Category: Self-help

Hawai’i: Bad Tourist

Yes, and so begins my new candid show called ‘BAD TOURIST’. In this series, I will reveal and expose some of the stuff that tourists do when they come to Hawai’i that yes, deserves the title: BAD TOURIST. This is not BAD as in COOL. This is BAD as in these are examples of BAD IDEAS.

You come on holiday to be safe and have fun and enjoy the beauty and outdoors. You do not come to be hospitalized, at worst, to die, to injure yourself, to do anything that will make you regret your holiday.

I really wish there was some kind of pamphlet that people would be forced to read while sitting on the plane to Hawai’i. Enroute to Malaysia they make you read one that says you get the death penalty for trafficking drugs. They then give you plenty of time to dump the stuff into the toilet before you land–I think such warnings are good for people visiting different places.

Today we feature Korean tourist X.

Hiked up Kokohead today and saw this. Today Korean tourist X perched on a ledge (bottom left corner). I missed the selfie part, which I am sure she did earlier, but she sat for awhile doing that Kate Winslet Titanic movie move (arms wide out, hair in the wind, generally a bad idea on the edge with a drop down onto the rocks then oops, into the ocean…but hey, maybe this is just me who stood there waiting for the inevitable…). She sat with her arms wide out. You can see partner on his way trotting down towards her. Dear Readers, they were not a coordinated pair, you could tell by how they moved.

I felt very nervous looking at her.

Why?

Because three years ago I witnessed someone fall off the rocks into the ocean while hiking and dying. This stuff happens and it is real.

What you have to ask yourself is this: would you take these kinds of risks in your own country, city, neighborhood, hiking trail?

I bet not.

I saw a rescue on the Koko Head trail a few weeks ago and overheard the rescue team tell someone that they are called 3x a week! There were at least five workers, two helicopters–thousands of dollars per rescue that we pay for with our city and state taxes. Much of this could be avoided. It is disrespectful to our government services to take risks like this that are unreasonable.

Please be safe. Have fun here. But think before endangering your life!

Tags #badtourist, #hawaii, #Hawaiitourist, #katewinslet, #titanic, #tourism

Belief and Philosophy Poetry Self-help Woman. Warrior. Writer.

Adolescence and Clothing: Inner and Outer Selves

Post author By Stephanie Han
Post date June 30, 2021
No Comments on Adolescence and Clothing: Inner and Outer Selves

These patched retro Levi’s jeans are from my very early adolescence, fashion-wise–from that leftover phase of hippy rebellion. As someone from the GenX cut-off year, I was influenced by this era older than myself and the era in which I lived. At boarding school, I swapped three skirts for this pair of blue jeans that has small embroidered hearts in purple and pink on the back pocket. Thanks, Mary, yes, I still have them. I kept patching them, but of course, I never wore them after a period of time and they don’t really fit me.

I carted them around everywhere as an odd remembrance because it reminds me of a time when I was trying to define my interior self through clothing and all that is exterior. I don’t think about clothing like this anymore. But back then, one minute I would be dressed like X and the next minute like Y and clothing was pure costuming, fun, curiosity, rebellion, and celebration of self. I couldn’t bring myself to be something, so I wore the clothes that suggested I could be something. I am now rather utilitarian most days; I don’t think of clothing in that same way. I’m more in my body, but yet the body seems to occupy a more esoteric space. I recognize clothing as an avenue of expression, but don’t use it that much in this direction.

As I say often, this is all down to how we see death and self.

For me, the more I recognize my interior as an identity, the less I seem to get worried about the exterior. I realize that what we are in the exterior can be entirely artificial. As the membrane between the inner and outer becomes more fluid, soluble, porous, there is less to worry about. We are what we are. Life is rather short. We are temporal beings. Our body is simply our exterior shell.

Social media, avatars, the way we present can be entirely false or mystical and one can be always aware of the gap between what is seen and what is hidden. I think the easiest solution is to collapse the inner and outer. What you see is what you get. That patched jean self is carried within memory. Memory is one part of the inner self, but not necessarily a construct of the present. How I became who I am in the present, was influenced by the time I spent in these jeans, but yeah, but the cells have all regenerated. I am not that girl.

I hope this makes sense for people. For those who experience anxiety about outer appearance, know that the key is to bring the inner as close to the outer as possible. It’s a much easier way to live.

Tags #Asian philosophy, #asianamerican, #belief, #drstephaniehan, #phillipsacademyandover, #selfhelp, #thehawaiireviewofbooks #thedoctorisin #drstephaniehan #womanwarriorwriter

Blog Divorce Reading & Writing Self-help Teachers Woman Warrior

Woman. Warrior. Writer. Deesha Philyaw

Post author By Stephanie Han
Post date June 29, 2021
No Comments on Woman. Warrior. Writer. Deesha Philyaw

It’s time for our WOMAN WARRIOR tribute post, done in the spirit of Maxine Hong Kingston. I hope that by presenting women writers, creators, and leaders here, that we can learn, better our own lives, and change our communities.

Today’s WOMAN WARRIOR is award winning author of short story collection, THE SECRET LIVES OF CHUCH LADIES.

Please meet Deesha Philyaw 👩🏿📚

@deeshaphilyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. The collection focuses on Black women, sex, and the Black church, and is being adapted for television by HBOMax with Tessa Thompson executive producing. Learn more at: https://lnkd.in/grpcGGW

✨ How did you come to author your own life? ✨

“Growing up, my dream life was a standard American dream life: Go to college, get married, have kids, have professional success. In 2005, I was a 34-year-old stay-at-home mom on the brink of divorce, trying to figure out how I would make a living as a writer. That same year, my mother, my father, and my grandmother (who helped raise me) all died. Watching my mother die of cancer at age 52 gave me a sense of urgency about my writing, as well as permission to write how and what I want, and to live how I want, unapologetically.”

➡️ Visit https://lnkd.in/grpcGGW to learn more about this incredibly talented woman, warrior and writer.

And if you want to read and learn from–and maybe even meet–writers like this, please register for classes at drstephaniehan.com

~empowering women through narrative~

Tags #drstephaniehan, #womanwarrior, #womanwarriorwriter

Belief and Philosophy Blog Hawai'i Health Self-help

Hawai’i: Meals

Mom made this before The Kid left for the Mainland. Ribs, potato salad, cornbread, and salad. Mom makes good ribs. Koreans do ribs well–kalbi, but these were Memphis style ribs. It is hard to fathom that my parents lived in Memphis for over 30 years! They were pioneering Korean Americans integrating the US. It is often a challenge being Asian in the South where life is constructed under a polarity of Black and White. I have relatives who live there.

Some things I loved about Memphis: Kang Rhee’s Pa Sa Ryu studio, deep fried turkey, cornbread, black-eyed peas, OK, gotta watch or I’ll just rattle off the food! Where my parents lived it was quiet. The madness of heat and the green. The steam and the slowness. I never felt fully comfortable there. But thinking about this more deeply, I am unlikely to return to the Mainland. Some people experience island fever, think they have to get off the Rock. I never feel this. I am aware this is a function of age and where I am. But I am never bored looking at the water. Listening. Looking at the flowers or mountains. Hawai’i nei.

Tags #drstephaniehan, #hawaii, #health, #Memphis, #womanwarriorwriter

Belief and Philosophy Blog Divorce Poetry Reading & Writing Self-help

CUT THE CORD

Cut the Cord

I cut the cord of connection

of belief

of desire

of obligation

of responsibility

of care.

I cut the cord knowing that

indifference casts myself into an unknown.

I cut the cord knowing

it no longer matters.

I cut the cord understanding intimacy

is not violent, it is knowing.

I cut the cord knowing to be seen

I need to see myself.

I cut the cord.

I cut this cord to move into

the world as my full self.

Everything I need to navigate life—

I have.

Every symbol I have

Comes from a reflection of my

interior.

I cut a cord and know that

on my own I am full

on my own I am free.

I cut the cord without fear.

I cut the cord.

Tags #drstephaniehan, #womanwarriorwriter, #writeyourdivorce, #writeyourdivorcestory, Poetry

Belief and Philosophy Hawai'i Health Reading & Writing Self-help

Hawai’i: How We See

There are times when my eyes are flooded with color. As I’ve mentioned before since being diagnosed with osteoperosis in December 2020, I have shifted my ideas of health. I’m trying now to think about making my body healthy from the inside out. This is also probably due to the rewiring of my body and brain after divorce. There is a keen awareness of mortality. I must drink this in and what is it? Laughing at the absurdity of accumulation to stave off death, the efforts that people go through to do what exactly? I have an awareness of death that rumbles under my daily habits. How will I spend this day and how many more do I have? Will I see the water today? Decisions become more clear.

I have chosen images of paths. The two in Makiki are in marked contrast to the row of flowers in Kahala at the edge of the sidewalk. In the Kahala image, Nature is what is observed from the path, in contrast to the two other paths which suggest our walking and participation is part of nature, we as human beings, inseparable from the path.

We must attempt to understand that we are never separate from the physical path. We can try to act as if we master and shape the path, but we are the path, just as the path is who we are.

Tags #drstephaniehan, #hawaii, #spirituality, #womanwarriorwriter, Creative Process

Dr. Stephanie Han

Woman. Warrior. Writer. Newsletter