Young friends and passing of a friend

As I mentioned in the previous blog, I’ve developed some young friends – who are they?  I thought I would provide a few snapshots.

 

Katja is Finnish(Swedish-speaking)-American, a protégé, a mother of three (4-14), an ex-Division I tennis player, and now an NIH-funded clinical scientist who is not only carrying on my Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome Program yet independently pursuing novel vagal neuromodulation therapy.  She is Superwoman – she walked across the Atlantic ­– uphill both ways!  Her children speak Swedish, Croatian and English, and her eldest a girl is a top point guard whom I’ve watched hit 3-pointer after 3-pointer.   She is such a highly motivated, organized researcher, efficient writer and critical thinker from which we accrue bidirectional benefits, and clearly has shown she can outdo her mentor.  Special.

 

Fanny is Cantonese-Canadian acrylic and mixed media artist, and fellow Tai Chi student.  Her early years were spent on a Pacific Island, then Hong Kong for elementary school, then Canada for high school and college, and then the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing for a Master’s.  She’s trying to make it as an independent artist while teaching private art students.  She did a hand-painted replica of an exquisite ‘blue moon’ Boddhisatva that I saw on a trip to the Silk Road in 2016 and I have since collected/commissioned several other pieces.  Last year, she drew me into the Vancouver International Film Festival where she saw 40+ films and I first saw the later-named NY Times top 10 film ‘Drive my car’ from Japan.

 

Donna is Vietnamese-American woman who is the current President of APAMSA (Asian American medical student organization I began in 1995) and is like a daughter who sends me unexpected greetings, asks me to do things for APAMSA, and requests umpteen letters of recommendation.  She shared her family story – also in a TEDx talk – that inspired her intentions to focus on public mental health in Asian Americans combining an MPH and psychiatry residency.  Yesterday she asked for help on a presentation on APAMSA for the Health Equity Subcommittee of the White House AANHPI Commission.  Today she wrote “My helpful mantra is ‘What Would Dr. B Li Do?’”  Awwww.

 

Quintin is Shanghainese-South African who grew up as the only Asian (no sibs) in his South African town – not unlike my upbringing in Iowa City.  After his undergraduate degree there, he moved to Norway for nine years to set up a company to develop a new interactive, non-violent video game.  Feeling a bit out of place socially, he screened the world for a landing spot and without foreknowledge, moved to downtown Vancouver.  He is a thinker with global perspective and game designer who is also a cinephile and we’ve shared a number of repasts and watched a number of movies together.  And his girlfriend is from Ukraine and finally on her way.  Just where in the world is Carmen San Quintin?

 

A moment of silence for Jeff Perry

 

Jeff Perry (spouse of Becky) passed away this past Saturday.  He is aptly self-described as an ‘independent, working-class scholar’ who was educated at Princeton several years ahead of me followed by a PhD in history from Columbia.  Yet for 50+ years he was active working-class postal worker eventually serving as the union shop steward.  Meanwhile, he was continuously involved in social justice issues ranging from affirmative action, worker’s, women’s, tenants’, Black, Latino and Asian rights, anti-war and anti-imperialist work. 

 

Yet on top of his job, family and proactivity and, outside of academia, he became an independent respected scholar focusing on ‘the role of white supremacy as retardant to progressive social change and on the centrality of the struggle against them to progressive social change efforts.’  As part of this passion, he completed a two-volume biography (second nominated for the Pulitzer prize) on Hubert Harrison (1917), the Father of Harlem Radicalism and founder of the militant ‘New Negro Movement’.  And he felt Mr. Harrison’s analysis laid the groundwork for that of Jeff’s mentor Theodore Allen’s two-volume “The Invention of the White Race” 1994, 1997.   

 

What a remarkable, impactful life for this proactive autodidact who dedicated his inexhaustible efforts to social justice in life and in academics – an old-school life that ran on all 8 cylinders!

https://www.jeffreybperry.net

Vancouver life: a self-assessment

I’m taking a moment to reflect over the past 11 years as tomorrow is the Teri’s anniversary.  A montage of memories of her insurmountable 19 month illness with innumerable complications confronted with grace and equanimity;  followed by care for my declining father for 3½ years 22/7 while working and learning new life skills with no time for grief;  another 3 years to organize his memorials, academic and collection legacy, and, with the help of family, friends and counseling to come to peace with the hand dealt and finally emerging into refreshed air.  It has been a full journey to the depths and back.

 A glimpse of my Vancouver life as an indicator of progress.  My life remains peripatetic with more than 50% time on the flight path but here is the single spot where I stay firmly entrenched during summers, focusing on one thing, Chen Tai Chi, in a self-imposed boot camp.  This year, I’ve crouched up to 17 hours per week and my knees have been accommodating and my balance, proprioception and strength have noticeably improved.  Post-COVID, the Sifu Paul and disciple Mary are back to basics (even warmups) retooling hand placement, knee positioning and hip movement with a fine microscope.  Any inch off is called out and redone until revamped.  Although my Boulder biking has consequently declined to a single weekly long ride, I’m swimming twice weekly.  My intermittent fasting, portfolio diet + chia, hemp, flax seeds and CoQ10 have reshaped and rejuvenated me.

 

Art has become a major endeavor that began by listening to my father’s stories about artists and his career as this was the main way that I could get him to relate to me.  Chinese contemporary ink painting began to become my passion while organizing his papers and collection.  Now, I have expanded his collection in a thematic way, made a gallery using his chosen name and commissioned calligraphy, and plan to have private showings for friends to curators.  I have focused my attention on Margaret a near nonagenarian artist who in the 1960-90s was an avant-garde ink painter who was close to my parents and now my close friend.  After interviewing her weekly during COVID, I gave my first art history lecture on her career.  Although my relationship with my father was limited or one-sided, I strangely find myself following in his extra-large footsteps … and appreciating his remarkable prescient, open-minded eye for abstract ink and my own subsequent visual high.  

 

Close friends and family are widespread representing lived places from Iowa City/Lawrence, NYC, San Francisco, Madison, Columbus, Chicago, Milwaukee, Vancouver and now Boulder and a geographical challenge to maintain.  They are a diverse lot from friends, former neighbors, fellow residents and faculty mentors, gourmet club, colleagues (Geezer’s Club or Grumpy old Gastroenterologists), artists, and biking and Tai Chi buddies.  Of course, the 46-year relationship with three generations of Chuns who treated us like family (‘Teri was like a second daughter’) continues as does the 45-year history with Steve (best bud) and Mary and their three generations – our most secure life-long anchors.  What is interesting is that my continued physical moves, academic involvement, APAMSA board activity, and art interests are forging new relationships with old and young’uns the latter are helping me to better understand and appreciate gen Z’s from which hope springs for better, beyond our current quagmire.

 

So, my self-assessment in Vancouver tells me that my life is refreshing and meaningful, still on a slightly upward, exploratory, adventurous incline despite the world as it is and aging as it will be.

 

Best  

 

 

From cannery town Ladner, just north of the Tsawwassen Ferry

To downtown Van from 40th floor

Overlooking the convention center, cruise docks

And the view at sunset