Day 269, December 10, 2020
Atlanta Family
Tonight's soundtrack: Haochen Zhang, Beethoven Sonata in A-flat major, Op. 110, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, 2009
I talked with my parents over Zoom last night and they shared the travails of one of my aunts in Atlanta who, in pre-pandemic times, had a dry cleaning business in one of the downtown high-rise buildings. Of course, since the pandemic, business has dropped off dramatically and she is open only one day a week now. To augment her income she has started working in the kitchen of longterm care facility. It is hard work, and with subsequent outbreaks in the facility, at times there are a shortage of workers, and the long hours become longer. She has also learned that sometimes the ambulance comes to the front door, and sometimes the ambulance goes to the back door.
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| Everyone comes when you turn 100. |
I remember this aunt fondly. I went to visit her years ago and stayed at her house while attending a conference. Before Vietnamese cuisine had spread across the the US, she took me to have pho for the first time. And way before Korean fried chicken had become a known thing to mainstream Americans, we met a bunch of our relatives and had the most incredible fried chicken wings I've ever eaten.
In Atlanta, there's a rich, vibrant Koreatown strip with mega Korean groceries and strip malls where every sign is written in Korean. It was the first time I had stepped into an H-Mart, which dwarfed every Korean grocery I had visited. It was as if one had shopped for his entire life in a 7-11 and suddenly was introduced to a Walmart Super Center. It was an amazing revelation, and I suddenly understood a part of the appeal of living in Atlanta and why a branch of my mother's family had settled there.
My childhood was spent in the Northeast with Boston as my point of reference. Boston's Chinatown became a Pan-Asian site of belonging. When my family went out to celebrate a special occasion, we went to Chinatown. And then after dinner, we would weave our way through the narrow sidewalks to the tightly packed bins and tanks and aisles of the Chinese grocery. There, one was surrounded by smells, of fish, frogs, and soft shelled turtles, dried mushrooms, antlers, and every manner of fruit one could imagine... and then of course, the underlying damp cardboard smell of Boston.
Koreans gathered in great numbers at church and church related functions. There was a big community, but we were all dispersed throughout the region and it was rare that one found a restaurant that could rival what my mom created at home, so we went to few Korean restaurants growing up. Because of my mother, she was the first of her family to immigrate, a branch of our family settled around Boston. But somewhere along the way, another branch of the family settled around Atlanta, also tightly tied to a church community, and when my grandfather was alive he would bounce between the groups of his children.
My grandfather lived to an incredible 104 years old. While my aunt drove me to my first pho restaurant on that trip to Atlanta, she turned to me and asked, "Do you know how your grandfather managed to live so long?" I was uncertain how to answer the riddle, but she answered, "He let his wives do all the worrying about everything. He was always happy go lucky." That was a funny perspective to suddenly learn about my grandfather and some of the tensions in our family. By the time my grandfather passed away, he had outlived three wives and divorced one (the second to last). He was a man who well into his 80s made it a point to golf almost every possible golfable day.
I had always imagined him as the Navy Admiral, the survivor of the Japanese occupation, exile, and war. It is suddenly a funny thing to discover that perhaps part of his survival, part of his resilience, was an ability to let go of things... to the degree that it doomed those around him. I imagine the truth is a little of this and a little of that. It is interesting to learn more about one's forbearers and their humanity, it helps to connect to one's heritage a little more, which I think is always, or often, a complicated thing for the children of immigrants. Are we first generation Korean Americans, or second generation immigrants? In any case, eating Korean fried chicken wings in Atlanta with extended family, was as wonderful and enriching as eating mudfish soup in restaurant in Seoul with extended family. It was an immersion that happens so rarely, particularly out here in Western Massachusetts.
It sounds like hard and scary work to be in the kitchen of a longterm care facility in the middle of a pandemic. I texted with a friend from Virginia who talked about how rates in his area are climbing up to 25% of the population being infected. While rates have been climbing locally, they are nowhere near that high. So that is frightening. I hope all my relatives and friends out there, and you too, dear reader, stay safe and healthy. And for those of you who are sick, or fall sick, I hope that your recovery is fast and smooth.
Take care and be well,
Leo
From Our Friends:
From GCC Art Dept. Chair, Paul Lindale:
From AAAS ARISE:
"As STEM teachers, dealing with the economic and logistical challenges of educating our youth during the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the political unrest and rising racial awareness across the United States, we have a unique opportunity to engage and develop with other educators, new and innovative approaches to see and elevate the brilliance of our boys of color."
From the Council on Undergraduate Research:
Are you ready to share your experience with allyship, diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, program design & mentoring in UR?
Share, learn, listen, and grow with your community at our virtual Centering Diversity, Equity, + Inclusion in UR and Creative Activity Conference, June 23-25, 2021.
This year has been full of twists, turns, and eye-opening conversations. Now is the time to put together what you have learned, what you are still discovering, and what you have implemented successfully to help others in the undergraduate research community to listen and grow.
CUR invites all faculty, mentors, administrators, and industry partners to submit an abstract for our upcoming virtual June conference. You do not need to be a CUR member to present! |
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Abstract submissions close March 1, 2021. For questions, please email events@CUR.org. |
From the Poetry Center at Smith College:
Writing Workshop with Jen Karetnick and Sumita Chakraborty | Beyond the Tip of the Tongue: Revision, Sense, and Play
Sunday, December 13 at 2 PM
Join The Open Mouth Reading Series on Sunday, December for a generative workshop with featured poets Jen Karetnick and Sumita Chakraborty. We invite you to take seriously the fact that revision means to “re-envision,” and that the craft of revision can center play, adventure, and using your physical senses instead of following the fallacious Pied Piper named “perfection.” Change the setting of a poem to include different odors and hues; play Mad-Libs with its diction to create different sounds; cut it up and scramble it out of order to feel it with your hands – the possibilities for re-imagining the sensory memories that your poems embody are endless. Through these revision games using published poems and your own in-progress pieces, along with prompts to generate new work, you will give yourself an opportunity to see your poems anew and listen, feel, and even smell or taste the possibilities that they hold.
** The workshop will take place virtually via Zoom with Otter Live Captions. An ASL interpreter will be present. Access copies of workshop materials will be made available via Google Docs. Register for the virtual workshop by clicking on the "Registration" button on the Eventbrite page, donating any amount you can, and entering the required fields. You will receive an email with the Zoom information. Suggested donation of $5.
Link: https://poets.org/event/open-mouth-presents-reading-jen-karetnick-sumita-chakraborty
From the Jandon Center:
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