Once a month or so, Wes spends the weekend caring for his parents, who are fragile and need round-the-clock care. They have a wonderful caregiver with them from Sunday night until Friday night. The weekends are then covered by one of their adult children. I’m not sure big families always work out this well, but in the case of my in-laws, their investment in the raising of five children is paying full-circle dividends. Four of the five kids live in the area, so they share the load, faithfully taking their once-a-month turn.
When Wes is away, I’ve learned to relish the quiet by intentionally keeping my weekend a bit more unscheduled. I exercise, read, write, pray, think. I usually tackle some chore, like cleaning out the fridge. It’s not that I can’t do those things when Wes is home. But his weekends away naturally keep some of the social activities—eating out, traveling, gathering with friends or family—at bay. Perhaps more importantly, it gives me stretches of time when I’m alone. In those moments, I realize how rare and precious these moments of quiet are.
Go to Tbilisi, Georgia to get deeper into kimchi making?
I’ve been making kimchi on and off for several years, empowered by YouTubers like Maangchi and a growing number of Korean cookbooks written in English (*Korean Home Cooking* is a favorite). But knowing how to do it with “son maht” has been elusive.
“Son maht” literally means hand + taste, i.e., cooking by feel.
How a person likes her kimchi is varied and personal. There’s no “right” answer about how spicy you like it, how fermented, how fishy. But I didn’t understand the nuances that would turn a follow-the-recipe batch of kimchi into a this-is-how-I-like-it kimchi…in other words, into my kimchi.
When Mrs. Greyhound asked me to help her make a batch of kimchi in Tbilisi, I said sure. I had Kate send me a photo of the recipe out of the book but soon realized that we were going to have to improvise. Mrs. G had some glutenous rice flour, gochugaru (Korean chili powder), and fish sauce in her pantry. We found napa cabbage in the local markets but no daikon radish or chives. And we only had table salt on hand, not the kosher or sea salt that the recipe called for.
I had to think—really think— about each step as we went. How should I adjust for the fact that table salt is much finer and saltier than kosher salt? What could be substituted instead of daikon?
In the end, I was quite happy with the results. Even more encouraging, I started developing a sense of a kimchi groove…my own version of sohn mat.
(One tip I’ll offer is that you want the wilted cabbage to taste good, with the right amount of saltiness, before you mix in the other ingredients.)
I like making mak kimchi (meaning easy, because it’s pre-cut, unlike poggi kimchi, which is stored and fermented in half-cabbage chunks.)
I came home and made another batch…this time, I didn’t even have to look at a recipe.
Wes and I recently returned from visiting our dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Greyhound (their nom de voyage), in the Republic of Georgia. We’ve been friends with the Greyhounds since we were all in college, and they are very dear to us. So as soon as COVID made international travel seem doable (if not quite prudent), we made the plan to visit them.
Georgia is a land of rich culture, a complicated history, and some of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Which is why Wes, Mrs. G., and I were sitting on a grassy hillside just outside the mountain town of Zhabeshi, waiting for Mr. G to return from Natela’s. We had hiked nearly ten miles on this, the first day of a four-day trek, and we were tired. A blog we’d been following promised us a low-key beer garden at about this point. The mountains were incredible to behold, the company was equally wonderful, but it was hot and hard-going, and we kept talking about how good that cold beer would taste. When we passed through the village without a beer garden sighting, Mr. G. took matters into his own hands by asking a man at a construction site if there was a market nearby. That’s when he was directed to Natela’s house.
While Mr. G went hunting for beer, the rest of us plopped down onto a grassy hill. Almost immediately, a cat and dog meandered over to us. Georgians seem very tolerant of—welcoming even—of stray animals. They are petted and fed and otherwise treated like friendly neighbors. So we weren’t surprised to see these animals approach us. What did surprise us was their appearance. The cat—a trim, spry creature—had a two-tone face. And the dog had what looked like eyebrows and a grin.
“That dog looks weirdly human,” Mrs. G. commented.
“It’s the mouth,” I said. “It looks like it has lips.”
“I think someone’s trapped inside,” Mrs. G. said.
After what seemed like a rather long time, Mr. G. appeared with a two-liter of room-temperature beer and four disposal cups the size of tiny cups you’d get at the dentist. Natela turned out to be a kind woman and very happy to sell Mr. G. some beer and bottled water. Then why did it take so long? She’d been in the middle of shearing a sheep, and it took a few minutes for her to finish up.
In the four days we trekked across mountains and stayed at guesthouses, why focus on this story? I suppose it’s because the trip consisted of two kinds of experiences. On the one hand, immense natural beauty had us oohing and aaahing. On the other, a series of small moments of laughing or discomfort or connection made this trip memorable. I’ll mostly rely on these photos to give you a sense of the natural beauty.
As for other memorable moments, here are a few more:
Debating and discussing whether we would try and cross a river on foot or pay the equivalent of $7 US dollars to be taken across a river on horseback. Deciding to go by horseback, only to turn around to see Mr. G plunging into the river. “Uh, I guess he decided to cross on foot.”
Listening to a fellow guest in the very rural village of Adishi ask for milk for her coffee and realizing that our host had stepped out to grab milk…literally. Well, not so much grabbing the milk, I suppose as the udders.
Making it to our final destination, the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ushguli, home to dozens of Svan towers which have been used since medieval times as barn, home, and defense post, all rolled into one.
Trying to leave Ushguli with a driver whom we had hired to pick us up, only to realize that we’d inadvertently crossed some kind of taxi syndicate who was very unhappy with him and us. We couldn’t understand a word they said, except maybe the mention of Mr. G’s workplace as an excuse, but it took a long time before we (very relieved) were on the road.
Eating at a local restaurant in Mestia that was proudly flying its pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian colors.
Watching the movie Dede in a local pub, then finding out the movie was cast and shot locally, in the very area we had just trekked through. The woman who runs the pub happened to be the casting director and the director’s sister…a local event indeed. Read more about the movie on Mrs. G’s blog.
Three of my closest compatriots have gotten enthused about birding. Really enthused. Like, read-textbooks-buy-equipment-set-weekend-and-vacation-plans-by-it enthused. When people you love are really into something, there’s a spillover effect. And while I’m not a birder, hardly even “birder adjacent,” it’s been a pleasure to grow a bit more aware of our feathered friends.
One day last spring, I looked out my home office window and noticed a rather plain brown bird hopping along with twigs in its beak. Back and forth it went along the ground in front of my window, presumably building its nest. “I’m working and you’re working,” I thought. “But you have to commute.”
Walking along a wooded path in the Berkeley hills, I heard a loud chirping, then spotted a dark-eyed Junko sitting on a branch, singing its little heart out. Its tiny triangular beak opened and closed, opened and closed. “You look just like a cartoon version of a bird singing,” I thought.
I walked by a house and noticed a dove hanging out in the front yard. “Why are you just sitting on the ground like that?” I wondered. The next day, I passed by again and the dove was still there, this time flitting in and out of the bushes. “Oh, I see,” I thought. “You live here.”
Looking back over what I’ve written, I see that there’s a good amount of “direct address” to birds. Is there a birder word for that?
It’s September and I’m driving a vast stretch of Highway 80 with my husband and adult daughter, listening to a San Francisco Giants baseball game. We’re returning to the Bay Area after backpacking in Colorado, a last-minute detour to avoid the wildfires ravaging parts of California. The Giants are at home, playing the Atlanta Braves and leading 4–2, until Atlanta scores three runs to pull ahead. In the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and down to his last strike, Giants second baseman Donovan Solano (just returned from a ten-day Covid quarantine) hits a home run to tie the game and sends it into extra innings. Our car erupts in cheers.
I didn’t grow up a sports fan. My Korean immigrant parents didn’t know anything about America’s pastime. Making a life here took every bit of energy they had, and besides, I was a girl. My brother played volleyball and collected trading cards. I read books and played the piano. To me, baseball fans went to the ballpark with their dads and learned obscure lore at their grandfathers’ knee. They listened to the games under their covers at night, transistor radio pressed to their ear. Like everything else I learned about American life, all I knew about baseball fans I got from TV.
That changed in the fall of 2010. My husband and I were working on a big painting project, so on weekends and evenings, we donned primer-splattered t-shirts and worked while listening to the local broadcasters call the game. The Giants were in the playoffs, but a knowledgeable friend said they wouldn’t go far. To my amazement, San Francisco beat Atlanta in the division series, the Phillies in the championship series, and then defeated the Rangers to win the World Series. I started paying attention at just the right moment. Lightning struck and I was hooked.
Like millions of others, I’ve struggled through the past eighteen months of the pandemic. As I cycled through anxiety and depression, paralysis and rage, consolation arrived from an unexpected source. The 2021 Giants were made up of aging stars, unknown youngsters, and journeyman-like platoon players. They were projected to be good-to-middling, maybe winning 75–80 games. Then, early in the season, they started winning.
Sometimes they won by hitting home runs and playing outstanding defense. Other times, the victory was by the flukiest of margins: a clutch hit, a favorable umpire call, or an opponent’s error. It didn’t matter. Day by day, game after game, the Giants kept winning. Center fielder Mike Tauchman defied gravity to rob Albert Pujols of a home run. LaMonte Wade Jr’s clutch, late-inning hits earned him the nickname “Late Night.” Shortstop Brandon Crawford’s diving stops and acrobatic throws embodied grace under pressure. The pundits and the naysayers and even their own fans kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. They weren’t supposed to be this good, and yet here they were. From May through September, with the richer, astoundingly talented Dodgers breathing down their necks, the Giants hung on to win 107 games and the division by a single game. In doing so, they gave me something that was sorely lacking in this difficult pandemic year. I almost didn’t recognize the feeling: I felt cheerful.
Last Thursday, the Giants lost 2–1 in the final game of the NLDS, after an intensely fought, five-game series against the Dodgers. The season is over for San Francisco. Fans of other teams will continue riding the postseason roller coaster, while Giants’ fans contemplate both a disappointing loss and the magic of a season like no other.
Here’s what I’ll remember: we’re barreling down I-80, the night so black we could’ve been hurtling through space. It’s the bottom of the eleventh now, the game still tied, Atlanta on the field. The bases are loaded with just one out, but the Giants have run out of position players to pinch-hit so the manager Gabe Kapler sends pitcher Kevin Gausman to the plate. We groan. Pitchers are generally terrible batters. Gausman falls behind in the count, then works it full. We lean in, hearts pounding, hardly breathing. Gausman hits a sac fly to deep right. From third base, Brandon Crawford breaks for the plate and executes a perfect fade-away slide. Once again, the Giants win. And there we are — my husband, daughter, and me — beleaguered from the year, still grimy with Colorado dirt, flying through the dark expanse and screaming for joy.
I take a sip from the frozen daiquiri, then offer it to my friend. She takes a long pull from the straw that was just in my mouth. It is the first evening of our New Orleans trip and we’re at a crowded barbecue restaurant with the friends who are hosting us. The pink concoction seems a fitting way to kick off a NOLA vacation. It’s colorful, boozy, and goes down easy.
During the day, we see the sights. We kayak across swampy waterways, cutting through the glassy reflections of cypress and tupelo. We take a tour at the Whitney Plantation, the only museum in Louisiana exclusively dedicated to the lives of the people who were enslaved there. We sample beignets and go through the line at a lunch buffet—twice. On Sunday after church, we go to a small sports bar to watch the Saints play. The restaurant has set up snacks for everyone to share: we join the line for pulled pork sliders. Whenever the Saints score, we high-five everyone and the restaurant sends around a tray of free vodka shots.
At night, we squeeze ourselves into bars that are so crowded that we hand our crumpled bills to strangers who pass our money to the bar, then deliver drinks to us the same way, passing our beers hand-over-hand.
At another crowded bar, my friend gets into a discussion with a friend-of-a-friend about how race impacts education inequity. For a reason no one understands, the man she’s talking to gets offended. You know how those conversations go, right? You’re not even disagreeing and yet you find yourself getting more and more worked up?
This is what I remember about that conversation: not so much of what was said but how they stood. The term “social distance” has not yet entered our vocabulary. The man leans in to make his point; my friend is polite but stands her ground. They shout to be heard above the din. Their faces are inches apart, their invisible breaths aerosolizing in the air between them.
As I was a child growing up in Los Angeles, school taught me about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Even more than any particular history lesson, I remember my feelings in response, a feeling I only ever dared articulate among other Korean-Americans. Yes, the internment of Japanese-Americans was bad, but not nearly as bad as what Japan did to Korea. As an immigrant from Korea with parents who had lived through the occupation, I’d heard chilling stories of what life had been like under Japanese rule. I felt utterly justified in my feelings.
I’ve been thinking about this in light of the uptick in violence and hate speech against Asian- Americans (and around the world) in the era of COVID-19. I read an excellent piece by Cathy Park Hong in the New York Times Magazine and then did something I rarely do—would caution any sane person against doing—I scrolled down past the end of the article to the comments.
Why did you do that? I can see you waving your arms as a warning. Go back! Go back! Are you crazy?
Why did I venture into the intellectual cesspool that is the comment section? In my defense, I’ll say that I’d deeply resonated with Park Hong’s piece and—in a moment that I now see was naïveté—I wondered how it had resonated with my fellow Americans. Maybe I would see lightbulbs going off. Some understanding, some compassion.
There were a variety of comments, some interesting, some loopy. But in response to the disturbing, violent, often-criminal acts against Asian Americans, I noted two themes emerging along the lines of: “Yes, I hear what you’re saying, but…”
China. Commenters brought up China, geopolitics, wet markets, and pangolins. Why? For the same reason people act out against Asian Americans in the first place. America sees Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners. It doesn’t matter how many generations a person has lived in the United States. It doesn’t matter how hard-working, self-sacrificing, or accomplished a person may be. When push comes to shove, Asians are foreign.
African Americans and Latinx folks have it worse. As Park Hong writes in her excellent book of essays, Minor Feelings, racism isn’t a “competitive sport.” But America often treats it like it is.
The comment section of that article felt like it had a particular and menacing message for me and all other Asian Americans: be quiet and stop complaining. Did the commenters really mean it that way? Or was it my own internalized racism that makes me receive it so? Both? Does it matter?
I am ashamed of my coldness toward the suffering of Japanese Americans during World War II. I was bigoted and prejudiced. I felt enraged and helpless about what Japan had done to Korea and used those feelings to justify the hardness of my heart toward the suffering of my fellow Americans, my fellow human beings. That was my personal, individual wrong.
Now I also wonder how much, as a young person, I had already begun swimming in American waters: Asians are perpetual foreigners. Victims are to be pitted against one another. There is always a new way to justify racism.
I love nature: hiking, camping, backpacking, and cross-country skiing—I enjoy it all. I also have a rather poor sense of direction. This means that for most outings, I end up relying on someone else (usually Wes) to do the navigating. I’ve traveled miles upon miles, blissfully tuned in to the view, the trees, the birds, and my own peripatetic thoughts whilst utterly tuned out of tracking where I’m supposed to be going.
Which is all well and good and yet a wee bit disempowering, no? So for our last cross-country ski day of the season, Wes decided to power up the trail in one direction and I decided to go in the other. This was the gentlest of “solo” skiing: I was on trails. There were signs. And other people. And cell phone coverage. I had a map. I was going to ski in a big loop.
We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable.
― Henry David Thoreau,
I skied and found myself reveling in the solitude and the pristine beauty of freshly-fallen snow. It turned out that I could be alone in nature and enjoy myself. I traversed out a trail marked Yuba for about 45 minutes until it met Palisades, then started back toward the lodge.
At a fun spot called “Marty’s Hill,” I even took a little detour to practice my downhill turns. I then checked the time and my location. Google maps told me I was .7 miles from the lodge and that it would take me 20 minutes by foot to get there. Perfect. I was set to meet Wes in half an hour. I figured skiing was faster than walking, so I had plenty of time.
I kept going until I came to an intersection and this sign: Big Dipper to Palisades. Ah, good. I planned to stay on Palisades all the way back to the lodge. I zoomed down Big Dipper and kept going, expecting to see the turn for the lodge at any moment.
After about 20 minutes, I took out my phone. Google maps said I was .7 miles from the lodge and that it would take me 20 minutes to get there by foot. Uh-oh. I looked up. And there was the sign for Marty’s Hill. I had somehow managed to double back in a classic groundhog-day-type maneuver.
So, what do you think? Am I ready to backpack solo through Big Sur?
It was only after I had taken a bite of my sausage McMuffin that I remembered it was Ash Wednesday and that I was going to be a vegetarian during Lent. Oops. I had been spending the week with my friend, C, who is in the hospital, which explains both the food choice and the confusion about the date.
Hospital time is strange. It manages to be stressful and tedious at the same time. I lose track of the days. I do some serious “emotional eating.” I tend not to sleep well.
And yet I really loved being there.
As I take my rather feeble first step in my Lenten journey, I’ll be thinking a lot about C in her deep suffering. I’ll also be pondering the moments of grace and consolation I experience when I am at her side.
Where: Yosemite (Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne) + Ten Lakes When: First week of August 2019 Who: This seems as good a time as any to introduce our hiking names – Jake (Wes), Hot Lunch (Bora), Tricky Kate (Kate), Mountain Pup (Anna), and Positive Pierre (Tate) Overview: 5 nights, 45 miles, 10,000 ft overall elevation gain. Info on Yosemite back country permits can be found here.
Every backpacking trip is a some mixture of pleasure and difficulty.
Our first day of backpacking aka our last clean day. My go-to backpacking outfit is definitely functional more than fashionable.
In the “difficult” or “annoying” column are as follows: being dirty, sleeping on the ground (and therefore not sleeping well), mosquitos, having to carry all your food, peeing and pooping in the woods. (Depending on your perspective, hiking several miles with a 20-40 lb pack on your back could also be considered “not enjoyable”).
We hiked down from White Wolf campground toward the Tuolumne River canyon.
Nobody likes mosquitos or a bad night of sleep, but the “hardships” of backpacking are part of the appeal. In addition to seeing beautiful places — and we really did see some beautiful places — there is something restful about being reduced to the essentials. Some people hate camping or backpacking because it takes so much effort to do the simplest things (eg cook dinner). But that’s why I like it. Far away from cell service, a backpacking day consists of walking, eating, sleeping. Rinse, repeat. It’s gloriously simple.
Jake and Tricky Kate look happy here and they are. But they are also cold. Very, very cold.We found a spot to camp above the river. Do you see Jake in his red shirt going down to fill our water bottles?
And of course, we did this in the company of friends. This group was a good one–intrepid and good spirited. Sometimes we talked. Other times, we hiked in silence. There was grace for those (usually me) at the back of the pack or for the one (definitely me) who suffers from a bit of vertigo and is apt to panic at heights.
I knew nothing bad could happen to me crossing this non-bridge. The water wasn’t deep or fast. But I still felt dizzy so Jake helped me out.The view from Glen Aulin. Photo credit: Tricky Kate.
There was even grace when we realized that we had under-calculated the supplies and that the food would run out before the trip did. On the last morning, Wes ate a handful of dry oats, I skipped breakfast, and each of the young people had a few dried blueberries, three almonds, and some broken bits of peanut butter pretzels.
A very paltry breakfast. Tricky Kate wearing the highly fashionable mosquito net.
Then we hiked seven miles out to the car…and headed directly to a deli for sandwiches. Then we got some ice cream. Then we ate burgers and fries.
