Category Archives: Family

It’s Fall Y’all!

October 4, 2019 Shelly Hacco

By Brianna Ma

‘Tis the season of pumpkin spice lattes, snuggling up on your couch, and holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving. Fall is a time to breathe in the crisp cool weather, break out your sweaters and scarves, and of course eat everything pumpkin. Here are some of my favorite fall traditions.

Visit a Pumpkin Patch

One of my favorite traditions is going to local pumpkin patches with my family or friends and picking out pumpkins to bring home and decorate. Most pumpkin patches sell things like hot apple cider and some even have small rides!

Carve a Pumpkin

Once you’ve selected your pumpkin, you get to carve it up and decorate it! You can find simple ideas online and most stores sell relatively inexpensive pumpkin carving tools! Here’s an example of the pumpkin that I carved last year!

Indulge in Pumpkin Spice Latte Everything

When I was younger, the most memorable food of the season was pumpkin pie and candy corn but now that PSL (pumpkin spice lattes) have taken over, there is a whole world of pumpkin spice flavored things that are full of festive flavor.

Enjoy the Warmth of Bonfires

The best part of any bonfire is S’MORES!! It you’re like me and love late night sweets then this is the fall tradition for you. A s’more is a toasted marshmallow sandwiched between Graham crackers and chocolate. This sugary concoction is best served over an open flame but if you live in an apartment there are also microwave and oven safe variations.

Binge with Movie Marathons

“Halloween Town”, “Hocus Pocus”, and “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” are my absolute favorite fall movies and I definitely recommend watching them to get into the Halloween spirit. Fall weather tends to be chilly so a great way to embrace the season is to cuddle up on the sofa with a mug of hot apple cider and marathon a bunch of feel good movies. A popular alternative movie night is to binge watch horror movies (but I am a scaredy cat and I do not enjoy scary movies!)

Go Fake Camping

This is one of my favorite childhood memories. My friends and I always loved the idea of camping but didn’t love the idea of bugs, a lack of restrooms, and long drives so we would set up a tent in the living room or backyard. We would bring in snacks and sleeping bags and pretend that we were in the mountains exploring the great outdoors.

Bake Cookie and other Fall Treats

Photo by Kurman Communications, Inc. on Flickr

There’s nothing more cozy than a warm oven wafting the smell of fresh baked goods. The oven warms a chilly house and the baked goods make the room smell amazing. PLUS, you get fun treats to share (or you can eat them all yourself!)

Soak in the Season at Disneyland

As an avid Disney fan, one of my favorite things is watching the park transform each season. The fall season brings out pumpkin desserts and spooky decorations!

I hope you have an amazing fall season and that you get to make memories that turn into traditions!

Featured image by Scott Webb on Unsplash

Brianna is a first year graduate student at the Keck School of Medicine studying Global Medicine. She is Chinese, British and Irish and currently lives and studies at the HSC (health science campus). Born and raised in Southern California, Brianna received her bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and medical anthropology. Brianna is passionate about research and volunteering and loves trying new things. In her free time she enjoys reading, dancing, trying new foods, and traveling! Brianna was a resident adviser in a community that had international housing and her family hosts international high school students!

Cultural Exchange, culture, Family, Outlook, Travel, Uncategorized

Understanding Diversity

February 15, 2019 Shelly Hacco

By Tahrima Bhuiyan

I am the child of two Bangladeshi Americans. Every summer until I was ten years old, my family would visit our relatives back in Bangladesh– and then again, when I was fourteen, and then again this past summer, at eighteen.

I grew up travelling. I had visited a number of countries by the age of ten. To me, differences were normal– different colors, different cultures, different foods, different clothing, different religions. This was further reinforced by the fact that I was brought up in a very diverse community in Dallas, Texas.

I have been raised amidst every possible race, culture, sexuality and religion. To the left of our home, there lived a Chinese family, to our right an African-American couple, and straight across, an old Colombian couple. In high school, my best friends represented every possible ethnicity. On Tuesday, my Vietnamese friends and I went to eat pho; on Friday, my African American friend’s mom gave me a dashiki, and on Saturday, I learned to do the salsa (even though I’m not good at it).

Diversity was a significant part of my experience; I was naive growing up, for I thought it was as normal to embrace differences for everyone else as it was for me. However, as incomprehensible as it was to me, discrimination soon became impossible to ignore. The older I got, the more I noticed misogyny, Islamophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia and intolerance. It was sad to see my friends and peers experiencing hatred and prejudice due to their skin color. It was difficult to experience it myself. It was heartbreaking to interact with refugees from places such as Yemen, Syria and Myanmar and hear their stories of hardship and injustice and watch the world fail to care. I witnessed a lack of accessible healthcare, education and, many times, of basic human rights in developing nations abroad. These experiences led me to want work with NGOs; I have been working with UNICEF for three years and I hope to continue to work with NGOs to address human rights violations.

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Asian American, culture, Family, Language, New Experience, Outlook, Travel

The Universality of Human Connection

September 25, 2018 Shelly Hacco

By Anthea Xiao

At a young age, I was introduced to and fascinated by Japanese culture through the channel of Japanese animations such as Studio Ghibli films and Doraemon. Eager to learn more about the Japanese language and customs, I enrolled in Japanese as my foreign language class and took the initiative to study Japanese culture on my own. My Japanese teacher recognized my passion and introduced me to an exchange program, which allowed students to live with host families and experience life as a Japanese High School student. I quickly seized the opportunity, and in the summer of 2016, I embarked on an unforgettable journey to Kanazawa, Japan.

Prior to flying to Japan, I diligently memorized Japanese phrases applicable for specific situations, read countless articles regarding Japanese etiquette, and even watched host-exchange “horror-stories” online from other students to prepare myself for any undesirable scenarios.

My heart was leaping out of my chest with anxiety and excitement when I saw my host-family waving the sign “ようこそ, アンセア!” (Welcome, Anthea!) at airport gate. During the initial stage of my stay, my host-exchange experience was exceeded beyond my imagination and expectations. I tasted a diverse array of authentic Japanese cuisines (a superb bowl of ramen was only $5 USD!), I quickly bonded with classmates through organizations such as the student acapella and traditional tea ceremony club, and I was able to improve my language ability through practicing colloquial Japanese outside of a classroom setting.

However, despite enjoying my host situation, I found it difficult to feel completely at ease with my host-family. I had read in textbooks that it is impolite to address Japanese people in an intimate or casual manner upon initial greetings. Therefore, although my host-parents asked me to address them as “mother” and “father” just like my host-sister did, I insisted on calling them Mr. and Mrs. Yoshida in fear of breaching their existing family structure.

The phrase “迷惑” (meiwaku) means to burden or to cause inconvenience for others. In Japan, a collective and harmony-focused society, causing meiwaku is a taboo and could signal a person as self-centered and uncouth. To avoid being seen as a meiwaku to my host-family, I refrained from seeking for help when I had trouble finding the way home from school or did not understand how to operate machine devices at home.

Continue reading The Universality of Human Connection →

USC American Language Institute