#mychibivoice

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#mychibivoice #inspiration #inspiredaily #thoughts #positive mental attitude #think positive #perspective

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#mychibivoice #motivation #check in #friendly reminder #note to self

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📷: unknown. This was posted by one of my friends. If this is your content please DM so I can credit. Thanks.

#mychibivoice #take care of yourself #self care #motivation

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#mychibivoice #take what you need #motivation #inspiration #positive mental health #think positive #positive reminders

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#mychibivoice #inspiration #inspiredaily #make me proud #note to self #positive reminders #gentle reminder #motivating quotes

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I don’t remember where I heard this but someone said something along the lines of “to the world you are one person, but to one person you are their world.” I relate to this on a romantic level because my husband is my person who means the world to me (although if you wanna talk about love in general, my immediate family is also included in this count 😅). But as I’m watching my friends and cousins have children the more I realize this applies to the first few months of childhood more than anything. If you’re lucky enough to have a child, you’re their entire world for the first few months or years of life! Mom and dad have to do everything for their little one. Their lives revolve around this tiny human who’s learning everything all at once. To the world mom and dad might be individuals going through the motions of life but to their little one they are their world. Thanks for letting us take over your world, Mom and Dad!

Original Post: 5/14/18

#mychibivoice #parenting #dear mom #dear dad #family #love #inspiredaily #thank you #gratitude #grateful

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#mychibivoice #be kind #hellokitty #sanrio #hello kitty #inspiredaily

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Archiving my contribution to the @thetenementmuseum #YourStoryOurStory exhibit —

My husband and I are children of immigrants. When we were planning our wedding we wanted to have the best of both worlds - an American style ceremony and reception and something traditional for a Chinese wedding. We decided to incorporate a tea ceremony into our reception to ground and humble ourselves on the day that is suppose to be "all about us", while showing our deep respect to our parents and grandparents.

During a wedding tea ceremony, the bride and groom serve tea to their grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, and older siblings. The family members drink the tea, share a blessing with the newlyweds, and bestow a gift onto them. Gifts are usually in the form of a pair of red envelopes with money inside or gold jewelry to symbolize good fortune.

The wedding tea ceremony is a significant way to show respect and gratitude to the newlywed's parents for all their years of love and care. The tea itself also symbolizes purity (belief that love is pure), stability (symbol of the faithful love between the couple), and fertility (the hope for many children to continue the family name).

#asian american #wedding #tea ceremony #mychibivoice

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#mychibivoice #motivating quotes #motivation #be proud #note to self #self love

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#mychibivoice #inspiredaily #inspiration #motivation #be kind #kindness

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Did anyone see Toy Story 4 yet? It made me cry... again. I loved the new toy Forky! Forky is a spork, a hybrid of a spoon and a fork. Part of the story is about Forky coming to terms with his identity and how he defines himself. Not that I think I’m trash that should be thrown away, I can relate to Forky. My Asian American identity and experience is much like being a spork like Forky. It’s silly; I know but hear me out. I’m Chinese. I’m American. To my very Chinese co-workers I’m INCREDIBLY American. I hate when people know I’m ABC (American Born Chinese) and ask if I can speak Chinese. I only know how to say food I like cause I don’t want to starve in Chinatown. I do understand a little more than that when people speak around me in Cantonese thanks to my one-year old level of understanding and a lot of inferencing. But when people tell me to “say something in Chinese” I get so self conscious cause I know I’m not saying it properly and I hate feeling like I’m a novel circus act. 9 out of 10 times the asker will say oh that’s good, laugh, say it correctly, make me repeat them, laugh some more, sometimes make me repeat it until I get it right and I just awkwardly stand there cause I STILL don’t know how to excuse myself from that kind of situation. If it’s a pain I can avoid, I will. To my American friends I’m pretty Chinese (I think my Chinese heritage is my foundation but I do like pop culture from Japan and Korea and it does have a place in my identity story). When it was cool to like JPOP, anime, and Asian snacks back in the day I was finally able to say “I already know that!”, “I know where to get that!”. It was bits of culture that I already knew that others were just learning. There are also some parts of Asian and Chinese cultures that are hard to explain or translate over to people who were mainly exposed to American culture, which made it hard fielding questions sometimes. But that’s ok! I’m Asian American, the best of both worlds and confused all at the same time. I wouldn’t say I want to run away from it but I’m learning what it means to own it. As Forky says “...I get it now!”

Original Post: 7/8/19

#mychibivoice #asian american #toy story 4 #toy story forky #identity #who am i

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I’m a New Yorker. I was born here, raised here, and I don’t want to leave. Being fast paced is in my blood! Just because I run at 1000 miles an hour, am frequently under deadlines, and have a lot on my mind doesn’t mean I should forget my manners when interacting with others. A simple “hello” or “good morning” before asking something of someone else shows that you took a second to think of the person on the other side of the conversation. I’m not one for small talk, especially when I’m busy, but saying “hi” before asking me what you’d like to know or starting the g-chat off with “good afternoon” before asking me for a favor makes a difference. Take a second to be considerate of the other person’s time because they are stopping what they are doing to listen to you. They are taking a second to (hopefully) help you with your request. Does this mean I want someone to suck up to me? Absolutely not. In fact, if you try to do this with me, it makes me want to help you less because you come off as insincere with your intentions. Being polite is like a small act of kindness that shows civility and consideration. It doesn’t take much time, maybe a little bit of effort, but that’s a small cost to pay for a small act of kindness during the day.

Original Post: 5/20/19

#mychibivoice #being polite #act of kindness #be kind #work life

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#mychibivoice #gratitude #grateful #inspiredaily #motivating quotes

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#mychibivoice #inspiredaily #motivating quotes #motivation #self love #selfworth

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We’ve been married for a year now and there are three big things that I’ve learned during our first year of marriage. I’m definitely not an expert but sharing our experiences might help those June Brides out there. As I say in my “Top Three”, advice should be taken as a grain of salt so please keep that in mind while reading 🙂

Don’t bring the marital baggage of others into your marriage - When we got engaged and every time someone asked us how’s marriage after we got married they would offer us some advice or a story from their marriage. Sometimes it’s a generally positive message about marriage and some sometimes it was a lesson the person wanted to pass down from their marriage. Passing down lessons is fine and dandy but if that person is shocked you have not faced similar hardships in your relationship yet and says “just you wait and see”, if you truly feel that the situation does not fit your relationship then don’t bring that fear into your relationship. Everyone’s relationship is different and advice should be taken as a grain of salt.

Talk to each other - You’re not mind readers; you have to tell each other what you’re feeling or what expectations you have of the other person. Yes, you could say that we’ve been together for so long that you should know me by now and should be able to anticipate my thoughts and actions but assumptions only make an ass of you and not of me. Say what’s on your mind, say what you need from your partner, and be open with each other. It’s better to talk through things when they’re small instead of bottling up a lot of little things that fester and pile on top of each other to become something big and ugly when you’re really upset.

We are a team - the best part of being married is having our happiness doubled and our hardships and sorrows shared. We’re great as individuals but we’re awesome as a team. When one of us is down the other picks them up. When a little extra faith is needed, the other one is right there to give that boost. Being married is like creating a new unit. Work together as a team 💪

Original Post: 6/4/18

#mychibivoice #marriage advice #wedding #june bride #life learning

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I work at a nonprofit organization that’s provides social services to immigrant and low income communities throughout NYC. When I talk with people not from the nonprofit sector they usually say something along the lines of “you don’t get paid enough to deal with all of this”, “you can do better”, “ you can get paid better if you did XYZ”. Yes, it’s all true. If I went into the private sector I could be paid better. My skills are flexible enough to fit many administrative positions but would my heart be in it? A friend once told me that a career or job usually has one or two of the following things - the salary you want, the time for you to do what you want or need to do in your personal life, and passion for what you do. It’s very rare to have all three. In fact, if you hit two out of three you should consider yourself to be very lucky. Even though I don’t make near what I should or could be making and my work-life balance is slightly out of wack; I am lucky enough to work in a place that has a passion and mission I can relate to. I’m happy that I can give everyone a foundation so they can do what they do everyday with little worry. This organization is filled with people who help people. I’m glad that our participants feel as if our program members are family. It makes me happy to know that I get to help the people who are helping people. Going into the nonprofit sector is not very popular or easy to understand especially with the older Asian generation. My parents wanted me to go into a good paying, stable career so they wouldn’t have to worry about me but instead I will have to rely on supplemental income when I start a family, there’s always a fear that we won’t have enough funding to keep everyone on board but to me those fears are worth it. I’m proud to know that we’re contributing to the APIA community in NYC.

Original Post: 5/28/18

#mychibivoice #career #career advice #work life #adulting