Category Writing

Japan: Shinto shrines – Make a wish “Ema (絵馬)” boards

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Ema wooden-plaque-1659071_960_720Life is full of surprises. When we need a dose of inspiration somehow the Universe sends it to us in different ways. Yesterday, I was having a tough day. Job searching is NO FUN!  We apply, apply, apply with “no response.”

Feeling mentally exhausted, the first thought that came to my mind was “I WISH….”

Well, here is what was interesting. I received an email from The Daily Post: photo challenge, where Jen H. posted a story called, “Wish: Sharing wishes with strangers makes a powerful emotional statement.”

She had posted a photo of “Ema (絵馬)” boards hung up at a Shinto shrine in Japan. Jen H. explains in her Blog that Ema boards are meant to be “wishes.” You purchase an Ema board, and as you see in the photo, you write your wish on the board, hang it at the Shinto shrine, pray and “dream” that your wish is granted.

Shimogamo Shrine

Shimogamo shrine in Japan

It’s very interesting to read about the different Shinto shrines. This is a beautiful shrine called, “Shimogamo.” This shrine is famous for helping you realize your dreams and wishes. Take a moment to visit “The Kyoto Project” website. You’ll enjoy reading the history of the shrine and if you’d like to visit they mention the different festivals that take place there.

It’s time to MAKE A WISH… my “Ema” board is calling!

How about yours?  What is your wish?  Put it out there to the Universe.

Here’s to wishes coming true in 2017!

 

 

Singapore: The Runaway Palate publishes children’s book: “The House on Palmer Road”

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Cover

Photo courtesy of “The Runaway Palate.”

Join me in Congratulating a fellow Blogger, Ms. Sim Ee Waun from Singapore, of “The Runaway Palate,” on publishing a children’s book with her mother, Madam Si-Hoe S.S..

Her mother, who is 83 years old, is a first time author. This is fantastic news, very inspiring! Proof that age does not hinder us from pursuing new and exciting goals in life.

The mother/daughter team wrote, “The House on Palmer Road,” which is a true story based on the mother’s life growing up with her 9 brothers and sisters on Palmer Road in colonial Singapore, late 1930s, before WWII and the Japanese Occupation.

The book is geared toward children ages 7-11 years old. It’s a chapter book consisting of 15 stories, where 8 year old Sing brings us on her adventures around Palmer Road and Chinatown with her siblings, allowing us to share in the fun and learn some history along the way. I love these types of historical books. The illustrator, Lim An-ling, has done a wonderful job si-hoe-ss-and-sim-ee-wauncreating illustrations in black/white that capture Sing’s adventures.

Right now, the book is being sold in Singapore. There is a website where the book can be purchased, LocalBooks.sg. I’m hoping to find this book very soon in America. This will be a great addition to any teacher’s classroom!

Please help me in spreading the word about this new and exciting book.

Great job Madam Si Hoe-S.S. & Ms. Sim Ee Waun!

Authentic Italian cooking…

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italian-pound-cakeIf you’ve been to Italy, you know that Italians have desserts, but they are simple and not so sweet. In fact, when I was young my Italian mother would make a basic sheet cake and only sprinkle powdered sugar on top — absolutely NO frosting! Of course, if it was a birthday, she would buy the traditional American birthday cake. Normally though, she would make just a plain cake. When she got “fancy,” she made pineapple upside down cake or strawberry short cake.

Years ago, I was in Italy and my mother said, “Let’s go visit, Silvana.” Off we went. As it was a visit, Silvana made us coffee and brought us a slice of cake that looked like this photo. My mother and I loved the cake. We asked Silvana for the recipe, it was a dry type of pound cake. Silvana said she made the cake from memory, no recipe, so it was hard for her to tell us the exact ingredients, but she tried.

Once at home, my mother and I tried to make the cake, but it was no good. Years have gone by, and I have not found a good recipe UNTIL a few months ago. An Italian friend posts different recipes on Facebook. She had a link to a website called, “An Italian in My Kitchen.”  This Blogger is from Toronto. She moved to Rome 20 years ago. She shares Italian recipes that she learned from her Italian mother/n/law. They are very good AND I think you would enjoy the stories she shares too.

On her site, she has a recipe for an “Italian Fresh Cream Lemon Cake.” It’s EXACTLY like Silvana’s cake!  Finally, it took a few years to find, but I have the recipe. I wrote a comment thanking this Blogger for making me so happy and bringing back Italian memories. She told me her daughter’s favorite cake is the “Easy Yogurt Cake,” which I will have to try next.  Thanks to Facebook for making sharing with our friends in different countries so easy!

Buon appetito!

Learning the Chinese Characters in a FUN way…

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learning-chinese-charactersAre you trying to learn Chinese and you are overwhelmed with how many characters you would need to learn? While there are 50,000 characters, a Chinese friend told me that for basic reading I would only need to learn about 3,000 of them. My head was swimming in a sea of characters, only need to learn 3,000?  I had a thought that training to climb Mt. Everest might be easier.

As destiny would have it, I finally had my first introduction to Chinese characters this weekend. I stopped off at the Amazon bookstore. As I am writing a children’s picture book, I decided to do some research. I sauntered over to the children’s book section. I looked at ALL sorts of books, not many caught my attention even though some had been on the “best sellers” list. For me, the illustrations for many of the books were way too busy. What happened to simplicity, I thought?

THEN, I took a few steps to right, looked up to the top shelf and a beautifully illustrated book caught my eye called, “The Pet Dragon,” by Christoph Niemann. It was very sweet and innocent looking and who doesn’t love a story with a dragon! As I opened the book the author/illustrator wrote a message that he had been in China and learned his first Chinese characters there. Excited with what he learned, he wanted to share this with us, his result is this picture book.

learning-chinese-characters-page-2

learning-chinese-characters-page-3He cleverly writes his story teaching us Chinese characters by adding them into the illustrations, so we can visually remember the Chinese characters in a humorous way. Here I show you a few pages from the book, so you can better understand what I mean.

This is lovely book. I would highly recommend buying it as a gift. I could see children wanting to read it over and over as they practice writing Chinese characters. Well done, Mr. Niemann!

African animals come to life in “Beast,” by John Banovich

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© John Banovich, Giants of Kilimanjaro, 2016, oil on belgian linen, 24 x 24 in.                        Limited Edition Giclee on Canvas.

My father loves Africa, he has been there over 35 times. He was especially fascinated by elephants, lions and leopards. I believe they gave him strength to persevere, fight and drive himself to success. He is a self made man, ferocious reader and watches many documentaries. In fact, as we were growing up, he’d call us in to watch, “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” with Marlin Perkins. This show studied wild animals in their natural habitats, we learned the importance of conservation from Perkins’s stories.

Fast forward 35+ years and conservation efforts are stronger than ever. Years ago, my father and I came across an artist out of Montana named, “John Banovich.” We were immediately mesmerized by his larger than life paintings of African animals. Clearly, Banovich had the same passion for African animals as my father had with the ability to bring them to life. For example, take a look at this elephant painting by Banovich. It’s incredible, we can see the precision with which Banovich paints the wrinkles on the elephant’s skin, brings fierceness to his eyes, the tusks perfectly positioned with just the right color. What amazed my father and I was the “feeling” that we were facing the elephant “head on, eye to eye,” like a fight scene. He gives life to all of his paintings in this way. They are very powerful!

Banovich’s love of animals/nature runs deep. In 2007, he started the Banovich Wildscapes Foundation, a nonprofit organization created to conserve wildlife, wild places and the people who live there. Right now, he supports twelve projects in seven countries with a portion of artwork sales going to the Foundation. A few projects are saving lions in Africa, Siberian tigers in Russia Far East and brown bears in North America. On his Foundation’s website you can read specific information on each project.

In 2009, he published the book, “Beast.” This banovich-book-beastbook shares his life story and collection of paintings. It’s a beautiful book, one that should be put on a coffee table and shared with others.

Visit Banovich’s Facebook page for the latest news on his projects and events. His next event is in South Carolina. If you’d like to learn more about his work, this is your chance to meet him in person AND to support wildlife conservation!

NEXT EVENT

THE ART OF CONSERVATION
Plantation Grille, Brays Island Plantation, SC
Guest Speaker: John Banovich, Artist/Conservationist
March 13, 2017, 3:30-5:00pm

Miracles… Lost items that are found.

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Scarf when lost.

Guest Blogger:

Francesca Meffert / Ireland

Tuesday

My heels clicked against the pavement as I crossed the street already ¾ of my way home from campus when the first stab of panic hit, “Why don’t I feel my scarf around my neck?”

The wind howled, mocking my inattention.

Touching my neck, bare flesh greeted me and my stomach flopped as I realized the wind had surely snatched it in my scurry home.

I asked myself, “Do you want to go back for it?” “No, it wasn’t my favorite scarf and I rarely wore it anyways. Besides, if the wind took it who knows where it might be.”

I resumed my walk home, my feet scuffling a tad heavier.

Wednesday – Saturday

Cycling into campus I took the route I came the previous day and alas there was no scarf to be found.

The next day was the same….

And the next…..

and the next.

Sunday

I gazed out the window as the bus prattled its way closer to campus. That morning I had cycled into college; a fact I was struggling with at this moment when deciding whether to get off on campus to collect my bike or head home. Sighing, I did also want to stop by Church at some stage to light a candle, which, if I went for that option would entail having to walk back into campus for my bike. As the scenery passed by with increasing alacrity I found myself facing a decision among 3 options:

Option 1: stop at college, get bike, go home.

Option 2: stop off a bit later, go to Church, get bike, go home.

Option 3: go home.

(It is worth noting that the route via Option 1 or 3 would take me different paths to/from college and my house).

Going with Option 2

I pressed the button and got off the bus and began my walk to Church. This is a route I had taken the last four days. As I was about to cross the street, I looked down and saw a heap of wet, dirty, grimy cloth that had clearly been exposed to the elements for a good while. My heart felt a moment of sadness for the poor thing and all of a sudden I felt myself doing a double-take, wait a second, that’s MY scarf!!

I crouched down and delicately plucked the grimy scarf from the ground and placed it in my bag, arousing stares of intrigue and distain from drivers and passerby’s alike. Standing up, I was grinning from ear to ear like a fool. It wasn’t even the fact that I had my scarf back, it hadn’t been super important to me, it was “what finding it represented,” and I couldn’t help but think:

scarf-found
                                            Scarf when found.

What was once lost can always be found.

Perhaps that could be true of objects, but I felt this was a gift from the universe more symbolic in nature.

Often times, we find ourselves in predicaments or situations that are stressful, hard, or challenging in some manner or another – be it in our work, relationships, life decisions or more. It is in those moments that we must ignite the best in ourselves – be it motivation, love, passion, determination, patience, hope or whatever is required to see us through it. We all have the capacity to ignite these elements within ourselves, but it’s up to us to trigger them. Finding the scarf reminded me, that although it can be difficult to imagine, “what was once lost can always be found” and we can find it in ourselves to recall our best traits to see us through.

Had I chosen Option 1 or 3, I would surely not have found my scarf or remembered this important life lesson. As my friend reminded me, everything happens for a reason.

I hope that this scarf can serve as a lesson, that you too, can find whatever it is in your heart that you are searching for, it just takes faith!

New York… SAVING “Wing On Wo & Co.,” the oldest store in Chinatown

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New York’s Chinatown

I recently read a story about a young Asian woman who was saving her family’s business in New York’s Chinatown. I was moved by this story, because as a child my parents brought us (my brothers/sister) to Chicago’s Chinatown a few times a year. We would explore the different shops with excitement. At lunch my father would say, “Everyone eats with chopsticks, no exceptions!” As you know, it was hard at first, but soon we were experts. We would happily go home excited to wear our new Chinese pajamas, play with the toys we had bought and eat almond cookies. When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area one of my first stops was… YES, Chinatown.

So, I could understand how granddaughter, Mei Lun (26 years old), was inspired by passion and tradition to stop her grandparents from selling the family business (Wing On Wo & C0.) by offering to run the store as an “owner-in-training.” The store was started by her great-great-grandfather, Walter Eng, as a general store in 1890. She is fifth generation to take over the store.

Lun’s passion for her Chinese heritage runs deep. The Chinatown community has always been male dominated and now with children growing up, and not always wanting to take over the family business things are changing. In order to make an effort to bring the community together, Lun created The W.O.W Project. This is a non-profit whose mission is to discuss the future of chinatown. There is a very interesting video documentary on their website, www.wingonwoand.co, where they discuss the history of her family’s store and the start of The W.O.W Project.

There is more… China Residencies and The W.O.W Project are teaming up to create a new residency program between local artists and ceramic artists from Jingdezhen, China. This sounds like a really great program. They have already had a few events. As they are in their infancy, they are also in fundraising mode. You can make a donation on their website.

I am excited to see Mei Lun succeed, so New York Chinatown stays alive!

Happy Lunar New Year!

 

Amazon Go -> Use their App, shop at convenience store with no cashier!

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iphone-shoppingAmazon has done it again, another new business idea. Have you heard, they have come out with Amazon Go, a new way of shopping by using the Amazon Go App. Right now, Amazon has a small test site close to their headquarters in Seattle. Amazon employees started testing this new technology at the beginning of December 2016. Their goal is to open this to the public early 2017.

Here’s how it works. You download the Amazon Go App, enter the convenience store where they sell bread, eggs, drinks, sandwiches, coffee, etc., put what you want to buy in your bag and “merely” walk out of the store. Shortly after you leave the store, you receive a receipt for your purchases from Amazon. Easy as that!

It’s interesting technology, watch how this works on YouTube video published by Amazon, “Introducing Amazon Go and the world’s most advanced shopping technology.”

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Seattle’s Space Needle

How many of you watched the cartoon show, “The Jetsons,” when you were young. If you did, you’ll remember how space age and into technology the show was, really futuristic. The show’s look was inspired by the Space Needle in Seattle and they lived in the sky to get away from the smog.

If you are not familiar with the show, see this YouTube video called, “The Jetsons Future of Technology,” where someone spliced together some clips from different episodes to show how the writer saw us using technology in the future in the 1960s…  and now over 50 years later it’s becoming a reality.

Stay tuned, let’s see when Amazon Go goes public!

The Pantone Color Institute has spoken. The color of the year is GREEN!

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pantone-color-greenHave you ever thought about how the color of the year is chosen?  I’ve always wondered, but as I am not in the design industry never looked into it. However, throughout the years, I would walk through stores “thinking,” I guess this year it is egg plant purple, sunny yellow, cherry red, etc., because every store was using the same color for their products.

I’d either be excited and spend money on a new pillow I didn’t need, because I loved the color OR I would frown and say, “NEVER would I buy dishes in grey.”  Not my color palette. Good way to save money, if you don’t like the color of the year, you don’t make frivolous purchases.

So, you are thinking, “How is the color of the year chosen?”

There’s a company called, “Pantone Color Institute,” and they are known for color forecasting. Companies hire them for help with understanding color trends, color branding, and choosing a color strategy.

They came up with the Pantone Matching Color System as seen in photo, which standardized the ability to reproduce exact shades of a color between companies/manufacturers by using a specific Pantone number for each color created. So, basically, if you want to have a specific “blue” for the print on your business card, you would email the printer the specific “Pantone #” for the blue shade you want. No need to go into the printer’s office. Your blue color would print out perfectly!

The Pantone Color Institute started choosing the color of the year in 2000. Why were they chosen to choose the color of the year?  This is not clear in my research. It seems that since they own the Pantone color palette, they are considered color experts. They make their yearly choice by looking at color trends during the year. This year they chose green as they had the feeling people wanted to be closer to nature.

If you want to learn more about “the color of the year,” do a quick Google search. There are several interesting articles on this.

I hope you like green. We will be seeing GREEN in everything, i.e. fashion, home goods, interior design… probably cars too!

Luckily, I don’t mind green, it’s the color of nature. I can live with that!

Can you?

100 Days of Rejection…

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yes_no-is-lifeIt’s January and I am moving along full speed ahead. With this in mind, I decided to download some inspirational podcasts that I could listen to while I am walking. I am training for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day/60 mile breast cancer walk in September, so I have to get moving!

For any of you who are training for an athletic event, you know that good music or podcasts to listen to make the exercise routine fly by. While I was on the TED website, I came across a really interesting talk called, “What I learned from 100 days of rejection,” by Jia Jiang.

This talk really hit home for me. It’s about 15 minutes long and you’ll be hooked from the “get go.” Jia Jiang starts out with a classroom story of when he was 6 years old and learned what rejection felt like. I don’t want to give the entire story away, but rejection is tough and can carry on with us through our adult life.

In order to deal with his fear of rejection, Jiang decided he would find 100 ways of being rejected, so he could deal with his fear “head on.” Some of his stories are really funny. I remember having his “same fear of rejection” and it wasn’t until I started working in sales and got rejected constantly that I realized rejection was not about “me,” but about the situation being rejected, i.e. no budget, no response from advertising, etc.

This could be fun!  Let’s all share a story of a rejection that turned positive.  

I’LL START. The reason I got the job in sales was because the Hiring Manager “rejected” my application for a Managing Editor position. He said I was extremely tenacious and because of my humor I would make a great copy writer. “We’ve already hired someone, Good luck,” he said!

WHAT??  GOOD LUCK??  I wasn’t going down without a fight. Since he was nice enough to compliment me, I took the chance, wrote him back and asked if he’d meet me for an “informational interview.”  HE SAID, “YES.”

At the interview, we talked and he asked me how I was so tenacious. I explained it was my family, but also going to boarding school. Turns out he had gone to boarding school too. So, he said to me, “If you stay on the editorial side, you’ll never make money; however, if you go into Sales you can make a lot of money and I happen to have a sales position available.”

Well, you guessed it!  I decided to try sales. It was a powerful experience. There was “one special day,” where I realized rejection was NOT about me, but the situation. I had been pursuing different customers for advertising. I started thinking I was not cut out for the job, because of no response when I would call, submit proposals, etc.

Then one day, I called a fellow that I had been pursuing and found out he had not called me, because he was in the hospital, he had had a heart attack! This was a game changer for me!  I realized that if customers didn’t get back to me there could be a “valid reason” and not just because they were “tired” of hearing from me. Moral of the story, NEVER assume anything, go by the facts.

The Taming of the Muse (a fellow blogger), shared a good rejection story called, “Opportunities – Sometimes, things have to fall apart so they can fall into place.” 

Like Jiang says, “Rejection, if tackled head on, can turn out to be a good thing!”