tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63069247385454793372024-03-08T11:44:21.970-08:00Capricious BubblesShinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.comBlogger268125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-76922116783725646252023-08-29T19:03:00.000-07:002023-08-29T19:03:08.785-07:00 With great sadness I must inform you that Shinyung died of breast cancer on August 10th.The loss is devastatingly deep, however family and friends are supporting each other well.We are remembering the wonderful wife, mother and friend; remembering the positive impact that she had on each and all of us.A memorial and celebration of life will be held in San Diego on October 13th. Please Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-43644546939834240732023-03-28T16:53:00.001-07:002023-03-28T16:53:56.232-07:00Discarded: Understanding an Estrangement Almost seventeen years ago, my sister told me to never contact her again. In those seventeen years, so much has happened (or not happened). We have not attended each other’s weddings, she has never met my children, and she never got to know my husband Jeff. We have not celebrated any holidays together. My family of origin has never gotten together as a group in those years.When my sister Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-91234913422578734722023-03-15T06:42:00.002-07:002023-03-17T06:02:40.226-07:00Third Line FailureYesterday, I learned that my third line of treatment has failed. It only worked for about 3-4 months, and during the last two months, the cancer must have been growing. The drug (Trodelvy), which was just approved for breast cancer last year, held tremendous promise, and I hoped to be one of the small percentage of people to ride it to remission. Now I'm left wondering what is left. How many Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-3240774389253419802022-04-03T15:12:00.000-07:002022-04-03T15:12:24.388-07:00Disowning My (Korean) Mother's UnhappinessFor most of my life, I have carried my mother’s unhappiness, sloshing in an aged brown vat atop a rolled towel on my head, the way old ladies do in the countryside in Korea. It was always threatening to topple or overflow, contaminating me, no matter how carefully I maneuvered to find the right balance. It cramped my neck, bogged me down, and caused aches and pains in unexpected places.When I wasShinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-4891602414389044022022-03-14T12:44:00.015-07:002022-04-04T08:51:49.783-07:00My TightropeFor decades, I pined for more time to write, through years of law school and then a decade of working in law firms, later through the early years of motherhood as I pumped, changed diapers, and hovered over my little ones. If only I could be free to write, I used to think. It was one of the constant laments of my life. Now that I suddenly have no demands on my time, I find myself frittering it Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-18014012647559363982021-02-21T14:06:00.032-08:002021-02-22T09:08:59.498-08:00Minari's Daring Hope[Spoiler Alert]Years ago, my Korean-American friend Bonnie told me she hates reading stories about Korean-Americans. "They're so depressing. They're always about loss. What are we supposed to do with all that sadness?" It's almost as if writer/director Lee Issac Chung were eavesdropping on our conversation when he made Minari, as if he came along years later to answer that question for us.&Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-50168361278113418382021-02-08T11:45:00.003-08:002021-02-08T11:46:08.482-08:00The Making of Asian-American IdentitiesJay Caspian Kang’s recent New York Times Magazine feature on Steven Yeun is not really a story about Steven Yeun. It is an exploration — through the medium of a famous body — of what it means to be an Asian-American in the United States. It is a slog through what Kang refers to as “prismatic neurosis”, a mild, yet controllable, disorder that he equates with our immigrant identity.This slog feels Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-87643670296803845912020-07-11T15:24:00.007-07:002020-07-11T20:54:33.530-07:00Must Asian-Americans Cast Their Stones at Tou Thao?In the midst of the Black Lives Matter protests, Asian-American writers and activists have flocked to urge fellow Asian-Americans to speak up in support of Black Lives Matter. Many argue that Tou Thao, an Asian-American officer who stood guard while Derek Chauvin suffocated and killed George Floyd, symbolizes Asian-Americans’ silence on racial strife in America. They cast silence as adjacency to Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-70135825511058207222020-02-12T13:29:00.000-08:002020-05-23T21:20:59.779-07:00Dreams of the Past<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-16592183032301214532019-11-20T19:26:00.002-08:002019-12-09T09:46:02.755-08:00DissonanceEver since I started reading Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), I can't stop imagining myself as an actor in different scenes wherever I go. A sociologist, Goffman described our social interactions as theatrical performances, where our daily actions are presented, as if on stage, with scenery and props to be displayed and interpreted by our audiences.
Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-42553847624588028172019-11-13T19:53:00.000-08:002019-11-21T11:03:45.230-08:00Finding my identity in JeronimoRecently, after watching a documentary called Jeronimo about Koreans in Cuba, I've been thinking about the struggle of people like us, those who have been separated from their people. In this film, the descendants of Koreans who landed in Cuba in the early 1900's struggle with their identity. Are they Korean? Cuban? Both?
Their struggle for identity is compounded by the fact that the original Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-79541360309805884602019-06-21T18:05:00.003-07:002019-11-21T08:47:10.005-08:00Returning<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-19173853994265332972019-05-28T11:30:00.001-07:002019-11-15T13:10:20.814-08:00In Response to Min Jin LeeIn a recent op-ed, Min Jin Lee defines power as the "confidence to speak for yourself."
In 1979, three years after Min Jin Lee's family, our family moved to the US for what we expected would be a three year stay. Those three years turned into forty. Like Lee's family, we also landed in Queens. We arrived over the weekend, and on Monday morning, I was registered to attend P.S. 20 in Flushing. I Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-64404313557787072532018-03-29T08:50:00.002-07:002019-11-15T13:12:36.041-08:00ResettingI've been perusing through some of my old posts, and I am amazed to see the difference between where I was then -- emotionally, psychologically -- from where I am now. A lot of my old posts are bogged down, as if I am trying to pull myself out of slowly hardening cement. So much to figure out. I can feel how frustrated and baffled I was with my inability to reshape myself emotionally or Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-50745375856445638682018-03-28T16:11:00.000-07:002019-11-15T13:14:28.738-08:00The Power of RespondingAlmost a decade ago, shortly after Paul Hastings laid me off, I was talking to one of Jeff's acquaintances. I'll call her R. She told me how sorry she felt for me because "one of the most shameful things" that could have happened to a person happened to me, and so publicly too! I was so caught off guard by her comment that I didn't even respond. But that comment stayed with me.
I thought it Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-78669446175188154472018-03-27T14:18:00.002-07:002019-11-15T13:15:31.970-08:00Strange and FamiliarLast Thursday, at around 9:05 am, I shaved my head. Completely. I walked into Super Cuts as soon as it opened and asked the lady behind the counter if they had room for a walk-in. She smiled warmly and said yes. After she took down my name, she asked me what I wanted done. I told her that I wanted to shave my whole head. She didn't give a hint of surprise, even though her eyes flickered ever so Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-89931551864084374382017-07-26T10:02:00.003-07:002019-11-15T13:18:54.217-08:00The Lens of MoneySince my teenage years, my singular image of my father is a vision of him crouching alone, at the end of the day, on the floor in his bedroom in front of his file cabinet. In front of him sits piles of coins: quarters, dimes, nickels, and reams of bills. First, he tackles the bills. He sorts them into twenties, tens, fives, singles. Then he returns to each pile to straighten out the bills, Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-44644268649616333332016-09-18T21:05:00.000-07:002019-11-15T13:21:16.135-08:00Making a Big ChangeA couple of weeks ago, I read an article in The New York Times called “Hesitant to Make that Big Life Change? Permission Granted”.
In the article, Carl Richards writes about why some of us have trouble making big changes. He believes one reason is our desire for permission to make such changes. He writes: "Seeking approval and external validation is part of the human experience, but when it Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-15865685172893740902016-09-08T10:00:00.000-07:002019-11-15T18:33:40.521-08:00Aching for AvaSometimes I am startled out of my bubble. This morning, I couldn't sleep for some reason and found myself scrolling through Facebook at 5:30 in the morning. A photo drew me in unexpectedly, and I was caught in the world of Ava, a little girl fighting against leukemia. The pictures of the little girl's wide open smiles and her mother Esther's words of raw pain wrenched me in deeper and deeper Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-53685446956823561862016-08-30T11:47:00.000-07:002019-11-15T18:35:09.285-08:00One of Those MomentsI was having one of those moments the other evening. One of those moments when disappointments of life suddenly swell up like edema, filling up the empty crevices of my mind, welling up to a point that they block all that my eyes would otherwise see.
I don't even remember what set it off. Maybe a careless word from Jeff, or perhaps a tantrum from my vocal four-year old. A trifling that should Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-60235966659980098692015-12-16T14:07:00.002-08:002019-11-15T18:37:27.273-08:00MotherhoodI'm reading Motherless Daughters, a book by Hope Edelman about women who lost their mothers, many at young ages. Edelman lost her own mother to cancer when she was 17, when her mother was 42. The book is about how women, children suffer, grieve, and struggle to find a way to continue living after losing their mothers.
I'm reading the book on my computer in the middle of a local Starbucks. It's Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-41970297429674694942015-12-11T09:52:00.002-08:002019-11-15T18:42:10.975-08:00Time Of My OwnGrowing up as an immigrant kid, I watched my parents struggle a lot. They worked painfully long, labor-intensive hours, often more than 14 hours a day with no real breaks, six days a week. They could never catch up on their sleep and had no time to spare. I remember their exhaustion stretching out like a rope of molten glass, drooping from its own weight, threatening to crack with the passage of Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-26695517050434270282015-12-09T20:32:00.000-08:002019-11-15T18:43:12.989-08:00A MomentThe sound of our kids' heavy breathing fills the small hotel room. T is under the covers, smack in the middle of the other queen bed about 3 feet away, with the sheets tightly tucked between the mattress and the box to keep him from rolling out. Our little S is curled up in her sleepsack in the pack-n-play by the window, her hair tousled around her face like a protective cloud. The kids passed Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-81002998224253518172015-11-03T11:12:00.001-08:002019-11-15T18:49:20.536-08:00A Little ReminderThe day before Halloween, my son's class had a day-long Halloween party. The teacher told the kids they could dress up, and the parents were sent an email reminder the night before. When I dropped off my son T at school in his storm trooper outfit, he was greeted by an Iron Man, Elsa, a unicorn fairy, a baseball player, and a host of other luminaries in miniature sizes.
After some effort, I Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6306924738545479337.post-21452301325795274332015-11-03T10:00:00.000-08:002019-11-15T18:51:19.070-08:00Where I AmFor the past couple of weeks, I've been feeling different. Not as anguished. Not as dejected. Not as aggrieved. The intensity has subsided, and gone is the constant agitation. I don't know what happened, but I no longer feel as if I'm in the middle of a heated ongoing conflict. The crisis has passed, and I feel like I crawled out of the wreckage and am watching an ambulance drive away.
Maybe it Shinyunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03223210004939369907noreply@blogger.com0