Geisha School Dropout

Our Hyundai Santa Fe Epic Playdate Experience

Last Saturday, we were in for an incredible treat: an Epic Playdate, with activities led by some of the best-known parents in the blogosphere!  

The invitation was mum on details, other than to show up at 9:00 am dressed for play, and all food and drink will be provided by Hyundai.  We had the kids go to bed in activewear, as it would be an early start.  

Tim and I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, carried the kids to the car, and set sail for Dos Pueblos Ranch in Goleta (20 minutes outside of Santa Barbara).  The car ride up was refreshingly uneventful, given Emi's penchant for backseat barfing (we always travel with a bucket for this reason).

We had no idea what to expect, but our imaginations ran wild: will there be bass guitar lessons by Flea?  Would jumping out of airplanes be involved?  Would we represent different districts and have to slay each other in wilderness combat for a chance to eat lunch?

Luckily for us, it was none of the above (actually, the bass guitar lessons would have been cool).  It was so low-key, all the activities were family-bonding-centric and easy to replicate at home, and most importantly, the kids had a BLAST!  This is a small subset of what we experienced:

 

Emi took this gorgeous photo during Dooce's nature photography walk!   I love how she framed the shot!

Isaac's Foil Viking team, the Foil Fighters, won the whipped cream beard relay led by the goofy dudes from How to Be a Dad.

Emi and her paper rocket professor, Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of Make Magazine and founder of BoingBoing (said Emi: "I want to be a rocket scientist because I'm good at it!").  Mark rigged up a foot pump, some PVC piping, and a lovely red button to make the rocket launcher.  The look on Emi's face, as she pressed that button, craning her neck to see her rocket disappear for a bit into the sky, was priceless.

Emi filling out our section of the sand art "quilt" led by Say Yes to Hoboken.

Isaac at Epic Hula Hoop Bubble Making class, taught by Oh Happy Day.

Emi illustrating a collaborative poem ("My dog is a cute dog. My dog is a hot dog.") from the Poetry in Motion class taught by Girl's Gone Child.

Isaac loved playing Epic Volleyball using beach balls and blankets taught by Oh Joy.

But wait!  There was SO much more!  Here is a slideshow of the rest:

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Signs Daenerys Targaryen is Actually Asian

Tim and I are huge Game of Thrones fans, and the final scenes of this week's episode sent us into fits of fanboy glee.  Without giving too much away, Daenerys Targaryen, tiny little Mother of Dragons, kicked major ass.

In the series, the character is played by British actress Emilia Clarke and the UK's entire supply of lip-plumping gloss, but I think she just might be Asian, at least on the inside.  I present my evidence below:

1. Daenerys has silver-blonde hair, violet eyes, and dark eyebrows.  You know who also had blonde hair, violet contact lenses, and dark eyebrows?  Any Asian girl in her early college years.

Those eyebrows don't lie: total bottle blonde.

2. Daenerys married a foreign man who was much more sexually experienced than she was.  When confronted by her own sexual ignorance, what did she do? SHE GOT A TUTOR.  I totally would have too, and my mom would have paid for it.

There's a cram school for everything these days.

3. Girlfriend is not afraid to eat blood and organ meat.  She once ate a raw horse heart with an enthusiasm that would make any tiger mom proud.  

And she did this while pregnant with a son! Bonus tiger mom points.

4. She can spend the night inside a bonfire like it's no big deal (thus earning her the title The Unburnt).  At the Korean sauna, there is one especially hot room called the bulgama which is usually set to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and little grandmas hang out in there like that's no big deal.  (True story: one time, Tim braved the bulgama but forgot to take off his glasses beforehand.  When he came out, he noticed odd things with his vision...it turned out his LENSES MELTED.)

Dany awaits her scrub-down at the jjimjilbang.

5. She has a tendency to fall in love with and adopt everything she runs into: dragon eggs, the Dothraki horde, slave armies, etc.  But sometimes, she has trouble taking care of them all.  I also have a problem with this, although I don't know if this is a generalized Asian tendency.  Let's discuss.

Dragons bring her luck, just like any good Asian!

6. (WARNING: this one is spoiler-ish) In this last episode, Daenarys totally pulled the Asian trick where people were talking shit about her in Valyrian, thinking she wouldn't understand, and she went along with it until the time came for her to make her move.  Then she busts out with fluent Valyrian, and rubs their ignorance in their faces with savoir flare, heh heh heh.  I've totally done that with both English and Spanish before.  Sometimes you gotta let the stereotypes work for you, you know?

How do you say "You're so fucked" in YOUR language?

Beyond the Bad and the Ugly, and On Birthday Suits and Birth Rights

We interrupt this stagnating front page to bring you some news!

I was honored to speak at a panel a couple weekends ago at Beyond the Bad and the Ugly: the first-ever summit on Asian American stereotypes, organized by Jeff Yang of the Wall Street Journal, hosted by the Japanese American National Museum.  Our session was called "Taming Tigers: Stereotypes in Parenting and Education," and  it was such a life-affirming experience.  My fellow panelists spoke with such heart and wisdom, and the whole room felt like one family.

I also have an essay up on the front page of BlogHer today titled "On Birthday Suits and Birth Rights," a response to Margaret Cho's recent experience at a Korean spa in Los Angeles.  It's my first piece that was thoroughly editted by a real-live editor, and I am so floored by how she made me sound like a real writer.  Please check it out!

 

Stranger in a Strange Land

The kids and I sat down at our local teriyaki place, next to a couple in their 50s with their buddy. They were very conspicuously complaining about all the taxes they have to pay this year, including a THOUSAND dollars to THAT OBAMA (I assume they make the check straight out to him?), and how they're not taking it anymore and they're going to just not pay it because that money is going directly to welfare queens and aborting babies and death panels and Muslims and...

...so I told the kids to pack up their stuff because we're moving to another table.

I tried to give them my best Korean Mom Death Stare along the way. They quieted down after they realized that they were out of their usual bubble.

This happened in Long Beach, California, a diverse city compared to most of the country.  And yet, it is apparently not diverse enough, since people like them still feel like they can proclaim their misinformed, bigoted thoughts without repercussion.  Obviously, people are entitled to their own opinions, but it's the pure vitriol in which these opinions are uttered that disturbs me.  And of course, if they were the first people I encountered bad-mouthing the poor, the disabled, or the race, nationality, supposed religion, or character of our president, I wouldn't have bothered writing about it.  But attitudes like these are prevalent here.

Even my next door neighbor, whom my children adore and who has many times helped us settle into our home, holds frightening views on Latin Americans and other  immigrants.  He doesn't know that I, like many other permanent residents and naturalized citizens, was at one point an illegal immigrant.  

A family who lives a few houses down sent their two young girls canvassing the neighborhood in support of Proposition 8.  When I tried to explain to these girls how I aligned myself with the gay community and believed in marriage equality for all, they looked sincerely frightened of me.

Across the street from them, another lady runs a daycare in her home, and she told Tim to watch out for other daycares in the neighborhood who hire minorities and illegals, when he called her to enquire whether she had room for Emi when we first moved here.  Since the conversation was over the phone, she did not know she was talking to a minority family.  Since then, we have seen her take her charges for walks around the neighborhood, always 6-8 beautiful blonde children in a red wagon.  I do not think it's pure coincidence that the children are always white.

And so, after almost five years here, this corner of Long Beach doesn't quite feel like home.  I feel like a tourist, an alien, and I worry my motley little family will always feel that way, no matter where we settle.

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A Kimchi Mamas reader expressed some concern regarding my statement about being an illegal immigrant at some point in my life.  Here is my clarification (although honestly, I don't know the whole story, since I was a young child when this all went down):

My family and I did not COME here illegally, my father was sponsored through his employer and he did everything by the book. However, there was a very, very long waiting period between applying for a green card and receiving it, where technically our status was up in the air (or maybe his status was still okay, but my mom and I were not? I'm not clear on the details). We couldn't go visit relatives in Korea, for example, because we would have trouble coming back into the US.

During that waiting period, which I believe took about 10 years, I grew up as a normal Korean American kid in southern California. There was no way you could line up other typical Korean American kids and point out those of us who were technically visaless, or social security number-less, and those who were born here, even if you opened a window into our brains.Once we received permanent residency status, things were hunky-dory, and it didn't take long for us to become naturalized citizens after that. This was a pretty typical immigrant story for the time period, although I do not know what the process is like now.

 

Cross-posted on Kimchi Mamas.

Why, Hello There

I would wish you a happy new year, but seeing that it's already February, I'll wish you a happy President's Day instead!

So, what's going on in House Mang?

Emi is doing GREAT in school, thanks to a multi-pronged strategy that includes:

1. Pulling her out of the on-site afterschool program and having her picked up and taken care of by one of my best friends and supernanny extraordinaire until Isaac comes home from school.

2. Tim taking over the morning routine, since he has a lighter touch with Emi than I do at that hour.  I'm a cranky drill sargeant ("Move IT move IT!") and he's more reasonable.  Plus, he and Emi get to bond and she feels more secure about her world as a whole, and feels less of the need to act out for attention.  It's all very awwwwwww.

3. The leaps she made in therapy about identifying and coping with the huge emotions she feels.  In fact, she's so much happier now, we went down to seeing the counselor once every two weeks, and next week's session will be a "goodbye-for-now" session!

Emi still gets into tiny bits of trouble at school, but it's for things that seem refreshingly normal: talking to the person behind her in line, forgetting to raise her hand, and one time she didn't come home with a good behavior slip because she made a snoring noise because she thought a story was boring.

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Isaac is slowly turning into a tween.  Sometimes, he stiffens when I grab his head to kiss the top when I drop him off at school, or he snaps back at me when he feels unjustly chastised.  Other times, he starts stammering and falling over himself when he encounters a pretty girl (usually MUCH older than him, harrumph).  He just started up a new season of his basketball league, his class is currently working on a musical, he just finished up reports on the Island Fox (California's only native carnivore, found only on the Channel Islands, didn't ya know) and Marco Polo.  For a while, he was devouring the Harry Potter books, but stopped near the beginning of Order of the Phoenix, which I actually think is appropriate for his current stage of emotional maturity.  He is currently reading books like the How to Train Your Dragon series, the Warriors series, and Dragon Rider.

The other day, I was getting ready to assemble a digital piano, and as Tim rushed over to help me, Isaac shooed him away, saying "This is woman's work!"  Since when was working with heavy pieces of furniture woman's work!?!?!?  So, later on, I decided to pick his brain a bit about gender roles.  Interpret as you will, because I just crawled up into a ball and rocked myself back and forth:

Me: So...working with assembling furniture is woman's work, eh?

Isaac: Yup!  It's because you are careful and Daddy does not read the instructions.

Me: What else is woman's work?  How about cooking and washing the dishes?

Isaac: Daddy washes the dishes.  And the cooks at Polly's Pies are men.

Me: Hey!  I cook at home too!  How about earning money?

Isaac: You both earn money.  But Daddy earns more money.

Me:  Why do you think that is?

Isaac: Because women earn 70 cents for every dollar a man earns for the same job.  Which is weird, because I think women do most of the real work, and men stand around and make plans and blueprints and say, "What if we did this?  What if we tried that?" and then laugh really loud, which doesn't seem like real work.

Me: Where on earth did you get this impression?

Isaac: At Daddy's office.

Me: I work too, but at home.  And I work hard, even though I'm often in my pajamas.  Do you think that's real work?

Isaac: Yeah, I know that because you yell at me to leave you alone when I ask you if I can watch TV.

Me: ...  Sorry about that.

Isaac: It's okay.

Me: So when you grow up and become a man, you expect to stand around and make plans?

Isaac: No, I'd rather work with all the women.

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As for me, I'm doing well.  I still get excited about a lot of shit, currently I am gagging over the current season of "RuPaul's Drag Race."  I'm rooting for Detox, Honey Mahogany, and Jinkx Monsoon.  I want to marry Ivy Winters because he looks like a young Morrissey and dresses like the 11th Doctor.  Which reminds me...I will be attending Gallifrey One this weekend; really looking forward to it, as it will be my first one!

Just caught up with "Game of Thrones" and "Sherlock," and I don't think my nervous system can handle cliffhangers anymore.  

My alma mater won the Rose Bowl this year, and we were there to witness it in person!  It was so much fun!

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Tim is only slightly mortified by the props given to his singing voice.  He's still totally hot.

A Korean Thanksgiving

How does a 1st generation Korean family do Thanksgiving? I remember the first few times, my parents and I quizzically poking at dry cafeteria turkey breast and grimacing at the new herb flavors in the stuffing.  I remember my uncle good-naturedly trying to swallow down mashed potatoes on his first Thanksgiving with us, then eventually caving in and asking for some kimchi to go with it.  

However, as the years passed and the more America we absorbed, we learned to adore this holiday and its feasting.  And we have blended it with some Korean favorites, which actually go really well with the more traditional dishes.

Kimchi instead of cranberry sauce...

Kimchi fried rice (try it with gravy on top)...

Korean moonshine made from backyard grapes and soju...

Three generations of silly, brilliant people

Cross-posted on Kimchi Mamas!

Uncle, Gangnam Style

Earlier today, my cousin Jenny posted the following status update on Facebook:

Someone just mistook my dad for PSY. SMH.

They made it a point to honk like crazy and when he looked, they did the dance.

At first, my racism hackles went up. After news of horrifically racist tweets, I was mentally prepared for all the fame to take a bad turn for our community.

However, when I thought about it for a second, the following things came to mind: My uncle is Korean (obviously), stocky, has similar hair, wears tailored Italian suits as casual wear, and was also wearing sunglasses while driving a white S-class Mercedes Benz at the time.  (He rolls like a true player because he is the proud owner of the Todai restaurant at the Village at Orange, also known as the best-tasting Todai in southern California.)

So maybe, actually, it was a completely honest mistake.  

This is what he looked like:

My uncle.  He's high-class, if you ain't rollin', bypass.

I asked my cousin how my jageun appa (younger brother of my father) reacted:

He was like, "Crazy kids honking! Why are they all of a sudden doing the gangnam style dance?" And I was like maybe you look like him. And he was like "Mee? I look like him? Ohh I guess I could look like him" and he laughed.

He's obviously a good sport with a great sense of humor, so no harm done.  But I'm curious to know: what do you think?  Was it racist?

Cross One Off the Bucket List

Yesterday, Tim and I went out to eat at an Italian restaurant, and I had my very first porcini risotto with four grams of shaved white truffle on top.

I never have to eat again.  

And when I die, I want to be reborn as a truffle-sniffing pig. 

During dinner, our server told us that the truffle hunters of Piemonte now mostly use dogs, as the pigs kept eating the truffles.  

Y'all know I would be that kind of naughty pig.  And when they put me out to pasture after a long, storied career as a faithful truffle-sniffer, they can slaughter me humanely and turn my legs into proscuitto.  

Wow, that train of thought took a wild turn!

Anyway, today I danced my ass off with Emi at her friend's birthday dance party.  I must say, it's a brilliant party idea: they held it at the playroom of a park, they were able to invite a bunch of kids and their parents, and everyone had a blast!  It seemed cost-efficient too, since you can just leave out bowls and platters of snack food and drinks instead of doing a full meal.

The DJ played "Gangnam Style," and Emi and I were delighted to see that EVERY kid and adult knew the song and the dance.  It was so cool.

 

Shakespeare, Gangnam Style

I was spending my lunch hour watching "Gangnam Style" for the hundredth time, and PSY's lyrics, in their brevity and cleverness, really reminded me of the Bard himself.  

So...since there is every other sort of "Gangnam Style" mash-up out there, why not "Gangnam Style in the form of a Shakespearean Sonnet"?

By day, a girl whose warmth and care inspire,
Whilst holding coffee cup, relaxing grace,
When night, it cometh, feels her heart a-fire,
This contradict'ry woman, I will chase.

Tho virile male, I'm no fortune's fool.
My warmth, it matcheth yours during the day.
My coffee, chuggeth all before it cools,
My heart, it bursts, when night her charms display.

Your love'ble beauty earneth fair remark,
Oh you, yes you, doth make this life worthwhile;
Together, 'til the bitter end, and hark!
Hey Sexy Lady, Oppa's Gangnam Style.

Above the runners soar the men who fly.
A man who knows a thing or two, am I.

Exeunt Julie, PSY, and Billy Shakespeare.

Cross-posted on Kimchi Mamas!

Heeeeeeey, Sexy Lady!

Harry Shum Jr. of "Glee" fame delightfully photobombs his co-stars...Gangnam style.  Love it!!! (h/t Angry Asian Man)