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Healing.

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Homemade Bookshelves Constructed From Real Oak Resemble Trees by Dan Lee

Owner and artist behind BespOak Interiors, Dan Lee first began making bookshelves, which resemble the architecture of trees after browsing through design ideas online and coming up with the solution to creating furniture for his living room.

Composed of oak, yew, danish oil, liming wax and other tree parts, Lee’s furniture pieces contains a rustic, yet eloquent sensibility. The curved shelves, which resemble the beauty of tree branches, are curved from tip to finish to give a “real tree” effect.

Overall Lee chooses to use oak, which is locally supplied, in all his designs to maintain an earthy balance. He aims to provide a functional storage system, which is both conceptually and physically beautiful. You can find his entire furniture collection in his Etsy shop. 

View similar posts here!

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One.

When I was younger I was told that in the end, You are all you got. And then I grew up, Watched the world pass me by and Let it break my heart. Now that I'm older, I am more careful as I Pick up the pieces. #latenightthoughts #olderme

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Love is a two-way street. So meet me at the halfway point, underneath our favourite apple tree in the orchard near that yogurt shop your mom likes. Or don’t. Whatever you decide to do, don’t fumble in your stride. But know that I won’t be waiting for you forever.

Love is a game of timing. // lily rose. (via alohalilyrose)

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‘Wow,’ Charlotte says, ‘This is interesting,’ which is a cue to stop but I could keep going forever, listing all my flaws in order from the most innocuous to the least. I am afraid of spiders…I fall in love way too easily…I have fierce spells of self-doubt. Because in the conversation beneath this one, what we’re really saying is I am an imperfect person. Here are my failures. Do you want me anyway?

Nina LaCour, Everything Leads to You (via quoted-books)

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You have to understand that when it hurt to love her, it hurt the way the light hurts your eyes in the middle of the night, but I had to see.

(via phongy)

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Alyssa

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“We are fighting and dying in a war that is not very popular in the first place,”Lieutenant Eddie Kitchen, a 33-year-old African-American stationed in Vietnam, wrote to his mother in Chicago in late February 1968, “and we still have some people who are still fighting the Civil War.” Kitchen, who had been in the military since 1955, reported a rapid proliferation of Confederate flags, mounted on jeeps and flying over some bases. “The Negroes here are afraid and cannot do anything,” Kitchen added. Two weeks later he was dead, officially listed as “killed in action.” His mother believed that he had been murdered by white soldiers in retaliation for objecting to the flag.

Kitchen’s was one of many such complaints, as the polarization tearing through domestic politics in the United States, along with the symbols of white supremacy—not just the Confederate flag but the burning cross, the Klan robe and hood, and racist slurs—spilled into Vietnam. As early as Christmas Day 1965, a number of white soldiers paraded in front of the audience of conservative comedian Bob Hope’s USO show at Bien Hoa Air Base. “After they were seated,” wrote an African-American soldier protesting the display, “several officers and NCOs were seen posing and taking pictures under the flag. I felt like an outsider.” An African-American newspaper, the Chicago Defender,reported that Southern whites were “infecting” Vietnamese with their racism. “The Confederate flags seem more popular in Vietnam than the flags of several countries,” the paper wrote, judging by the “display of flags for sale on a Saigon street corner.”

Black soldiers who pushed back against such Dixie-ism were subject to insult and abuse. Some were thrown in the stockade. When Private First Class Danny Frazier complained of the “damn flag” flown by Alabama soldiers in his barracks to his superior officers, he was ordered to do demeaning work and then demoted.

Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in early April 1968 and American military bases throughout South Vietnam lowered their flags to half-mast. In some places, such as the Cam Ranh Naval Base, however, white soldiers celebrated by raising the Confederate flag and burning crosses. Following King’s murder, the Department of Defense tried to ban the Confederate flag. “Race is our most serious international problem,” a Pentagon representative said. But Dixiecrat politicians, who controlled the votes President Lyndon Johnson needed to fund the war, objected and the Pentagon backpedaled. Instead of enforcing the ban, it turned to sensitivity training. The Confederate flag, a black military instructor told a class of black and white soldiers at Fort Dix, does not necessarily “mean a man belongs to the Ku Klux Klan.”

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My dear friend Phong shared a lovely story that I'm sure many Vietnamese Americans can relate to. This one hits home. <3

Rough Hands

“At the end of the day family is all you’ll have,” says my father through a mouth full of fried fish and rice. This wouldn’t be the last time I’d hear him say these words. These conversations where he’d share little nuggets of wisdom always started at the dinner table and would be prefaced with “son, come sit and eat with your father.” His words were always met with resistance throughout the years. As a child I’d stall with “wait let me save my game after this Pokémon battle.” When I became a teenage I’d escape with “sorry dad I’m going to eat out with my friends.” Even as an adult in college I’d counter with “I need to go study.” As a mature adult now, I am ashamed of my past behavior and instead find myself asking my father to come eat with me so I can hear a little more about his past life in hopes of uncovering more of these golden nuggets.

40 years ago the city known as Saigon fell under the communist regime. They called it reunification, we called it “ngày mất nước.” The day we lost the country. My father was a young adult when Saigon was no more, in its wake stood Ho Chi Minh City. Even today both of my parents identify the city as Saigon to pay homage to an ideal they would never let go of. I will never truly understand my father’s motivation and thought process when it came to fleeing his homeland. I can only come to appreciate what it meant for my sister and I. When I was ten, I took my first trip to Vietnam with my entire family. Culture shock hit me hard even as a child, I couldn’t wrap my head around their living conditions. No refrigerators? No source of clean water? No toilets? No air conditioning? How is it possible for people to still live under these conditions when it was readily available in the comfort of my western world view? My fragile perspective was subtly cracked and continued to do so as the my own people became the subject of our studies in high school. Ideally, communism sounded like a great idea. Common ownership meant everyone shared the wealth, social class would be no more, everyone would be on the same playing field. In reality the general population is living equally, equally in squalor. Social class is stretched to the extremes with hardly any middle ground, surely not what communist supporters even hoped for. Today Vietnam is in better shape, but I can’t help but wonder what it could potentially be if they were given the same rights we were. 

The realization of my father’s mental anguish at the deterioration of his beloved country still troubles me today. Every April 30th I try to put myself in my father’s shoes. I try to understand my father’s emotional struggle through his painful decision of abandoning the family that meant everything to him. I try to understand the fear my father felt as he snuck away with his little brother in the dead of night. I try to understand the psychological fortitude it took as a boat person to survive the harsh waters of the pacific ocean with nothing to his name. I like to believe that you can’t experience the highest highs until you’ve seen the lowest lows. Out of this troubling experience my father met the beautiful woman that is my mother. Bless her soul, for her journey was no simpler than his. In leaving his family he was able to begin a new one with the added freedoms he yearned for as a young adult now imparted on his two children.

I’ve since asked my father, given the opportunity, if he’d return to live in his motherland. My question has been met with a resounding no, as much as he misses home it’s but a distant memory to him. He’s expressed interest in being buried next to the family he started with, but as a mortal he wishes to stay here. Home is where the family he started resides. Today I can only admire the strength he has shown in raising two children in unfamiliar territory. Growing up I struggled defining what home meant to me. I felt like a foreigner in America because I was raised differently. I felt like a foreigner in Vietnam because I was raised differently. Today I’ve come to the same conclusion as my father. Along with my kin, the friends that I’ve had the pleasure of calling family is where my home is. Home is not a physical but emotional attachment. At the end of the day when I am stripped of my worldly possessions, all I have is my family. 

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I begin this post hesitant and a little scared. Wait, me? Scared? I know I flaunt how I’m a fierce and fearless feminist online, especially here and on Angry Asian Girls United, but I’m hoping most of you realize there’s a human behind this blog. I haven’t been very active in the past few months,...

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broken english

when my mother struggles to spell a word in english I want to break the entire language into little pieces so the edges of these letters will stop cutting her — aysha via Diaspora Defiance (via decolonizehistory)

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Winter longings.

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UVSA Midwest Leadership Summit (formerly known as Retreat) Changed My Life

And no, I'm not exaggerating. 

In a previous post about my life's journey, I mentioned the impact that UVSA Midwest has made on my life, specifically the Leadership Retreat in 2009 (?) at Northwestern University. This was my first UVSA Midwest experience and it gave me a whole new perspective on VSAs, student organizations, and Vietnamese people. 

I am writing this because I want to share my experiences and how different my life has been since this event. I hope that this will resonate with many of you and inspire you all to take the first step in attending the 7th Annual Leadership Summit (shameless plug, but forreal tho). 

I remember stepping into a small, white, old-fashioned apartment on the first night before day of Retreat where the first Executive Board of UVSA Midwest was staying. I didn't know anyone except three people, and yes, I was intimidated cause they all looked hella mean (and they looked at me funny). I got to see what they were working on, their interaction with each other, and it was all really interesting to me because I had never been in an environment like that before. They were professional when working on Retreat things but also super cool and funny (only some). i was excited to learn about what UVSA Midwest had to offer, but not fully interested at the same time because I didn't know what to expect, after all, I was only a freshmen in college and completely new to the VSA thing. [These mean/cool/funny people are still my friends today =)]. 

The day of Retreat was a little overwhelming for me. I walked into a small auditorium filled with Vietnamese people I didn't know, all from different universities around the Midwest. What do I remember? Playing that stupid survival game, sharing stories about our VSAs, talking about Leadership and what it means for VSAs, and more story telling (honestly, I don't remember most of the workshops). The most important thing I remember, though, was meeting new people. Of all the crucial things I could've learned to use for VSAs, what I felt was important was the people. I had never seen so many passionate, young, Vietnamese Americans, inspired to better their VSAs and communities. In my own words, they actually gave a shit about being Vietnamese. I grew up not having many friends, let alone Vietnamese friends. I was fluent in the language, but would never speak it publicly. People looked at me like I was an alien, and I was an outsider 80% of the time. But here, I didn't feel this way. I met people who are so passionate about building leaders in the Vietnamese community that it inspired me to get more involved. The amazing part was, everyone was a student! For the first time, I believed that people can really make a difference by coming together for a common purpose. We can take the things we learn from these Retreats/Summit and make the best of it, with each other, with people who share the same values and passion about creating a strong community. That was what I took away from this entire thing. I can also say that most of my best friends I met through this one event. Life changing right? 

Well, I hope that everyone who attends UVSA Midwest's events will experience this life changing effect. It really is inspirational, but don't let that high go to waste. Use it to fuel your passion so that you can make a difference in your community (sorry it sounds cliche, but so true). 

So do it... register for the 7th Annual Leadership Summit today. 

Regular registration: October 7th – 21st, $25.00 

Late registration: October 21st – 28th, $35.00  

To register: http://uvsamidwest.org/leadership/ 

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I am a Vietnamese American womyn of immigrant parents and this is my truth: My single mother came to America knowing no English, was bullied every day, and dropped out of high school, but managed to work three jobs to raise me. My grandma was impregnated by two frenchmen and one american man in the early 90s. They left her to raise the children on her own. My aunt was a prostitute in Vietnam because our family was too poor and my grandma had to raise 7 children by herself. I am surrounded by strong single womyn who have made it on their own, through endless hardships. Miss Saigon lies about the reality of a Vietnamese womyn living in Vietnam and America. Miss Saigon lies about the struggle of a Vietnamese womyn. Miss Saigon lies about my grandmother’s pain, my aunt’s pain, my mother’s pain, my pain. 

 - Jessica

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Happy.

Our hands brushed against each other about 50 times before you finally intertwined your fingertips between mine. I smiled and looked down, trying to hide it, but not really. And I still remember what that feels like. 

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In old photographs, my mother is beautiful. I wonder why I do not look more like her. “A girl like her father will be rich for three generations.” Her skin taut, her hair jet black and smooth, her eyes are not tired. I sift through the only album containing her youth – it is barely a quarter of...

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A few steps towards finding love... for yourself.

In the midst of my time of reflection and self-discovery (as cliche as it sounds), I stumble upon various interesting reads that have helped guide me in the (hopefully) right direction.