LHC Words

A new beginning

2010-02-14T23:26:00.001+08:00

This is the last post on LHCwords.blogspot.com. Wow ... I can't believe I'm officially saying goodbye to the blogger platform. But the time has come for something new, and that new is here:

www.lisahollchang.com/blog

Update your bookmarks or Google Reader and leave a comment on the new blog to let me know you've made the transition! I'll see you over there! :)

Engagement: Selena and Pate

2010-02-08T21:59:00.004+08:00

Last Saturday I got to photograph some engagement photos for two lovely international people who met each other in Taiwan. Selena and Pate let Winnie and I take them all over the crowded Taipei Main Station area and even take pictures inside the station itself! It was a lot of fun. Thanks Selena and Pate. Below is a sequence of black and whites. Enjoy!

For those Photoshop nuts like me out there, I got the "TRA recipe" from this blog post. Amelia Lyon is an AMAZING photographer in the LA area. She and her husband Justin provide great photos and content on their blog, making my Google Reader list! And Justin is in Haiti right now taking pictures for a mission group ~ something that I think is totally cool. Check them out here.

One thing about this "recipe" is that it added grain to the photo. I'm inclined to be against grain because I usually work really hard to make my images sharp, why then make them fuzzy/noisy? But after doing this set, the idea is growing on me, if only for black and whites. The other thing I like about Lyon's processing is that she really pushes the limits beyond where I'm usually comfortable going. It was a good stretch for me. :)

Yilan Cultural Arts Center

2010-02-02T22:23:00.002+08:00

Just a few photos today. Processing photos can be therapeutic. :)

Our walk

2010-01-27T19:36:00.002+08:00

Tonight, we went out for a walk. I really appreciated it. Tonight could have been lonely, since my husband is at his company dinner and all. But it wasn't because we took a walk together.

The weather was really nice. Only a little bit of a chill. It's late January now and I can already tell it doesn't get dark quite as early anymore. That's great ~ it definitely makes my walk with you more enjoyable! But since it's already 5:30 it'll get dark soon.

When I cross this crate, it means the walk has become a hike. I love hiking. Lately I've developed a bit of a routine. I'll hike to the top (I didn't even have to stop and catch my breath last time) then jog back down. I can be back home in a half hour.

We get to the steep part. Actually one of several steep parts. But this one's the worst. I need to slow down here. I'm sorry if I didn't pay as much attention to you here. It's just so steep that's all I can think about.

There was a Buddhist tent and rituals here for the longest time last year. It was after the typhoon in August. They called it the "peace and blessing" meeting to "reduce disaster." I'm glad it's gone. Now there's just this gate. There's a shortcut on the right. It'll eventually end at a temple. I really wish people didn't feel the need to go to these places.

You asked me if I missed Cappuccino. I do, especially at times like these when I'm hiking. I hiked more when I had Cappuccino. I never felt like I exercised her enough. I sometimes wonder how she is now. That's not an easy topic to wonder about. I put it back out of my mind.

The lights turned on at about 6:00. Sometimes when I hike I form words in my head as if I'm writing a blog post. Or I just process through things without words. I guess I can't really tell my mind is working except that it always feels clearer afterward. As if the trees, road and sweat moved the clutter away.

Haha, Cappuccino always took this path while I took the one on the left. Otherwise she was really good about sticking by my side. She loved hikes as much as do. I got to let her off her leash and let her run on her own. She never caused any problems. Because she was scared of other people she'd just hurry past them.

We reach the top and rest here for a moment to enjoy the view. I love how simple things like hiking can make me feel better. As if I get my little injection of accomplishment. OK, time to head back down. As soon as I get my butt off the ground!

It's silly but I always feel a little nervous when passing under these trees. They make creaking noises in the wind, as if they're ready to fall over any minute and bury me underneath them.

Hehe ... I'm really tall. (Not). Oh do I wish I was taller. I really think it would have taken me less time to learn how to be confident if I were.

It's starting to really get dark now. Good thing we're almost back to civilization. Just a few more turns in the road and we'll be there. Not that I'm not enjoying the hike. But my mind has already moved on to what I'll eat for dinner.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of taking walks with you. Some people listen to their iPods when they exercise. I've only wanted to do that when I'm running on flat terrain to distract me from my misery. When I take hikes though, I never think to bring my music. I don't want to be distracted from what's around me.

These lights are a florescent white. We must be getting closer. Our pace quickens a bit here because there's construction workers working on the the temple to our left and sometimes they yell out "hello." I really dislike that. I never answer them. I also avoid looking at them.

We've crossed the grate and officially returned to civilization. This also means we can slow our pace. We're almost home. I think I could live in this area happily for a long time.

These steps say "home" for me. It's funny, I've stopped wondering about certain things in my neighborhood. Like why this apartment complex is decorated with Christmas lights year round.

Home sweet home. I've enjoyed the walk. Let's do it again sometime soon. Maybe tomorrow.

The Science of Presentations

2010-01-26T16:15:00.003+08:00

I've been learning about presentations lately. Since I'm "into" design and visual ways of communicating, the principles of effective presentations: more visuals, less text, no bullet points, are easy to understand. It amazes me how many people don't know about this stuff. Here's a great talk about presentations. It's a little long (17 minutes) but will change the way you do presentations from now on.
The Science Of Presentations

View more documents from Kevin Gee.

My cliff notes:
*People receive information in two ways: auditory (hearing) and visual. The most effective presentations will combine auditory and visual means to present information.
*People can only receive so much information at a time, some scientists say our "working memory" can only handle seven "pieces" of information.
*If people are reading text, they are converting from visual to auditory information. So if people are reading text on a slide, they are no longer listening to the speaker.
*Slides should contain primarily visual information. If there are words, only use a few.
*All the information should be "cohesive." So take out anything that's extra. A few words on a white background is effective.

Interesting stuff, eh? :)

Confessions of a controlling wife

2010-01-25T11:18:00.002+08:00

I believe it's generally recognized that women can be controlling of their men. In fact, I think that's a major cause of discord between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law ~ deep down they both want to control the same person.

Now, I already have a personality that tends to like control. I grew up on a dairy farm ~ my siblings and I took turns running the business. I'm deeply independent and opinionated. But I'm also well versed on the scriptures and reasons why it's good to let the man be the head of a household. So I try to reign my controlling-personality in. But sometimes it still gets out. Like in the following cases:

*I cut out the translation section of my husband's Advanced (English-learning) magazine because "it's better for him" and "he doesn't need it."
*I told my husband he had to go to church on Sunday when he didn't want to for good reason (it was the all-church annual celebration which tends to be long and boring). I offered his home church as a possible alternative. He decided to go to church with me.
*I told my husband I would absolutely not to go small group anymore if he didn't drive. This was after an hour-long commute home on a rainy night. (I've already broken this "ultimatum.")
*I guilt-tripped my husband into coming to a Bible study (he translates for my class) on a Friday when he was taking the GMAT the next Tuesday. Later I got food poisoning that Friday and couldn't teach. I wondered if I was experiencing God's holy judgment.

And I won't include any more because I already look really bad. Fortunately my husband laughs all these things off. But even if it doesn't bother him, it bothers me. I am trying to improve this aspect of myself. Consider this public confession part of the process.

Overboard

2010-01-18T21:40:00.003+08:00

I'm afraid I've gone a little overboard. Yesterday Mr. C and I were sharing before our weekly prayer time together and talking about how for both of us, we've gone a little overboard. Me with this photography thing, Mr. C with preparing for the GMAT (and previously, the TOEFL). One thing Mr. C said really struck me, he said he wondered if my whole "obsession" with photography (in the sense that it's negative) wasn't partly his fault. It's true I do have A LOT of "me time" while he is studying that I've filled with doing things in photoshop, learning or reading photography-related blogs.

In a way, we both look forward to getting out of this slightly unbalanced period of our lives. For me, I think that will mean (albeit slowly) developing a photography style and even more a new way of living with me. For Mr. C it'll mean finally taming the beast called G-M-A-T.

Mr. C's moment of freedom will hopefully come tomorrow (Tuesday, afternoon) as he takes the GMAT for the second time. Please pray that he does get a score he can be satisfied with. We're praying for 680 or above, but will accept however God leads with the score.

For myself, photography has not only been a creative outlet but also a means to understanding more about who I am and becoming more confident in my individuality. Just as not everyone has the same photography style, so does not everyone have the same "living style," or personality for that matter. That's what photography has taught me. So while photography may need to become "less" in my life, I hope I become more ... more aware of myself, more confident in who I am, more confident in who God is, more uniquely me.

In some ways, that sentence above seems horribly selfish. I mean, only in my world am I the center of the universe. But I think another thing I'm learning is that only when you are more of who God meant you to be can you be more of a friend, or wife, or daughter to those you love. That doesn't mean you'll always please those people. In fact, you won't. But that was never the aim in the first place. Please God, be true to yourself.

So I'll continue learning and growing in photography, with some limits set in place like no photoshop or blogs on Sunday. But even more I want to become comfortable and confident in who this person called Lisa is ~ the person, not the photographer. I'm developing a character, not a brand.

The Benedict Family

2010-01-16T17:43:00.003+08:00

Darby and David Benedict have the cutest kids: Sawyer and Elliette. Sawyer was a bit more camera-shy, though I got him to warm up to me by the end. :) Elliette could have a future in modeling ~ she really struck some poses!

I hope you enjoy these pictures of this beautiful family!
~Lisa

LOVE this photo!

OK, one ... two ... three ... awwww :)

The Friend Plan: Is It for You?

2010-01-10T21:58:00.004+08:00

Introducing the friend plan:

* I will take you out somewhere to shoot some photos quickly. It might even happen after a Saturday morning brunch, like with this photo with Winnie.

* This is not a typical portrait session: I get total creative control ~ I might pose you, I might tell you to do your own thing ~ it's up to me. I know, this doesn't sound fun for you, but trust me, I'll be working at keeping it fun for you too. But the purpose of these mini photo sessions is for me to push my own creative envelope.

* You will get a few photos ~ processed anyway I like. I can't promise you'll like them, I can promise they'll be totally and completely ~ me.

Let me know if you're a friend and interested! And we'll try to get something together before Chinese New Year.

The Narayan Family

2010-01-10T21:11:00.004+08:00

On a cold winter day, I scooted a half hour to take pictures for two families. Thankfully, once I got there, things warmed up quickly! Asha, Amy and Rod's oldest daughter, quickly got me involved in a game on the playground where she was the princess and I was to go and rescue her. :) Asha's sister, Jaya, enjoyed playing by herself much more, but I still managed to capture a few photos of her looking at the camera. :)

Rod and Amy ~ thank you for letting me join your family for a morning. I hope you enjoy these photos!
~Lisa

Asha ~ as the princess :)

And the adorable Jaya

You may have noticed the new watermark I'm using! Andy, one of my Friday Night bible study students designed this for me. He's also working on a logo. I'm excited to unveil everything someday on my new blog but you'll have to enjoy the watermark for now. :)

~ Holidays ~ (part 3)

2009-12-31T15:42:00.003+08:00

My third and final resolution ~

New Year's Resolution #3
LEARN MORE OF THE BIBLE

This will be a challenging resolution to keep especially as Peter and I plan to travel a good part of the year. And there will be lots of changes as we move to a different continent. But that makes being immersed in God's Word even more necessary.

If I ever have the time and opportunity, I would really like to go to seminary. In my mind, that would be an awesome treat akin to eating chocolate for every meal. When I was in college, I loved the intensive manuscript studies that my college fellowship (Intervarsity) did. I miss the days of referencing Bible encyclopedias and concordances!

Since I won't be able to take an actual Bible class this year much less go to seminary, I decided to make this my resolution. It's the particular aspect of my relationship with God that I wish to focus on this year. It'll require a lot of self-motivation! Please give me tips! I'm not looking for something so much as a "Bible reading plan" but rather tips on how to gain more from my Bible-reading time.

Happy New Year!
Lisa

~ Holidays ~ (part 2)

2009-12-30T21:33:00.003+08:00

OK, on to my second New Year's Resolution. It's related to the first, but more personal and even more important.

New Year's Resolution #2
DEVELOP MY CREATIVITY

I've spent a lot of time over the past year reading different photographers' blogs, etc, and during this time have formulated the following thought about creativity:

*Creativity is an innate God-given characteristic that each of us possess
Each person is different. Which is why I laugh at the idea "be different." You already are! Instead, be even more you! This year I hope to explore the creativity that God has given me. I want to go deeper ~ think about what I value, how I see the world, how I interact with others, what's important to me and what's not. Then as a photographer, I want to pursue those values and ideas in my photographs. I believe each photo has the potential to become art when it is purposefully created by someone who grasps his/her own unique sense of beauty.

So this new year's resolution really has two parts. One entails a spiritual journey into understanding even more clearly who I am. The second part involves bringing that into everything I do, just one area being photography. When taking pictures, I hope to "overcome my nerves" so that I can connect to my creative sweet spot. In everything else, I hope to bless others more because I'm even more who God created me to be. :)

~ Holidays ~

2009-12-29T21:32:00.005+08:00

Dear friends,

I have three new year's resolutions and I'd like to share them one by one. 'Cuz I'm just dramatic like that, and because I think all three are important in very different ways.

New Year's Resolution #1 (It's a biggie!)
START A PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS/BRAND

I know, I know, unbelievable right? But I've realized that 2010 is simply the year to make my courtship with photography official. Really nothing much is going to change: I still have a TON to learn and grow in. But starting an actual business will allow me to take pictures for people and establish the terms for doing so that will benefit both them and me. And I'll be changing jobs (and continents) next year, so it is a good opportunity to develop a business even if it only ends up being a part time pursuit.

Things that need to happen?
1. Buy a camera that will take photos with enough quality that I can be confident selling them to other people. Check! (Thanks honey!)

Yes, I got a Canon 50D for Christmas. I LOVE it. It's ISO processing leaves my old 400D in the dust. Wow. And megapixels galore. In case I'll ever need to make that really huge print. Wow, wow, wow!

2. Design a logo and build either a website or better blog.
My friend Andy is helping me with building a logo. I'm pretty excited. Thinking of a brand is really a "spiritual journey." You have to dig deep into yourself to truly figure out who you are and what's important to you. Actually, I have yet to finish the process. But for the logo I've grasped on to the idea of leaves blowing in the wind. Because life happens so fast, that I know at least for myself, memories fade quickly. But photography is really one of the best ways of holding on to that "leaf" so the winds of time can't blow it away. If you have any website or blog ideas, please let me know. Especially ones that deliver bang for the buck!

There is more, but I will save it for resolution #2. :P

Enjoy a couple pictures from my first day with my new 50D. Both of these pictures were taken with 1000+ ISOs. Yes there's noise, but it's so minimal that my eyes simply don't see very much of it (especially after being used to seeing 400D noise!) (oh, and the fuzzy stuff in the second picture is texture, not noise! :P)

Mom-to-Be: Andrea's Pregnancy Portraits

2009-12-19T22:30:00.004+08:00

Andrea is a coworker and dear friend who will be having her first child any day now. I hope and pray the delivery goes smoothly and that Daniel and Andrea can meet their baby before Christmas! But he/she'll come out when he/she's ready! Can't wait to meet the little guy/girl! (This is so exciting!)

Still giddy from my big Totally Rad Actions win, I decided to do textures for these edits. Don't worry, Daniel and Andrea have all the photos without the textures too. :) It was fun to experiment, and so now you can see some of the fun I had! :)

Andrea has a stuffed animal (not sure of the spelling ... I think it's something like "chichi"?) that has reoccurred in several of their important photos. And now he's making his appearance here. :)

Thank you Daniel and Andrea for allowing me to join in some of your anticipation and joy! ~ Lisa

Portraits: Wills & Huang Family

2009-12-13T20:44:00.002+08:00

One month ago I had the privilege to take photos for Mike and Angela Wills. Mike and Angela live in Los Angeles and are visiting Taiwan for Angela's mom's birthday. To commemorate the occasion, they asked me to take photos for them. The most exciting bit for me was that a mutual friend, Adele, had recommended me to them when they were looking for a photographer. I was incredibly thrilled to receive my first real recommendation!

Now I'm happy to call Mike and Angela friends, and let me tell you, they have the cutest daughter in the world. Abigail made a big step that day ~ she climbed up several steps on her own! It was a fun moment to document, with everybody cheering her on. :)

With no further ado, here are the photos!

I'd have to say, compositionally, this was my favorite photo of the day!

Abigail's big climb up the stairs! She was so excited!

The Huang sisters ~ I also got to know Candy (on the right) because she was an intern at the company I work at over the summer. We led a summer camp for kids in Hualian together. You might even recognize her from the pictures I posted on my blog. :)

Mike and Angela ~ thank you for letting me hang out with your family for an afternoon and get to know you better!
Adele ~ thank you for the thumbs up and "jia you" :)

Oh la la textures!

2009-12-13T11:33:00.003+08:00

So part of the Totally Rad package I won yesterday is their photoshop texture filters. Let me tell you, textures are fun! I've been playing around with it a bit this morning, and thought I'd let you see some of the fun I've had. :)

This is a picture of my parents in front of their beloved combine tractor. You can find the original here. I know the picture below is probably a bit much, texture-wise, but hey, I'm having fun!

Totally Rad Actions

2009-12-12T14:31:00.004+08:00

I found out this morning that I'd won the three complete sets of Photoshop actions from Totally Rad Actions! For those of you who don't know what this is, check them out here. Even if you're not into Photoshop, you can imagine how excited I was at winning $460 worth of products! I've wanted TRA actions for the longest time, but since I'm only an amateur photographer I couldn't quite justify their expense. I planned on buying them slowly, set by set, sometime later next year. You can imagine how I felt when I saw the email saying I'd won all of them! I've been downloading them, and uploading them into Photoshop, and let me tell you the feeling is like that of a kid in a candy store where everything is FREE!!!

I'm just starting to have fun ... here's one recent photo I took after applying a bit of TRA magic to it. The photo to the left is mine after making my own adjustments in photoshop. And the image on the right is post TRA (Boutwell Magic Glasses and Rusty @40%)

Woohoo! :)

Engaged: Johnny & Karen

2009-12-02T19:59:00.003+08:00

I met Johnny and Karen through my friend Winnie and had the privilege to take their engagement photos about a month ago. These two fun-loving people were up for anything ~ including photos in an MRT station!

Johnny and Karen ~ thank you for letting Winnie and I swarm around you like paparazzi for two hours one Saturday and for paying that 16 NT to enter an MRT station just to take pictures. :) ~Lisa

We started the morning out in a co-workers apartment. Thanks Chip and Chels for letting us borrow your space!

Johnny likes to play games, so of course if you're documenting a couple's life ... then document their life!

He lets Karen play sometimes too :)

LOVE these next two photos. There are even more like them when you click here.

Here, Karen's kind of laughing at me cuz I was trying random stuff to get her to ...

Pose something like this:

And now we're in the MRT station!

Best wishes to Johnny and Karen! I can't wait to hang out more ... and I'm definitely going back to get new hair highlights from Johnny!

Wedding: Simon and Jackie

2009-11-29T20:18:00.002+08:00

Simon and Jackie got married on October 10th. Simon is my coworker and friend, and I had the privilege to shoot the wedding with two other coworkers and friends, Alex and Winnie. Simon and Jackie have since gone on their *2nd* honeymoon, and now here are some of my favorites from their wedding:

The dashing groom

The blushing bride :)

The adorable flower girl

The wedding guest book

I loved all the *looks* the bride gave the groom during the ceremony

First entrance at the banquet

Toasts began when they always do, after the first outfit change :)

The bouquet toss

And ... the impromptu dance party!

Sneak Peak: Bastke Baby

2009-11-26T15:34:00.003+08:00

Hi folks: OK I KNOW that I've posted FOUR sneak previews and not one full post yet. Don't worry I'm getting there. I finished my Lynda.com course on Sunday and am having fun practicing my skills. But of course right now the biggest distraction is Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving, so I'm happily distracted. :)

My friend and co-worker Andrea is due in one month! Last weekend I got to take some pictures or her, her husband and her baby belly with my friend Winnie.

One more note about this picture: This picture inspires me to make more like it. I love learning about photography, and the more I learn the more I realize that it's just as much about feeling and emotion as it is about skill. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Learning on Lynda: Color Correction

2009-11-21T17:26:00.003+08:00

I've been mentioning Lynda.com's tutorials a lot on this blog recently, well I'm so happy with what I'm learning that I decided to post a couple (and maybe more) pictures to practice what I'm learning and demonstrate it for anyone who's interested.

This is my friend Rachel's baby Caleb a week after he was born. He's now three months old and quite a big baby boy!

In the photos below, the main corrections were: Color correction, brightness and contrast.

Here's the original:

And here's the image after I photoshopped it:

For those of you who have photoshop, here's the specs:
Increase contrast: create curves adjustment layer and accept w/ no changes. Change to "soft light" blending mode. Decrease opacity to 40%
Color correct: open curves adjustment layer, find highlights and shadows by turning on "show clipping" and moving sliders. With eye dropper tool, select highlights and shadows by shift-clicking on it. Find RGB values in info bar and make adjustments in each of the RGB channels until numbers are the same (245 for highlights, 10-15 for shadows). Also put an eye dropper on face to monitor those values (red should be more than green which is more than blue but a bigger difference between red and green). Open another curves layer to bring down reds in skin a little bit.
Brighten: open curves adjustment and brighten face to liking. Then accept and mask out the background. Brighten eyes even more with a second curves adjustment. Mask out everything but eyes and play around w/ opacity until it's just right.

Sneak Peak: Wills and Huang family

2009-11-18T21:03:00.005+08:00

I'm really thankful for every opportunity I can get to practice. The more I learn about photography and doing portraits, well the more I realize just how much there is to learn! That said, I really enjoyed taking an hour out of my Saturday (the one non-rainy day this past week!) to take portraits for the Wills and Huang family. Actually they're one family. :) Angela Wills invited me to take portraits of her family ~ including parents, sisters, husband and child. I readily accepted, as I was eager to get to know this fun couple more. :)

Here's just one picture from the day. I can't wait to process through the rest of them, but I'm tied to a one-month subscription to this awesome training website called Lynda.com and since my month ends on the 24th I'm doing all I can to finish the course I'm taking. Which I'll get right back to right about .. now. :)

The Spring Church

2009-11-11T20:46:00.003+08:00

Last night I visited The Spring church in the Wan Hua District of Taipei, near the Long Shen temple. The Spring ministers primarily to homeless people.

My friends and I met at exit 1 of the Long Shen MRT and walked past the temple and shops selling all kinds of worshiping hardware: gold plated and wooden idols, furnaces for burning joss money, family-sized alters. Turning into one alley, and then another, we came to The Spring. The only way you'd know it was any different from the "tea house"/pub across the street was that you could clearly see inside and there was a sign saying huo shui quan (living water spring).

Immediately upon entering huo shui quan someone lept on my from the side. I turned around, intentionally trying to not be too taken aback, and saw a lady with short hair and a big loose teethed smile. "Hi!" she exclaimed. I was officially welcomed.

Inside were two tables where some people were already gathering around. We sat down and some men came over and poured us tea. A lady brought some rice-cake-like snacks over. We sat in a circle with the pastor and some people from there and prayed together. The pastor Wu De Li emphasized that we pray for safety. Sometimes people get excited and start fighting, he explained. One by one we went around the circle and prayed.

A deaf woman came to sit by me and I soon realized she was a great communicator despite her deafness. Her face contorted and arms and hands moved as she expressed her meaning over and over again. "He's a begger. He holds out a cup for money, and gets a lot. He's a bad person." "I've been drinking a lot lately and lost a lot of weight, especially in my face." "You're too skinny in the face, you should eat more." "He's annoying, don't pay attention to him."

At seven o'clock there was a service. I sat next to Mr. Wu, who was 54 years old, unmarried and a day laborer. The slow economy had affected his work, yes. He had kind eyes, and I could tell in his expression that he enjoyed talking to someone new. I didn't dare ask where he live, because it seemed the question might embarrass him. Not like another lady I'd talked to who matter-in-factly replied, dao chu shui "everywhere and anywhere."

Following singing and some sharing was a bible reading and then explanation. The entire service lasted one hour, definently the shortest Chinese service I'd ever been to! Following the service was a meal, and at that point we decided to leave. Wu De Li thanked us for coming and explained that our being there was an excellent testimony, that the people there often felt like Jesus was far away, but us being there made them feel like he was nearer.

My church will be having a food/clothing/hotel toileterries drive to donate to The Spring, where people can receive all these things and a shower for free. On Nov. 24 we'll also hold a special Thanksgiving program. Wu De Li expects 80 people to come.

Sneak Peak: Johnny & Karen

2009-11-08T20:32:00.002+08:00

This past Saturday I braved a cold that's been leaving me practically paralyzed with tiredness to take pictures of Johnny and Karen. This sweet couple are friends of a friend and fun to be around. Plus Johnny can be credited with the awesome highlights in my hair!

I've been taking a couple different Photoshop classes with Lynda.com and have been LOVING them! If you want to learn any kind of software, I seriously recommend this website. Right now I'm taking the Photoshop CS3 for Digital Photographers class by Chris Orwig and even though I'm still covering a lot of basic stuff (just finishing up how to use Bridge!) I'm still learning a lot of amazing stuff. Like who knew Bridge had these amazing Batch and Image Processers that basically allowed me to convert this photos to black and white and resize them to web-size in a few very short steps! I'm was so stooked, I decided to post this sneak peak.

That and these three photos, taken in succession, seriously put a smile on to my face. I hope they do the same for you!

Carb-less meals and balsamic vinegar dressing

2009-10-31T16:33:00.004+08:00

Since returning from America two to three kilograms heavier, Mr. C and I (well really mostly I) decided to make some diet changes. The most practical one was to cut out carbs (breads, rice, noodles) as much as possible from the evening meal. I've also been on a bit of a salad craze, so we've been eating a lot of salads lately. Most of the time it's cooked chicken with vegetables (green pepper and onion also cooked) and a vinegar-based dressing. I've even gotten adventurous and made my own balsamic vinegar dressing which is simply divine. The recipe for that is:

Lisa's Balsamic Vinegar Recipe
equal portions balsamic vinegar and olive oil, so for the sake of this recipe, let's say 3 Tablespoons.
1 Tablespoon fancy mustard, like dijon (I have key lime mustard from the Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, WI ... anyway)
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 garlic clove finely chopped, or even better, minced
salt and black pepper to taste (try 1/2 t salt and 1/4 t black pepper)

Then stir it until the oil and vinegar have combined. The mustard actually helps this process, so y0u should be left with a nice, thick sauce. Enjoy!

My inspiration for this recipe is from here.

PLEASE, please, please let me know what other ideas you have for a carbohydrate-free meal!

Below: shrimp salad w/ homemade balsamic vinegar dressing

A personal post

2009-10-28T20:33:00.004+08:00

I've been learning a lot of things lately. God's been working in great and wonderful ways. And I in turn have been made humble ~ by my own selfishness and resistance to change. In some ways I feel a little like I've had a boxing match with life and have been thrown down on the mat. And I'm waiting for God to pick me up.

So here's what I've been learning lately:

Loving your hard to love people is really hard. We had this lesson in the Friday bible study (Matthew 5 and Luke 6) and I was being taught while teaching it. I'm familiar with the verses, especially this one: Matthew 5: ³⁸"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.^" ³⁹But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. But on Friday I learned that two of these three examples are talking about situations where someone actually is reasonable in demanding something thing of you, but you give them more in return. I'm not good at doing that. Instead I tend to focus on strictly what's required of me. To put it simply, I need to extend grace to others, especially when I feel like I've already been nice enough to them.
Cappuccino is driving Mr. C and I crazy. And I've finally given up. For the longest time, we just kinda "lived" with this situation because I was reluctant to throw in the flag and declare surrender. But she's simply more than we can handle. Now that I've finally begun to tell people about our desperation, we're getting some help. A dog handler will be coming to our house on Saturday, and I have high hopes! We hope at least she can become more "bearable" before finding a new home for her, which our goal ultimately is.
I've been learning color correction in Photoshop. Yep, from Lynda.com. It's pretty cool ~ and in depth. That's what I'm doing in my evenings, instead of doing things like ... watch TV. (We had the teens group from my church over to test the TV out last Saturday ... it still works.)
I've been learning to smile, and show interest in others, and never criticize or complain ... and many other lessons from the classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People. This is the self-help book before there was even a self-help genre. And it's so much better than any other self-help book I've ever read. It was written in the 1930s and I feel like I'm learning history from all of Dale Carnegie's great examples. I look forward to each new thing Dale's going to teach me, but he's having me read each chapter twice ... it's like one of his rules or something.
I've been learning to be more supportive of my husband. Because he really needs my support. And because I need to learn how to be a better wife. I'm happy to have no fantasies about perfect marriages. We have a working marriage and I wouldn't have it any other way. Because I need to become a better person.

That's all for now. And about being on the mat. It feels REALLY good. Let me be weak so God can be strong.

And I've been wanting to share this picture for awhile, so even though it's not related to this post, it makes me happy so here you go. My brother Jacob took this. Awesome, eh? :)

Family: Jacob and Stephanie, Mason, Jada and Keleigh

2009-10-21T21:45:00.002+08:00

I'm actually really sad to be wrapping up this series of family portaits. I really enjoyed taking these photos and going through them again. I love my family, and sincerely hope they love this portraits as well.

The railway ended up being a consistent theme throughout all the pictures. Maybe because a railway runs through my parent's farm, or simply because I love the travel themes ~ or the linear lines ~ I kept on bringing family back to the railroad. On the last shoot, the one with Jacob and Stephanie's family, we were scolded by a railroad employee and showed off the railroad. What a bummer! Peter and I didn't end up getting pictures on it ... you'll notice where the abrupt ending in railroad pictures takes place. :)

Below is Jacob and Stephanie and my three adorable neices and nephew Mason, Jada and Keleigh. This family wins out simply on their combined adorableness. :)

Here you go! Love, sis

A lot of fun happens when kids get around corn ...

Every kid should grow up knowing their parents love each other :)

Family: Rob and Heidi

2009-10-20T22:11:00.002+08:00

Taking pictures for your sister and brother-in-law is nervewracking. Yes, Heidi, I admit I was nervous. And that's hard for an older sister to admit. But there you go, I was nervous. So I sure hope you like these photos. And if you don't, well I'm in Taiwan so it won't be too easy to hit me! :)

Love, your big sister: Lisa

Family: the Parents

2009-10-14T22:07:00.003+08:00

My dad insisted on taking a photo in front of his combine. That's all I have to say.

Luckily, I got my way a couple times.
... I don't think mom ever gets her way ...

Mom and Dad ~ I love you. I hope you love these pictures!

My weekend

2009-10-11T20:42:00.002+08:00

This weekend I took pictures for a friend's wedding. It was a lot of fun. Here's a sneak preview of it all. :)

Family: Matt and Laura Holll, Lucas & Lindsey

2009-10-05T22:11:00.003+08:00

Of all the family groups I photographed during my time at home, Matt and Laura were the most enthusiastic about the idea. We scouted several different locations and took photos in three of them. I believe their enthusiasm really pays off in the photos. I am really proud of this set. For the point I'm at in photography (meaning I still have A LOT of room to grow!) this set is pretty darn exciting to me. Hope they like them as much as I do!

It doesn't hurt that my brother and sis-in-law have the CUTEST kids in the world! :)

This photo personally makes me happy.

Oooh sun flare!

Love the expressions. :)

The coffee I drink

2009-10-03T14:04:00.002+08:00

I love Starbucks House Blend Medium Roast coffee beans from Latin America. I've tried a few other beans, but in my mind nothing can beat the smooth, gentle blend of these beans. I'm not a huge fan of "bold." I like my coffee smooth ~ with milk and sugar. If you know of any other beans, I'm open to suggestions. Otherwise, give me my Starbucks house blend!

Rob and Heidi Deglow in Chicago's Chinatown

2009-09-29T21:18:00.003+08:00

As if taking pictures of your own family wasn't nerve-wracking enough, I had the additional pressure of having to do it in about 15 minutes. Thankfully, my sister and brother in law gave me another chance to take some photos the next week. Here are a few shots from Chinatown though.

I'm also trying out a new watermark and blog resizing. Let me know what you think!

Fenice jewelry

2009-09-28T15:40:00.004+08:00

I saw Fenice's jewelry in a Taipei newspaper's style section and fell in love right away. Specifically, I fell in love with this necklace:

I'm not one for wearing jewelry with Chinese on it - at least I haven't found anything I'd particularly liked until now. This necklace is called "double happiness" and has the character for "joy" twice, etched into the larger circle and a little trinklet hanging in the middle. Two "joy" characters, of "double happiness," are often seen at weddings, which are the celebration of two lives coming together.

If you want to learn more about the jewelry and see their other lines, visit the website:

http://www.fenice.com.tw/

It doesn't look like they're in many stores yet, but I'm excited about learning more, even if I have to visit their offices. :)

Timeline & Community

2009-09-02T21:54:00.004+08:00

OK - I have an idea but I'll never be able to do it by myself or anytime soon. So I decided to throw it out into Internet cyberspace to see if 1) if somebody else has thought of this and is doing it or 2) if somebody is interested and more able to do it than I am.

The idea is: a timeline.

Sounds simple right? Well, it would be both simple and hugely complex. Because I'm talking about a timeline of all human history. Here are my ideas:

*The timeline would be able to be "zoomed out" and "zoomed in" making it only necessary to download the information at the level you're looking at. For example, at the most zoomed out position, you could see major events that happened and the time would be measured in thousands of years. At the most zoomed in level you could see things possibly to the minute ... or even second.

*Obviously, we don't know the exact day, hour or minute for many things that happened in history. So the information would be entered in at the most accurate measurement. For example, we might know that the Hebrew exile from Egypt happened in ... year and possibly which season. Or we might know the month that Cleopatra was born. So that information would show at the "year" or "month" level but not at even smaller units of time. Obviously, as times become more modern the accuracy and "closeness" that we'd be able to place events would increase.

*This timeline would be created, maintained and moderated by a community. Perhaps something similar to Wikipedia. It would be a collaborative effort of all kinds of people.

*When the exact time of an historical event is in contention, two possible things could happen: First it could be marked simply at the larger level. For example, if people question whether Pharaoh Ramesses died on day one or day two the event could simply be marked as happening in the month everyone agrees on. Or secondly, if the dates are far apart, two different marks could be given and voted on by community members ... which brings me to my next point.

*The importance of historical events would be decided by community vote. For example, I agree that Jesus' birth was an important historical event. So I "click" on that mark. Eventually, as more people click on it it'll show as more important. Which means, it might not only be seen in the "year" view, or the "century" view but in the "thousands of years" view as being a major even that happened in the world. There would have to be some sort of system to make sure people can't just enter their own birthday as an historical event. One is to let community members "vote against" a certain event. But that's not very positive, so another is to automatically delete events if they don't reach a certain amounts of votes over certain periods of time.

*Of course, geographical locations adds another important layer of complexity. This could be solved two different ways. One is to create filters that allow people to see only the historical events that happened in a certain region or country during a certain time. So you could filter the search to see only the Dark Ages in Europe. When you want to see all events that happened globally, the general locations (which continent or region) could be indicated by color code (for example, the mark is a different color).

*Connections between events ... for example when a biblical prophesy was written and when it came true, or when a certain artist did a work that modelled a previous artist's work or portrayed a historial event. In the same way, connections could be voted on determining their importance. And like a filter, they could also be shown or hidden from view.

*Community would be developed two ways - first obviously because it will take such a large group of people to create such a thing. And second, events could have their own "page" where people could comment on the importance of the event, accuracy of the timing, what they were doing at the time, etc.

Wouldn't it be SO exciting if something like this was created?!

It's not Italian noodles!

2009-09-01T11:53:00.002+08:00

It's pasta. And here are few more common bloopers that happen when people translate directly from Chinese into English:

"red tea" - Americans call it black, though "red tea" does make more sense considering the actual color of the tea :)

"soft reminder" - a favorite of mine. This one gives me shivers with its "softness." Should be: gentle reminder

"black eye" - In English, when we say someone has a "black eye" it means their eye is bruised. The eye color of many though, is black - or more accuratly, dark brown. So you would say "My eyes are dark brown"

"tomato sauce" - not to be confused with the kind of sauce dribbled on top of pasta, the kind that is put on a hotdog is called "ketchup"

"lemon juice" - real lemon juice is so sour that it makes my lips pucker just thinking about the word. However, there's only a smile on my face when somebody offers the fabulous drink "lemonade" - especially when it's made from fresh lemon juice.

"dark" - this is a classic. People use umbrellas in Asia - especially on hot sunny days without a raincloud in site - to avoid getting "tan." Don't say: "I don't want to get dark." Do say: "I don't want to get a tan." I, on the other hand, really like tan skin. I think it gives me a healthy "glow."

Want to go out for some pasta? I really like those "Italian noodles." :)

In Pingtung With Christian Relief Association

2009-08-25T20:43:00.003+08:00

Last week Thursday through Saturday I had the opportunity to go down to Pingtung to help the Chinese Christian Relief Association with their recovery efforts after Typhoon Morakot. Before going down I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Typhoon Morakot crossed over Taiwan from Friday, August 7 to Sunday, August 9. During those three days it dumped up to three meters (nine feet) of rain on the central and south parts of Taiwan. The weird thing is, us in Taipei had no idea. We got the day off work on Friday and it was a normal typhoon day - lots of wind and rain but nothing serious. Peter and I even went to a movie that night and we weren't the only ones - the mall was filled with people. On Saturday I expected to wake up to howling winds and pouring rain - only to see sunshine pour through the window. It remained that way much of the day. Checking the weather forecast, it was clear the clouds over the eye of the typhoon had broken up completely. But there were clouds to the south. Little did I know what those clouds were doing on a day that's come to be known as "evil eight day." It was also Taiwan's Father's Day.

Typhoon Morakat is the worst typhoon to hit Taiwan in terms of damage in my five years living in Taiwan. In fact, this is the biggest disaster I've ever lived so close to. Mudslides in the mountains - one entire town being buried alive, flooding in Pingtung, Kaohsiung and Tainan counties - some places almost up to the second floor, and surging waters bringing timber and more down the mountains and into harbors. People in Green Island and Orchid Island worried about food supplies because no ships were able to leave Taidung harbor. Also in Taidung a hotel fell into the river after its foundations were eroded by surging waters.

I half expected to go into a mountain village from Pingtung. But instead we went into areas where flooding occurred near the ocean. The day we got there we ended up not being able to go into the disaster area because no buses came back in the afternoon to take us there. I ended up washing a lot of rain boots when everybody got back.

The second day I served as a "medical volunteer" and how that happened was a long story! I originally went with a girl who actually had first aid skills but couldn't speak Chinese. I was going to help her translate. In the end, however, she went on a regular team and I ended up doing the first aid! That day we helped soldiers, people from the town and fellow teammates clean and put iodine on small wounds.

The third day I was able to help a family clean their home. The guy was Christian and his father was there. Those were the only family members I met. All the things had been taken out of their home and when we got there in the morning the floor was being washed of mud. Much of the time we were there was spent washing their possessions - cups, dishes, washer, microwave, refrigerator. In fact, my major accomplishment of the day was washing the inside of a refrigerator that had been caked with mud.

After this trip, I'm filled with two main emotions: one is gratitude - for the chance to go down to the affected areas and express my concern for the people there through practical actions. The second is a sober realization of how extensive the scale of the disaster is and that even these areas - not alone the villages in the mountains where entire houses were swept away - will take a long time to recover. In a few months, the physical condition of the flooded towns should return to normal. The it will take years for the families to recover what they lost and regain their livelihoods. Please keep Taiwan in your prayers.

I took a few pictures while down there with my little digi camera, they're on facebook.

To be concerned

2009-08-25T12:40:00.002+08:00

The verb concern can be used a number of ways. Take for example these entries from the Collins Cobuild:

*...as far as the war in the Gulf is concerned...
*I am extremely concerned and want to do something about it.
*I wish to apologize frankly to all concerned and to the people.
*Are there any other changes that concern you?

But by far the most common usage of the verb concern is similar to that in the second example. It uses the following form:

subject + be verb + concerned + (about/by)

For example:
*I am concerned about the increase of homeless people in my city.
*I'm concerned by the news reports covering the situation in southern Taiwan.

Another use of concern is to express your care about someone, and in this case you always use the preposition about:
*I am concerned about you. I heard you're not feeling well.

Chinese speakers of English often skip the be verb and the preposition following the verb simply because they're not needed in Chinese. So you'll get sentences like this:
*Does the school concern about international students' needs?
*The government should concern the issue of violence on television.

So applying the correct form above, these sentence should be:
*Is the school concerned about ...
*The government should be concerned about ...

Following, I hope to post something else I'm concerned about ... :)

Guilin: Sunday evening

2009-08-18T21:58:00.002+08:00

On Sunday we finally got the sunset we were waiting for! It was gorgeous! That day we went to the Longji rice terraces near Longsheng, which is about a three hour trip from Yangshou. The excursion was definitely worth it, as you'll see below!

We were lucky enough to photograph another group's photo shot! They had the lady with the oxen and the girl there to pose for their photographs.

Wordless. Guilin was awesome.

Guilin: Saturday

2009-08-16T10:38:00.002+08:00

The Saturday morning of our trip in Guilin we got up before four once again to capture this beautiful sunrise:

Mr. C got up with me. You can tell from this photo what it was like for him. Thank you honey!

Later that day, after getting a shower and nap, we went rafting down the Yulong river. It was fun trip. First we rented bikes from our B&B and biked them up to the pier. There are actually many piers located along the river, we went to one of the bigger ones. There you find a raft, usually through some "agent" guy that approaches you when you get there. The raft ride itself was about one hour long. We could have biked even farther along the river and taken a longer ride. After the raft ride, we retrieved our bikes which were brought down from the first pier for us. Then we biked back to our hotel along some really fun and quiet country roads that followed the river.

We went down a lot of these:

Touched and touching

2009-08-15T15:56:00.005+08:00

Welcome to the first of what I hope is more blog posts on writing and English. This blog, after all, is called "LHCwords." My hope is to put up more words in the future and of course continue putting up pictures.

Touched and touching: What Chinese speakers of English need to know
1. Native English speakers don't use these words as much as you do
2. NESs also don't use these words in the same contexts

So let's try to figure these two words out. :)

Touched (the past participle form of the verb touch)
Used to connect an action and reaction. Here the person feeling the emotion and whatever caused it are either included or implied.

How to use it:
*With the verb "feel"
-I felt touched by your concern for my welfare.
*With the preposition "by"
-She was touched by his offer of help.
-I was touched by that movie.
*Can be used without "by" when the cause of the reaction is implied or otherwise known
-I talked to Michael after he received the letter and he said he was really touched.
-Thank you for the help. I'm really touched.

Touching (the present participle form of the verb touch, and more importantly, an adjective)
Used as an adjective to describe something that causes the such feelings.

How to use it:
*Before or after the object if modifies
-The movie was so touching.
-We left the theater crying after watching the touching movie.
-The speaker's story about his relationship with his mom was really touching.

The problem for CSEs is that in Chinese the word for "touched" or "touching" is used a lot. It's used so much that it seems to lose some of it's meaning to become a word that describes anything that stirs one's emotions. So, this can lead CSEs to make some of the following usage errors:

-I was so touched by your writing out your entire schedule for me so we can make an appointment.

In formal/business writing, touched/touching is not appropriate as it describes a feeling that Americans feel is a bit too personal to be shared in those contexts. A better way to say this would be: "Thank you for writing out your entire schedule for me so we can make an appointment. I really appreciate your doing this."

-The speaker was so touching. OR The speaker made me feel so touching.

In the first usage, the speaker is inappropriately using "touching" to describe a person, which we never do. The second sentence could be made better if the speaker used "touched" but still wouldn't be up to NES standards because we think of content rather than people being touching or causing us to be touched. So it could be fixed by saying "I was really touched by that speech. The speaker's point about ..."

-Thank you for sharing with me your tips on how to pass this test. I was really touched.

Here the speaker is referring to the helpful action and saying he was touched by it. But the context makes the statement awkward. In another situation, it wouldn't be awkward at all. For example: "Thank you for sharing with me your advice about building a good marriage. I was really touched." This goes back to the principle that the words touched/touching are not used in formal/business contexts. In the sentence above, the speaker simply needs to say "encouraged" to be more appropriate.

Actually, a good rule of thumb is to replace "touched/touching" with "encourage/encouraging" in most contexts. The idea expressed by encouraged/encouraging is very similar to what the speakers wants to express. In fact, in all the above examples, encouraged or encouraging would be an acceptable replacement.

Hualien Camp

2009-08-04T20:28:00.004+08:00

Last week I went to a camp in Hualien for almost 90 kids. It was a fun and challenging time - lots of kids, no air-conditioning, lots of mosquitoes, no bed to sleep in at night ... I had a great time though. I was sent mostly to take pictures and how great is that!?! You could probably say it was my first "paid" job. It was also a great learning opportunity. The second and third days of camp I shot mostly in manual to challenge myself. I hope eventually I can gain a natural understanding of the shutter speed and aperature needed in different lighting situations. I also learned that looking through my camera is the best way to watch an event when lots of different things are happening. A lot of times I would see a kid doing some cute thing only to be too late to take a picture. And finally, taking pictures is tiring! I took 200+ pictures the first day, and then over a hundred for the second and third. It's still a lot of pictures, but it's pretty daunting to think that the average wedding yeilds 500+ pictures! Anyway, on to some of my favorites ...

The group I went with:

A really amazing spider:

I enjoyed taking lots of kid portraits when they didn't know I was taking their picture.

Teaching the ABCs

Dance class

Arts and crafts ... a lot of my pictures are from arts and crafts ... the kids working on their projects were so cute!

Singing

I saw this girl sitting bathed in the most amazing natural light and I just had to take her picture:

And below is a video I made with the pictures. The background is: an aboriginal song sung by a singer from my team leader's church, a girl reading scripture, the whole group reading scripture, and the kids' performances from the last day. Enjoy!

eXtreme life camp

2009-07-22T21:14:00.001+08:00

What I did last week ...

This is a video I made with Picassa of pictures that Daniel Tu (pastor at my church and my small group leader) and I took during the eXtreme life camp help for students at a bible study outreach I participate in on Friday nights. The camp was AMAZING. The students, who were for the most part not Christian, became really open to us and each other really quickly. And they got so close that now I'm seeing them all joining facebook and hanging out with each other. It's really cool. God is good! This camp was definently one of the best things I was part of during my years in Taiwan ... and I really thank God for the opportunity to go.

A funny side note ... I showed the video at work, and now the BOSS has decided I should go to another camp to take pictures and do a video. So I'm heading to Hualian this Saturday to help with a camp for aboriginal kids. Yah! :)

Yueh Family

2009-07-19T11:53:00.004+08:00

My friend from small group, Kylie, asked me to photograph her family way back in May. I did, and it was a lot of fun, and a great excuse to hang out with a great family for a night! The lighting conditions were less than ideal, I must confess. I was hoping to shoot the family outside, in the nearby Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park. But because of a number of scheduling conflicts and the fact that all three sisters were only going to be in Taiwan for limited period of time, we ended up squeezing the shoot in at night in their home. Which meant ISO speeds of 400 and 800 (I realize I don't really like anything that comes out of my camera at 800 and up) and really wide open apertures. And I didn't want to shoot with flash, and the constant moving of everybody meant I pretty much had to go handheld. I ended up taking over 200 photos in an hour just because I was afraid of half of them coming out blurry. But it was good to be challenged, and fun to hang out with the Yuehs.

Here's the photos!

I especially like this photo below because it shows how Kylie's niece really is the whole family's center of attention. They really love her! And she's adorable so I can see why. :)

I'm not sure if I should apologize to the Yueh family for this photo or not. It seemed fun to do something with all the play blocks on the floor. But I'm not sure how it turned out. I kind of like this photo though because of everybody's different expressions. :)

My caption for the photo below:
Mommy, can I marry daddy someday? Why not?

Kylie, thanks for letting me enter your home and meet your family, and for the chance to be challenged and learn. :)

What Is a Hamburger?

2009-07-18T16:18:00.003+08:00

What would you call this? It is a beef patty between two slices of bread.

A. A hamburger
B. A sandwich

Extra points to you if you can tell me which types of people would call it what and why.

Guilin, China: Friday Evening

2009-07-11T18:43:00.003+08:00

In the afternoon and evening, Peter and I went with our guide and two other photographers to two places. First we went to a pier for rafts. People take rafts upriver and land here. The men were loading the rafts on to trucks to be shipped back to the starting point. Later, we went to a site - and up a hill - to take pictures of the sunset. The sunset ended up being quite disappointing. Still, the sky was pink for a little while, and so you will see one picture from that scene.

Here are the pics!

I really wish I could show this picture bigger

And this is a motorcycle I spotted at the raft place. I think I have a thing for photographing methods of transportation, especially motorcycles.

Guilin, China: Friday Morning

2009-06-24T21:51:00.004+08:00

Mr. C and I went to Guilin, China over Dragon Boat festival for a WHOLE WEEK LONG trip. It was our first non-North American vacation since our honeymoon and LOTS of fun. During the trip, we took a "photo tour" where a local photographer took us to some sights around the area to take pictures. We focused mostly on capturing landscape photos during sunrise (waking up as early as 3 a.m.) and sunset (a much more reasonable hour).

First I must say that landscape photography is quite a challenge! I really enjoy portrait photography, and the variables with portrait photography are so many - from the lighting and background to the person's clothing and expression. It can actually be quite intense. Landscape on the other hand is quite the opposite - you go to a place, set up your tripod, take a few test photos here and there, and basically wait for the light to get just right. And it may NEVER GET JUST RIGHT (excuse my capitalization, I seem to have developed a thing for it). Out of the three times we went to photograph the sunset, we only got one actual sunset. The other two were quite disappointing. Almost the same story for the sunrises. So landscape photography, in many ways, is almost harder than portrait because it takes a lot to get everything just quite right. At least this has been my experience.

The first day we woke up at 3 a.m. and took a boat for an hour up the river to a place to photograph a cormorant fisherman. Well, he was usually a fisherman ... for the morning he was our "model." Fisherman in Guilin use cormorant birds to catch fish. They float out on the river in bamboo rafts and then use a strong light to attract the fish (they fish at night). Then the bird swoops in to catch the fish.

If you want to know more, google it. For now, enjoy the pictures. :)

Me and the fisherman :)

Organization, part 2

2009-06-22T20:41:00.004+08:00

Continuing on the home-organizing streak I've been on lately (just wait till I get to the study...), I struck a pot of gold this weekend.

I created for my husband a home office ... in our living room. Our TINY living room.

Why the living room? Good question, considering that we do have an entire room we call our study. Well, my computer takes up the desk in the study. That and the scanner. So my husband is now here:

This space used to be the end table where we put the telephone. Which is still there, but now also holds my husband's computer, books and other things. Take a closer look:

Now I know you're wondering why is my husband's space so small when I have an entire study? Well, before you send me to the reformation camp for wives (which I deserve for a hundred other reasons but not this one) look at the next picture. Look closely.

Do you see it? No, not I'm not talking about my reflection in the mirror. Look again, specifically above Mr. C's head. Yes, that's it. An air-conditioner. And if you look in the bottom left hand corner, that's a fan blowing all the cool air back.

You see, our study doesn't have an air-conditioner. And it's REALLY hot and humid in Taiwan. Now, don't I seem to be a wonderful, selfless wife? Well, I try. :)

And on another note, here's the latest pic of Cappuccino. She's almost looking at me. Actually, I think the fan was distracting her. She's wary of things that move. Like fans.

Happiness is ... organization

2009-06-13T16:44:00.003+08:00

I love organizing. I think I could have a career in event planning.

Another thing about me is I'm a project-oriented person. Whether it's "researching blogs" or doing the post-processing for a photo shoot, I love to have tasks and complete them, one at a time.

So I decided that my summer project would be organizing/cleaning up my house. Way to combine two loves, right? First project: the top of the refrigerator.

It looked like this:

Things are ready to fall off the refrigerator at any moment.

Well, this past week I tackled that refrigerator top, and at the end of the night it looked like this:

Can't you just hear the choruses of angels singing?

OK ... I know that's a bit over the top.

But ... guess what. Later in the week, the beautiful, clean refrigerator top began to look like this: (look closely to see the changes)

Just kidding, you don't need to look closely ... at all.

The second project was done today, that was organizing a set of drawers in the study. Future projects include: organizing clothes drawers, organizing top of clothes drawers (where all my hair/makeup stuff is) and eventually, organizing the big shelving unit in the study.

On another note, I think Cappuccino is changing coats. The level of hair loss has increased significantly since we returned from Guilin. She actually shed so much hair this past week, that I took a picture of what I'd collected from just the living room. IN ONE WEEK. But it was so gross, I decided to spare you all and not post it. Nice, huh? :)

The Sawatzky Family

2009-06-07T19:43:00.002+08:00

Almost a month ago, I was able to spend a morning with the Sawatzky family. And what a beautiful family! There are four of them now ... Micah joined the family first over two years ago. And Caleb is getting ready to join them this August. Thanks Rachel and Matt for letting Winnie and I spend the morning with your family and "experiment" with our cameras. :)

Photographically speaking, it was a big challenge as it was the first time for me to shoot a family with such young members. (Here, I'm referring in particular to Micah.) Small kids are hard to shoot! It was hard to get all three members of the family looking into the frame at the same time. But on the other hand, it was fun to get all kinds of shots of the family playing together. Which is more naturally them anyway. :)

With no more ado, here are the photos!

OK I must say one more thing. In going through the edit for these photos, I "discovered" and used Photoshop actions. Especially the ones available FOR FREE from the Pioneer Woman blog. For those photo junkies out there, make sure to get your but over to that blog and get your hands on these actions! Even if you don't know or care what Photoshop actions are, the Pioneer Woman blog is wonderful - it's actually headed towards the top of my blog list, and relatively quickly!

The picture used the "Vintage" Photoshop action.

Aren't pregnant women beautiful? :)

For the Photoshop junkies, the above image was made even more beautiful by the "lovely and ethereal" action ... seriously, hop on over to the Pioneer Woman blog and get those actions. I mean, does Rachel not look lovely and ethereal?

It was also nice to get some pictures of Mom and Dad as well. :) I believe a couple should have pictures of themselves at all stages of a relationship, especially during pregnancy.

After the park we hopped on over to another coworker's home to take the "belly shots." And play some more, of course. :) Thanks Chip and Chels for letting us use your beautiful home. :)

Those of you who saw Naomi's portraits may notice that Winnie's black piece of fabric is getting some mileage. :)

And my more "artistic" shot. Let me know what you think. :)

Mother's Day

2009-05-13T22:12:00.003+08:00

This Mother's Day I helped to arrange floral decorations and other Mother's Day activities for my church. The whole congegration got into the act. :) One of my ideas for the Mother's Day service was having a "photo booth." I basically hung up a black piece of fabric and took some pictures in front of it. :) It was fun ... I dream of having my own studio some day, so this was a chance to taste a little of that. :) Some pictures from the photo booth are below:

Our friend Jacob and his mother:

I love this couple - Ruth and David - they're the most "senior" couple in our relatively young congregation. :)

And of course, Mr. C and I had our photo taken with my mother-in-law

Doing all the floral arrangements gave me the chance to be a florist for a day - which I really enjoyed! I made these corsages from some of the carnations that broke, plus other flowers including roses from a bouquet Mr. C gave me. :) I kept on joking with Kylie, who I bought flowers with, that one day I'll open my own flower shop.

Mother's Day is great. I miss being able to give my own mom a hug and tell I love her face to face. But I'll have that chance in August, so I can't complain. :)

And for some reason, I feel like I can celebrate it ... for my own sake. Before getting married, the idea of having a kid was a far ways away from me. Actually I was quite terrified by it, and I still am! But lately I find myself thinking of things I will enjoy about having kids. I'm actually realizing there WILL be things I'll enjoy. This is a big change for me! So someday, God willing, it will happen. Someday. :)

Chinese Cooking: Kung Pao Chicken, Egg With Basil and Stir-fried Spinach

2009-05-02T23:07:00.002+08:00

I'm not an expert in Chinese cooking by any means. But since living in Taiwan I've developed an interest in Chinese cooking, and now, being married, my (Taiwanese) husband provides all the recognition I need with how satisfied he is after (most) meals. :) Since I like taking pictures too, I thought I'd put together this visual post of one Chinese meal I made with these three dishes: Kung Pao Chicken, Fried Egg With Basil and Stir-Fried Spinach. Here's how I did it:

Most Chinese food, especially dishes stir-fried in a wok, cooks very fast. You want to serve your dishes hot, which means all frying happens at the end. And you'll find most of your time is spent preparing.

Preparing:
1. Marinate the chicken. Combine 1 T rice wine, 1 T soy sauce and 1 T cornstarch in a bowl. Chop chicken (chicken thigh works the best) into bite-size pieces and marinate for about a half hour.

2. Start cooking rice (I make mine in a rice cooker, which means I can start it and then forget about it until I'm done with the rest of the meal).

Other:
* Chop garlic into small pieces. You'll use it for both the Kung Pao chicken and fried veggies. Prepare about 2 T and set aside.

* Prepare sauce for Kung Pao stir fry (2 T soy sauce, 1 T rice wine, 1 T sugar, 1 t rice vinegar (reg. can be used as substitute) and 1 t corn starch mixed with 1 T water). Set aside.
* Cut dried red chillies and set aside.
* Prepare basil, washing it and cutting it into large pieces. Mix two eggs in a bowl, adding some salt. Mix in basil, set aside.

* Prepare spinach for frying. Wash spinach and cut into 1 1/5 to 2 inch pieces. Set aside.

Before starting to fry, all your veggies should be washed and cut, sauces mixed, garlic and hot chillies cut, etc. You want everything ready and easily available, because when you start frying things will move fast.

Here's my line-up: chopped garlic and dried chillies (back), egg with basil, marinated chicken, sauce for Kung Pao chicken and cut-up spinach (front).

Begin frying. I'm going to begin with cooking Kung Pao chicken first for two reasons: 1) meats usually retain their heat longer, so cook first and 2) I'll use the leftover sauce to cook the spinach.

Kung Bao Chicken
*Heating oil 3 T of oil in the wok on high.

*Lower heat to medium and cook chicken. You want to cook it until it's "just about" done because you'll cook it a bit more later. Be careful not to overcook.

"Done" chicken should look like this:

*Remove chicken from wok and wash the wok. (I know this is a little annoying but it's important you start again with a clean wok.)
*Heat about 2 T oil on high. When oil is hot, throw in about 1 to 1-1/2 T garlic and dried chillies.

*Cook garlic and dried chillies until their flavor has been released (about two minutes). Lower heat a tad.
*Add chicken, mix. Then add the additional sauce. Lower heat to medium.

*Stir until sauce and chicken have been mixed together and the sauce is beginning to dry.
*Before finishing, mix in the peanuts. Lower heat to low-medium. Stir.

You've just finished your first dish! The wok will be a bit sticky, but feel free to start with a "dirty" wok on the next dish since you can use the sauce to add a bit of extra flavor to the spinach.

Stir-fried Spinach
*Heat oil on high. When oil is hot add about 1/2 to 1 T garlic. (Fresh chillies can also be added for some spice).

*After garlic has released its flavor, throw in spinach. (There will be lots of steam!)

*Quickly stir the spinach - at the SAME time add water (about 2-3 T) and salt, and turn the heat down to low-medium.

*Remove from wok when spinach is cooked through.

Now the wok should be pretty "clean" so you can start the next dish after a quick rinse.

Fried Egg With Basil
*Heat a small amount (enough to cover the cooking area) of oil. Sprinkle of bit of salt (to keep the egg from sticking). Lower heat to low-medium.
*Pour in the egg mixture. When egg is beginning to thicken on top, flip it.

*Cook for about a half minute, then turn heat off.

Enjoy the meal!

Recipe ingredients:

Kung Bao Chicken:
Two boneless chicken thighs
Dried chillies (spicier 5-6, less spicy 3-4)
1/2 cup roasted peanuts
*Garlic cloves
*Rice wine
*Soy sauce
*Cornstarch
*Rice vinegar (or regular)
*Sugar

Notes about recipe:
*This recipe was given to me by a friend from this Chinese blog.
*The Kung Pao chicken comes out a little soy-saucy, so I recommend cutting out some of the soy sauce in the sauce (not the marinade).
*I've seen this served at restaurants with green onions (scallions) added as well. I really want to try that next time. Just add them (cut in about 1 inch pieces) at the last step with the peanuts.

Egg With Basil
2 eggs
2-3 stalks basil
salt

Fried Spinach
Spinach (any amount is fine, just adjust the garlic and salt)
Garlic (about 1 T)
Salt (about 1/2 to 1 t)

Notes:
*Really any green, leafy vegetable can be cooked this way. A really popular vegatable in Taiwan is called "kong hsin tsai" and tastes great cooked this way. You could also cook cabbage this way, though you'll need to add more water and steam (put the lid on the wok after turning the heat down) to soften it.
*Add some fresh red chillies for an extra kick. Just add them along with the garlic at the very beginning.

About woks: There's a great article about woks and cooking Chinese food in America in the NY Times. I'm blessed to live in Taiwan, where the hot gas stoves and bowl-shaped woks make ideal conditions for Chinese cooking. I heard there are flat-bottomed woks to work with American stoves though.

But it's CHINA!

2009-04-29T20:23:00.007+08:00

Mr. C and I had a discussion the other day that was ... well, revealing of some of the inner biases I carry and seemingly refuse to change. :)

We're planning a trip to Guilin - in China. The fact that Guilin is in China will become important in just a moment. Because of circumstances that aren't relevant to this post, it was decided that I would plan the trip to Guilin - as in hotel accomodations, main sightseeing destinations, etc. Now you might say that in a relationship where one person is Chinese (Taiwanese) and the other is Western (American) the responsiblity of planning a trip to CHINA would logically be given to the Chinese one. But actually there's a lot of information out there in English about Guilin. At accepting the responsibility of planning the trip, I was quite confident I could do a good job.

We ran into the first roadblock last Sunday when Mr. C questioned the prices of some heavily recommended accomodations that I found on the widely used site TripAdvisor. I argued that these places - which have clearly won the approval of many Westerners like myself - would be great accomodations for Mr. C and I as well. Mr. C pointed out that even if they're not "that expensive," they're still expensive compared to the surrounding area. Since the context is China, shouldn't we be finding accomodations that are priced accordingly?

Hmm... good point. But I'm American and I trust what other Americans say about accomodations, and since I'm going to such a foreign place as China, I don't mind spending a little more to be confident I'll enjoy the place I stay.

Which now brings me to Tuesday. I receive two emails in the middle of the day from Mr. C. that had some links to Chinese websites. Now, I can read Chinese but I'm still a little slow and lots of Chinese text scares me. Frankly speaking, I don't like reading Chinese. I much prefer to read English.

Which finally brings me to the discussion Mr. C and I had last night. During the course of the discussion it was discovered that:
A. Even though Mr. C often refers to English websites when he can't find certain information in Chinese, I don't find it necessary to read Chinese websites about a place in China. Because ...
B. I consider the information out there in English more than enough. And I'm just plain lazy about reading Chinese.
Also ...
C. There is slight difference in the standards that Mr. C and I apply to "good" accomodations. Good accomodations for me mean quiet, bed-and-breakfast-like place with a very high level of service. For Mr. C good accomodations mean ... inexpensive. OK I know that's not being fair, but all other criteria fall under the importance of "price" for him.

The highlight of the conversation came when I was expressing that I was only willing to read English materials about Guilin, and Mr. C began exclaiming, "But it's in CHINA!"

I didn't think I carried the typical American view of English being superior to all other languages ... but it turns out I do. At least when it comes to the materials I read. Consider this my publish confession.

Portraits: Naomi

2009-04-25T19:49:00.003+08:00

My friend Naomi had mentioned a while back that her mom didn't have any new pics of Naomi for her wall - the last one was from High school! It sounded like a good cause to me, and so for her birthday, my friend Winnie and I arranged her very own photo shoot!

It was TONS of fun. Naomi's an amazing girl in the first place (very social, fun, totally up on current events/popular culture) but for the photo shoot she knocked my socks off with how completely flexible she was. I remember before the photo shoot, the thing I was losing sleep over wasn't if my camera was set right, or what props we needed, but rather ... would I be able to get Naomi to laugh? I don't consider myself the most socially adept person in the world, so the challenge of taking good photos, and knowing how to maintain a fun atmosphere and even get Naomi to give me a genuine smile and laugh once in awhile was a bit ... overwhelming. Needless to say, you can check out the photos to see how I did, which I don't think was half bad. :)

It was also SO much fun to work with Winnie on this and as a photographer she is so inspiring because she's equal parts creative and fun. You can see a few of her pics here.

In the stairwell of our workplace ...

We made an little mini studio with some black curtain. yah!

Naomi's looking for a horizontal black and white for her mom's wall. Out of the pictures I took, this one gets my vote. :)

Outside an unopened drink place. It was fun to get some pics that showed our environment - Taiwan.

Naomi's hot, right? :)

On t0 the Martyrs' shrine.

This photo, and the one before and after it (not shown here), came sizzling out of the camera. I was so excited I could only take three. Of course three was all I needed. And get this - no post processing. Which means, yes, Naomi's lipstick really was that red. :)

And the last image I took. It was so pretty I didn't want to take any more. :)

Thanks Naomi and Winnie for all the fun! I had a blast! :)

Engaged (Flasback): Hsin-hong and Wen-fang

2009-04-06T21:41:00.003+08:00

Way back ... OK only a year ago ... in April 2008 I shot my friend Wen-fang's home engagement ceremony. They had a church engagement ceremony (really more like a wedding) later that morning. The shooting conditions for this home ceremony were pretty challenging, as there were a lot of people and very tight space. I'm posting a lot of these pictures not because I think they're "good" pictures but because I thing they really help to tell the story of my friend's engagement, and further, what traditional Chinese engagement ceremonies are like. With that, let the pictures begin. :)

The bride and her father talk before the gift giving begins. Before this, the parents had already bowed before and presented incense at the alter.

Wen-fang sits in a chair in the middle of the room as relatives scurry around her ... a long and very "golden" gift giving is about to begin.

First, the necklace that came with the dress is taken off. It was only worn for a few minutes. :)

The first gift: the groom's engagement/wedding ring to Wen-fang.

The groom's mother gives her future daughter-in-law a large, golden necklace, which is draped around Wen-fang's neck.

A lot of help is needed with the clasp. :)

Matching bracelets are given.

Wen-fang's maid of honor helps with clasping the bracelets.

Next, is earrings. They're a little hard to get on though.

Finally, Wen-fang does it herself.

It's now the groom's turn. First, Hsin-hong receives his engagement/wedding ring from Wen-fang

Then, his future father-in-law gives him a necklace - that doesn't quite make it over his head!

The amount of jewelry - and really the financial commitment that each family puts into a wedding - is simply astounding. This is the single most important event in a person's life, and is treated as such not only by the individual but also the family. It's astounding and touching at the same time.

The cutest grandparents in the world :)

The two families

The traditional tea ceremony. The bride serves cups of tea to each member of the groom's family. Here Wen-fang is serving her future brother-in-law.

The bride serves her groom tea - a fun moment :)

After the tea is served, the bride goes around with the same tray, and the members of the grooms family but red envelopes in the cups they drank the tea from. Of course, the gift isn't the red envelopes themselves, but the money inside. Here, Wen-fang receives a red envelope from her groom - another fun moment - I love how you can tell they're laughing inwardly :)

Red envelopes from the bride and groom are given to the elders - grandparents and parents. Here, Hsin-hong gives a red envelope to his future parents-in-law.

Gifts are prepared by the grooms family for the bride and given at the engagement ceremony.

Chinese say that when you get married, it's not just two individuals, but two families are also joining together. This joining together is taken very seriously - as I've also experienced - and continue to experience - as a "Taiwan daughter-in-law." Many of the things done during the engagement ceremony ritualize this joining together of families in meaningful and symbolic ways. It was a privilege and incredible experience to attend and shoot my friends' engagement ceremony. Currently, they're seven months pregnant. :)

I "heart" Thai-style tomato and cucumber salad

2009-03-31T20:46:00.006+08:00

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

I first clued into the wonderfulness of cucumber and tomato salads when a friend made one with lettuce once (thanks Andrea!). So I started adding cucumbers into my otherwise lettuce and tomato salads. Then the other night I went to Sababa's and had their "Arabian salad" which is pretty much all cucumbers and tomatoes coated in a sauce. So, tonight I got adventurous and tried the same thing, but with Thai-style Lemon Grass Dressing (in the background, bought from the Welcome grocery store in Miramar). And wala! Thai-style cucumber salad -- if such a thing exists!

Wedded (Flashback): Alex & Claire

2009-03-28T16:26:00.004+08:00

These are pictures from the first "full" wedding I photographed, way back in February 2008. I took them for my husband's cousin and his wife. I primarily used a Sigma zoom (18-200) and flash. And I didn't quite have the white-balance figured out for the banquet photos (though I tried to save some in photoshop, and you can see them below).

The day was a happy day, as the love the bride and groom had for each other was evident. While I was already "part of the family" (engaged to Peter) I was happy to be one of the main photographers of the event too. It was much more tiring than I thought it would be, but I was happy to help out. Let me know what you think of the pics!

The flower girl and ring bearer...

Claire and her father ...

The bouquet ...

Getting ready to lift the veil ...

Lighting the unity candle ...

Below, which do you like better, the color version or the adjusted version?

At the banquet ...

My then-fiance, now-husband is on the left. :)

The funnest part of the banquet, the toasts ...

And the receiving line at the end of the banquet ...

More sleepless nights

2009-03-27T16:23:00.004+08:00

At small group last night, we had a discussion on our will and God's will. A lot of great stuff came out, and I especially liked how one of our leaders, Adeline, wrapped up the conversation. She made the point that God has 100% will/power over the things that happen in our lives. He knows the answers that we drive ourselves crazy over. He knows the person who will become the love of our life, who he's prepared for us. At the same time, we have 100% free will over the choices presented to us. We chose who we marry - the second we say "I do" that person becomes who God prepared for us. How can God have 100% power and we still have 100% free will? Good question, with tons of implications, but I'm not qualified to begin to go there yet.

And the title of this blog post is because yet again, Wednesday night I was blog-surfing too late, and didn't give myself enough time to rest my mind before falling asleep, which means it kept going all night, making my sleep pretty restless. I think I need to impose some limits on this whole web-surfing thing. I think that would fall into the "God's will for my life" category. At least that bits isn't a mystery.

P.S. I have more to say about this whole God's will thing, but I'll save it for later. I need to zip off to the Friday Night Live bible study right now.

DengYuan & HsiangRen's Wedding

2009-03-22T21:54:00.002+08:00

This weekend I attended Hsiang-Ren and Deng-Yuan's wedding. Hsiang-ren is a sister in the small group I attended at Glory Church. She's an amazingly beautiful woman - inside and out. She teaches Special Education kids, which proves how great (and patient and caring) she is. She's also incredibly detailed-oriented, making her and Deng-yuan's wedding a true pleasure to attend. As guests, you felt cared for and loved. And happy for them! I love it when I attend weddings where it's so OBVIOUS the couple is in love with each other. Hsiang-Ren is very lucky to find Deng-yuan, despite the fact that ... he doesn't quite match her in the looks department. I love this about this couple - Deng-yuan is not a "looker" but you can tell how much he cares about Hsiang-ren and what a great support he is for her. Hsiang-ren's father passed away when she was young. I'm so glad she found Deng-yuan to be that support she didn't have for so long.

I wasn't the photographer for this wedding, just the guest! So there aren't very many shots. What I did take you'll find below:

And below, my husband, who has this tendancy to pick up any kid around him and start playing with them. :)

Wedded (Flashback): Yu-yuan & Pei-fen

2009-03-19T20:44:00.003+08:00

This is the first wedding I helped friends photograph ... way back in September 2007. Actually I was only responsible for photographing everything ... before the ceremony started. Which is a nice place to start if you've never photographed a wedding before!!! I ended up using my Canon 50mm f1.8 lens for all the photos, and even though it's a prime lens (so only taking photos from one focal distance) I actually am the happiest with the photos that came from this wedding than the other ones where I used my large-range Sigma zoom.

Anyway, all this is to announce - I want to take more wedding pics! If you know somebody who is getting married in Taiwan, ... or maybe you don't but you want some portraits taken of yourself, your family, etc. let me know! I want to grow more in this area ... but do let me know early for a wedding as I only have time for one a month (max) since I am still a full-time working person. So anyway, if you are looking for a "Taiwan (Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichong, heck even Kaohsiung) wedding photographer" look no more!

The flower girl and ring bearer were so cute!

And of course, it's not a wedding in Taiwan without cute bears!

Zhongzi!

2009-03-15T21:32:00.003+08:00

Finally the long awaiting Zhongzi post is here. And this'll also be my opportunity to introduce my new blog design and picture templates. But first about Zhongzi:

When I visited Peter's grandparents for Chinese New Year, I quickly realized making Zhongzi (steamed rice dumplings) was a big activity coming up. The ingredients were made days beforehand. Then, early one morning, while I was still sleeping, a call came up the stairs: "Do you want to make Zhongzi?" Well, no not actually, but I DID want to watch them being made.

Zhongzi are a traditional Taiwanese snack. They're made by rice (of the sticky variety) and other ingredients such as mushrooms, egg, meat, beans and more, which are then wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed. In the pictures below you can watch them being made.

Below: My mother (in law)!

And below is Peter's grandma: A real dear old lady. :)

And did you notice the new blog design? :) I've been working on it all day. And I finally got around to making borders for my pictures, which always makes things look nicer. :) Things you might also noticed are the larger sizes - for the header, columns and pictures. Now all I need to know is how I can change "comments" to something else, like "blog love." So give some blog love!

On the way home

2009-03-14T23:02:00.002+08:00

On the way home, taking the bus with Mr. C, I had a thought: My kids' last name will be Chang. (I know I should have realized this already.) The epiphany came about while we were joking about what terrible Chinese names we could give our future kids, and I thought about a few English names I liked and then added Chang to that, and suddenly - wow.

"Our kids' last name will be Chang," I said to Mr. C.
"Yes," he replied.

Pause.

"They'll be Chinese." Me again.
Now Mr. C has a "your weird" look on his face. "Yes"

Pause. I begin to feel sad, as if somehow I'm losing some bit of my culture.

"They'll be American too," Mr. C reassures me.
"Hai hao" (Phew) I say.

I guess Chang will do just fine. I can't think of another "American" name I'd want to give my kids anyway.

Me & Wedding Photography

2009-03-11T09:02:00.004+08:00

Wedding photography for me, lately, has become a bit of obsession. It started a ways back, when I shot a few weddings for friends/relatives here in Taiwan. Then I got busy planning my own wedding in Taiwan, and reception in Wisconsin, so the whole thing took a long hiatus.

Now I've become a bit obsessed ... reading blogs, buying books, finding out as much as I can about this business. The more I learn the more fascinating it is. The problem that happens when I really got my mind on something is that it's all I can literally think about ...

And so I want to get out there and take as many pictures as I can. If you are looking for a wedding photographer with passion, creativity, and a strong, photojournalistic style, let's get connected, cuz I'm looking to take pictures. No matter where your wedding is (in Taiwan), I'm willing to travel. And I have friends who love taking pictures too, so you'll likely get two excellent photographers for your wedding (unless, of course, you only want one). While something ($$) for my time is appreciated, I do have a full time job and this is still just an interest of mine, so $$ isn't the main point.

At Home

2009-03-04T22:52:00.001+08:00

Some fun I had tonight...

Peter and I, and our "family" - Cappuccino, and the two parakeets Joey and Beany. Everybody appears twice. :)

Chinese New Year

2009-03-01T21:42:00.002+08:00

Woohoo! I finally got my Chinese New Year pics. I just poured myself a cup of red wine to celebrate :) This Chinese New Year I went to Peter's paternal grandparents house, which is in a small village in Kaoshiung county. It was the most rural place I'd been to in Taiwan - I didn't know entire villages without a 7-11 or other kind of convenience store existed! And I stayed there for a whole week ...

This house is not being lived in anymore ... it's right next to Peter's grandparents house, and is the previous house of Peter's great uncle.

This is the house Peter's grandparents used to live in. When my parents-in-law married they were still living in this house.

This is the door of the great uncle's house. Obviously I did some major post-processing w/ the curves ... but I kind of like how it turned out.

The shed behind the great uncle's and Peter's grandparents' current home

An old machine in another shed ... This image is a 6-second shot - all of these pictures were taken with a tripod

A random door in the neighborhood

So what did I learn? First of all, all these photos were taken between four and six in the afternoon, when the light was the warmest. There wasn't a lot of "photographic" stuff in the village, which got me looking at the details for shots. We'll probably go back there next year ... maybe I'll buy a nice macro by then so we can get another view. :)

Another note, Peter's grandparents are Christian - the first in the family to be saved was Peter's great-grandfather, making my husband a fourth generation Christian. It's pretty amazing - the Christian legacy has stayed pretty much with the family, even Peter's great-uncle's family is Christian. And when we went to the Spring Service (celebrating Chinese New Year) at the church over a hundred people packed out of the church. Some people were even sitting outside.

Conversations

2009-02-26T13:15:00.003+08:00

So I'm reading the book, The Power of One, and I love it! It's a great story, with characters that you become really attached to, and makes you think at the same time. I'm posting one of my favorite quotes below:

We had all cawed and moaned at the story, but Morrie, as usual, had made his point: good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human.

The Power of One, pg. 385

On another note, expect Chinese New Year stuff coming up this weekend! I've been really busy, but I'm pretty excited about getting this blog caught up. :)

Miramar Ferris Wheel

2009-02-10T21:25:00.001+08:00

I took these pictures a long time ago, which means there is even more posting to come! These pictures are from a photo outing I took with Winnie and Daniel to Miramar to take some night photos, especially of Taiwan's largest ferris wheel! I love taking photos at night, because really it's easy once you got a tripod. And it's fun to play around with extra long shutter speeds. Anyway, here's the photos. And look forward to some stuff from Chinese New Year whenever I get to it!!!

Happy Chinese New Year!

2009-01-23T16:18:00.003+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year friends! This year I'm spending it in the countryside of Kaoshiung (Peter's grandparents home) and Kenting (for a few days). Yayh! I've been busy all day today getting ready ... packing all of Peter and I's clothes into one small, carry-on size piece of luggage, baking two batches of muffins (cornbread and blueberry), buying ingredients for chili, printing pictures, finishing off the last of the kimchi, cola and radish cakes, and taking a shower before our water got turned off. Now all I need to do is pack up the birds and their cage, get the camera and computer all ready, and pick up the pictures and a few more groceries.

Should be a fun week. Hope it is for you too! Love, LHC

Di Hua Street Photos

2009-01-21T20:16:00.003+08:00

I admit, I'm falling in love. The wide angle lens I got recently (Tokina 11-16 f2.8) really is taking me for a spin. Boy am I enjoying the ride though! So, here are some more photos from my first major outing with the lens.

The picture below was made from two exposures, a little trick I learned recently. Basically:
1. Shoot in RAW
2. Make a copy
3. Change the exposure of one for the sky/background, and the exposure of the other one for the (originally overexposed) foreground.
4. In photoshop, select the corrected foreground (remember to feather, I did by 10 pixels) and "duplicate" it into the other photo.

And walla! Perfectly exposed photo.

With the wide angle, you soon discover that you need to get REALLY close if you're ever going to fill the photo with just one subject. It is possible, and leads to a fun, slightly distored effect, as below.

And I love the atmosphere in this photo. As you can tell, there was lots of buying and selling going on, and lots of people. Very "re nao" (hot and lively) as the people here like to say.

Di Hua Street

2009-01-19T22:43:00.003+08:00

More photos of Di Hua street before Chinese New Year coming soon! But for now, just some photography things I learned while there:

1. When taking pictures of people in a night market you only get one chance. You need to take the picture before people are aware you're taking it, which requires really fast composition. You have to see the shot before you even put your camera to your face.

2. When taking pictures in a night market and you want to use different lenses, do a few walk-throughs. I stuck with my Tokina 11-16 (wide angle) this time, but if I would have wanted to try out some of my other lenses, I would have had to find a corner where there aren't people bustling around to change lenses. So just do a whole different run through, looking at things with a different lens in mind.

3. My on-camera flash was a great little took for lighting up the foreground at dusk, as seen in the picture above.

4. Don't be shy about taking photos. Seriously, if people don't want their photo taken, they'll move away, or tell you to stop, like one vendor did.

Winnie

2009-01-19T21:34:00.002+08:00

I like taking portraits, because it's such a challenge to not only make someone look really good but also to have it be something they're pleased with as well. Actually, it's really the second part that's hard. Speaking of which my friend Winnie is especially hard to please! But these pictures passed the ultimate test. :) Yay! So if anybody ever wants their portrait taken ...

From Taiwan, to LA, with Love

2009-01-15T22:10:00.003+08:00

My friend Melissa, better known as Mel, is moving to LA. There's nothing I love more than combining two things I love (like, this blog) and hey, here's a chance to mix three: Mel, Taiwan (where we worked together) and LA (where I did college). Ah! I love LA. Here are the things and people one visiting the place can't live without ...

Picture taken by Flickr member Marshall Astor http://www.flickr.com/photos/lifeontheedge/416554605/ and shared under this Creative Commons license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

C&O's rolls photo by Flickr member Caroline on Crack, link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/caroscuro/101876814/ and shared under this Creative Commons license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en.

The CPK pizza photo is taken by Flickr member yuichi sakuraba http://www.flickr.com/photos/skrb/175432158/ and shared with this Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en

Photo mural done as a college project by yours truly

Picture taken by szeke http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosz/2157756520/ and shared under this creative commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en

In the Philippines

2009-01-11T18:23:00.000+08:00

Vacationing became much more important than photographing as soon as I stepped unto Puerto Galera. Oh well, maybe I'm not cut out to be a travel photographer! Anyway, here are some pictures that I did take!

This is a test

2009-01-02T21:43:00.001+08:00

I will be using this post to test different brand/style ideas.

Rusty, Dusty Taipei

2008-12-26T23:14:00.000+08:00

On Christmas Eve afternoon, my friend and I went out on a photo adventure. We hit one of the older sections of town - between Zhong Shan N. Road and Di Hua Street and along Nan Jing and Ming Sheng. Anyway, it was fun! Enjoy...

A house; apparently the sign is for a shop that sells axil oil

A motorcycle ... Mr. C doesn't understand the point of this picture. But then, he's not a foreigner!

House, with auto parts shop below.

A house entrance.

My absolute favorite from this photo-taking bunch. A door, looking up.

Looking into the window of a deserted building.

Looking up - again a deserted building

An alley and a bicycle

Best "2008" Photos

2008-12-20T10:29:00.000+08:00

Some other coworkers who are also into photography and I recently formed a group, with the blog: rebelphotogroup.blogspot.com. Make sure to check it out! Recently we've been posting our favorite shots from 2008. Here's my selection:

Best Landscape - Senado Square, Macao. (But I must confess, this was taken in October, 2007, when I went to Macau with Naomi. Oh well, I just like this one better than all the landscape photos I took in 2008!)

Best Portrait (Casual) - Adeline Chan - and I say it's my best because Adeline was really happy with it, and she's kind of hard to please. :)

Best Night Photo - Friends from Peter's church, night market, engagement photo shoot (taken with a tripod, which you can imagine how fun it was to lug that around in a night market!)

Best Kids/Wedding shot - taken at Peter's cousin's wedding

Best Cultural Moment - my friend's (Wen-Fang) engagement. She was being decked out in all her engagement gifts from her family and her fiances.

Brr! It's Cold Out There

2008-12-13T14:45:00.003+08:00

Another oldie, but a goodie! This is an editorial I wrote for the Daily Trojan, USC's campus paper, way back when I was enjoying winter weather in Los Angeles.

Los Angelenos are fun to make fun of. Don’t get me wrong, individually Los Angelenos are intersting and unique, but collectively they are, well, you get my point. After all, each state has its own set of peculariaties, and as a dairy farmer from Wisconsin, I certainly suffer my share of jabs. But coming from Wisconsin I get a special perspective of one of the most contreversial topics of the season: the weather.

There are two active camps at USC that offer totally differenct perspectives of the weather. There is the “brr! Its cold out here!” camp and there is the “go to (substitute any other state besides Hawii) to know what real cold is!” camp. I, filled with good ol' Wisconsin pride, fall squarly into the second camp.

Los Angelenos have just suffered through the coldest month of the year, with lows dipping down into the frigid forties. In Wisconsin, if there were highs in the forties during this time of year we’d start breaking out the shorts. Nevertheless, for Los Angelenos Spring Break becomes the time for the annual pilgramage towards anything closer to the equater. Wisconsinites head to Los Angeles, Los Angelenos head to Cancun.

Last spring break I went the other way around and totally confused my flight attendants. Why head to Wisconsin? Maybe I needed to remember the reason I went to Los Angeles for school in the first place.

If the USC recruiters had control of the global tilt, they could not have planned it any more in their favor. The months when out-of-state high school seniors have to make the serious decision of what college to go to are the coldest months of the year. I had to decide between Minneapolis, Minnesota – even more frigid – and sunny California. Somehow I found myself here.

Only to find when I got here that people still found something to complain about! I think there is a human propensity to complain no matter their condition, but I’ll save that for another editorial. No, the first time I ran into Los Angelenos weather ignorance was the first rain of the fall and my friend complained that it was “downpoaring.” Los Angelenos have only two catagories for rain: mist and downpoar. More experienced states have developed finer distinctions: fog, mist, sprinkles, drizzle, shower, light rain, heavy rain, warm rain, cold rain, gusty rain, sleet, and finally – downpoar.

And at least the precipitation comes down in Los Angeles – it doesn’t decide to hang around for awhile. To do the complaint of humiditiy proper justice requires someone from Florida or Luisiana, but I’ll do my best. Dry weather really is taken for granted here. In Wisconsin you can have the same temperature and level of sunshine as in Los Angeles, and still be miserable due to the single factor of humidity. In the worst days you get wet again after drying off from a shower, your hair stays damp all day, and you look like you ran a marathon after crossing the street. Some creatures do like humidity though – most notably mosquitos.

The form of weather that Los Angelenos are most blissfully ignorant about though is snow. I tutor at a local center, and I was going through consanent sounds with a six-year-old and for each sound we would find words that started with it. We hit the sound “sn” and were thinking of words when I said “snow” expecting to draw a giddy laugh that all kids give when thinking about snow. Instead I draw a blank stare. Of course, here she didn’t know what snow even is.

That experience pretty much sums up the entire Los Angelenos experience of snow. For some it is accessible enough up in the mountains, where they can head to Big Bear for the weekend and ski and snowboard to their hearts desire. But that isn’t really experiencing snow. To really experience snow you have to be shoveling a path just to get to your car in the morning.

Sure, Northerners do get to experience that warm “Winter Wonderland” feeling at Christmas, but for the rest of the season we must deal with snowbanks, shoveling the sidewalk, scraping the car windows, putting on tire chains and endless months of slush (a disgusting mixture of snow, dirt, ice and water).

In Los Angeles the popular snow sports are skiing and snowboarding. In Wisconsin even more popular is the sport of counting the number of cars in the snowbank after a blizzard.

In the end though, I really can’t complain too much about the ambivalence of Los Angelenos to weather. After all – I’m enjoying sunny California instead of freezing in Minnesota. And, while I represent Wisconsin to my California friends, I represent California to my Wisconsin family. At home I obliviously wear sandels around the house and try to convince my family that – yes – it really can get cold in California. They never believe me though – a combination of Wisconsin pride and ignorance.

24 Hours on Skid Row

2008-12-13T13:07:00.013+08:00

This past week, I finally let some coworkers know that I'd stayed on Skid Row for 24 hours once in college. The experience was so ... different from what the rest of my college life was like that I usually block it out. But it turns out there was some interest in what it was like, so below you'll find the essay I wrote about my experiences. I stayed on Skid Row on Easter weekend, March 29-30, 2002. I went into a lot of detail, first because I wanted a really vivid record of the time and second because I was also using it as research for a term paper. And heck, this way people can know what it's like without actually doing it for oneself. Though there is something to be gained by getting to know homeless people.

　“You goin’ slummin’ with us?”
　　My friends and I had just hit the streets when a homeless man questioned the sleeping bag my friend was carrying. When we had explained that I was doing “field research” for a term paper on the homeless in Los Angeles, he responded:
　“Well don’t hold back then. You tell all the crack, all the dope, all the shit that goes on down here.”

　　A couple miles north of USC, and I along with my friends Mark and Jason were in the heart of Skid Row, the common name for a district East of all the high rises in downtown where sleeping ordinances don’t prohibit the homeless from sleeping on the streets.
　　We met up with a couple that I had met two weeks earlier when I had brought out food with my friends. Lonny and Dee had just gotten a huge new tent that day, and thanks to their charity, my friends and I would be sleeping well off on the streets that night.
　　In street termonoligy, Mark, Jason and I would be sleeping in a “mansion.” Lowest on the levels of street housing is none at all – just a blanket and a wall to huddle against for some warmth. Next up is the “coffin,” which is a shelter of boxes just big enough for one person to sleep in. Then there is the “box condo” which is a shelter of boxes much bigger than a coffin, that can house two or three people. Nothing beats a tent though.
　　Tommy, Lonny and Dee’s friend who would be sleeping in their old, much smaller tent, proudly pointed to the succession of housing types. They were moving up.

　　When I had first met Lonny and Dee a couple weeks ago they struck me by how trustworthy they were. I unasamedly asked them all kinds of questions about being homeless, and they answered them all. “But,” they told me, “if you really wanna know what its like being homeless, come out here and kick it for a few days.”
　　Their words echoed in my mind and in my heart. I realized that all the charitable people that came out to feed the homeless would leave a little while later to their comfortable homes, as I would also. Who would actually have the guts to put aside all their comforts, all their security, and spend a night on the streets?
　“Now I know you guys are Christian,” Dee told us “ because know one else would come out here on the streets with us.”

　“Do you want to go to the bottoms?” Dee asked us.
　“Don’t take them to the bottoms,” Lonny told Dee, “wait till they can spend a few days out here, don’t take them down there on their first night out.”
　　I had no idea that there was more to Skid Row than Los Angeles and Fourth and a few back alleys. Apparently Skid Row was big enough to have different “districts” and I hadn’t ever seen the worst of it.
　“Nobody will touch me down there,” Dee replied to Lenny. “I have an uncle down there who sells dope. They won’t go near us. They know who I am.”
　　Mark, Jason and I looked nervously at each other. We had gone out there to experience homelessness. We figured if we were going to experience it we might as well see it all. So we went down to the bottoms, accompanied by Dee and William.

　　Dee took us through several streets where homeless were crowded on all sides. At one point Dee announced “we are officially in the bottoms.”
　　There were people yelling, it was dark, there were a few bonfires going up on the streets and people were staring, especially at Jason and I because we were white.
William gave us the tour:
　“In that tent you can get $10 hits, in that tent a girl for $10.”

　　We went to the drop in center at the end of the street. It felt good to be off the street, and somehow the homeless that were crowded in trying to sleep felt less threatening than the ones on the street.
　　I had to sign my name in at the front. As I signed by name I felt ashamed. I wanted to write next to it “I’m not really homeless, just visiting.”
　　But I was homeless for the night, and so my name is in their books.

　“This place will be going crazy on the first,” Deedra said about the drop-in-center.
　“Why?” I asked. It seemed like all the questions I had been asking were trying to clarify what Deedra was saying.
　“Because everybody will be getting their SSI checks.”
　　Whether supplemental income or disablity checks, half the homeless get some sort of welfare from the government. As soon as the welfare checks come out they are used to get hard drugs. Even if the person isn’t a drug user they still run the risk of getting beat up for money.

　　When leaving the drop-in-center after being showed around, a man grabbed my arm. Before it had only been stares and shouts of “I got money in my pocket.” Now they were grabbing me.
　　Dee explained. “Because you’re new and you’re young they think you’re down here to sell your body.”
　　And apparently I was prime meat for being white. Or at least I felt all the more insecure and out of place.
　　On the way back I stuck like glue to Deedra, and she kept me on the inside of the sidewalk. Every time a guy shouted at us she yelled back.
　“Oh shut up!”

　　When we got back there was a line of a church group feeding. We quickly got in. In the church group there was a guy with a large wooden cross, red decoration tape, and nails. He told us that we could tell him one of our worries or problems and that he would take a piece of red tape and nail that to the cross.
　“It’s a symbol” he explained.
　　The group was serving noodles in broth from a large, orange, drink cooler. I took my bowl and left without a word.
　“Too much water,” Dee said matter-of-factly and proceeded to dump the water onto the sidewalk.
　　Later I was talking to Lenny and I asked him what he thought of the guy with the cross.
　“Personally, I believe in God and I believe in Jesus, but that guy and what he was doing, it was…”
　“Kind of tacky,” I finished for him.
　“And we get that every day out here. Before they will let us eat at the mission centers we have to listen to a 45-minute message. People get sick of it.”

　　We got back safely to Lonny and Dee’s tent on Los Angeles and Fourth. We were back in the better part of Skid Row, “uptown.”
　　Good thing we had Dee with us, William explains because “he (pointing to Jason, whose white) would have gotten ganged up on, she (pointing to me) would’ve gotten raped, and he (pointing to Mark, who fit in the most as half-Indonesian, half-Mexican) would’ve still gotten beaten up because the Mexicans don’t know him.”
　　Lonny and Dee had lived down in the bottoms, but had moved up here a while ago.
　“Why?” again.
　“Well when you don’t want to deal with all the dope, all the gangs, all the stuff that goes on down there, you gotta move up.”

　　In the tent next to us was Deborah. I had also met Deborah two weeks ago, and knew she was from Minneapolis and that she was planning on going back as soon as it got warmer up there. I sat down next to her to see how she was doing.
　　As we were talking, she pulled out a small photo album that she kept with her. The first pictures were her two daughters. One of them was living with Deborah’s brother in Texas, the other, who was 18, was living with her boyfriend. Deborah hoped that if she got to Texas that she would be able to find her. Deborah also had two sons. Their pictures, as well as the ones of the daughters, were several years old, so that I could only imagine what they look like now.
　　The rest of the pictures were mostly Polaroid shots of her homeless friend in Texas. Apparently, during that period of time, Deborah had a Polaroid camera to take pictures with. She showed me her friends as they were all hanging out underneath the bridge.

　　There are a lot of rules down on Skid Row, and you risk a beating or stabbing for breaking one. For example, don’t cut in a food line.
　　Another food line we were in almost got out of hand when one of the workers let a woman past Dee and the three of us because she was a “first-feed.”
　"Why you lettin’ her up, she’s behind me!” Dee yelled at the worker.
　　The man tried to quietly explain to her that they were letting all the first-feeds up in front because they were running out of food.
　“Well me and these friends of mind hadn’t eaten yet!”
　　Another guy tried to cut in line in front of Dee when we were closer to the truck. Apparently he was the same guy who had confronted Dee earlier in the day when she was setting up her tent that he was sleeping there.
　　When we got back Dee told Lonny what they guy tried to do, and in anger Lonny tried to catch up to him. The perpetrator had gotten away by that time.

　　Tommy had asked us if we could pray for his brother earlier, and as he was going to bed I asked him if he would like to pray now. I sat down beside his tent and he reached out his hands for me to put my hands in.
　　As we were holding hands, I asked him what I specifically should pray for.
He told me about his brother Charlie, and how we was suffering now with diabetes and going through dailysis. His eyes teared as he told me that Charlie was the only person who had taught him what was good, what was right. He told me how much it pained him to know what he was going through and how angry at God he was for it.
　　I prayed for Tommy and his brother. I told the Lord that I wasn’t sure why Charlie had to be suffering now, but that the Lord would be with him during this time and carry him through. As I closed my prayer, I thanked the Lord for bringing us through another day and Tommy heartily said “yes, Lord.”
　　I prayed for a better tomorrow.

　　It was nearing 10 o’clock and Mark, Jason and I were keeping Lonny up. Usually they go to bed around nine, because at five in the morning they have to pack up their sleeping gear before the stores open.
　　We didn’t want to be too much of a hindrance on our hosts, and so at ten we laid down in the tent to sleep.
　　There are two things that hit you right away when trying to sleep on the streets. The first is how hard the cement is. I had gone camping and slept on the ground before, but in “urban camping” you don’t get soft earth but rather hard cement. The second thing that struck me was the noise. People talking and shouting at each other, and the vehicles on our street kept me awake.

　　I slept uneasily for a couple hours, then woke up around 12 having to go to the bathroom. Thus started the most uncomfortable and embarrassing experience for me.
There are porta-pottys in the parking lot of a nearby mission, but they close the gates at night. So Dee had pointed out to me earlier where the woman go – in the parking lot behind the ladies shelter.
　　After realizing that I would not be able to go to sleep unless I went to the bathroom, I headed out of the tent. I went behind the ladies shelter but sadly I didn’t find any sort of makeshift shelter where I could go in partial seclusion. From each spot I could see cars driving or people walking in the distance. And the thought of going to the bathroom on pavement disgusted me.
　　So I headed back to the tents. When I had gotten up I had heard Deborah and Michel, her boyfriend talking. So I whispered outside their tent for Deborah. I was hoping that she would get up and accompany me somewhere so at least if I went to the bathroom in the parking lot I could have some one to sort-of shelter me.
　　I asked her how I was supposed to go the bathroom and she replied “in the bucket.” “Just use a blanket to cover yourself.”
　　Mark was using the bottom of my sleeping bag as a cushion for his head though, so I couldn’t grab that. And the thought of going in a bucket so close to the tent where my friends were sleeping also disgusted me.
　　I heard the gates open at the mission center for a truck that was going in. With relief, I headed over to ask the driver if I could use the porta-potties in there.
When I asked him though, he told me that it was after-hours and that he was not allowed to let me in.
　　I pleaded with him, but he couldn’t change his stance.
　　On his face I saw the distraught but ungiving face that I had given so many homeless people as they have asked me for money.
　　He told me to try knocking on the door of the mission center though.
　　I knocked on the door a few times and got a man to come up and answer it. I asked him if I could please, please use the bathroom in there.
　　He told me that this was a men’s shelter and that they didn’t have any bathrooms for women. When seeing the look on my face though, he let me in. He told me to do it quickly though.

　　Having gone to the bathroom I could sleep with a little more comfort for the rest of the night. I woke up at six in the morning to the sounds of people talking outside. Lonny was already up and was asking us if we wanted to go the mission center for breakfast. Jason and I were up, so he got tickets for us.
　　The mission center was feeding over 200 people that morning, so we had to wait around to stand in line as designated by our ticket number. As we were waiting around we got in a conversation with “Rabbit” and his friend, who were both Latino.
　　Rabbit talked to us about how he wanted to get into movies, and how he was an extra on some MTV show. He asked Jason what his work experience was. Not quite understanding the level of jobs that we had access to as students Rabbit didn’t understand why we weren’t working. He pointed to Jason, who was a big, tall guy.
　 “You could get a job with security, man! Those are the top jobs!”

　 “Sure makes EVK [a dorm cafeteria] look good,” was Jason’s comment to the mission cafeteria. In truth, this cafeteria was EVK’s bastard child.
　　We were herded in like cattle, having to show our ticket to each guy along the line. Then at the end we grabbed a platter that had eggs, two pieces of bread that looked like a hamburger bun, a donut, some oatmeal with raisins and a pear. As soon as we had our trays another guy pointed us to two available seats were we could sit.
　　We ate our breakfast in silence. Trying to find some use for my bread/bun I put eggs on it in the hopes that it would make it taste better.
　 “You gonna eat that?” the guy next to us asked Jason about his donut.
　“No, not really,” Jason replied, and handed the donut and his pear over to the guy. I handed him my pear.
　　There was a worker there that upon seeing my downcast face started telling me that I got to smile.
　“A face like yours, you should be smiling,” he told me. Warmed by his sincere interest in my attitude, I smiled at him.

　　There was a program for Easter at one of the missions that Dee knew about, so that pretty much set our plans for the day. We packed up our tent and cleaned the sidewalk for the stores the next morning.
　　It amazed me to see how well the homeless took care of the sidewalk in cleaning it up. Dee was busy sweeping the sidewalk and gutters, and Michel had gotten a bucket to wash the sidewalk. In short time the whole area was cleaned up and the garbage gone.
　　Tommy and Lonny headed off to take a shower at the drop-in-center. Deborah and Dee were busy packing up their shopping carts. Deborah had two shopping carts. In one she put all of her blankets, neatly folded up. She had room in the second one, so Mark, Jason and I but our stuff in there. Deborah’s shopping cart was loaded with all the blankets, clothes and tents that her, Lonny and Tommy had.

　　We headed over to the Frederick Jones mission early so that we would get a good spot in line to get in. The Los Angeles mission was also having a program, but this one was the superior one because they were serving In and Out burgers.
　　As we stood in line, a priest came by to shake our hands and wish us a happy Easter. To the homeless he is called “Father Dollar.”
　　Dee explains to us that every Sunday, he stands on a certain street corner and hands out a dollar to all the homeless people. He’s been doing it for the past 18 years. Now he takes along a couple other people, because he has been beaten or rushed a few times for his money.
Across the street corner from where Father Dollar is handing out dollars will be somebody offering $1 hits of crack. Never mind the potency, a homeless guy explains to us, its free.
　“Father Dollar knows what people are doing with his money,” Dee explains to us. He can’t tell them what to do with the money, once it’s theirs, its theirs, even if they wait until Father Dollar leaves to hit up. It’s what’s in people hearts to do what they do with it.

　　There is a television crew at the Easter program, as well as a line of teenagers to shake our hand as we come in. I stay as far away from them as possible, as I am convinced that as soon as they see me they will be able to tell that I’m not homeless, that this is a masquerade. Or if they don’t see through it I won’t want them to be feeling sorry for poor, young white girl on the streets. I guess I just felt ashamed.
　　We were herded into our seats. There was a program before we could get served by In and Out. It started out with a praise band. Except for a few people clapping their hands, everybody was stoic. For the last praise song, the worship leader urged us to stand up and give praise to the Lord. Dee exclaimed to me that this was her favorite song. It was a good song, and some people did get up.
　　The definite low point was the message by Willa Jordan. She brought out a carton of Easter Eggs. During her message she proceeded to upon up the Easter eggs one by one and explain the symbol that each Easter Egg contained inside.
　　The last Easter Egg was empty.
　“The tomb was empty!” Willa exclaimed.
　　Willa ended her message by telling us that as we were about to be fed by In and Out that there was a greater, spiritual feeding that we could also receive on that day.
　　Then the announcers came up and told everyone that ushers would let them out of their seats on by one, and not to worry because there was food enough for everyone.
　“Their going to bum rush,” Deedra told me.

　　When we got back from the Easter program there wasn’t much to do besides sit around. Lonny was there, so we chatted with him. For the lack of better alternatives, Dee asked us if we wanted to go to the bottoms again, to see it in the daylight.
　　I didn’t much see the point but Mark and Jason were restless, so we headed down to the bottoms again.
　　The bottom weren’t as scary this time, in the daylight. There weren’t any bon fires, and I didn’t have to worry about being kidnapped and raped. We met up with one of Dee’s friends.
As we were hanging out talking, the guy started talking about how he gives praise to God for each day. He was mumbling softly, so I couldn’t catch all that he was saying, but he was saying something about God and glorifying him.
　　I wondered in amazement. How could this guy live right in here with all the crack, the dope, the heroin, being homeless, living in a tent, and give glory to God. His face was refreshing, because he looked genuinely happy.
　　I don’t even know if I could be in the same situation as him and still be thankful.

　　When we got back from the bottoms Tommy was gone. Lonny explained to us that an ex-roommate had come and taken him away. I asked him when Tommy was coming back. Lonny told us that he didn’t think he would be.
　　Wait, Tommy had been homeless off and on since 1986. I looked at Lonny with incredulity.
　“You mean, you don’t think he’s ever coming back?”
　“Nope,” Lonny replied simply. “He’ll come back to visit, but he won’t be living on the streets again.”
　　Just like that, Tommy was off the streets. And I had prayed for that guy last night.
　　I kind of inwardly wished that I had prayed to the Lord to take Tommy off the streets the next day, but I wasn’t bold enough for such a prayer. If I had I could claim a miracle in the Lord’s name. Even so, I thanked the Lord for taking care of one of his children.

　　Dee took Jason, Mark and I to the porta-potties, which were a few blocks away. Luckily they had just been drained, as the truck was across the street draining the other ones.
　　Upon entering the porta-potty I spent some time cleaning the seat with an old newspaper just so that I could sit down. In there was also used syringes. Apparently, this was a favorite place for people to shoot up.
　　Of course, there wasn’t any toilet paper, and I hadn’t thought to bring any. I thought back to one time when I had been walking downtown and I had gone to the Omni Hotel to use the bathrooms. There they even had rolled up little towels to dry hands with. No such thing here.

　　On the way back, Dee showed us how to “run the meters.”
　　Lonny and Dee don’t do any panhandling. Their sources of income vary from little odd-jobs here and there. If a truck is unloading Lonny can get a few bucks for helping. Or people also come by looking for day-labor.
　　Another thing that they do though is use a stretched out paper clip to poke in the slots of a meter to add time to it for people parking. Then people will give them the money instead of putting it in the meter.

　　Upon returning, Dee showed me the near-by ladies center. She told the lady at the front that I was writing a paper and to tell me what they did at the ladies center.
　　The lady explained to me that this was a place for the homeless women to get off the streets, enjoy some quiet, take a nap or shower, and eat.
　　Dee showed me around the small shelter. There were four cots in a darkened area used for sleeping and a lounge in the back.

　　For the rest of the afternoon I hung out talking to Lonny. I asked him what he would do to get people off the streets. Before he would answer me he wanted to know what I thought would work.
　“Well,” I told him, “I’d try to get people off drugs some way.”
　“People are only going to get off drugs if they really want to, “ Lonny responded, “you can’t force them, it won’t work.”
　　So, the drug problem is pretty much hopeless. I asked Lonny what he suggested.
　　He told me that he would buy one of the warehouses out here and turn it into a shelter with bunks. Then he would give programs to give people job skills, not just hire them in menial jobs like the missions do. He would find them a job, give them clothes they can use to go there. That’s what would get people off the streets.
　　He told me that if somebody were to get him a place for a week, and a job to go to, it would be enough to get him going and trying to make it again.
　　He asked me what I thought of life on the streets.
　　There wasn’t a whole heck of a lot that I could say. I was struck by how prevalent the drugs were, and how easily accessible. I was struck by how big the whole area was. I was struck by all the hidden rules that seem to govern life down here.

　　My time on the streets had shown homelessness to both be better and worse than what I had expected. Worse because all of society’s worst problems – drugs, prostitution, hunger, violence – all come to head on the streets. Better because even on the streets there is community, a place where “people watch out for each other.”
　　Mark, Jason and I were totally in debt to Lonny and Deedra, and I was trying to think of a way that I could repay them for hosting us for the night. I asked them if there was anything that they wanted, that I could get them.
　　They were actually kind of shocked at my question, they weren’t expecting it. And they couldn’t think of anything. There was nothing that I could get them that they couldn’t get themselves. And their lives were so simple that any luxury items would be useless.
　　So, I don’t as of now have a way of repaying Lonny and Dee. But I will find a way somehow.

I recall that later we bought them several rolls of toilet paper, a gift they were grateful for.

Long Shan Temple

2008-12-07T11:18:00.000+08:00

On Saturday I went to the Long Shan temple with some friends. It was my first time there. We'd had a conversation about the whole religious landscape in Taiwan before we went, and I couldn't help and feel as if I wanted to cry as I was taking the pictures. I was surprised by the number of young people there.

I enjoyed playing with slow shutter speeds to try to capture all of the motion in the temple.

An alley in the neighborhood around the temple.

Merry Christmas From Beany

2008-12-07T11:05:00.000+08:00

Chinese Cooking Night Recipes

2008-12-06T12:07:00.003+08:00

Sha-Cha Beef With Kong Hsin Cai
(taken from Easy Stir-Fry by Angela Cheng)
Ingredients:
250g. beef (buy or cut it into smaller, thin pieces for stir fry)
250g. water convolvulus (known as kong hsin cai)
3 cloves garlic (skins taken off and cut into roughly 1/4 inch pieces)
1 stalk green onion (scallion)
1 red chili pepper

Seasonings:
A: (beef marinade)
1/2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. water
1/4 tsp. baking soda (optional)
1/2 tbsp. constarch
B: (stir-fry)
1 1/2 tbsp. sha-cha sauce (more if you really like it!)
1/4 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. rice wine or dry white wine
1 tbsp. water

Slice beef against the grain. Mix seasonings for beef marinade in bowl and marinate beef with it for 30 minutes.
Trim water convolvulus (kong hsin cai), cut into sections; cut garlic; cut green onion into approx. 1 inch sections; slice red chili diagonally (and don't rub your eyes!)
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil to stir fry water convolvulus (kong hsin cai), season with salt, remove to a serving plate
Heat 1/2 cup of oil to stir fry the beef quickly until almost done. Drain and pour away the oil.
Stir-fry garlic, green onion and red chili with 2 tablespoons of oil, add beef and the stir-fry seasonings, stir-fry will over high heat. Place on top of water convolvulus.

LHC Modifications:

Skip step three, stir-fry beef first, then, throw kong-hsin cai in with step five just before you throw the beef back in.
Skip step four, and stir-fry beef after heating garlic, green onion and red chili in oil. (This is what I did on Chinese cooking night).
Follow all the steps, but instead of placing beef on kong-hsin cai in the last step, throw the kong hsin cai in at the last step, so it's get's reheated and some of the sauce on it.

Fried Tofu
Ingredients:
Egg tofu (hard)
1 stalk green onion, chopped
soy bean paste (you gao)

Take tofu out of packaging, pat dry with paper towl. Cut into approx. 1 1/2 by 1 1/2 inch pieces that are 1/3 inch thick. Heat oil. Fry tofu in oil until golden. Place on paper towl to blot off oil. Place in serving bowl. Drizzle soy bean paste on top, and sprinkle with green onions. Serve.

Egg With Basil
Ingredients:
3 eggs
handful of basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tbsp. of milk

Mix ingredients together in a bowl. Heat wok and place about 1 tbsp. of oil in it. Sprinkle bottom with a little salt. When oil is hot, pour in egg mix. Spread egg mix around the sides so that all parts get cooked. Lower heat. When egg starts to thicken, turn over. To turn over in one piece, left pan and lean it against the spatula to get entire egg on top of spatula. Cook for another minute, serve.

Mr and Mrs C's Thanksgiving Post

2008-12-03T20:51:00.005+08:00

This is the first thanksgiving for Mr. C and I so, well, it's a chance to introduce some traditions into our 7-month-old family. I didn't think of this until the day of, but despite my lack of preparation it went really well. We celebrated on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, because we had plans for Thursday. During lunch on Wednesday, I went to a local bookstore and bought a copy of Real Simple magazine. I have them to thank for the maple-glazed carrots, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce I made. Finding whole cranberries at the local grocery store was particularily exciting. Mr. C brought home the ... duck from the blue truck. We ended the evening by decorating the house for Christmas.

One particular Thanksgiving tradition that we haven't gotten to until today is writing a Thanksgiving essay/letter/blog post about the things we're thankful for. Mr. C's working on his as I write this, I gave it to him as a "writing assignment." You'll find it below when he's done. Here goes mine:

I'm thankful for the day April 19, 2008. I wasn't ever one to fantasize about my "dream wedding," which was probably good because my real one wouldn't have been anything like it. But it was really, really fun. I remember points during the ceremony when I would realize what was happening and be so impressed by how beautiful it was. I would see the people and be so touched by how happy they were for Mr. C and I. The most suprisingly touching part of the day was after the ceremony and banquet when both families gathered at Mr. C's parents home. My sister and eldest brother sang karoke. My other brother showed pictures of his kids to non-English speaking members of Mr. C's family. My grandma held hands with Mr. C's grandma. Our family's didn't just politely get along, which would have been enough considering their differences, but no, they truly united in happiness for us.

I'm grateful for a long, bleary and nebulous period of sadness I went through this past year. Then I wasn't aware of what was going on; now I can see it was simply a dreary time of moodiness. I did have happy days during that time, but happy days weren't the norm. ... How can you help yourself when you don't even know you're down? ... But I eventually got down enough to make some changes that lifted me up and out. PRAISE GOD! I'm thankful because every day is so much better and brighter when there isn't a cloud cast over it. At about the same time I made this change, some new coworkes joined my office. There's nothing like new blood to stir up stale circumstances, and I'm thankful for them and all the rest of my coworkers. They, more than the work I do, give me motivation to go to work every day.

I'm thankful for my family in Wisconsin. They flew ... I don't even know how many miles ... to attend my wedding in Taiwan and then went all out to help me plan the reception in Wisconsin and host Mr. C's family. I'm getting teary as I write this. The love, devotion and acceptance my family shows to Mr. C and I has been so generous and so overwhelming I hope to never take it for granted. Even though we're so far apart, we're family. You guys know me in ways nobody else ever will, and don't ever let distance make you think you're less important to me. The same goes out to those friends in LA who know who you are. You're my ma ji. (Jeff might know what that means.)

OK, I saved the best for last. Let me tell you a secret. ... Mr. C's a better person that I am. Perhaps you already knew. Well it took me awhile to figure out but I do know now. It's funny he's in the room even as I'm writing this and I'm sure when he sees it later he'll protest. Oh well, it's true. In circumstances when I would snap back, Mr. C swallows it or doesn't even notice, in times I would protest or correct, Mr. C let's things go. Mr. C might be upset for ten minutes about something that would ruin my attitude for the night. I complain a lot, but actually, my focus isn't on the right problem. Sure Mr. C has his moments, and complains too. But less than I do. Much less. Thank you for Mr. C for loving me and not even being aware of all my faults. Luckily for you, I am becoming aware of them.

And here's Mr. C's:
If a person learns to be grateful for all things all the time, I think he won’t lack anything and will have a happy life. There are a number of things I am thankful for. I can live, I can breath, I can walk, I can see, I can learn. Everything I own and have I should be thankful for, and I shouldn’t take anything for granted. There are four things which are especially most worthy to be thankful for.

First, this year I got married to my wife, LHC, who is from America. She is dearest in my heart. We met each other about 3 years ago. We come from different cultures and backgrounds. She is western; I am Asian. She speaks Chinese very well and I like the western culture. We have the same religion and the same values. Not only does she really care about me but also she teaches me how to express my feelings and encourages me when I feel frustrated. We take care of each other. I am really thankful for marrying such a wonderful person.

Second, I have my own family. Before I lived with my parents and younger brother, but now I live with my wife, LHC and two new members which are Joy and Beany. They are parakeets. I used to rely on my parents too much and now I need to be more independent and make decisions with my wife. Independence makes me grow. I am thankful for developing my own family.

Third, I have a new church life. I used to go to the church which I went to since I was young. Now we go to a bilingual church ever since we got married. We have a new small group and new brothers and sisters. We love and pray for each other’s needs. Here we build deeper relationship with God and people.

Last, this year I decided the next step I’ll take for my future. Since I graduated from college, I have more interests in investing. So recently I made a decision to study finance, which is very different from what I studied in college and what I do at work. I may pursue a new career in finance in the future. I’ve started to learn more knowledge about finance recently. It may be a risky career change but at least I’ll give it a try to see if this goal is within reach. A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.

Generally speaking, I thank God for enriching my life with all the things I encounter and every person I meet. Keeping a grateful attitude also lets me grow and be humble. Nothing is taken for granted and we should count every blessing we have. The most import is that we should cherish everything we have and build good relationships with our family and friends.

Flashback: Zi-Hao and Yi-Pei

2008-11-23T20:53:00.000+08:00

Zi-Hao and Yi-Pei did the same thing Mr. C and I did for our pre-wedding shoot - they found a bunch of friends and had a blast saving money and doing it all on their own! I got to help them shoot in two locations: the church and the night market. They loosend up much more in the night market, one of their favorite places to hang out.

Flashback: Wen-Fang and Hsin-Hong

2008-11-23T20:42:00.000+08:00

Wen-Fang and Hsin-Hong were engaged on April 12, just a week before Mr. C and I were married. It was fun to help take pictures for them. The most interesting part of the day was the traditional engagement ceremony that took place at the house before the wedding-like ceremony at the church. The families are still very traditional, and so there were offerings places, and bowing before the alter. Then the bride - Wen-Fang - got decked out in all kinds of gold jewelry - gifts from relatives.

Joey and Beany

2008-11-22T19:25:00.000+08:00

Joey and Beany (right to left) are the two little parakeets we got a month ago. This afternoon they were the stars of their very own photo shoot. It's really fun watching these two little guys grow (actually we're not sure about the sex of Beany yet, but hoping he's a boy like Joey so we don't get little Beany and Joeys). Beany has had all of his flight feathers and tail feathers plucked out, so all he can manage are flighted "hops." Joey on the other hand can go quite a ways in the air. This morning, he was annoying Mr. C and I as he constantly hopped around us, our computers and flying into our hair on occasion. Finally, I put him back in the cage and closed the door to the balcony. The thing is, he can also get out of his cage. So right now he's flying around the balcony and crashing into the screen door because, well, he hasn't quite mastered flying yet.

What I Think About "Positive Thinking"

2008-11-22T16:39:00.000+08:00

Basically I think that it's a bunch of crap, pardon my strong language.

What first got me thinking about this whole "positive thinking" phenomenon (and how I don't like it) is a late-night discussion I had with, well who else could it be late at night... - Mr. C. A prayer group he participated in had a discussion and agreed to read through a Joel Olsteen book together. He didn't know mentioning this to me would cause us to have a disagreement that kept us talking past twelve.

You see, Joel Olsteen doesn't get much respect among most Christians I know in the states, nor should he, as he basically preaches the prosperity gospel. I'm bothered when anybody feels the need to make the gospel look good by emphasizing how much God will bless them. Yes, God does bless! But the blessing comes with a lifestyle of obedience because God is GOD and not because of what He will do for you.

However, Joel Olsteen's books are big hits in Taiwan. They are sold at my company's bookstore, as well as the bookstore of the church I go to. His first book was used as small group material at a previous church I went to. Christians are naively swallowing what he has to say - but it makes sense, as many Taiwanese pastors also preach, in essence, the same thing.

My belated opposition to Mr. C's prayer group using Joel's second book got me thinking about positive thinking. I believe that much of what books like Joel Olsteen's do are taking a popular secular idea - positive thinking - and putting Christian packaging on it.

And that's when I came to realize that I don't think positive thinking is possible, at least not for most people, except for the grace and help of God. First of all, it's too simplistic to say that your life will be better simply by thinking better. Even if that's true, how much better? Thinking well could make a big difference in some situations, say for example your attitude and relationships with people at work, and in others none at all. When you're sick, you're sick, no matter how you think about it. And telling someone else who is sick to just "think positively" will only make them feel lonely, frustrated and ... angry at you.

That and emotions are truly powerful things. I think as we grow older or more mature we learn ways to deal with our emotions better. Like when I feel poopy after work I know exercise can be a good picker upper. But, sometimes exercise doesn't work. Sometimes I feel worse than poopy. The point is no mater what I feel, thinking about it isn't going to change it very much. In fact, telling myself I should think positively will only make the situation worse. Now not only do I feel poopy, I also have guilt over not being able to control my emotions.

However the Bible says in Romans 12:2, Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

It's this verse that makes me believe "positive thinking" can happen, but only through God renewing our mind. And I don't think the result is that we'll have this merry view of the world where everything turns out well, but rather that we'll see God better and we'll trust Him more. We'll trust Him even when we're going through the valleys, because the valleys are shaping us to reach even greater heights. I would not want to skip any of the hard stuff God leads me through, even if that meant I would be able to "think positively" more often. Actually, it's because I walked through periods of time when my mood was consistently "below zero" (don't want to say the bad word negative) because I had to cling to God. I had to pray daily that God would work in my mind and heart to improve my attitude. When my mood gets "out of the red" it's like taking a long, deep breath of clean air. It feels really good. And I'm reminded that God is in control, in the good and the bad.

Whose Side Are You On?

2008-11-22T16:36:00.000+08:00

A hidden treasure of the bible, one that I've found and love, is in the book of Joshua. I shared it with my Bible study class last Friday, and would like to share it with whoever reads this now.

Joshua 5:13-1513
Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" 14 "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?" 15 The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.

This conversation between Joshua and the angel takes place before the battle of Jericho. Joshua had crossed over the Jordan, and even had his men circumcised at Gilgal. They were healed and it was time for Joshua to lead the Israelites in taking the Promised Land. And then he sees this man.

Joshua seems to ask an obvious question to ask when approaching a man with a drawn sword. "Are you for us or for our enemies?" Are you for us or against us: There's only two sides drawn in Joshua's question.

The man says what I think is one of the most powerful statements in the Bible: Neither, but as commander of the army of the LORD, I have now come."

I'm not on your side. I'm not on the other side. I'm on the Lord's side. The angel's statement implies a question: Are you on the Lord's side?

Joshua answers this question by falling to the ground and humbling himself before the Lord's angel. He obeys the angel when he asks Joshua to take off his sandals.

And HE HAS NOW COME.

The more I think about this passage, the more it seems to reveal itself, the more it applies to us practicing Christians. Joshua was a righteous man. God's words to Joshua in chapter 1 are well-known: Be strong and courageous; As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. Joshua was God's chosen successor of Moses. Before he was chosen for that, he was one of the twelve spies who'd been sent to check out the Promised Land, and one of only two, Caleb being the other one, that insisted on going forward into the Promised Land when all the Israelites reacted in fear and wanted to return to slavery in Egypt. Joshua was a righteous man, entrusted with God's mission to lead the Israelites into Egypt: It would have been an easy mistake for him to assume that his side was the LORD's side.

But it never works that way: We must let our side become more and more in line with God's side. We must let our will become more and more in line with God's will. Lately I've been encouraged to think about what God's larger kingdom plan is for the place that I live, and how I can become involved with that. While it's great to ask for God to act on our behalf, how much are we acting on God's behalf? In our prayers, are we just asking God to bless our plans? Or are we also considering what God's plans might be, and how we can join them? I think that the more we aline ourselves with God's kingdom and His plans, the more power we'll see in our lives. Because God's doing what He wants to get done.

HE HAS NOW COME. Are we on His side?

My first update in ... how many months?

2008-05-05T22:43:00.001+08:00

I'm married. This reality doesn't always seem the most real to me. Yes, I am living with Mr. C and yes, we did just get back from a great honeymoon. I live in a new home, and have somebody to snuggle with before getting up in the morning. But marriage is turning out to be a lot more ... normal ... than I thought it would be as a single person. But I really LIKE the normalness. It's comforting. And it's really nice to know I have my own family now.

A few tidbits on the past few months, with a strong emphasis on the past few weeks:

1. The most surprising part about the wedding was how well our families got along together. We didn't have any expectations of this at all, since most of Mr. C's family members don't speak any English ... and mine, well yeah. But the family ended up actually really enjoying their time together. After the wedding, everybody gathered at Mr. C's family home and got along terrifically. Some were singing KTV, others showing picture books of the kids around. The grandmas held hands the whole time even though only only spoke English and German, and the other Taiwanese. Mom ended up crying the morning she left Taiwan because she was so touched by how well Mr. C's family treated her - which was like family.

2. I only discovered today that the night before the wedding was a TRAUMA for two of my bridesmaids and a roomate. Hsing-wei got a severe alergic reaction after I'd fallen asleep (aided by a sleeping pill) and ended up going to the emergency room with Charlotte, my roomate. Beth, who fed her whatever she was allergic too (don't know if was Aleve or flax) woke up at four something and they still weren't back from the hospital. Then, there was worry that they might not make it back before I woke up (Hsing-wei made everyone promise they wouldn't tell me). But they did make it back. Aparrantly a few seconds after Charlotte slid her bedroom door shut, I threw mine open, and announced happily the two bridesmaids, one who'd JUST gotten back from the hospital, "I'm getting married today!!!" Beth said the timing was like something out of a sit-com.

I love post-wedding life. I love being married.

LHC

LHC in Beijing

2007-12-10T21:06:00.001+08:00

On the way to the Great Wall I really loved Beijing.

But first I must recognize that it has been way too long since the last time I wrote in my blog. Not like I was ever a really great blogger. I still wonder who reads this sometimes. But if you had been checking my blog, I'm sorry you've been disappointed for the past few months.

There are reasons. No - actually just one big one. The reality of being engaged and impracticality of planning a wedding for over 400 people in only a few months has taken over my mind and all other processes. That's my excuse. I often think of more things to do than I really need to and then I barely get to the things that actually need to be done. During the day my mind drifts to the latest item on my un-written "to-do" list, and at night the details of it all haunt me. What's worst is, I often don't know what needs to be done and what doesn't. I just think: 400 people. Wow, there must be a lot of things to do. Every now and then though, a ray of light hits me. "Hey - maybe I could do artificial flowers for my wedding banquet and have the same one in Taiwan and Wisconsin." "I really liked xx's invitations - maybe I can ask her how she did it." Hope! This wedding can be something unique, that reflects who Mr. C and I are, and beautiful! But most importantly, when it's all done, I'll be married ... to Mr. C! A reality so wonderful and foreign to me it's still hard to grasp. Mr. C and I remember how many months we've dated so far, and how many more we have to go, every 19th (our dating anniversary, and future wedding anniversary). I hold a personal celebration on the 20th. It's my "We're married and going to the Maldives" in x months day. Boy do I look forward to it! (And praising God for every bit of stress, excitement, anticipation, tension ... and "tension" along the way).

But anyway, this blog post isn't about engagement, it's about Beijing. I really loved Beijing! As some of you know, I was originally supposed to go there when I went to Taiwan to study abroad. That plan got thwarted. But finally, four years later, I'd made it to the mainland. And the mainland welcomed me like it had really waited for me for four years. Beijing was absolutely fabulous.

I can't really say what exactly it was. Perhaps it was a combination of these things:

The gruff "rrrr" accent. Walking down the street, hearing people talk - it sounded like I was listening to an old Chinese movie. Except these were real, live people talking. The Chinese was the same as the language I know and learned in Taiwan, but different in so many indescribable and fresh ways. I couldn't help but try and listen as much as I could.

The unrelenting pace with which Beijing is upgrading itself. There were signs of it in so many places. My friend and I rode a subway line that had only been open for a week. The paper rip tickets we used were soon going to be done away with in favor of electronic pass cards (my friends insisted on using the rip tickets as long as they were "alive"). Children came up to us in a shopping area to advocate public cleanliness and give us little paper bags bearing slogans for a more civilized society in Chinese (apparently the paper bags were for spitting into). The restautant we went to the first night had just had their menu translated into English. The empty coffee shop just seemed to be waiting for the tourists to come. Parts of the Forbidden city were covered with scaffolding, while others had been newly renovated. It was like the city was getting a fresh coat of paint. It's the same city, just shinier. Visiting the Olympic construction site was fun too.

Wisconsin may be famous for its beer and brats, but beer was really made for Chinese food. And I drank it every dinner and even some lunches, merrily gaining two kilos (five pounds). Enough said.

I bought lots of pearls for utterly cheap, and bargained an over 400 rmb bag to 120 (about $15). And the bag is just like a Burberry, except the zipper has problems. While I'll never carry it in an airport for fear of getting arrested, everywhere else I can look chic and rich.

The friend who hosted me and her boyfriend were absolutely fabulous. I'm so appreciative of the time they spent hosting me - and not only host me but teach me about China. My friend was really concerned that I get the "correct" impression of China and Beijing which in her eyes were of a country and city, that while still a police state, was fast growing both in its economy and in its humanity. People were vocal, expressing themselves, meeting together in large groups... Most websites were available, even ones of publications that have written articles that had been very critical of China... Basically, China wasn't the backwards place many Westerners have taken it to be. While I may have a bit different perspective because of my "religious background," I couldn't help but agree with her for the most part. That and my friend's insistence on not becoming boring and settling down and all that inspired me that I don't have to yet either. (Even though I am getting married.)

The dry, chilly and crisp Autumn air reminded me of Wisconsin. Perhaps I was lucky to catch Beijing when the sky was clearn and weather nice - OK I know I was lucky. Thank you Daddy!

So I've now had my blogging fill. Hope you've enjoyed it. :)

We're Engaged!

2007-09-09T08:23:00.001+08:00

On August 15, 2007 Mr. C showed me a video he'd made, with pictures and music, and ending with a request of me to marry him. I agreed. :) The following three weeks were filled with celebration, as we went back to Wisconsin, Los Angeles, and then returned to Taiwan to tell everyone in person. Thanks for being happy for us, it's wonderful to be able to share our happiness with you. :) We're planning to get married next September.

Traffic in Taipei

2007-07-29T12:08:00.000+08:00

Traffic in Taipei is really scary. You can see that from the picture I took above. :) I was injured driving in one of these "scooter packs" (more like scooter gangs) once. During rush hour, scooters will pile up at a stop light as they wait for the light to change. By the time it does, there may be anywhere from 10 to 50 or more scooters waiting. Of course, everybody wants to go, and slowly the whole mass makes its way forward.

When you're driving in one, there are scooters in front, to the back and each side. That means you must keep driving straight. Don't think about going left or right, because you'll certainly be in the way of another scooters path. Eventually, the scooters will spread out, and driving conditions become safer.

I once was in an accident when a scooter to my front-left veered into my path. I didn't have any time to slow down or veer anywhere else, and so I hit him. My scooter and body seperated, my scooter sliding further down my road, and my body thrown in the opposite direction, tossing a few times until finally coming to a stop. Thankfully (praise the Lord) I wasn't seriously injured. I came out of it with some serious bruises, a sprained ankle, scratches and bruised ego. I didn't drive a scooter for a half-year after that.

About the picture: I've started to get more and more into photography lately. Actually, I've always been interested in photography. It's only been because recently, now that I'm only going to one church and it's time commitments aren't as great as the one I left, that I can have the time to pursue this interest in Taiwan.

I took this picture while standing on a sidewalk, next the bridge. The original actually didn't look that great. Here's a cropped-in version of it.
After I cropped it in (notice the nice use of the rule of thirds?) I then blurred the background. My subject is the scooters, so I really want them to stand out. Also, by accident, but I really like the result, I selected the background instead of the foreground for the extra layor. So the top of the scooter helmets got feathered, and also slightly blurrred. I like the effect, it makes it seem like the scooters are coming out of some sort of cloud. :)

Anyway, of the pictures I've been taking in the past couple months, this is probably one I am the most proud of. I've posted it on some Facebook groups and even got some great feedback. :) I want to take more pictures like this, that show real, everyday life in Taiwan, in the future. :)

Internet, some thoughts

2007-07-23T15:30:00.002+08:00

Recently, I've been learning a lot more about user-generated-content on the Internet, or Web 2.0. I've also joined Facebook, which has made me think about the existence of this parallel "online world." I still remember the excitement I felt when Peter and I confirmed each other's statuses as "In a Relationship." I felt like it was a whole new dating anniversary. (Sometime in June, I already forgot - sorry Honey!)

In this same time period, I've had more time to pursue photography, and have signed up for a Flickr account. I also edited a couple videos I made with my digital camera and posted them to YouTube. Then I posted them to my blog. Somebody watched my video on YouTube, left a comment and "subscribed" to my account. I still don't know who they are.

My coworker and full-of-Internet knowledge friend Gareth told me about a site called "Google Analytics." This site monitors my blogs viewership. Two "views" have come from Australia. I don't know anybody from Australia. I've been happy to see, though, two visits from "North Shore, New Zealand" which I'm guessing is my New Zealand friend Fiona. Thanks for checking out the blog, Fiona!

I feel a little conflicted. Part of me feels "yeah, get yourself out there!" Make more "Facebook friends," make some buddies on Flickr and YouTube too, try to get more people to read my blog. Then another part of me feels, how comfortable am I really about these random two people from Australia that are looking at my blog? Am I putting too much information on it? Recently I've taken information off my profile so that, if you only see the head page of this blog, you will not know my full name, nor the company I work for. However, if you really want to know, you can just search throughout my posts. You'll also find out that I'm dating a Taiwanese guy named Peter who works at BenQ, I've taken trips to LanYu, Haulian, Wisconsin and Thailand in the past year. I was also stupid enough to lose my passport in the airport in Detroit. Grrr... Anyway, is this too much information for random two people in Australia to know?

I mentioned that I edited two videos and posted them on to YouTube. You will now only see one of them (We're coming August 17!) still on my blog. The other one - Office Catwalk - has been taken down. A friend, who appeared for a very brief time in the video, wanted to be edited out of it. It was faster for me to take it offline. For me, this was an important and invaluable lesson in #1 online manners and #2 that people's levels of comfort with this Internet medium can differ a lot. (And I already consider myself firmly on the conservative side of the spectrum).

I'm really amazed by all these things I'm learning. I had no idea I could "subscribe" to blogs w/ RSS feeds through Google Reader (or my browser) saving me the step of having to check all my friends blogs to see if they'd been updated. I've discovered del.icio.us is really useful because I spend a lot of time on two different computers and am really annoyed when I favorited something on one computer and then want to access it on my other one. And I'm planning my trip back to Wisconsin on a Google document, and it's really fun to see my friends edit it (though I'm doing most of the editing myself).

Of course, there's danger. Just think - in every reality (or "world") there is danger. There is a spiritual reality, and danger exists in it. There is a physical, material reality, and lots of danger. An online reality also means that bad things could potentially happen. Of course, this all goes back to evil and sin, which exists no matter what reality we create, but I won't go there. I just think that we can't live in fear, whether it be crossing the street or writing a blog post. But ... we should look both ways before we go. I guess what makes people wary is that we don't really know all the dangers present in an online reality yet.

Yet, I think I'm much more likely to be harmed by crossing the street (especially the way scooters drive in Taiwan) than by having some stranger find out information about me from my blog and then come to my office to stalk me. But then, I do make it very clear in my blog (and I also hope, in my life) that I love Jesus. Will that come back to haunt me should I decide to go to a country that is closed to the Gospel some day? That is a question to consider.

But I also think there's tremendous potential. Imagine if there were a Christian Facebook. Imagine if there was a need for a missionary to a certain country, and Christians who had a burden for that country would have a way of being informed. If we're more connected, we can do more for God, right? I mean, instead of YouTube, why not GodTube? Oh wait, somebody already thought of that...

I've lost weight

2007-03-12T22:37:00.000+08:00

I'm not trying to get attention here - really. OK, maybe I am congradulating myself a little bit. I never really thought losing a lot of weight was possible - and I definently have "room" to lose at least 10 more pounds. But anyway, here's a fun comparison. The first photo is from June 2005. The second was taken last week. The difference is around 25 pounds.

The "wai-guo-ren" in Taiwan are "hao li-hai"

2007-03-04T22:58:00.001+08:00

Or translated into strait English - the foreigners in Taiwan are so incredible! The following are three points that prove this, in order of occurance.

I went to an American Education fair that had a number of American schools represented (mostly language schools and small colleges) and saw a presenter (white female) having a full-on discussion with a Chinese man ... in Chinese.

Driving my scooter on the way back, I saw another foriegner, this time a white guy, who apparently was a motorcyclist who had something wrong happened to him. He was furiously cussing out a Taiwanese taxi driver ... again, in CHINESE. (I figure he must have a Taiwanese wife, because how else would he learn how to do that??? :P)

My roomate Beth and her boyfriend Leo have matching sweaters. The proof is below. This definently beats Mr. C and I's coordinated Chinese New Year's Eve outfits. I'm happy for them. But I do feel this signals some sort of transition to Taiwanese-ness that even I haven't accomplished yet. :)

Chinese New Year

2007-03-01T23:21:00.001+08:00

Dear family and friends,

Happy Chinese New Year! This past month I had a week+ off to celebrate the holiday (Feb. 16 to 25). For most people, Chinese New Year is a time to spend with family and friends, mostly marked by pigging out on lots of great food and sleeping until ... you wake up. :) I got to do all of that, except not as much as I would have liked of the sleep part. This was actually my 3rd Chinese New Year in Taiwan, and also my 3rd to spend with a Taiwanese friend's family. The BIG difference, of course, was that this time not only did the family accept me but they considered me ... family. :)

Even though I'd gotten to know Mr. C's family before, I made some new discoveries this time. 1. They like to gamble (but only with relatives and only during Chinese new year ... really, it's harmless :P), 2. Chilli is a really great cross-cultural dish for Chinese people. I made it for the Chinese New Year Eve dinner, and Mr. C's family loved it. :) and 3. I really need to improve my Taiwanese if I'm going to understand anything that's being said (quick recap: I can speak Mandarin Chinese, which is the lingua franca in Taiwan, but most people also speak the Taiwanese dialect, which sounds very different from Mandarin, and in more traditional families like Mr. C's...it's the main language spoken at home).

The rest of the New Year holiday was spent doing more relaxing things like going to a movie, and traveling around Taiwan, both with Mr. C's family (1 day) and Mr. C, my roomate Beth and her boyfriend Leo (3 days, to the Northeast coast of Taiwan).

Church
And one of my New Year's resolutions was fufilled! Mr. C and I reached consensus on what church we'll go together at some point in the future. This, for us, has probably been the hardest decision we've had to make as a couple. We had to consider the situations at our original churches, the special dynamics of our relationship (specifically me being a foreign missionary) and what would be the best place for both of us to serve. The church (a bilingual service) is in the afternoon, so right now we can still go to our individual (Chinese) churches in the morning, and attend the new one in the afternoon. We'll do that for now, but at the right time in the future it will be nice to commit to only one spiritual family.

Discipleship
I've also have some testimonies to share here! First, Shu-ling, who I have been discipling for a year now, has seen amazing spiritual growth this past year (she was baptized at Christmas). Let me share one of her testimonies. Her family is traditional Buddhist and this Chinese New Year was the first that she wouldn't worship at the temples. Thankfully, her family was able to accept this, especially her grandparents who told her that they were fine as long as she was happy. Well, she not only stuck to her beliefs, she also become somewhat a prophet among her family! At the Chinese New Year Eve dinner she felt the urge to say that by the next Chinese New Year there would be a baby in the family. Neither her sister nor her were married, so family joked about how it couldn't be them. Her brother has been married for two years, and had been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby. Well, a week later, on her brother's birthday, they found out Shu-ling's sister-in-law was pregnant! It's the first baby in the family, so everyone's very excited. Shu-ling told him that baby is a gift from God, which he/she definently is. :)

For other exciting news, I also initiated a discipling relationship with another girl, Daphne. She's been coming to the bilingual service, and is really seeking after God. I'm excited to walk beside her during this special time in her faith life. She was really excited too, her only question was if I would have enough time! (As if this wasn't what I came to Taiwan for. :P)

I'd love to hear from you! God Bless!

Love,
Lisa

Thoughts on Love (esp. cross-cultural)

2007-02-27T20:41:00.001+08:00

I know, just allow me this one post. I SWEAR - I don't think about love ALL the time. But I've had some good discussions about it lately, and would like to post some of the conclusions I've/we've made.

There can be a number of reasons we love somebody. You're attracted to that person--they're really handsome/beautiful. Aspects of their personality attract you, kindness, generosity, opennes. Or they treat you really well, with respect, sincerity. You gain benefits from the relationship - real ones, like care, support, love. If you've found these things, you're really lucky. And yet, for me what keeps in the relationship I'm in more than anything else is the conviction that God has called me to love this very special child of His. That for me, is the best reason for anyone to be in a relationship.
Cross-cultural relationships (like the one I'm in) don't necessarily have more problems than other ones. But the problems that happen when two people get to know each other are amplified by culture and language differences. Communication is already hard - two languages just adds an extra challenge. Any two individuals backgrounds will be different - two different cultures just means there's even more differences to learn and accept. What it takes to make it work is greater acceptance, sacrifice and displacement. Acceptance because you won't always have the same understanding of things, but you'll need to trust that the other way of doing things isn't necessarily worse than what you're used to. Sacrifice because you have less things in common, making the changes needed to make the relationship work even more and bigger. Displacement because many situations will arise (really your whole life) where one person will be slightly out of place. To support each other, you need to put yourself in the other's shoes and think of what is the best response to each situation.
Major things are: relationship with God, way of thinking or outlook on life, future living or family expectations/anticipations, mutual respect and admiration. If two people share these things, the relationship can work. Everything else, with prayer, time, communication and comprimise, can be worked through. Really. It's all small stuff.
Gender differences are often bigger than culture differences. Enough said.

Chinese New Year

2007-02-27T16:44:00.001+08:00

My Chinese New Year was really busy, fun and full. :) Here are some highlights.

Mr. C's family likes to gamble over the holidays (he swears it's the only time they ever gamble). I probably shouldn't tell you that actually, Mr. C will probably be embarrased. But anyway, it provided some recreation for me, especially since you can play cards without having to know Taiwanese. I won $300 NT ($10 US) the first night, but then lost it again the next morning. They played this one game with die - so I learned how to count up to 6 in Taiwanese. :)
My appreciation of Mr. C's family, and their acceptance of me, seems to communicate itself across langauges.
I averaged 100 points playing 5 games of bowling. Yeah!
Mr. C and I made a decision about our future church. I like it. More on that later - since neither of us can change churches yet, it's better to keep it on the down low.
I-lan is a really relaxing place to go to for 3 days. More pictures later, hopefully. :)

Big Bosses and Haircuts

2007-01-22T22:30:00.001+08:00

Two observations about Taiwan/Chinese culture that blow me away:

1. Mr. C's dad returned to Taiwan from mainland China to attend the wedding of the owner of the company he works for son. That's it. Three days. Only to attend this wedding. I just don't understand. What's more, when I talk to Mr. C about it (he's the representative Taiwanese in this observation), he's simply like: Of course he'd come back.

Can you imagine an American boss calling all his managers back from, say, Mexico for his son's wedding? ...

2. My hair just got spoiled for a complete hour and a half. And all for the cost of $20. I got the most amazing... back and arm massage, wash, head rub, cut, blow dry, straitened w/ iron, more cutting, thinning, more blowdrying, more thinning. I actually felt my hair wasn't worthy of the treatment. I had to keep on telling myself that I didn't have to get up and leave because it was simply too much. :)

New Year, New Resolutions

2007-01-07T22:49:00.001+08:00

Dear family and friends,

In the spirit of post-modernism, in this email I'll give "tidbits." No rhyme or reason, just enjoy. :)

Christmas gifts
After the busyness of the weeks before Christmas, all the church, bible study and work activities/outreach events/parties all ended, it was Monday and time to ... celebrate Christmas. This year, God gave me so many special Christmas gifts, including 1) a teddy bear, 2) a nephew, 3) two days off and ... Mr. C, who made this Christmas (my first Christmas not in America or with my family) so special it may just have been the best yet. :)

Christmas card
Look for my "Christmas card" post -- I dated it Dec. 25, so it's down below. :)

Baptism
Shu-ling, a girl I have been discipling this past year, was baptized on Christmas eve. I really admire Shu-ling. She accepted Jesus a couple years ago already, but never felt quite ready to be baptized. If anything, it was because she valued so much the commitment baptism represented. She wanted to be sure she could follow Jesus all the way. I'm so happy to have helped her make the decision... and her testimony has been an encouragement to me as well. Below is a picture of my small group, she's the one standing next to me in the red and white shirt.

One other day, Amy, was also baptized. She first started going to Glory church because of my English bible study. I'm glad she found God there. :)

Church
Refer to New Year's Resolution #2 two posts down. Mr. C and I go to different churches, we always did. But we really want to go to the same one. The question, of course, is which one. It seems very likely we'll go to a new church for both of us -- a bilingual service at a church called Home of Christ. But it's a big, hard and complicated decision. I won't go into all the details, but if you want to know more, email me and I will be happy to tell more. I'm especially open to prayer and/or advice. :)

Love,
LHC

New Years & New Years Resolutions

2007-01-01T16:35:00.001+08:00

Mr. C and I got to watch the 101 blow up in fireworks from the rooftop of a friend's apartment. It was pretty awesome.

On the topic of New Years, here's some New Year's resolutions! Mine are:

Lose weight (I hope to lose 6 kg, or 14 pounds in 6 months).
Go to church together with Mr. C
Not let work give me so much stress (change attitude, get a life outside of job, etc)
Be even more clear about God's direction in my life, work, relationships, etc.