you, like me, will spend entirely too much time figuring out the commands. I do like the fact that all the bosses have counters so you can see how close you are to finishing them, but because your attacks are so simplified, some of the levels are positively diabolical. And I still don’t understand the point of collecting money; there isn’t really an incentive for me to buy stuff, so I just keep collecting it and I have like $50,000 in imaginary money now. But overall, I really like this game and I have not put it down.

final thoughts

The end of the year (and today, the end of the decade!) is always simultaneously fun and exhausting. I don’t keep track of these things as I go, so the end of the year has become a ritual for me, an exercise in reminiscing. I go back and look at pictures, messages, Google calendar invites, and intentionally take note of everything I loved, everything I ate. And some things, like Big Bear, feel light years away from the present, but it's also a reminder of how most things in life simply bleed together, like the marbling of watercolors; they instead become a ribbon of feeling rather than distinct events, and it's that feeling that you remember. And 2019 was just a really satisfying year. I did a lot of things I wanted to do and spent time with a lot of people I love dearly. Some years you remember because of big life events, but others you remember because you just feel very settled. 2019 was that kind of year, the perfect end to the decade, and that’s something I’m lucky enough to be able to say.