It’s taken more than a pretty face for Maria Ho to earn her rank in a male-dominated field.
ISSUE: Winter 2011-12
DEPT: Personalities
STORY: Shirley Lau
For reality TV enthusiasts and testosterone-fueled poker players, Chinese American Maria Ho may be a familiar face. She’s taken center stage on Season 3 of Fox’s American Idol and trekked through unfamiliar terrain on CBS’s The Amazing Race. But it was during this summer’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) when Ho’s competitive nature came out in full force.
In June, Ho became the record-holder for having the single biggest score by a woman at the U.S. WSOP, taking home more than $540,000.
“Anytime that I feel like I’m being challenged and pushed to my limits, I’m really drawn to it,” says the 28-year-old via telephone one morning as she’s preparing for another long day of betting, bluffing and showing her game face. For the last seven weeks, her life has become a routine of waking up and playing poker for up to 12 hours a day, every day.
Ho has shown she’s capable of playing with the big boys, even if they still seem to underestimate her, she says. She hasn’t done too shabby during her six-year career. To date, she’s won more than $1 million over the course of 19 live tournaments series.
It was during her college years at University of California, San Diego, that Ho realized that poker was more than just a downtime activity for her. “It was something that I was truly passionate about and that I wanted to pursue,” she says.
But to appease her parents — who came to the States from Taiwan when Ho was only 4 years old — she graduated with a bachelor’s in communications. (“I knew that I had to graduate because if I didn’t, I would never hear the end of it,” says Ho.) But by then, she had already decided to steer clear of the academic road and take the risk of becoming a professional poker player.
But the life of a gambler isn’t what Ho sees in her future — she says she’ll have to find another career at some point. “People can get wrapped up on how much money they can make,” she says. That’s when she’ll turn to her singing talents or follow her parents’ path and become an entrepreneur by opening something “along the lines of a restaurant-bar type of business.
“There’s so much traveling involved in poker,” says Ho about the constraints of her current life. “There are so many things I want to do.”
— Shirley Lau
ISSUE: Winter 2011-12
DEPT: Plugged In
STORY: Mira Advani Honeycutt
Best known for her martial arts action films, Michelle Yeoh is now tackling a role of a different kind. The Malayasian-born actress has recently been traveling promoting the new film The Lady, in which she plays the Burmese pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi. The film was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and had a gala presentation at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea last October.
Directed by Luc Besson, the film follows the life of Suu Kyi when she returns to Burma in 1988 to take care of her dying mother and finds herself at the forefront of the country’s democratic movement. When she’s placed under house arrest for more than a decade, she attains world recognition and receives the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, but not without the sacrifice of her family. Her two teenage sons were continually denied visas to visit her, and Suu Kyi is not by her Oxford professor husband’s side when he dies of prostate cancer in 1999.
During the filming in Thailand, Yeoh traveled to Burma, the only person allowed to meet with Suu Kyi. “I was nervous and overwhelmed,” said Yeoh to the press at Busan. “She opened her arms and gave me a hug. For a slender woman she is very strong and that hug was worth the trip.”
The film project, Yeoh explained, came to her through her friend Rebecca Frayn, who wrote the script with Yeoh in mind. “As an actress, where do you get a role like that?” said Yeoh. She then turned to her good friend and mentor Luc Besson for advice. “I read the script and I cried,” said Besson at the film festival. The director, known for such action films as La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element and the Transporter films, got on board immediately. “I cancelled everything for the next 18 months.”
For Yeoh, it was a challenging role, from learning Burmese to playing the piano. Although there is footage of Suu Kyi as a public person, there was very little information on her family life, said Yeoh. It was like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle: “I studied her little laugh, her sighs, to give some insight. I walked around the streets in Oxford and met her friends to get a sense of her life.”
The most striking thing about Yeoh’s portrayal may be the resemblance between the two women. “Yes, there is an uncanny resemblance,” said Yeoh, “but when you see the poster, I hope you see her and not me.” Details In theaters December 2, 2011.
— Mira Advani Honeycutt
Acclaimed author Thrity Umrigar deftly explores lost youth and opportunity in her coming-of-middle-age novel, The World We Found. Susan Soon He Stanton reviews her latest work.
ISSUE: Winter 2011-12
DEPT: Plugged In
STORY: Susan Soon He Stanton
Thrity Umrigar, the internationally renowned author of The Weight of Heaven and The Space Between Us, returns with a powerful rumination on the lives of women in contemporary India. In their reign as politically active students in 1970s Bombay, Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita and Nishta created a pact to carve out a brave new India. Their parents scoff, “darlings, if there is to be a new India, it will be built by the politicians and the businessmen … not by a couple of little girls pretending to be revolutionaries.” Undeterred, the women attended dangerous protests with fresh-faced idealism. Twenty years later, the women have drifted apart in their adult lives. The narrative, divided between the four women and some of their partners, reveals that each friend quietly believes her life has become a compromise of her earlier ideals. The estranged friends ruefully mull over the choices that transformed their radical and glorious youth into a dull, middle-aged existence.
Armaiti, now living in the U.S., is gravely ill and requests a reunion. Separated by decades, religion and continents, Laleh and Kavita fight to make this improbable summons a reality. Unlike her wealthy childhood friends, Nishta lives a humble and increasingly isolated life, controlled by her Muslim husband, Iqbal. Deeply traumatized by the Hindu-Muslim riots in 1993, Iqbal has transformed from a fellow revolutionary to a devout Muslim and forbids Nishta to travel to America.
Umrigar spends much care dramatizing the two sides of the troubled union. While Nishta comes across as a more sympathetic character, both in her desperate need to break free from a stifling marriage and her desire to reunite with her friends, Iqbal is a tragic and complex man. Although every character battles their remembrances, the most powerful debate between past and present self lies in Iqbal’s struggle. Bitter and broken down, but not evil, he defies performing the role of a simple villain. His unlikely friendship with Laleh’s Parsi husband is intriguing and nuanced. More than any other story, Iqbal haunts the novel, as if he wills his own fears of prejudice and religious intolerance into reality.
Iqbal, a poor Muslim, is contrasted with many of the Hindu or Parsi characters suffering from middle-class guilt. After Laleh speaks out at a dinner party, her husband dispenses a harsh reality check. “Take a good look at yourself. You spend money as your heart desires, who the hell do you think you are? The proletariat?” Despite her grand notions and high ideals, Laleh finally comes to terms with her own hypocrisy.
Umrigar builds her novel with a slow and subtle deliberation. According to her characters, their youth is so interesting and their present so dull, a reader may question why Umrigar did not begin her tale in the thick of the action in the 1970s. Even Armaiti responds to her declining health with listless melancholy and not the passionate anger of her former self. But Umrigar’s decision to deny her characters and her readers access into the past, endows that era with an unattainable quality. The characters long to revisit the past as much as the reader may want to learn about it. This longing infuses the novel with bittersweet notes that add depth to this coming-into-middle-age story.
Although The World We Found is a good read from top to bottom, the novel gains momentum as the friends prepare for their trip. As the characters are motivated to leave their respective ruts, the stakes grow and the final chapters of the novel are breathtaking and suspenseful.
Although this is a story that builds strength as it goes, The World We Found is an engrossing novel about friendship and the intricacies of human nature. Moreover, it is an impressive work of fiction by a stunningly gifted writer.
ISSUE: Winter 2011-12
DEPT: Mind & Body
STORY: Shirley Lau
Celebrity trainer Yuichi Ohi (he’s the one who got Trans- formers’ Shia LaBeouf in tip-top shape) offers easy ways to shape up your diet.
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Avoid food with refined sugar and flour. Instead, substitute those for whole grains (e.g., swap brown rice for white rice).
- Have a satisfying glass of water instead of high-calorie drinks like soda or juices, which tend to have a lot of added sugar. If you are a habitual soda drinker, this change alone can give your weight loss some momentum.
- At a restaurant, exchange a fried appetizer for a side salad.
- When it comes to snacking, opt for low-sugar fruits (grapefruit, apples) and vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, celery). If you have to have a pre-packaged snack, have the 100-calorie packs to control your portions.
- Instead of completely depriving yourself of your favorite dish, look online for a lower calorie version. Nobody will survive a restricted diet without being able to enjoy life. You’re more likely to change your eating habits in the long term if you’re satisfied in the short term.
— Shirley Lau
Cello prodigy Tina Guo has contributed her musical talent to classical symphonies, pop artists and film scores. Now the 26-year-old takes the conductor’s wand for her debut solo album.
ISSUE: Winter 2011-12
DEPT: Personalities
STORY: Rhea Cortado
“I don’t have people telling me what kind of image or what kind of music they want me to do. It’s always me,” says professional cello soloist, Tina Guo. Early in her career (which started at the age of 9, touring as a soloist with classical symphonies), a manager advised that dabbling in “crossover” music would “ruin” her classical potential. Guo’s response to that handler? “I fired [him], of course.”
And today the 26-year-old is arguably more successful and publically visible because of her diverse repertoire. The cello prodigy fluidly floats between playing in classical orchestras around the world, to collaborating with rock n’ rollers like Carlos Santana and Foo Fighters, R&B artists John Legend and India Arie, and Academy Award-winning composer Hans Zimmer on his film scores.
In October, she released her first solo album, The Journey, in which she wrote, performed, self-recorded and self-produced most of the songs. It’s the most deeply personal of all her projects and a representation of her edgy electric cello style and skill.
“I’m very kind of bipolar or schizophrenic,” jokes Guo. One track, “Forbidden City,” is industrial metal inspired by her favorite band Rammstein. Another track, “Winter Starlight,” is written for a female choir, using multiple cello and vocal layers of Guo’s own voice that she describes as influenced by Enya, meditation, and classical music. “Each [song] was inspired by some kind of drama or occurrence in life and it’s usually when I’m feeling extremely emotional one way or the other, whether it’s negative or positive,” says Guo.
The Chinese American learned to play cello under rigorous schooling, practicing up to eight hours a day starting at the age of 7, and sacrificing a normal childhood. But any bitterness over a lost youth has passed and now she’s grateful for the musical education that’s allowed her to express herself limitlessly.
“Technique is the most important thing that you should develop and work on and once you get past that, you’re able to play anything,” she says. “There’s nothing you can’t play physically — that’s when you can start creating art.”
— Rhea Cortado
HOW THE INTERNET CHANGED MY SEX LIFE: Paul Nakayama found that bitching about the woes of online dating was the key to his success. For Lena Chen, author of the blog Sex and the Ivy, the Internet is a less-than-desirable hunting ground.
ISSUE: FALL 2011
DEPT: The Awful Truth
STORY: Paul Nakayama and Lena Chen
PHOTO: Audrey Cho
PAUL SAYS:
My editor asked me, “How did the Internet change your sex life?”
“It gave me one?” I replied. Never mind that she didn’t laugh. It was sort of true what I said, but it’s not the whole truth. Now, I’m not talking about learning some power moves from on- line porn and changing my sex life that way (though that’s cool, too). I’m talking about how it became a conduit for getting more dates.
Award-winning interior designer Surachai Tangsakyuen has created interiors for luxury hotels, spas and personal residences from Egypt to Hong Kong. Here, he provides tips on how to create mood-lifting home sanctuaries.
ISSUE: Fall 2011
DEPT: Entertaining
STORY: Anna M. Park
Award-winning interior designer Surachai Tangsakyuen has created interiors for luxury hotels, spas and personal residences from Egypt to Hong Kong. The New York-based Thai native obtained his master’s in lighting at the Parson School of Design and is currently the chief interior designer at the international design and architecture firm Perkins Eastman. “Your home environment should be your sanctuary; it can have a huge impact on your mental and emotional well-being,” says Tangsakyuen. Here, he provides tips on how to create mood-lifting home sanctuaries.
- Lighting: “I recommend that people use incandescent light bulbs instead of fluorescent ones, which give off a very harsh light. Incandescent bulbs have a softer, calming quality, which is perfect for relaxing and unwinding in your home. Also combine various non-uniform light sources in a room, such as dimmed lights and candlelight or a floor light and a wall scone. This will help to create a really warm, personalized sanctuary feeling in your home and can make your environment especially cozy in preparation for colder months.”
- Bedroom: “Dress your bed according to the season and/or your mood. Layers of sensual, tactile fabrics are great and you can envelop yourself in rich fall shades of aubergine, violet, olive and russet. For a great fall/winter look, try a warming crimson cashmere throw com- bined with a gold cotton damask over crisp white bed sheets. Natural fabrics are particularly good for helping you to regulate your body temperature.”
- Color: “Instead of using pure white, which can feel quite cold, sterile and clinical within the home, use other white tones with a hint of color, such as Navajo white or China white, to help create warmth. Similarly if decorating with black in your home, which is becoming in- creasingly popular, instead of using a straight black, try other dark tones such as black forest green or hale navy. Darker colors can help to create a smart yet cozy, cavernous atmosphere. It can make a room feel like your own personal lair.”
When the Great Recession hit in 2008, millions were downgraded to part-time, furloughed or simply laid off. But if there’s one thing the recession has proven, it’s that sometimes a downturn in life can be a blessing in disguise.
ISSUE: Fall 2011
DEPT: Features
STORY: Shirley Lau
PHOTO: Kristy Lee & Luke Cho
It’s impossible to look in any direction without seeing someone playing the Words with Friends app on their iPhone or messaging a friend on their Blackberry. Despite government-issued checks being the sole source of income for many, it’s not hard to find restaurants with people waiting in a line that goes out the door, eager to spend their scavenged cash on a nice meal. It may look like the economy is getting better, but looks can be awfully deceiving.
Being unemployed or making a career change during what is considered by economists to be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, is anything but an anomaly. As of this past summer, the unemployment
rate was nearly 10 percent, about 31 million people. And with constant fears of a possible double-dip recession, it doesn’t look like things are going to get better any time soon.
So what is one to do when she’s living off unemployment and sending hundreds of résumés into a black hole? Some may choose to make a career out of being couch potatoes, while others are just trying to stay afloat, holding out for the day when they can make a career out of what they’re most passionate about. And then there are those fresh (and once fearful) faces who’ve changed their lives for the better — and they have the recession to thank for it.
A New Global Perspective
{ Cat Manabat, 25, Filipina American }
Previous job: Copywriter for start-up social media marketing company
Current job: English teacher
As a fresh college graduate from University of California, Irvine, Catherine Manabat wasn’t moving up at the start-up company she was at, despite being there for a year. Her paycheck barely managed to cover her school loans and monthly bills. And she had to sacrifice her freedom — without any residual income to live on her own, she was living back at home with her parents.
“It was very odd to come back [home] and try to assert myself as an adult-child, rather than a child-child,” says Manabat. “It can be a rocky transition for most. The obvious downside was I was still getting bothered almost all the time about going out, being out too much, being asked to run a lot of errands whenever they saw I had any free time, and not really feeling like I had my own space.”
So she decided to make a big move. Not to another state or across the country, but to Korea.
It seemed like the most viable solution to her money woes. As an English teacher in Korea, she has her rent paid for, finally has health insurance, is paid overtime and gets more vacation days.
“Life in Korea is great, and I enjoy my independence and the perspective it is giving me,” says Manabat. “It may be cheesy, but this experience helped me realize this dream, and also propels me to consider the world — and not just my neighborhood — in my future.”
Dream Job to Having a Life
{ Celena Cipriaso, Filipina American }
Previous job: Writers’ assistant for All My Children
Current job: Ad sales, freelance writer
It was always Celena Cipriaso’s dream to work for a soap opera, especially All My Children — the show she’d been watching since she was only 5 years old. So when she was laid off as a writers’ assistant after four years, she was heartbroken … and in a financial bind. Her annual income dropped by $15,000 — almost a third of her previous salary.
“I kind of fell apart,” she says. “I totally panicked. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t panic.”
Dozens of employees were a part of the unexpected mass layoff, some who had even been a part of
the show since its inception, says Cipriaso. She planned on making a career out of her job “until I died or [soap operas] died,” she says. Luckily, the show gave Cirpriaso a few gigs as a writer, which helped tide her over as she waited for unemployment to start rolling in. But that position, too, was short-lived — though monetarily it was worth three months of pay doing what she did as a writers’ assistant. “I felt like I was getting laid off for the second time,” says Cipriaso.
In order to pay her bills, Cipriaso took an ad sales job through a temp agency. “It forced me to be
very conscious with my money [and] look at my budget,” she says. Yet despite the smaller paycheck, Cipriaso is more satisfied with her life. At her old job she worked endless hours. “It never used to be daylight out when I got home,” she says. “My husband would be sleeping. I would see my husband on the weekends.” Now that the layoff forced her to find another job (“When I get really comfortable with a place, I love to stay. I never challenge myself for the next thing,” she says), she gets to spend more time at home while she freelances and works a straight 9-to-6 job.
When the Great Recession hit in 2008, millions were downgraded to part-time, furloughed or simply laid off. But if there’s one thing the recession has proven, it’s that sometimes a downturn in life can be a blessing in disguise.
ISSUE: Fall 2011
DEPT: Features
STORY & PHOTO: Shirley Lau
It’s impossible to look in any direction without seeing someone playing the Words with Friends app on their iPhone or messaging a friend on their Blackberry. Despite government-issued checks being the sole source of income for many, it’s not hard to find restaurants with people waiting in a line that goes out the door, eager to spend their scavenged cash on a nice meal. It may look like the economy is getting better, but looks can be awfully deceiving.
Being unemployed or making a career change during what is considered by economists to be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, is anything but an anomaly. As of this past summer, the unemployment
rate was nearly 10 percent, about 31 million people. And with constant fears of a possible double-dip recession, it doesn’t look like things are going to get better any time soon.
So what is one to do when she’s living off unemployment and sending hundreds of résumés into a black hole? Some may choose to make a career out of being couch potatoes, while others are just trying to stay afloat, holding out for the day when they can make a career out of what they’re most passionate about. And then there are those fresh (and once fearful) faces who’ve changed their lives for the better — and they have the recession to thank for it.
Turning Lemons into Literature
{ Kimberly Lin, 27, Chinese American }
Previous job: Hedge fund analyst
Current job: Financial analyst, writer
“You start doubting your own abilities. You always teeter on ‘Am I going to end up depressed and on a Cymbalta commercial?’ But things end up working out in the weirdest ways. You can control yourself; you can’t control the environment,” says Kimberly Lin, who, this year, made the transition from crunching numbers to putting her life down in writing.
Part memoir, part fiction, with a bit of therapeutic ranting, Recession Proof is Lin’s latest endeavor. Inspired by her own life events, Lin writes about her struggles with finding her passion during these tough economic times — all through the fictional character of Helen. It’s a drastic change from working stock market hours and being the only female analyst working at her hedge fund.
After cycling through three finance jobs in a matter of about four years, Lin was at a standstill. She hated her job and couldn’t satisfy her boss’ every whim. At one point during a bout of unemployment, she had to sublet her room and was sleeping on her couch because she couldn’t afford the $1,400 monthly rent, or the $3,000 to cancel her lease.
“I had time to really reflect what it is that I wanted and to reevaluate why was I always getting myself into these situations where I was constantly stressed and chain smoking,” says Lin. Now that the self-inflicted pain has stopped, Lin is able to write while also paying the bills as a financial analyst. Lin even has a second novel in the works, focusing on the trials and tribulations of 30-somethings. “It just never occurred to me that I could make a career out of [writing],” she says. “I look at the recession as a blessing in disguise because I truly believe that I would have not been as motivated to complete my book or had fodder for it had [the recession] not happened.”
– Shirley Lau
Purchase the Summer issue of Audrey Magazine here.
Whitening, lightening or “brightening” cosmetics lines are just starting to take off here in the U.S.
ISSUE: Fall 2011
DEPT: Beauty Kit
STORY: Anna M. Park
Lit from within? The secret is even skintone, as seen on Ming Xi in Vera Wang.
You had a glorious, carefree summer of soaking in the sun and now you’re paying the price. The remnants of your golden tan are slowly turning into splotches, courtesy of UVA rays. “Dark spots, discoloration and uneven skin pigmentation are common problems, especially among my Asian patients,” says celeb dermatologist Jessica Wu, author of Feed Your Face. In fact, for Asian skin, it’s typically hyperpigmentation that tends to be the first sign of aging, rather than wrinkles, she says, since Asian skin tends to be thicker.
In fighting brown spots, one of the most commonly used ingredients is hydroquinone, which works “by blocking one step in the skin’s production of pigment,” says Dr. Wu. There’s been some controversy over the safety of hydroquinone (though studies have yet to link the ingredient to cancer in humans), but there are plenty of alternatives like kojic acid, arbutin and soy, which, according to Dr. Wu, has been shown to reduce discoloration in patients with darker skin tones, including Asians.
A multi-faceted approach is key in fighting hyperpigmentation, according to dermatologist Ronald Moy. He recommends retinols or salicylic acid to exfoliate skin, which leads to more rapid skin growth, and then hydroquinone or other pigment inhibitors to block the production of melanin. When over-the-counter creams fail, Dr. Moy turns to laser peels, microdermabrasion, chemical peels or intense pulsed light treatments. “The best laser for treating pigmentation on Asian skin is the long pulsed (not Q-switched) Nd:Yag laser combined with a pulsed dye laser,” he says. “It causes less trauma to Asian skin and there is not as much post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation.”
While a booming industry in Asia, whitening, lightening or “brightening” lines are just starting to take off here in the U.S. “U.S. cosmetics companies have finally realized that uneven skin pigmentation, not just wrinkles, can make your complexion look older than its years,” says Dr. Wu. Here, some of our favorites.
- 1. The cheeky skincare line’s latest brightening collection inspired by their Asian customers. Benefit B.right! Radiant Skincare.
- 2. Clinically proven to even skintone in 30 days, this natural brightening system uses a superfruit complex of kakadu plum extract and Japanese unshiu peel to lighten without the usual side effects. Jurlique Purely White Skin Brightening line.
- 3. The newest discovery out of Estée Lauder’s research labs is clinically proven to even skintone in two weeks and is touted to work on all ethnicities. Estée Lauder Idealist Even Skintone Illuminator.
- 4. A unique mushroom extract breaks up dark spots for prescription strength, clinically proven results without the redness. Clinique Even Better Clinical Dark Spot Corrector.
- 5. Dr. Moy’s own line features a DNA repair enzyme engineered from marine sources in Iceland to encourage fresh, young cells, while a bleaching agent treats. DNA EGF Renewal DNA Intensive Renewal.
- 6. From the Korean cult beauty brand, a blend of medicinal herbs to protect from UV light and stimulate circulation. Sulwhasoo Snowise Brightening Serum.
- 7. Kiehl’s clinically proven Photo-Age line, formerly only available in Asia, is now exclusively in the U.S. at Kiehl’s Santa Anita Westfield, Arcadia, Calif. Kiehl’s Photo-Age Corrector High-Potency Spot Treatment.
- 8. With Korean ginseng and licorice, this targeted treatment works to regenerate elastin fibers and release trapped melanin in the deeper layers of the skin. AmorePacific Age Spot Brightening Pen
