A Lover's Love Letter To Love

"As i got older , Crush and I had an understanding and she said , “learn from me , because in me you will learn about yourself , so that when you meet love , you won’t waste it"

| style

My Valentines Day Outfit

Dear Love . 

It’s hard to put into words exactly how I feel about you . When I first thought I had met you , it wasn’t actually you but your little sister , Crush . She was young , beautiful , but pretty cruel . I actually ran into her a couple of times over the years mistaking her for you . I mean you’re related so please understand my confusion . As I got older , Crush and I had an understanding and she said , “learn from me , because in me you will learn about yourself , so that when you meet love , you won’t waste it .” She was oddly cool about me looking to date her sister . 

I waited quite some time for you , but before I had the chance I ran into someone that I could of swore was you but wasn’t .  One drunken night , I bumped into Infatuation . Now she was an experience . I can’t tell if it was the alcohol or her but either way I felt intoxicated and filled so much with inhibition that I just threw myself into her thinking that this must be you . All the love songs and poetry and romantic comedy’s say so , I was so sure . But after a couple of weeks , when I sobered up , infatuation just disappeared on me . I woke up and she she was just gone , no note , no messages . Gone .  Out of my window and into the winds . 

I ran into infatuation a couple of times after that but even as I’ve come to recognized her particular brand of inebriation , I still took the drink .  Although not great for the morning after , it helped me through the nights and the judgement of Facebook relationship status’s .

I thought this was going to be my life . I thought maybe I had met Love and that I wasn’t a match for her . I mean , compatibility is a tricky thing . So I figured maybe I wasn’t meant to meet Love , and I would partner better with Freedom . she’s particularly seductive and romantic , I’ve fallen for freedom many a times . Maybe she’s the gal for me . That’s a respectable thing to believe . Freedom is no second prize . Wars have been fought and people have been killed in her honor . I would tell people this story boldly until of course I met love . Finally . It wasn’t easy to recognize at first , I thought maybe she was just Crush having a lonely night and wanted company , or maybe it was Infatuation , she comes and goes as she pleases you know , I never could tell . 

But something about this was different . she lingered . She touched longingly and slowly , not in a rush or expecting . it felt exciting yet strangely … easy . She took my breath away , not metaphorically , but literally I stopped breathing for a bit because she caught the attention of my entire being and my body just forgot that I needed oxygen for a second . It got distracting . I lost time talking to her because she didn’t care about time or place . she made the super market strangely fun . She was Love

But then I lost Love . I messed up . I had met Love and I thought that this was it , I was done , I have reached the finish line in life because who else was there to meet after I’ve met Love ?  I thought I could never confused infatuation or Crush for Love because I’d seen the real thing , I knew it was different . I thought that when you met Love , all that was left was walking into the sunset . I know there are sad songs about losing Love but that wasn’t gonna be me . They were confusing Love with someone else , I had the real thing . 

She didn’t leave me suddenly , but slowly , first she packed away small things . Then she would slowly decline my invitations and advances , always politely but definitely . I saw less and less of her . I was foolish and just thought , maybe she’s just busy , you know ? Just preoccupied . She was Love and she would never leave me . I was wrong . Soon there were packed boxes and suitcases at the door and there was a note , it said "You don't understand yet"

What didn't I understand ? Wasn't Love all there is ? All you need is Love . I went through rounds and more meeting ups with Crush and Infatuation and had a long standing relationship with Freedom . But soon , Loneliness visited . She sat with me for quite some time . Night after night . It took a long time . It took a lot of looking for Love again to see it . 

I lost Love . I lost Love because I hadn’t recognize her other half her twin . Work . I met Love and I stopped trying . I was satisfied . Everyone had told me that when I found Love , it would be over . the rest of it would be history . All the movies end when Love is found , they rarely talk about her neglected other half . Work . Work gets a bad rep which is probably why no one talks about her . I knew of her but didn’t know that her and Love were related . It seems that in order for Love to be happy , Work needs some attention as well . And for being twins , they seem nothing alike . In fact , one would hardly know that they were twins unless you asked them . You see , love is easy and beautiful but Convenience isn’t someone that Love meets half way . Neither does Trust . You thought Convenience was hard to cross paths with , try to get Trust over to your house everyday . And who goes out to build a bridge with Convenience ? Who goes out to make a relationship with Trust ? Who goes out to make sure that Love has everything she needs to survive when Convenience and Trust doesn’t come around ? Work does . She's important . She stays in the shadows so that Love can be easy and beautiful ,  and Love can star in your favorite films and Love can have songs written in her honor . But Work is the one that makes this possible , Don't neglect her . 

I’ve learned my lesson . I’m gonna get real acquainted with Work . Love is hard to find but you can find work around every corner . We’re going to become bloody best freakin friends . So that next time I meet Love , she’ll see it , she’ll know , she’ll recognize that she’s met someone who knows her worth , who is willing to put in the time with Work to hold on to her . 

I miss you , I need you , and when I find you , I’m never letting you go 

Jacket - The Fifth Label

Shirt - Rag & Bone

Hat - Yellow 108

Sunglasses - RayBan

Bag - Hex

Photographer - Heyyeh

How I Escaped Bullies Because of Bruce Lee

| style , personal

"So here I am , a little Taiwanese kid in a group of bigger and stronger foreigners standing up for my little second grade dignity . What was I going to do . Run ? Cry ? I already did that"

I was such an easy target for bullying . If there was some sort of metaphysical tree in the universe for victims of bullying , I hit every branch on my way into this world . I had just moved to Los Angeles from Taiwan at the naive and tenderhearted age of 8 . And of course of all places , I moved to Paramount . For those of you not familiar , Paramount sits east of the 710 fwy which separates us from Compton , the great hip hop reference of the west coast bringing you kind and gentle verbal philosophers such as N.W.A ( Easy E. Dr. Dre. Ice Cube. Arabian Prince . DJ Yella . and Mc Ren) . The Game , and most recently Kendrick Lamar . It was a calm a wonderful world to raise a family despite the rising crack epidemic at the time . 

So as you can see , moving there in 1990 as the only Asian kid in a school entirely made up of kids from Hispanic and African American decent was some sort of hell for me and Christmas for them . Did I mention that after just two years of being there the infamous LA riots occurred pitting more friction between ethnicities ? Did I also mention that being so obviously aesthetically different from all the kids , I also didn’t speak a lick of English at the time ? They had no idea what to do with me , they even put me in ESL classes (English Second Language) full of SPANISH ONLY speaking students who are also learning English for the first time . So now being Taiwanese , I’m trying to learn English through Spanish . It only took them a month to figure out that it was a bad idea . A MONTH !

So I looked different , I talked different , I’m culturally different because I still only wore the clothes I owned in Taiwan , and brought Chinese food for lunch . My parents (bless their hearts) had to take some time to get me to at least wear American clothes with an American lunch and an all American Trapper keeper with a Ninja Turtles lunch box to at least try to fit in . Needless to say , it didn’t take very long for the bullying to start

The curiosity of the new kid from a far away land lasted maybe a couple of weeks as kids were unsure of me , but as true as President Trump's Twitter , before winter break , it began . It started with some verbal taunting . I couldn’t understand them so it just looked like a lot of loud talking with a group and pointing and laughing . A track of random words paired with laughing/pointing was on repeat for me for a while . The teacher sort of looked out for me a bit but there was only a little they can do to admonish a bunch of second grade boys . I felt bad , lonely and outcasted . What was I going to do ? There were more of them , and they were all bigger than me . Couldn’t fight them and couldn’t ask for help . Talking back in a language only I understood didn't serve any purpose .  

Soon it got physical . First it was just bumps in the shoulders . Pretending they couldn’t see me . Pulling classically hilarious pranks such as tripping me from the back , throwing stuff at me when I wasn’t looking (or was) and the all time favorite of shoving me to the ground . It was classic . Even as a kid who kind of understood my place , I had limits , it took me a better part of a month but eventually I was pissed . I wanted so bad to get along , I wanted to bad to be just part of the class and one of the kids , but me just going along wasn’t working out . I finally showed some anger and pushed back one time and little did I know it but that was their cue . It happened so fast . laughter became a smirk , a group smirk that said got him . I took their bait , they got what they wanted and circled around me . The kid that shoved me that time stepped back and got his hands up and ready . 

A little bit about me at that time . I’m was a little shimpy kid that has never been in a fight in his life . I’m not one of those kids whose dad took him to the front yard and taught him how to box . I didn’t have a front yard or a Dad who liked boxing . I knew absolutely nothing about how to actually fight . But what I did know , thanks to the booming Hong Kong martial arts movie industry , years of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies , and years of tormenting my sister , is how to act like I knew how to fight .

So here I am , a little Taiwanese kid surrounded by a group of bigger and stronger foreigners standing up for my little second grade dignity . What was I going to do . Run ? Cry ? I've already done that before . I took my fake Chinese martial art movie poses , made my fake Bruce Lee noises and started doing make believe Kung Fu stances . And then unbelievably , they got scared . They main kid froze up and the crowd behind them backed away . The smirks ? Gone . I couldn’t believe it . 

Thank goodness for the historic popularity of Bruce Lee , his martial art movies and for the gullibility of second graders . I did a little more dancing around and then just walked away , like a second grade man and didn’t even look back . 

After that day , the whole game changed . the kids wanted to be my best friends , they wanted to hang out with me , they even gave me peace offerings in forms of peanut butter cookies and fruit snacks . Just kidding , I wish . What did happen though was that they gave me a little respect , the joking and laughing and bullying stopped . They let me play games with them at recess , they even had more patience to teach me games through our language barrier . They became accessible . Some of us eventually did develop friendships and I even gave some fake kung fu lessons . Sorry martial arts but I was a kid and I wanted people to like me and I like the ego boost whenever they would ask me to teach them some fighting . ***

As an adult trying to work in the entertainment industry , I’m no stranger to how stereotypes effects us and works against us on the path of progress and acceptance . I choose to share this story as a way to show that not all stereotypes are created equal . In the case of the martial arts stereotype , I believe that though it may pigeon hole roles we get to play now , it actually casts a bright light on the Asian Community . Bruce Lee is an historical icon that transcended martial arts and transcended films . He shined so bright that nearly 20 years after his death he was still able to help a little Taiwanese boy out in the school yard . He was a charismatic man of the world and this is just my little tribute to him . 

I never let up that I didn’t know martial arts . Even to this day . I wonder how long it was before they thought back and thought that I was full of shit . I like to think that some of them still thinks that I know Kung Fu . ***

Jacket - Obey

Pants - PublishBrand

Beanie - Our Legacy 

Sunglasses - Coach

Watch - Leonard & Church

Photographyer - Heyyeh

***some of you may wonder what the heck does this story have to do with these photos ? Well I’ll tell you dear reader . I am a firm believer that the way someone dresses and the styles that one chooses are reflection of the person’s history , experiences , and past environments . And this particular outfit is a blend of me now and the impressions made on me in my years of living in Paramount . 

*** Also to note , that story didn't solve all bully problems . I was still so different from everyone for quite some time and dealt with my bulllying issues for most of my life . Maybe this will be a topic to tackle in a later day . 

HOW TO WEAR A TRENCH COAT IN LA

| style

"This is LA , for most of the year , you have to pair your coat with tank tops and rolled up chinos so that you have proper ankle ventilation in order to wear a coat let alone a coat with an added trench"

I’ve always loved trench coats . it has an old hollywood , man of mystery , New York city vibe to it . Add a fedora and you’re basically old school James Bond or in a 1930’s Hitchcock film using words like dame and smoking cigarettes for it’s widely known health benefits . But although I love them , it’s been hard to find a way to wear them without looking as if I am about to flash innocent women or as if I’m an angsty teen that’s watched the Matrix too many times . Also , when the trench coat is added with the beard and beanie combo that I rock so often , lets just say it doesn’t lead to an efficient airport experience at LAX . 

walking through TSA takes extra time when they have to put a metal detector to my beard and bun 

And this is LA , for most of the year , you have to pair your coat with tank tops and rolled up chinos so that you have proper ankle ventilation in order to wear a coat let alone a coat with an added trench . Thank goodness for the recently rainy 50 degree winter we’ve been having in glorious sunny LA . Temperature is low and the drought “emergency” has been leveled to a calmed and leveled “we aiight for now” . Things couldn’t be better for a boy who dreams of wearing coats with trenches , for a guy who wants to take dramatic noir style photos with an over casted sky and great rain , and for a man who wants to write about his trench coat but is having trouble connecting ideas together .

So here’s how to wear a trench coat in LA . Pick a light weight but durable quality coat . Pick a well ventilated material but with good quality fabric because no one is suspicious of your coat if it looks like your’e not about to rip it off your body and cast it aside . Play with light and dark colors . Wearing all black may seem cool , but you’re basically a walking shadow from the 1930s . And at night , you’re just darkness . a walking head , or a walking mouth if your wearing sunglasses as well . Play with pieces from different style genre’s . Make some bold choices . You're wearing a freakin trench coat . 

I’ve paired this dark , lightweight , but durable Everlane trench with this Top Man knitted sweater who’s seen better days . It helps to break up the darkness and suspiciousness . And when worn with sunglasses , a fedora , the grey sweater , and white Nike’s , it helps me to not look like I’m going to audition for a 2017 Matrix Reboot . “Matrix Returns - how Neo got his groove back.”

I hope Neo finds his groove soon 

Trench Coat - Everlane

Sweater - Top Man

Pants - Publishbrand

Glasses - Thrifted

Hat - Goorin Bros

Watch - Leonard & Church

Photos - Courtney Yeh