Tag: year in review

2022 In Review: The Write Life

Posted on by Elise

This was the year the pandemic felt “over” enough that everyone I know began jet-setting again (curiously it seemed like the aforementioned “everyone” summered in Italy?). For me, as accustomed as I am to constant movement, I spent much of 2022 alone, writing from my bed. The deadline to turn in the book nearly flattened me and I wrote much of FLAWLESS in what felt like a semi-conscious state. But for the tireless researchers and interpreters and fact-checkers who kept me going, that book would not be finished.

Totally 90’s 40th Birthday

I turned 40 in the small window of time after a major Omicron wave and before Russia waged an unprovoked war on Ukraine. Friends from seven cities across the country flew in and donned costumes for my 1994-themed party, because in retrospect my 6th and 7th grade years represented points in culture that lasted with me a lifetime. (Yellow Ledbetter, anybody?!) In the final minutes of that most merry and warm celebration, the lights went out on all of Abbott Kinney, the much-frequented, boutique-filled party drag in Venice. We read it as a sign that we properly captured all the energy on the block that night. I desperately clung to that serendipity and energy through 2022, especially the night of the midterm elections which … hoo boy, what a relief.

There’s so much I wish I would have captured better, but I really spent so much of this year just participating in life as fully as I could, and trying to keep up with my children after losing my long time nanny and friend and housekeeper, whose absence is felt every moment in our house.

Interviews That Will Stay With Me: With Daniel Pink about how understanding our regrets teaches what we value the most in life. With Pico Iyer, on the meaning of home, and the strangers who make a lasting impact on us. With Julissa Arce about her book, You Sound Like a White Girl, a case against assimilation. With Dr. Becky Kennedy, about connection-first parenting. A celebration of Girls Generation and their legacy.

Pop Culture That Got Me Through: The January 6 Hearings, seriously must watch TV. Better Call Saul. Sheng Wang’s comedy special. Fire Island.

Favorite TED Talks: Shankar Vendantam, about how our future selves are strangers to us. And Dan Harris, on loving ourselves to truly love others.

Proudest Moment: My littlest one, Luna, being chosen by her classmates to give her preschool graduation speech in Mandarin and absolutely nailing it.

Nerdiest Accomplishment: Becoming a USA Today crossword puzzle clue! 13 Down, Journalist Hu

Favorite New Friends: Doree Shafrir. Dan Pink. Zach Woods.

Products I loved: The Grapefruit Mangosteen candle from Enlighten Candles. Boba Milk Tea mochi candies. My new Nissan Leaf. The AstroPoets substack.

Disappointments: The Butter Tortilla scented candle from HEB. Honest Tea is folding?! The Elon takeover of Twitter. Conversations with Friends, the series. That trash Harry Styles+Florence Pugh movie.

Firsts: Consuming an ostrich egg, encounter with a Zonkey (a zebra-donkey), Costco vacation, becoming an NFT, selling my own NFT, fight with Hot Rob, having a back house, visiting TV writers rooms, attending the big TED.

In no particular order, this year I…

Attended three weddings, in person
Swam with dolphins
Bought a house and sold a house in the same week
Ripped and replaced the insides of the house inside of a month
Made back-to-back trips to Texas and consumed so much queso and P Terrys
Talked TSA into letting me take 16oz of queso through in my carry-on
Read books with second graders every Tuesday
Took tennis lessons every week
Sprained my foot, but just at home, not from tennis
Glamped in the Santa Ynez Valley
Hard launched my man/mancrush of 2+(!) years by having him play Who Said That? on NPR
Hung out with my parents a lot — they lived in the guest house for four months of the year
Saw our podcast company double its revenue
Got an electric car
Learned how to TikTok from my child
Advised two TV writers rooms
Enjoyed a lot of live music again: Leon Bridges, DEVO, Lisa Loeb, The Violent Femmes, even … Wilson Phillips(!), a real full circle moment since its greatest hits figured in that 1990s-themed birthday party, naturally
Adjusted to parenting alone after our nanny of seven years went home
Traveled 25,228 miles to three countries, 13 cities, and spent 40 days away from home
Became a set mom and hung out in motorhomes on location for a week, wondering what I’m doing with my life
Read 19 books in full, but started six others
Finished writing my book, oh my god.
Saw it in print, as a galley anyway

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2021 In Review: Learn To Lose

Posted on by Elise
Off to unchartered waters. The Pacific Ocean. April 2021.

We started the year in the strictest of lockdowns, as Los Angeles County faced such a wave of sickness and death that even outdoor dining (which had re-opened in fall 2020) was again shut down. We end this year with a COVID19 death toll of 800,000, a breathtaking, heartbreaking casualty number, triple-vaccinated (a miracle of science) and calculating risk as Omicron, the latest variant, spreads like a California wildfire.

Time collapsed. It seems impossible the January 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol and the Biden/Harris inauguration happened this year. It feels like so many lifetimes ago. At the same time, it seems impossible that this year is already coming to an end.

I started the year married, I will end the year divorced. Sorry to those we didn’t get to personally tell, and a reluctant thanks to the very expensive LA lawyers who got it done and took all our money. Matty and I have adjusted from husband+wife to game co-parents of the girls, whose inner lives I cannot know, but they sure seem to be shining on, expressing their sassy selves in their friendships, school and activities as the family has shapeshifted.

These past two years have presented an extended lesson in the importance of pain for living a good life. “Learn to lose,” my Jungian analyst Jonathan said to me. So accustomed I am, as a high-achieving millennial in late capitalism, to the notion of career and life only going in the direction of more, more, more … that I didn’t question it deeply. But the cascading turbulence of pandemic extremes and mid-life upheaval underscores the cheesy-yet-true play-on-words: There’s no growth in your comfort zone, there’s no comfort in your growth zone.

Put differently, we’re too conditioned to see our lives as linear stories of constant progress. That perspective makes any texture or loss in our personal or professional lives seem like failure or a sign of doom, when messiness is truly transformative, depending on how you metabolize it. Orienting ourselves to perpetual “wins” cuts off our ability to experience the fullness of the human experience; the range of the seasons and cycles. I wrote, perhaps presciently, in a 2020 new year’s intention that “maintenance is also progress.” I appreciate with so much more clarity now. I have adopted a more seasonal mindset, knowing winters come, and that we find rich wisdom in darkness.

For me, learning to lose, and rearrange, and adapt, has unlocked a version of me that’s the most whole and clear-eyed as I’ve ever felt. I was contented in my long-term relationship, I’m as contented and more individualized out of a partnership, with thanks to the cocoon of love and support of my village.

I am writing, writing, writing ALL THE TIME because I have a book to finish in the spring. It’s already pandemic-delayed by a year. It explains why I’ve had to hiatus from blogging, but I always do one of these yearly recaps, so I wasn’t about to break my streak. Herewith, the superlatives, and then a list of things…

Stories I loved telling: The history of fetishization of Asian women on stage and screen. Life inside the most COVID-stricken LA County hospital. The shipping crisis, as seen outside North America’s busiest port.

Pandemic MVPs: Store brand jugs of peach oolong iced tea from Von’s/Pavillions, or what you might know as Albertson’s, depending on your geographic region. A simple black jumpsuit from Natori, which I practically lived in. Airpods for phone calls. Liz Taylor, Pamela Boykoff and Skyler Bentsen, who I called the most from my runs and they’d reliably pick up. Joke’s on you, ladies!

Pop culture that got me through 2021: Succession. The NYT Britney documentaries (both), Minari, Ted Lasso, The Split, Sex Lives of College Girls

Fave interview: Debbie Millman

Fave TED talk: Hrishikesh Hirway: What You Discover When You Really Listen

Fave Selfie: Strawberry fields forever, with the girls

Strawberry picking with the girls, May 2021

Notable New Friends: Xiaowei Wang, who became my TED conference buddy after we met in Monterey. I love their ideas and verve and vibe so much.

And Craig Mazin! I watched his acclaimed project, Chernobyl, after our mutual friend Alec introduced us so we could beta-test a video chatting app where you have a back-and-forth asynchronous video chat in front of anyone who wants to watch. As a result, I got to joke around with Craig and get some useful writing tips from one of the great screenwriters.

Firsts: Stand-up paddleboarding. Post-COVID international trip (Mexico). Quarantine exemption (Korea). Vertigo. Divorce. Hosting a Council on Foreign Relations white paper drop, featuring a dude who inexplicably sometimes comes up in my dreams, former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

In no particular order, this year I…

Added dill to scallion pancakes, felt like a genius
Got the Pfizer vaccine (3x)
Got vertigo (1x)
Got a birthday song from Kato Kaelin
Bought a new car
Got my bike stolen
Reunited with my dad and mom for the first time in 1.5 years
Said goodbye to Caesar
Lost an extraordinary friend to COVID
Lost another extraordinary friend to a pulmonary embolism
Learned I have trypophobia, which unlocked a lot
Got a questionably-named BBQ sauce, We Rub You, to change its name
Sprained my foot playing tennis*
Took a yacht to all the container ships docked in the ocean
Tried injections on my face (Botox, skin botox, hydroinjections)
Reported on skincare, fast fashion, laziness and more all thanks to my NPR work
Glamped in Santa Barbara
Glamped in Napa Valley
Went to Kauai with the fam
Introduced 200+ TED talks, watched 300+
Ran 235 miles
Read 23 books, a real low, but hey, I’m writing one
Finished half the manuscript(!) of my book
Hosted a new podcast for Microsoft
Hosted a new podcast for Accenture
Sent a tip that inspired a Simpsons episode**
Made lots of podcasts with my partner Rachel, as part of our company
Attended in-person TED conferences again, in Monterey, and Palm Springs
Broke through the layers and layers and layers of bureaucracy to get into Korea, felt like a dream
Flew 22,775 miles and spent 40 nights away from home, another low year and hopefully, for climate and sanity reasons, I’m keeping things that way.

Really listen. November 2021, Palm Springs

*Friend Jenn says I look like “an octopus being electrocuted” when I play, so, this is all for the best

**Episode to come in 2022. It is already voiced. My friend Tim (longtime writer for Simpsons) wrote a script inspired by an Atlantic article I sent him and it’s going to be a MUSICAL episode. I can say no more.

Previous Years in Review

2020 |2019 | 2018 | 2017 |  2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010|2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

2020 Year in Review: Brave New World

Posted on by Elise

“It felt vaguely like being forced to live in a building splintered by a wrecking ball before the rebuilding had begun. Quarantine didn’t just take things away; it revealed — with a harsh, unrelenting clarity — what had already been lost.”

—Leslie Jamison

Into the unknown. L to R: Eva, Luna, me, Isa

This year forced us to our knees. Like so many others, I found myself disoriented and trapped inside, falling to my emotional nadir. We lost Kobe Bryant. John Lewis. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And some 300,000 Americans to the plague. We yearned for the days when the rule of law was a given. America as we know it came apart at the seams. Even our best efforts to bridge differences won’t work by themselves, they require that the digital platforms shattering reality in the name of “consumer choice” will have to dramatically change or be regulated into doing so.

I experienced COVID year primarily as a loss of innocence — the year I finally, finally had to grow up. At one point this summer, we were under stay-at-home orders (for rioting) in the midst of stay-at-home orders (for coronavirus). Did we ever think we’d miss each other like this, that we’d yearn for the joy of company and coincidence, serendipity and surprise, the magic of sharing poorly ventilated spaces with strangers? Grief, loss and identity shift defined 2020, both in the universal sense, and in a personal one.

Despite a year of radical change, I write this post feeling privileged and contented. The threat of the virus took away so much — loved ones, freedom, hugs, travel, an entire way of life I took for granted. But it gave, too. A return to nature. A stillness in which, egad, we could be alone with our thoughts. Time for introspection! And for me, a real deepening of my relationships. Because there were no longer the “friends” you just run into at a drop-off, or at conferences, you had to be intentional about how you spent your time and who you reached out to check-in on. I was more deliberate with my friendships than ever, and I felt that intention among the loved ones who supported me. 

I’m also fortunate to be surrounded (more than ever, since they aren’t in school) by my loud, vibrant, healthy kids who remind us how adaptable humanity is at its essence. To borrow from Des’ree’s anthem from my millennial coming-of-age, we gotta be a little bit badder, a little bit bolder, a little bit wiser, harder, tougher. 

Culture That Got Me Through 2020: Bong Joon Ho (just his entire energy), PEN15, Run, I May Destroy You, Younger, BTS’ “Dynamite,” Palm Springs, Dave Grohl’s epic drum battle with a 10 year old he met on social media, the series ending of Bojack Horseman, this TikTok about Mitch McConnell 

Moments of Unadulterated Joy: This gas station in LA, the day the networks finally called the election for Joe Biden. These kids, experiencing the drum solo in “In the Air Tonight”

MVP New Friends: Jenn and Drew, who are the parents of my daughter Eva’s good friend Leif. They were rocks as we made Sunday pool time a regular thing to get through this hell year. Sarah Svoboda, who is my producer at VICE, became one of my closest girlfriends overnight. Rob, with whom I’d split giant breakfast burritos after five mile runs. I am now simultaneously fatter and in better cardiovascular shape.

Big Ideas: The fallacy of emphasizing individual responsibility over systemic fixes. We’re in a care crisis that connects to everything else in our society — the economy, gender, education, politics. The nuclear family ideal is not workable on its own. Neoliberalism failed.

MVP Snack: Brown sugar boba popsicles saved my 2020. I became an accidental boba pop influencer! My only other influencing was for the Saved by the Bell pop-up in West Hollywood, which was a special treat.

Firsts: Book deal. Hosting an hour-long nationwide radio special. Global pandemic. Shelter in place order. Wearing a mask every day. Not leaving the country all year. TV work for VICE. Homeschooling my children. Social distancing. Going a year without being with my parents.

The Energy To Bring To All Things: It’s what I call the Michaela Coel energy, after reading this landmark profile of the singular artist who brought us Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You. We say this, from here on out: ‘This is what I need. Are you good enough to give it to me?’ Not ‘Am I good enough to deserve the kind of treatment that I want?’ 

Fave selfie. Celebrating Luna’s 3rd birthday, at home.

Regrets: Never did learn how to play the ukulele. Barely made progress on my book, which was supposed to be mostly done by now, in a parallel universe. My relationships felt very COVID-blocked, to different degrees.

My Gamechanger: Jungian depth psychology with a dream analyst. This is the most woo-woo I’ve ever sounded, I realize. But after dipping in and out of traditional, more conventional cognitive behavioral therapy for most my adult life, Friend Jenn told me about her dream analyst and I started seeing him over Zoom and I have never had a clearer and deeper understanding of my inner life. I feel more whole and more grounded in an organizing philosophy for meaning than, well, ever. I credit it with keeping me contented through the crucible that was 2020.

One of the year’s proudest achievements, squatting for around 15 minutes straight to conduct an interview with a man experiencing homelessness.

Also this year, in no particular order, and an admittedly incomplete list:

Wrote letters to more than 50 strangers, got the most moving responses
Got to know all the parks around here
Ran 301 miles
Held a squat for 15 minutes while conducting an interview
Watched 252 TED talks
Gained five to eight lbs, depending on the day
Never once got to hug my mom or dad 
Signed my first book deal
Went to so many Zoom meetings, Zoom parties, Zoom milestones and Zoom conferences that I never tracked it
Helped link doctors so they could share COVID lessons in its earliest days
Started hosting TED Talks Daily
Didn’t go to TED (the conference, because the plague canceled it)
Started working as a freelance correspondent for VICE News Tonight
Signed with my broadcast agent in January, who negotiated a lucrative deal by December
Co-created and hosted Labor, an indie podcast about why motherhood’s messed up  
Meditated more than ever before
Drew my first zine
Got a new cat, Abe
Did not get COVID19, at least not yet
Volunteered every Tuesday in the summer, delivering meals to neighbors in need
Got to know the homeless community in Venice
Went drinking with my high school economics teacher, Mr. Coates, 20 years after being his student. He re-explained the Laffer Curve to me at a punk bar in Chicago!
Reconnected with Matt Weiner
Read 39 books, a far cry from the 52 books of previous years
Moved into a new town home
Got a sandwich named after me — The Elise Hu, which is, shockingly, vegetarian
Flew 24,469 miles to 10 cities, never once left the country and spent only 29 days away from home — all of it, before March 13.

Previous Years in Review

2019 | 2018 | 2017 |  2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010|2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

My 2019 Year in Review: Mind Games

Posted on by Elise

Spent much of this year with some sort of brain booster zapping my head, for journalism!

What a time to be alive. The House just impeached the US president. Brexit really is going to happen. Big Tech has finally revealed itself to be far more nefarious than nice; and some of its darling companies (cough WeWork cough) laid bare as just giant Ponzi schemes that fuel capitalism’s excesses while promising “community.”

I am still living in the sunshine and swimming in the sea — spending my first full year back in America in the freaky paradise that is Southern California, where there’s no real winter or hot summer. Reality interrupts sometimes — we felt the long, rolling earthquake on July 4 and much of California’s brush and forests caught fire in the fall. A reminder that this state, like the rest of Planet Earth, is increasingly unsustainable.

This year felt like my real re-entry, a transitional period in which I had to learn how to live a more quotidian and (literally) domestic life after all the nonstop absurdity and madness of living abroad. My intention at the outset of 2019 was to be still and look inward, and I’m one for two — lots of looking inward, but not so much stillness.

I learned constantly, mainly in the service of my central creative project and raison d’etre at NPR for the past year — Future You.  It explored how emerging technologies are changing what it means to be human. We asked philosophical questions but packaged them in lightweight videos, playing with the long game in mind. In all, I had some 124 electrodes gelled to my head in all this year, plus an untold amount of wattage sent to my brain to show a future of mind-machine melding. I also learned how to extend my life, thanks to the Harvard geneticist David Sinclair, one of the world’s leading experts on aging. We became fast friends.

External circumstances interrupted during the back half of 2019 to force me to think more deeply and weigh what matters most. I’m reflecting now after an autumn of tumult. Everything felt triumphant and purpose-driven the first half of the year, then my shoulder dislocated at the end of June and I was down an arm, homebound and feeling crippled and useless. Then, to all of our surprise, my team got laid off in August. This meant the cancelation of the show, without consultation. I struggled for a few months with what I wanted to make — and be — next.

I’m finally out of my malaise, though. New things abound! Can’t wait for 2020, a chance for a buoyant new beginning.

Culture That Made 2019 Bearable: Fleabag, Lizzo, Parasite, Succession, the cringeworthy L to the O-G rap on Succession, Deadwood: The Movie, Sally Rooney’s Normal People, the writing of Rebecca Traister, The Cut on Tuesdays, the newsletter Ask Molly

Drink of the Year: Black Sugar Iced Milk Tea, or Tiger Boba Tea — same thing, different names, delicious whatever you want to call it

Noteworthy Food Discovery: Trader Joe’s Coffee Ice Cream

Live Shows I Was Glad To See: Amanda Seales, John Mulaney, the countertenor John Holliday, Pod Save America, mainly for Jon Lovett

Memorable Interviews: Noho HANK, aka Anthony Carrigan, whose character Hank really makes Barry shine. Jenny Odell, on how she finds meaning while wandering. Alicia Menendez, with whom I really could relate on the topic of likeability. Tristan Harris, for video and separately for the pod, about our attention-fracked media culture.

New Practices: Epictetus said, “Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.” So to lean into my 2019 goal of looking inward, I kept a daily, hand-drawn checklist to make sure I did (or tried to do) the following — meditate, journal, take a vitamin and exercise. The visual representation really shows consistency and lack thereof. Sometimes I just ran out of vitamins, okay? I do most things last minute.

I just colored in a square if I did the thing and over time, I had my own handmade data viz.

The Year’s Firsts: A night at the Magic Castle. Giving a commencement speech at the Missouri School of Journalism, my alma mater. Shoulder dislocation. Irish hospital treatment. Opioids. Drag racing with a professional stunt driver. Brain stimulation. Being monitored in a sleep lab while getting brain stimulation. Getting all three daughters to introduce one of my podcast episodes. The tedious experience of lice removal for my older girls.

New Places: Albuquerque, NM. A few Hawaiian islands I’d never visited before — Kauai and the Big Island. Ireland, where folks kept telling my fair-skinned baby Luna, “Welcome Home” and whose National Ambulance Service I am eternally grateful for. Never did get to visit the Blasket, though.

MVP New Friend: David Sinclair, aforementioned

MVP Old Friend: Harper Reed, who, while helping me through my doldrums randomly introduced me to his friend Michael, with whom he was developing a TV pilot. Serendipitously, Michael goes, “Oh hey do you have a reel?” A week later, I was on a set, shooting a real life commercial, the first since I was a teenager and appeared in commercials for places like Sonic Drive-Ins. This entire sentence just sounded ridiculous when I read it back.

MVP New Sandwich: Popeyes lives up to the hype

Disappointments: The short-sightedness of the newsroom “reorganization” this August and the way it happened. The current era at NPR. Not keeping up with my newsletter. My poor posture, in general — Dr. Raj, my PT, says I had shoulder impingement a long time before my injury.

Also this year, in no particular order, and an admittedly incomplete list:

Talked about my Dad’s epic freedom swim in public
Took the OJ Simpson tour
Lost the door to the minivan after my husband nearly got hit by the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus
Hired a garage organizer and got organized
Received a message from another person’s brain with computer-assisted telepathy
Moved a robot with my mind
Increased my vertical jump by 11 percent
Went under the care of a celebrity longevity doctor; he told me to stop eating so much orange dust
Lowered by biological age by five years
Got my long term memory boosted in a sleep lab
Appeared on The Today Show as B-roll
Shot a commercial
Saw Idris Elba in real life
Partied at Lawrence Welk’s former house
Inadvertently became a Flonase “influencer”
Saw Adam Driver on Broadway, he was riveting
Saw an otter feeding at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Stayed at an entirely wolf-themed lodge
Breathed the same air as Beyonce
Ate breakfast back-to-Harrison Ford’s back, and no one told me for most of this time
Became an Annenberg Innovation Lab fellow
Potty-trained Luna, my last baby
Spent more time with mom and dad, who moved to Orange County for part of the year
Reunited our fellow Asia expat travel squad when the Wan Yau‘s returned to the states
Went to Palm Springs, twice
Went back to Seoul, twice
Went to DC 4X
Went to San Francisco 4X
Went to New York 4X
Wrote and hosted a bunch of podcast episodes on how to travel better
Nearly went broke after having to cough up a bunch in capital gains taxes (thanks, selling the Austin house)
Took a morphined-out Irish ambulance ride with medics named Owen and Paddy, natch
Spent a month in a sling
Spent a month without eating sugar
Spent six months in physical therapy
Watched members of my team get laid off in a parking lot while on the job, and on vacation
Decided to leave NPR after that happened
Took part in a little non-violent resistance
Celebrated my parents 40th anniversary in Hawaii on an epic trip with 20 other family members
Started a new small business with my girlfriends
Fit in reading 52 books, barely
Flew 180,846 miles to 28 cities, three countries and spent 99 days away from home. Next year I’m getting carbon offsets and undertaking an effort to cut this down significantly, because it’s so terrible for the planet to fly this much. Like everything else about my 2019, it’s been a year of reckoning.

Previous Years in Review

2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

2018 Year in Review: Don’t Look Down

Posted on by Elise

Trying not to fall off what’s left of the Jinguashi Gold Mine on the Northern coast of Taiwan, July 2018.

You know how when Wile E. Coyote is chasing the roadrunner off the cliff and there are a few moments when he’s just running on air before dropping precipitously to the ground? That’s how 2018 feels, for America and the existing world order, anyway. This year was such a trash heap that the thing I most look forward to every Christmas, the Hater’s Guide To the Williams Sonoma Catalog, couldn’t happen because the author nearly died.

Despite the persistent ennui about global issues, this year was jam-packed personally and I avoided calamity (a heightened concern due to it being the Year of the Dog). Started the year in Sydney, then February away from home covering the Olympics, springtime was all nuclear rapprochement, got in a last gasp of Asia livin’ before a big repatriation at the end of the summer and filled the fall with hellos, reunions, and settling into being a Californian for the first time. All the while, there was drama at work I eventually learned to navigate, and many dumb dramas at home.

I feel so grateful to be in Southern California and to live on LA’s west side, where you can feel that cool sea breeze and are never more than a 16-minute ride to LAX. I love the multicultural, pluralistic, chilled-out populace. Every time I’m at a school assembly for one of the girls, I look at the faces of the kids performing and they are almost all brown or biracial. It makes me feel so hopeful about the future.

Most LA Thing To Happen: I was chatting up Gary Busey in my work lobby because hello, Gary Busey was just sitting in the lobby, when Tom Hanks walks by. Tom double-takes and says in his TOM HANKS voice, “Gary Busey? My god, how you doin’ man?” And he stops to chat with Gary Busey, introduces himself to me by going, “Hi, I’m Tom,” and then suddenly I’m sitting there talking with Tom Hanks and Gary Busey.

This Year’s Firsts: Moving to California. Going on Anderson Cooper. A real Hollywood movie premiere. Speaking to an arena. Being in the same room as Kim Jong Un’s sister. Being on the same street as Kim Jong Un. Olympics. Curling match. Gracie Award. Japanese robot hotel, where the receptionist was a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Controlling robot legs with my MIND! Hosting Here and Now. Hosting It’s Been A Minute.

Products I Now Swear By: Posie Tint lip tint (I really embraced the Korean “barely there” makeup look), hay straws, reusable straws, SmartWool socks.

Most Relied-Upon Services: Reggie, the guy who washes our cars while parked in the NPR lot, and Drybar. I almost completely stopped doing my hair this year and farmed it out. Combine that with having three daughters who all need bang trims or cuts on a regular basis and I feel like I’m always in one salon or another. This is less about vanity and more about laziness.

Service I Miss the Most: KakaoTalk. One day I needed to access my Kakao from a desktop, which meant wiping all my previous conversations tied to my now defunct Korea phone number. I mourned for an entire afternoon. So much animated sticker-laden banter, GONE, GONE. I love Kakao so much that our goodbye party from Korea was Kakao-themed, as in, people came dressed up as Kakao emojis.

Best Live Sports Experience: The gold medal women’s hockey came between the US and Canada at the Winter Games. Women’s curling — the journey of the ‘Garlic Girls/Team Kim’ — is a close, close second.

The world famous North Korean singing/cheering troupe. Their minders were closely minding this moment.

Favorite Selfie: The one with all the North Korean cheerleaders in town for the Olympics

New Places: Danang/Hoi An, Vietnam. Mount Hood, Oregon. Sydney, Australia. Singapore.

Most Valuable New Friend: Tiffany, our realtor, who instantly made me feel at home (and went above and beyond in helping find us a home). Or Janet, the mom friend I made in the dropoff line at kindergarten. We learned our younger kids go to the same preschool and our older kids are obviously in the same kindergarten, so she’s my go-to for emergency “HEY CAN YOU WATCH OR PICK UP MY KID?!” calls.

Regrets: Not getting to go to Japan all the time anymore. Not talking to effing Bradley Cooper while he was just sitting there in the lobby of my office for 15 minutes, with no one to talk to. Friend Tim quipped, “You should just say to him, ‘Hey’ and when he turns around go, ‘I just wanted to take another look at you.” LOL.

Favorite Stories/Interviews: Steven Yeun, for sure. Amy Westervelt. The Singapore Summit, which was a blur but a memorable blur. The summit before that — the inter-Korean one, which we covered from the most giant press file I have ever seen.

Life Theme: 50/50! We are all becoming more woke, as a society, and for me it’s given me a deeper appreciation of how equitable my marriage has been, and how frustratingly unusual it is, STILL, for women to get to live the lives of this brilliant Garfunkel and Oates feminist love song:

I’m gonna make your dreams come true
As long as they don’t interfere with mine
I’ll always be here for you
For methodically allotted amounts of time
I’ll be there to hold your hand
If I happen to be in town
And any time you need me
There’s a 50/50 chance I’ll be around

Stiles and I saw them together and cheered obnoxiously because IT ME. Guiiiiiiilllty!  

Also this year, in no particular order….

Attended three weddings
Lost my cat, Cheese
Mostly survived my ben ming nian
Got a 15-year-old car accident blemish lasered off my leg
Got a ‘local gal makes good’ piece in my hometown paper
Discovered the best discount kaiseki lunch in Tokyo (thank you Japanese diplomats)
Accidentally locked myself in my Olympic apartment
Survived an international move, in the other direction
Won a Gracie Award
Keynoted the Journalism and Women Symposium confab
Visited the set of Barry
Stopped nursing Luna, celebrated her first birthday
Didn’t get pregnant again, whew
Saw Lauryn Hill live, finally
Had an authentic Hong Kong dim sum weekend
Talked a lot about sexism
Completed the cable news hat trick — Fox, CNN and MSNBC in a single day
Didn’t work at the Washington Post, again
Took my girls to Disneyland
Sold my Austin house
Coached first daughter through losing her first teeth
Covered the worst wildfire in California history
Accidentally stumbled upon the Korean curling “garlic girls” on a hot streak and followed it through to their appearing at the gold medal game, ultimately winning a silver
Covered the Kim-Moon summit
And the surprise Kim-Moon summit
The Trump-Kim summit in Singapore
Saw Reese Witherspoon in the flesh
Spent three murder weekends in the woods
Had epic Kakao-themed goodbye party in Korea
Appeared in a documentary that is not the air sex one
Spent 15th Christmas with Stiles, in which we avoided murdering one another
Squeezed in 54 books
Met the famous foodcam of the MIT Media Lab
Flew 233,340 miles to 31 cities, eight countries and spent 113 days away from home. This was crazy in it of itself but especially given the small children and their assorted activities/needs. Next year I’m staying put more so I can be alone with my thoughts — FRIGHTENING. I’ve already said it but I’ll say it again: Thank you thank you to my misanthropic husband and our live-in helper, Yani.

Previous Years in Review

2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

2017 Year in Review: “Provocations”

Posted on by Elise

True story: I would have posted this before the end of 2017 had my computer not died on the last day of the year. I guess 2017 wanted to get in one final disappointment. Don’t let the door hit ya!

Awaiting a Trump press conference in Tokyo at Akasaka Palace, during his first trip to Asia as president.

“We worry, all along, that we are being buffeted about by forces beyond our control, because we are. The world is wheels within wheels within wheels, but so are we. Everything is under control, and nothing makes sense.”

-Todd Van der Werff, on 2017

To ignore the unsettled feeling brought on by the changes to America and the world under the least popular American president since modern polling began would be irresponsible, but I also find it infuriating and exhausting to think too hard about it. For example, I cannot bring myself to look at starving polar bear photos even though philosophically I think we all should.

This year I tried to focus on individual objectives and tasks in order to keep my sanity. Like trying to teach the girls how to live with kindness and consideration of other people. (A work in progress, as they aren’t even that nice to one another!) At work, I’m trying to do some good with the pretty significant microphone that we have to shine a light on ourselves and our times and to agitate for improvements to my organization (e.g., to try and make it more inclusive). To say I haven’t been in and out of ennui would be a lie. I was unable to consume alcohol for all of Q1 and finally I started doing so with abandon as soon as Baby Luna was out of me. There was a lot of catching up to do.

That the final two months of the year brought down so many sexual predators/misogynists and Alabama elected the guy who prosecuted the KKK instead of the guy banned from the mall represents some cautious hope that a corrective for these misshapen times will eventually come. And the year wasn’t all bad. The Houston Astros won the World Series, the aggressively exuberant baby Luna is here and Matt Lauer is gone from the airwaves. Reliable year-enders that I cherish, such as The Hater’s Guide to the Williams Sonoma catalog, still showed up.

Firsts: Getting lost in a go-kart on the streets of Tokyo. Being with Donald Trump in person. (And Melania.) Making wax food. IUD! Fareed Zakaria GPS. Potty Training boot camp (NOT FOR ME, I was the drill sergeant, okay?!). And a first (and last) — co-hosting All Things Considered with the man the myth and the legend, Robert Siegel, before he retires.

Recurring Themes: North Korea. Russia. Being frightened to see news alerts in the morning.

New Person: Little Luna Lee, our third human child, who weighed 8 pounds 6 oz., or as they measure it in Korea, 3.9 kg. The heaviest crotch nugget yet, and I whined about it heartily in her final weeks of incubation.

ahhhhhhh!!!

Favorite Selfie: On the streets with crowds of South Korean, with crack assistant Jihye the moment South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye, was formally removed from office after being impeached by a constitutional court. (She’s now in jail on a slew of charges.)

Most Unintentionally Famous Friend: Bob Kelly, aka “BBC Dad,” after his hip-hoppity kids made the best ever appearance in this BBC interview, followed up by his stealthy-smooth wife, who came to yank them out

New Friend of the Year: Alex Field, who is Hong Kong-based but spent so much time in Seoul for various North Korea-related news that she started working out regularly with my pilates instructor. Women need women friends and she’s become a close one, as we whine about our jetlag together following our trans-Pacific journeys and commiserate by text — and in person — over being overworked.

The Year of the … Hobonichi Techo: I tried going fully analog for my calendar and diary like the Japanese do, and it was awesome. The Hobonichi Techo was bullet journaling before bullet journals, and the pages, after writing in them, take on this delicious crinkled quality that’s oh so satisfying. I didn’t write a journal entry each day, so it’s largely full of to-dos and footnotes from phone calls that help me look back, and monthly calendars that show my travels and meetings.

Most Satisfying Habit: Monthly calls with Matt. After we went my first year in Seoul without talking on the phone, MThomps put recurring calls on both our calendars, dates which we got really serious about keeping no matter the hour or where we were. (He was often running, so our phone calls followed a  bouncing up and down kind of rhythm.)

Close Calls: When Matty had to bribe his way into Indonesia just in time to make it for Isa’s 2nd birthday.

New Places: Indonesia, Guam, Hokkaido, Australia

This year I…

Had third baby and she is the bomb
Read 52 books, most of them fiction and the vast majority by badass women authors
Became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
Found out I’m Wikipedia-cited on the topic of “asian fetishes,” yikes
Kpop dance class #humiliation
Got in trouble with standards editor for saying “awesomer” on the air, but “y’all” was cleared
Got sketched at a wedding by a random stranger (literally sketched, not a play on words)
Got a bandaid nearly applied to me by a stranger on the Tokyo subway
Launched Elise Tries, an irreverent travel video series
Started sleeping two rooms away from my phones because news alerts were anxiety-inducing
Showed up in a stock image
Showed up in an online textbook
Showed up in Austin to surprise my goddaughter
Lost my grandma, my hero, a rock
Ran successful potty training boot camp, training Isa in two days
Accidentally injured my cat Caesar out of negligence
Drove a go kart around the streets of Tokyo
Drove into oncoming traffic in Hokkaido
Threw a bunch of ceramics at walls in a “rage room” with my brother
Room-mommed for my two year-old, who started preschool
Co-Hosted All Things Considered
Sent a lot of random packages (my fave was melted wax that Friend Harper received, long story)
Spent July 4th covering an ICBM test
Spent Labor Day weekend covering a nuclear test
Spent too many weekend mornings covering other missile launches
Dressed family up as sushi for Halloween
Popped in on lots of podcasts: Sweet and Sour FM. It’s Been a Minute. Divided States of Women. Lots of Up First.
Logged 59,861 miles to go to six countries and one US territory, and spent 78 days away from home, a much more homebound year this year thanks to Baby Luna.

Previous Years in Review:

2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010
2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

2016 Year In Review: What Just Happened Here?

Posted on by Elise

In July, with my fixer Akane, in the Japanese Alps reporting on a traditional naked festival.

Ah, 2016. A year so seemingly bad that it became its own internet meme. Not only was the soul-sucking U.S. presidential election rather horrifying, but artistic icons kept dying — Bowie, Prince, now George Michael. Mix in another hottest year on record, Brexit, the ongoing refugee crisis, rising nativism all over the world, nuclear tests by North Korea and it’s easy to get a girl down, you know?

In the micro sense, my 2016 was a tornado of travel and jet lag but rather charmed and full of surprises, like the new baby in my belly. (WHAT!? Still processing, but running out of time for it to sink in.) It was a year for much Japan exploration, and full of friends and weekend getaways all over the place — Cebu, Bangkok, Okinawa, New York, London, Seattle and more.

Notable Firsts: The G7 summit, airport transportation by high-speed boat, flight with the U.S. Treasury Secretary, police-escorted motorcade through Beijing, aka, experiencing Beijing without its infamous traffic, gong bath (it is a thing), Go tournament, hosting an NPR show, getting a compliment from the president, kabuki show, naked man festival. (Some details below.)

Recurring Theme: Jet lag. Naps. Longing for booze and not being able to drink it.

Favorite Selfie: My brother Roger Hu goofing off with daughter Eva (and a magnifying glass) when we were all in Taipei for the Lunar New Year.

New Person: A new Hu was born on December 1, after 48 hours of labor. My little brother Roger is now a dad, to baby boy Ethan Hu. Another E-Hu in the family makes me so proud. I can’t wait to meet him.

Eva and Uncle Roger’s giant nose

Regrets: I didn’t call my friends who I don’t meet up with in random cities. Going to make a more concerted effort in 2017.

Randomness: Pineapple Park, y’all. Hostile environment training. Dairy Queen in Laos.

Notable New Friend: CNN International’s Saima Moshin, who I technically met in 2015. But we really solidified our friendship this year, and I’m better for it.

New countries: Philippines, Thailand, Laos

And in no particular order…
Asked the Deputy US Secretary of State about North Korea’s hangover free booze
Watched traditional kabuki performed by children up in the mountains
Attended first Japanese naked man festival, featuring not men but boys (yikes)
Got attacked by a raccoon, who then STOLE my mic
Slept through Taiwan’s big February earthquake, had to do a bunch of TV to talk about it
Learned enough cab Korean to get around
Gave Isabel a Korean first birthday party
Ran out of passport pages
Went back and forth to Japan 11 times
Went to Hawaii for work … twice
Thought a lot about smog
Watched artificial intelligence beat a 9-time world champ at Go
Covered the President’s historic (and moving) visit to Hiroshima
Passed up a chance to live in Shanghai
(Went back-and-forth for awhile before making a decision)
Guest hosted Weekend Edition
Interviewed Omarosa
Had soooo many karaoke (or in Korea, norebang) nights
Played The Sunday Puzzle with NYT Crossword Editor Will Shortz
Somehow got knocked up again, hrmmm
Learned how to tie a tourniquet really quickly, and to make one
Achieved objective of reading a lot more books than last year
Asked President B-H-O about North Korea on his final Asia trip
Got a presidential compliment: “Those are good questions”
Finally saw Sir Ian McKellen IN THE FLESH
Learned how to make a pig face out of a rice ball
Drove on left side of road and right side of car for the first time, didn’t die
Witnessed Obama and Shinzo Abe’s quiet tribute to Pearl Harbor victims at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial

Free from nursing by July (but pregnant again in August), logged 128,367 miles in the air (resulting in jet lag for many days of 2016), going to nine countries and spending 145 days away from home. I need a nap. Bye.

Previous Years in Review:
2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

2014 Year in Review: What Kind Of Year Has It Been?

Posted on by Elise

“Of course, life will randomly go to hell every so often, too. Cold winds arrive and prick you: the rain falls down your neck: darkness comes.” -Annie Lamott

i spent much of 2014 just barely hanging on. (in the norcal redwoods, may 2014)
I spent much of 2014 just barely hanging on. (In the NorCal redwoods, May 2014)

It’s hard to look back at 2014 without feeling completely paralyzed. A missing plane, never found. A plane being shot out of the sky. Another plane that went missing in the final days of the year. ISIS beheadings, Crimea, Gaza, Ebola, school shootings, campus rapes, lethal cops, our nation’s intractable problem with race. Ryan Gosling fathering a child with some woman.

For me, the year started with bringing home a flu strain from Asia, my nanny quitting at the height of a dramatic fight with us and a week later, suffering my first miscarriage. The nanny that replaced the first one wound up disappearing from our lives by August because she somehow was knocked up and needed to go tend to her own baby. Yep.

In the summer I went to Ferguson and got automatic rifles drawn on me by eight jumpy cops.

By October, I had finally moved desks as a gambit to change up my feng shui. A new beginning, I thought. On the very same day, the staff received an email — I read it at my new desk — that friend and mentor and the reason I came to work at NPR had been dismissed from his job by our new CEO. When I called my husband to commiserate, the first thing he said to me wasn’t empathetic but, “I hope you’re not crying at your desk right now.”

Then, two days before Christmas, after running into get a sandwich in the freezing rain, I returned to my car to find my purse and computer had been stolen sometime inside of four minutes. Merry Christmas, assholes.

That is the pessimistic take, of course. All our first-world “hard times” are nothing in the scheme of things. And there were moments of great love and delight this year, too. As I’ve done for 10 years now, here’s a Hu look back:

Favorite Discoveries on the Internet: Clickhole. The Passenger Shaming Instagram account.

we did not have a selfie stick for this. this is just eric schmidt's pure talent.
We did not have a selfie stick for this. This is just Eric Schmidt’s pure talent.

Favorite Selfie: The one Google Chairman Eric Schmidt took of us. He snapped a lot but I liked the one where I wasn’t paying attention.

New Experiences: Tear gas. Being in the crosshairs of cops. Jellyfish sting in Jamaica. Dangerous halluciongenic crisis in Jamaica. Couples crisis brought on by aforementioned dangerous drug trip. Aspen Institute. Doing a Planet Money podcast! Having a pregnant au pair. Speaking at the UN. Seaplane flight. Oculus Rift virtual reality experience. The miscarriages.

Randomness: Running into Obama in Denver. Getting lost in the briefing room. Hung out with a semi-famous actor-I-will-not name and watched him effectively bum some weed off strangers.

And in no particular order, this year I:

Flew 72,952 miles to four countries and 28 cities. Was gone from home 90 days this year, though it felt like way more.
Visited the Taiwanese News animation studio (a favorite from a previous Year in Review), told a story about it.
Took some creepy stalker photos of Sofia Coppola at a pool in Miami.
Moderated a panel on wearables at SXSW and did not wear Glass despite lobbying efforts by the Glass guy.
Got Taco Cabana delivered to my hotel room at the moment we needed it the most.
Partied with Scoot McNairy.
Got solar panels on our house.
Became buddies with a Hollywood funnyman named Alec Berg after interviewing him about his show, Silicon Valley. This led to a friend reunion with my high school pal from 9th grade, Scott Mechlowicz. Small universe.
Got retweeted by Martellus Bennett.
Survived longest winter in DC in maybe ever.
Taught a quarter at Northwestern.
Taught a semester at Georgetown.
Stayed at YMCA in the redwoods.
Attended four weddings. (Crissy, Alexis, Tim, Drew.)
Went on a hike in Aspen with Lance Armstrong’s nanny.
Parked wrong in San Francisco. Paid a $600 price for that mistake — the $440 base towing cost, plus the $150 citation.
Did a little talk with Eric Schmidt.
London!
Reconnected with my high school economics teacher, Mr. Coates.
Got a is-a-burrito-a-sandwich story on national air for more than five minutes.
Convinced my editor to get some online clothes styling with me (for a story, of course).
Covered #Ferguson. Dealt with difficult feelings afterward.
Lost my favorite boss. (Not from earth, just from work.)
Saw Seoul. Prepared to move there.

It wasn’t a bad year, entirely. I just had some of the hardest days and weeks of my life during the course of this year. It felt unrelentless at times. Tears were shed. Mistakes were made. But ultimately we survived. Here’s to a brighter, more peaceful 2015.

Previous Years in Review:
2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

2012 Year in Review: Pura Vida

Posted on by Elise

last sunset in costa rica. an amazing way to celebrate my 30th this year.
Last sunset in Costa Rica. An amazing way to celebrate my 30th this year.

 

What a year. We didn’t go a moment without a GIF, said final farewells to Andy Griffith, Neil Armstrong and Big Tex (tear) and the S&Mish Fifty Shades of Grey staved off publishing’s decline. (I wasted money on two of the books before totally losing interest.) In other news, I paid more attention to Twitter outrage over the Olympics than the actual games and all my post-election day reading was rudely interrupted by General Petraeus’ soapy sex drama.

I guess the dominant headline of my year was spending 75% of 2012 in a state of pregnancy, oddly appropriate during what often seemed like the Election Year of the Womb (Uteruses up, y’all!). By fall, Baby Eva arrived. There are finally the same number of humans in our house as cats.

Great ’12 Distractions: The return of animated .gif’s. Spotify. Soups. TripIt Pro (continued). Breaking Bad. Blogging about Mad Men after it finally came back (check out my ’08 distractions to see how little has changed), pub trivia at The Argonaut (we still haven’t won), being on airplanes (again), The Accidental Chinese Hipsters Tumblr, which might be the best Tumblr ever.

Fave YouTube Finds: Aaron Paul’s appearance on The Price Is Right many moons ago. The 11-year-old Ryan Gosling’s amazing dance moves.

Recurring Themes: Not drinking alcohol, OMG. Motherhood. My denim jacket, originally purchased in 12th grade. Turning 30. Being unsure whether I’m ready to be an adult. Being unsure whether I should be doing what I’m doing with my life. Watermelon.

Noteworthy Discoveries: Weather.Ericson.net, @PimpBillClinton, Uber, Hipmunk, Dr. Weissbluth, the amazing baby sleep doctor

Happy Places: Those starry nights in Costa Rica. Trivia at Nellie’s with the gays. My pals Virginia and Keith’s badass renovated house in Austin.

Disappointments: Not visiting all the countries I wanted to in my New Year’s Resolutions. Fantasy Football performance in both leagues. Not getting to go see my parents — sure, they came to us, but it’s more fun to visit them in Europe.

Most OUTRAGE-inducing people and situations of 2012: The entitled Washingtonians who just cross Rhode Island Avenue at any point and in any place. DC Water. I STILL GET A PHONE BOOK, WHY!!?

Biggest Victories: Delivering Eva without meds. Winning the battle against DC Water. A 3.2% interest rate on the house.

Continue reading “2012 Year in Review: Pura Vida” →

2011 Year in Review: Up in The Air

Posted on by Elise

In transit at the Warsaw Airport. (October 2011)

 

My friend Patrick Terpstra wrote this of his year: “‎2011 was like riding a tilt-a-hurl after eating seven corn dogs. But it sure beats watching from the ground.”

I can’t disagree. I did plenty of plane riding, which is the most consistent memory of this year, besides saying goodbye and hello to a lot of people I really love. To rewind:

The Year I Flew Around the World, Twice: After saying goodbye to Texas and The Texas Tribune, I spent 99 days this year away from home, logging 78,931 miles in the air to 29 locations including places like Warsaw, Poland (for fun) and Boise, Idaho (for work). Not proud of the carbon footprint but I can now glide through security like Ryan Bingham.

Don’t Look Back in Anger (I Heard You Say): It felt like a pretty angry and destructive year, didn’t it? My second favorite emotion*, outrage, seemed to abound. I write this as tens of thousands of Russians protest in the streets, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya take their shaky steps toward self-rule, and socioeconomic dissatisfaction continues at home. We said goodbye to Osama bin Laden, Amy Winehouse and Steve Jobs (none of whom were picks in my clearly talentless celebrity death pool), an earthquake-tsunami combo led to radiation disaster in Japan, and we experienced a rare earthquake in my new hometown of Washington, D.C.

Favorite Video of The Year Is Also My Favorite Song: “Ching Chong (It Means I Love You)”
After a UCLA student went on a crazy rant about Asian people in the library, she faced a backlash so large she had to quit college. But Jimmy Wong turned his rant response into art — one of the catchiest songs of the year, and an instant viral video. It will get stuck in your head, so if you haven’t seen this, you’ve been warned.

Speaking of Asians, My Most Memorable Welcome to Washington: The Crazy Guy in Starbucks
There was one morning after the devastating Japanese earthquake when I went into Starbucks in Chinatown, natch, when a random guy off the street wandered in, started yelling at people in line, stopped at me, and said this, to me: “Fuck you, go home. You deserved the earthquake.” Then he told the rest of the line we were all going to die. Yep.

Continue reading “2011 Year in Review: Up in The Air” →