As you may or may not know, FlyRice is not merely the blog-daughter of G.Z. Expat and Tai Tai — she’s their real-life daughter, too. By all appearances, she may also very well be the next Top Chef… at least in her own mind.

Evidently that’s kept her a bit too busy to do more mundane things like clean her room, but since she lives in Hawaii now, I imagine she could always find plenty of volunteers to do the work for her — provided they get to crash at her place for a few days when they’re done.

1. Fly Rice? Is that pidgin or pigeon-holed?

I really hate pidgin. The name, ‘FlyRice’, took me years to cultivate. I wanted some sort of name that I could identify with. Everyone has their names. I’ve always been an out-sider in my life, growing up in China as the blonde-haired blue-eyed kid, and then moving back to the States, my first years of high school, as the girl from China.

I figured that I was like that one grain of rice that didn’t manage to get into the bowl, so I’ve just been flying around. No, I wasn’t stoned when I thought of that, just in high school.

2. Since you’re G.Z. Expat’s daughter, I have to wonder: who got whom into blogging, and how has your blog affected your life?

My dad mentioned this new thing called ‘blogging’ my first year back in the states. I was having a hard time adjusting and decided to start a blog on Blogger, ‘The 8th Comment’. I have no idea where the name came from, but it sounded cool, and I used it mainly just to blitch and to write. ‘The Comment’ died, and I started another blog called ‘The Rice Bowl’, Dad started his own shortly after that and from there it’s history.

When I was in High School, blogging kept me connected to politics, something that I was deeply passionate about and still have a passion for. I think the biggest thing that my blog has affected in my life is my ability to write; my grades in English can attest to that.

3. Name three things that make a blog suck.

1) Dropping off the face of the Earth for more than a month (I was only gone for a month).
2) Bad grammar and spelling, I hate reading some of my friend’s blogs simply because their grammar is terrible.
3) Focusing on one topic and one topic only. I like randomness in blogs. I like reading that some kid wiped out on Heeley’s half way around the globe.

4. Are you, as the saying goes, “lucky you live Hawaii” or are you feeling the haole hatred?

A little bit of both. I love living here because of my surroundings, mostly. I like hanging out with my friends, but most of them are from the Mainland, or are haole Hawaiians. There are times that I get fed up completely with the ignorance of some of the Hawaiians that I come across, but then again, you have ignorant people everywhere.

You just can’t escape stupid people, no matter how hard you try.

5. China… Hawaii… California, too, if I remember right. You’ve lived in some exotic places already. Where have you always wanted to live but haven’t, and why there?

Oregon, actually. My big dream is to eventually move back to Asia, Southeast Asia to be exact. I’d love to live in Thailand. I’m a big city girl and Bangkok is probably my favourite city in the world. It’s chaotic and messy, but the people are extraordinarily nice, the food is good, shopping is cheap, and it’s close enough to paradise that I can escape when I need to.

6. If you were a Disney character, who would you be?

Belle, from Beauty and the Beast. She’s a misfit, like I am and I usually am attracted to not the greatest looking guys in most people’s opinion (I *heart* geeks). And I speak French… I guess that makes me sort of like Belle.

7. What four foods could you not live without?

Palak Paneer. Chicken Parmesan. Butter Chicken. Tom Yum Soup. [Girl, you just made my mouth water. - VK]

8. Who was your favorite Stooge, and why?

I’ve always had a soft spot for Curly. How do you get stuck with the name ‘Curly’ when you have no hair? He had the fun little laugh that I would run around and try to imitate when I was about five. He had the great one-liners that just made everything worth while.

9. As a college student, do you feel your education is preparing you for the real world?

I’m taking the year off after getting through my first year, which was pretty much crappy. From everything that I’ve learned, I don’t think college has taught me anything about the real world so far (except that room mates like to leave used condoms on my shampoo bottles).

College is like a really big high school. The teachers have never really been out of school, they complain about pretty much anything they can, and most of the students are delusional because they’ve had teachers force-feeding them garbage their entire education.

But, I have learned how to play beer pong.

10. Complete this sentence: “What VK doesn’t know about me is…”.

When I was 2, I would run around the house naked yelling ‘Me Wild Sesame!’

No word from FlyRice on her state of dress at the time.