April 1, 2015

 

It’s holy week and I am blessed with the BEST cousin ever from the land down under. He was just here visiting us this past weekend, but when my mom was in Sydney last year to visit her sister, who just passed away in recently,  her amazing son, bought me all the mugs and tumblers that Australia has to offer.   These are the most expensive mugs that I own. It’s twice as much as the USA mugs and my mom had to pay extra luggage fees just to get it all back to me. My mom is very frugal but she knows how much I love these mugs.  Shockingly, there was no lecture on the drama and the cost of bringing it back to America.

 

 

I always value ‘family’. Family consist of many concepts. There are the ones you are born into, the ones you find and that you call family. I am fortunate to have one of each. My family was separated after the Vietnam war and we were finally united 10 years after. It was a miracle that we all are together and none of us has perish trying to escape Vietnam. I learned from my good Afghanistan friend that she too had to escape Afghanistan back in the 80s just like me. Every time I heard something about ISIS on the news, it just get really emotional and feel so bad for all the victims. Terrorists truly beats all the evil that lurk in this world put together. Every time I go to church, I pray for an end to organized terrorist in the world and right now. I love my country. We are always trying to do the right thing because humanity exists in this country and we are very patriot. You can not try to destroy our humanity by your feeble attempt to blow up buildings or crowded public places. It only unite us more and brings more strength to our country.  We are called United States of America for a very good reason. My country is one big family and like all families, we have issues and disagreement but in the end, we will stand UNITED and we will fight UNITED as one family and we will prevail.

 

God blessed this country always, from how this country was found and how it will continue to have strength from our belief of ‘ONE NATION, UNDER GOD. God is love, God is kind and God is forgiving. If everyone in the world would develop a passion for these mugs and start to trade, I think the world would be a very peaceful place. From my trading experiences, I learn about the culture of the country from the trader, I learn how kind and giving some traders are when they send treats with their mugs and how thoughtful they are when they have new mugs in their country and would ask if I wanted to trade or buy from them at cost.

 

Starbucks city mugs collectors are like one big family. Maintaining 2 blogs and the Facebook page is very time consuming but when I see traders post their trades and how happy they are to receive, not just mugs, but sometimes a friend along the way, it makes me feel that all of my efforts are worth while. It’s also nice to get post or comments once in the while that the collector is not the only obsessed person but there are many obsessed Starbucks collectors out there. We don’t feel that we are different or odd and so much share the same passion all over the world. It’s our Starbucks mugs family and we are just growing by the day. It’s ironic that one mug can bring all people from all walks of the world together and the joy from getting a mug from someone can bring that much excitement.

 

Maybe it’s not really the superficiality of the mug itself but the story behind how the mug found its way ‘HOME’.