When Darkness Falls Early in Reykjavik

On December 22, 2019, Reykjavik welcomes its Winter Solstice for the year as the Sun sets at 3:29 p.m. The twilight gives way to the dimness little by little and the pinkish glow gradually disappears from the horizon, a delicate veil of blue covers over the city. Not long after, the night falls.

As a landmark in Iceland’s capital, the back of the Hallgrimskirkja Church is less captured than its front. During the twilight hours on the Winter Solstice, the structure looks stunning while its inside well lit.

When the night lands early on the back of the Hallgrimskirkja Church while its inside well lit, Reykjavik, Iceland. December 22, 2019, the Winter Solstice of the Northern Hemisphere. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

Downtown Reykjavik neighbouring the Hallgrimskirkja Church in twilight. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

Downtown Reykjavik neighbouring the Hallgrimskirkja Church in twilight. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

Walking in twilight from the Hallgrimskirkja Church to the city center on the downhill street of Skólavörðustígur, Reykjavik, Iceland. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

Locals and tourists walk in twilight down the Skólavörðustígur street in Reykjavik, Iceland. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

The Christmas wreath lights decorating the windows of the local restaurants and coffee houses in downtown Reykjavik, Iceland. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

The Christmas Cat that’s famous in Icelandic folklore transforms into a huge sculpture attracting locals and tourists alike. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

The ice skating rink in downtown Reykjavik is installed every year during Christmas along with the Christmas market. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

The Reception and Office space of the Icelandic Parliament building - Althing - after sunset on the Winter Solstice. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

People passing by one of the popular coffee houses in Reykjavik, Iceland, on the Winter Solstice. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

On this day, Iceland goes through the shortest day and the longest night. After that, there will be more and more daylight in the coming days until the Midnight Sun when Iceland has the longest day and the shortest night (or no night no darkness at all.)

What Do You Think About Iceland and the Icelandic Language?

Liz Dornan, a young woman in her twenties, living in the South of England, whose insights and wit are delightful, opens up about her thoughts on Iceland, the country once she planned to move to but didn’t.

“I imagine this is what it feels like when you love your boyfriend/girlfriend but you know that in order to have the best experience you have to break up with them, but you haven't told them yet and every time you're about to, they unwittingly remind you why you're with them in the first place and you're back to square one. That's what leaving my Iceland dreams behind feels like. I'm grieving!”

Liz Dornan opens up about her thoughts on Iceland, the country once she planned to move to but didn’t, during her fourth time being here in Reykjavik. Photo by Yanshu Li

1. How did Iceland start to appear on your radar of interesting places in the world?

I suppose the financial crash in 2008 was the first time I knew anything specific, and then in 2010 when Eyjafjallajökull erupted I tried and failed to pronounce its name. My thoughts were wow they can't handle money. Wow they actually imprisoned their bankers! Why are they all banging pots and pans outside Alþingi? How the hell do you pronounce this volcano?

I've always been a big Tolkien fan and of course he was heavily influenced by the sagas and the Norse culture so my current interest grew from there! I also prefer being cold to hot and the concept of The North appeals to me.

What cemented my interest in the Icelandic language was my language history lectures during my Linguistics degree. Always '(except Icelandic)' so I googled this language which apparently doesn't change! Plot twist - actually it does just not in its grammar.

2. What do you think about Iceland after you visited and studied in the country?

I've visited Iceland four times, twice on short holiday breaks and twice to study. I preferred studying there than visiting on holiday. 

I think you only understand Reykjavik after having been there for a while, because it's scenes are lower key and more cozy than in larger cities so a holidaymaker misses them. It's also useful to have things to do during the day! I got bored as a holidaymaker. I think the feel of Iceland is very different between holidaymakers and locals, highlighted by the language barrier.

There's a lot that I only found out about when my Icelandic got better, and when I'd got into the culture. I shan't ask what kind of things other people say until I've said what I want to so it doesn't affect what I say.

Downtown Reykjavik feels really fake even though there are Icelanders hanging out there all the time. Like the locals and the tourists are moving in two separate worlds. I don't know if you've read The City And The City by Gina Miéville but it felt like that: two populations moving in the same or similar places by carefully ignoring each other.

3. You planned to eventually come to Iceland and work here for a while. Has that plan changed?

I'd love to but the reality is that I would feel stifled in the job market. It feels like every industry is run by one or two families so if you don't like how one company operates then it's difficult to find alternative employment in the same sector. Yeah, I love Iceland but the small scale of the job market doesn't appeal. Working for RÚV is still at the back of my mind though! But I don't think I'll ever be proficient enough in Icelandic for the market to really open up for me. I think having Icelandic as a second language would be quite limiting.

I would be very daunted working in an environment where everyone was speaking Icelandic, but it would be the best way to improve my language skills! The realisation that because of my English v.s. my Icelandic skills I would probably end up in the tourism industry was a big part of putting me off. I have no desire to work in tourism. But I also meant it in another sense; that career development is probably harder in Iceland due to its small size. I think if I did start a career there I'd have to move after a few years for career progression. I think not being native would hamper my development.

4. What do you do currently in England? 

I work as an administrative assistant in a commercial supply chain role for an online retailer.

5. About learning Icelandic, what are the biggest hurdles for you to master this language? What turned out to be easier than you thought in learning?

“The difference between Icelandic and English.” Photo courtesy to Liz Dornan.

I understand far more than I can say but the morphology got me in the end! I loved learning the language and as a native English speaker with a fair exposure to Welsh, the phonology didn't bother me, but yes, the morphology is a beast! It's redundant, too because the word order is fixed now rather than flexible as it was in Old Norse. Which is why other Nordic languages like Norwegian and Danish have lost so much morphology.

Also whilst I love the logic of combining nouns to make new nouns like ljós and mynd = ljósmynd, this was also very confusing because they end up sounding similar. Bíómynd, ljósmynd, hugmynd; if you're feeling tired you have to split them apart and backwards engineer to get to the meaning rather than film, photo and idea which sound very different to each other. But I do love the logic there! What's also frustrating is that you have to learn all these case endings and then Icelanders swallow them anyway!

Wait, is it bíómynd or kvikmynd... oh it's both!

6. There are a lot of information about Iceland that are actually stemmed from marketing or public relations. What are your thoughts on that?

PR is like the fantasy that could never be real, with the perfect lighting and filters and other photoshooting. But I prefer the real Iceland full of real people, concrete buildings, too much sun or too little sun, rain, humidity, dull colours. Because it's more interesting. And then sometimes you really do get that Instagram shot and its rarity makes it mean something and makes you pay attention to it.

Icelandic countryside does look like a painting though because there are so few trees. You can see to the horizon from one spot so I was happy to stand and stare rather than wanting to walk into the landscape as I do in the forested parts of Wales or Scotland say. I suppose that's good because you shouldn't walk on the moss anyway!

I think that really you can get as good a feel of the dramatic icelandic wilderness from photos, it's the people that matter. Which is funny because so many guides say GET OUT OF REYKJAVIK ASAP.

I haven't seen Iceland in the dark so I sadly can't comment on the Northern Lights. And I did enjoy my excursions into the countryside but it was the company and the comments on the wilderness which made it rather than this magical connection to the raw power of nature or anything like that. Mind you twisting my ankle demonstrated the 'raw power' of the rocks on Mt. Esja.

The healthcare system is very good. Happily I didn't have to go to hospital, especially as they're digging up the main road atm! That construction site made the walk to university much more interesting. Also the Reykjavik cats are as cute as promised. And finally taking a swimming costume last time was the best decision.

Dinning at Hlemmur Food Court in Reykjavik after her Icelandic class at University of Iceland, July, 2019. - Photo by Yanshu Li

7. If you were to describe Iceland only with three words, what would they be?

My three words are different from Reykjavik and for the countryside. 

For Reykjavik: self-assured, swamped smalltown.

For the countryside: eerie, half-dressed filmset.

Vibrant Colours For The Nasty Icelandic Winter Weather

By Yanshu Li

The sun came up soon after 10:00 a.m. in Reykjavík on a November Saturday. Slowly, the sky was dressing up with otherworld colors. A good day began in the still weather.

Jóhanna Tomasdóttir picked up her down jacket and walked to her car. Her footsteps on the snow crushed the silence in the crisp air. The rouge eyeshadow tinted a soft warmness on her face, while the dimming skyline of Kópavogur was still in the shade of blue. She was heading to Bazaar Reykjavík, the shop she opened in 2013.

11:00 a.m. The sounds of engines were on and off in the parking lot outside the shop. The first customer purchased a France-made tablecloth, one of the most popular items in her store, hanging on the hook on the oak plank that was originally made for a wine bucket.

A colourful spot in Reykjavik Bazzar.

Bazaar Reykjavík is a 143-square-meter store featuring durable products for the home. There are more than 15 brands displayed in the cabinets and the shelves. Most of them were from France, Germany, Italy, and Belgium. The designs and colors were distinctive from what one can see in the shops on Laugavegur, the main shopping street in downtown Reykjavík.

A large dining table in the back covered with a tablecloth of waterproof fabric led the customers to the kitchenware section. Lamps lined up on the stand near the front window: ceiling lamps that resemble paper art; desk lamps that cast clear shadows on the wall when the Nordic sun shining in.

As the styles of the consumer design adapted and evolved in the culture of each country, Icelandic design shared the common ground with the Scandinavian norm. They prefer functional simplicity presented in the scale of gray. Saturation was muted.

Jóhanna did not like that.

When she was traveling in Europe, Jóhanna found herself fell in love with Southern France: the vibrant colors passionately exuding joy, the azure glistening on the ocean blinding the eyes, and the crowds and noisiness speaking of life. All the vividness inspired her in a warm weather of the south.

First for one month then for one year, she lived in Nice, France, and discovered more about the designs, the styles, and the market. Her Daughter, Marta Palsdottir, who was studying Interior and Industrial design in Milan, Italy, joined Jóhanna in the journey of exploration after she graduated in 2010.

Before 2012 Christmas, they invited friends to their home in Iceland for a pop-up sale to test the idea of bringing the products to Iceland. The praises received from this sale motivated Jóhanna to open up a store for Icelanders with more options as a getaway to escape the ubiquitous gray.

“We always try to find quality products but also colorful. Especially during the winter, you need light in the houses, you need a little bit of color because it’s gonna be a lot of snow, it’s going to be very dark and ugly weather outside, you just need a little bit of colors inside,” said Marta.

Later they picked up a spacious location in Kópavogur where it attached a large parking space.

“It’s very important for people in Iceland to go around the city with their cars. Some of our products are bigger, so it’s not easy to handle them without having your own car,” said Marta.

The commercial rental price in downtown Reykjavík was too expensive for a sizable space. Also, finding a parking space in downtown was hard.

“We wanted to be able to have the product range and the prices of products similar to those which are standard in Europe,” Marta added.

Locating in Kópavogur, the second largest municipality in Iceland with a population of  31 thousand, it provided adequate customer traffic, according to Marta.

Selling the brands that were never sold in Iceland was tricky. Marta said that the trust from customers began with touching of the products.

“The customers need to touch the item before they buy it,” she said.

It is hard to resist buying something in the shop once you touch or take a look at them. A firmly woven tablecloth will lift up the holiday spirit. A rosy scented soap fills the space with a romantic aroma. Especially for the holiday season, when the household wanted something different from most of the on sale items in the area, they will find it at Bazaar Reykjavík.

Bazaar Reykjavík had its online presence only for product displaying. Since the business has been continuously growing, Jóhanna planned to launch the online shop soon.

In recent years, the booming tourism industry in Iceland contributed a significant economic growth. The alleys and streets in downtown Reykjavík were bustling during holiday seasons, making the northernmost capital of the world a hearty place to sojourn.

“Now in Iceland, you can see different people from everywhere,” Jóhanna said with a smile. "And they buy the puffin toys in downtown."

Although the shop didn’t target at tourists market, it surely wanted to expand the customer varieties. While the tourists can go horse-riding and fishing tours in the area, picking up one thing or two in a not-so-Icelandic shop can be on the to-do-list too.

Jóhanna Tomasdóttir, owner of Bazaar Reykjavík, 2015. [Photo by Yanshu Li]

Jóhanna and Marta visited Paris twice a year for a major trade fair named Maison & Objet to expose themselves to the innovative interior design world. They also walked around Paris in seek of inspirations, ideas and new products. Their persistence made Bazaar Reykjavík the hidden treasure in Iceland capital area. 

Besides managing the shop, Jóhanna was also an accountant, and Marta has started to study Marketing. While the fickle weather in Iceland went on, which was “a little too much” for them, they finally started to like it.

The turquoise ocean in Southern France resided in Jóhanna’s mind, as she looked around in her shop and wondered if she had brought a piece back.

“Color means everything to me,” said Jóhanna.

But for her Bazaar Reykjavík, as Marta put it, being colorful means to offer “something that can sparkle some joy in their homes.”

“Life can shape as it likes.”

By Yanshu Li

Spring arrived a little late in Blacksburg, Virginia this year. It still felt chilly in April. Khaing came to the quiet town as a Humphrey Fellow, which is a U.S. fellowship for professionals who had no previous experience in the states.

Born is Khaing Thandar Nyunt, she now is a 37-year-old woman and a mother of a four-year-old daughter.  She works for the central bank of Myanmar as an assistant director.

Her first name pronounced as /kai/. Short and handsome.

Besides studying English, fellow experience American life with their hosts around was tight schedules. The fellowship program also required all fellows to do volunteer work.

There was one woman, a 65-year old who lived by herself, who asked for help with her garden. The lady wanted a tidy garden, but she was too sick to get the job done.

There were too many small trees that appeared to be disturbing the woman. Khaing decided to cut off those trees first. She needed a chainsaw.

“It was my first time using a power tool,” Khaing says.

Thanks to a group effort with other volunteers, the small piece of land looked clean soon after.

The old lady was not pleased. “Oh.. I wanted some of the trees in my garden,” the lady asked. “Can you help me to move some back in?”

Khaing started to pick up some remaining complete trees and planted those back in the garden. The lady asked her to put in some fertilizer in the soil.

Some other fellows went up to fix the rooftop. Khaing went to remove the mold in the outside wall later. They all brought their food jars but had no time to eat.

After the work had completed, the lady looked at the outside of her house and said, “clean, clean, clean.”

“It was hard work,” Khaing says. “But I enjoyed it.”

Khaing observed a strong sense of community in Blacksburg, which she has not felt before in Myanmar. She became attracted to it and began volunteering in the community theater ‘Lyric.’

With 11 staff, the theater depends on the volunteers to take care of the rest of the work. Khaing’s main job was to sell popcorn and soda drinks during her 45-minute shift.

“At the end, I can sell theater tickets as well,” she burst into laughter.

Khaing was born in a Buddhist family. Helping others as a kind action is praised in the religion. Volunteering is a kind act of aid, but Khaing felt it’s very different compared to her childhood experience of helping to build a pagoda. When she was around eight years old, her neighborhood came to help. She came to the pagoda construction site as well.

Buddhism is the predominant belief in Myanmar, there were a lot people coming to help build a pagoda.

“The help was more for the merit in the religion,” she says.

Like earning an extra credit if the practitioner helped with something related to the religion, it is to be believed that it will be rewarded after. They believe in karma.

“In Virginia, my volunteer was for other people, not for myself,” she says. “Because I saw there are people who really need help.”  

The fellowship required each fellow perform 10 hours of volunteering during the four-month program. Khaing did 10 hours per month.

After 4 months studying language in Virginia, she transferred to Boston University to continue her program in finance.

Soon as she settled down, Khaing called her coordinator asking for a volunteering location in Boston.

A Father’s Girl

Khaing read books about Buddhism since she was a little girl. But the one book she calls the one that influenced her was a children's book named Pollyanna.  

Her father gave it to her when she was eight.

“For me, that book told me how to be,” Khaing says.

The way of being, as Khaing describes what she learned from the book, was that instead of complaining about or blaming for what has happened, for example, an accident caused a broken leg, the person should be thankful for the other intact leg.

“Always look at the good side,” Khaing says.

Khaing says this is also the way her father is. Her grandfather passed away when her father was seven. Lacking a male model in his life, her father tried hard to be a man he wanted to be - taking things in as it is; never complaining.

Her father was the youngest son. His older brothers bullied him because he was their stepbrother. After their father had died, the condition became worse.

Khaing’s father made it through those dark days, and now he is the affluent one in the family. He went back to help the brothers who need support, regardless of what happened before.

‘Do you remember about Pollyanna?’, her father would say this to her when Khaing blamed others for something.

Twist and Turns

Khaing’s father joined the military because the family couldn’t afford him to go to college. He didn’t want the same thing to happen to his daughter. He supported Khaing’s education all the way, and the family was excited when she was admitted to Yangon University of Economics in 1996.

As a freshman in college, Khaing was the other student busy and focused on their majors, although it only lasted for three months.

In October, the university was closed due to public roit. People, including students, were protesting for ending the military government. It escalated and finally caused the shutdown of all universities across Myanmar.   

Khaing was forced to quit school.

“Go learn something,” her father said. “My friend told me there’s an accountant training program, go learn Accounting.”

Her father didn’t want her time to be wasted, or worse - her falling in love with someone when she was only 19 years old.

During the first two years of education recess, Khaing distracted herself from being depressed and bored by learning Chinese and English. Her mother taught her how to embroider. She even learned how to be a pilot with simulation machine.

But the scattered system didn’t satisfy her aspiration, Khaing took her father’s suggestion and signed up as the accounting trainee.

In 2000, Khaing earned her diploma of accounting at a professional level. It was not a bachelor degree, which was supposed to be hers if the universities weren’t shut down. For the university system, she was still a freshman.

The universities were re-opened in the same year.

Before she came back to school, she was employed by a private company for her accounting skills. Seven months later, she quit.

“There were mostly men in the company. They smoked and drank a lot in business dinners, and one manager started approaching me,” she says. “I decided to quit.”

She went back to the university as a sophomore and changed her major to accounting. Three years later, Khaing passed the academic test and was awarded a bachelor degree in commerce.

To be a real professional in accounting in Myanmar, she needed to be a certified public accountant. It took her three more years of studying to be qualified.  

No pain, no gain. In 2005, she was chosen for a position in the banking system among 600 applicants, along with other five candidates.

“I was also looking to get a master’s degree, but the policy changed, so I decided to apply for a government job,” she says.

For her expertise in accounting, her supervisor in the bank recommended her a scholarship for a masters degree in public policy, which was funded by The Asian Development Bank.

She went to Grips University in Tokyo, a renowned college for the major, and studied with fellows from different countries.

Studying in Japan was her first time living abroad. She took her Burmese way of thinking with her - when good things and unfair things happened she would think everything was fine.

“It’s because of my karma.” she would think.

Unlike Khaing, the students from other countries would argue and debate reasonably about what they saw that was not good enough in their eyes. The dynamics in class informed her that the blaming and complaining is not always bad.

“I should not be very aggressive, but I should know what is right and what is wrong,” she says.

One year later she finally received the master’s degree. She came back to Myanmar and was promoted to work in the central bank.

Now when she criticize the changes in Myanmar, her father gets surprised, his daughter has changed as well.  

“You can see my life; there are cause and effect, cause and effect. I can not control; only I did my best,” Khaing says. “Life shapes as it likes.”

In her room, except a twin size bed, a desk,

and a two seat couch, there is a small Buddhist altar at the corner. She put a thumb-sized Buddha statue on the altar.

Sitting on the couch, legs crossing in a relaxed posture, she heard the sound of steaming in the kitchen. It’s white rice in her pot.  

Winter has come to Boston. Khaing still walks from school to her apartment in the three-kilometer route.

“It’s cold tonight. There is the white steam,” Khaing says, breathing into the air as it condensed. “I like it.”

Tourism - Need It And Hate It

By Yanshu Li

After flying nearly 8000 kilometers from Beijing to Reykjavik, the tourists were experiencing an increasing excitement while the airplane descended. Through the window, they saw the land of wonder unveiled by the tip of the Reykjanes peninsula. The sheer beauty of Icelandic nature was about to become real.

They were a group of seven, renting two jeeps heading to the south in September. Little did they know, the two drivers were fined approx. $770 for driving off-road.

Ugly tire tracks embedded in the pitch-black lava field that took hundreds of years to form. 90,000 square meters of the land was damaged.

It is illegal to drive off-road in Iceland, and the tourists were given clear instruction by the car rental company before they hit the road.

That was not the sole incident that happened. Two months earlier, a foreign motorist, whose nationality was unrevealed, was fined for $1,100 for driving off-road and causing damage to sand field and delicate vegetation by tire tracks. This motorist’s reckless behavior was caught by another motorist and was reported to the police in Eastern Iceland.

When the police asked why they did it, the answer would usually be “I didn’t know it was prohibited.”

They are foreigners; they don’t read Icelandic. They want to enjoy the nature, as much as they could - by as much as what they know.

“Damage like this does not repair itself, and it can take years for the tracks to disappear. In the meantime the view and natural beauty have been destroyed for everyone else,” the Icelandic Magazine wrote.

It is not only concern about nature but also the concern for the safety of the travelers. There were also many cases that the tourists ignored the on-site warning board, and stepped on the steaming wetland near the geyser just to take pictures. It can be vital if they get burned by the hot water, which happened multiple times.

Tourism has become a major revenue generator in Iceland in recent years. It even surpassed the fishery industry in 2014, contributing 27.9% in the exportation of goods and services sector. In 2014,  the average spent per person was $1529.22 according to the report released in April 2015 by Icelandic Tourism Board. It is expected to hit a million-milestone of international visitors in 2015.

That is to say, if the Icelandic government wants to boost the G.D.P., it needs the support from the tourism industry, at least for now.

It is the pure nature that makes the tourists come and come again to the latitude of 64 north to see the dancing green light, various colors of moss, and the magic combination of glacier and volcano. Would it be ironic if the core of Icelandic tourism to be destructed by those who are attracted?

France, another tourist heaven, has been overcoming similar issues.

The famous Lascaux, a set of complex caves, was discovered in 1940. It contains the Paleolithic cave paintings that date back an estimated 17,300 years ago.

It’s open to the public eight years after its discovery, without the anticipation of a thousand visitors daily who bring carbon dioxide, heat, humidity and other contaminations. Poor preservation strategy caused visual damage to the paintings and introduced lichen. It had to be closed for restoration in 1963.

Learning the lesson from Lascaux, Chauvet Cave was strictly restricted access right after its discovery in 1994.

Now they both have recreation sites for tourism purpose.

The replica of Chauvet cave opened in April. It expects 350,000 visitors a year, so it won’t take long to cover the $59 million cost of replicating the original.

To put it in a nicer way, a replica provides the basic needs from those who are intrigued by art and humanity. But it might not suffice for serious interest.  Jonathan Jones, a British art critic and Turner Prize jury, wrote for The Guardian in April suggesting the people read the full report of Chauvet Cave done by the French prehistorian Jean Clottes and watch Werner Herzog’s film Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

“When it comes to Chauvet, it is better to look at photographs and films than fall for a fake.” Jones wrote.

Massive tourist traffic came as pretty figures into the financial reports of businesses, and the government. While it caused problems in the preservation of cultural heritage, it also disturbed and annoyed the residents.

In May, the French government approved a group visiting visa for 6,400 visitors from a Chinese company treating its employees to a holiday. In return, it will pump $15 million into the French economy from the tourists’ spending in the four-day visit.

Nicolas Wasilewski is a Parisian young man who loves traveling. He goes to the museums very often. But he didn’t go out much in those days just to avoid the crowds. He knows the approval was good for economy and relation among the two nations, although it was a short period of deranged life for those who lived in the city.

“Basically, to me, it’s not traveling, it’s consuming,” he said to me.

Similar to the Japanese tourists in the 90s, the robust economic growth in China in the recent decade allowed the Chinese nationals confidence to spend on traveling far and often. More and more tourists choose to buy luxuries overseas to avoid paying higher taxes in the mainland. It is no longer news that in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, and Paris that the waiting line would be there before the shops open, and many of the customers speak Mandarin.

In Hong Kong, for example, the mass tourists shopping group disturbed the local life. The tension got serious in past years while some confrontation happened between residents and tourists. Some locals complained that the surge of buying power from the influx increased the price level in the already expensive places such as Hong Kong.     

The Chinese tourists are merely an extreme example of holiday spending because they behaved in a high-profile manner. Especially the temptation of the domestic traveling wanes while more people can afford to spend overseas.

Globally, traveling abroad is continually increasing. Concerning overseas, travel is possibly the case that those countries were merely known for the tourism reputation. People flock there to find out more while they carry less differentiation of the cultures and the regulations.

Income from tourism is good money. The money will continue to be good only if it is sustainable. For tourists, being sustainable means enjoying the trip without exploiting the chances of others.

Because people will always travel.

My friend, Le Shao, an office lady in a state-owned company in China, is in Paris right now, and she sent a message to me saying it can cure the cervical spondylosis because there are so much to see on the ceiling, and over the tops of churches and palaces.

She stays in Paris for four days, which she thinks it’s too short time. She went there nonetheless, as one member of a 35-visitor group under a condensed traveling plan.

“In fact, you can see the hi-resolution pictures of every tourist spot online. But when you actually stand on the land, the feeling is profound,” she said.

She wants to enjoy the visual feast in the museums, to experience the history, culture, and to meander on the Parisian streets.

“I was lucky,” she said to me in content. “I walked along the Seine in the rain. ”

What Data To Look At For Your Next Story?

By Yanshu Li

"What data will you be looking at relevant to measuring those two things?" asking about the global weakness and market volatility, the room turned the attention to Dennis P. Lockhart, the President and Chief Executive Officer at Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Giving a speech about the current economy and monetary policy at 2015 Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference, he said VIX index is a good gauge of market volatility, which represents the market's volatility expectations in next thirty days. He also mentioned looking at other data that indicates wage growth, income changes, and consumption. "Consumer data will be the most telling," Lockhart said.

Because some of the consumption is mostly consumer-driven, such as auto industry, furniture, and finance, or durable purchases. Not only they are the reliable indicators for policymakers, but also the right direction for journalists looking for good stories.

The Sidewalk Labs C.E.O. Dan Doctoroff talked about "the technological and disrupted city." It's an urban-innovation company found by Google. His speech focused on the scale of the global urbanization, problems and how technology can help to improve the quality.

"The good news is the cities were made for density.  But the challenge is that we can't just add millions of people to our cities, and to expect our quality of life to remain calm," he said.

Sidewalks believed the digital data produced by sensors, smartphones, and software can help residents and government make better choices. Regarding the massive data, the project is going to collect, one question was inevitably being asked - the potential downside that is people's concern about privacy.

"I think the keys to privacy at the end of the day are transparency, anonymity, and preferably making sure that you are providing meaningful value for the information that you are collecting," he said. "But it's all three of those things in combination."

Not just government and corporations are looking for useful data; it works the other way around as well.

RealtyTrac, a firm providing real estate data analysis, put a small red notepad for every attendee with an advertising page selling data. Sqoop.com put a tip sheet in for helping journalists find federal public records.

This year's Society of American Business Editors & Writers, S.A.B.E.W. conference provided useful information for journalists finding story ideas, and where to look for the right data for the stories.

The Senior Economics Correspondent in The New York Times, Neil Irwin, sent his genuine advice to young journalists that was worth pondering.

Irwin was at the panel named "2016 Election, will the economy decide?"  Answering what is the story to avoid regarding the relationship of economy and presidency - "to tell the business journalists don't tell this time."

He pointed out the high demand of editors, also a strong sense among readers, for interpreting the economy indexes alone with the current political powers.

"Trying to frame every economic story as a political story gets in some trouble," the senior economy journalist stated that the ways that the presidency affects the course of the economy are "very subtle" and also it affects in a very long-term rather than a short-term.

"This is a good job number; that's a sign of Obama is the best president ever. It's a bad one that judges the worst president ever, which are just bunkers," Irwin said.

For journalists, especially who have their beat such as economics, getting the right datasets is the crucial step one, asking the right question can be the significant step two. But putting the analysis in the right context is going to be fundamental because it will contribute to accuracy.

Tenoch Food Truck - A Moving Treat For Everyone in Boston

By Yanshu Li

Ever since Simeng Dai, a native Chinese, tried the Torta with roasted beef, she started expecting the Tenoch food track every Thursday.

“Tenoch reminds me the torta and the good time I had when I roamed around San Miguel De Allende in Mexico,” Dai said. Dai is a journalism graduate student at Boston University.

She traveled to Mexico a year ago, and was amazed by the colorful Mexican views and the good inexpensive food on the streets.

The following Thursday, she ordered a Torta de Pescado, which is bread with baked Tilapia fish. It was accidentally eaten by a professor’s dog. She immediately went back and bought a new one.

Tenoch food truck sells authentic Mexican food, such as torta, taco, and burrito, at a price around $7. They parked on the open lane close to the College of Communication at B.U.  Several people usually would be waiting already before they open the vending window.

Andres Sandoval, who manages the truck, would stretch his head out of the shotgun’s window and say they will be ready to serve in a minute with a warm smile.

The Tenoch brand had its first business in 2012, a restaurant in Medford Square. Recently it opened a new one in Boston North End. It also owns two food trucks, named El Jarocho and Tenoch Móvil. The co-owners also brothers Alvaro and Andres Sandoval run them.

During the weekdays, Alvaro Sandoval manages the El Jarocho. Andres manages the Tenoch Móvil; the one appears on Boston University campus on Thursdays.

They picked B.U. because the open space of the campus allows people going in groups.

“We love B.U.” Sandoval said. “When you have a line, it keeps your time to prepare the things in our way (sic).”

If Tenoch loves B.U. is because of the food truck business-friendly campus, B.U students love Tenoch is purely for the tasty food and the moderate price.

“Tenoch means the WORLD to me,” Jun Tsuboike, a Japanese-American, said. He is a senior studying in photojournalism.

Recommended by a professor, the first time he ordered Torta Campechana, bread with braised pork and sausages. Then it became his go-to order.

“What makes it so good is the chipotle sauce. There's something magical about the texture and smokiness that binds the other fillings together,” Tsuboike said.

The two trucks also appear on Dewey Square, Cambridge Park Drive and Stuart St. on weekdays.

“I like all the places,” Alvaro Sandoval added. “You know more people.”

Tenoch’s first food truck El Jarocho was not exactly a truck; it’s a trailer. But the inside equipped the same level of productivity.

“We debuted in S.O.W.A. on May 5th, 2013,” Alvaro Sandoval recalled with a glorious smile. “It went well right away.”

S.O.W.A., the South End Open Market, is the biggest market in Boston for food trucks. The vendors pay $400 for each time selling in the marketplace.

Began from 11 a.m., the food went out by 2:30 p.m.  The market usually ended by 5 p.m.

“We ran out of food just like that,” snapping his figures, Alvaro Sandoval smiled. “So they already know this brand has good food. I think we blend in.”

Alvaro Sandoval was the first person in his family who came to the states, in 1999, when he was 21 years old.

“I thought about coming here for a few years, see what happens,” he said.

He met an American girl and fell in love. Although he had to go back to Mexico when the young lovers were still dating, he managed to come back to the states. His brother Andres followed two years later.

Alvaro Sandoval first worked as a busboy in a restaurant. Then he changed to the field of construction for a few years. Eventually, he settled in Medford in 2012.

The brothers began to miss the food that they had in their house back in Veracruz, a town in the southeast of Mexico. They missed what their mother had cooked for them at home. It felt like an itch in their minds that were rhythmic with the babbling waves from the Gulf of Mexico.

The best remedy for homesick was the food.

“What we eat in our home, in my house,” he meant in Mexico,  “I keep just eating this. And we decide to bring that to people, the customers the people try, and hopefully, they like it.”

Two months later after settling down, they opened Tenoch, a restaurant serving authentic Mexican food in Medford.

They have torta, taco and burrito, and all the typical homemade Mexican food.

Although, the genuine thought did not work very well at the beginning.

“The hardest part was to let the name out, it’s hard,” he said. “To get people know who you are. That’s the hardest part.”

It began with small groups of customers that became regulars, once they found out Tenoch had something special. They shared their experience with their friends, friends of friends. Gradually more and more customers came, the business took off.

“In words of mouth, that’s how people know us,” Sandoval said.

Meanwhile, he found the great help from social media. Other than putting information on the website waiting to find out, Sandoval uses the social media marketing to spread the news, on Facebook, Twitter and later on Instagram.

“If I put a message on social media, it would pop on your feed. So you will get it far away,” he said, pointing the Tenoch Facebook page.

But Sandoval never stopped looking for new ways to promote the business. That’s when the food truck came to the radar of his marketing savvy.

“We want people to try the food. If you try, we think you can come and eat at our place,” he explained frankly.

This May 3rd, Sunday, in S.O.W.A. Market, crowding Bostonian eaters were good with the engine noise and the loud music made by more than dozen of colorful food trucks.

The waiting line for Tenoch truck was wriggly long.

“If we are there, forget it, we will be massive.” The co-owner said. “They look for us.”

Alvaro Sandoval popped out of the vending window to reach the maximum volume of the costumers’ voice to take their orders and nodded sincerely. Sometimes he casually chatted a bit with them.

The cash drawer, which was used to put in the cashier machine, now was on the stainless steel windowsill outside the truck. The customers did the update themselves, while Sandoval and his staff preparing the food. Like an agreement that was already so familiar with the clients and the Tenoch food truck.

After each item was sold out, Sandoval stepped out of the truck from the side door, and covered the item names by a paper tape.

The waiting line didn’t seem to fidget in the 65-degree beautiful weather at the beginning of summer. The female customers were wearing flowery skirts while male dressed in shorts and T-shirts. Some of them were with dogs. Young parents were talking to each other while holding the stroller of a kid. A man was talking to his girlfriend, holding a bouquet of lilies.

Around 3:30 p.m., Sandoval taped all the torta items.

“Oh, no!...” many of the customers exclaimed, especially Mari Gonzalez, a resident who was from New Mexico. She was expecting Torta Campechana.

“It’s gone,” she said in disappointment. “Now I have to decide Burrito or Enchiladas.”

Past four p.m., only three items left on the menu, with about 20 customers left. They had no will to leave. The man supported the bouquet by his right shoulder and continued to wait.

The customer who just got a chance to order seemed in great joy. Some of them instantly started eating standing not far away from the truck.

Regina Daley, the last customer, has waited for 15 minutes.

“It’s worth the wait,” she said.

The tide in the market disappeared after five p.m. Alvaro Sandoval closed the vending window, and opened a bottle of coke.

“S.O.W.A. is a great venue,” he said. “You would probably spend more on marketing than start the things and selling things here.”

Collecting the rest of the business cards on the windowsill, he was happy to see there were only around twenty cards left.

“Look at this, we had two bulks of business cards, now it’s all it left,” he said.

He assumed that there were about 350 customers that day. Everyone has a different opinion on what’s the best in Tenoch, and Sandoval sure has a secret ingredient.

“All of it is secret!” Sandoval said, laughing loudly.

Every day after the two trucks sold-out, they went back and met each other at Medford, their base camp. The Medford restaurant is still the biggest in his business, with more options and more staff.

The cooking remained unchanged from the way they grew up having, but Sandoval has adapted to the American way of life.

“Nobody bothers you here; it’s peace (sic),” Alvaro Sandoval said. “And in many ways that Mexico doesn't have. I adapted very quickly, and I like what it’s been giving me.”

Alvaro Sandoval married to his loving woman after he came back to America. Now it’s a happy family of husband and wife and two kids, seven and five years old.

When Alvaro Sandoval mentioned his home country, he always pronounced as ME-HEE-CO. For him, that is home.

Talking about the dream of his life, he said, “I keep it for me, that one.”

The Dancer, The Learner – Lauren O’Donnell

By Yanshu Li

- In BarLola -

The dim lights from the edge of the ceiling dampened the diner’s chattiness. The two sets of chandeliers in the middle of the rooftop helped not much of clarifying the color of the ceramic floor.

A Sunday evening in a Spanish restaurant named BarLola, David Auerbach was welcomed to a table next to an open area where a 2 square meter wooden board laid on the floor. Is this small area going to be where Lauren performs in? Auerbach said to himself and sat down.

[caption id="attachment_330" align="alignleft" width="306"] Lauren O'Donnell, the founder of FlamencoBosotn was giving a performance in BarLola in a Sunday evening. [Photo by Yanshu Li][/caption]

The round plant-patterned plates and metal-framed mirrors were hanging on the while-paint brick wall. The candle cups were on the red tables, not lit. There were three chairs beside the wooden board against the wall, above of which hang a carpet, writing TORREMOLINOS, a city’s name in the southern Spain.

It was his first time to see Lauren O’Donnell perform in the restaurant.

Shortly after Auerbach ordered, Lauren O’Donnell came in; carrying a large red bag on her shoulder she looked spirited. They hugged and began to chat. The guitarist came in with a guitar case, starting to set the microphones on the tripods.

It’s 15 minutes past 8 p.m., the show was running a little late.

“I’d better go to change my monkey suit,” O’Donnell said to Auerbach, smiling disappeared at the entrance.

Auerbech was holding a wine glass, waiting for the show. The guitarist was toning in the middle of the appetizing conviviality.

O’Donnell showed up again.  With a navy blue Polka dot top under a black crop vest, the long black Bohemian skirt with ruffles covered her black leather shoes that softly shimmered in gloom.  Her past-shoulder hair pushed back and tightened up as a low ponytail. She sat on the middle chair.

Diners’ voices mixed with the smell of the food in the air. While the guitarist planed to break the monotony with his moving fingers, O’Donnell lifting her hands and clapped to make accompanied tempo. The room shifted the attention.

The sounds of her clapping were not of applauding, but of when the air compressed and escaped the concave of palms while hands hit each other - a lower volume of popping champagne.

As the music gradually speeded up, her back straightened, her head was up. Her arms rose, driven her body move onward to the center of the wooden board.  All light coming from the top casted a firm outline of her chin, neck and chest.

The music was Soleá, meaning solitude. O’Donnell interpreted it as sad and serious. She stretched her arms, and rotated her wrists to make fingers to bloom in the air. Slowly she spun her body for half a circle and lifted the skirt to show the footwork.

The finger snap, handclap, lap slap and the foot tap, the different qualities of sounds followed one after another, creating a percussive wave in the room.

Some diners stop eating to look at how she moved.

She was looking at the direction of audience. If the audiences were paying attention, it gave her energy while she looked at them.

A while after the continuous motion the rhythm changed. The guitarist picked several notes that softly lead to the end. The room quieted down as well. With her left arm hiding in behind, O’Donnell waved the right arm and stopped in the middle of the air. Her hand made a grabbing gesture and paused.

“Olé,” the audience burst into applauses and shouts.

“Flawless,” Auerbach said. “Isn’t she amazing. She dances, and she is a professor at Harvard Medical School!”

- To Seville and Back -

O’Donnell is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. She dances in BarLoLa on Sundays, also teaches dance classes on Thursdays at Green Street Studio in Cambridge. She wasn’t a flamenco dancer until 26 years old.

In 2002, when she was working on her master degree thesis on semi-automatic medical image segmentation at M.I.T., she felt stressed and needed an outlet. Introduced by her friend in New York, who was working for Omayra Amaya, O’Donnell found flamenco dance.

She was mesmerized.

“That was amazing. I was like ‘what is this?’ And I thought I was too old to learn it,” O’Donnell said.

Started learning gymnastic since 3, and switched to ballet from 13 to 18, O’Donnell was no stranger to body coordination, which was very helpful for the new domain of dancing. She learnt a year with Amaya.

In 2007, she finished her Ph.D. at M.I.T.  She has already been learning flamenco for a while, also has been to Spain to learn every summer since 2002, but she felt not committed enough.

“I woke up one morning, and I was something 31. And I woke up and I thought what if I lie on my deathbed and I never learnt to (flamenco) dance, I would be so sad,” O’Donnell said.

Something she was not sure chemicalized between her life and the dance. She decided to move to Spain and to study seriously.

“I wanted to do it so badly,” she said. “It seemed silly not to do it.”

The whole year of 2008, O’Donnell immersed herself in a city called Seville in Southern Spain. She danced 4 hours a day at the beginning, and gradually six hours a day till the end of the year. She took as many classes as she could remember the choreography. She pushed her limitation.

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“It was actually maybe harder than getting a Ph.D. in M.I.T.” O’Donnell said. “I was there working really hard, dancing five hours a day, being frustrated with my dancing, and realizing I wasn’t that good, figuring out what I do to get better at it.”

After one year of commitment, O’Donnell went back home and started to perform.

“Initially I started performing because I like to learn more. Seemed like it was the only way do your dancing,” she said.

Her friends came to ask her to teach the dance. Both ways, for O’Donnell, tightened her with the dance. She founded FlamencoBoston, a community that gives performances and classes.

“I just kind of grow from there,” she said. “It’s not like I had a super plan. I just tired to work out to be what I wanted.”

Red, orange, pinkish, black…O’Donnell has 8 pairs of dancing shoes for now. The oldest one pair was tailor-made in Seville, 2005. She uses raven red lip liner when she performs. Sometimes she wears a small jacket, because it makes her feel cool. She still goes to Spain every summer to learn flamenco. “Being in the moment” as she puts, O’Donnell loves flamenco.

“It’s more like a feeling connected with my body and the music, connected with the floor,” O’Donnell said, “I call it sensation.”

Michelle Ha, a Ph.D. at Harvard Law School, has been learning flamenco for six months now. She was captivated and discovered that she had to “feel” the dance when in the action.

“Lauren makes sure we practice that in class a lot so we can develop that ‘feel’,” Ha said. “She also likes to remind us that because of this, you can be at the ‘beginner’ level for the first five years of learning and beyond.”

[caption id="attachment_326" align="alignleft" width="449"] Lauren O'Donnell, the founder of FlamencoBoston was teaching a beginner technique class in the studio. [Photo by Yanshu Li][/caption]

No stopping point for learning so is true to Adam Hosein, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Harvard. He took beginner technique class every Thursday at 7p.m. His black suede dancing shoes looked serious as his studying look.

After one session, Hosein spilled an anonymous cup of water while packing up. A little embarrassed he felt, he lowered his body to pick the cup up.

O’Donnell bantered, “You are a failure as a human being.”

Hosein smiled.

Everyone was relaxed after the class. Especially O’Donnell, she said she usually felt happier, much when she saw the students improved.

Students paid in cash, usually $20 for an individual class. One-hour rent of the studio is $30.

“In a millions year I would be able to think I could teach. Even having a business,” O’Donnell said.

The business was not lucrative but went beyond her expectation. Although there were people who were interested in the dance, they showed up and ‘gosh this is hard’, and disappeared.

“It’s a cool business,” Hosein said, walking out of the studio.

The Printer of Boston – John Kristensen

By Yanshu Li

John Kristensen doesn’t possess a cell phone. He can be reached only by landline. He no longer possesses a car. The only car he had was a 1963 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible, the model that John F. Kennedy was sitting in when he was assassinated. He eventually sold it when the gas became much too expensive.

What he does have is a letterpress printing shop in Boston named Firefly, a space filled with the smells of ink and cotton papers, and the mechanical sounds of the machines he acquired 30 years ago are working.

On a recent Monday morning, the snow on streets of Boston had become less disturbing. Mr. Kristensen took the bus from Somerville to his shop, which he describes as “noisy with artists.” At 10 a.m. the corridor was empty. When he spoke, his voice resounded from his chest and reverberated in the hall.

“You can tell I overly fond the sound of my own voice,” he said, walking ahead smiling.

Whether it was done out of kindness helping a young journalist or was his own ardor for the craft, Mr. Kristensen introduced every machine in his shop, sometimes his hands would touch them while talking.

“It is a text in every letter in its own piece of metal,” he said, slightly touching the well-set typeface on the layout board. “This was assembled by hands.”

Then he paused for a moment, eyes gazing at the apparatus perching by the window in black, brown and grey, and said, “It came like a bolt from blue in the mid-fifteenth century. In one decade there was no printing, and the next decade there was.”

It felt like seeing a time machine, and the pilot was a man who had silver hair and a beard and wore a taupe shirt and trousers with some dotted paint on as a uniform. The light illuminated his face and depicted his wrinkles and unveiled the pond of his thoughts.

“Why should they survive at all?” he asked, looking at the machines lined against the wall on the other side.

The whole room became still while he paused.

“The answer is that it turns out, people like the way it looks,” he said while pulling out a sample of his printing - an A3 cotton paper, printed with black and red, weighted both in the hand and in the eyes.

The letterpress printing works by pressing the type into the paper, rather than just by having the ink laid on the paper, which leads to a certain three-dimension quality, Mr. Kristensen explained. He called it “the physical presence.”

“I’m not saying that it is better, just different,” he said. “And it turns out people noticed the difference and people like the difference.”

Mr. Kristensen has a Mac in his shop to check emails. He doesn’t use it for anything else. He referred to it as “this cold machine.”

“This letterpress you would do with body English,” pulling out a drawer that stored with one set of typeface out of his typeface cabinet, he said, “You work with a set of how it looks, how it feels, how the machine even sounds. It’s much more visceral thing.”

Mr. Kristensen first saw a printing machine in a hobby shop when he was an undergraduate at Cornell University in the 1970s. He found the machine was very appealing.

“I knew it in 20 minutes of going in that, this was going to be something very important to me,” he said.

After graduate study in Oxford University, he interned at a small publisher, a place for his initial training in letterpress. Two years later, he found Firefly with a friend. The machines were obtained for free from the business that was closing. They bought some typeface and the business took off.

“I entered at the moment when it (the letterpress printing) was collapsing as commerce. And all that was left was the history and the craft,” he said.

Firefly started as a small publishing hobby. Now it is a printing and design business survives on the local market in the Boston area, where Mr. Kristensen thinks there are more people care about the craft than in any other place of the country. He finds an adequate market for the products, like books, wedding invitations, birth announcements, out of the craft.

A lawyer once walked into John Kristensen’s shop and asked him to design a business card. She was an immigration lawyer, whose clients mostly were illegal immigrants.

“I don’t want to intimidate them,” she said to Mr. Kristensen.

His philosophy is every printing conveys two messages, there is what the words say, and there is what the design implies. By careful manipulation of every component, as type, paper, color, or ornament, the design can imply the volumes of the information.

“So it’s a simple Roman typeface. But it’s blue, not black. And it’s asymmetrical flush left/right rather than center,” Mr. Kristensen said about the final design.

The lawyer now has been a customer for many years.

Mr. Kristensen is a fine craftsman, but he is not a fine businessperson.

Considering the amount of dedication, the training, the commitment the printing takes, the payback as a business isn’t great. Mr. Kristensen said he earns about $18,000 a year.

“You survival constitutes success,” He said. “You win by not losing.”

Having been in the printing business for over 30 years, Mr. Kristensen stayed away from expensive vacations or expensive cars, “printing is what you have instead of life.” He is happy about being “regarded by the one hundred people,” who are also in the printing business.

“That is fame,” semi-jokingly he said with a hint of content.

For Mr. Kristensen letterpress printing is not just a technology, it also states the foundation of printing. He knows that for people, who are interested in letterpress printing, they don’t necessarily do it for living. But it doesn’t hurt to understand how the letterforms and the conventions of typography evolved.

“The fallacy of modernism is to believe that the things are fundamentally different from the way they used to be,” he said, looking straight into my eyes. “They are different, they are different superficially.”

He pulled out copies of printed papers and put them on the table. Each sample had a different design. He pointed at them and went on, there are typefaces that are solemn, and stern, there are typefaces that are light and lyrical.

“This is Janson, it has a very liturgical quality.” he put his hand on the words “Hebrew Ecclesiasticus,” “so you want something that speaks of churchliness, Janson is a good face.” The things that were true about typography, about conveying meaning in hundreds years ago are still true, he said.

“It’s not that they’ve been superseded. It’s just they’ve been forgotten, been ignored, which is bad,” he said, looking at the samples around.

Sitting in front of his desk, two clocks facing each other and click as the pendulum swinging. One was passed down from his father, a mid-18th-century Dutch-made clock, and another one he bought, a 1920 Springfield-made master clock. This is a place where he gets work down, and also where he spends days more time than anywhere else.

When he commutes by bus, he likes to be with his own mind rather than scrolling down on a smartphone screen. He believes the importance of what the past has taught us although there are more facts and more data in the modern age. He thinks Bob Dylan is a genius of his generation, and his heart also goes to George Frederic Handel. He used to listen with the CD player in the shop, but now he prefers the silence.

“I realize that it (letterpress printing) was something that was worth doing in itself. It was something that was worth preserving. Worth carrying on, worth having people continue to know about,” he said. “I’m better now than I was two years ago, better than I was five years ago. I know more.”

He has no intention of retiring.

Fortunate enough for Mr. Kristensen, he doesn’t have to worry about retirement, since he was an inheritance to support his life. He is thankful for his luck and is grateful to have wound up in exactly the right place for him.

“I didn’t choose it, it chose me,” Mr. Kristensen said.

“The fallacy of modernism is to believe that the things are fundamentally different from the way they used to be. They are different, they are different superficially.”

— John Kristensen

Opinions Ripple on the B-Line Consolidation Proposal

By Yanshu Li

BOSTON - The Green Line “B Branch” is proposed to get a makeover. A renewed look is expected.

On Oct. 16, a proposal outlining the consolidation of four stops caught the public’s attention. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) plans to combine the Babcock and Pleasant St. Station, next to that of St. Paul and Boston University West Station. With state funding, $8.4 million budget is going into the project, according to Andrew Bettinelli, a legislative aide with Sen. William Brownsberger in the House of the State.

[caption id="attachment_226" align="aligncenter" width="660"] Figure 1 Four Stops proposed to consolidate into two. (Figure credit: MBTA and Yanshu Li)[/caption]

“Thank God!” Herbert Bassett says, looking determined. “I would definitely appreciate it if they made any changes that could better (it).”

Herbert Bassett is a 33-year-old programmer at Meditech. Being a Bostonian, he thinks the current light rail train is outdated.

“It’s the 21st century. It really needs to be updated,” he says, looking determined.

Starting in the late 19th Century, Bostonians had their first underground railway when other Americans commuted on the ground.

As one of the oldest subways, the B-Line underwent fixes and merges to adapt to the developing city. Now it starts at Boston College, running along the Commonwealth Ave. after 16 stops to Blandford St. station. Then it goes underground and merge with other Green Line branches.

[caption id="attachment_225" align="alignright" width="396"] Figure 2 B-Line stations with the proposed stops highlighted. (Figure credit: MBTA and Yanshu Li)[/caption]

Bettinelli’s office believes that after the consolidation of stops, riders will save one or two minutes per trip.

“It doesn’t sound a lot,” he says. “But for over the course of the entire day, you can save one or two minutes each way, you can add more trips. Which will ultimately increase impute on the system. It doesn’t seem much on an individual trip. But on aggregate, there will be a huge efficiency that would be added to the system.”

Knowing how much time it will save, the programmer Herbert Bassett says. “I don’t think that’s enough. I think they need to do more.”

Bassett thinks it is ridiculous to have the trains go on the road, with lanes of cars.

He looks ahead and says, “I heard that the Boston has the first underground commune system because of the snowstorm. It was kind of innovative and they need to really continue that since Boston has grown. They really need to expand that theory.”

Constructing subway transportation system has been a trend in major cities around the globe. There are now 195 metro systems worldwide, according to the World Metro Database of Metrobits.org.

Talking about possibility for the B-Line being completely underground, Bettinelli says, “I think it’s just [the] cost. We’d love to. But in a world you have a limited budget, competing priorities, who’s to say putting the Green Line underground is better use of three billion dollars building a new highway, or building a new train system, or building a different system. Because it’s so effective right now, serving so many people.”

One regular B-Line rider is Abhiram Prasan, 25, is a second-year graduate student majoring in Project Management at Boston University. Prasan says that it takes him around 30 minutes to get to school near B.U. Central Station.

Prasan is supportive of the proposal.

“I like it,” Prasan says. “It’ll be five or six minutes faster. It will probably take me twenty minutes.”

One more spot Prasan goes daily is the gym, located between Pleasant St. and St. Paul Street stations. The consolidation will drive the two stops apart for hundreds of feet. He doesn’t mind walking there. But he says that after exercising, “I am tired, I have no T stop and I had to walk a lot. It will be a problem.”

“Because in winter, the snow probably will be an issue,” Prasan added.

Another B-Line rider Kristen Riceitiello, 18, is a freshman from San Francisco studying Art & Computer Science at B.U.

Riceitiello’s stop would be unchanged.

She says, “It might suck for the people whose stop is no longer there. It will suck in the winter.”

Liusa Mayorga, 29, has been living in Boston from Colombia for two years. As a physician, she is aware of the full accessibility of the renewed B-Line.

She mentions one of her patients who moves around in a wheelchair. “He has a lot of issues trying to get in the T, because the four stops that are nearby are not accessible,” she says.

“I’ve heard that with this new project they will make those stops more accessible. So I think it would be good.”

According to Bettinelli, the amount of money spending on the stations is another factor triggering the consolidation proposal. The law requires upgrading the handicapped accessibility, which directly relates to a cost measure.

For accessibility, Bettinelli says, “Updating the two stops instead of the four, there is additional cost savings there.”

Another rider is Yanqitian Huang, 22, a senior majoring in advertising at the B.U. College of Communication.

Huang had the experience with B-Line when he lived near the Packard’s Corner station in the past summer. He says that the train took 30 minutes to go from his station all the way to Kenmore.

“They stop at every single stop, stop at every single traffic light, and people getting on and getting off the trolley, (people) just can’t find a place to sit and to stand. It just takes forever,” he says.

[caption id="attachment_227" align="aligncenter" width="660"] Figure 4 Existing Intersections B-Line goes through on Commonwealth Ave. (Figure credit: B.U. Transportation Master Plan and Yanshu Li)[/caption]

Stopping for red lights at every intersection has been a pervasive subject being discussed among transit advocates. They suggested implementing the Transit Signal Priority (TSP) on the B-Line, according to Bettinelli.

TSP is a tracking system that allows the coming vehicles to trigger traffic lights by holding green lights longer and shortening the red lights. In December of last year, MBTA began to implement the TSP on 15 busiest bus routes.

Allston resident Matthew Danish, 31, is the writer of the blog “A Walking Bostonian.”

Being a transit advocate, he thinks despite the cluster of stops and lack of signal priority at intersections, the front-door boarding policy caused “too slow boarding and alighting procedures” which drags down efficiency.

“That is wrong,” he says in email. “Trains should allow passengers to board and alight from all the doors, all the time.”

Although the consolidation only resolves one aspect, “it is a good step in the right direction,” Danish says. “The average speeds will rise in that section, and the platforms will be more accessible.”

He also expects the trips will be much smoother and more reliable, “if the consolidation is combined with signal priority.”

A B-Line train driver was between shifts in the staff room at Boston College station. He wants to be anonymous and says the reduction of stops might decrease the riding time. For driving the train, he says he doesn’t find it annoying to frequently stop the train for the red lights.

The neigbourhoods around the four stops are where Café, restaurants, and convenient stores only few steps away.

Jack Yuen, 25, a shift supervisor at CVS near the St. Paul station, says, “Our customers are living behind this store.”

He means the neighborhoods north of the Commonwealth Ave. Since the St Paul Street station is right in front of the store, costomers stop by before or after the ride. Yuen assumes that when the station moves toward B.U. West, the costomer traffic might reduce.

“It will probably affect the business,” Yuen says. “It’ll take them longer to walk, or they get home from other stops. So they won’t even stop by.”

Some business frown while others are not worried.

Arianna Johnson is a 20-year-old employee at Cane’s café, at the Pleasant Street station. The proposed new stop will be driven westward.

Johnson thinks the customers are people living in the neighborhoods. She says, “People still get to walk here, or students living around here.” She thinks in winter most customers take the bus to come. The new location of the train station is not a problem.

“I don’t think it will affect the business too much,” Johnson says, looking through the window.

Pointing at the map, Bettinelli says near the St. Paul station, the new stations will be middle block; riders still walk down to the end and serve the nearby shops as before. He also points out that, another new platform will be further from B.U. West station.

He assumes the business nearby “potentially won’t see as much traffic as they currently do.

“But if anybody is interested going there, it’s not a huge burden to go,” he added.

Prasan thinks the project will improve the ridership efficiency. He says, “B.U. Central has a lot of people. Packard’s Corner has a lot of people. And Harvard Avenue has a lot of people. But then, the four stops don’t have so many people getting in and getting out. If you reduce the stops, it might become faster.”

Based on MBTA’s Green Line Surface Ridership data, the average ridership for each stop on B-Line is around 1,500 riders on a typical weekday boarding counts from both directions. The number for the four stops is around 1,100.

[caption id="attachment_228" align="aligncenter" width="660"] Figure 5 B-Line Ridership Heatmap by Yanshu Li. Data provided by MBTA from 2006 to 2010.[/caption]

“That’s pretty low,” Bettinelli says. “Don’t forget most of the traffic on the Green Line is coming from far west. So there will be localized impact.”

“But there will be very small negative local impacts than the overall benefits for the project will be widely filled,” he added.

According to Bettinelli’s office, the final design will be finished by the next summer. Then it goes to public bidding. He says the whole construction will take 12-18 months.

“It’s still in a conceptual stage,” Bettinelli says. “So, I guess I’ll put this to 2016 to 2017.”

“It is not any time soon,” Bettinelli says, looking at the map and smiling.

Studying Abroad - Colour My Life With the Chaos of Differences

By Yanshu Li

Three people, who have oversea studying experience, shared their stories. They are a Chinese engineering doctorate in the United States of America, an American journalism student who was in France, and an American linguistic undergrad in China.

New Start In The Fifth Year

It's the fifth year for Haiding Sun studying in U.S. He just began to get a sense of being as an American.

Haiding Sun, 29, is from Ningbo, China. Four years ago, he was admitted into the electronic engineering program at Boston University. When he stepped on this rich land, he didn’t find himself entirely strange.

“Boston has so many Chinese,” he says. “I am a very open guy, and I can take it easy.”

It was easy because his high-school friend was in Boston too. This friend was Sun’s trustee, the daily life guide.

In the beginning, Sun immersed himself with the Chinese. Through this comfort bubble, he saw Americans are open. They plan things early and are well organized.

Sun says, “You cannot make an appointment at the last minute.”

He cooked Chinese food mostly. During weekends, he went to parties which he calls “play hard.”

“I like ‘work hard, and play hard.'” Sun says about an expression that fits his life here.

In fact, Sun’s “work hard” earned him a scholarship and teaching fellowship that helped him with the tuition at BU.

Now, Sun is preparing a start-up in the Semi-Conduct field. It's when the American way hits him semi-hard - it’s challenging to manage his American interns.

“There’s a huge culture difference till now I realize it,” Sun says.

He thinks that the Americans are very straightforward with their thoughts. They share ideas, but not taking things too seriously. In contrast, Chinese people express themselves like curveball on a Ping-Pong table. He thinks that the Chinese say something while meaning something else.

Sun has to adapt himself to this new way of communication – direct and polite.

“Yes or no. That’s it,” Sun says. “I don’t need to worry about it.”

When he balances things into good shape, Sun steps forward.

In this summer, he had an American intern to make a cold call. It was like a sales’ call, without a previous appointment. The intern never did something similar. So he stuck. Calling from an American to another American, the intern didn’t know what to say first.

It intrigued Sun. He realized that, rather than being bossy, being encouraging is more helpful.

Now Sun immerses himself in American way much more. He hangs out with his good American friends, and tries to say hi and starts a conversation when eyes meet with a stranger. Because for Chinese, Sun thinks that they usually turn their eyes away.

Currently, Sun wants to learn more about American history. He pushed his interns to get things done on time. He likes fresh seafood in Boston. And he also knows his logic is still very much Chinese.

“Eventually, I could do business with the Americans,” Sun says about his career blueprint. “China is becoming better and better, so we (the company) could probably go back to China in the future.”

Ça Va? /!/. ...

“I just love ca va,” Brooke Eckstrom says. “ca va? ca va! ca va. …Like it could mean literally anything.” It’s an informal phrase to say how’s it going in French.

Brooke Eckstrom is a senior majoring in journalism at Boston University College of Communication. She studied in Paris, France a year earlier for one semester.

Eckstrom arrived in Paris in the morning, jet-lagged, finding her driver wasn’t there to pick her up.

“I almost had a mental breakdown,” Eckstrom says.

Speaking in an American accent under stress, Eckstrom asked for help from the French staff at the airport. One hour later, she got on the right bus.

Despite this little episode, Eckstrom enjoyed studying in Paris very much. She took literature, theater, and French grammar classes. She visited museums, theaters often as she valued her time there.

“It was more like a routine on a daily basis,” she says. “I would go to the museums to culture myself.”

As Eckstrom was fitting into the city, she found herself surprisingly was into being alone. She says, “Paris is good to walk around and everywhere was amazingly pretty.” She also observed that it’s socially normal to sit in a café alone and to be alone.

“I think it’s a good thing to learn,” she says.

For Eckstrom, conversing in French was not a problem. French became a part of her life ever since the seventh grade. She chose BU was that the Study Oversea Program here offers the opportunity to experience Paris.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Paris. It just looks cool,” Eckstrom says. “And I wanted to actually to be able to use the language, because I’ve been learning for so long, and seemed pointless that not ever use it.”

The only tricky thing in communication was when cultural characteristics met.

Eckstrom was sharing her joy with the host-mother after she saw the work of Vincent Van Gogh. Eckstrom pronounced the painter’s name in English sound. Her host mother didn’t get it. Eckstrom explained again. Then her host mother corrected the sound with a hard pronounced G, and said that was the way it should be.

“What they think it’s right. It’s right. That’s it. Unless they are proven wrong,” Eckstrom says.

For the daily meal, Eckstrom cooked for herself on weekdays. One night a week her host parents would cook for her.

The host parents were a wealthy old couple, which allowed her getting close to the French older generation. Her host dad was obsessed with American-Vietnam war movies. He talked about this topic during a typical four hours French dinner. They often kept pouring red wine. Eckstrom liked to stay and talk with them if there was less homework. “It was fun,” Eckstrom says.

After three months of condensed courses, Eckstrom interned one month at the Freedom Press department in a non-profit organization.

One valuable experience she had in there was that, the President of Kenya was about to authorize a law that would destroy the local newspapers; she faxed a petition to his office to stop it and to advocate the press freedom in Kenya.

The law didn’t pass.

“It was pretty cool,” Eckstrom says. “I don’t know whether he read it, but I hope so. It was the plan.”

Eckstrom had a wonderful experience in Paris. The Parisian scent, the glistening Seine, the picnics with friends under the Eiffel tower, listening to accordions on the metro, and traveling to Greece and Spain during vacation - those days still sparkle when she’s on her way to classes at BU right now.

"I love the concept of being an entirely different culture and speaking a different language," Eckstrom says. "I like the challenging part."

Friendship and Loneliness

Sarah Do, 22, is a linguistics major from Pennsylvania. Her Chinese friends in college cultivated her curiosity about the Chinese culture and the language. After graduating from college, she went to China by herself.

Do studied Chinese in a college near Shanghai, China from 2013 for one year.

“Chinese people are so welcoming and friendly, so I felt like I could really get to know Chinese friends. And I really like that,” Do says. “I think I made friend pretty quickly,”

Before Do went to China, she had in mind about China was from history books and movies – the raw China. After she had arrived in Shanghai, this metropolis locating on the east coast presented her with a whole new image.

“I did not expect it so westernized,” Do says.

She met a lot of people who spoke English, which helped her communicating.

“Obviously, that didn’t help me learn Chinese,” Do says. So she asked her friends to speak Chinese to practice.

One year away from home, Do converted her homesick into the action of converging. She tried to eat with chopsticks, even when eating rice. Her Chinese friends were amused and told her they eat rice with spoons.

“I tried so hard to fit in the culture,” Do recalls.

Speaking different languages was not always the reason for feeling lonely. Do was aware that not being understood fully was. She also noticed that everybody felt the same, which was beyond the culture.

Do met her best Chinese friend despite the distinct cultural and lingual differences. She didn’t stop exploring the friendship. The two kept spending time together. They read books, rode bikes and went to parks. Do did not find it hard even though her Chinese wasn’t fluent enough.

She says, “I think I felt even we don’t speak the same language, we still could be friends.”

That was true. At the end of the year, they became good friends.

In the linguistic view, Do observed a subtle variance in one expression – let’s go. Do prefers the Chinese equivalence 走吧(zou ba).

In America, the awkward situation is that when people want to leave, saying let’s go might sound abrupt. She thinks it’s more casual and relaxed in Chinese.

“It sounds so nice in Chinese. Like “Ok, time to go.” Do says.

In this one year, Do learned Chinese, built friendship and being independent. Crossing the Pacific Ocean, it was the first time she was so far away from home. She had fun in the new experiences in a different culture - renting an apartment, taking a taxi, and traveling around.

Do says, “it was fun to do all that in China.”

Leaving was hard. She knew she might not come back as wished; she felt sad.

 

Something More

According to a report by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2013, almost 4.5 million students were pursuing higher education overseas between 2000 – 2011 around the globe. And the number continues to grow.

Picturing a graph of the airplane tracks in the sky that looks like a huge web over all lands, and think. The web is a sign of endeavor, convergence, also learning. And learning in a foreign country using their languages, it is something more.

Brooke Eckstrom is graduating this semester. When she goes to a job interview and gets nervous, she thinks about the interview she had done speaking French.

Eckstrom says, “if I could do this in a foreign language, I’m fine.”

Taste a slice of Thai in Boston at Noodle St.

By Yanshu Li

For a normal meal in Thailand, pad Thai is a traditional stir-fry to choose. It is also the most popular meal at Noodle St. in Boston.

A rice noodle base costs $8.5, and there are 9 additions, that can cost up to $3. The additions are chicken, pork, beef, tofu, shrimps, seafood, crispy chicken, shrimp tempural and kinnari chicken. Noodle St lets the customers choose the pad Thai the way they want it. Paul Britton, an employee, estimated pad Thai added chicken takes up 60 percent of orders in this noodle-stir-fry category.

This Noodle St. signboard is over stairs near Kenmore Square. It was established in 2006. The main chef, also the co-owner, is a 75-year-old woman who has nearly 25 year of experience in Thai restaurants in The Boston areas. Noodle St. mainly serves fried-rice, noodle soup and noodle-stir-fry.

To adapt to American taste, Noodle St. has tone down the spiciness a little. “But we don’t tone it down that much,” Britton, said. “Because a lot of our customers are international students from BU, so they expect a traditional Thai taste.”

For this reason, the unspicy pad Thai has become the must-have dish. BU students and faculty, who need to be quick and healthy in daily dining, are eighty percent of Noodle St.’s customers. Britton said: ”All our noodle are made in Chinatown in Boston. Every night at nine o’clock the noodle factory calls us ‘how many bags of noodles do you need for the next day.’ They will deliver it next morning.” This makes sure that there will be fresh material for noodle-based pad Thai.

Not only it is popular and fresh for customers, pad Thai also draws good numbers on revenue. The whole revenue on a daily basis would have to be divided into three parts: for dining-in, estimate, it’s around $2,000, take-out around $600, and delivery around $400. On average, for a day, pad Thai contributes 25 percent of the sales. Followed by the second popular NS Soup, which is ten percent. But also this distribution could vary by seasons. The steaming NS soup gains more popularity in a harsh winter of Boston.

Fall, winter and spring, are the busiest seasons. Now, in Boston, fall was just arrived, students are back and filling this restaurant during rush hours. During lunch, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., the turned-table rate would be 1.5 times, Britton said. Which means 30 out of 120 dine-in orders are pad Thai during the bustling hour.

It takes estimately three minutes to stir-fry one pad Thai dish till it’s cooked and mixed well with sauce. If quatification works as we multipul the time and numbers of dishes to see the workload, then cooking pai Thai would take 75 percent of the lunch rush time.

Now, just out of fun, by a quick calculation, the chef who is in charge of making pad Thai, he probably has to keep stirring the pot during the lunch rush, and has little time to rest in between orders. Sore wrist maybe? Well this is the price of being popular.

(This piece was written in September, 2014.)

What do you think about President Obama?

By Yanshu Li

In the evening of Oct. 23, 2007, at Boston Common, a public park located in downtown Boston, Senator Barack Obama spoke the rally for his campaign. “Congratulations, by the way, Red Sox nation. I am a White Sox fan.” He said. “You don’t want somebody who pretends to be Red Sox fan as President of United States. You want somebody who’s a principled sports fan even when his team is losing, he still stands up for.”

People gathered at Boston Common applauded for him. Days after, the political jazz of that night faded. People went back to their lives. The earth went on to a new day. The “White Sox fan” is now in his second presidential term that will end in 2017. This Sunday, Oct. 12, 2014, there is no sign of political heat at this very park, unless asking the people in the park about President Obama.

“I like him. When Obama became elected, I knew right away that he was gonna win,” Raymond Tempkin said. Tempkin is a 48-year-old aviation technician. He was enjoying the sunshine on a bench. Mike Jones was sitting beside him, listening to the radio playing “Lithium” by Nirvana.

[caption id="attachment_10" align="alignleft" width="350"] Mike Jones (left) and Raymond Tempkin (right) was listening to “Lithium” by Nirvana on a bench at Boston Common. Oct. 12, 2014 [Photo by Yanshu Li][/caption]

“I like him too,” Jones said. “I think he’s doing a great job. He’s better than what Bush did. All Bush did wasto take the oil. That’s it. Obama did a better job.” Jones is a painter and an electric guitar player. He thinks the former president left a hard situation for Obama to handle, in terms of two wars and a slowing economy. And he thinks Obama has done well. “He gave out money to different businesses to spread, and spread the wealth, so they can come out of bankruptcy, and could create more jobs. That was awesome.”

However, not everyone is entirely satisfied. Everly Fleischer, 78, a professor in chemistry from California, said, “I think he’s doing really well, and the reason that not doing better, I think is mainly because Congress is a total ass.” Fleischer was at Boston Common with his wife. He was reading a trip map under shades.

He said, “Even though he has very good vision, he has trouble implementing them, probably because he never managed anything, you know. He went from running a little Chicago community center, and then he was a senator. But he’s never ran anything big. He never had managed department with lots of people. So I don’t think he ever got to understand how you manage things."

"He also doesn’t seem comfortable trying to comprise and kibitz with congressmen. So it’s a little disappointing, but you don’t know whether it’s him, or just things keep going wrong with the world,” Fleischer added.

[caption id="attachment_12" align="alignright" width="250"] Benjamin Chrislip, who was cycling at Boston Common. Oct. 12, 2014 [Photo  by Yanshu Li][/caption]

Compared to Fleischer’s elaborate answer, Benjamin Chrislip, a 31-year-old New Yorker who was cycling, replied with humor. “It is a hard question. But I guess, yeah, it’s mostly ‘Enh.’” Being a Democrat, Chrislip was excited when Obama was elected. Somehow his opinion changed. “I guess I expected more things to happen, I guess my impression of it now, the end of eight years is ‘Enh.’ That’s fine. But it’s like it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. It was sort of like ‘Ok, let’s try the next one.’”

A singer named Danny James, 28, had a different perspective. “Honestly, just that the way politics works in general, it’s a beauty pageant. And the best-looking guy usually is going to win,” James said. He’s a salesman, but also a singer who composes and sells pop songs. He didn’t see the reason to get involved into politics, because he thinks, “It’s just sometimes it’s getting negative and fake and that’s all ruled by money.”

James held a neutral attitude towards Obama. He said, “As far as he’s doing, the economy is great; the real estate market is unbelievable. But then again, there’s natural fluctuation in it, and everything. So who really knows? But I have no reason to hate him.”

[caption id="attachment_11" align="alignleft" width="250"] Danny James, who was singing at Boston Common. Oct. 12, 2014 [Photo by Yanshu Li][/caption]

In recent policies toward GLBT group, people can see the changes. Adam Woods, a 23-year-old photographer from Chelsea, said he has noticed. “I really like Obama.” He said. “What I noticed, since he took office, there’s a lot of LGBT policy changes, and even like recently a bunch states now are allowed to have gay marriage, so that’s really important to me as a gay individual.” Woods really appreciated that change. He said, “He’s done a great job. I think being a president is a very difficult position obviously. So I’m happy with the work he’s done.”

While people talked about the incumbent president, they also concerned about the next one. As Fleischer said, “I’m hoping maybe the next election, as least the Democrats won’t lose the senate. And he can do some immigration policy, maybe policy in Supreme Court justices.” And a different way of seeing the future, as Jones said, “Probably it’s another good Democrat. But if it’s a Republican, I hope it’s a fairly good one that has a heart. A Republican that has a heart.”

Boston Common is as welcoming as years ago. That night when Senator Obama gave speech is long gone. But for some people, their heat may have stayed. When Tempkin, the aviation technician who fixes the outside lights of planes, said he liked Obama with “Lithium” playing in the radio, he paused a little. And then he added, “I take it back. I love Obama. That’s me. Write that down. Raymond loves Obama.”

Between East and West - Story of Claire Chan

By Yanshu Li

Claire Chan was telling her story in the living room. It was pleasant, in the warm light of early sunset. She was sitting on a sofa near the window. Behind the trendy black-frame glasses, her eyes sparkled. “Which color of the stripe was on the bottom of the national flag of America?” Chan said, reciting one question from the naturalization exam her parents once took. “I remember when they were studying for. It was really funny,” she said. “Because kids would totally know, they grow up saying that.”

On Now 22, Claire Chan was born in America. Her parents were married in Taiwan during the 1980s. They came to the U.S. for better career opportunities. Her father applied for a P.H.D in the field of lasers. Her mother applied for a master degree in music education focusing on voice. “I think that it was probably not terribly difficult,” Chan said about whether it was hard for her parents to come to the U.S. “Because both of them - or at least my dad - was pretty fluent in English, and so, since they were both coming for graduate school, there was a stated purpose for their reason staying in here.”

Chan spoke Mandarin for the first five years of her life. Her parents valued their culture, so they set up a rule. “You can’t speak English at home unless the next day was a school day,” Chan said. So, Sunday through Thursday, she spoke English at home, but Friday and Saturday were mandarin days. The way her parents tried to maintain her Mandarin was “pretty annoying” for her as a child. But now she reflects, “I very much appreciate that my parents wanted us to try to preserve our heritage,” she said. “It definitely gave me a very good foundation to build on later when I took Chinese classes in college.”

Although this rule didn’t last long, her family moved to Taiwan in 1999 when she was a second grader. During this period, they visited America often as well, because Chan’s parents had to establish some kind of residence or work, in order to be candidates for the U.S. naturalization exam.

After primary school, Chan settled with her mother in South Carolina, which was homogenously populated. “There were not many Asian at all at my school,” Chan recalled. She remembered in middle school, someone sat in the back of school bus mocked: “Oh, you can sit next to the Chinese girl.” Her friend, a white American, stuck up for her: “No, she’s from Taiwan.” “I don’t know that helps,” Chan said, laughing, “It was sweet of her kind of help me out. Yeah! Get it right!”

Chan’s mother was insecure about her own English in the early years, so she had Chan call banks, ask for fixing up the house or send emails. “I think it’s pretty classic story for a lot of the second generation for Asian-American immigrants,” Chan said. “It was very frustrating for me because I always felt like I didn't get that childhood that other children got since their parents did all those things for them.”

But for Chan, her life path had already started to change. Years of American school life made English Chan’s main language. Awkwardness in a non-Asian situation disappeared. She became American. As Chan said, she’s culturally Asian but also very much American.

Growing up in South Carolina, Chan calls herself “a southerner.” In her eyes, people in South Carolina are nicer and more relaxed compared to diverse Bostonians. She finished her college studying Chinese. During last spring break, Chan took a sojourn in Taiwan, where she visited her grandparents. “I was really nervous because I was afraid there was the cultural communication barrier,” Chan said. “But it was really good. We ended up talking about politics, talking about just how life was going, and it was really good.” The culture that her mother persisted, started to show magic. It gave Chan a sense of belonging.

After 14 years of holding green cards, Chan’s parents joined the tide of naturalized citizens during the 2000s, which numbered 682,000 according to United States Department of Homeland Security. In her eyes, the naturalization exam was a fun thing. But immigration policy is like another world for her. She said, “It’s like someone I knew was undocumented, or writing an article about someone being documented, that’s the only time I come to know. I have no idea.”

For the last four years, she has not needed to handle things for her mother, since her mother is now comfortable functioning in English. When she looks back, she’s glad to have served her mother in that way, “since she works so hard to serve us!”

She talked about seeing herself as an American or a Taiwanese. “That’s really confusing,” She observed. Wearing a navy-blue shirt and black Levi jeans, with black hair over shoulders, Chan looks modern. Holding a mug she said, “Oh, I like eating rice!”