Rants and Rambles

  In a corner, quietly stands a cherry blossom tree With fuchsia blossoms slowly unfurling Above the waves of passengers huddling in line for the bus, never ready For a moment of repose. A flicker of the sea breeze Comes, undulating the cumulous pink clouds That stretch far away to the snow-capped mountains. Slowly I tread on the carpet of green grass, fearing that I may trample the delicate pink petals underneath On my way home. My sister and I call them specks of spring dust, so dazzling but fleeting, as they could withstand only a few days of rain. Then the colours blemish, the petals floating away below the leaden skies. With spring comes jubilation, but also a wisp of nostalgia. I heard of a movie long ago About two soulmates trying to reunite As they crisscross the globe, at the speed of cherry blossom petals: 5cm/s. When I first learned this, my science-cogged brain Could not fathom that the speed of cherry blossom petals Can be quantitate...

The city sleeps in its hazy blanket. Under the snow-capped mountains, The cherry blossoms flutter. Their fuchsia wings Descend onto the shoulders Of hectic passersby, boots inked with mud To catch the nearest bus. The windows reflect the matchbox houses That fling away with the spring breeze. Back seat, nestled among the bulk backpacks, I open my book. A flip Breaks the silence of the bus As it travels uphill and down to the misty ocean that undulates along the dog-eared pages, where the primly printed lines unfold the stories that have never been told before the spring days of Vancouver. Thumbnail image: Cherry blossoms in Richmond, taken on one of the rare sunny days.

Air Force Garden of Remembrance, Stanley Park Contrary to my expectations that springtime has arrived, the temperatures were starting to dip below freezing. Many mornings, I would walk to school under the brilliant sun, yet chilled to the bones with the breezes rustling over the cedars. The chilly winds slowly descend into fluffy flecks of snow, dusting the trees in the backyard with a magnificent pristine coat. Despite the wintry weather, signs of the upcoming spring have begun to unveil. Beneath the snowy cover, buds of cherry blossoms and camellia dangled slowly along with the rhythm of the wind, while the sun lingered on the crisp sky long after I got home from school. From the kitchen window, as I gazed at the fireball of a sun setting behind cedars, flocks of junco chattered on the snowy hills, where the piercing cries of seagulls echoed, breaking the tranquillity of a winter dusk. The end of January was marked by my second Lunar New Year, or Tết , away from Vietnam. We were over...

Author's note: This is a short story on climate change I wrote for a competition, but it didn't win so I think it'd be nice to share with you :)  Bracing myself for the violent take-off, I peek through the window to take one last look at the below. Saigon seems to be straight out from a slow-taped Polaroid documentary, the kind that makes the audience squirms in its seat because of the terrifyingly detailed landscapes. Below the smog, along the winding Saigon River, a concrete jungle sprawls like spores shooting after a tropic thunderstorm. Not only do I see amid the floating water hyacinths but also motley islands of trash and plastic – the product of more than 8 million Homo sapiens inhabiting every centimeter square of the city. The plane flips sideways a little bit to avoid the thunderous clouds that are starting to gather outside. Ironically, with all the teeming electricity potential outside, the screen on my phone collapses into a black vortex. I slip out the maga...

The sheer delight of waking up to snow and the parallel terror of realizing you haven't turned your heat on before going to bed Having been snowed (ha!) under so many assignments and applications, I haven't published on this blog for quite a while. Thankfully, the last of the two weeks of winter break gave me a long-yearned rest from all the work piling up. And here I am, sitting in an overly-heated room with the rhythmic tapping of the rain ahead lulling me into sleep, furiously typing the last blog of 2022.  The last day of school in the year signed off with one of the most memorable school days I've had: Breakfast with Santa, a school-wide breakfast that has been an integral tradition of my school. We gathered around tables stretching the vast expanse of the main hallway festooned with decorations, from Santa inflatables to reindeer string lights illuminating the school beyond the lead-cast dawn. Surrounded by the festive tunes of the school jazz band, I ducked into a fu...

  Originally published in ink  Volume V (2022), Vancouver Public Library Cheers to 3 years of contributing to  ink As a high school student living with parents in an old suburb of Vancouver, there aren’t many options for having fun at night, except convincing myself to either get enough sleep or finishing my homework.   At 9:30 pm, I should either be preparing for tomorrow’s notes or bundled up in a warm blanket with a TV show on hand. But one Friday night, I didn’t do either of those things. I had already finished my History assignment at school, and there was really nothing else to do. A thought popped into my head: “Oh dear, I would die for some bánh mì loaded with ham and topped with chock-full of veggies and pickles.” My pocket money didn’t allow for an extravaganza meal at a dimly lit Vietnamese restaurant on the east side of the city, so I begged my dad to drive me to the nearest… Subway. After some mouth-drying persuasions, here I was, buckled at the front...

A small delight on a red-eye flight from Tokyo to Vancouver - whoever knows that a paper cup of ice cream can teach you life lessons? There are many reasons that people can't sleep on a flight: One, the mere reason that we are floating in the middle of nowhere inside a gigantic metallic vestibule thrusting everywhere clinging onto nothing. Two, the overloading of the senses: the whizzes and hums from the engines the flickering on and off of the halo reading light from that insomniac passenger the intermittent cracking of the pilot's voice over the intercom the air prickling under your skin the arid bitter clump in your throat the potpourri of stale bread, clothes, and perfume all churning into a thick blanket suffocating you to the very core. Three, you toss and turn in your juice-stained hoodie, hoping to have a nanosecond of rest but all was in vain and you think how draining it is  to be packed more than in a sardine can, up ten thousand feet  while down the gentle ground, ...