NEW Yoga Blog

To my loyal blog fans (all 1 or 2 of you), I'm here to announce my new Yoga blog, where I'll be presenting 1 yoga pose per day for 98 days. Whew. I don't think I'll be able to make it. But feel free to follow along with me as I try.

Mutants and Cows

I've been told that I don't post enough on my blog, so here's a little toe dipping back into the cold water. Check out this sci-fi-esque news article in the WSJ about how Chinese dairy scientists have found a way to make cows produce human breast milk.  I recently watched X-Men: First Class, which I thought was fantastic. For years, I've considered X-Men to be the best super hero series. "Mutant rights" represents all suppression-- gay right, holocaust, civil rights, the feminist movement.

They speak about the mutations as if it's evolution. The next step for mankind. And what feels real about these fantastical stories is that our technology is already there. If we can make a cow produce human milk, then can we make a human produce cow's milk?

How Sophocles Helps Our Soldiers Cope with War Trauma

I didn’t know what to expect when I went to the Theater of War at the Los Angeles Air Force base. Google maps had sent me to the wrong entrance, so by the time I found the conference hall, I was flustered, twenty-minutes late, and surrounded by hundreds of active soldiers dressed in camouflaged uniforms and high top leather boots. The room was bland in that Power Point way, with three large screens projecting close-ups of the actors reading. I thought I had walked into a military press conference.

Five actors, dressed in everyday attire, sat on an elevated platform with individual microphones. They read Sophocles’ play about the fierce warrior Ajax, who returns from the Trojan War, and attempts to kill his Greek generals, but instead, entranced by the Goddess Athena, slaughters farm animals. When his madness fades, his sorrow grows, and he kills himself dramatically on stage with his enemy’s sword.

Later I learned that the Theater of War has been praised by the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Pentagon gave $3.7 million dollars for the Theater of War to perform at 50 military sites. Noteworthy actors ranging form Jesse Eisenberg, Paul Giamatti to Tony-award winning Broadway stars have participated in these readings. When I attended, it was the Theater of War’s 132^nd performance.

I listened to the play, but couldn’t help but notice the soldiers next to me squirming. Some rested with their weight forward; others leaned back trying to get comfortable. They had been up since 5:00 in the morning and this mandatory Ancient Greek reading was in three acts and over an hour long. I’ve been to enough readings to know that any reading longer than fifteen minutes leads to minds’ wandering and that’s among volunteer participants. I wondered: would 2,500-year-old Ajax with his stylized speech and suicide by sword be relatable to soldiers returning from Iraq or Afghanistan?

The reading ended, the actors took their seats and five panelists came to the platform. Bryan Doerries, the creator and moderator, was dressed in a black suit and shiny shoes, looking more like a businessman than an academic. He is a writer, translator and Greek mythology nerd, who was educated at Kenyon College—a fact I found relevant as he moved around the room inspiring participation and asking challenging questions. It was easy to imagine him as a Liberal Arts College’s favorite professor, who asked questions that provoked self-discovery and had no wrong answers.

He asked his first question: Why do you think Sophocles, an elected General, wrote and produced this play to be performed in front of 1,700 soldiers after 80 years of war?

The audience was momentarily silent. The question was a meta-question for any answer that explained Sophocles’ intentions also explained Doerries’. One soldier stood up and said that Sophocles wanted to shed light to the psychological traumas of war. Then another soldier said that when you hear about an awful story, it’s hard to relate to; only when you see it with your own eyes does it really effects you.

As Doerries’ questions flowed, people began connecting Ajax’s story to their own. We heard about: An officer who felt responsible that two men in his division committed suicide; a soldier who returned from the Vietnam War and had thoughts of taking his own life; a housewife who confessed that every car that drove up to her curb filled her with the fear of receiving bad news.

Something magical overtook the room during our discussion of Ajax. Somehow Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was easier to talk about through the lens of a Greek tragedy. Sophocles wrote the story of Ajax to de-stigmatize PTSD, and used performance and theater as a form of catharsis. Through this reading, held in a similar way 2,500 years later, Doerries suggests that war trauma is timeless and global. If Ajax went mad returning home from war, then there should be no shame in it occurring to our soldiers today.

In the last year, suicide in the Army National Guard has doubled. Doubled. There is nothing hopeful about this statistic. The military has increased their focus on mental health, but it will always be a challenge for soldiers, whose job is to be tough, to admit they have a problem.

When the clock struck noon, a woman stood at the podium and with complete formality said, “This concludes your presentation of Theater of War.” I had nearly forgotten that I had attended a two and half hour mandatory Air Force presentation. Soldiers picked up their hats and exited towards the cafeteria, and as the room gradually emptied, I had the urge to talk to more soldier. I wanted to hug them, tell them that I respect them, listen to their dark stories, thank them for serving our country, and cry if they needed someone to cry with. But just as the open conversation had formed, it was over and people went stoically back to their business.

Sophocles figured out a way to make notoriously tough military men open up about their feelings. He wrote plays that revealed truths that mirrors could not reflect. And what absolutely amazes and humbles me is that 2,500 years later, through Doerries, Sophocles is still healing. Theater isn’t just for entertainment, but also for group therapy.

Aloha and Aloha

I didn't blog or update my Facebook status during my 6 days in Oahu and 6 days in Maui, but credit my lack of computer-internet time due to the fact that I was busy exploring. My partner in crime, T-squared (name respectfully removed) was the kind of guy who wrote long lists of activities on a yellow legal pad, and checked each adventure off once they were completed. This method of traveling, which was new to me, the girl who used to travel with one-way tickets only, resulted in getting a ton of stuff done.

Here are some of the highlights:

* Surfing

* Snorkeling
* Hiking

* Maui Gold Pineapple (delicious!)

CY, the Dangerous Criminal

I’ll be the first to admit: I made a mistake. I, Chellis Ying, confess that at 21:13 on January 20, 2010 at Wilshire and Sepulveda, I ran a red light. It was raining, I just had dinner with my cousin—I had a million things on my mind. And while it was happening, I said, “Oh crap, I just ran a red light.” Then I saw the flashing lights of a camera, and said, “Oh crap, they have me on film! Crap, crap crap!” (Please replace crap with language not suitable for children.)

I assumed that the ticket would be $150 or $200. Times are tough financially, on a global and personal level, and although mad I was willing to pay $200 without complaint for my momentary lapse in judgment. But then I got the ticket and discovered that running a red light costs $446. Did you hear me? I said, FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX DOLLARS. Dear Lord, crap, that’s a lot of money. I could’ve donated that to Haiti and saved lives. Or bought myself a ticket to Hong Kong to see my aging grandmother.

When I discovered how expensive my mistake would cost me, I began to make a very unsexy sound that was a cross between a grunt and a whine. My companion, during this crisis, told me that I should never make that noise again, because it sounded a lot like I was attempting to take a crap. But I couldn’t help it. I was stressed. $446 is a lot to pay for running a red light.

Since the incident, I have researched my options—traffic school, contesting, volunteering, etc. I studied the pictures closely in hopes that the photos couldn’t identify me. But it does. I wondered if I could use the “it’s raining and I fishtailed” excuse. But the HD photos show that the road wasn’t that slick. I thought about pleading to the judge for a reduced fine, because of the recession, insufficient funds and/or female-related emotional/mental problems, but most likely, my sacrifice in dignity won’t be advantageous. (California is one money-hungry, broke State.)

It’s looking like the least stressful option is to just pay it. So, that is what I am going to do: frickin’ pay it. But I’m not giving up $446 without shedding some humor on the situation. So, here I go laughing my way through sighing this stupid check: hahahahahaha…HA!

And...the photos are pretty funny. Those automatic cameras expertly captured raw emotions. If a picture can be worth a thousand words, then it makes these photos quite the bargain.

New publication: "Blue and Maroon"

My short-story "Blue and Maroon" was a runner up in the Our Stories' Richard Bausch Fiction contest. "Blue and Maroon" is about a down-on-her-luck seamstress, who communicates her affections/obsessions through sewing. Our Stories editor Alexis E Santi describes, "It's truly wonderful, odd, quirky and powerful." Quirky is a good way to describe the story because this was my first time writing from the perspective of a stalkerish protagonist. Turns out that I have a knack for it. But don't read between the lines, because it's fiction, kids, fiction.

Yo, 2010, What’s Your Deal?

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged last, and much of that has to do with being in a rut. Yes, a rut. If you are reading this and judging, then you probably think that ruts don’t happen to you. And if that’s the case, then you’re a genius. Please write a self-help book on Ways to a Rut Proof Life. I’ll buy it, write adoring comments on Amazon, and be forever thankful for my new super efficient life of publishing book after book of awesome stories.

But since you haven’t written this book, (what are you in a rut?) I was left unprotected from my latest speed bump. I hate to use the term “writer’s block,” because not writing isn’t deserving of a name. I had put myself out there with my memoir, The Nerve, and I was rejected. Hard. It’s a common story: writer receives rejections, gives up. Except the problem here was that I was falsely positive, denying that I had been affected by the feedback. When a writer doesn’t write, life sucks and for a few months my life hadn’t been sucking. Time passed with smiles and laughs—new relationship, mini-adventures, steady yoga practice, greats books to read, and then boom! Where did my writing go? I was suddenly sad and didn’t know what hit me.

Blaming the recession may be “so 2009,” but allow me to make an association since we’re only a few days into 2010: I blame the recession. Qualified people, who are unemployed, either turn lazy or become more resilient, and, in my case, a mixture of both. My finances went down, but so did my expenses. I started working at a yoga studio for classes, negotiated my rent with my landlord, ate meals at home, checked out books at the library, and restrained from buying a new pair of shoes all year. I began, to my surprise, find comfort in using my limitations as an excuse.

Last year, I met a hipster, who said she was “too poor to travel.” She claimed to be too poor to take the BART to San Francisco, too poor to go back to college, too poor to drink socially, too poor to volunteer in a soup kitchen. She was so passionately poor that I wondered if she did anything at all. And this got me thinking: the world is a scarier place when you’re aware of all your options.
My personal recession had less to do with finances and more to do with a recession of confidence. What’s the point in writing when nobody will publish my book? And that’s when I became just like the passionately poor hipster. I hid behind my excuses and allowed them to create tighter boundaries around my world.

But screw all that. I don’t have a reason for this turn around, but it hit me on new years. Time to give up again, but this time on my rut.

(This picture has nothing to do with this blog, but isn't my niece cute?)