CHI-LAN

Chi-Lan Lieu was raised in a small, sleepy blue-collar town of Alhambra, CA. After many years of toiling behind the camera at cable channels, she made the leap in front of the camera. And good thing she did because Chi-Lan adopted two of the most wonderful yet high maintenance dogs to have set foot on this earth. And since they’ve become accustomed to their lifestyle, Chi-Lan works hard to keep them happy. And chubby.

Currently I host a show called ‘Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files’ on SyFy. Now this show would be all right if I were a normal chick. But sadly I am not. Because no matter where I go, if there is a microphone and a karaoke machine, I come alive, and you can’t stop me.

For instance, while shooting an episode of ‘Fact or Faked’, we went in search of a legendary cryptid, BigFoot. Now this elusive guy hasn’t remained undiscovered for decades if not centuries by hanging out at the local 7-11. Nope. This guy is rumored to live in the pacific northwest, and really deep in the woods of large forests that most humans didn’t even know existed. Enter my assignment to find this legendary hairy cryptid. You’re probably wondering, what does this have to do with you singing karaoke? Please allow me to explain….

My investigation team, consisting of Bill Murphy, Austin Porter, and myself head off to the outskirts of Washington state. Nothing sounds out of the ordinary here, sure. But wait. We get to an airport called Wanatche, WA, a short 30 minite plane ride east from Seattle. Here the luggage carosel is literally two holes with a covering, and a small ramp where your luggage ends when it is tossed directly from the plane. All right, small town, I’m cool. But no. This is not my location. My location is just a short 3.5 hour drive north east from here. The cast and crew all load up into the rental car, 4 American dudes, a British guy, and me riding shot gun. We stop off at Wal-mart for some refreshments, and I learned that no one at the Wal-mart has any idea what Pelligrino or carbonated water is. Everybody calm down. Just regular water is fine.

We are driving along for what seems to be ions of time, and I feel like my bones are so shaken by my good British friend’s crappy driving, he’s actually driven us through some crazy worm hole and we are no longer on earth. For sure, I know we will find BigFoot now. So after waaaayyyy too long in a car with way too many dudes, we arrive to our lodgings. 6 travel trailers parked behind the only restaurant-bar for 30 miles. Wow. There wasn’t even an address. We were told to look for the town of Loomis, and then the restaurant. It should be the only one around. Wow again. And literally, it was the only one around.

So this is what I see. It is a slightly overcast day in the town of Loomis, where the roads are lined with apple orchards and trailer parks. You roll in on the only road around, a grey asphalt road that smells of empty promises and broken dreams. And I’m just referring to my ability to eat vegetarian… And in a newly formed trailer park filled to the street with white trailers we were to make our home for the next few days. When we drove into this little trailer park, we realized, our phones aren’t getting reception in this town. And they weren’t going to get reception for the next 4 days. No cell reception and definitely no wi-fi. It was like we had driven ourselves back to 1989. To drive home this point, we were told by the restaurateur that there was a pay phone on the side of the convenience store. A PAY PHONE! They still exist and they still use coins. And being a good Chinese daughter, I needed to let my mom know I arrived all right.

So I walked right up to said phone, cautiously, slowly, with calculated steps, not to approach it too quickly or risk scaring it off. As I get within arms length, I reach for the receiver, lift and look at it. I see the ear piece, mangled and dirty from many uses of loving conversations, heated political debates, and drunk dials. I scan the mouth piece and my thoughts are confirmed. I quietly wonder to myself if there is enough sanitizer in the world to clean my ear if I use this receiver. I think better of it, and hold it a good 2 inches from my face. I put in my 50 cents, called my mom, and she wasn’t even home.

Now you would think, in a location as bucolic and breathtaking as these rolling orchards, mountains, lakes, and natural beauty, there’d be a lot to entertain the likes of gentlemen and the one lady that has arrived and is cut off from their world with no communication. Yes, and that entertainment comes in the form of karaoke night at the one and only hang out spot, our beloved restaurant-bar. And since our living quarters are all nestled right out back, well, it was the perfect spot to live and love the locals. I guess our presence, as well as the new trailer park we brought with us, was the talk of the town, so everyone who lived in town, all 47 people, headed out to the bar to catch a glimpse of the wild turkeys that turned up in their small town.

And since they had waited so patiently for a sight of us, we gave them a show. And that show consisted of us all jumping on the microphone, doing some spoken word, and karaoking to some ‘Summer Luvin’ (because a duet would forge a nice partnership with the locals), ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ (that‘s just how I roll), ‘Brown Eyed Girl (is this every NOT sung)’ and ‘Dancing Queen.’ Listen, those locals were all right with one or two from us wild Hollywood turkeys, but a good 5 songs, and us not being American Idol contestant quality, well, I think we quickly wore out our welcome. Or maybe I just wore out the karaoke machine.

The town of Loomis and its people really enjoyed us as soon as we stopped yelling drunkenly, or as I like to call it, ‘Mariah style’-ing into the microphone, and became our BFFs. We didn’t find BigFoot on our big adventure, but we did find out something even better. We found out that if you want to make a cell phone call in Loomis, Washington, you just have to drive 2 miles down to the cemetery. That’s the only place to get reception. You can’t miss it because there are always cars parked alongside the road there. You can’t miss it. And that, everybody, is Loomis, Washington….checked off my bucket list.