This is the LAST cafe post from my epic spring break 2016 cafe crawl. Yeah I’ve been pretty lax about getting these posts out in real-time, but I figured it didn’t really matter, because cafes are perfect all-year-round. Don’t worry, there are definitely more cafe posts to come.
This cafe first caught my eye because Bi Fu is the name of one of my classmates (not those characters though). Then my mom told me that that was her friend’s cafe and that there was also a design store upstairs linked to the cafe. (By design she meant fashion design, like, a clothing store, though at first I thought she meant interior design.)
In elementary school, I had a friend whose mom had her own tea company, and we’d often go over to her house for tea parties. I remember piles of scones and soaking my black tea with milk and three cubes of sugar. Over winter break, my mom took me to have a little tea party of our own at The English Tearoom.
If I don’t wuss out, tonight I’ll be attending Lokal’s launch party! (Check out my blog post on Lokal Hotel if you missed it earlier this week.) Life has been nonstop ever since I joined PHLbloggers. I attended a work session and met two PHLblogger veterans and three other new PHLbloggers. I shot with Priyanka, Sarah, Kelsey, and Khoi. I ventured around the city for shoot locations. I got a glimpse of Lokal Hotel before opening and got to shoot in their space, which is what’s bringing me to their launch party. I’ve never been to a launch party before so I’m not sure what to expect. I suppose I’ll get to see the finished space, walk around, look at things, talk to some people if I’m brave. Nervous! Excited!
Lokal Hotel is launching on April 1, but I got a chance to peek inside before then! Ethan (from Lokal) set up a morning shoot for me and Khoi. In between getting style shots for Khoi, I also snuck in a few photos for myself. I couldn’t help it; the interior by Jersey Ice Cream Co was too beautiful!
– today’s guest post coming from my awesome roomie Kat, featuring her photos –
“What do you mean you’re studying computer science? I thought, for sure, you would be studying musical theatre or drama.” This is the response I most often get when I tell people from my hometown that I’m studying computer science. And with good reason. During the majority of my teen years, the place you would most likely find me in would be a music room or a dance studio or an auditorium. I trained as a “triple threat” in singing, dancing, and acting, participated in Broadway workshops, spent my free time, non-rehearsal time writing correspondence for boutique theatre websites, and living and breathing theatre on Broadway.
And then, I left it all, gradually and then all at once.
When people ask me what happened, I usually tell them that I find the same rush of theatre from solving an algorithm, that computer science allows me to pursue creativity in the same way and still gives me a stake in creating the world that I want to live in. And this is true, but also false. The truth is that I would’ve pursued theatre and I could’ve pursued theatre, but I was afraid. Not simply because the majority of actors ending up in food services, or because I had doubts in my sensibilities and abilities as an actor (though I did). I doubted that with my skin color and with my eyes, I had the bravery to pursue something which I really, truly enjoyed and loved.
I’m Asian American. There aren’t many Asian American actors on screen, certainly not ones who look like me. And yet, this decision of mine still haunts me: did I believe that I wasn’t good enough because there was no one who looked like me on the big screen or small screen? Did I lack role models who could show me that being Asian or being Asian American is okay and something that should be celebrated? Is it because there has only been one woman of Asian descent ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress? Or did I genuinely believe that I wasn’t good enough? I still could not tell you. But through my guilt I have found ways to be supportive of Asian Americans and Asians in entertainment, ways that I will share with you: