The Second Arrow
On the instinct to making meaning out of our feelings. Plus, all things AAPI and my newfound love of rice.
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The other night, after a spontaneous solo sushi date, I decided to stroll down to the produce shops on Spadina to pick up some Asian ingredients I can’t get in my neighbourhood. I was immediately struck by the emptiness of the street realizing the stores have reduced their hours since the pandemic and the grocery shops I wanted to visit were closed. As I walked by the only open store—the LCBO—a woman sitting outside screamed at me, “I was pregnant, and you left me, you fucking cunt, you fucking bitch.” Feeling the intensity of pain she was expressing through her wet, scrunched up face, I gave her a sympathetic look and continued walking. But immediately after, I was upset by another sound—laughter from a man sitting in his car just a few feet away. It wasn’t the women’s pain that upset me, it was the man’s reaction to her suffering.
Imagine yourself walking through the forest of life. You are struck by an arrow and it is inevitably painful. When you are then struck again by a second arrow, you now have the choice of how to react, since you’ve been struck before. In this old buddhist parable, the Buddha says, “in life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.” The second arrow represents how we respond; it’s the critical juncture at which we decide whether we are going to accept the pain from the first arrow, or exacerbate it.
In Melissa Broder’s Death Valley, the neurotic protagonist describes a useful approach to regulating her emotions. When she experiences an uncomfortable emotion, she rates the intensity of the feeling on a scale of 1 to 10. She then rates the intensity of her reaction to the feeling on a scale of 1 to 10. The exercise implores her to recognize which one is more intense: the initial feeling or her reaction to it?
So much of my own stress lately has been caused by my mishandling of the second arrow. When I notice my body having an unprompted reaction—my heart starts racing, my limbs go numb, a chill washes over me—my brain reacts. I start questioning why I feel so afraid when there was no thought that preceded the feeling. I then judge myself for having these unexplained physical sensations (especially if I happen to be in the presence of others). When the mind starts churning, and I become desperate to control my body, it makes me anxious, which then makes the physical symptoms worse. If I had just let the body freak out without questioning why or judging myself for not being able to keep it together, I would still feel the awful physical symptoms, but at least my mind wouldn’t escalate them.
Dealing with health issues the last few weeks has been difficult. Difficult because I don’t feel well. But also difficult because I don’t want to feel this way. I’ve always been a high-functioning person and so I can’t accept taking a few weeks to tend to my body. I want to be busy, I want to be productive. I don’t want to be the way I am. The discrepancy between my reality and where I want to be is causing disappointment, judgment and shame, which is exacerbating the first arrow. I can’t simply flip a switch with my mind to make my body better. I have to be patient. For so long, I’ve dismissed the many arrows that have come my way over the course of my life. But arrows accumulate and the pain has to go somewhere. I can’t simply expect them to disappear.
When I can’t process or understand something, I make it into a story. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve turned to stories to make meaning of the world. I know I’m not the only one. From the earliest evidence of storytelling 30,000 years ago to TikTok users transforming the mundane everyday into a story in which they’re the main character, it seems to be our innate nature to create and tell stories.
But stories can also hinder us. When I have an uncomfortable physical sensation, I don’t need to label it so that it can then be used as evidence affirming a narrative I have about myself. On a larger scale, when shit happens in our lives (we get hit with an arrow), it doesn’t have to contribute to the limiting stories we’ve created about ourselves; it doesn’t have to define us. We don’t need to understand or make meaning of every unwanted experience or pain we endure in order to heal. Maybe the real healing comes when we simply acknowledge and accept it.
Best,
Anna
Published 📝
Forbes - 27 AAPI Brands To Shop This Month And Beyond
I always have mixed feelings about publishing stories for AAPI heritage month, why should we limit supporting the AAPI “community” to one month of the year? Still, I care deeply about amplifying the work of fellow AAPI entrepreneurs, and so I couldn’t resist rounding up some of my favorites. These are the brands I’m most excited about (Canadian ones are flagged 🇨🇦 ):
🥟 Artket Goods - cute Asian-inspired candles inspired by founder Francesca Chan’s childhood in Hong Kong and travels throughout Asia (think: dumpling-shaped candles). 🇨🇦
🧖♀️ AIREM - the first Korean beauty-inspired medical spa in the U.S., they’re bringing the latest innovations in Korean skincare and beauty to North America.
🍵 Blume - a line of latte mixes inspired by jamu, the Indonesian turmeric elixir founder Karen Danudjaja’s dad used to make her as a kid when she was sick. 🇨🇦
💄 Finding Ferdinand - I met founder Nhu Le over pedicures at Sunday’s, and was inspired by her idea to create a makeup brand that enables you to create your own shade.
🍪 Love + Chew - super soft superfood cookies that sold me on their banana bread flavor.
🥘 Methodology - ready-to-eat meal kit delivery service designed for people who care as much about the quality of ingredients as the taste.
🧳 Monos - sleek luggage/clothing brand out of Vancouver that really owns the slogan “less is more,” I’m obsessed with their sage green collection. 🇨🇦
🥣 Yishi - I’ve loved their Asian-inspired oatmeals for years now (think: black sesame and taro bubble tea).
Forbes - This Coastal Vietnamese Resort Is A Design-Lover’s Playground
Most people would be disappointed if it rained the entire duration of their stay at a beach resort. Not me. After two weeks in hot and sunny Thailand on a packed press trip schedule, I was craving some downtime accompanied by low-key weather. So this chilly, dreary weekend at the InterContinental Danang was just what the doctor ordered. In fact, the downcast weather made me appreciate the resort even more because I realized it made the property no less impressive.
Designed by the notoriously playful architect Bill Bensley, the resort blends Vietnamese temple architecture with playful touches, like a banana-themed movie theatre inspired by the two species of monkeys that roam the resort. Equally as artful was the F&B—I became obsessed with their Vietnamese egg coffee (that takes a staggering half-hour to make!) and my final eight-course French Vietnamese dinner was one I’ll won’t soon forget.
Reading 📖
As someone who didn’t grow up with many Asian friends, I’ve always fantasized about a childhood in which I had Asian American girlfriends (to be clear, I wouldn’t trade my childhood best friends, I love them). So I’m adoring Lisa Ko’s Memory Piece, about three Asian American childhood gal pals Giselle, Jackie and Ellen who dream of becoming artists. As adults, only one will stick with the arts (Giselle), while Jackie becomes a coder facing the sinister tech industry’s shift towards monetization and surveillance, and Ellen becomes a community activist confronting gentrification and over-policing in her NYC neighborhood.
I’m still in the early chapters, but I know eventually the story will fast forward to a dystopian 2040s. I’m not one for sci-fi (although I loved Ling Ma’s Severance) so we’ll see if the book sustains my attention in the same way their sustaining friendship has drawn me in so far.
Articles:
👀 As I prepare for a celebrity interview this week, I’m thinking about the parasocial looking glass.
✍️ Sebastian Junger is reporting live from the brink of death.
“Getting back to normal life meant learning how to forget that we’re all going to die and could die at any moment. That’s what normal life requires.” - Junger.
📺 Seeing Asian languages onscreen.
🪞 The case against self-analysis.
🏠 The return home is rarely smooth.
🍽 Why you can’t get a restaurant reservation.
🐈 A city with a medieval history of killing cats now celebrates them.
🍌 I’m so bummed I didnt know about Serious Eats’ banana package until after it went live. But I’m still devouring every article. How many of these top banana pop culture moments do you recall? We might be reliant on the Cavendish, but did you know there are thousands of banana varieties?
Watching 📺
A couple months after visiting Vietnam earlier this year, I went to a panel discussion with Vietnamese photographer An-My Lê and authors Ocean Vuong and Monique Truong. An-My Lê’s photography piqued my interest in the Vietnam War and so when T.V. adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer came out shortly after on HBO, I had to watch.
The premise: a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist double agent (Hoa Xuande) is planted as an aide to the leader of the South Vietnamese secret police. When he flees to the United States with his general near the end of the Vietnam War, he immerses himself in a community of South Vietnamese refugees but continues to spy on them, reporting back to the Vietnam Cong.
The seven-episode series is made by Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook who famously directed the thriller Oldboy, so I had high hopes The Sympathizer would keep me on my toes. It did not disappoint. While it’s a thrilling—albeit hard-to-watch at times—ride, it’s also a satire of colonialism and the very act of making war movies. I especially appreciate that the protagonist is half-French, half-Vietnamese and the ways in which they portray him feeling caught between two worlds, an experience common to mixed people that is so rarely explored on screen.
“In America, it’s called the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, it’s called the American War,” reads the series’ opening title card. At a time when many Americans feel called to action in response to the Gaza-Israel conflict, The Sympathizer serves as an important reminder to Western audiences that there exist a multitude of perspectives on global conflicts outside their own.
Listening 🎧
Last fall, I made a friend at a party hosted by Chop Suey Club in the LES. A week later she invited me to see the DJ Ginger Root live and to this day I regret not going. The music of this Asian American indie act led by singer songwriter Cameron Lew is hard to describe in just a few words because he blends 70s and 80s funk and disco with Japanese city pop. I’ve listened to ‘Loretta’ countless times and I’m still not sick of it. His vibe is perfect for relaxed summer days (and nights) lying in the park.
Snacking 🍌
I’ve always been ashamed that I’m half-Asian and don’t crave rice, but it’s not a food I grew up eating much. This week, however, I found myself developing a fondness for a food I’ve always felt indifferent about as I unintentionally had it several days in a row.
First, it was in reheating leftover heukmi bap (Korean black rice) from day-old takeout (who knew reheating rice in the microwave with water makes it taste even better than it did the first time!?). The next day I was pleasantly surprised with the rice in my cheap grocery store sushi. Then the following night, my Japanese friend made rice in his 30+-year-old childhood rice cooker to accompany gochujang Korean wings (I was honored that he made me a Korean meal—he even got kimchi!). Friday night at a backyard dinner with the girls, my bestie coincidentally made rice to accompany our roasted salmon and salad. If you’re like me and have always wanted to like rice more, I encourage trying to eat it different ways until you find something that hits!
*Extra Whip* I have to shout out nail salon Sunday’s Studio. Every time I step into one of their salons, it feels like entering a spa retreat away from the busy streets of NYC. My latest mani+pedi at the SoHo studio shortly before I left NYC was an unexpected source of grounding. I have so much respect and gratitude for the founder Amy Ling Lin for creating a safe, nurturing space and cultivating community among those seeking self-care.