El libro extraordinario

I have always wanted to write a book about something extraordinary that would stop people dead in their tracks of whatever the hell they were doing and want to fulfill their wildest dreams. It hasn't happened yet. I'm trying to figure out why.

I will sometimes get these bizarre ideas or think of those one-liner quotes fit to be published in "the 100 best sayings of all times" in the middle of a normal day, so I rush to write them down on whatever scrap of paper I can find, including torn napkins, used printer paper, and the backs of old books. Unforunately, my brilliant ideas suffer one of two fates: (a) I forget what I was thinking before I get to write it down, or (b) I lose the sheet of paper I have written my life-changing idea on because it was mistaken for a napkin to clean up the messy table spill. Whenever B happens, I think to myself that someone somewhere in this world will one day discover my precious piece of writing and think, what a pity that this idea wasn't developed into some amazing masterpiece. Then they will steal my idea and became billionaires overnight because it has inspired them to invent the next great human accomplishment. Yeah.

I have one particular folder that is filled with ideas I have somehow managed to retain or remember not to throw away. And why haven't these been used to make my marvelous book, you ask. The only problem with this folder is that I'm too scared to go back and look at my ideas, perhaps in fear that they aren't as special as I thought they actually were when I wrote them down. I actually ventured through them around 4 am one random night in which I had abosolutely nothing else to do, and I discovered that half of the scraps of paper said exactly the same thing. Was it my bad memory or refusal to accept the harsh truth of my uncreativity that kept eliciting the same spectacular yet not so original idea, over and over again?

And what did my conscience repeatedly throw up onto those poor scraps of paper over and over again? They were thoughts about my mother, which seems to be a recurring theme in my writing. And a recurring theme in my dream that I cannot seem to get rid of. So perhaps this extraordinare book I want to write has nothing really to do with changing the world and everything to do with just understanding myself.

My chats with Grandma

There I was, indecisively fidgeting over which journal to write in and thinking about what content to fill them with when my 75 year old grandmother, wearing a layered orange long-sleeve polo shirt and brown spandex pants came huffing and puffing into my room. She was carrying a plate full of bright organge tangerines on which little drops of water had formed from the condensation. Her hair was as crazy as ever, a brown mess of artificial curls she had paid $20 to a local Korean salonist to do.

As she handed me the plate of tangerines, she looked at my messy coffee desk and smirked, "books again?" In fact, there were no books except for my lattered brown journal, held shut by a red and white rubber band. She fingered the brown sheets of paper I had recently torn out from my bound journal and asked, " Is this English?" I nodded as I started peeling the juicy tangerines. The sweet smell penetrated my stuffy nose and my mouth began to water as I brought the tender crescent-shaped pieces to my lips. "If only I had learned to write like you," she said, still staring at the brown sheet of paper filled with my messy cursive notes. "You're good in English and Korean and Spanish and Chinese and Japanese!" she exclaimed. "No grandma, I don't speak Chinese and Japanese," I replied, smiling at her excitement. "Not even a little?" she asked. I shook my head.

"But you know, Grandma, my teachers in my Korean program make fun of me sometimes because I use satooli (a rural Korean accent with a tangy drawl)," I noted. She burst out in laughter, slapping her thighs. "Well, you should tell you professors that your grandma uses satooli, and be proud of it!" she replied. As the echo of her laughter died down, I saw my grandmother staring out into the spaceless time of her past. She sighed. "You know, your mother was born in Seoul, but we moved back to Daegu for 2 years because, well, we had to. But when we came back to Seoul, your mother had such a little Daegu twang that the whole neighborhood came by to hear her speak. She was a spunky little kid," my grandma narrated. I imagined my mother returning to her playful 6 year old state, entertaining the neighborhood and especially the elderly with her cute smile and impossibly adult-like sayings. It contrasted deeply with the mother I knew now, who was always tired after a long day of work and tended to channel her frustrations onto our family.

"Back in the day, I used to have a small cigarette stand," my grandmother continued. By this time, I had already peeled and eaten four sweet tangerines and my senses were alive to absorb the story my grandma was about to tell me. "Whenever I would have to go in the house to answer the phone or take care of some business, your mother would stand out in front to take the customers. They would ask for different types of cigarettes and hand your mother a big bill. Your mother would calculate the cost of the purchase in her head and give them back the exact amount of change. Now, most of the fellas that bought the cigarettes were old men, and they just about fainted when they saw how smart your mother was." A broad smile creeped upon my grandmother's wrinkly face.

"Your mom's older sister, your aunt, on the other hand, was quite another story," she laughed. "At the store, we had a batch of gourmet candies that nobody bought. Then one day, a whole bunch of them disappeared. I thought someone had come bought them, so I filled up the space with more candy. They kept disappearing, so I assumed they were being sold to some well to do stranger buying treats for their kids. Then, as I was washing your aunt's backpack, a whole string of candy wrappers and boxes came out from the bottom of her bag. She had been taking them to eat all by herself." My grandmother shook her head and giggled to herself. Her eyes twinkled while she told her stories of the past.

"If I had a chance to study, I would be able to read and write myself. But those Japanese imperialists made us learn Japanese until I was in 5th grade. It was only after liberation that I learned the Korean alphabet. But then my father died when I was just finishing grade school and I had four younger siblings to look after, so my Korean is all improper. By the time our family settled down and recovered from my father's death, I was already ready to get married." But Grandma, your Korean is perfect, I told her. "These words are not really words," she replied sadly. The everyday language she had learned had only gotten her so far, she continued, and put up a impassable wall between her and the high society she had for so long yearned to be a part of.

"But you know it, your mother was that smart, I tell you," she kept repeating. She patted my hand and got up from the bed. She straightened out the slightly wrinkled orange bedsheet where she had sat and slowly walked downstairs. "Your mother was that smart."

Later that night, I nonchalantly questioned my mother about her experience working at the family cigarette stand. "I heard you were quite the calculator," I said, giving her a playful nudge. My mother laughed and replied in a childlike voice that I hadn't heard since we went on vacation to Europe, where she was able to see her favorite painters' classic masterpieces, "Now, you know your grandmother always exaggerates things two times as much as the real thing. It was only once or twice that I calculated the cost of those cigarettes in my head."

Without giving me a chance to respond, she moved onto the next topic: her apprehension about me not being able to find a good spouse. "It's time for you to get married, you know," she said, as if our previous conversation never existed, leaving me only to imagine the childhood life of the woman I should know most about.

beyond the boundaries of nationality

I have a different perception of what nationality than most people, I think. That is because I see the dangers in allowing yourself to be defined by a certain nationality.

Having a fixed perception of nationality means subscribing to the narrative that the dominant source of epistemology has assigned to you. Therefore, whoever and whatever does not fit into that definition of citizenship is excluded, sometimes politically (which is the easiest to notice but perhaps the least painful because it is something you can openly fight about) and sometimes cultural (which is less tangible but still allows something for concrete discussion)... and then sometimes in ways that don't make any sense at all and have no backing whatsoever. It's when you FEEL like someone is an outsider because of a reason you cannot quite grasp, and that is because whatever your version of humanhood is has become so deeply embedded and internalized in your mind that you cannot even locate it in your memory.

Today, as I was browsing Amazon.com for new books to indulge in and screening the podcasts for some interesting topic, I noticed I was being drawn to titles like "America Abroad" and "How to Converse Intellectually on American History." I wanted to know what it was to be "American," whatever that meant, and in order to do that, I had to know what this country's official narrative was. To put it shortly, I had to know the lingo in order to have people respect me as someone living on American soil. But why is this bothering me so much? Of course, as an American you should know about what's going on with your country.

I think being aware of what's going on in the world is essential, but viewing and understanding people and experiences through the lens of nationality allows for people to develop a consciousness of the other... without even knowing it. It's the same discomfort I felt at the conference I was at a few days ago when a policy expert, who we described as being "borderline racist," kept saying "We Americans" and "You Chinese" in a tone that barely gave any credit to the Chinese delegates.

Anna told me she doesn't really agree with what I'm saying. But she did say that my ideas are probably influenced by the fact that I grew up in the South in the U.S., which basically meant that my experiences with racism and peripheral existence were the foundation of my beliefs. She's probably right. Who isn't influenced by their past experiences? But I have a human need to have my experienced be legitimized and understood, not as some isolated incident, but an ongoing fight against this invisible hegemony of rationality and whiteness.

My encounter with a Hawaiian Police

If you hadn't noticed yet, I am a perpetually late person. Especially in the mornings. I blame it on my inability to hear my obnoxious phone alarm clock going off at least 5 times within an hour's span, or my lack of sleep the night before because I have procrastinated on the extravagant amount of work I have to do. For whatever reason, the bottom line is that I am always in a rush to get to my next destination--leaving me no choice but to speed.
Perhaps it's the mental adrenaline or anxiety that always compels me to push the gas pedal at full speed on straight open roads, but I usually always have a legitimate enough to justify my breaking the law. Today, however, I wasn't even that late or in that much of a hurry, but I had internalized the habit of driving fast so much that I automatically hit the gas as soon as I reached the open road. I was zooming past all cars (slightly wondering why they were going so slow) when I saw a cop car pulling out onto the road. His partner, who was driving a blue van, waved at me to stop on the road. Shit.. I thought. I guess it hadn't hit me that I was driving 40 in a 25 mph residential zone. I didn't even have my insurance card yet, but thank God I got my car registered a few days ago. As he walked towards me, he asked for my license and registration, which I had to get out of the car to get. "I'm so sorry officer. We were just late to class..." I said with teary eyes and a shaking voice. Caroline, who was sitting next to me, quietly agreed. Where's your insurance card? The policeman asked when I handed him my registration and driver's license. I just got my car a few days ago and I registered for insurance but it hasn't come in the mail yet," I lied. "They didn't send you a sheet of paper or a temporary card?" he asked. I shook my head. Caroline was surprisingly calm for the situation we were in. I later understood why. The cop was wrinkling his eyes in the sun and I could see his farmer's tan from under his uniform. "You know I could tag you for not having your insurance," he said. I gulped and nodded, waiting anxiously, either for mercy or punishment. "Just drive more carefully next time, alright?" he said, handing back my license and registration. I was in shock. "Thank you so much!" I yelled, as he was already walking back to his blue van.

"Oh my gosh, I was about to have a heart attack," I told Caroline, finally calming down enough to breathe normally. "Yeah, there are a lot of cops in Hawaii," she said. "But a lot of them are really laid back. They'll usually just let you go." Maybe it was just my bad experience with cops in the past, but I had never considered that possibility (for cops to be so lenient, that is). "Even if they catch you with a bag of weed," she continued, "they'll take it and let you go." She laughed. "They'll just smoke it by themselves." We analyzed the nature of cops in Hawaii. It might just be the weather that they're so nice. That and perhaps the fact that they have nothing else to do. Whatever the reason, I feel indebted to Hawaiian cops and feel a weird endearment towards them because they let me go. What a selfish feeling indeed.