“My goal is to make Zócalo the must-read source for smart pieces that help us connect to our shared past, understand the present, and imagine our future,” Cook said.

At a time when our country’s public sphere is narrow and polarized, Zócalo has created a welcoming intellectual space where individuals and communities can tackle fundamental questions in an accessible, nonpartisan, and broad-minded spirit. The organization is committed to translating ideas for broad audiences and to engaging a new, young, and diverse generation in the public square.

“Jia-Rui’s appointment as editor reflects the maturation of our organization and the focus we’re putting on building a professional editorial staff,” said Gregory Rodriguez, Zócalo’s founder and publisher. “We’re setting the stage for our continued growth.”

Cook first entered the Zócalo orbit in 2009 when she moderated a panel on the health issues facing returning military veterans and later won Zócalo’s poetry prize in 2013. She joined Zócalo’s full-time staff in February 2014 as national and science editor. Her duties included leading the publishing side of the “What It Means to Be American” project, a national, multi-platform partnership with the Smithsonian Institution.

Previously, Cook was a science writer and the outer solar system’s media representative at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Cook was also a senior general assignment reporter for local news and a science writer for the Los Angeles Times.

A native of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Cook earned a bachelor’s degree in American history and literature at Harvard and a master of philosophy degree in English literature at the University of Oxford in England.

Zócalo has grown quickly in the last year. In addition to the project with the Smithsonian, Zócalo has launched several high-profile partnerships, including with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and the J. Paul Getty Trust. Our syndicate—which distributes Zócalo articles to media outlets around the U.S. and the world—has grown to 185 members, from KCRW, L.A.’s premier NPR affiliate, The Washington Post, and Time; to newer additions like Saddahaq, the India-based online journalism giant, and Swiss Info, the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation.

Cook will work out of Zócalo’s offices at the Arizona State University California Center in Santa Monica and on Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights.

The post Jia-Rui Cook Takes the Editorial Helm at Zócalo appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

We approached the casket in order of age and gender (men first): my grandfather, my Uncle Charles, my Uncle Eddy, my Aunt Alice, me (representing my mom), and my cousin, Anne (representing my Aunt Yi). We each pulled a differently colored blanket over my grandmother’s body, covering her in a kind of rainbow. To give her resources in the afterlife, we fed a fire with orange squares of paper painted with gold leaf and sheets of “Hell Bank” money. Then, led by my Uncle Charles, who held a white flag with the character for peace painted on it, my family walked solemnly in a procession around the chapel-like room.

I didn’t know what to expect when I heard that my grandmother’s funeral would be held at the Ashley & McMullen funeral home in San Francisco’s Richmond District, but it certainly wasn’t this.

The Richmond District has a rich Irish history. Ashley & McMullen is just a few blocks from the Irish Immigration and Pastoral Center, and not far from the pubs Ireland’s 32 and the Blarney Stone. But Richmond also has a large Chinese population and has long been known as San Francisco’s second Chinatown (the first is the older one downtown). So perhaps I should have known that a place with a quintessentially Irish name would be capable of executing a well-oiled, highly ritualized Buddhist funeral service. I have some Irishmen to thank for bringing me closer to my Chinese roots.

I grew up in the New Jersey suburbs outside of Philadelphia. For most of my life, my grandparents were disembodied voices calling from San Francisco. These conversations were usually comical because my grandfather, grandmother, and I were all speaking Mandarin as a second language. His native dialect was Cantonese and hers was Sichuanese, so they spoke Mandarin with heavy—and different—accents. As for me, my Chinese vocabulary was pretty thin—even though my parents spoke Mandarin at home (to which I often responded in English) and sent me to a Saturday morning Chinese school (which I hated because it prevented me from watching the cartoons my soccer team friends were always talking about).

At 5, I did spend a whole summer with my grandparents in San Francisco’s Chinatown. For much of those two months, I felt completely at sea since I couldn’t explain exactly what I wanted—and I knew I was supposed to treat them with deferential respect. I let my grandfather heat me up a Celeste pizza for lunch every day, since he assumed I wanted to eat like an American. It wasn’t until my mom came to get me at the end of the summer—and was about to tuck into a shredded pork stir fry at lunch—that I spoke up about actually wanting to eat Chinese food.

My main impression from that summer was my grandmother’s devotion to Buddhism. I remember an altar that included a bowl of oranges, a ceramic bowl filled with rice that held up joss sticks, and a rendering of a goddess in red, pink, and blue. Every afternoon, my grandfather told me to turn off the TV for about an hour so my grandmother could pace around the room, chanting and thumbing sandalwood Buddhist prayer beads.

In my mid-20s, I spent a year living in San Francisco. About once a month, I drove over to my grandparents’ apartment and helped them into my car for a trip to Lichee Garden for dim sum. My grandfather ordered soft things, like steamed sponge cake, because my grandma’s teeth ached.

Food and pictures were the lubricants of our conversations. I would bring photos of the stone city walls of Oxford, England, where I had recently finished grad school, and of my friends and me hiking through redwood forests, and explain the best I could in Mandarin. They would nod and smile, asking where my friends were from. My grandfather would send me back to my apartment with dozens of steamed cha shao (barbecue pork) and dao sa (red bean paste) buns.

When my grandma passed away on March 10, 2005, I was living in Los Angeles. I called the airline to book a special bereavement fare and was asked a few questions to confirm that I was actually going to a bona fide funeral. One of them threw me for a loop: “What is your grandmother’s name?”

In all of the years I had known her, I had always addressed her by the Mandarin words for grandmother: wai po. Her death—and the fact that I didn’t even know her name—prompted me to start asking questions.

My grandmother, Lee Yun Shu, was born on May 16, 1916, in Sichuan province’s Anyue County. She was the youngest daughter in a well-off family with a large property where tenant farmers grew rice and wheat. My great-grandfather was mayor of a subdivision near the city of Chengdu. My grandmother graduated from high school, which was unusual for local girls at the time. She could recite poems from the Tang and Song dynasties and sing songs from Chinese operas.

She met my grandfather, Huang Choi Kwei, in the late 1930s when he was a pilot in the air force of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist government, which had largely retreated into the mountainous areas of Chongqing and Sichuan during the struggle against the Japanese. Before the Japanese invasion, my grandfather was an elementary school music teacher in Guangdong province. One of his best friends married one of my grandmother’s best friends. My grandfather pursued my grandmother, even though they spoke different Chinese dialects. My grandmother’s father disowned her for marrying below her station, my mom said.

Like many mainlanders, my grandparents escaped to Taiwan when the Communists took over in 1949. Settling in the city of Tainan with five children, they barely scraped by. A government truck regularly visited the building where they lived to distribute rations of cooking oil and rice to military families, but the portions didn’t go nearly far enough. No wonder my grandmother’s Buddhist altar featured Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, who was supposed to comfort the suffering. And no wonder my grandfather felt his first duty was to make sure I never left their apartment hungry.

My grandparents followed my mom across the Pacific in 1977—partly because they gave her most of their retirement savings when she came to the U.S. in 1968 and because they never felt completely at home in Taiwan. By then, their other children lived in America and Canada. The siblings took turns hosting their parents.

When they lived with us in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, during the first two years of my life, my grandfather hated sitting still. He made a little extra money by picking up part-time work in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. He helped a restaurant pastry chef make dim sum treats like egg tarts and steamed buns, which explains why the buns he sent me home with as an adult were so delicious.

But for the most part, my grandparents, who were in their 60s when they arrived, found it difficult to get used to this country. The family found a high-rise apartment building in San Francisco’s Chinatown for fixed-income seniors, and my grandparents moved into a rental unit in the mid-1980s. They learned enough English to pass the U.S. citizenship exam. And they connected with a long-established Huang family association in Chinatown, which was designed to help immigrants who share a last name (under the assumption that they’re somehow related). From this association, they bought a plot in a burial area pre-purchased for people named Huang at Hoy Sun Cemetery in Colma, about 10 miles south of the city.

It was managers at their Chinese senior apartment building who recommended Ashley & McMullen when my grandmother passed. (I learned later that Ashley & McMullen had taken over a Chinese funeral home called Wing Sun, as well as the Cathay Mortuary.) My Uncle Eddy and Aunt Alice took my grandfather there to plan the memorial service. He asked for a Buddhist ceremony that pulled out all the stops.

While some reviewers on Yelp have described Ashley & McMullen as overbearing in the way they dictate to families what should be done at funerals, Uncle Eddy told me he was actually glad they seemed to know all the rituals. I thought I was the only one who didn’t know what to do, so it surprised me to hear Uncle Eddy say he had never attended a Buddhist funeral.

My mom later told me that the ceremony my grandfather and I described to her involved Buddhist rituals more common to Southeast Asia than China. She clicked her tongue and complained that it would have been more proper to have monks chanting rather than nuns.

I wouldn’t know the difference. American Chinatowns tend to mash together ethnic Chinese traditions from different locations. I was just grateful to have something to do to express my respect for her. Funeral services, I guess, are more about comforting the living.

When we arrived at the cemetery in Colma, we did some more bowing with joss sticks. And then at the open gravesite, we each tossed in a black armband, a handful of dirt, and a red rose. When the casket was lowered, we ducked our heads because we weren’t supposed to watch.

And who led us through these actions at the cemetery? An African-American funeral director from Ashley & McMullen who came to show us, a bunch of apprehensive Chinese-Americans, what to do. As I walked over a lit newspaper bundle to symbolize the final crossing over, I thought about how my grandmother probably wouldn’t have expected her journey to end up here, like this, but she would’ve been happy to see we were in good hands.

The post At an Irish-American Funeral Home, I Found My Chinese Roots appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Jia-Rui comes on board at a time of unprecedented expansion for Zócalo. In less than a year, our national syndicate—which distributes Zócalo essays and articles to media outlets around the country—has grown to over 110 members, including Time and USA Today. And in the past six months, we’ve launched new partnerships with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the Getty.

Jia-Rui will work out of Zócalo’s offices at the Arizona State University California Center in Santa Monica.

The post Introducing Our New National & Science Editor, Jia-Rui Cook appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Then they pulled my name out of the hat, and I pumped two fists in the air. I hurriedly told the other guy, “Sorry,” and bounded out of my red velvet chair. It felt so unreal to hold the game clicker in my hand that I couldn’t help but press the blue button over and over as they adjusted the lift under my feet to make my head level with the other, taller contestants.

When I got a look at the game board, I thought, Uh-oh. The type on the clues was so small, and my eyes, fitted with -6.50 contact lenses, had to squint. Alex asked the returning champion to pick the first clue.

*

I was a reporter at the Los Angeles Times during one of the roughest stretches of the paper’s history. As I watched reporters next to me get laid off, I joked with colleagues that if I got laid off I’d go try out for Jeopardy!. Then I thought, “Why wait until I get laid off?” Friends had been refusing for years to play Trivial Pursuit with me, and I got a lot of the Jeopardy! answers right when I shouted at the TV.

Getting an audition took longer than I expected–a couple of years, in fact. When the day finally arrived, on October 17, a few months after I’d given birth to a baby daughter, I showed up at the Doubletree Hotel in Culver City in the first nice clothes I’d worn in months. It felt like a job interview. There were about 20 people there, mostly in the 30-to-50 age bracket. I was the only woman.

We had to take a 50-question quiz. Then we got to play some practice games with the clicker. “Hit that clicker multiple times,” the contestant coordinator told me as I failed to ring in most of the times I knew the answer. When I successfully clicked it right I was so surprised that I wasn’t sure I knew the answer. Er, what is … Prussia? Yes, that was right!

I learned about my fellow competitors as they interviewed each of us for personal stories. There were lawyers and real estate consultants and bankers. One guy talked about proposing to his girlfriend because she complained he hadn’t proposed yet. One guy boasted that he had bowled a game one pin shy of perfect. The next guy said he had bowled several perfect games and had gone pro.

At the question and answer session, we learned that the contestants for Celebrity Jeopardy! don’t have to take the same quizzes as the rest of us. We learned that they try not to have people with the same first name on at the same time. We learned that when Johnny Gilbert says that someone is “originally from” Davenport, Iowa, it’s because he or she now lives in L.A. and Jeopardy! doesn’t want all the contestants coming from the same town.

At the end of the audition, we were told we could have to wait up to 18 months to see if Jeopardy! was going to call. Meanwhile, I watched the show every day with a clicker pen in my hand for practice. Little did I know then what the odds really were. One hundred thousand people a year take the online test; 3,000 to 4,000 are called for an in-person interview. Four hundred are picked to tape a show.

The contestant coordinator called in mid-January for a February 15 taping. I realized I should have been studying at that point instead of reading blog posts about former contestant Roger. I felt I had English and American literature, American history, space, newspapers, and pop culture covered. I was weak on European history and baseball. When I told this to one of my friends, she said, “Baseball is such a big subject, so what kind of baseball questions would they ask?” I said, “Maybe they’ll have a category like ‘Baseball Teams by Stadium.’”

To patch up my weak spots, I emailed my friend Dave for the 10 most important baseball players, read player bios on Wikipedia, and watched Moneyball. I also borrowed a European history textbook but never made it past the Age of Pericles. The day before my taping, I realized I didn’t know the difference between Bloody Mary and Mary Queen of Scots, so I studied the English monarchs on Wikipedia. Then, unable to cram any more facts in my head, I watched a Saturday Night Live parody of the game show.

*

I got caught in traffic on the 10 Freeway on my way to my taping. Maggie, who oversees the contestant department, called my cell phone. “I’m turning onto Culver Boulevard,” I said on the Bluetooth. “The locals are always late,” she said.

I showed up nervous and unsettled, but, hey, at least it was the first night in a couple of weeks that my daughter had slept more than six hours at a stretch. I almost felt normal! I quickly filled out tax documents, signed a form saying I wasn’t colluding with other contestants or the producers, and came up with a lame “hometown howdy,” a taped invitation to watch Jeopardy that could be played on the local ABC network of the contestant’s hometown.

We got to practice a few times on stage. I rocked a category called “What’s for Lunch?” But I was also having some trouble clicking in at the right time. You have to get it just right–after host Alex Trebek finishes reading the clue and lights flash on either side of the game board, but before the other contestants buzz in. If you buzz in too early, you’re locked out for a few seconds.

In between tapings, members of the audience were allowed to ask Alex questions. I learned these things about Alex: he likes to fix things around the house in his spare time; he once drove a huge RV with a car hitched to it; he never gets a beer with contestants; he sometimes makes suggestions about the categories for play; he doesn’t remember every episode but does distinctly remember comedian Jon Lovitz getting an answer wrong and saying “Exactly” when the correct answer was read; he uses his broadcaster voice even when he’s off-camera. I also learned that Johnny Gilbert does the “This … is … Jeopardy!” intro fresh for every show.

During the other games, I was whispering the answers to myself. Damn, I thought, as a question about the Brontës was asked. I would’ve gotten that one.

When I finally got on stage for my turn, the adrenaline was pumping. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that one of the categories was … “Baseball Teams by Stadium.” I picked it, and I actually got the first and the last clues right. (There was an unbroadcast pause during that last clue in which staffers had to take a few minutes to check that my answer–“Tampa Rays”–was an acceptable form of the team name.) Another category, “Historic Days of Our Lives,” turned out to be soap opera characters reading clues about history–often European history. Matt from Pittsburgh, the contestant next to me, got a Daily Double clue about what Catholic country Mary I’s husband Philip was from. I was dying because I had just read about Bloody Mary on Wikipedia the night before.

I did get some answers I was particularly proud of, including a Daily Double question about the Milky Way. I was also chuffed that, in response to a clue that required you to stitch together two phrases, I got to say, “What is Fight or Flight of Conchords?”

I had a lead going into the first commercial break and traded first place with Matt a few times, but it was over pretty soon after the Double Jeopardy round started. I consoled myself by blaming my subpar clicking skills. But Matt not only had clicker voodoo; he also knew all the answers. He had the science-fiction category “Lunar Fiction” all to himself, for instance. (“If it was lunar nonfiction, I would’ve had a better chance,” I told myself. Damn.)

The contestant coordinators say that the outcomes are often luck of the draw. The categories are picked at random, and your fellow contestants are also picked at random. Oh sure, I would’ve liked to have won at least one game, but I walked away with a respectable second prize of $2,000, plus a free lunch complete with the Sony Pictures cafeteria’s “spa water,” a Jeopardy! tote bag and a hat that said “Get a clue!” The prize money wouldn’t have made up for being laid off, but it was enough to pay for part of a recent vacation to Italy.

In my hometown howdy, I joked about finally getting my 30 minutes of fame. But I’m actually relieved I can go back to my living room and shout answers at the TV again. At home, I’m always the returning champion.

Jia-Rui Chong Cook is a media relations specialist for the outer solar system at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

*Photo courtesy of Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

The post What’s Tougher Than Winning on Jeopardy!? appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Q. What do you wake up to?
A. Power 106, because it’s the only English language station that I get reception in my bedroom. But I think Big Boy is hilarious. I get all my pop culture from him.

Q. What music have you listened to today?
A. Power 106, and KCRW when I’m driving in [to work]…. I have CDs people have made for me and they’re in my car. I don’t know what half the songs are called but I like them.

Q. What’s your favorite word?
A. Palimpsest.

Q. What do you find beautiful?
A. Honesty. Things as they are.

Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. Curious about everything.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A. I didn’t know. That was the problem.

Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. A mojito.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. I buy a lot of shoes, because I have to walk a lot and I can’t stand being uncomfortable.

Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. China.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. A doctor.

Q. What would be your death row meal?
A. Pizza.

Q. What is your favorite holiday and why?
A. Thanksgiving, because I really love football, and because it’s just about getting together and eating a lot.

Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. Going to the zoo with my best friends, and my mom pretending that we were all her children.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. I don’t know that I have one. I write a lot about earthquakes, and I’m kind of ready to let everything go.

Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. That I’m going to be patient.

Q. What should you throw away but haven’t been able to part with?
A. I have a lot of clothes from the time at which I went out a lot clubbing in L.A., and I have not given up the idea that I might wear them again.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’d most love to have a beer with?
A. Mark Twain. I think he’d have an interesting perspective on the absurdity of modern life.

To read more about Chong’s panel on veterans’ healthcare, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

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