dissonance

The rats of mim

Yeah so I'm sucking with the posting lately, I know.  But I've been blessedly busy this past week what with yarn whoring (I need a skank of yarn!) and now two secret projects in the horizon. 

So I just have a flashback for you:

Flashback #5

I've mentioned before that I grew up in a basement.  Technically, I grew up in a succession of basements until we moved to a proper house in 1992 (age 12 for those keeping track).  A majority of those years were spent in the basement of a large two story house, two blocks away from the ocean.  We lived behind the garage, in what I estimate came out to be about 500 square feet: a large bedroom, smaller living room, smallest kitchen.  I slept in my parent's room for a while but my bed got eventually moved to the living room around age 9.

I think I had a pretty happy childhood.  I didn't think it was weird I lived in a garage, except I instinctively knew not to invite friends over.  We had a relatively large backyard, I could ride my scooter to the beach whenever I wanted, and even had my own piano (I have NO idea how my parent's swung that. They're amazing.)  The place was even designed so that every room had a window so it's not as dark and cheerless as you may imagine.

But the rats.  We had a bit of a rat problem and they lived above us between our ceiling and under the floor of the 2nd (main) floor.  Almost every night we were woken by the sound of scratching and fighting.  It makes me shudder just thinking about the sound.  My biggest fear was that they would eventually scratch through and land on my bed.  My dad would pound the handle end of a broomstick against the ceiling to scare them silent.  Sometimes it worked.

One time one somehow got in our kitchen. I remember my mom and my aunt screaming obsenities and chasing after it with that same broom.  Well, that's what I imagine what was happening. I was in the living room behind a firmly closed door, giggling with my cousins.

But like I said, I had a happy childhood.  I think it's made me have a higher tolerance for less than ideal living situations.  Likewise, I think I'm more appreciative than most are of homes that have no risk of the bubonic plague.

I really ought to be on a milk carton

Flashback #4

Ok I've told this story to some people already (what can I say, I am little more than a handful of memories) but I just love telling it because it's so damn weird.

When I was about elementary school age (6?), I used to live in the basement of a house (another story in and of itself).  Upstairs lived another Korean family.  I think there was a son, a daughter, and another son and I *think* I had the impression they were "bad" kids.  I think I looked up to them because they just seemed so awfully disrespectful and cool.

One day the youngest son who I think was about 13 came down to visit me. I could tell he was pretty pissed off and he asked me gruffly, "I'm getting out of here. You want to go with me?"  Wide eyed and completely taken aback it was all I could do to mew out "Ok" and follow at his heels while he dug through his mom's purse to steal some money and then we walked to the bus stop.

I believe we ended up at the Westlake Shopping Center. Now, anyone from my part of the Bay Area knows this place at the border of Daly City. It's really a pathetic strip mall with a dirty little Michael's being its best asset.  I don't remember much of what we did there but I do remember he got me ice cream.  I think that's when I fell in love for the first time.  I think he got over his temper tantrum so we caught another bus to head back home.

And then it got dark.  And then we realized we were on the wrong bus.  And then I realized the fucker had no idea where we were.  All love quickly evaporated (first experience in heartbreak perhaps?).  So now we are wandering the streets of San Francisco in the dark with no idea of what the hell to do next.

This is where the miracles happen.  I remember being approached by a couple. I don't remember the conversation but we ended up in a small red car.  Can I repeat that?  My pre-pubescent escort and I went into a stranger's car!  We ended up at a brightly lit house.  I remember it had a cottage feel to it.  There were a lot of other people there.  And a big black lab.  I think they tried to talk to me and feed me cookies but I was probably too freaked out.

The rest of the night was a blur but I do remember ending up in our small cozy basement kitchen, back in my mother's arms.

I think the upstair's kid got the shit kicked out of him.

I wish I spoke French

Flashback #3

I don't know about other Korean kids, but when I was growing up I watched a lot of Korean videos with my parents.  I didn't understand most of it, but they usually fell into one of these categories:

• Modern drama - where the couple who tried so hard to be together, finally get together, only to have either the girl die from leukemia or the guy shot or run over by a car in the last 15 minutes of the 20 tape series.
• Historical drama - where everyone wears these crazy costumes and talk really, really, slow.  Usually there's a lot of backstabbing and chest pounding.  (Like literal chest pounding, the Queen will wail and pound on her chest because her son turns out to be a traitor or something.)
• Sing for the soldiers - I don't know why, but my parents liked to rent tapes of singers going to entertain soldiers (kind of like American USOs).  Sometimes the singers went to small suburban towns and there's always someone who looks like my grandmother dancing and waving her arms around.
• Talk shows - Usually it had a LIVE! With Regis and Kathy/Kelly formula to it.  Sometimes it had an entire panel of guest celebrities as the hosts.  Sometimes they had interesting segments, like one show had celebrities go do blue collar work (like harvest seaweed) and then they have to donate their normal daily wage to charity.  A lot of times they have people reunite with others in the past. My mom usually cries at those.

Ok so the reason I bring this up is because for some reason, last night I remembered watching one of these talk shows and the focus was on this one couple... and the only reason I can fathom why they were on the show is because the husband was white and he spoke Korean fluently.

Turns out the guy fell in love but the wife wanted to move back to Korea and he agreed.  After about 10 years, he's fluent.  I remember my parents were totally amazed and amused.  The hosts of the show were amazed and amused. The audience was enthralled.  Heck, I thought it was cool.

But WHY?  Why is it so amazing that this guy learned to speak Korean? If we saw Regis interviewing some Asian girl because she spoke English well, don't you think the protests would be instantaneous?  Were my parents (and me!) racist for our fascination? And if so, GAH!  How did that happen and how can I change my views?

And if I'm not being racist, how is it different than some jackass saying something like, "He speaks very well for a black man."?

Or maybe I just think it's cool in the way I think it's hot that my roommate can speak Spanish.

You take the bitter and you take the sweet

Flashback #2

When I was a little kid, I distinctly remember when being introduced to grown ups hearing them comment, "Oh, she looks like a little boy!"  I could be bitter about having this as my first memory regarding my looks, but I look at old photographs and you know what? I did look like a little boy.

I think it had something to do with the fact that my mom dressed me in a lot of pants, sweaters, button downs, and in primary colors (yellows, reds, blues) and not much of the pink and yellow favored by moms of little girls today.  She also kept my hair pretty short.  I don't know if it's because it was just cheaper to dress me that way or maybe it was the style of the early 80's (in Korea) to make your kid androgynous.  Or maybe deep down, my parents wanted... well I won't go there right now.

But the memory has some sweetness. Because of this experience I also distinctly remember my first dress.  I was about two years old, which is pretty late for a girl to be getting her first dress.  It was yellow, with short sleeves, the skirt was tiered and went down to my knees. It had a white collar and a big yellow ribbon that tied in the back.  It also came with a matching white hat with a yellow ribbon that matched the dress.  I think my mom has a picture of me in front of her mirror with the biggest, dorkiest, grin on my face.

Later on we climbed a ladder to our rooftop where we had a random rosegarden.  So she also has a picture of me sitting in my yellow dress, feeling like an equal to the red roses around me.

I'm gonna be a hip hami

I always wanted to have a book of memories that listed all my memorable experiences, ranging from life-altering to random, mundane doings.  I would save this book and pass it onto my grandchildren so that I won't have to sit there talking to them.  But now that I have this blog, I will give them this URL instead and say, "Ok kids, you can bore yourselves. Hami has to get ready to go to the NSync reunion concert. Laters bitches." Ha, just kidding... I doubt NSync will get back together in my lifetime.

So here we go:

Flashback #1

Back when I was a kid my family was piss poor.  I'm not trying to get any sympathy and as a kid I thought things were just ok, but now that I look back, yeah we were poor. Up until about I was 12 we lived in a variety of one bedroom basement deals.  I shared a room with my parents until I was about 7 and then my bed was moved to the livingroom.  Then my cousins from Korea came to the US and they moved in with us too for about a year (so that's about 7 people in a 1BD/1BR sublet).

I don't want you to think I lived in the projects or anything like that. It was (still is) a relatively ok neighborhood in the Sunset district of SF (46th and Quintara to be exact) close to the park and really close to the beach.  The actual house we lived in was pretty big. We lived in half the main upstairs area for a couple of years, but later moved downstairs to the rooms in the garage.

Then around 1989 the big SF quake hit.  I remember I was in the kitchen eating lamyun ("ramen" with the correct Korean pronounciation) and everything started shaking.  My other cousin (6yrs old, who didn't live with us) was in the bathroom taking a shower.  The reason I mention the shower bit was that when the earthquake came all the electricity went out so the kid was stuck in a windowless bathroom with the water running, the lights out, door locked, nekkid as the day he was born, and screaming his head off. Man, that's funny shit right there. (note to self: make fun of him next Christmas)

After it was over we all went outside where we met another family.  I hadn't seen them before because they lived in a van and they had parked in front of our place sometime in the last week.  This wasn't some random vagrant. It was a whole family of four with a daughter and a son.  My dad had a conversation with the other dad... he truly tried even with his broken english... and we eventually all had dinner together outside on the sidewalk.  I know as a kid I didn't think it was a big deal, but now that I look back, that was pretty cool.  They were gone by the next day.