Month of May Photo Challenge Day 13: Primary Colors - Red, Blue, Yellow

Mini merry-go-round cart in Great Mall, Milpitas.

Aside from inside malls and certain shops, I don't see a lot of these around anymore. It used to be there was one outside grocery stores or strip malls, especially at retailers like K-Mart or old five-and-dimes like Newberry. I was blown away by the merry-go-round I saw the first time I went to Great America; it was gigantic, and each horse or carriage was so ornate with colors and details. But the mechanical horses I more often rode were outside those old stores; as my mom was wrapping up her shopping and in the cashier line, my dad would often walk me to the ride outside, let me climb on, fish out a quarter that had been jingling against the other change in his pocket, and insert it into the coin feed. Whimsical music to the tune of "William Tell" would play, and the horse bucked in place to a rhythmic cadence. For a brief couple of minutes, I was a cowgirl riding across the Wild West plains, or a princess soaring the skies on her trusted unicorn.

My dad could do wonders with his pocket of change; sometimes he'd feed 50 cents into one of those claw cranes filled with plush toys and a mechanical arm you'd control by a joystick to grab an item with two tries or before time ran out. He'd gauge whether the toys in a particular claw crane's cabinet were stuffed too tightly, thereby minimizing your chance of success, something that he called "cheating" on the retailer's behalf. He'd spend no more than a dollar on two tries, and more often than not, he'd win me a prize that would become part of my massive collection of stuffed animals.

At the mall, I watched a Hispanic family gaze at their toddler, who was riding the little doggie carriage merry-go-round, bright with primary colors. It spun in a slow orbit with repetitive tooney music, a ride kids nowadays may consider boring with all the new technology available to have fun. I wondered what was going on in the toddler's head, whether his imagination had developed yet, and thought back to a time when a couple of quarters got me to look up to my dad as my hero and allowed me to ride a horse among the clouds.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 12: Poor

These Lunar New Year red envelopes remind me of a time when I felt both the richest and the poorest in my life. My immigrant parents always worked hard to carve out a living for our family, and there was never spare money for the concept of an "allowance." We children were expected to help out with chores and everything else we can, and our payment was food and often hand-me-down clothes. If you were the older ones, you were expected to look after your younger siblings.

The exception was Tet, the Lunar New Year, where children would receive lucky red envelopes from their parents and relatives, a once-a-year allowance that most of us treasured and saved. I always liked to spend mine on book orders from Scholastic and Troll, bookworm that I was, but I always put aside most of my money for a rainy day and, even at a young age, for when I needed to go to college.
One day, someone broke into the duplex my parents were renting in the seedier side of town, and the thieves made out with our tube TV, along with my entire stash of red envelopes saved across the years and hidden in my sock drawer. I remember counting the money after the three days of Tet and being proud of how well I had saved, how my money was growing, and how it was all gone in an instant through no fault of mine.

These days I give red envelopes to my siblings, nieces, and nephews; we have alarms, gates, dogs, safes, and banks guarding our valuables, so maybe they'll never have to experience the injustice of being robbed of everything they have. But like anything else in life, it is a lesson, and for me, it is the value of saving money, and the resilience it takes to have lost everything, and to build it from the ground up again.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 11: Take a Picture of What You’re Doing at Noon

Every Monday at noon, my company employs an English teacher to come and teach our coworkers visiting from China about English vocabulary and culture. I sat in on today's lesson, which was on dining experiences at a casual vs formal restaurant, as well as a fun lesson on the American bar scene. Despite having English fluency, I still learned something new, like what "sous-vide" and "getting 86'ed" means.

I started Kindergarten not speaking a word of English, and I remember the day I officially "graduated" from ESL classes to the regular English curriculum a few years into school. Students were tested on their vocabulary by being shown picture flash cards and asked to name the object, and the item that got me out was "eggbeater."

The English language is full of borrowed vocabulary from different roots; sometimes the rules of pronunciation makes no sense. I could've excelled at something like math, nestling in the constancy and reliability of numbers. But it was English that I fell in love with, the subject on which I base my current hobby (creative writing) and trade (technical writing). All because I knew what an eggbeater was.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 10: Architecture – Windows, Buildings, Cornerstones

I love how the illumination on the left side of this building taper upward at this photo angle; the slightly concave structure makes for some sleek lines.

Having grown up in one-story houses in San Jose, I've gotten used to being at ground level, but one striking thing about big cities and countries with limited land is how living accommodations are built up. Many houses in Viet Nam are multi-story complexes complete with spiral staircases made of smooth hardwood or marble. Some classier houses even have elevators in them, and families would often live on the higher floors and use the ground-level floor for their businesses or trade.

When my husband was young, he'd pull crazy stunts like jumping across rooftops or climbing along narrow decorative ledges on the outside of buildings. This is what happens if you don't have a TV. Once, his life was saved by a meager clothesline hung between buildings. Sometimes I'm amazed that with all the shenanigans of his youth, he lived to marry me.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 9: Unique Composition Day

For today's challenge, I put together a collage of water's many forms. The central swirl of water is the focal point that expands outward. From the top and going clockwise: condensation (clouds), ice, boiling water, and glacial (snow).

Water has been my favorite subject to photograph so far; though California is in a drought, I could find water everywhere, used as decor and entertainment in the most creative ways, from aquariums to waterfalls to fountains. Vegas's Bellagio has its famous water fountain and light show to the rhythm of music. In the Miracle Mile mall on the strip, a rainstorm experience is created every hour, complete with sound effects and flashes of lightning. Sitting in Caesar's Palace, the clouds overhead change colors to mimic the quick passage of a day within a few hours.

Lake Mead in Nevada, which also provides water to California, has run dangerously low this year. Remember that huge, sweet soaking tub in my Vegas hotel room? In honor of drought awareness, we never used it for the duration of our stay. Here's to water, and the conscientious effort to save one of earth's most precious resources.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 8: Editing Day Challenge

Took this shot in The M&M Store along the Vegas strip. Editing apps used:

• iPhone: Cropping.
• InstaCollage: Side-by-side Before/After collage.
• Color Effects: B/W + Color photo highlights.
• Font Candy: Caption fonts on individual Before/After photos.
• Perfect 365: Adding makeup, facial contour, blemish correction, skin softening (some photo resolution lost with this app cuz I'm too cheap to buy the paid version for this editing challenge).

Fun fact: My mom thinks getting my freckles removed will solve all my beauty problems. Freckles are never cute or endearing--they are considered blemishes. Moles especially can be bearers of bad omens, depending on their location. In Vietnamese superstition, they suggest a vice of excess: a mole near your mouth means you are fond of your food and eat a lot. A mole near your eye means you are destined for a life of woe as you will cry a lot. I used to have a mole below my right eye. You can see it in my childhood photos. Though I never asked him to, my dad took me to a cosmetologist to get it removed. Somehow, I don't think photo editing software for blemish removal would've cut it with my folks. I've had a relatively happy life so far. Thanks, Dad?

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 7: Footwear

Blingy heels from Giuseppe Zanott. Let's be real--I'd die within ten minutes of wearing heels this high. Maybe even five. I've always been a flat-shoes/sneakers kind of gal. Never been in love with shoe shopping. Usually I despise it, in fact--taking them off, trying them on, walking a few paces to assess fit and comfort level.

Here is a fun fact: during a staged martial arts demo for my wedding, I changed from my high heels into slippers. To me, foot pain is one of the worst pains to endure due to all the nerve endings in the feet. I can't imagine that human beings could think up a torture like foot binding and pass it off as a sign of desirability and beauty. In actuality, it is to confine a wife from wandering very far, making her steps slow, small, and measured as she tries to balance on deformed feet and broken toes.
Sometimes I think that the discomfort of wearing heels is not far off, with all the pressure pushing on the toes. It makes me glad to be in a land and time where I can select footwear of my choice: sneakers, slippers, or barefoot and free of confines.