CAFAM

Fire Horse 火马 – My Sunset Year

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Winter in Maine is letting go of its grip. The huge heaps of grimy snow are melting down by the day and the recent clock change has allowed us to imagine spring. It was a pretty good winter. I sharpened my skates and got to the outdoor ice several times. I had a cheeky, short getaway to warmer places with my daughter. Attended concerts and events. Stayed socially and politically active. Cozied up at home with projects and small goals. We make the best of it as hardy northern New Englanders and simply embrace the season.

Lunar New Year festivities for the Year of the Horse 马 began with my annual Chinese dinner. Each year I try to up my game, refine the details (not being a natural host or chef), and just enjoy the company of my wonderful friends as I share the traditions of the holiday. Decorations, party favors, a festive table setting, dumplings….. and thank goodness, no snowstorm.

Then off to Chinatown, Boston to lead the crafts. This year felt special since my daughter is a horse birth year and she shared the day with me. The Chinatown Main Street board members were excited to see her and were wonderful hosts as always, as we dished out horse crafts throughout the day. After clean up, my daughter and I had a delicious local meal and were joined by three different lion dances blessing the restaurant over the time we were eating! Cymbals clashing, red envelopes chomped up, so much fun.

Another Chinese culture endeavor over the past several months has been helping a friend publish a book about the history of Chinese in Maine with a small team of volunteers. He has been researching this story for decades and it is now finally in print. It’s a fascinating journey, and I enjoyed taking an in-depth look while assisting with editing, research, and I also designed the cover. Congratulations, Gary.

So what the heck with the sunset stuff? I’m sensing this is the year it’s time to sunset Lucky Bamboo Crafts in earnest. Not this minute, but over the months ahead. Book sales have trickled down to a handful a year, and maintaining the inventory, this website, and everything related is costing. Now that I’ve been done with full-time salaried work for well over a year, I have to tighten up, prioritize my time and finances, and make changes. I’m exploring ways to liquidate the books, and also to possibly transition some template content into e-printables on Teachers Pay Teachers or other platforms. So here’s where you come in. The book is still available on Amazon and Nataraj Books so please buy soon if you want to have it in your collection. And I would also love to hear any comments and suggestions on next steps. 

I think back on these many Chinese craft years and feel gratitude for the books that are in so many hands, events I’ve attended, and activities I’ve led. I know I’ve brought delight, education and creative fun to so many. I will always be an artist and crafter, embrace my Chinese-American family, and share and celebrate Chinese culture. The beautiful richness in my life will continue from where it began, on the day in 2003 in Jiangxi Province, China when I held my tiny Year of the Horse daughter in my arms for the first time. Love.

Fall Art and Musings

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The gifts of the Fall harvest in Maine have been delivered and now the biting air and heaps of brown leaves are moving us to the changes at our doorstep. But first, Halloween, a birthday, and eventually Thanksgiving. None of these occasions are amping me up this year, but I will give them each a bit of reverence, and my candy bowl is filled for all the little goblins.

I did participate in some lovely and fun Mid-Autumn Moon Festival activities. I partnered with my local library for some after-school crafts and we dished out lantern garlands and story puppets… easy, cozy and mellow. A good fit for me, right now.

Our CAFAM Moon Festival celebration was splendid, sharing the delicious food and full program of speakers and performers with old friends and new. We had attendees from teens to esteemed older CAFAM members in their 90’s. Celebrating with lanterns, mooncakes and song was a wonderful way to share community and friendship. And later on, the full moon was aglow with radiance in the nighttime sky.

Now I dive back into ongoing projects and more art making. I’ve been painting some new nautical works in gouache which I’ve been selling as notecards and prints. It pushes my boundaries; not only the very different painting challenges, but selling my art in the purest (reproduced) form to people who just…. like it. You artists understand. Part of a true creative life is always stretching and exploring with different art forms, mediums and subjects.

Soon it will be hunker-down time as we dance around the weather and shorter, darker days. I still love my Lucky Bamboo Crafts life, but like parenting a grown and flown child, I periodically focus attention on the crafts for kids and book events, but then redirect to the rest of life. A recent foliage view from a local mountain trail after a short hike was a great way to breath, reflect and take stock of all the great opportunities that lie ahead.

The Future

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Lucky Bamboo Crafts – The early years

Summer is coming to a close and I will not give in to a cooler season without a fight. I still scour the long-range forecast for days I can linger on the beach or at the lake. They glow like precious rare gems at this point. But what a summer it has been in all the best ways. Time with my grown daughter, family reunions, outdoor events, short getaways, lobster, and even a Neil Young concert. (I can still rock.)

My creative muses have expanded beyond Chinese crafts, and I have rolled up my sleeves with tubes of gouache and brush. Lighthouses! Let me back up. I permanently left my full-time employment several months ago for the virtue of personal freedom, flexible time in my days, and new horizons. I’m no spring chicken and there is so much to explore and savor while I still inhabit this earth. 

So, lately my creative outlet has been painting lighthouses and publishing and selling a small line of notecards and prints. I have always thought I could work for the Chamber of Commerce as I constantly ballyhoo all that is beautiful and unique about Maine. And lighthouses never, ever disappoint. 

But don’t get me wrong…. Chinese culture, history, and all things Asian still inform my life on every level. I am still active in CAFAM here in Maine. I’m also assisting my friend, Gary Libby with his soon-to-be-published book, Chinese in Maine – From Struggle to Success. He is a respected historian on the subject, and the story is fascinating and widely unknown. Until now.

And yes, I still make cultural crafts with kids and share my enthusiasm for Chinese history and culture as part of my array. And my book, Lucky Bamboo Book of Crafts is still widely available. But it won’t be forever. I am considering sunsetting it in 2026 and liquidating my inventory. Sigh. But it’s probably time, so please buy now through me, Amazon, or Nataraj Books, and share my website with friends, educators, community, and family.

Since you are reading this, thank you. As we launch into a new season and school year, I hope your days include some hope, even if that can be challenging right now. Our kids and grandkids need to always be able to find a north star for their curiosity, learning, kindness, and creativity. I try and provide a little piece of that with both my everyday actions and creative pursuits…. and there are infinite ways you can, as well. But for now, I will enjoy a little more beach and ice cream as summer breezes are already giving way to cool wafts.

Year of the Snake; Celebrating, Sharing and Crafting

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The days are calm and quiet in Maine as we hunker down for snowstorm after snowstorm and do our best to stay protected from the frigid air. I look out the window with my coffee, and the bright sunshine streaming in seems like trickery from my warm perch. Lunar New Year festivities have now passed, and as you know by now, this is my favorite post of the year, recapping all of the events and special moments. 

This Year of the Snake 蛇年 was especially wonderful because my adult daughter attended every gathering. Sharing our traditions and being together takes me back to all the Lunar New Years and special Chinese cultural celebrations of her childhood and of course, all the years of making crafts. This being the snake year, some are also sharing the Legend of the White Snake as part of their cultural program. If you are inspired to take a deeper dive, look up this interesting piece of folklore; as with many ancient Chinese tales, it’s a wild ride.

Nothing can compare with having a few friends in my home for a festive evening of dinner and conversation. This year was no exception and my house was festooned with red and gold decorations and the dinner I prepared was (mostly) edible! Ginger beef and firecracker shrimp were my mains and I have to say so myself, my almond cookies from scratch were pretty good. The guests braved inclement weather, and there was much joy and laughter.

Our local library was the location for my first 2025 public event with Lucky Bamboo Crafts. We had a cozy nook right in the children’s area to make snake crafts and share the holiday traditions with preschoolers, homeschoolers, and the after-school crowd. Paiten, their fantastic librarian is always so enthusiastic and full of (craft-addicted) talent! We are a great collab.

On to Chinatown, Boston where I always know I need to level-up the make-and-takes, with both projects offered and quantity. We were hit with a New England heavy snowstorm the evening before, into the morning so I definitely felt like a Lunar New Year warrior to make it to the China Trade Center and get set up. But the people did come out, and it was a festive day to ring in the Snake. And as always, the couple of hours spent walking around Chinatown in the early evening after packing up the crafts were so very fun and delicious. 

Back to Maine for the local CAFAM Lunar New Year celebration. I spent the day in the Cultural Village overseeing the numerous craft tables I prepared and also sharing Lucky Bamboo Book of Crafts with some new customers! I guess if you stick around long enough, kids grow up and new kids move in, looking for creativity and culture. Yay! The CAFAM Board did a tremendous job planning and carrying out the event, and I felt lucky to be a part of it, even as just a volunteer member. This year the program included numerous Bates College student performers offering everything from traditional dance and instrumental performances to Chinese rap! I have such a long history with CAFAM, I never want to miss being a part of the action each year with my many friends 朋友们.

I don’t feel compelled to do a Spring dance quite yet with the snow piled high and several weeks to go before the true thaw. But these mostly indoor days are good for introspection, planning, resetting, being with friends, enjoying time with my daughter, and starting to carve out my next creative inspiration and new venture. I have recently left my longtime project manager position so like the snake, I am shedding some skin. I try and lean into these cycles of life as an opportunity to realign my priorities while getting caught up on the essentials. I know there is always down time and up time and do have some really fun adventures planned. It all can be equally fulfilling. Let’s fill our cups.

Creativity, Culture and Looking Ahead

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Hello Friends,

I know it’s been a minute but Lucky Bamboo Crafts is still alive and well! I’ve just had several life pivots that have pulled me away from focusing on my maker side. The biggest of which is I am leaving my longtime project manager job at the end of the year. That will certainly shake things up and offer me a reset.

My mind is already popping with creative ideas and plans for the extra bandwidth I will have of time and energy. I can put many more events and workshops on my calendar, including visiting schools during the week. You know by now that teaching kids about Chinese culture is my jam! I can also create more Chinese craft designs. And I will freshen up this site for sure, with new content, media, tutorials, etc…. it’s an exciting shift.

Self-marketing has never been my strong suit, but my ask is to please help me celebrate this leap by continuing to share my book and website. You can still pick it up from this site or Amazon, and my fulfillment co., Nataraj Books is selling it at a huge discount! It’s a great holiday gift.

Lunar New Year falls on January 29th, 2025 and is the Year of the Snake. I look forward to slithering into lots of celebrations and hope you’ll watch my calendar and come along! 

Pumpkins and Moon Cakes

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Hello to my crafty friends and Chinese culture devotees. The Maine foliage is turning golden brown, and the mornings are frosty. But the summer and autumn have been productive and pretty darn nice. I attended lots of fairs and festivals, saw many people at long last, and started shoring up plans for Lucky Bamboo Crafts 2023. Armed with my millionth covid vaccine, I’m enjoying a somewhat more normal life while being still saddened by the losses so many have encountered.

I participated in the CAFAM Mid-Autumn Moon Festival wearing both my board member hat and Lucky Bamboo Crafts hat. We gathered with friends old and new, sang, ate moon cakes, and enjoyed the stunning location overlooking the iconic Portland Headlight. I brought an array of make-and-take crafts including lanterns and chopstick cases.

I also exhibited with Lucky Bamboo Crafts at the Maine Chinese Conference in Bangor last week. I had not gathered with this robust Chinese culture org and language school since 2019 and they offered a day of language immersion lectures and strategy workshops to educators. It was lovely chatting about integrating craft projects with language learning, and there was a delicious chef-prepared lunch in the program. I was glad to get Lucky Bamboo Book of Crafts into some new hands, and educators are my favorites!

Jing Zhang & Jen DeCristoforo

With the current tense climate between the US and China fueled by business interests, security, and the ongoing struggle regarding Taiwan, the conference was a lovely respite. It focused on collaboration, shared international interests, and strengthening our friendship and bond between the two countries. Bangor Chinese School also continues to send local American students to China on scholarship and runs a Dragon Camp every summer.

So where are my efforts pointing now? At these Fall events, I was reminded of how creativity and multiculturalism touch everything we do. There is so much that can be taught and so much to learn. I will of course start planning for Lunar New Year on January 22, 2023, as we welcome the Year of the Rabbit. But I’m also looking for smaller ways to connect with great people and exciting projects that promote Chinese culture and help my creative energies to flourish. That sounds vague, and it is. But the wide open space feels good right now.

Spring of Hope

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Spring has sprung! We are waking up in Maine as the weather gradually gets milder, the grass gets greener, and we look ahead to a busy summer. Lucky Bamboo Crafts has been waking up as well.

This was a big month for our local organization, Chinese & American Friendship Association of Maine, especially after the two years of curtailed activity and events. We had a lovely Dragon Boat Festival (端午节) Potluck recently at Portland Headlight. It was a foggy, cool day but our site was perfect for old and new friends to gather, connect and take part in a delicious Chinese meal. We also had authentic zongzi (粽子) to celebrate the occasion which was a special treat.

For crafts, I brought dragon boats with paddles and also incense sachets which was a new design. I loved seeing crafters young and old wearing the sachets around their necks following the tradition of keeping evil away and protecting health. This was also my last CAFAM event as president which felt impactful, but I know it is time, and was lucky to have personal friends and family attend to share the day with me. My daughter is back home from college for the summer and I am giddy with happiness to have her underfoot.

I plan on bringing Lucky Bamboo Crafts to the Riverfront Recapture Dragon Boat and Asian Festival in August in Hartford which is always a wonderful cultural event. My crafts array at the recent Portland event gives me a good head start for coming up with some fun ideas for the Hartford festival which is on a much larger scale. And the races will be back. Paddles up!

Beyond daily life, I find myself looking for hope on a lot of fronts. Since I started penning this post, tragedy has been on all our minds as gun violence over and over robs us of peace and happiness and communities across this country are destroyed in the blink of an eye. As always, I am committed with intense determination to work toward common sense gun laws. Even when it feels hopeless I need to have hope. And other top-of-mind issues of our basic rights being stripped away weigh heavily. Having a 20-year old daughter starting her adulthood in this mess is painful.

Let’s all do what we can. There are so many ways to help, join an org, be a voice, or just pass along some kindness. Yes, the darkness takes over a lot these days but I try to let hope have the main stage. Wishing you a great season ahead, exploring your creativity, embracing many cultures, and don’t forget the fun.

Good Luck Arrives

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February can be a hard, icy month in the Northeast. But my heart and spirit (and stomach) were warmed on February 13th when I traveled to Boston to share crafts in Chinatown at the China Trade Center. The annual celebration was back with hundreds of excited visitors enjoying the street parade, firecrackers, traditional lion dances, and indoor activities.

How I had missed the collective energy of ringing in the Lunar New Year and being able to make crafts and “Fu” decorations with the kids to ensure good luck would arrive. The weather was fierce (as always, in mid-February) but we all braved the snow with the determination of the Tiger. And no trip to Chinatown would be complete without enjoying a delicious meal and soup dumplings at a local spot! It was perfect sustenance for the journey back to Maine.

Now that we are into our new year, I am mapping out my Chinese culture activities for the rest of 2022. I hope to bring Lucky Bamboo Crafts back to the Riverfront Recapture Dragon Boat Festival in Connecticut over the summer. I also continue to be active in CAFAM events and initiatives here in Maine, although I will be stepping down as president after being “in office” since 2018. I look forward to less leading and more doing!

Other than that, life is quiet again, but I’m amping up for an adventure to the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver BC. Oh, how I’ve dreamed of this road trip for years! Knowing me, it will basically be a food tour. I’ve never been big on acronyms but YOLO does seem to be chiming in my head. The pressures and violence around the globe are so disturbing, and I am mindful of how important it is that kindness and gratitude be a constant. Having the ability and resources to take a little vacation in April for myself feels like a real gift. Hopefully, I can pay it forward.

The Tiger’s Roar of Winter

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Happy 2022! So, do we share these good wishes with mild sarcasm and air quotes or are we sincerely optimistic it will be a much better year?  How can we still be dashed by covid? How can people still not be vaccinated? My immediate family continues to be healthy, but I take it all very personally since one is a front-line healthcare provider that is regularly treating covid-positive unvaccinated people. Can you feel my blood boil?

Well, you get the idea I’m sure, and before I go too deeply into that rabbit hole I will pivot. Maine in January is a chilly, snowy undertaking but the days are gradually brighter and activities, goals and plans for the new year are underway. The biggest holiday on my calendar is the Lunar New Year. We will celebrate the Year of the Tiger on 2/1/22. I’m very involved in two in-person events with Lucky Bamboo Crafts (that will hopefully survive omicron and stay scheduled) and you can get details on the calendar. Time to come up with some new tiger crafts and get the creativity going again!

My daughter will have returned to college so I will have to send a Chinese New Year package and hong bao to campus. (I doubt she reads my blog so this might even remain a surprise!) The school holiday break of nearly a month is winding down, and as a parent, letting her out of my grip never seems to get easier.

But I will carry on with winter with a peaceful spirit. When the weather isn’t too extreme (with bitter cold or blizzard conditions) I find so many ways to enjoy and appreciate Maine each day. Working remotely certainly makes it easier, but comfort food (porridge! soup! a bamboo steamer of dumplings!), and trying to spend time outdoors daily helps me beat the winter blues.

It is also a time of renewal for my advocacy areas of focus. There are so many ways to be “a helper” as Mr. Rogers always used to point out. We are still in a difficult place, but hopefully your life involves more real hugs, your kids are active and healing from their losses, and we all have brighter days ahead.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead with Lucky Bamboo Crafts

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The days are so short, dark, and cool as we head into the quiet peace of late Fall.  Along with that, it’s time to plan the festivities of a real holiday season after missing so much last year. The struggles seem more scattered now. High prices and a multitude of supply disruptions. Schools caught off-guard with sudden covid surges. Trying to live normally but still trying to cope with the trauma of what has been lost in the last nearly two years.

I talk about this first because the pandemic is still first on everyone’s minds and still greatly affecting everyone’s lives. But what gratitude I feel for having the vaccines now so available, even to children, and even to those that want a “boost”. Hopefully, by now, the naysayers have been firmly pushed into their shame corners and will stay there.

So, looking back. It was wonderful to see the CAFAM community and local friends turn out at our Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. We gathered at a beautiful venue overlooking Portland Headlight and the tasty food and warm conversation were abundant.

Just a couple of weeks later, I was one of the presenters for a CAFAM historical marker unveiling in Portland. For those from afar, you may not know that Portland…. and Maine have a rich history of early Chinese immigrants settling here. We honored one particular family for their contributions and you can read more about them here. The best part was that several of the Goon family members, some elderly, traveled to Maine to attend! As they stood in front of their childhood home, I felt our ceremony and remarks were very meaningful and we were all so filled with positive emotion.

And now, looking ahead. Lunar New Year is taking shape, and we are moving forward with a local performance and celebration. Details to come in my event calendar, and Lucky Bamboo Crafts may hit the road with some other events, as well. Hopefully ‘Year of the Tiger’ will bring lots of good fortune (and dumplings) and fewer hardships for everyone. My “empty nest” has been pretty calm, although I miss my daughter terribly as she finally gets to partake in a normal college campus experience. Time to turn some new pages in life, with projects, work, travel, crafts, new friends, and 2022 may even be the year of Mandarin. While giving thanks, for sure.