Thick Dumpling Skin Co-founder Lynn Chen will be speaking at Stanford University this Monday the 20th with the team from Nice Girls Crew.  The event is open to the public, and available to view online live!

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, and I, of course, have been terrible about communicating where I’ve been. April and May is usually a busy time for us because of the API Heritage Month. I thought I would’ve gotten used to this after my publisher years at Hyphen, but the month still catches me by surprise every time.

“It’s May already?!” Oh yes indeed. 

I love this month because in addition to celebrating who we are and the Asian American heritage, this month also gives us the opportunity to reflect upon the battles that previous generations had to fight in order to gain equality. I don’t know at what point did Asian Americans get stamped with the stereotype that we are a group of submissive people who don’t stand up for ourselves, but this month is a good month to look back in history and know that that’s so far from the truth. 

Let’s be clear, we are still fighting many of the similar battles today, but I’ve always been an optimist and I know that change never comes as fast as we would like it to. But, we’ll get there, we just have to keep at it!

Switching gears a bit, I’d like to give some shout outs to the schools that I’ve visited. I spent Friday, April 5th, with students from Hope College in Michigan. Huge thanks to HAPA, Hope’s Asian Perspective Association for its hospitality. 

After working out of NYC for some time, I then headed to the University of Wisconsin, Madison on April 17th and 18th and spent time with the students there. I loved the spirit of its student, and left feeling inspired and hopeful that these young people will take the reigns one day (if they’re not doing it already). I also got to do a bit of exploring. If you follow me on Instagram (@rrrlisarrr), you’ll see some of the places that I checked out. 

This past Wednesday, I spent time in my own backyard at Stanford, thanks to the invitation of the Stanford Asian American Activist Committee, and as I am typing, I am getting ready to board a flight to go to Dartmouth to spend time with the students involved with the Pan Asian Wellness Initiative. 

Click here for more info, just in case you know, you happen to be in Dartmouth for whatever reason. I’ll be doing a workshop, a talk, and a dinner discussion.

Hope you guys are all doing well out there. It has been a rough month for many who I love and care about deeply.

Take a deep breath, and take care of yourselves, please!

- Lisa

Do you want Thick Dumpling Skin at your event? Contact us!

Here’s how first lady Michelle Obama talks to her children about food. (Read the full article here.)

I don’t talk about weight at all. I talk about healthy choices. When I talk about exercise I don’t talk about exercise in terms of you have to look good. Exercise is about competition; it’s about learning a new sport; it’s about being introduced to something interesting; it’s about learning about how to compete and why competition is important. We talk in those terms.

When we talk at the dinner table we talk about eating a balanced meal, not because of how you look but because of what your body needs.

Now that [the girls] are getting older they’re starting to conversations [about weight] in their community, so it’s not coming from us, it’s coming from the outside. But I always shift them back to health and tell them the best way to never have to worry about what you look like is just to get good food in your body.

It’s all about balance. It’s not about never having birthday cake, or going out to lunch and not having a burger. I don’t even want them to think about that. I don’t want them to obsess about food. I just want them to live their lives.

So if they’re doing a sport, if they stay active, if they’re eating vegetables most meals and not overeating, if we treat foods as treats — so the weekend I’ll tell them you can have one breakfast that’s a splurge breakfast, just once a week — because you just don’t need to have pancakes and sweet rolls — at the White House, you walk in and it’s like pancakes and a sweet roll and a biscuit — (laughter.) it’s like, who’s idea was this?

What’s the best advice your Mom has given you about food/body image?

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival starts tomorrow night! Now in its 29th year, this is a great chance to support films created by and starring Asians and Asian-Americans, including Thick Dumpling Skin’s very own co-founder Lynn Chen.  See you there!

From Mary H K Choi’s article for Aeon Magazine:

School was awful. I had to leave during the middle of the day for physical therapy that involved swimming and returning to class with inexplicably wet hair. Lunch sucked. My mom would pack the dumbest garbage. She once smeared bits of raw garlic left over from making kimchi onto white sandwich bread, thinking that’s how the garlic bread advertised at Pizza Hut was born. I waited until she got off work that night and yelled at her with rank breath. I’d eaten most of the seemingly innocent square, elated that a sandwich had turned up at all in a lunch box that usually contained punishment food that sometimes had eyes. The stress of navigating school as a teeny-tiny uncomfortable person with an enormous gimp wing was taking a toll.

One lunch, I was dragging myself around the playground when I saw my mom standing by the fence, waving big and calling my name. I wanted so badly to ignore her. She was supposed to be at work and I didn’t have physical therapy that day so I was immediately suspicious. As confusing as her presence was, my curiosity did not outweigh my desire to be left alone. Especially by her. I began to back away so she started shouting loud enough to be heard over the playground din. I shuffled towards her with every intention to roundhouse-bludgeon her with my plastered arm. She held out a paper box. It was a McDonald’s happy meal: a cheeseburger one, which was my favorite. The offering was so out of character that I considered it a bribe. I wondered if my parents were getting a divorce since that was huge at my school at the time. I asked her what was going on. She mentioned something about how she wanted me to have a lunch that I liked.

I then did what any normal kid would do and yelled and yelled about how embarrassing it was to have her at school with me during lunch of all times. She presented me with a sack of cheeseburgers that I could give out to my friends. I refused the damp bag and screeched about how it was so cheap that she didn’t spring for bright red boxes with toys for them as well. I made her take the burgers back with her. If I were an actress and had to think of something sad to make me cry in a scene, I would think about this moment. This and the time I was 13 when I kicked my mom across a room and ran away for two days because she tried to ground me — for breaking curfew after my friend Jacinta stole money from her dying grandmother so we could rent out a nightclub and write the names of those blackballed on the sign outside. For the record: I don’t know why people have kids.

To read the entire story, click here. 

Know something that should be On Our Radar? Contact us!

I’m right by K-town, but rarely eat there - partially because my husband’s a vegetarian, but mostly because I am not Korean.  For some reason, when it comes to food + culture (specifically Asian ones), I am shy about exploration.  I’m perfectly comfortable asking a million questions at a Taco Stand, Ethiopian restaurant, or Russian Deli.  But when I’m sitting down to a bowl of Ramen, Pho, or Naengmyeon, I point and slurp quietly.

Maybe this has to do with the fact that I can “pass” and don’t want to make a spectacle of myself by asking too many questions.  

This area is the subject of Anthony Bourdain’s latest episode of his new CNN show, Parts Unknown.  I was pleased to see my favorite chef, Roy Choi, as one of his Ambassadors.

Artist David Choe also played tour guide - when they stopped at Sizzler, I felt an immediate connection.  I, too, grew up going to these and related to his memories of feeling a “need” to get your money’s worth from the buffet.

Of course, my favorite part of the episode was when they went to Myung In Dumplings - the same place I went to celebrate the launch of this blog!  

Did you see the episode?  Do you relate?  (Can you recommend some Koreatown places to visit?)

- Lynn 

One of our readers, Hien, sent us a lovely note with this video. 

The summary? You are more beautiful, more vibrant, more amazing than you think. Don’t sell yourself short. 

UPDATE: This post just appeared on our radar, and there are some really good points in the post that we didn’t get a chance to dissect.

The whole premise of the post is that this Dove campaign is perpetuating a certain “standard” of beauty, and that physical beauty might be everything. 

I know we’ve been told it thousands upon thousands of times before, but I hope you heard that, girls: your physical, superficial beauty is the most significant part of who you are, and the most important determining factor in your life. And now I want you to hear this: that is a lie. 

Obviously, your beauty is so much more than just your looks. But despite the fact that women of color weren’t featured prominently in the video, I think one thing that Dove might be onto with this video is this idea of physical beauty. As much as I want to throw this line of thinking completely throw it out the window, I understand how physical beauty can and often times do affect the way we feel about ourselves inside.

Yes we should try to break out of that. Absolutely yes it is NOT the most significant part of who you we are, but I’d like to give this “experiment” a little benefit of the doubt.

If only women “saw” themselves the way that other people see them, not just physically… If we imagined that there is this constant aura and light oozing out of us, then maybe we can all start to project more positiveness into this world. 

What you look like should not affect the choices that you make. It should certainly not affect the friends you make—the friends that wouldn’t want to be in relationship with you if you did not meet a certain physical standard are not the friends that you want to have. Go out for jobs that you want, that you’re passionate about. Don’t let how good looking you feel like you are affect the way way that you treat your children. And certainly do not make how well you feel you align with the strict and narrow “standard” that the beauty industry and media push be critical to your happiness, because you will always be miserable. You will always feel like you fall short, because those standards are designed to keep you constantly pressured into buying things like make up and diet food and moisturizer to reach an unattainable goal. Don’t let your happiness be dependent on something so fickle and cruel and trivial. You should feel beautiful, and Dove was right about one thing: you are more beautiful than you know. But please, please hear me: you are so, so much more than beautiful. 

- Lisa

Know something that should be On Our Radar? Contact us!

Here’s how to help.

UW-Madison, I’m heading your way next Wednesday thanks to your AASU.

I’ll be talking about how Thick Dumpling Skin came about and doing a workshop on how we think of our bodies. The last time I visited Wisconsin was quite a few years ago. I was out in some rural area and I remember buying my first authentic leather cowboy hat that is still sitting in my parents’ house. 

I have a feeling that this visit might be a little different. 

MSC Lounge, Red Gym
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
7 pm - 9 pm. 

RSVP on Facebook here and I’ll see you soon! Oh, and if you have recs on what I should do or see during my visit, let me know.

- Lisa

Do you want Thick Dumpling Skin at your event? Contact us!