A public address system that was piped into my hotel room reminded me every day that if I violate the quarantine orders, I would be arrested and deported. I never dreamed I’d be spending my birthday quarantined in a Covid Hotel, but that’s what happened after I flew to Korea on October 17th from my hometown…
“She says she remembers it was September when you came to her, because the cosmos flowers were blooming.” Cats are very good at making themselves comfortable. My pair curl up, on or in any space possible, whether it be a soft, fluffy pillow, or a pile of important paperwork. But they’re still suspicious about why I’ve…
As you may have noticed on Korean dramas these days, Koreans have been working out! During my 3 years of living in Korea back in the 90s, I was struck by the Korean focus on ‘wellness’, but never saw men or women with the kind of muscles that looked like they spent much time in…
When our friends asked us to join a pickleball league back in May, I had never before heard of such a sport. Now just three months later, and no end to the pandemic in sight, I’m convinced this is all around the best sport to be playing right now and wonder who in the world…
What We Eat During a Pandemic Ever wonder what other people are eating for dinner these days? We asked Korean Americans across the country to photograph a week’s worth of dinners and the responses have us totally inspired. As suspected, there are lots of people eating way better than we are, but mostly it appears…
What it’s like to fly right now and eat in Koreatown. After four months of lockdown in our two bedroom condo in Minneapolis, my wife and I finally broke down and decided it was time to fly East to see our kids and parents for a summer vacation. During those four months, we dreamed of…
Like most of you, I am holed up with my family, quarantined, isolated, missing man time. I’m missing 2:00 am kimchee jjigae with my boys in Koreatown after a night of drunken karaoke where we had just spent the last two hours singing love songs to each other because the wives had left at midnight.…
This article is in response to Woody Paik’s original op-ed piece called What The US Can Learn About Education from Korea’s Wartime Example. Reading Woody Paik’s article took me to my old days of exactly 70 years ago, which otherwise might be dumped forever from my memory warehouse deep in my brain. The black and white…
My memory is crap. My wife will tell you that. Whenever she reminds me that my memory is crap, I utter four Korean syllables – yuhn tan ga seu – which loosely translated, is charcoal induced carbon monoxide poisoning. Back when I was growing up in a third-world Korea in the 1970s, most families heated…
“It wasn’t until that day that I truly enjoyed the depth of flavors in miyeok-guk. But it took me even longer to understand the unspoken message behind my mom’s relentless demands that I eat it each birthday anniversary.“ “Ew. What is that?” Growing up, there was one dish that I wished my mom wouldn’t make when…