I’ve started posting products on Ebay! 🙂

http://myworld.ebay.com/gugibabu/

Yes, I finally started this habit and have gotten totally addicted to it. My life, besides going to work on Monday to Fridays have included an online business. I have started to focus on posting all the foreign magazines I’ve purchased in Asia/Europe. Below are some of the colorful pages of the magazines- I love em! They are inspiring and fun!

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE NOW!! BIDS ARE LIMITED TIME ONLY!

http://myworld.ebay.com/gugibabu/

1. Thread Show- Curated Indie Design & Fashion- Dec 3-5

Hippest Indie Shopping place to be.

http://threadshow.com/

2. Unique LA- December 11 & 12

http://uniquela.com/

Another hippest shopping place to be.

Happy Thanksgiving!

She’s amazing.

Woman I am

Society strives and pushes, conforming and forming

Why, woman I am.

I am foremost me, not a woman defined by the stereotypes and the expectations of society

I am a person foremost, a human being foremost, before I am what I am.

A label of restrictions, a label of conformity.

I am foremost a person, unique and precious, special and one-of-a-kind.

So why does society suppress and respect only those that are men in charge, in high places, in offices, in companies, then woman I am.

We like animals, labeled trying to live ourselves, but only at the end of the day, being reminded. of our restrictions, the society forces on those that are labeled.

Immigrants, migrants, poor, outcasts, punks, woman. It seems,

those labels need to fall, need to be ripped off our names- we have names.

This is the day, that woman I am, will change the world because I was willing and God

a reflection, me. has intervened to put power in my soul

So that, woman I am. Am not just a woman,

but me, the one created, I am. Without a noun, but a personhood.

This is the time, the day, that all will see limitations are crushed. Because I was willing and alive.

Able and broken.

I am proud to be me.

Devon with my wig. LOL.

Candyland girl

House Party.

And then of course a poem after my first day of work. Need to express and write.

You are.

You are far away, like a distant mist

A mist I want to touch, but keep chasing in no direction in no particular time

I’m a frazzled child, desiring yet holding back

I don’t know who I am really, or who I want, or who you are.

Confused, lost, but yet finding direction in the little hints, the little specks of dreams

and forgotten tales. yet you are. you still remind me.

I started climbing stairs, only finding, you swam out the waters and gave me a chocolate ball

Delighted, I smiled and laughed. you like a magical beast, dove into the ocean and became a fish

nowhere to be found. only in my dreams. you are.

Who am I?

I am Rebekka Lien.

I am a human, with frailties and weaknesses, I cry and laugh as easy as circumstances come.

I can sit on a tree and read and be perfectly content in the solitary.

Or I can dance and sing with hundreds of people and feel like one of them.

I tell corny jokes, eat street foods, and have the modesty of a Taiwanese.

I learn to obey elders and fake it sometimes like them too.

Yet, I have the discipline of a German. The drive of a salesperson or a CEO.

I have boundaries and can easily say I have to go home. I don’t give into peer pressure cuz I know who I am.

I can talk loud and be charismatic like Americans, for I am American in spirit.

I can hang with the hippies and talk about art, politics, and religion. I can sit with conservatives too.

Of course I am human, so I am prejudice and hold false stereotypes.

But I cherish each culture and find joy in their customs and, well food. I love fiestas and mexican food, salsa and horchata.

I like to dress in saris and watch Indian films, I bob my head to hip hop and electro.

I  can slip on a suit and high heels and walk into a corporate office, negotiating some deals.

There’s nothing I cannot be if I put my differences aside and assimilate like I can.

Start a dance floor in France’s beer garden, sleep in train stations and airports but also the nicest hotels.

Respect them older folks, but have the youthful spirit of an activist, cry like a weeping widow or backpack like the homeless.

Empathize with the studying nerds, Asian cliques, the drop-outs,

the hoodlums, the immigrants, the drunkards, the pot heads, the dealers, the graying and orthodox,

the fashion snobs, the Indian gurus, the clubbers, the sheltered and innocent, the children who likes dolls and drawing,

I like em too.

I can negotiate deals in offices or yell in the night markets of Beijing, I am no diplomat but I can act like one.

I’m not a robot or a machine, I can write love letters like some Nicholas Sparks addict or shop like a housewife.

I don’t need a lot to enjoy myself cuz I can pick up my cello or a notebook and start playing or writing.

But I also know to treat myself, get massages, drink lattes, pedicure and manicure, and visit a museum.

I love my friends, but I can also be by myself or meet strangers.

If I could, I would want to ride an elephant in an African robe, cook Middle Eastern food, appear on Vogue, show in Paris, open many stores in Tokyo, Berlin, London, have beautiful kids, a husband, a garden and a fair trade business, some dogs and animals, a barn.

But for now, I can say- I’m perfectly content where I am

because I am still who I am.

I am Rebekka Lien.

Random food from China

How many things do we judge through the lens of our cultures? How many things do we judge a person by? We judge them based on the food they eat, the clothes they wear, the things they hold important. Such as for some education, for some relaxation, for some eating, for some the way they use their money. We seem to judge people not knowing that is how they grew up. We judge through the lens of our own upbringing and culture. For Asians, they look at those cultures that do not value education, security, and money and think “well we are better because we know how to save money”. There is some truth to saving money being good. However, Asian don’t understand how to enjoy life to the fullest. They think enjoying life might be eating together or just having nice cars and houses. However, they know not how to party, how to dance, how to live in the moment. They are always planning for the future, for retirement, for their children’s education. They know not how to take risks.

This of course is me judging my own culture, or part of my culture, for which I have grown very foreign to. Sometimes I just don’t understand why culturally Asian people have to judge how others spend their money- is that their business? NO. Or whose kid is doing what….it is none of our business really!

Change, traveling changes you: especially when you are met with discomfort-

1. June 26- July 20 Beijing, China- the toilets stink so much you’re about to throw up, ladies scream at you, no one waits in line because there’s no such thing, so they push you to get into subways, there’s smell of BO everywhere, ladies raise their arms with sprouting black hair, people spit in swimming pools, buses, on your shoes, wherever they can, residue of toilet exist everywhere.

2. July 20 – August 11– Hunan, China- fever in 43 degrees celsius, no AC, mosquitoes biting your butt, squatting in crap holes with mosquitoes trying to bite you, getting heat rashes all over your neck and arms, itching like crazy, not being able to sleep due to heat, fetching buckets of water to shower next to a pig pen.

3. August 11- 18 Shanghai, China- sleeping on the same small bed as a mere girl stranger, at night she grinds her teeth and smacks you with her arm, you are left with only a few inches of sleeping space, general asian discomfort of peer pressure, you dont want to go to ktv at night but you are peer pressured to, no AC in 40 degrees celsius.

4. August 18– September 9 Taipei, Taiwan- you enter the apartment, there’s dirt all over the floor, the couches have fleas on them, your bedroom you find out have fleas, you are bitten and allergic, mosquitoes fly over you and bite you, cockroaches hunt your dreams, you start killing them, but they start flying, there’s food bugs crawling over beer bottles, you scrub the floor all over but choke in disgust. Life in Taipei for me.

5. September 9- 14 Taichung, Taiwan- no major discomforts, just cockroaches. If anything can be worse.

6. September 14- 18 Chaiyi- stay at a hostel, freaked out at night, see shadows, and finally the second to last day find out at night the owners go home and you are left at the hostel alone at night. Getting tired of living alone, traveling from place to place with one backpack. Tired of not being able to wash my clothes, smell like dung and sweat.

7. September 18- 23 Kaoshiung- not really any discomfort. Except, looking for my own washing machine. Get to meet up with friends.

8. September 24-25, 28-29 Hong Kong- discomfort with angry aggressive, controlling devil wears prada woman. Cannot stand how she thinks I am a child and I don’t understand anything, especially womanly manners like folding my bedsheets and putting away my sneakers in the right manner. Oh Lord. Feel suppressed and suppressed.

9. September 26-27 Shenzhen, China – still am feeling suppressed by the controlling authoritative woman. Learning to submit but still in turmoil. I can have the nicest hotel, but if I have some crazy person boss me around, I will go crazy. This is the worse discomfort, more than sleeping in 43 degrees celsius weather or sleeping with cockroaches for that matter.

8. September 29- October 14 Back to Taipei- find out there’s rats biting the walls of the apartment. Fleas seem to get used to me. Bugs still bug me. That’s why they are named bugs. I start getting tired of people walking so slow. The subways beep and the people still walk slow, while I’m hurrying to get on.