Yan grew up in Guangzhou, China and moved to Hong Kong on his own at the age of thirteen. He began his career as a cook at a family friend’s restaurant where he learned the method of siu mei, or Cantonese style barbecue…
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It was an unusually humid evening when I decided to walk over to the meeting about twenty blocks away. An expanse of unfriendly thunderheads were overhead that forced me to quicken my pace…
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His advice reminded me of another Eckhart Tolle quote, “There are two ways of being unhappy. Not getting what you want is one. Getting what you want is the other…
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The next day, I changed the furniture around to feng shui the place and to, let’s be honest, make it feel a bit like mine since I’ll be here for the next two months…
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I attempted to visit Kerouac’s house last week while I was in Saint Petersburg. I hopped on one of those electric scooters near my hotel and mapped out my itinerary…
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Two nights ago, we took my niece for a walk in a nearby park. At its entrance, there was a small pond that I eyed suspiciously and nervously for alligators…
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On top of it all, my shoes for the past few weeks have been on the decline and were in such a state of disrepair that it was becoming absurd to even call them shoes…
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On one of the first evenings, I spoke with an old monastery friend over a few cups of sake. She had been ordained in the last couple of years and beyond her shaved head, there was a noticeable change about her…
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In 1911, twelve years after the consolidation, Charles Underhill Powell, former chief engineer of the Queens Topographical Bureau, set out to rename the streets to eliminate confusion…
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The door behind us shut violently. To make up for the noise, we descended the stairs quietly in her apartment building. The streets of Astoria were dimly lit and fairly quiet with occasional sirens and cyclists playing music through bluetooth speakers…
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The evening fizzled out as it always does and in the morning, I went for a stroll to investigate the Parque Amigos de José Martí, the only property that has been continuously owned by Cuba since the 1950’s…
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In the morning, I was feeling stifled from an unidentifiable source. Maybe it was the heat, the booze, or just the usual and persistent existential dread…
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The stretch of highway between Saint Petersburg and Palmetto is flanked by fat fisherman, pickup trucks, American flags, and aquatic birds dropping into an endless stretch of green ocean…
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Just why is this town covered in chickens? I walked by Centennial Park to Federation Coffee just off E 8th Ave in Ybor City, Tampa this morning past probably two dozen roosters and hens….
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Thankfully, and I rarely think of it this way, I had a dozen seizures. Not all at once or anything but over the next decade…
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And then at 8am yesterday, I pulled a man out of a wrecked pickup truck. I had been on my morning walk with coffee in hand (maybe I need a new routine)…
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I dreamt last night that I was Scully (you know, from the ancient show X-Files) and had to exhume the remains of a vampire that was buried in an abandoned mine in Nevada…
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I’m coughing from the turmeric powder stuck in my throat from a chai latte from Harken Cafe in the French Quarter in Charleston, South Carolina…
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There was a man, hungover or drunk, on his bike on King Street in Charleston this morning that looked at me with recognition…
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One thing I miss most about my previous apartment is the Hello Tushy. There’s nothing quite like a clean bum. Now, and on the road, I’m forced to use toilet paper…
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