A Bit More

Interests:
eating (anything and everything) / ethnic dining / long meals
movies / film / filmmaking
reading / writing / learning / teaching / listening
humor
soccer
juggling
music
theater / acting
photography
art
watching people / looking out the window
stories / intellectual conversations
my family / my friends
my country (America) / my blood (Chinese)

More Things I Fancy:
web design, cooking, interior design, Broadway musicals, Age of Empires: Rise of Rome (it was an old PC game), figure skating / ice skating, trivia, kids, Latin ballroom dancing, (salsa, merengue, samba, jive)

Favorite Academic Subjects:
writing / creative writing / screenwriting / speechwriting
film / filmmaking / film studies
communication / new media / social media
psychology (especially positive, social, personality, and organizational-industrial)
education / teaching / counseling / teen and adolescent studies
philosophy (especially ethics, existentialism, and death)
anthropology / cultural and racial studies
sexuality / relationships / gender studies
women’s studies / feminist theory
architecture / technical drawing
law / politics / crime
theater / acting / voice acting
art
photography
math (I’m Asian, remember?)

Favorite Soccer Teams:
USA, Brazil, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden

Fascinations:
coincidences; cultures, traditions, and different ways of doing universal things; people you’re with for less than a week but who affect your life; love stories; using artistic style to parallel content; overanalyzing an artist’s intentions; inspirational and unconventional teachers; people with crappy jobs but friendly attitudes; and the kindness of strangers

I Love:
trust, inspirations, naturality, things in their original form, creativity, confidence, optimism, people and events that are lenient and lax, nice people, the environment, pacifism, humor, love, pride, and hope

My Favorite Things in Life:
- Eating very slowly and staying at the table to sip a drink for a long time after the meal is over – often accompanied by a nice conversation with a friend, a good book, people-watching, thinking, or looking out the window. (Even on a busy day, I willingly let this consume time. For me, this is the defintion of the good life.)
- Foooood. Especially trying new dishes.
- Finding the good side of everything.
- Putting humor into everything.
- Learning and teaching.
- Finding art that makes me see the world differently (especially films and books).
- Profound thank-you’s, especially reading and writing them in letters.
- Meeting new people.
- Going to new places.
- Bringing people together. Building communities.
- Smart, gorgeous, confident, optimistic women who always carry friendly auras.
- Inside jokes with my family.
- The moment it clicks when I’ve found a new really good friend.

Things I Want in the Future:
- to be the best father I can be,
- to be the best husband I can be,
- to be a teacher, counselor, or anyone who helps people develop their full human potential,
- to be an independent second-tier film producer, director, screenwritier, and actor,
- to write a novel,
- to design my own middle class house,
- for the US to have a female president,
- (DONE!) for the US to have a minority president,
- for the film industry to have better and more profound movies, rather than the crap made today,
- for the US men’s soccer team to get to at least the semifinals in the World Cup,
- to travel (Spain, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, China, Singapore, Brazil, Greece, Caribbean, space),
- to still have romance with my wife in our late years,
- and to still be intellectually stimulated in my late years

My Life Mission:
- to teach, inspire, and empower everyone to develop their full potential—because the world needs your talents, your individuality, and your greatness
- to make films about, write about, and reveal the rawest, most vulnerable, most true, and most particular of human experiences—because life is but a universal experience, and what anyone is going through is what everyone has gone through or can go through
- to entertain and to find beauty and humor everywhere—because that contagious thing we call laughter is the most important thing we share
- to do everything in my control—whether taking small steps or giant leaps—to make the world a more loving, compassionate, understanding, and forgiving place—because life is too short for anything that even remotely resembles the ugly opposites

By the End of My Life:
- I want to have made every decision I ever wanted to make and to have no regrets about the past,
- I want to have left something behind that outlives my life but that continues to make a difference in the world (mainly my films, writing, art, and teachings – and of course my children),
- I want to have found laughter and beauty everywhere possible,
- I want to have told everyone what they’ve meant to me and how they’ve made a positive difference in my life,
- and I want to have given everything I could’ve given in all my years on earth.