Tag: motherland

Not feeling that thankful this year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Oversleeping was my fault. A lot of the day’s issues don’t happen if we don’t oversleep, but it’s simply something that can happens when living a life as exhausting and draining as ours of raising two under two can be.  But it’s how the rest of the day transpired that has left me feeling few emotions aside from disappointment, regret, and the polar opposite of what Thanksgiving is supposed to be all about. 

The irony is that even if we don’t oversleep, there’s no guarantee that we would’ve made it to the airport on time.  Airlines appear to have tightened up two hours in advance rules to where they don’t even check people in for flights once within 105 minutes.  Long appears to be gone the days of when I could roll in with 75 minutes to go, no checked bag, TSA precheck and be ready to board group 1.  But with kids, all the kids’ stuff, and checked bags, that creates a tremendous amount more room for complications.

Ironically, regardless of if we left at our originally intended time, there’s little chance we would’ve made it on time anyway, because Atlanta airport’s parking is basically the worst lot in the galaxy, and it took us probably 30 minutes to find a place to park, and we would’ve missed the check in window anyway.

At this point, I’m kind of ready to punt; our original plan was to get us there as efficiently as possible, and pivoting with kids and checked bags never seems like a good idea to me, but mythical wife seemed more determined to see my family than I was, so after a 47 minute phone call with the airline, $465 basically paying for a full fare, we’re rebooked for a later flight to a different airport that gets us in four hours later, which slashes my already short trip and I’m wondering if it’s even worth it. 

Calling my mom to give an update is met with more disappointment and aggravation at the change of plans instead of any modicum of empathy or understanding. After my mom asks if we can uber to dinner after the money and effort to make sure the girls had car seats waiting for them, I’m already having regrets for not punting and heading into this trip with more dread than any sort of anticipation or excitement, that my family is finally getting to meet my kids for the very first time. 

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China and Japan being jealous fatties over Squid Game makes me smile

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not sure how theFacebook algorithms got me so good, but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that there was a site actually called Koreaboo and it wasn’t just a slang term that I used amongst my friends.  And obviously a site with such a name would have an obvious bias, but there were some interesting articles that piqued my interest and served as a little bit of fuel for some words to be spit up.

Obviously, when something becomes white hot popular as Netflix’s Squid Game has been, there are all sorts of detractors that come out of the woodwork or go out of their way to go all contrarian on it; I’d be the first to admit that I’ve most definitely done that on all sorts of things that I was late to the party on, so I just decided to shun it instead of embrace it late.

Naturally, since Squid Game game to the world courtesy the entertainment kings of Asia in South Korea, this would draw the skepticism, ire and jealousy from those in other, lesser Asian countries.

China, in spite of their general fear of Korean media, and even going so far as to basically ban K-Pop, citing that Chinese men needed to be more masculine and not as seemingly as fluffy as K-Pop boy band stars, responds to Squid Game, by basically ripping the whole fucking show off in order to create a variety show.

I mean, this was about the least surprising thing in the world as China as a country gives absolutely no fucks when it comes to copyrights and intellectual properties, and counterfeits anything and everything at all, without any shame.  It’s like that internet rule where if it’s ever existed, there’s porn of it on the internet, but if there’s anything that’s ever existed, it has most definitely been ripped off in China.

Titled literally “Squid’s Victory,” it will be something of a variety show or a game show, where people will play kids games for cash prizes.  So unfortunately, there will be no people killing themselves for money, but as the above title card shows, there’s literally zero shame by the Chinese company of ripping off the title card of the Korean Squid Game.  Little else is known yet of Squid’s Victory, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that whatever set the show will take place on will have all sorts of maze-like colorful doors and stairs that is a completely original idea.

And then we have the Japanese, who are of course jealous over the juggernaut that Squid Game, going as far as to proclaim it’s position on Netflix rankings had to be due to some sort of cheating manipulation, and then proclaiming that Japan had the OG lock on the death game genre, which they’re not entirely wrong with, seeing as how Battle Royale came out two decades prior.

The real salt emerges when pondering why Squid Game is so popular globally, while films like Battle Royale really only won over weebs and convention nerds, which is a pretty easy question to answer, because the quality of the writing, the acting, and simply the plot itself was just far superior when comparing the two stories.  Firstly, live-action Japanese actors can’t act for shit, and as entertaining of a film Battle Royale was, the acting is pretty terrible save for Takeshi Kitano himself.  Then the fleshed out plot of Squid Game, centralized around the despair people feel when they’re economically facing drowning in poverty is something that people can relate to a whole lot better than getting randomly selected in a government lottery to have to fight to their death without any choice.  And of course, there’s the obvious medium, where just everyone can access Squid Game, and unless you purchased a VCD or a region-free DVD on eBay, there was no real way to watch Battle Royale.

Regardless, seeing the jealousy bubble up from entire countries over the success of Squid Game is very amusing to me, and now that Korea has set the bar so high, it’s going to be amusing to see what all these lesser countries do to try and get a piece of the yellow fever for Asian media that the rest of the world is starting to get, thanks to Korea.

You’re welcome, China, Japan and all you other 개새끼 countries.

Squid Game: of course Korea can make the battle royale genre better

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I think I only needed like 30 seconds of the trailer to determine that Squid Game was probably something that I was going to really like.  Even before the trailer reveals that the games were deadly for those who couldn’t compete, it seemed fairly obvious that such was going to be the case but all the same I was all-in for such a concept, because I was a fan of such battle royale notions like Lord of the Flies as well as Battle Royale.

The thing is, despite the fact that the general concept of Squid Game is kind of lifted from numerous predecessors, it still in my opinion, ended up being a better execution than all of them, mostly because the long-form format of being a Netflix series gave the story a tremendous amount of room to breathe, develop its characters, and tell the more comprehensive story about just how desperate people can be when facing the weight of mass economic despair in their lives, that somehow become determined to become expendable at the potential reward of sudden generational wealth.

Needless to say, the show as a whole was about as easy of a layup to love as I thought it would be.  It’s lock on the top rankings of Netflix since it’s drop date goes to show that I’m not the only one who feels as fondly to the series, but since it’s made in Korea, I can take just a little bit more ownership to it than all other non-Koreans, and everyone else can kiss my ass and continue to overanalyze and pretend to be experts on Korean dramas suddenly because they watched Squid Game.

Frankly, after watching through the series, it’s actually an unfair comp to put it in the same breath as stuff like Battle Royale.  Squid Game is far more nefarious and thought-provoking due to the fact that all participants of the entire thing are basically voluntary, and there’s few things as jarring as the thought of people willingly putting their lives on the line for a very minute chance at winning a large pot of money.

I won’t go into too much analysis because I don’t want to give away any spoilers to zero readers, plus the imaginary weight of my writing queue is probably about as heavy as the economic hardships all 456 participants of Squid Game feel, but it really all boils down to the fact that Squid Game most definitely delivers on the massive amounts of hype and mania as people are rightfully giving it, in my opinion.

Leave it to Koreans to make a better battle royale story than all of its predecessors, and it makes me happy that shit like this continues to further the obvious narrative of just how high quality and good at telling stories and making media that Koreans are capable of.  I enjoyed the show immensely, and I look forward to what comes next from the Motherland as far as future projects are concerned.

I don’t want this, I need this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t want to think about what I would’ve done if I had never known about this until it was too late.  Despite my general ambivalence towards MLB these days, my general love for minor league baseball has never waned, and I feel fairly confident I could go to the grave thinking minor league baseball is vastly superior to their stuffy, corporate, money-grubbing major league big brothers.

But the Montgomery Biscuits, the Double-A affiliates of the Tampa Bay Rays, as in Montgomery, Alabama, one of the largest redneck populations in the country, for whatever reason, is doing a Korean heritage night, where they are going 200% balls to the wall all in on it, to where they’re even changing their name to Montgomery Kimchi for the night.

More importantly, they are releasing a variety of branded gear for the occasion, and even more than the NXT UK Tag Team championship belt replica that I covet that seems like it will never be released, I realize that don’t just want a Montgomery Kimchi cap, I absolutely 17,000% NEED a Montgomery Kimchi cap.

Like, I wanted a Florida Marlins cap before their identity transformed.  I kind of wanted a Chief Nokahoma cap or a fucked up Cleveland Indians cap for their ironic notoriety.  I wanted a large variety of minor league caps from my travels, like the Modesto Nuts, and I actually went to some pretty great lengths to get the sliced bacon cap for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs because I wanted that too.  And I actually have a Montgomery Biscuits cap, and despite being one of the prime centers of the Confederacy, I actually liked the city of Montgomery and their ballpark, and the brand and colors were so gaudy and cheesy that I wanted that too.

But when the Montgomery Biscuits transform into Montgomery Kimchi, I won’t just want a cap, I WILL NEED A CAP.  Full stop, period.

I haven’t been this excited about something to throw money at in ages.  I’ve already got the Montgomery Biscuits’ shop site perma-opened in a tab, I’ve got their Twitter account open and ready to refresh daily to see when they’ll drop.  I will be ready to go to war for a Montgomery Kimchi hat, and make it look like Dragon*Con Marriott room day seem like the demand for a Stryper cover band.

I already had a soft spot for the Montgomery Biscuits, because I liked their park and I liked their identity.  This kind of outreach and promotion not only makes me love them forever, but more apt to become a supporter of the Rays, since the Braves are shit and I’ll need someone to root for that I can give a shit about and not just the pursuit of being right and riding on the hopes that the Padres go all the way just to make me look smart.

Either way, I’m going to be lowkey anxious about my need to get Montgomery Kimchi merch, and probably a little bit crazy until I can secure some.  And I’ll go even more ballistic if I manage to get a Kimchi cap and it turns out to be one of those shitty Elmer Fudd quality caps and my life will be over.  But all the same, I will need a Montgomery Kimchi cap.  And probably a shirt, but the kimchi mascot in a men’s large is already fucking sold out, and I can only hope they’ll replenish and realize that there are hundreds to thousands of Koreans out there that will want them and be willing to throw down cash to get them.

Seriously though, fuckin’ Alabama of all places in United States to throw Korea a little bit of love.  Montgomery, no less, where the actual fucking White House of the Confederacy still stands to this very day, is the city that realizes that Koreans are a massive untapped well of cash willing to go gonzo over a little bit of love being shown.  But it’s working all the same, and I’m ready to go to war to get my kimchi cap.

Not entirely sure what’s worse

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

White people during the pandemic, or white people amidst the “end” of the pandemic?

Serious question.  Because at least during the pandemic, when you saw white people* running around maskless, it was pretty clear where they stood – deniers, racists, idiots, or all of the above, and it was nice to have a defined line to know when to stay the fuck away from people.

*or anyone for that matter, it just so happens to be that the vast majority of anti-maskers in America just so happen to be white

But now that a whopping like 23%** of the country has been vaccinated, all across America white people* have been whipping off their masks and running around maskless and arrogant and thinking they’re invulnerable as if it were 2019 all over again.  Suddenly, the clear distinctions between unvaccinated idiots and the vaccinated are completely gone, and especially considering at the time I’m writing this, those under the age of 12 are still ineligible for vaccination, that terrifies the ever-living shit out of me knowing that people are all over the place unknowingly potentially spreading coronavirus everywhere.

**not willing to try to find an accurate number

I ran some errands the other day; a trip to the inside of a bank, followed by a trip to the grocery store.  Sure, they’re two incidents that has formulated this entire overarching statement, but what the fuck ever; the conclusion on from such a brief outing was sufficient enough for me to determine that white people simply cannot wear masks.  A cursory Google search when I got back to my computer reveals a gabillion hits, with among them studies like this that all but confirm the assumption.

At the bank, there mercifully were not a lot of people inside when I went, but two white males and one white female were the only people there without masks on.  Everyone else there, who were minorities of various ethnicities were wearing masks.

When I went to the grocery store next, ironically the only white people I saw that were actually wearing masks were an elderly couple; color me surprised.  But literally every single other white person in the store, and even a surprising amount of store employees, the white ones naturally, were now sans-masks.  This isn’t to say that I didn’t see a few people of color not wearing masks, but it goes without question that the overwhelming majority of no-maskers now are unmistakably white.

I mean already, not a day goes by where I don’t opine my disgust and disappointment in America, but this gradual increasing of people arrogantly throwing their masks away most certainly doesn’t help changing my opinions.  Coronavirus is most definitely not gone, and as I’ve stated before, I have no intention of going maskless in public until like 2024, and if white people don’t get their fucking arrogance in check, it might end up stretching out until 2026 at this rate.

One, I have a child and soon children, under 12 years of age, and I’m sure the vaccination age will continue to drop as time passes, but I’m still not willing to put myself in harm’s way which would put them in harm’s way by running around maskless just because it’s occasionally uncomfortable, my glasses fog up, I don’t like the smell of my own breath or the occasional break out.  I mean seriously, if those are the inconveniences I have to put up with in order to help keep the human fucking race safer, then my god, burn all these fucking masks.

But two, being Asian, in a country where anti-Asian sentiment is bubbling up, it doesn’t seem like a good idea for me to run around without a mask and potentially feed some over-armed Georgia redneck that I’m a Chinese carrier here to spread coronavirus or anything.  I haven’t personally experienced overt blatant racism in a while, but I don’t want to reset that clock any time soon unless it came by some Fortune 100 company whom I could then sue and get Oprahrich but that’ll probably never happen.

Getting back to the original query though, frankly, I think things are worse right now, with white people arrogantly ditching their masks, regardless of their state of vaccination.  Because it’s allowing the anti-vaxxing morons to blend in in plain sight among those that are vaccinated, because the vaxxed that have been vaccinated are simply too selfish and unconcerned about their fellow man, were too inconvenienced to continue to wear masks, that they’ve basically become just like their anti-vaxxed brethren.

Isn’t it obvious what makes Invincible invincible?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last two weeks or so, my daily routine has gotten to the point where I can afford to watch a little television every night, and chip away at the queue of shows and programs that I’ve wanted to watch over the last year.  Obviously, this will come back to a screeching halt once #2 comes into the picture, but for the time being, I’m trying to enjoy the feeling of a little bit of expendable downtime again, and soaking in all the stories that I’m hearing good about, and getting to experience them myself.

Among the things recently watched would be Amazon’s Invincible; I’m so long out of comics, I had no idea what this property even was, but from what I can tell it’s by Robert Kirkman, the guy who made The Walking Dead, and it seems to be something of a lampooning of lots of popular superhero comic stories, while having its own cohesive storyline.

As a whole, I found season 1 to be pretty enjoyable.  It’s fairly obvious what properties are being emulated in some characters, and there’s something about the general goriness of the series that kind of takes the veil of the sidelines off of traditional superhero stories, because obviously there is such a thing as collateral damage, and whenever any invasion or attack occurs, there are going to be people negatively affected.

But a comprehensive review isn’t the point of this whole post; it’s the answer to the question in the headline of this post, because I think it’s pretty obvious where Invincible’s overall superhuman aspects originate from, and it’s most definitely not because he’s a half-Viltrumite.

Like I said, I went into this as blind as Ray Charles’s long-decomposed remains, so I had no idea that Mark Grayson’s mom was Korean, therefore making Invincible half-Korean in addition to being a Viltrumite.  That said, it becomes clearer than crystal to why Invincible is basically invincible, warranting being a mega super hero worthy of his own comic and television series. 

Frankly, the only thing that gives it away is this little piece of framed artwork in the background of the Grayson’s household.  And then I notice the way Debbie Grayson is drawn, and then the black hair on mother and son makes some sense.  Also, the fact that both characters are voiced by Stephen Yeun and Sandra Oh, actual Koreans, and the animation credits are basically a rollcall of a Shinsaegae employee roster, and it all makes perfect sense to just how inherently of a Korean operation this whole thing is.

Either way, Korean or not, I enjoyed Invincible.  The fact that it’s so very Korean in the roots only makes it that much more enjoyable for me, and I look forward to seeing how the story unfolds in future seasons.

Minari: chicken soup for the Korean-American soul

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I finally got around to watching Minari.  I didn’t watch it because of all the Academy Award acclaim it was getting, nor did I watch it solely because it was a film about Koreans, starring Koreans and was produced by mostly Koreans.  I’ve been wanting to watch Minari because based on the premise of the film, it was something that I knew was probably going to hit home to a Korean-American person like me, and I went in knowing that there were probably going to be a lot of moments of reflection, reminiscing, comparing and probably shit that was going to make me cry.

Without giving anything away, the basic plot is a Korean family moves from California to Arkansas, primarily so that dad (Steven Yeun) can chase his dream of starting up a farm.  Naturally, this is a cause of culture shock for Koreans to move into rural middle America, and the struggles and rigors of surviving and adapting at the same time.

What was endlessly amusing to me is that I feel like Steven Yeun, since rising as a star from The Walking Dead, I feel like took his appearance in David Chang’s Ugly Delicious to heart a little bit, where Chang’s circle-jerk of celebrity friends was giving him a little bit of shit for being able to make it as a big-time American star in spite of being Korean, and almost since then, has been doing a lot of roles that inject him into his Korean heritage.  Despite the fact that his Korean sounds a lot like most Korean kids who did a lot of their growing up in America, it’s his attempts to sound like fresh-off-the-boat English that had me cracking up. 

But if there’s anything that was truly right about the entire film, it was undeniably Youn Yuh-Jung’s role in the film, playing grandma Soonja.  Obviously her performance was justly recognized seeing as how she was a shoe-in to win best supporting actress and did such, becoming the first Korean actor or actress to win an Academy Award.  But she shines from the moment she shows up in the film, and it makes me reminisce to my own childhood, where my grandma often stayed at my home to fulfill the same role as Soonja did, being the free babysitter for primarily me since I was the baby of the generation.  My grandma wasn’t nearly as hands-on, or quite nearly as sassy or show as much personality as Soonja did, nor was I nearly the shithead to her as David was to Soonja, but it definitely gets the memories flooding through the gates.

Frankly, there’s a lot of parallels to the film I could feel with my own life, seeing as how both my parents were also chicken sexers growing up, and how my family grew up in rural Virginia, which wasn’t nearly as remote as Arkansas, but was still similar in the sense that there probably were like 15 Koreans in the entire town, with some of them being relatives.  And I imagine just about every Korean family in America could probably feel some sort of kinship to the film as I did, and just about everyone in my own family has stated similar feelings themselves.

There’s a lot of subtle symbolism and interpretation necessary in the plot and its happenings throughout the film, and at first blush I was kind of perplexed at the way the film concluded, but when I lay in bed thinking about it, most of it kind of falls into place, and it makes me admire the film even more than I did while watching it.

Bottom line is that the film really is like chicken soup for the Korean-American soul, and although it’s nowhere near as critically acclaimed or attention-getting as Crazy Rich Asians or Parasite, but in my opinion, is still a tremendously important film for Korean or other Asian cultures to try and watch sometime.