It’s February. It’s been over a year since I first saw masks on the faces of Hong Kongers, mere days after news of a strange new virus had appeared close by. At the time, I was amazed at the super-elastic mobilization, the decisiveness of a city of people who knew this all too well. As restrictions were slammed on the city, we were encouraged not to leave Hong Kong. And no wonder, because …
United States of America
I Traveled from Hong Kong to the USA During the COVID-19 Pandemic and This is What It Was Like.
It’s 2:42 a.m. here in this Massachusetts town. I arrived at 5:30 in the evening, and this is currently the view from the Holiday Inn, one of three hotels in this little pocket of 30,000 people. There’s the flicker of Popeye’s tangerine-orange logo, and the looming hulk of the Showcase Cinemas I grew up going to as a kid – its neon sign now dark, and the entirety of its glass façade eerily …
ABC in Hong Kong: A Chinese American Story of Language, Loss, and Home
For as long as I can remember, the Asian-American identity had existed in various forms before I’d even known that being an ABC (American-born Chinese) was a thing. It was fed to me in drops and trickles: first through the works of Amy Tan, where I related strongly to her child protagonist Ying-ying St. Clair in the 1992 book The Moon Lady, the story of a headstrong and fairly obnoxious girl who …
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The Best Food in the East Village, Manhattan: My Favorite Bites in This New York Neighborhood
I plan an entire visit to a place around its food more often than I care to admit. This was especially true before I became Instagram trash (hey, click that Follow if you haven’t!), when the only photos I snapped were on my Samsung 5, and consisted nearly entirely of things like handheld jianbing or egg waffles stuffed with ice cream. Since my nearly-complete transformation into Instagram …
Lily Wunders 2019: My Year in Review in Travel and Blogging
In 2018, I flew out of Hong Kong for international trips 9 times. A year later, in 2019, both my style of travel (I affectionately call it “super light touch”) and everything else in my life caught up with me. I traveled less, but also wrote more. I launched my travel blog in October. I created a presence on two new social media platforms. I turned 26. 2019 Travels: Macau, France, New …
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Do Italians like American Italian Food? We Eat in Little Italy in Boston to Find Out
Have Americans destroyed Italian cuisine? Do the Italians hate us for it? Do I even know what Italian food is? Would bringing an Italian to Little Italy in Boston be carnage? My first experience with Italian food came in the form of boxed Barilla spaghetti. My dad meticulously listed grocery items on yellow Post-it notes and carefully attached them to our fridge door. One of them is still …
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I’m From Boston. Here Are My Top Things to Do in Boston.
The worst thing you can do if you're from Massachusetts is say you're from Boston if you're not. If you're friends with someone who is actually from Boston, they'll draw up a map for you. It's instinctual. It's like scratching when you have an itch. You just do it. You're not from Boston if you're from Springfield, OK? But I digress. In the travel world, where living like a local …
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