Tag: motherland

Probably a little forced, but I’ll take it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On the night of the Oscars, I didn’t bother watching any of it, despite the fact that I probably would’ve been happy enough to see Parasite clean up the awards for Best original screenplay, director and international film.  But there was no way I figured it was actually going to win Best Picture, because Hollywood is Hollywhite, and I would have bet money that the award was going to go to like The Irishman or Marriage Story instead.

So color me surprised, when settling into bed, I looked at my phone to look at the news before turning in, and seeing that Parasite actually did the improbable, and won Best Picture.

Suck it, whitey.

However, after the initial pleasure of Parasite’s victory wound down, I naturally began thinking skeptically about the whole thing, and wondered what agenda there could be to awarding the most prestigious award in film to Parasite.  Naturally, the number one agenda is Hollywood taking a stab at trying to debunk the notion that they’re Hollywhite, and actually giving a major award to some colored folks; among the film industries in non-white cultures, Korea and India stand out, so perhaps giving the nod to a Korean film is the lesser of available evils, since us Orientals are widely accepted in white people-land while Indians are kind of brown and white people hate brown people.

Passive-ironically, I like to believe Hollywhite is tired of all the endless bitching from critics, pundits and SJWs about how white-washey they are, so they’re conducting something of a social experiment where they finally gave Best Picture to a foreign film, to see if the talking heads will shut the fuck up.  The ball is kind of in the court of the talking heads to see if they’ll now bitch about there not being enough black representation, or transgendered performers or any other maligned demographic, but then the narrative becomes that the masses just want something to complain about, but white-washing can’t necessarily be one of those things anymore. 

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How to reflect on a decade

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This year ending isn’t just an ordinary ending of a year, because it’s also the end of a decade.  Naturally, a sentimental person like me tends to want to reflect on an entire decade, because much like individual years, a decade is a nice round chunk of time that one might think it would be easy to reflect upon, but in the greater spectrum, it’s ten full years we’d be trying to look back onto.  Now I like to think I have a good memory, but even without the aid of my trusty brog, it’s difficult to really look back at an entire decade.

Regardless, that’s not going to stop all the self-important jobbers of the internet who will try their darnedest to speak with authority and copy and paste all the same milestones the major news outlets will when it comes to trying to summarize and reflect upon the entire decade.  The funny thing is that most of the internet savvy generations probably aren’t that much older or younger than I am, which means that in the grand spectrums of our respective lives, we’ve only really lived through 3-4 decades, whereas I’d probably estimate that 1.5-2 of them are pretty invalid, because we’re simply not articulate and/or educated enough to have the capacity to reflect on entire decades.

So combined with the advent and growth of the internet, and the notion that everyone has a voice, I’d wager this is probably, at the very most, the second real decade of the modern high-speed internet that people really care to really reminisce about; and I’m being generous by calling it the second, because DSLs and cable internet didn’t really flourish until nearly the mid-2000’s; I couldn’t imagine people trying to use streaming, auto-refreshing social media on a 56K modem, so frankly I see this more as the first real decade that everyone and their literal mothers on the internet are going to be writing about.

Anyway, I’m going to attempt to try to recollect from mostly just my own memories, and stick to things that are more relevant to my own little world, and not the big gigantic depressing one we live in.  If I had any readers, they can google any decade in review, and probably find more worldly and probably more high-profile shit than the things I have to say about the things going on in my own little life, like the start and finish of Game of Thrones, Pokemon Go, the sad state of American politics, all the endless mass shootings, and Bill Cosby being outed as a rapist.

And the reason that I disclaim the whole “if I had any readers” because one of the most devastating things that occurred for me is the fact that despite my WordPress going online in 2010, at nearly the very start of the decade, midway through the decade my brog went down indefinitely, when my brother relocated from one part of the country to another.  A lot of hardware changes meant no more place to host my brog, and despite having the supposed backups, I simply haven’t taken the time or allocated the funds necessary to get my site up and running again.

If I were the type to do New Years resolutions anymore, I think I’d resolve to get my site back up and running again in 2020.  TBD on if that will actually occur, and frankly with the things I have on my plate going into the next decade, I don’t want to commit and then fail to deliver.

In spite of the brog blackout, that hasn’t stopped me from writing.  Even to the day my site went down, I have been writing on a fairly regular basis, taking no more than two weeks off before the internal guilt gets my fingers flying across the keys again, and I’ve got at this point, hundreds of folders of dated and timestamped Word docs, all awaiting their day in which they can be posted retroactively to a brog.

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Parasite should probably be Best Picture

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remember when I first saw the trailer for Parasite, my first thought was: what the hell is this actually about?  The trailer gives pretty much nothing away, and the only thing that can really be deduced from it is that there is one family that is dirt poor.  There’s little clue to why the film is even called “Parasite” for the matter.

Regardless, the cinematography looked intriguing, the brief clips seemed quirky enough to pique curiosity, and naturally I wish to support anything Korean that can ascend to the world’s stage, so I knew that I wanted to see this flick.  It didn’t hurt that on the film festival scene, Parasite was cleaning up, even winning the Palme d’Or, which full disclaimer I had no idea what it was, but it’s basically the highest award at Cannes, which is a pretty big deal.

Needless to say, having watched Parasite, I can say that I do feel that the film did live up to all of the hype.  It’s one of those films where you enjoy the ride while you’re on it, but then afterward, the mind wanders and analyzes and delves deeper into the story and execution, and the more I think about Parasite, the more I think about how good it really was.

And not just because the fact that me being Korean I’m going to give a Korean film an automatic pass on a pedestal; sure it definitely doesn’t hurt it, but when I break Parasite down into my own criteria of storytelling, cinematography, acting and plot analysis, I think the film as a whole really stood out.

The story is pretty linear, and not really that complicated; without giving too much up, poor family finds a way to entwine their lives with a rich family, and then some complications arise, leading to the culmination of the plot.  The acting is good and Song Kang-ho is to me, one of the most recognizable faces in Korean cinema, to where even a novice to Korean media like me can pick him out.

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When did Annandale become a giant PF Changs?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, mythical wife and I went up to Virginia to visit my family, as we had some pretty important news to tell them.  Since good Korean food outside of the litany of all-you-can-eat KBBQs are pretty few and far between without having to drive some distance, we decided to meet up with my family at a Korean restaurant in Annandale, which anyone with any knowledge of Northern Virginia is astutely aware is very much, the Korean part of town.

Or so I thought.

Clearly, things have changed a great deal throughout the years, most notably the fact that Korean food is very much en vogue and extremely popular these days.  The restaurant that my family and I went to was slam packed when we got there, and the vast majority of the diners in the restaurant were very much not Korean.

I had fond memories of this place from when I was younger and still living at home; for one, my parents were still together, but I remember how the place was much smaller, very much more rustic, with a décor that was definitely trying to lean old country, with rice papered walls.  Everyone in the restaurant was Korean, and the atmosphere and ambiance was much more relaxed and slow paced, and the soondooboo jjigae was scalding hot, and the absolute most perfect food on the planet to eat on a winter’s night.

When I suggested the restaurant, my mom questioned me if I was sure if this was the place I wanted to go, saying it was always slammed, and that there always a wait.  I didn’t realize we were talking about the same place, but clearly as she still lives in the area, has witnessed the PF Chang-ification of not just this particular restaurant, but presumably the rest of Annandale, as Korean food began to catch the imaginations of all sorts of white people who love to claim to be adventurous eaters, and relished at the thought of being the pioneers amongst their peers to delve into the worlds of all this oriental food.

Needless to say, when we pulled up to the restaurant, I was at first a little surprised at how the place was now substantially larger than it was the last time I was there, and the parking lot was three times larger, and just about every single spot was taken.  It’s actually amazing that the two cars we had were able to find spaces.  But upon going inside, it was another surprise to me to see just how slam packed the place was, and with the vast majority of diners, most definitely not Korean.  This was very much a shocking contrast to my last memories of this place.

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I wonder what Korean moms think about Mina Kimes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whenever I see Mina Kimes on ESPN, I often stop and watch for a minute or two, before I realize that I’m always another minute or two from being bombarded by Stephen A. Smith and then regret my decision and walk away.  The thing is, I’m intrigued by Mina Kimes and I guess it could be interpreted as like an innocuous celebrity crush.  She is after all pretty, however she’s also really well-versed in sports, but where I know her the most from is her long-form writing for ESPN Magazine that’s one of the few things about the glorified NFL Ocho brand that I actually stop and enjoy.

I’ve actually met Mina Kimes briefly before; more like said a few words to her, while she was interviewing mythical gf back in 2015 when we were at the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational in Florida.  I had no idea who she was then and I kind of didn’t believe her when she identified herself as an ESPN writer because it was a little unbelievable that they actually had female employees that weren’t Erin Andrews or Rachel Nichols since their own bro-culture is very well documented, but she claimed to be gathering interviews and information about SK Telecom fans and eSports in general, and mythical gf being dressed as SKT-skin Zyra was an easy target to interview.

Months later, the article dropped, primarily centered around SK Telecom’s superstar player, Faker.  Although mythical gf’s contributions are merged into the context of the story, it’s abundantly clear that Mina Kimes was in fact a real ESPN writer, and the article itself was an enjoyable read, especially as someone who loves long-form storytelling.

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Man, the League scene has certainly changed

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It might sound like something that might’ve never happened, but I haven’t played League of Legends in nearly a month.  While mythical gf was out of the country, I spent most of that time doing little projects around the house to try and surprise her with some cosmetic changes here and there, and because I was on permanent dog duty that whole time, I didn’t feel good about hiding out in my office playing League for hours for the sake of the dogs.

I don’t really miss it, or have any anxiety at not having earned any IP blue essence in that time; considering that among my friends I’m the only one who’s been the closest to having been the most regular player, it’s easier to have walked away, considering I haven’t been leaving anyone behind in the process.

But I don’t intend on staying away, since ultimately I still did enjoy the game, it’s just that I found other things to do with my spare time than play League, but until that time comes, it’s almost been a full month since the last time I queued up on the Abyss, and there are sure to have been a hundred little tweaks and changes that will blindside me the next time I log in.

However, as long as it’s been since I last played, it’s been nearly triple that, that I’ve paid any attention to the League esports scene.  It’s funny to think that like 2-3 years ago, I was really into the weekly standings and looking up videos and recaps afterwards, to get the condensed action minus all the mundane boring farming and laning phases of the games, and I’d care about who was on top in NA, all the way to trying to figure out what darkhorse secondary region was doing what.

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Back in my day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I read this article about parents who not only encourage their children to get good at Fortnite, but they’re actually paying “tutors” to “coach” them to become better at it, and I’m not entirely quite sure how I feel about it.  In one hand, we have a microcosm of how much the world has changed in which video games aren’t just more accepted than they used to be, gaming itself has become a viable occupation for people to strive for and a platform in which real, legitimate earnings can be made through.  But in the other hand, we have the basically the direct antithesis of the ideals and mentalities that people in my generation and older grew up through, where gaming was a waste of time, source of rotting for brains, and a definitive negative influence on our lives.

After reading this article, the question that popped into my head that I’ll probably query people on theFacebook about is whether they’d wish if they were a kid today, where video games are accepted and viable career options, but the world around them is psychotic, we live in a borderline police state, and school shootings are almost a reoccurring lottery in which one unlucky school seems to get chosen every few months for a tragedy.  Or, if they were content with the lives past lived, where video games were frowned upon by our parents, but we still played them anyways, and the world was slightly less psychotic and was for lack of a better term, safer.

All I can think of is that if I were a kid in today’s world, my parents would probably very much encourage my gaming habits, especially since it’s already been demonstrated, primarily in Korea, just how lucrative video gaming careers could possibly get.  Instead, I grew up in the 80s when Atari and Nintendo invented basically cancer machines that distracted, deviated and held back appropriate childhood upbringing, and was blamed for just about every negative behavior that children could possibly exhibit.

I remember reading in like GamePro or EGM, an interview by a Street Fighter II pro, that may or may not have been Justin Wong.  They talked about how they had a manager, and how they practiced SF2 for 3-4 hours a day, and all I could think about was if my mom found out I played video games for 3-4 straight, she would yell at me and tell me to go read a book.  No, this is precisely what occurred when I first got my Super Nintendo and was playing Super Mario World non-stop from when she went to work and came home, and I was in exactly the same place, still playing.

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