Chrome Home

We all thought he was phoning home. No.
He's actually programming his flat screen.

 

Oh those good old days. Simple days when you raced home from school, kicked off your shoes, did homework, gobbled down that dinner, jumped in the tub and then eagerly plopped down in the family room to jostle with pesky siblings for the best spot to...watch TV. The anticipation itself was almost as enjoyable as those beloved opening show tunes. And not just anything but *the show* you loved...and it was going to be on at a certain time, day and only ONE time before you had to *GASP* ...wait until next week's episode. Oh the glory to wonder what it all meant and what would happen next week? Would Blair finally go out with her crush? Would Fonzie get kicked out of school? And of course, who shot JR?

No one cared back then how close you sat to the screen.

After our exciting evening, well we'd have to wait for a while, sometimes a whole season of wondering through afternoons spent staring up at ceiling walls while our lava lamps spun out hazy blobs of contemplation. Sweet torture. Ah, those days, those memories....

The Art of TV Contemplation

Wake up, people, and join the 21st century American TV market. In my experience so far being back home in the states, a chat about TV is basically this:

Person 1: I'm going to watch some TV. Want to?

Person 2: Sure. Pull up the DVR list

Person 1: Ok.

No more "what's on tonight? what time is it?" or the like. Far less "it's Sunday, so that means Show X is on" or, "oh, I need to wrap up this call since Season 1 is starting in a few minutes..." Yawn. Archaic statements of the past and/or habits of the outdated and outmoded. Time is not the only one waiting for no one. Seems TV is out the gate also. 

Over the last 10 years, I've not had a TV except for when in Kenya, and I can tell you that was a sight to see. As a former TV editor, I love video, pictures, images and moving media; working at a cable station was a dream job - hello paycheck related to watching multiple screens! Fast forward to being in Nairobi, and having not just a tv but one with a DVD player and a video rental place down the road ( aww isn't that sweet, a place that rents movies. Cute!). We are talking watching 5-6-7 episodes of LOST, Big Love and Lipstick Jungle with breaks only for nature and nutella. Remote(s) in one hand, beverage in the other. Full stop. 

So you can imagine it was a bit of a shock to recently re-enter the TV/ Digital/Cable/DVR landscape ( I have no idea what that means, actually, but it sounds good.). To switch on one of my brothers' TWO big flat screens - that are mounted ON THE WALLS - and absorb the fact that there are about 500 channels to scroll through (once I can find the correct scroll button, of course)..well words fail me. When glued in front of such a screen, all I see is Verizon on my horizon.

You say Hulu, I say Hawaii

To be clear, lots of these explosive channel options and hanging TVs are available in the places I've been, and in many ways are even more advanced that some options in certain parts of the states. Sort of like how the cell reception overseas out runs many coverage areas in the states, as some countries simply ignored dealing with shoddy landlines and went straight to mobile technology. I take full responsibility for my elementary level of TV genius, and like the classic break up line goes: It's not you, it's me.  Being in Asia was like being in the wild west of the technology frontier with the cowboys and cowgirls swinging not lassos but cable lines. 

So what does it mean, then, today, to watch tv? It seems to mean whatever you want it to mean, whenever you want.  Customization, baby. You can still be all old school and "appointment view" meaning you do something as basic as plan to watch a show at a certain time on a certain day. Or you DVR it (I guess that's a verb now) and watch it whenever, which could be never based on some friends I know who never get to their lists. It could mean flipping open your laptop --ha! I just dated myself again, due to the prevalence of tablets! --and watch online. Identifying the number of options is like asking the length of the horizon.

But honestly, there's a new thing I have yet to get -- Google Chrome can now plug something into something somewhere and you are then connected. To what exactly I'm not sure, but here's what I do know for sure: I bet any random 12 year old on the street could explain it.

Is that a new Rubiks Cube?

Family Matters

" A dysfunctional family is any family that has more than one member in it. " 

- quote of a beloved Chang family friend

Family comes in many forms

Sigh. That cheeky friend of my family, who as a social worker has likely worked with every kind of family configuration possible to assemble, gets it. There is nothing like the word "family" to launch any range of possible reactions. I mean, think about it, what comes to your mind when hearing that word yourself? Who appears in your minds' eye, what are they doing, how old are you, and what does your physical reaction tell you? As a typical human, there is probably the expected flood of emotions: memory, nostalgia, a mental smile, pangs of regret, loss or wistfulness. Feelings of happiness, gratitude and optimism for more times to come. Maybe feelings of missing someone so much it pokes at unexpected places. Maybe its a reminder that its someones' birthday today and/or its time to call them back. Perhaps its time to unclench those fists and/or stop swearing.

In this year of transition, a significant amount of my life has been devoted to reconnecting with my immediate nuclear family, my extended family and all the loved ones in that campsite. I'm lucky to have my Mom and Pop around to enjoy them, and to have them, as Pop Chang says, "live for bugging you from morning to night" be it in person, skype or cell phone. Such fun to be part of the Aunty brigade to my delightful 5 year old niece and nephew. Hillary Clinton was right --it does take a village to raise a child in that there are all kinds of support systems available to my brother and his wife due to having their families within very close proximity. And they generously envelop us all in their sprouting unit.

One thing about being back home around family is that, well, you are around them. There is a breathing room that provides a more relaxed environment of really actually getting to know people again, to see who they have become and how that reconciles with the memory of who they've been while I've been overseas. For example, my brother has always been a natural athlete. He was the one who, when we were in early elementary school, would dash towards our backyard fence, leap towards the top and just amble over it. I, on the other hand, would skip towards it, stop, and look up and down the fence to see where there might be a gate entrance to pry open. Not a fan of the "leap and lower" method. Kai just dashes into the gym and gets going. I approach, consider, and then make my move after contemplation. No pure diving into the spin class for me. I ask about the instructor's general level of torture first. Kai has already completed his lower body workout by then.

Fast forward several decades later, and I again appreciate that natural athleticism in my brother. How? Let's see...as a school principal, his workday starts about 7am. By that time, Mr Kai Chang Principal has already likely done the following: gotten up about 345am, skipped off to the gym for a good hour long weight workout, showered, dressed, maybe baked some salmon fillets for lunch (yes, you read that correctly) and is ready to help his kidlets get ready for school etc.  Come weekend, well, the surf is best usually around 6am so he can be found peering at the waves in the beach pier parking lot, looking for the best spot (and very likely rode his bike down with his board strapped to his bike...what's a little more cardio in the grand scheme of things?!)  On a weekend in So Cal, lots of folks are calling it a night around the time he's dropping his board into the water.  So at least my brother is still himself. It's good to know with all the change in the world, some things stay safely predictable.

There's such a nice pacing to reconnecting with family again after years of condensed and intense home leave visits. No longer do we need to jam everything into a few weeks of high impact sprints before the long haul trots of waiting 6 more months to see each other: nope! No more last night nostalgic dinners before checking in the next day for a trans pacific flight and managing skype calls. No more pangs of somehow feeling like I'm missing out on some undefined broader sense of my own personal development and experience, of being the only one not part of the larger family unit that is literally in the same place. 

How lovely it is, to just say, "see you tomorrow " and to have it be true day after day.

And of course, proximity breeds even more familiarity and those chestnuts of family dynamics. We all know how someone can just call us and have *that mood* conveyed over the phone in about 10 seconds. People around us, well, they also know us. I am sure that for my family, having me back is also a transition due to seeing who I have become, on a daily basis. Remembering our individual pacing styles; Mom takes 3 seconds in between questions, Pop takes many more and my pacing depends on the time of day. I can at times think my brother's not been listening to me at all, then he pipes up with a gem of an observational statement that lets me know he's been tapped in the whole time. He's just been quiet --which some people would call good LISTENING! How's that for a newsflash!

Are there flip sides to such proximity? How much time is there to discuss that. Boundaries get challenged, life and little choices get evaluated with "a look" ... ("oh, you're wearing that to the cold beach tonight?"..."Do you think it's a good idea to do that?"...love those non questions!), Do I miss what I used to nebulously used to refer to as my "old life"? At times and only certain aspects. But I have to be honest - to come downstairs and have my Pop say, "Hey (Pop-speak for "good morning"). Want to go over to Little Saigon for dim sum breakfast?" and to travel with him to his first home town when arriving in America....to speak german with my Mom all the time as we reflect on her WWII Berlin childhood with the ease of knowing that we're sitting on the couch together instead of talking over skype...and to grab dinner and a movie with my brother and sister in law and just yak afterwards....well there's nothing like it for me.

For a long time I missed my family --including my family of friends --in ways that felt like a dull ache. I felt like I was not just missing them in terms of wanting to be with them and have them near. I felt like I was also literally missing them --meaning, missing being a witness to their lives, and felt too like they were missing out on experiencing me more directly in their lives.  This intensified the pressure for my overseas life to be infinitely more satisfying and fulfilling in order to be worth what it felt I was missing in life currency and experiences. To be sure, I loved my life then, and I love it now. There are people who have come into my life during those years for whom I care deeply. And it was time to regroup and dive into those home grown missing moments. Those moments have been attended to, have been something that has drunk deeply and richly this year. Another step of re balancing and recalibrating. 

Dorothy was right. There's no place like home, in whatever shape it exists.

May 2013, Huntington Beach, CA. Sunset. Perfection.

Get Smart

"Is this the power button?": Max and 99 at work

By the time I was a little sprout in the 1970's, my future work in television was confirmed thanks to watching our spanking new TV as much as I could. Angels said good morning to Charlie, the Fonz said hey and Arnold wondered what Willis was talkin' about. But nothing came close to the masterful and suspense-filled sitcom showcasing the irreplaceable Don Adams as Max and the mesmerizing Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 in Get Smart. And 99 was who I wanted to be - smart, sassy, always knowing how to handle any situation and all that 1970's satin just made a complete fan out of me. I mean, we didn't even know her real name, she was that mysterious. When it was time to remove my bicycle training wheels, my belief that 99 would definitely manage on two wheels helped me get it together on my bike to wobble down the street gripping my handlebars. She probably wouldn't have kept a front flower basket holding her Barbie dolls, but whatever; I channeled my mini-99 for at least one block before skidding off into the bushes and scraping both knees with aplomb. Victory was mine!

Fast forward many years later and it's time once again to access my Inner Agent 99. Complicated international development politics and contradictions? Nope. Bureaucratic donor reporting and partnership issues? Ha! I wish. Figuring out how to work my new android phone to track my data usage and to find the nearest Trader Joe's? That's what I'm talking about, people. The smartphone. 

Those phones sure are smart. And there are many of them, lurking in wait for the unsuspecting customer. I swear I could feel them watching me from their display cases as I walked by. Apple or Samsung? Widgets vs Apps. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or pre-paid? What is a widget, anyway? I ask because I just saw yesterday that I have many of them on my phone homepage (when I can get to it.) Instagram now has a photo of my socks and I'm not sure how it got there; pinterest sends me pictures of cooking results on a board I can't find anymore. Twitter remains a distant possibility but for someone as high context as me, I think it would just be the last draw to summarize anything in a handful of words...or tweets, come to think of it.

CC: "I have ways of making you speak to me!"

It is not easy to select a smartphone. Here in California, the question of what kind of smartphone to get is 99% of the time met with the most incredulous of stares. It is the home of Apple and Steve Jobs, after all. Thus the idea that anyone would consider anything else is about as unbelievable as getting charged for rice in Chinatown! Expressions of such wonder over what possible reality could unfold through such a question. After surveying about 100 people over the last few months and getting some pretty strong reactions, ("oh, I thought you meant which iphone to buy...you mean you might buy something other than an iphone?!  I have no idea what to suggest...I just would never think of anything besides a mac/iphone...")  I gave up and made my own independent decision. The fact that the LA County School district just ordered new ipads for all the students speaks yet again to the GENIUS that was Steve Jobs. I do love going into an Apple store and just touching everything there - and who doesn't love every single second of the heart warming iPhone photo every day and music every day commercials? The piano music just grabs me from the first note...that little girl in the pink bunny suit taking her own picture fills my eyes every time...the guy running while snapping a shot is just the model of multi tasking....and the uber fit girl jumping rope to her own beat is one cool chick and did I mention I want her abs?....and then, and then, and then....

My questioning does not intend to give flack to the mac. It's simply born out of an innate curiosity about what motivates people to do what they do, and the basic fact that THIS GIRL NEEDS SOME TECH HELP FOLKS! And it's not just what people use, it's how they use it and what people have stopped doing that's so interesting. Here's a sample of the tech advice I've received since returning back to the States:

"if you buy that smartphone, you'll have lower apps access --only about 30,000. This one over here, has access to about 45,000." - so that's what's been missing in my life: 15,000 apps.

"No one picks up the phone and calls anyone. A text message is the only thing that gets answered." (more than a few people have added, "oh and Claude, no one says 'sms' in the states. They send a text, not an sms.")

"If you call people without first sending a text saying you will call, people are less likely to answer the phone. Or they'll think you're in trouble and calling for help because it's so out of the blue."

"Why would I call someone? If I did, then I'd have to listen to everything they say." --my personal favorite tip. That person better not have been talking about me.

Getting all those insights reminded me of the secret Starbucks menu  - once you are in the know, the world is simply a different place.

"buy a biscotti and give it to the barista..."

I like sending texts. I like getting them. And I also like hearing someone's voice on the phone. But time marches on, phone or no phone. I get it, the value of texts is great because its quick, convenient, and gets around bad reception --both the phone and personal kind. It helps to secure a more customized way to manage communication and can be less distracting than a phone call. And if there is one word that sums up coming back home to sort out what one wants in a phone, it is customization for sure. I find it funny that on a regular basis, I receive text messages that easily took longer to type out than to just call directly.  But come to think of it, that perspective more likely means I'm a slow phone typer. Apparently, it's true --as a 40+ year old, I am automatically on the wrong end of the Bell curve when it comes to driving in the fast lane of the tech highway. Maybe I'm not even to the on-ramp yet?

To be clear, I love my new smart phone. I just don't love being so outsmarted. Does it even make sense to have a smartphone in the age of ipads and the like, I wonder. Any tips out there? Hello? Can anyone hear me?

Maybe I should text you instead.

The final choice. Where is 99 when I  need her?

Down the Rabbit Hole

Alice, wear your own watch.

Back in my expat planet days, my pre-home leave rituals included pulling out a nice clean piece of white printer paper where with my big fat sharpie marker I would write two words across the top in big letters: TO BUY. New sneakers, workout clothes, some yoga gadget, ziplock bags, cosmetics, jeans and that gem of a no brainer - bras (hello, show me a 5 ft 10in woman who says she can buy bras in Asia and you're seeing of course a LIAR!). Sometimes, depending on my mood and actual exercise levels, the list would reach to the back page. Once ensconced in the land of plenty, I would keep that list nearby while also learning to be online savvy with amazon.com or zappos.com prior to my long haul flights. Family and friends, when informed of the incoming packages to their addresses would murmur understandingly and make appropriately supportive sounds of appreciation.

I could at times be known to book dates for Target or REI before family lunches or trips to the beach. But hey, I was on home leave and as such was afforded a larger leash of understanding regarding my clearly understandable and natural thirst to buy stuff. And it wasn't like my overseas locations didn't have stuff or anything, it just wasn't the kind of stuff that I needed, apparently.

One thing I very rarely bought was a magazine. Loftily considering myself  immune to the pulls of marketing and advertising, I would have explained that the things on my list were not just any old stuff things but instead were critical pieces that I needed since I could not get them "back home" in Kenya, Nepal or wherever that place was. The argument went something like this: I don't shop at all there, so it's ok to shop here in fewer larger swoops. The term I believe, is called "binge shopping" and yes dearie, that self help literature has it right that DENIAL is not a river in Egypt.

Now, with some longer exposure to the beauty mag ads and to fitting right into the typical demographic for such page splashes, I'm thinking the following: I'm an easy mark. Example? the other morning, after rising from a night of restless sleep and monkey mind, I splashed cold water on my face and peered into the morning mirror. What was that? I wondered, peering more closely at my sleepy complexion. Was that laugh line there yesterday? And that there, is my forehead blotchy like that all the time? No worries, I think I read somewhere yesterday about some new cream that will smooth out uneven complexions and reduce signs of wrinkles within 48 hours. 

O_M_G. I'd gone and done it. I fell right into the trap of marketing and patronizing promises of rolled back time and fresh-facedness before even having had my cup of decaf coffee. Nice going, marketers! Consider yourselves brilliant and mission accomplished. One step of neurosis for Claudia M Chang, one giant step for Consumption and Insecurity Ltd.  I snapped out of it but couldn't help but notice that I'd not had that kind of morning narrative literally in  *years.*

Don't get me wrong. I'm not getting up on a soapbox and decrying the pitfalls of consumption and consumer power of purchasing. Personal choices about managing our physical, emotional and spiritual lives are totally  that --personal and everyone has an inherent right to exercise those choices without judgement. Stepping into a Sephora can make me forget my first and last name and I'll admit it loud and proud (and had my above morning moment stayed on longer than that first mirror glance, I'd probably still be in that shop now, lost among the shelves of goodies.). What bugged me about that moment was the slice of concern I felt over my physical appearance and life journey going seemingly in some pre-determined and inarticulated wrong direction. Of being late for something but not clear what. And because I chose something other than compassion and care to my reflection, that marketing moment of concern moved right on in  --one moment too many, I'd say.

Guys are not off the hook either. From the number of mags I've seen promising guys all the muscle tone in the world as well as everlasting virility for general mantasticness  - well it seems there is an equal opportunity platform for these various pitfalls.

Proceed with caution...and compassion.

The idea that there is something wrong with your appearance as it naturally is and that you can fix it with this PRODUCT is not new. For as long as people strive to learn, grow, and improve, there are welcome and true ways to help bring out the best in ones self. But wow. It's quite a shock to be immersed again into the near constant assault that is the women's magazine industry that bombards one with constant messages about some nebulous nirvana that awaits simply through a snap of the wallet. Let's not get started on photoshop. So it seems that these publications all rest on the assumption that who we are au natural is just not good enough. Or am I missing some deeper message of appreciation, that I'm worth it, just like the L'Oreal hair color ads explain?

Each time I'm passing a magazine, which in pretty much any store is about every 5 seconds, I now notice a ticker tape question stream running through my head: What if we all accepted ourselves completely and totally as we were, especially physically but in all aspects of our lives and path? What if we did that even while recognizing things we wanted to change about ourselves? What if we were truly in touch with every aspect of our lives and beliefs, especially about authentic love for ourselves and others? And finally, what if we could sit comfortably with any discomfort about things we wanted to change with kindness and humor? 

I bet those mirror meetings would look a lot different.
 

Good morning Sassy!

The Jump

“There is nothing more dangerous than to leap a chasm in two small jumps.”

Throughout my life I have heard variants on the above quote that today, when staring at my blank document, seemed flat out, bulls’eye, dead on. As I then remembered I had no idea who actually stated the above wisdom, I did what any smartie these days does: googled it, of course. So while Wikipedia attributes the quote to some random British politician, it also indicates that various Chinese, Russian, Greek, African and American folklore lay claim to the wise insight that some decisions, some actions and some accomplishments simply require a significant amount of kinetic energy with a life of its own. Going for it in a sort-of-kind-of-way just does not cut it at times. Back it up, get moving, and *go for it*. She who hesitates is not just lunch, but a free fall heap landing no where near intended.

With a nod to a lovely sense of cosmic gestation, it was just about 9 months ago I returned to the US after nearly a decade overseas in various regions. The professional aspects of that time, as well as many more personal dimensions, shadow box with the more present experiences of the more recent and present repatriation. Over the last months, I’ve experienced a range of emotions that ebb and flow like some kind of life tide table –certain times are high, low, in between, and always helixing back towards a natural cycle of the human experience.  And as a long time writer, sometime editor and always opinioned gal, I’ve started shifting through various ideas, writings, illustrations, sketchings and photos that now seem to come together a bit more closely in their own tectonic way to take shape in the form of this posting site.

The purpose of these upcoming writings, if there is one now or ever, is to muse and reflect on what it means for me to be back here, to have been *there*, and to offer highly individualized and therefore subjective and personalized takes on that fascinating, complex and ridiculously entertaining idea of *global citizenship* in the context of returning back to the US. Now now, don’t get carried away and think that reading this site means you have to comb your hair, get your morning coffee and sit up straight. Nope. It’s just some stuff I’m writing, and from time to time, maybe others will chime in with a guest appearance or just weigh in through comments below. But the point is, like it or not, each of us goes home at some point. Maybe to stay, maybe not for long, and maybe just through our own memories or minds’ eye. Home can change in context and comfort. But we do go home, in whatever form that takes for us.  Let's take a look, shall we?