Mission Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

"Shit! I have less than 2 weeks to become an artist," I said to my friends before E.A.S.T. (my first East Austin Studio Tour).  The henna peacock bag idea was conceived one cool night in Austin. I was chillin' in the backyard, drinkin' a Lonestar with my inspiring artist friend and talkin' shop. He started a women's clothing line Darkeyes Clothing where his drawings are silkscreened on shirts and dresses. We put 2 and 2 together and decided I could draw a henna design to silkscreen on canvas bags. Actually, I had the bag idea sitting on my entrepreneurial bookshelf 3 years ago when I was living in a fully-equipped 32-footer 1982 Southwind Winnebago in Arlington, Texas, and working as a Program Coordinator for the Student Conservation Association. I was feeling really green and environmentally friendly at the time and that was when I started using the reusable bags for grocery shopping. I was also still under the influence of the German way because I had just come directly from living in a small German town outside the Ramstein Airforce Base. If you've travelled to Germany, you would immediately notice that the Germans are very environmentally conscious and progressive. At all central shopping areas, you will find several large bins for recycling paper, plastic, and different colored glass bottles. At grocery stores, you don't get plastic bags and they don't pack your groceries for you either. They all use reusable bags. It's totally part of their culture and it's called the Green Dot (Der Gruene Punkt). I remember the first time I was living in Germany in 2000 and went to the market in Hamburg. I panicked when I realized I didn't have a reusable bag to put my groceries in. "How the hell am I going to carry my groceries," I thought. No one warned me and no travel guide even mentioned it. I was ashamed of myself for not having my own reusable bag. Lucky for me, I was able to purchase a plastic bag at the checkout for 10 euro cents but I'm sure the cashier lady was frowning at me.

Now, a decade later, you can see reusable bags sold at most major shopping markets and stores in the U.S. However, we have only recently started advocating the concept of replacing plastic bags with reusable bags. It is great to see the U.S. doing this but we can still do more and be more green.  So please reduce the use of plastic bags, reuse the ones you have, and don't forget to bring your reusable bags with you to the store. Here's why:

The facts: We use well over 500,000,000,000 (that's 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute and they stay on our planet for up to 1,000 years.

The impact: Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistaken them for food. Plastic bags don't biodegrade. It takes 10 years to break down into toxic waste that contaminates soil and waterways and enters the food web when animals accidentally ingest them. And there's more of course.  (source: http://www.reusablebags.com/)  Other links to learn more about plastic bags: No Impact Man Blog, Natural Environment,http://www.earthday.net/plasticbags

(please scroll down to the bottom to purchase a bag.)

It will be an amazing cultural transformation when we are all using reusable bags for our groceries and only using plastic bags when in desperation or if we've suddenly come down with amnesia. We need to keep advocating environmentally friendly practices and hopefully in another decade, we won't see plastic bags in our grocery stores anymore or be using other harmful plastics for that matter. So, my henna peacock bag project is killing 2 birds with 1 stone (no pun intended). Not only did I start drawing after having taken only 1 drawing class in high school but I transformed my drawing into a side entrepreneurial project with an environmental cause. It would make sense that the more we like a bag, the more we will use it. Plus, these are special bags that are not made of ordinary cotton, it's 100% recycled cotton! Be aware of using cheap quality bags that won't last long and will end up in the trash after a short time. It's nice when you can have a bag that is eco-friendly, durable, practical, locally made, meaningful, attractive, artsy and affordable - all in one! I so enjoyed coming out as an artist and the process of making these bags and I hope you enjoy using it (frequently) too.  Thanks again to JLaw, Big Medium and all my family, friends and fans who have shown your excitement and support for my henna peacock drawings and bags.  I am inspired by you. Thank you! Love, Peace, and Namaste, LPN

Escaped artist "American Dreaming..."

What IS the "American Dream?"  Traditionally, it is the dream of fame, success, and wealth.  In history, it is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement." [first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America, 1931]  I like this.  For my parents, I think the "American Dream" is having the freedom and opportunity to lead a happy successful life and anyone can achieve it with hard work. This is what makes America so great. It truly is a land of freedom and opportunity where anything is possible, if you work for it. I share the same "American Dream" as my parents, but with my own little twist.  The twist being the definition of happiness and success.  Naturally, this is different for everyone.

This week, the Austin Asian American Film Festival is premiering All About Dad, a comedy about a Vietnamese-American family with generational and cultural gaps.  The main character, Ty Do (I also have the same household nickname), tells his dad he doesn't want to be a doctor, but rather a filmmaker.  I, myself, am in a similar boat. Growing up in a very traditional Vietnamese and Catholic family, my Dad constantly reminded me that if I don't work hard for my education and career, my future would not be so bright.  And he was absolutely right.  Thank God I listened to him!  I studied biology and women's studies, got a Fulbright scholarship and a Master's degree.  I thought I was doing it all right, but there's something that still doesn't feel quite right for me. I've come to realize that my parents' idea of happiness and success is not the same as mine.

Finally, after years of working hard for a good education and a stable career while trying to figure out who I am and what I really want to do, I've decided to take a turn to the wild side.  I am exploring my creative side.  It's ironic that the same parent that I get my creative side from is the same parent that would love for me to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or teacher. I don't want to quit my public health career that I've invested so much in, I just want to transform my creative side into something more tangible for my future.  So, here I am, living in Austin, Texas (the perfect city for aspiring artists and entrepreneurs) and at a fork in my journey, where the options are endless and I have the freedom to choose my destination. For me, the "American Dream" is not about success, fame or wealth.  It's about what makes you happy. I'm a boat girl, so whatever floats my boat, right? Seriously, it means having the freedom and opportunity to do whatever makes you happy and only you can determine your idea of success. This is often taken for granted because not everyone can do this (if you've been to a Third World country, you know what I mean).  But fortunately, I can. I am an aspiring artist who has been dreaming and has escaped....with my first henna design to be screenprinted on 100% recycled cotton canvas bags. Keep on dreaming America!    

The Phamily's escape...for the "American Dream"

In March 1980, my parents fled Vietnam, their homeland. I was only 16 months old and a tiny baby girl that used to ride in the front basket of my grandfather's bicycle. I have no memory of it all, the suffering, the boat escape. Yet, I can play it in my mind like it was an old movie I've seen long ago. There was not a day that my Dad failed to remind my siblings and I to thank God that my Phamily was so blessed to have survived the War, the boat escape, and for everything that we have today. I almost feel like I lived it with all the stories my Dad told and repeated throughout my childhood (and to this very day). But I’m also glad I don’t remember. When I think of my parents today, I simply cannot imagine what it must have been like for them to escape by boat, leave their loved ones, and risk their own lives for freedom. This is the story of my Phamily's escape and of thousands of Vietnamese boat people.

We were a young family of 6, my Dad, 40 years, my Mom, 29 years, my sister, 9 years, my brother, 6 years, myself, and my younger sister, 6 months cozy in my Mom's belly. My Dad was a lieutenant in the South Vietnamese Army and a history and geography teacher before that. He had just spent 2 years in "re-education camp" where he invented a mousetrap with his bowl of rice just to have protein to survive. My Dad was anxious and desperate to get on the first boat out of the country. After multiple failed attempts and losing all their life savings to scammers, my grandmother was able to borrow enough money, around 6k USD in 1980, for my Dad and brother to try again, to leave on an organized boat escape. My Dad did not want to leave my Mom and I behind, but he had no choice. We didn't have enough money. This time, my parents' luck turned around. The organizer was a very honest and good-hearted man. He let my sister go for free and got all three of them safely to a refugee camp near Bangkok, Thailand. They sailed for 2 days 2 nights. They were so thirsty that when it rained, my Dad caught drops of rainwater in his palms for my sister, just barely enough to wet the tongue. Stubborn and determined (and rightfully so), my Dad pleaded to the organizer to get my Mom on the next boat escape even though it was not in the plans to do so.  The man promised he would go back and get my Mom. He told my grandmother he would take no one else except my Mom on the next trip.  My grandmother had only from 1PM to 7PM to beg and scramble another 4k USD. This was A LOT of money back then, probably more than all the life savings of a whole village.  The next morning, my Mom and I left for the coast. I was so small, I went free. With God protecting us, my Mom's boat was safe from the Thai pirates who attacked the boats and raped and killed the women and men.  This was another miracle. My Dad said my Mom and I survived the 3 day boat trip only because of a lemon juice and sugar solution he had made but had forgotten. This was a huge blessing, 3 lives saved for the cost of 1. After weeks of seeing boat after boat unload and no wife and daughter, my Dad had lost hope. On April 30, 1980, which happened to be the 5th year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, his friend said that his wife had arrived on a boat. My Dad didn't believe him and thought he was joking but when he saw my Mom and I, he couldn't be a happier man. When my Dad tried to hold me, I wouldn't let him, but I'm sure I was happy to see him too.  The months at the refugee camp were harsh. We had lost all our jewelry that was sewn in our clothes. My sister did not want my Dad to sell the gold necklace because it was a souvenir that my Mom had given her. In the end, it fell out of my Dad's shirt pocket where he had pinned it, so they had nothing. My Mom was pregnant and we kept crying for food.  We survived only on a bottle cap of water and an egg a day, for the whole Phamily. My brother and sister split the egg and my Dad ate just rice and soy sauce.

Only a short 5 months later, my Phamily was sponsored to Michigan by my uncle and a few loving families from a Detroit Catholic Church. Sponsoring Vietnamese refugees was a very controversial issue at the time. And we were sponsored because we met the condition that we were a "complete" family, which was very rare. On October 15, 1980, we arrived in Detroit, Michigan, where my Mom saw snow for the first time and thought it was cotton balls falling from the sky! It is amazing that in a short span of 6 months, my Phamily had split, escaped, survived, reunited, had a baby, and started a new life, pursuing the "American Dream." This is why my Dad named my sister "Freedom."  Some say the “American Dream” is dead. It’s not. My parents' dream started on a boat and they were blessed by God, miracle after miracle.  They found life where there was death all around.  Now, their journey continues with me, the pursuit of love, peace, freedom, and happiness - the "American Dream" with my own little twist.