Taken All On the Same Day of September 28, 1994

1. Usual shelf 

2. After showering 

3. Done up with a fake earring put on by my oldest sis

I enjoy doing the dishes. 

It's a ritual that includes the use of my hands in a way that feels so different from the rest of my day. I originally mastered my dishwashing technique when I was in the 7th grade and helping out at my family restaurant in Alaska. 

First, I wash the edge of each dish by running the scrub along the entirety of its parameter before then wiping down its middle.

Well hello there, 2020.

I know you sound fancy and all, but you're just another year, aren't you? Just the next number in a sequence that we'll use to keep track of all the stuff in the following 12 months? I don't know, I guess there's a bit of futuristic romanticism to your name, like the plot of an old sci-fi movie finally coming to life. But in the same way you're just another basic bitch year.

Or maybe not? That's why I'm trying to think of ways to amp you up a notch to make you better than 2019.

To start, I definitely want to have more fun in 2020, because it feels like I spent way too much time in my head last year. The thing is, 2019 was definitely hard. Life really does work in cycles, because much like exactly ten years ago at the beginning of 2009, where I found myself unemployed after having been laid off from my job, 2019 started off in a similar way.

I had lost my job in November of 2018 after the NYC office I worked at was suddenly closed by our parent company in Europe. Losing that job was fine because the environment I worked in was not good. It was an eye-opening experience of a type of work culture that had my jaw dropping on a regular basis, and one that I never wish to be in again. So when I lost that job, I accepted it as a chapter of my life closing, and told myself I'd be fine, and that a new chapter at a new job would soon be starting. I had been in this situation of being jobless before, so I dusted off the old resume and got to it. But little did I know that the next chapter to come would not be at a job, but instead, a really long stretch of unemployment.

I started my job search in high spirits that month. I was super enthusiastic about all of the places I was applying to, and was just excited about everything. Thinking about the possibilities of where I would end up and how I could contribute to wherever that was kept me energized and eager. But then a full month passed by with nothing. Then two. This was where I found myself at the start of 2019, and I reassured myself by saying okay it's still only been a short time that I've been looking. Plus, it was just the holiday season, so I'll be totally fine and something will happen soon. But then I hit my three month mark of unemployment. And then four. Even with what I thought was a pretty decent work history and resume, I wasn't getting the amount of responses or leads I thought I would.

I would say by the fifth month of earnestly looking and trying so fucking hard with absolutely no results, I hit an emotional low point. I felt so lost. I felt scared about my future. I started to believe that these companies who had no interest in hiring me were right, and that maybe I had no value to offer them, or any company at that matter. While I had been unemployed at other previous stages of my life, something about this one felt different. To begin, it was longer than any of those other times had ever been. And the optimism and whatever-everything-will-work-out attitude I had in my twenties and earlier thirties seemed gone. Instead, everything was replaced by panic and this fear of feeling like I had no control over my life. Five months is a long time to go while still trying to pay all my bills and stay afloat. And going through everything as a single person with no one to really rely on and have as support made everything feel so much more isolating. I began to question everything about my life to an obsession, and all of the choices I had made to get to this point. Is this where I was at 36? All I wanted was a job to wake up and go to. Why did this seem so unattainable?

Month six of being unemployed came and passed. Then month seven. At this point, I had gone on my fair share of interviews. Either I kept missing the mark in some way or there was always some other reason, because none of these places wanted to hire me. But during this time, there was something else I unexpectedly gleaned. It was something I had never really thought about when getting interviewed at jobs before. It was like the opportunity to speak with different people at a wide range of companies had me noticing people's personalities a lot more, and I started to especially pick up on things like if the interviewer seemed sort of miserable. It happened more than once.

The journey of a long job search has a lot of highs and a lot of lows. The lows had some real dark points. I honestly just didn't understand so much of what my reality was at that time, where bitterness hardened up like candy and I often found myself taking big bites out of it. I also wasn't telling everyone I knew that I lost my job and found myself unemployed again, (because it's definitely happened more than once since ten years ago). It was a struggle to pay bills and just get through stuff. I tried to keep busy by pitching food stories here and there but I didn't have much success at that either. The amount of self-reflection I was doing at this point was no joke. I took a long hard look at a lot of things in my life. I mean, I had the time to so why not just go all the way, right? The highs came in a few forms, mostly through just realizing some stuff. Things like, "actually, you know what? I'll aways be okay," or "things aren't so bad." And then there were even those moments where I wasn't sure how I'd get through something. But then I would, and I would be fine. It made me realize I was taking care of business as best I could, so who gives a shit.

Then month eight came and went. But when nine started, it did so with a bang. That's when I applied to a food company with a name that immediately caught my eye, and is when everything changed.

Two years ago at one of my big Yoon family gatherings, with my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins, something in our usual, large seafood spread caught my eye. It was the salmon sashimi. Its color was so different. It had been a while since we had salmon from Alaska, and I didn't remember it looking like that.

The thing is, my family has deep roots in Alaska, and I grew up eating wild-caught salmon all the time from the 3rd to 7th grade. That's when I used to live there as a kid with my parents and two sisters. I have so many fond memories of eating my grandma's home cooked salmon in Anchorage, and only with my rice because it was that good. I still ate salmon as an adult here in New York, and I guess got so used to the stuff I found here at restaurants that I didn't even think it was different from what I remembered having in Alaska.

But then on that dining room table of my cousin's house, I saw this salmon from Alaska that one of my relatives had sent. It had this deep red color that sparked a whole bunch of something in my head. I didn't understand what about it caught my eye, but I sure did enjoy eating it. Because I couldn't figure out why it made me feel the way I did, it continued to cross my mind every now and then.

On the ninth month of unemployed life, I was able to have my first interview at this food company. This was the place with a name that had me thinking how interesting. It was a video interview with the founder that I took from my living room desk, and I was genuinely excited. When I began to tell him about having lived in Alaska when I was younger, I also told him about my dad and his parents and 5 siblings all moving there in the 70s from South Korea.

In 1975, my great-uncle had a hamburger place in Homer, Alaska. He had emigrated there from Korea years earlier and worked in the fish canneries before eventually opening up his own business. He then sponsored his sister, which is my grandma, and her family, being my grandpa, dad, 5 aunts and uncles, to immigrate to America. Homer is where they all first settled in at to begin their American story. My grandpa and eldest uncle also worked in the fish canneries there for a while. Years later, everyone in the family would eventually move on to build new lives down in Anchorage or in New York City, but Homer holds a special place in my family's history.

When I mentioned Homer to the founder of this company I was applying to during my interview, his response had me shooketh. He proceeded to tell me he was born and raised in Homer, Alaska. Seriously.

To make a long story never end, that auspicious moment was followed by so many other wonderful things, and it all resulted in my finally landing a new job! And from the get-go, something about this one gave me a really good feeling.

The company sells wild-caught and sustainable salmon from Alaska, along with other fish and seafood species that are wild-caught and sustainable from the state. Working here has been great in so many ways, so much so that I don't even think about those nine long months of my tortuous job search. I'm so happy with where I am now that ain't nobody got time to look back like that! Along with the people, one of the greatest things about my company is having a work day that's centered around salmon from Alaska. I mean, I have access to eating it daily, have meetings about it throughout the day, and am pretty much thinking about it all the time! But okay, what's got to be my absolute favorite thing are those days when all I'm doing is writing about it. My job is to write about Alaskan salmon. I could have never imagined this during those hard nine months. Like, wow.

Constantly being around the salmon I had as a kid has brought back so many memories. I remember that its color wasn't orange with marbled lines of fat, but a deep red with a lean texture. I also remember how delicious it is and how much I loved eating it. The difference in flavor compared to any other salmon is just there to me. I see it and can't ever go back to anything else again. And that mystery of thinking about the salmon from my family function two years ago? Well, now that everything's been cleared up, it doesn't even cross my mind.

So 2019 came and went, and so will 2020. And from now on, for any year of my life I ever look back on, I’ll think, yeah I was fine that year.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, everyone!

When I lived in Alaska during the 5th grade, I attended Fairview elementary school in Anchorage. I can distinctly remember Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech, and the song Lift Every Voice and Sing, as being a part of my grade's curriculum. We were quizzed on memorizing the speech, and sung the song as a chorus in music class. Learning it in school made it feel no different than any other subject, helping me incorporate it into my life just like the A-B-C's or 1-2-3's. No one in school ever had the slightest thoughts even close to second-guessing what we were being taught, or harbored any reluctance on accepting everything as anything but fact, history, and as a truth we should all aspire to live by as young people. It was taught as a norm and that as a country, something America never intended on going backwards on. Instead, it was simply a foundation to grow and embrace as we all live together side-by-side.

And now as an adult, I don't see how the views of so many diverge from what was taught to generations like myself as a standard of kindness, humanity, and being American. Young people today should still be able to live in a world where I Have a Dream and Lift Every Voice and Sing continue to serve as the beacons of hope and progress they've always been, without all the crazy background noise of the current administration and emboldened racists out there.

When I was in elementary school, my parents moved my family up to Alaska for a few years to work for my aunt and uncle. Even though I was born in Queens and most of my relatives live here in New York, my father's family has deep roots in America's 49th state. It was where they first immigrated to in the U.S. from Korea, and I still have relatives there to this day.

After some years of living in Anchorage, my family decided to make it on our own and ended up moving farther up north to Nome. It was 1995 and I was in the middle of sixth grade then, and I remember being thrilled about relocating to a place that was so isolated, the only way to get there was by plane. My parents, two older sisters, and myself started a new life as owners of the only Chinese restaurant in town named Twin Dragon. And not only was it the sole spot for any type of Asian food there, but we were also one of only three Asian families living in Nome at that time as well.

After we arrived, my parents completely redid the space, breathing new life and lightness into the restaurant. The dining room's interior was totally renovated by my mom after a trip to California to purchase new mirrors, wallpaper, decorations, and furniture. My dad worked on the exterior by repainting the outside of the restaurant red and adorning the windows with new decals. The most dramatic change of the restaurant's facade were large gold letters above the front door spelling out Twin Dragon, which my mom had brought back from her trip as well. We were overjoyed at the before and after transformation, and felt extreme pride in our small family business. The moment I knew that other townsfolk had also noticed was not long after while I was at school. That's when I overheard my science teacher, who I recall was named Mr. Brannen, talking to another teacher about how great the restaurant's new look was. Words couldn't express how happy I was for the rest that school day (more HERE).

Running the restaurant was tough though, and required long hours---but it was great because my family did it all together as a team. My mom and sisters would wait tables, and my dad would cook all the food and run things in the kitchen with a few employees. I myself was the designated dishwasher, busboy, and overall gofer. If my dad ran out of produce, I would hop on my bike and pedal for my life to Hanson's Trading Company for a store run. If the phone was ringing off the hook, I would take down orders and then go back to washing the pile of dishes that were always waiting for me. In due time, my parents and family settled into our new lives and business. Thanks to my dad's great cooking and my mom's sweet demeanor, we became friendly with regulars and even started delivering our food, which I don't think was at all common for Nome at that time. I remember my dad driving around with a foldout map, trying to make sense of all the streets and addresses of the town. With Nome having such a long history connected to the Alaska Gold Rush and also being the last stop of the Iditarod, our customers were always a mix of both locals and tourists.

As a young kid, it didn't take long for me to adapt to my new surroundings. Alaska's beauty first captivated me while living in Anchorage, because all of my family and relatives were really into the outdoors. We would go camping, fishing and skiing all the time, often for long periods with my dad's huge Chevy Suburban or my uncle's RV packed to the brim with gear and Korean food. But when I arrived at Nome, its own natural grandeur and charm enraptured me in a whole new way. With tundra all around and the Bering Sea in our backyard, or looking up to discover the Northern Lights on a winter night, I relished in Nome's magnificence. Biking around by myself past midnight with the most beautiful hues of sunlight lighting my way in the summertime, or hopping on the backseat of my friends' snowmobiles to get around in the extreme winters always had life feeling like an adventure. Our restaurant was located on the town's main thoroughfare named Front Street, which was parallel and right next to the Bering Sea. During downtimes at the restaurant, I loved crossing over Front Street to the seawall of rocks so I could just sit and stare at the water. This was also around the time Disney's Pocohontas came out, so my young imagination loved jumping from rock to rock or peering between them for dried starfish or beach glass.

Back then, the outside world literally seemed so far away. With no Internet, computer, or cellphones, nor even the ability to drive anywhere far, the only connection to the rest of civilization outside of Nome was through cable television and the postal service. All mail had to be picked up and sent to a P.O. Box at the post office on Front Street, which was a short walk away from the restaurant. Since I was always helping out my parents and working, I usually had spending money. I used most of it by purchasing money orders at the post office to buy clothes from the J.Crew catalog, or seahorses and other peculiar items from the advertisements in back of Boy's Life magazine. Religiously watching MTV and my subscriptions to Disney Adventures and Nickelodeon Magazine also helped me stay in tuned with pop culture as well.

My family eventually ended up leaving Nome and returning back to the East Coast permanently after I finished the seventh grade. Thinking back on our time living there brings me a lot of happiness, but seems like another lifetime ago. I haven't been back in twenty years since I left, so a part of it almost feels like a dream that only lives in my memories. And that's how it remained, until I decided to Google "Nome, Alaska" today. 

To my absolute surprise, I not only found out that Twin Dragon is still there and serving food, but that the exterior of the restaurant is absolutely the same as we left it from two decades ago. The signage and window decals that my parents put up are still on the front of the building, while the large gold letters spelling out Twin Dragon and remnants of my dad's red coat of paint also continue to live on. When I stumbled onto a picture online dated from a few years ago showing this, I decided to call the restaurant today to verify that's how it all still looks. And I was told that it does.

Below is a picture of my dad standing in front of Twin Dragon on a snowy day in 1995. And the picture beneath that is the photo I found online, showing how the exterior currently still looks today.

Now, I hope to go visit Nome again sometime in the future. Hopefully, it won't take me another twenty years to do so.

(Photo Source: Nome Muckin' Around)

I'm ready for you, 2015!

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope the upcoming year brings you many laughs and much happiness.

I spent my New Year's Eve at my apartment with my sister. It was just the two of us with her dog and my roommate's dog. Being at home and not outside in the chaos of massive crowds and drunken revelers was exactly what I needed. A busy holiday season of drinking and going out officially had me weary by the time New Year's Eve came around, and the absolute last thing on my mind was being at some busy bar or restaurant.

This past holiday season was a lot of fun though. I got to go out frequently for holiday related stuff, so the time just flew by.

Attending Christmas at my aunt's house in Ridgefield, New Jersey with my relatives was one of the highlights. My grandmother has officially moved to my aunt's house there after living in Alaska for many decades. She had recently come with an aunt and uncle from Anchorage who escorted here, so this past Christmas was extra special for my entire clan that lives in the Tri-State area. It's great to have my grandma so close by now, and I for sure will be trying to go visit her whenever I can. Getting any time with her on Christmas was hard because there were people everywhere with so much going on, but I'm hoping that visiting on weekends will allow me to have a bit more quiet time with her. I still think about when I was living in Seoul a few years ago, and my grandma was in Korea visiting. Because she stayed longer than all of my other relatives who had been visiting with her, I had the privilege of getting my grandma to the airport on the day of her flight back. We rode the airport bus together from Seoul, which was more than an hour away from Incheon International Airport. I stored her luggage and we grabbed seats on the bus that were a few rows behind the bus driver. We chatted about family stuff during the entire ride, and then ate together at the airport one last time. I hadn't seen my grandma for some years at that point, so having been able to spend time with her in Korea was really fantastic. I can still remember seeing her off into security, and feeling sad I'd be far away from her again.

Something I realized this past holiday season is that being around my large and extended family makes me happy. I spent so many years away from my relatives and was trying to figure my life out, that it became easy to think in my head that I was different from all of them and didn't belong. This is of course solely due to my sexuality, and not in part from anything that my relatives have ever done or said to me. I just thought that it was easier for me to exclude myself in order to not give anyone a chance to ask me questions about my love life or other personal topics. And with that, I would be saving all of us any awkwardness where some things might just be better left unsaid. But all of that was so incorrect, and now I can just see how wrong my entire approach was. The thing is, my father and his many brothers are all strong in a certain way that pretty much defines our family. That pressure of living up to the type of men they were really had a large impact on me since I was a kid. I knew I was different, and just never thought that I fit the mold. Being gay---or even any sort of man that deviated from the type of men in my family---was not anything that seemed to cross anyone in my family's minds, except for me. With that insecurity, I just felt like an anomaly as I got older and avoiding holiday gatherings in my 20's became really easy. Whether it was because I had to work or was living far away, I thought me not being there was doing everyone a favor.

A lot of my issues about being around relatives were internal and came from within myself. Back then I just wasn't ready to be around them for a lot of reasons. But man, now, it feels good to  spend time with them again. The biggest lesson I've learned from all of this is that no matter what crazy thoughts I might've came up with to convince myself I was different and would never be accepted by them, those were all in my head. I mean sure, there could be some who end up feeling whatever negative way about me, which is totally fine. But that hasn't happened yet, and I shouldn't have lived my life like it had.

Now, whenever I'm surrounded by my family and relatives, it is undeniable to me that they are my blood, and that we're all so alike. And that they love and accept my as my father's son, a nephew and as a cousin. I do have my own place amongst my large extended family, and nothing can or will ever change that.

Living away and avoiding my family for so long gave me a large period of time to forget a lot of the small details I've always known about them. And returning with a clearer head and feeling like I'm in a much better place has allowed me to once again notice all these details, on top of discovering so many new ones. These moments happen most with my parents. Little light-bulbs will go off in my head when I notice something about them and realize that a good amount of my natural behavior is dead-on with theirs. The same thing goes for all my aunts, uncles and cousins. All of us spent so much of our lives spending time with each other, especially during the holidays (always with the freshest sashimi and lots of alcohol). And it's nice to feel as an adult that many of us and our dynamics have not changed at all. When with them, I find myself having moments where I get completely lost in whatever I'm doing, and I can just be my carefree 13 year-old self again and not have to think about it. There are still parts of me that have never changed, and letting loose with some of my cousins is what helped realize that.

It's a nice feeling, to be able to get lost in things. To be able to only think about one thing and not feel distracted. I can remember a time when I just said and did things in whatever way felt most natural and authentically me. My life always used to be like that at one point, and I only realize that now because I am looking at things from a place that is different. At some point things shifted, and it's shame that has changed me. Shame in so many shapes and forms. Shame that came from ignorance. Shame masked as neurosis. Shame in the form of unnecessary baggage from regrettable decisions in the past. Shame that has also resulted in things I am proud of because it's who I am. Being able to realize all that is has been such a blessing. And that's not to say that shame is the only thing that defines me. That shouldn't be mistaken as things that are completely unrelated. We all have different reactions to things. Sometimes we forget that what feels authentically right to each of us is something only we ourselves can ever understand.

Starting this upcoming year, among many things, working on my shame is definitely something I want to focus on. Things don't happen overnight and that's completely fine. But now that the on button has been pressed, it makes a big difference.

Whenever any of my relatives say I remind them of my uncle and/or grandfather, I feel honored.

This trip back to Alaska was so many things, in so many ways.

Being able to reconnect with my family, relatives, and childhood-state of a few years helped a lot in the process of paying respects to my uncle. It wasn't the same without him there, but then again, I feel like he was actually there more than ever.

After more than three years and some years, it was nice to be see my relatives again as well. Being around them just made me remember that it's nice to be surrounded by others who you share so many memories and connections with, and that I'm proud to be a part of our tight-knight clan.

Here's to you, 큰아빠 and Alaska!