Borderless Culture™ Life & Style: January 2012

1.15.2012

Going Back to Hong Kong

I honestly don't remember the last time I was in Hong Kong. I should really given that it is the city where I was born, took my first steps.... It was the city, where, I first started to realize, that I was my own person and not just an extension of my parents. It was where I started to develop my own identity. The lessons I learned and the ideas I formed then have influenced the person I am today.

My grandaunt, whom I adore and cherish, who holds a very special place in my heart, still lives in Hong Kong. And so this year, I have decided it is time to return (at least for a visit). This video below, which I saw today, has made me want to hasten the time to the visit that much more.

[ Homeland ] - with my DIY motion-dolly from Asa Li on Vimeo.

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If you're happy and you know it....

So it seems that researchers from Harvard Medical School (Nicholas Christakis) and UC San Diego (James Fowler) after studying close to 40 years of data concluded that when an individual becomes happier, there is a strong likelihood that a friend living within a mile experiences 25% increased chance of happiness. A spouse has an 8% chance to be more happy and a sibling who lives within one mile a 14% chance; and your next door neighbor 34% chance of greater happiness. There are however, a time and geographical constraints. The effect of someone else's happiness on your mood last less than a year. And of course the closer your happy friends are, the more likely you will reap the benefits of increased happiness levels.

Interestingly enough, unhappiness and sadness does not spread the same way.

Reliving the Best Part of my Childhood in Japan through Grilled Food

Since leaving Tokyo 20 years ago, there were foods I relished as a child that I thought I would never find again despite desperate attempts to do so. It wasn't that the food was so gourmet, in fact it was quite pedestrian. The grilled chicken or beef on a stick could all be bought at a tiny stall not far from our apartment in Tokyo. There were no room for seats. Our food came in crisp white paper bags and we would eat the warm flavorful pieces of meat while walking back home. Then there was the time we were on Mt. Fuji, freezing, surrounded by snow and the warm salty smokey smell of grilled corn wafted into our nostrils. I had never eaten corn so sweet yet savory. Since moving to North America, I have searched and searched but the flavors were just never quite right. They just weren't the same - until tonight. Nanbankan is hands down the best yakitori restaurant I have gone to outside Japan. And when I sank my teeth into that charcoal grilled chicken and that grilled corn I was eleven again.