Thursday, June 6, 2002.
Looking forward to:
Korea v. USA match Monday, 11:30 EST. GO
HANGUK
!!
I will most likely ... be asleep by that time.
Baby Boy is now: 20 days old !!!
WHEN GOBLINS WERE THE BAD GUYS
The 1980s. In our mom's garage.
Four friends sitting around a make-shift table made up of a large chalkboard set atop a tractor lawn mower. Strewn across the chalkboard-table are one inch figurines, dice, papers, and rulebooks (the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st edition kind, thank you).
NICK the RANGER: "I'm dead?! By a fucking goblin?! But I'm a RANGER!"
ME the DUNGEON MASTER (sitting in tractor driver's seat behind screens of charts and tables): "Bad luck, man. You're pretty much defenseless in that net trap…. The goblin spears you again for 6 points. You're dead alright."
MARK the LEADER (my brother): "Shit. I've only got 2 hit points left myself."
ME the DM: "You see about a dozen other goblins on dire wolves coming at you down the hall. You've got the initiative. Door behind you. What do you do?"
MARK the LEADER (my brother): "What can I do? ... Damn... Okay, we charge th -"
ME the DM: "WHAT?! Listen, they just slaughtered your RANGER. You and your entire party are almost all dead. There's a dozen more goblins and wolves coming at you. The exit is BEHIND you ... (hint hint)"
MARK: "So? I already heard you. Where's my lucky 20-sider?"
ME (acting as a non-player character): "AGGHH! Okay … the magic-user in your party speaks up, 'My superior intellect tells me that we should retreat.' He runs away."
MARK: "Retreat? ... Like run away? I hadn't thought of that. Okay, we do that."
ME: "Man, you fighter types ... I swear...."
Oh how we loved our paper-and-pencil role-playing games - Dungeons & Dragons, Top Secret, Villains & Vigilantes, etc. In each I was usually the "dungeon master" or the "referree" because I was the only one willing to study all the rulebooks and spend days to weeks writing little worlds/adventures to explore. My brother was invariably an "adventurer" of the leader/warrior type.
We kind of stuck to those roles ever after it seems.
WIZARDS AND WARRIORSMy only brother came up to visit me last weekend.
Born only eleven months apart, like an evil twin / good twin cliché, we couldn't be more different.
According to mom, my birth was easy and painless. Mark's birth, on the other hand, "almost killed" her.
Even though I was older, we ended up being in the same grade because of a technicality with my late December birthday.
Growing up, Mark worked on car engines with our dad. I studied new rule systems for the latest role-playing games.
In high school, Mark was a natural star at track. I'd read unassigned literature classics during my non-literature AP classes for fun.
In college, Mark had lots of crazy adventures and good times. I spent college in libraries, and arcades.
After college, my brother left Michigan to start fresh where no one knew him. I went to medical school, still just an hour from my mom.
He drinks sometimes. I don't.
Mark had a knack for making new friends (and sometimes girl friends, just like dad) all the time. I resorted to inventing and drawing mine. Longer lasting and less maintenance. Cheaper too.
Mark went to the jungles of Costa Rica by himself and several countries in Europe. I went to Korea, and only want to go to Korea.
We were never really competitive with each other, mostly because we dwelled in such separate realms. Mark sought to experience life. I was more interested in studying the rulebooks of life.
Mark eventually found his nitch in bartending. He's unnaturally fast at it and will throw loose change back at low-tipping fratboys (no offense to high-tipping fratboys). He does what he wants and he doesn't take crap from anyone. He loves it.
Myself, I do the doctoring thing. Sometimes bad luck intervenes, sometimes people die. I don't make the rules. I just have to learn them. Just like in my Dungeon Mastering days.
ANCIENT COREAN MAN-TRAP
While my brother was visiting, I attempted to bring him over to his Korean side with my own personal Kryptonite -- K-pop girls.
Mark, lying on our living room floor reading about the local punk music scene.
Me, fast forwarding past those lame "pretty boy groups" on the latest Korean music video tape.
"Hey, cool! Baby VOX! This is my favorite group!" I say as they start their dance number for "Oo yun" (means "chance" or "accident").
Mark looks up as they start singing. I've got him now, I think. No human male can resist the irresistible charms of these foine K-sirens in action. First he'll get hooked by their looks, then the music will awaken his dormant Tiger Spirit, and he'll eventually get pulled into Korean culture (new and old) like Boba Fett down a sandworm pit ….
After seeing the baby-faced singer (Eun Hye) and the sexy singer (EZ Kim), he actually loses interest and turns back to his punk music magazine. I am astounded. ASTOUNDED !!
He didn't even wait to see the other three K-girls !!??!!
While I ... try ... to fathom ... this, apparently Amy's mom has plans for bringing Mark closer to his Korean heritage as well.
"You like Korean girls?" Amy's mom pimps Mark.
"Excuse me?" Mark asks, laughing.
"My mom wants to set you up with this 27-year old girl in Korea," Amy explains, rolling her eyes.
"Hahaha, no thanks," Mark goes back to reading.
"You no like Korean girls? Why?" Amy's mom pushes him.
"It's not that I don't like Korean girls, it's just that Asian girls remind me of my mom too much. She drives me crazy. And she talks way too much," Mark explains.
"Reminds him of our mom. Michuh," I say which means "Krazy" with a capital K in Korean. I know this because it's the title of a K-pop song on Lee Jung Hyun's latest album.
I'm different in that Korean girls don't necessarily remind me of my mom, but crazy people often do now.
"Ah … but Amy don't talk too much, does she? Korean girls better than American girls," Amy's mom replies most politically incorrectly.
"No, Amy is fine. It's just, I'm not interested," Mark says amused at the entire topic.
"American girls leave you for little this, and little that. Divorce all the time. Korean girl stay," Amy's mom continues her pimping propaganda.
Note: the views of Amy's mom do not represent the views of the webmaster (me) or current reality in general, as Korea's current divorce rate (>30%) is quickly approaching that of the United States (50%) since Korean women are seeking more self-fulfillment and taking less crap, per year 2000's census.
"Is that supposed to be a good thing? Sometimes girls should leave the guy," Mark laughs.
"The younger generation isn't really like that anymore," I assure my brother.
"You have girlfriend?" Amy's mom continues.
"There's a girl I really like but she's not my girlfriend. I want a girl who's like me. Someone who won't put up with any crap, even from me," Mark says.
"Korean girl better," Amy's mom grumbles.
"I'm sure there are Korean girls like that. I just don't believe in being set up. It just has to happen. No plan," Mark tries to explain.
Amy's mom doesn't quite understand him.
"Oo yun," I say, which means "chance/accident," which is also the title of the Baby VOX song my brother just ignored. Still to my ... utter ... disbelief.
"Ah, oo yun, I see…" Amy's mom nods in understanding ending her arranged marriage plans.
When the last group, Fin.K.L comes on the taped show, I give it another try and say to Mark,
"This is my favorite group too!"
Mark doesn't even look up this time from his magazine. Agghh!!
Like the Fin.K.L song "Forever," there are some things I will forever not understand about my little brother.
HANDYMAN
Me, walking down stairs. Amy's dad is pounding nails, about half a dozen so far, in a row in our wall. I have no idea why he is pounding a row of nails in our wall. So I ignore it and go downstairs and check my email.
My brother, on the other hand, sees this, grabs a refrigerator magnet to find the studs in the wall that Amy's dad is obviously looking for in the most inefficient manner possible. Mark finds a stud with the magnet and knows that sixteen inches to each side of it is another stud and wooden beam behind the wall. He then helps Amy's dad put up the framed wedding picture on our wall to hide the original misplaced nail holes.
My brother used to build houses too. Amy's parents are beginning to doubt we're even related. If Amy's dad had a single daughter, I am sure he would have shackled her to Mark right then and there.
On the other hand, Mark also used to have nailgun fights with his fellow builders.
"Nailguns can't really kill a person beyond a six foot range," he tried justifying to me after seeing the expression on my face.
UNCLE MARK
We didn't do a whole lot the three days he was here. Saw Episode II. Took him to the Korean store (yes I was still trying to awaken his Korean Tiger Spirit). Went to the ice cream mart. Sat around and talked some. Watched my brother's favorite cable show, "Band of Brothers." Went to our mom's house and took her to dinner. Talked about what the neighborhood kids had grown up to become.
I've occasionally wondered if my younger brother thought I was going off the deep-end with my Korean fervor. I mean, it's not like we grew up around any other Asian people growing up really. It's not like I even look Korean, and hence am treated like I'm Korean (for better or for worse).
"Did we even have any Asian students in our high school class?" he asked me in the car.
"A couple but, yeah, not many that I remember. We never really got exposed to any Asian people growing up," I answered.
"Yeah, no wonder I'm so messed up," Mark said almost regretfully, completely taking me off guard.
"That's why I want to enroll my baby in Korean school and go to Korean church," I said, "So he gets exposed to the Korean community growing up. Maybe he'll get something out of that whole church thing too, haha…."
We stayed quiet for awhile. Probably both thinking about growing up and how fleeting even our time as brothers is these days. How you kind of wish you could say more but there just aren't any words. How it isn't really about saying, but just being.
And thinking … about us. When I told Mark about my lousy cholesterol levels, he became very alarmed. I think he realized that someday one of us will be around and the other one won't. We talk more on the phone since then.
When we were younger, I used to ask Mark what he was thinking, like how I do with Amy these days. Most times, he would just say "nuthin."
But these days, I know he thinks about our dad just about every day since he died eighteen years ago. I can tell by how he acts and how he lives his life and how he tries not to live his life. I could tell by how he got scared when I told him about my cholesterol. Even though neither of us mentioned our father the entire time Mark visited, I know he thinks about our dad almost every day.
I know this because I do too.
Before he left, Mark got to see little Sun Su while he was awake.
"This is your Uncle Mark," I introduced him to Sun Su.
"Go ahead and hold him," I urged Mark.
"Um … how? Hahha," he hesitated.
"Just hold him as close to you as you can," I said, and he did.
"Give him a kiss too. He smells really good," I said to Mark, and he did.
My brother's become a lot more introspective these past few years. A lot of that invulnerability of youth he had is gone. Before he left, one of the things he said to me was,
"You know, it's kind of funny how opposite we are sometimes."
"I know, between the two of us, we pretty much cover all the bases," I laughed."Yeah ... when we're together, we can pretty much take on anything in the world, it seems," he said.
And then my only brother drove twelve hours back to North Carolina.
EPIPHANY
I didn't realize until after I wrote this that in a way, part of my dad is reborn in my little Sun Su as is my brother (via myself of course). The impact of this upon me is far beyond what I had imagined.
It's kind of scary.
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BABY FEATS
1. Little Sun Su-ya likes to swing his mittened hands at my face for some reason. He doesn't do this to Amy or her sister. Then again, they don't put their faces right up to his and try to catch his tiny hands in their mouth like I do.
2. I have discovered a perfect way of getting Sun Su to stop crying when Amy isn't around to breastfeed him. I pick him up and spin in place until I am too dizzy to continue. He becomes fascinated by this. Unfortunately when I stop we are both rather dizzy. But it's kind of fun watching his little eyes rolling around afterwards.
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SWEET BABY KISSES
Amy has a nickname for Sun Su already. She calls him her "Sweet Treat."
Sweet Treat baby kisses go to:
my long-time hapa sistah, Maria,
the lovely Jocelyn and uncontainable Danny (and cutey Molly),
and the dear Michelle Quan (not the Asian-American skater, not even Asian either).
No more kisses for now. Sun Su-ya has had a long day of sucking on voluptuous mammary areolae. Time for another nap. ... When do I get my turn??
