Hello, 2022

• 100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying (The Guardian, 2022)
• 100 ways you can make the world a better place (The Guardian, 2000)

Reading these two articles, published 22 years apart, side by side has given me many feelings. I am no stranger myself to tirelessly making such lists and being all hopeful (e.g. here, here, here, here, and here). For this year, however, I have a much toned-down one.

📌 File away papers as they come in.
📌 No new proposals.
📌 Resume yoga.
📌 Move into Ugly. Really move in.

Bye bye 2021

On the slow mend from a sickly December. The past few days have been particularly bad. At first I couldn’t believe that my precious winter break was disappearing through my fingers just like that, but according to my 사람 잡는 다이어리™, it looks like this has indeed been a yearly pattern and I have been refusing to acknowledge it.

Now the additional complication is that when noticing a “bodily glitch“, I can’t quite be sure if it is simply a part of ageing (and hence to be embraced), or if it is something to act upon, Covid or otherwise.

Anyway, I have had no choice but to lie down and ‘recharge’ for a week straight. Perhaps there is some goodness to that.

Academic myths #272

You will catch up once the semester ends.

— Nicole Gasparini (@NMGasparini) April 24, 2021

Ah winter break 🙏🏼 now I can take a break from the immediate requirements of my job to work on the long term requirements of my job 👍🏼😭🙃

— dr. randa tawil (@randa_tawil) December 11, 2021

Seasonal reminder to academics that the rest you take now makes the work ahead faster and better. You can cut down a forest with a dull axe but it takes forever. Sharpen the axe when and how you can, friends (1)

— Kathleen Belew (@kathleen_belew) December 28, 2021

Flex your age.

I don’t know if this is a thing at the moment, but I have noticed in my social media timelines, both in Korean and in English, that people are competitively sharing memories from their childhood that a young person of today would not understand. (What has shocked me most is that children have an entirely different hand gesture for ‘being on the phone’. 🤯)

I naturally have quite a lot to offer on the topic, but perhaps I will choose two for now.

There was a phone number you could dial just to find out what time it was.

A rock star that I was a fan of when I was about 12 lived with his parents, and their home phone number was available from directory enquiries.

“A Polaroid Guy in a Snapchat World”

This title came from the very first audiobook I listened to, written and recorded by David Spade (2019). I had always enjoyed his storytelling, but in this particular case, it was the title that sold it to me instantly.

I still think I am more comfortable interacting with people online than in person. A “digital innate“, I have so far quietly insisted. However, this is where I must also throw my hands up in the air and admit that live-streaming [라방] a class is a whole other world, especially for someone who can never do two things at the same time. My sincere bows to 마리텔 백주부 and 대한민국 어게인 나훈아…

“Ritual technology” [2]

I came across these viral pictures a while ago, on separate occasions, and saved the links for my own amusement. Tomorrow I am hosting a virtual meeting with near 150 students, and suddenly these are pretty much me.

Please, Collaborate, don’t go rogue on me.

(Unlikely to be the original source, but the image from here)

(Unlikely to be the original source, but the image from here)

#day_in_the_life_of_homeworkers

Food in our genes? [2]

I am a carbs person. Carbs (and sugar) in all shapes and forms. Probably unsurprisingly though, rice will always hold an extra special place in my diet.

It is still to my surprise that yogurt rice has become part of my comfort food repertoire. While having a bowlful of it, I put together this random post that is a collection of a few ‘rice-related’ online memes I have recently come across.

1. A “rice breaker”.

Every year when #Brandeis professor @amber_spry teaches a class on identity politics, she kicks off with the same question on the first day: "How does your family or culture cook rice?” https://t.co/GnuVYkTpXo

— Brandeis University (@BrandeisU) September 9, 2020

2. “You can only add 2 things to this plate of simple rice. Name them.”

Viral Tweet Asks Users To Pair Plain Rice With Just Two Things. What Would You Pick?https://t.co/yMEZwiqYpe#rice #twitter #viral #ghee

— NDTV Food (@NDTVFood) August 18, 2020

3. Uncle Roger and “crimes against rice”.

p.s. It escalated so much (read: the female presenter being massively trolled) that they ended up doing a series of ‘peacemaking’ videos together, such as this, this and this.

4. “Spicy Korean rice gnocchi” versus “bland Italian potato tteok” (as in Chinese ravioli versus Italian dumplings).

Lmao what a cursed name for ddubokki pic.twitter.com/mEBjTMjJmL

— Eric Hu (@_EricHu) August 7, 2020

5. #CarbSolidarity

Ok look I know this is a news story about interfaith solidarity but I can’t stop looking at all the delicious rice. #CarbSolidarity https://t.co/57jkEF66Sr

— hend amry (@LibyaLiberty) December 11, 2020

6. Hill to die on.

Had a Singaporean classmate who went on to grad school in Switzerland. She was assigned to a dorm with a Korean person and a Chinese person and a Japanese person. All 4 sets of parents showed up with 4 different rice cookers. https://t.co/7XuwCKjFob

— Adrianna Tan (@skinnylatte) July 24, 2020

Blast from the past [2]

Into the fifth weeks of quarantining and I have turned to this.

Bodily memories are such a powerful thing — to the point that I am merely one of many who have invoked it. Oh how I dreaded it when I was a child. Now look at me — and eat your heart out, Joe Wicks the nation’s PE teacher.

#day_in_the_life_of_homeworkers

Descendants of the bear-woman

It has been 12 days since I last stepped out of the flat. I am not “whipping coffee 400 times” yet, but my mind does go to random places. More often than usual at least. Among many other things, I have been thinking a lot about South Korea’s founding mythology, which is taught in school and is also celebrated as a public holiday.

Legends about Tangun [mythological first king of the Koreans] differ in detail. According to one account, Hwanung left heaven to rule Earth from atop Mt. T’aebaek (Daebaik). When a bear and a tiger expressed a wish to become human beings, he ordered the beasts into a cave for 100 days and gave orders that they were to eat only mugwort and garlic and avoid the sunlight. The tiger soon grew impatient and left the cave, but the bear remained and after three weeks was transformed into a beautiful woman. It was she who became the mother of Tangun. (Britannica, 2020)

What I find most amusing about this musing is that so many fellow Koreans, in their respective ‘caves’ in different parts of the world, are making the same reference to this mythological DNA 🐻 on Twitter. That’s right. Eat your heart out, Tiger King.

#day_in_the_life_of_homeworkers

In-jokes [2]

Parasite edition. 🙂

“All look same” trope.

Standing with Parasite crew, I got congratulated A LOT. Lol.

— John Cho (@JohnTheCho) February 10, 2020

IKEA extra-large display cabinet.

👀👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 @ParasiteMovie pic.twitter.com/LnGdgkDDzx

— IKEA UK (@IKEAUK) February 10, 2020

The International Vaccine Institute chimes in.

The only #Parasite we're fans of is the one that wins Oscars. Congratulations to the cast & crew of the first Korean film to take home major prizes at the Academy Awards! #Oscars2020 @ParasiteMovie https://t.co/fklVPqiCSh

— IVI (@IVIHeadquarters) February 10, 2020

Paddle when the tide is high [1]: banjiha Airbnb.

OK, gotta launch a business jumping on the bandwagon: banjiha airbnb!

— Subin Kim (@SubinBKim) February 10, 2020

군면제 확정.

봉준호 군면제 확정!!

— 개새🏳️‍🌈 (@wDogBirdw) February 10, 2020

Paddle when the tide is high [2]: 짜파구리.

Ram-don, anybody? This is Inevitable in capitalist South Korea. "Nongshim ups promotion of ‘ram-don’ from ‘Parasite.’" https://t.co/IarAF3tffE

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) February 11, 2020

And I assume this 👇 is a joke too?

A man named Bong Joon Ho wins #Oscar for best original screenplay over Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and 1917.

Acceptance speech was: “GREAT HONOR. THANK YOU.”

Then he proceeds to give the rest of his speech in Korean.

These people are the destruction of America.

— Jon Miller (@MillerStream) February 10, 2020

Blast from the past

Saw an old friend and went down memory lane. He said what he remembers most vividly about me from our uni days are: my Smurf blue streaks in hair (a story for another time!) and my extraordinary love for birthdays. According to his observation, on someone’s birthday, people would normally say “축하해 [Congratulations]”, but my *reflex-like* response was “좋겠다 [Lucky you]”.