BIG, FAT GIANT in Shanghai

After I flew in from America a few days ago, I was too jetlagged to write. Apparently, not jetlagged enough to stay home and sleep as I should have. I went shopping instead. (I have another trip to America looming in November--a trip where I get to see my most awesome of Library Marketing team and my editor! I need to bring them presents!! Yeah, yeah, I hear my husband saying. So why did you bring home two purses for yourself? Shhhh...)



So there I am--jetlagged--in the surreal underground market beneath Shanghai's Science & Technology Museum. I'm beelining my way to two vendors my friends have assured me are trustworthy, when I hear a chorus of shopkeepers call out to me: PANGZI!


Translation: FATSO!


Okay, then! Fatso. Nice.


This, after I had spoken at the WLMA conference about the notion of true beauty as filtered through my next novel, North of Beautiful. I'm up there in front of all these librarians, unwittingly baring my (apparently big fat) belly, as I gesture emphatically: What does it mean to be beautiful? How do we define beautiful? How come we can't see it in ourselves? And isn't it terrible that we are so impacted by our very narrow definition of beautiful...only to be sidelined myself in Shanghai by PANGZI!


My good friend, Mitali Perkins (who just won the Jane Addams Award!), quickly assured me that in some villages in India, fat is beautiful. It means being wealthy! Healthy!


Ummm...I'm in SHANGHAI. Fat does not equal Beautiful. Or wealthy. Or healthy.


On the way home, I thought to myself: how sad is it that of the 100 or so words I know in Mandarin, one of them is PANGZI. How is that even possible? Is our global culture so focused on a woman's looks that we simply cannot escape always being evaluated? Judged? And found WANTING?


If anything, this has made me even more impatient for my book to come out so I have a platform to talk about BEAUTY. To point out that really, every one of us is beautiful. We just need a different definition of Beautiful, one that's COUNTER-CULTURAL. One that's REAL. One that's revolutionary.


To obsess otherwise--with our scales and mirrors--is a Big Fat Waste of Time. So here I am, CHINA: You may think I'm Big and Fat. I think I'm Happy. (And I found presents for my peeps at Little, Brown Books!)

HOW DO YOU DEFINE BEAUTIFUL? I'm all ears.

Hanging with Librarians @ OASL / WLMA, Day 2

A night after crashing catatonic in bed without changing positions for seven hours straight, I'm happy to report that a more alert Me presented at Day Two of the WLMA / OASL Conference in Portland, Oregon.

My audience was skeptical when I told them that I get inspiration for my novels from so many places: travel. Eavesdropping. Daily humiliations.

Case in point: Lorie Ann Grover informed me post-presentation that my shirt rode up everytime I gestured, leaving a big old two inch swath of bare, stretch-marked belly for all in the ballroom to see. *sigh* So reminder to self: before ANY presentation, move in front of a full-length mirror with my outfit to ensure no undue belly baring or otherwise. (Or perhaps an amendment is in order: check outfit before appearing in public. Anywhere. Why? Oh, like the time when I met a certain bigwig's sister AND found out to my horror later that I had bared half my breast in front of her. And people wonder why I am so connected to my inner teen?)

I'm happy to report that I've made a full recovery of today's humiliation. First, I had a great conversation with Liz Gallagher. Then, my brother, Dave Chen, and sister-in-law, Jill, took Lorie Ann and I out to dinner at Biwa, a fantastic little Japanese restaurant with yummy skewers and homemade noodles. Homemade chubby udon noodles--the sumo wrestler of noodles. I will be dreaming about them...

And then Lorie Ann and I whooped it up (okay, looked bleary-eyed at each) in a swanky boutique hotel in Portland.

I am a princess. And I know it. (Live it up, I'm telling myself. In 24 hours, I return to the land o' squat toilets.)

Bleary Eyed @ WLMA!

I'm back in the States! My peeps have asked me what I miss most about the U.S. Was it the food? (Well, I did have a hankering for a hamburger...and satiated it with a big, greasy one!) Was it the clean water? (Yup, missed being able to drink and brush my teeth with tap water.) Was it Oreos? (Ummm...no.) And NO...it's not our sad, sinking economy.

To be honest, what I miss most are LIBRARIES (and my family and friends). I miss being able to check out a limitless number of books. I miss my favorite librarians: Robin and Dawn and Barbara and Darcy and Erin and Pam and Brenna and Jackie and all the others who have sustained me through research and book tours. Did you know that three of these librarians told me that they would help me with whatever research I needed this year while I was in China?! That they would scan and send whatever chapters I needed. How truly amazing is that?

So it was with huge delight that I returned to my book peeps--librarians where I spoke at the sensational Washington and Oregon Library Media Association Convention. I picked up Lorie Ann Grover on the way to the conference since she was worried that I would be driving by myself at what was the equivalent of 1:00 a.m. Shanghai time.

There I met Jone MacCulloch, the powerhouse blogger who hosted the Kidlitosphere Conference with Laini Taylor two weeks ago! I was so sad that I couldn't attend that pow wow...so was super happy that I got to meet her! She truly has the most luminous skin I've seen...as well as the cutest grandchildren.

After 30 hours of being awake, I presented on my favorite topic--readergirlz! And then wobbled with Lorie Ann down to the car where we had Hamburger #1. Honestly, I am not sure how much sense I made at the presentation. My head was fog. TODAY was much better after getting a few hours of sleep!!!!

More later, gators!

Project Novella...or Justina is Insane.

I promised myself that this year while in Shanghai, I would focus exclusively on my writing. Block out hours to write my next couple of novels. Accept no other commitments. My writer buddies made me practice saying NO. My volunteer-friends made me practice saying NO. My sister made me practice saying NO.

I practiced saying NO.

I really did.

But then...an opportunity came up to be a writer-in-residence at an international school in Shanghai. What a great way to meet students! To meet teens who are living an expat life! To work with them on writing and using their words...

So...I said...yes.

But under these strict parameters, gleaned from my previous writer-in-residency experience:

• I'd conduct one single session per month throughout the school year.
• In these one single sessions, I'd teach roughly 100 students at once in the high-tech auditorium.
• All of the students would be armed with their laptops.
• And most importantly of all: every student would write their own novella, using a common prologue that we would write collaboratively.
  

So yesterday, I talked about my journey to becoming a writer, drawing inspiration from everyday life (and eavesdropping) for writing, harvesting their field trip next week to BEIJING. Here's what the teacher wrote:

Students in class were asking, "Can we write at home, or only at school?" When I told them that the novella was THEIRS because they were the AUTHOR and they could work on it whenever they wanted, they were thrilled! And when I asked who knew Mandarin well enough to "eavesdrop in Mandarin" during the Beijing Trip, a few usually shy students sat tall and proud with a grin on their face! It was beautiful.

I love how words empower teens! Their own words!

Anyway, I am now on my way back home to the states to speak at WLMA and cannot wait to be with my peeps: librarians and libray media specialists. Yay! Hamburgers, here I come!