my experience

my experience with going to concerts

i’ve only been to 3, soon to be 4, concerts in my life. my first concert was a hoobastank/fat joe/ashanti (no, the combination of artists didn’t make sense to me either), which was sponsored by Y?, the group behind anti-smoking campaigns when i was in middle school. the three guys lighting up cigarettes in front of me really demonstrated how much concert-goers cared about who was sponsoring the concert.  my second concert came much later. i was a senior in college and my two favorite bands were on tour together. they were playing at a venue 3 hours away from tech on a friday. the date also came close to my birthday. the stars were aligned. i asked my parents for money to buy the tickets. when they asked why, i asked them why they gave birth to me. easy money. i had bought two tickets to go with a friend, but she ended up flaking for spiritual reasons, so i dragged her boyfriend along. warning: flake on me, i take your boyfriend. no questions asked. moving along. 

3 hours later, we were at the Norva. a couple of opening bands warmed up the crowd, but to be honest i don’t remember them at all. all i know is when thrice was setting up, i moved up close. on the floor, there are huge gaps of space between the people crowding the railings and the people in the middle. so your best shot is to slither in between people. and that’s another thing. people bump into you like they want to start a fight with you, but apparently that’s normal concert etiquette. i moved to about 15 or 20 feet away from the stage and thrice came on. 

i don’t know how to describe seeing your favorite band on stage. it’s surreal. you feel like you’re dreaming, like light is emanating from their presence, you can see a mysterious shroud of smoke shielding them from full visibility. then you snap out of it and realize that the bright stage lights and the fog machine really confuse your perception of reality. well done, stage crew. 

then they start playing and you’re hearing what you’ve been obsessing over in your car stereo for months. you find yourself singing along to songs that you hadn’t realized that you memorized the lyrics to and you’re not singing really. you’re yelling. you might even be crying. the drums and distorted guitars are deafening. the bass hits you in the heart. it’s wonderful. i grew up singing praise songs in church and i’ve found that a concert is much like worship. you’re singing along to a band on the stage, enjoying the music and lifting yourself up to… something other than God. that’s the difference. and also the band on stage is usually the focus of worship during concerts. i think brad pitt mentioned how he found rock concerts and revivals similar in fervor. i understand what he meant. you feel a energy that does feel otherworldly during the set. but i didn’t feel uncomfortable when i was listening to thrice as i did with brand new. i’ll get to that later. but when brand new came on. i couldn’t help but notice that the kids around me were in hysterics over the music and the lyrics. pretty normal for a concert and yet disturbing to me. i guess it’s how an unbeliever would feel if he walked into sunday worship and saw a bunch of lifted hands singing along with the worship team. i was a believer witnessing some weird kind of idolatry. i couldn’t help but feel that these kids needed Jesus. of course, that’s my opinion. but i’m right, so suck it age of tolerant post-modernism. i’m sorry for my arrogance. now, it’s not to say i didn’t enjoy the music, although i’m sure my friend whom i dragged along might not have. i love brand new’s music and it’s been a source of relief to me during depressing times in my life. i sang along to their songs as well, but it felt like i was celebrating being sad and lonely and not good enough, which are prevalent themes in their music. i walked out of that venue feeling a bit drained, mostly because we stood the entire time, but also because i knew that kids walked in there with expectation, fulfilled them during the concert, and would walk out to be emptied again. like a broken pot, their joy and contentment would drain out before going to another concert to be filled again.

now onto my most recent concert going experience, which was 3 days ago. this time, i went with a church small group friend, who actually liked the band, and the venue was closer: in d.c. at the Howard theatre. established 1910. we looked for parking for about 5 minutes, even spotting teppei behind the theatre when we were turning around. it was like spotting a panda at the zoo. we parked around the corner from the venue, which was a great parking spot by the way. i never thought it’d be that easy to park near a venue. it was like living out a perfect honda civic commercial. except we were in a crv. anyway, when we got there there was an opening band playing. i thought they were ok. a lot of ominous tones and distorted strumming with the lead singer scream-singing one word into 8 beats. once they finished, i thought finally thrice time. we moved up closer only to be let down as another band started performing. but my disappointment soon turned flipped to approval. the lead guitarist was a master shredder and blew my mind with his discordant, yet melodic soloing and rhythmic strumming. the drummer beat the crap out of his drums with precision and the bassist slappa the bass well. they were called animals as leaders and are from d.c. so shameless plug. give them a listen. 

finally, it was thrice time. i got that surreal feeling again. riley, eddie, and teppei came out to loud ovations. it must be some kind of unofficial rock band rule for the lead singer to come out last, probably has something to do with anticipation because when dustin came out people went nuts. they opened up with the first track off their latest album, yellow belly. i should’ve seen it coming, but i thought people that came to see thrice would be mellow like me. the tattoos, piercings, and plethora of plaid shirts should’ve gave it away, but i played the fool. soon the people were nodding their heads, then nodding soon turned into banging. i wanted to stand my ground because i had a great look at the stage, but as soon as thrice went into playing tracks from vheissu and the illusion of safety, everyone else’s safety was compromised as kids started to mosh. i even saw an old high school friend i hadn’t seen in 5 years. i had to push him to get his attention, so i guess i unintentionally moshed, but we exchanged a high 5/hug combo before the moshing got too rough. i never saw him again that night. 

but the rest of the non-moshers adjusted to the moshing by moving to the left where the mellow attendees were enjoying the music by lightly nodding their heads to the beat, with one eye on stage and one eye to the right where a mosher could be pushed into you at any moment. we all put our elbows up like spikes for moshers to run into, as if to say, “not here, friend. not here.” but you were bound to get pushed anyway. the left side was awesome. no pushing, no invasion of personal space. i’m sure they were all gamers and/or church goers like myself. why church goers?

because dustin kensrue, while being the lead singer of thrice, is also a worship leader at mars hill church in orange county. if you didn’t know he was Christian, you can read nearly all of his lyrics and i’m willing to bet that at least 80 to 90 percent of it has a Christian theme or allusion. 

and that brings me back to why i don’t feel uncomfortable with thrice as i did with brand new. again, i love brand new, but their lyrics are a bit more on the hopeless side and while i’m a big believer in encouraging people by letting them they’re not alone, brand new doesn’t seem to offer any other hope besides “we can all be messed up together. forever.” 

when i sing along to thrice songs, there are themes of redemption, hope, love, faith. dustin even wrote a couple of songs that are about the sacred covenant of marriage and staying together through thick and thin. no one does that. especially, not a lead singer of a rock band. when i listen to thrice, i feel hope that there is an answer and a solution to the problems i’m going through. besides being a great band musically and lyrically, they point me to something higher than me, to God. now, i’m not saying that thrice is a Christian band. i don’t think riley and eddie are Christians, which is unfortunate, but they’re great musicians. i respect thrice as a band and i appreciate dustin for his boldness in his lyrics, which have predominantly Christian themes. however, i don’t appreciate being donkey kicked in the balls by some moshing hipster during one of the songs. i forgive you. i still want to punch you, but i forgive you. 

my experience with going to a concert is still ongoing. i’m heading to a radiohead concert in june (yay). i’m sure i’ll feel that same worship vibe, but i’ll just be there to enjoy the music. and that’s the point of concerts. i just believe that there are deeper implications to concerts than we think. when we’re screaming out lyrics and raising hands as if to touch the band, we’re worshiping. i’m not perfect and am guilty of idolatry in my life, but i’m going to make sure that my heart isn’t invested beyond the music in the secular bands i listen to, which is easier said than done.

ryan, you’re being too serious. it’s just music. lighten up. you need a girlfriend. yes, i am too serious sometimes, maybe sometimes it is just music. i need to lighten up, probably need to lighten up to get a girlfriend, but just try listening to a song you like. read the lyrics and see if they don’t get stuck in your head. if they do, notice the effect they have. all those rap songs and pop songs about money and love do have an effect on you. despite kindergarten lyrics and three power chord progressions, they effect the way you think about certain things. that’s all i’m saying. yes, this post could’ve been shorter. if you’ve made it this far. thank you because i was probably rambling the first half of this post. music and lyrics are a great source of joy and relief, but they also fuel certain emotions and can go deep into spiritual aspects of one’s life. concerts are fun, yes. just ask the couple of in front of me at the concert who sucking face and trying to crowd surf near the end.  i’ll probably keep going to concerts to enjoy music, but if you see me crying like i just saw Jesus, slap me. 

also, if i’m moshing, slap me.

my experience with summer break

the week leading up to summer break is the best time in school. besides the stress of having to pull all nighters studying for finals and writing essays, when you’re done, you. are. done. you watch all the TV you want, watch movies, play video games, eat fast food. you pretty much do all the things you did during finals week, except you actually want to stay up all night doing these things. then it’s summer break. 

summer break is like limbo, except you’re not on an island with a whole bunch of other people who were in the same airplane crash you were in, trying to figure out how to get off the island before realizing that you’re never going to get off because jj abrams won’t allow it. at least there were attainable goals on the island. summer break is 3 months of solitary confinement. at home. with no money. parents nagging you to get an internship, with you telling them that you just got used to waking up “early” at 11 am and that most internships would require you to work at “dawn” (8 am).

i’m sure people have been a lot more productive than i have during their summers. the summers when i should’ve been writing more or interning or preparing for my future in one way or another, i was watching movies or trying to find a wage job to fund my chalupa addiction. i spent most of my summers wasting my parents’ hard earned money on things like “hanging out with friends,” “going to the movie theater,” or “eating out,” which were all euphemisms for drinking. i believe the understanding was mutual.

now that i have no summer breaks unless i become a teacher, you think i’d miss it, but i really don’t. i would like to have a week or two off every 3 months, but i don’t have enough vacation hours and my boss would probably fire me if i did (fingers crossed). 

people always complain about how they’d love their summer vacation back. 3 months of doing nothing and i guess when you’re doing something 5 to 6 days out of the week, those 3 months seem like heaven. but i’m going to recap my summer days starting with…

elementary school. summer breaks were great. why? because you’re a kid. kids don’t have responsibilities or pressures to succeed unless you’re asian. then your parents will buy you a math workbook and tell you to get busy or get beaten. but besides that, it’s great. kids have a great imagination, so books are still interesting, movies hold a certain wonderful quality, and fast food is like ambrosia to your lips. i’m sure the rich kids get to go to camp because their parents can afford to not spend time with their kids, but the poor ones are stuck at home with our “camp” substitute. video games. i went “camping” a lot when i was a kid and watched a ton of cartoons. i felt my brain literally rot after watching 5 hours of cartoon network at my grandma’s house. magical. then my mom made me go to church summer programs, which was fine because there were girls there. another reason why summer was great. you have that fantasy of meeting your dream girl during the summer, not during the school year when you’re surrounded by them, in the summer at church when the cute girl to guy ratio is 1 to 10. another great time to be a kid. no sexual complexities, just stupid boyish tomfoolery in the hopes that debbie will really find your hair pulling and ball busting endearing and indicative that you like her. 

moving on, middle school summer breaks are the same except you have growing pains and sexual confusion and you’ve outgrown a lot of the childish qualities that took your boredom away like being easily amused by your action figures and imagining that there’s a secret passageway through the bookshelves in your house, which can be accessed if you pull the right combination of books. all that is gone. all you have is your awkward self watching MTV, wishing that you were a movie god or rock star. 

and in high school, you’ll scrounge around looking for jobs that you’ll get rejected from because you don’t have experience, and will spend most of your time at home while your friends are getting high or trying to find a party to go to. but you’re a good boy and you’ll stay in reading, “camping,” or trying to work out to get that beach body before the end of summer. 

in college, it’s more of the same.

summers, for me, have been a huge waste of time. mostly because i thought they’d always be there or that i could do productive things later. i wish i could go back and take all those summers i wasted and use those hours in something i want to do now. writing, reading, studying, playing guitar, working out, anything else except what i did. or didn’t do. 

but all my summers are gone and all i have are empty spaces in my memory where “good summer times” should be. i’m not going to lie, i had some good times of hanging out, hoping to run into that girl i had a crush on, or hoping to start up a band to get that girl to notice me. i realize that i spent all my summers in these fantasies, wishing and waiting for things to magically happen. i wanted those “good summer times” to happen to me. 

to be honest, i don’t even know now if it would’ve been worthwhile even if those things did happen to me. time is fleeting. summer breaks have felt too long or too short, but they always came and went. without them, time is still fleeting. and i hope i won’t sit here and let it slip away without me using it. here’s to our summer breaks. let’s make them count because my experience with summer comes and goes, comes and goes, comes and goes, comes and… 

my experience with girls

i grew up watching steve urkel stalk laura winslow for eight and a half seasons before he finally got the best of her and she gave in to his nerdery. underneath the thick glasses, suspenders, and annoying voice, there was something that kept him going despite all the no’s, rejections, hurtful insults, and other boyfriends that laura threw at him. i like to believe it was love. of course now, this kind of “love” can get you slapped with a restraining order or a sit down session with chris hansen from dateline nbc, but back in the ’90s it was admirable. i couldn’t help rooting for the geek/nerd/loser to get the girl in the end over the jock/rich boy/handsome guy. it always seemed like the unlikely candidate in whatever tv show or movie would end up with the girl of his dreams, and i always resonated with that guy. i was a non-athletic, pudgy Asian kid who dreamed of meeting that one girl who would take my breath away, and not because i was forced to run 5 laps around the soccer field during gym class. 

i imagined that a beautiful new girl would walk into my classroom who i’d charm until a big bully started to pick on her and i’d have to defend her honor, and being outnumbered by the bully and his dumb bully friends i’d use my wits and cunning to beat them and humiliate to save the day and win the girl. this never happened. and for most of us, probably all of us, it never will. our experiences with girls are nothing like the movies or tv shows says it will be. if a beautiful girl does walk into a classroom, she’ll want nothing to do with you unless you are equally as attractive or super athletic or are popular, usually they all go hand in hand. and girls aren’t that sweet, angelic figure that they seem to be at first glance. girls are:

angry, insecure, catty, vain, selfish, petty, bitter, pretty, ugly, terrible, weird, too smart, too dumb, hypersensitive, mean, impatient, intolerable, stuck up, Hollywood, trashy, heartless, back stabbing, and violent. 

they’re just like guys. 

i thought girls were supposed to be our better half. they aren’t. i’m willing to put money on the fact that a girl came up with that statement and bludgeoned it into our brains, so that we believe it. 

i’m not trying objectify or demean women. porn does that enough. 

what i’m trying to do is demystify the aura, and to shatter my personal perception of girls as idols. 

as if i haven’t learned enough from movies, there’s a scene in “beautiful girls” when a character is explaining why he has posters of supermodels all over his room. and it hits all the right notes:

 ”A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you’ve been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it’s going to be okay.”

i’ve put these expectations on the “one” that’s supposed to take my breath away. i expected her to be perfect, to fix all my problems, to be my savior. hell, maybe girls have put these same expectations on guys. hence guys work out, get money, and manscape to satisfy a beautiful girl. girls do the same, except they get waxed and stuff. anyway, here’s an example from my own life.

my first “girlfriend” in high school was a girl that i saw in the hallway from time to time. i remember sitting on the bus after school one day and seeing her walk to her bus. i thought, “wow, she’s really cute.” and i started to think about unrealistic scenarios where we would meet and how i could impress her. usually, it required a real big douchebag to pester her or harass her, so i could kung fu him and save her. i realize now how much of my fantasies depend a lot on horrible people bothering people for no reason in order to display my heroic antics. stupid. anyway, that’s how it went and i didn’t think much of it. this is how it would usually start and i’d keep fantasizing about talking to this girl until i realized that it would never happen. then i’d move on to another girl. vicious cycle. but lo and behold, the following year the girl and i end up having honors chemistry together. could it be? could God have been throwing me a bone?

i took it. it also happened that there was another kid who i sat next to in that class that knew her. i had a connection. i befriended that kid because he was the only other Asian and now i could use him to get me closer to her. the stars were aligned, things were going my way. now, if only there was a way of knowing what she thought of me or what kind of guys she liked. 

one day, the kid next to me tells me that the girl thinks i’m cute. mind implosion. 

i make my move and the next thing i know, we’re “going out.” 

mind you, that most of these interactions happened online. the only time we were together was when we were at school and walked each other to class.

it was great. i was happy. she was my first girlfriend and there was no telling where we’d go from here. we could go to homecoming together. prom. then when i got my license, we could drive around. the possibilities were endless. my birthday was coming up soon, i wonder if she’d get me a present. i’d have to act surprised and humbled, it’d be the best birthday ever. and on the day of…

she dumped me.

she said she wasn’t allowed to date and that it was best we were just friends.

life ruined. 

i cried.

a lot.

an embarrassingly large amount of sob coughing. a lot of head tossing up to the sky and asking God why. 

i remember sincerely praying to God once to bring the girl back to me. and i believed God would. but He didn’t. i was sincerely silly.

my experience with girls pretty much chalks up to that first relationship bomb. i expected the world out of it and when nothing happened, i was devastated. i moved on, but i’m not sure if i’ve really learned that no matter how beautiful a girl is and no matter how much she thinks you’re cute, she can’t save me from my problems. 

i believe that i’ve fallen in love with meeting the perfect girl. it’s a not a pipe dream, it’s like searching for unicorns or sasquatch. it’s a wild goose chase. don’t get me wrong, there are great girls out there. God bless you. and call me. 

but i need to know that they are as fallible and human as i am. so this is more of a message to me, and if time traveling gets invented and if 24 year old ryan could talk to 16 year old ryan, here’s what he’d say:

“beautiful girls can take your breath away, but you can idolize them and turn them into your worst enemy. they can be a promise of hope, happiness, and joy, but those promises aren’t guaranteed and most likely they’ll expect the same from you. so you have to be a man. girls aren’t your better half and you sure as hell aren’t the better half. you both need one another. imperfect complements of one another, but complements nonetheless. one day we will see in full, but until then things won’t always be ok, you have to work it out. you have to be patient and pray. a lot. Jesus please help me. just saying in advance. you’re still single, (i’m working on it. not really, sorry) but one day you’ll meet a girl. she may take your breath away, she may not. you’ll fall in love with her, but won’t always have those sweet feelings. you may even resent her, and she you. at the end of the day, a marriage commitment before God and family is important, so you’ll work it out and when Jesus comes back, we’ll all be perfect complements and love the way it was made to be.

and learn to talk to girls, i’m really struggling in that department. stop playing video games and go talk to one. no, several. it’ll help me. us.”

my experience with video games

nintendo. that was the first game console i remember playing. the original nintendo with its d-pad, a, b, start, and select buttons. 16 bit color with an optional (must have) gun for duck hunt, aka call of duty’s great-great-great-great-great grandfather. i got the same feeling that everyone got when playing their first video game console. desire. i wanted a nintendo. i wanted to play duck hunt, i wanted to dedicate hours upon hours of my life playing a 2-dimensional, pix-elated game designed to frustrate you, waste your time, keep you from doing “productive” things like studying or reading, and attributing to long term bad health by making you sedentary and raising you to believe that reaching the high score in Mario is the equivalent of winning the gold medal in the Olympics, if the Olympians competing were  mushy brained, Mountain Dew drinking, carpal tunnel symptomatic, soft bodied virgins with really well defined thumbs.

my parents never bought me a nintendo though… because they bought me a Super Nintendo. YEAH. 4 additional buttons. 32 bit color. a more ergonomic controller. i was about 7 or 8 when they bought me a SNES. some people say 7 or 8 is too early to have all your dreams come true, but i like to say i came pretty close. i played that SNES every day. super mario, megaman x, street fighter 2. i’d play for hours after school, before dinner, after dinner. i’d play and play. there was one thing though. i never got any good. 

what do i mean?

i mean i never got great at video games even though i’ve spent thousands of hours at it. yes, i could probably kill you a few times in goldeneye, snipe you in halo, and give you a run for your money in ufc: undisputed 3, but to this day i have never really beaten a game. of course, it’s much harder now to beat games because of the online expansions and playing with others on xbox live or ps3… live or whatever sony likes to call their version of xbox live. but back when there was no internet compatibility, and games had to be beaten the old fashioned way without cheats or youtube tutorials, i could not do it. i got pretty far in megaman x, but i just gave up when i was a the final stage. same thing with mario, toy story (i wish i hadn’t bought it), and i don’t really count street fighter 2 because beating all the fighters in the game kind of just means you beat the computer 10 times… and it took you 30 tries to do it. 

just recently, and i mean like 10 minutes ago i got to see the end of arkham city and watch my friend, sam, beat it. i played some and got through a few tough parts of the game, but if i was by myself and this was my game i would’ve just given up and wandered around looking for something to eat, at least i couldn’t lose at that (except for that one time when i dropped a grilled chicken and spinach dish i had prepared, shattering glass and slightly cutting my toe on a piece of it. i just went out and bought chipotle). 

the thing about video games is that… how to put it… they’re hard and i play video games because they’re supposed to relieve stress, not add to it. i’ve had moments when i wanted to squeeze my n64 controller to death and beat it with a baseball bat. video games have made me curse and wish that those gaps that lead to your inevitable death, resulting in one less life, were real so i could push the inventor of that down one. sorry, harsh, but that’s how mad i’ve gotten. i don’t think i’ve ever gotten as angry at my parents, friends, enemies, frenemies, bronemesis, etc. than i have at video games. 

so every time i’ve gotten to a sticking point in a game, i’d just give up and go do something else. i never had that desire to suck it up and beat it. i’d rather have my friends beat it for me because i actually liked to watch. i liked when the pressure wasn’t on me and i could just enjoy the spectacle of watching the game unfold. of course, this came later on when rpgs got more popular. if i had to do it for mario or donkey kong, i would’ve been bored as hell. how many times can you really watch mario bang his head for coins or mushrooms before you get up and decide that you’d rather read a book? 

anyway, so that’s me. the guy who has never beaten a game (by himself). i’ve never had the motivation to. but for those who i have. i salute you and even commend you for your perseverance and with all due respect, think you can use that perseverance in better pursuits such as studying or reading a book or anything that can help you in life, unless you’re practicing to become a pro gamer.

video games have always been these little obstacle courses for me, but have also been a way for me and my friends to have a few laughs and spend time together. playing with others has helped me get through some sticking points that i normally would never have been able to do alone. and how many time have you watched your friend play and scream, “dude, no! not that door!” “watch out!” “wait, look over there, your left, your other left!” “excelsior!” maybe not that last one. so i guess the difference between 7 or 8 year old ryan and 24 year old ryan is that he doesn’t really like playing by himself. playing with others has always been more fun. maybe video games are a way to bridge together people that normally wouldn’t hang out. who knows? all i know is that for what video games are, my experience with them has resulted in a weird teamwork building relationship exercise that can bring people out of their shell a bit. and another part of me thinks they’re a huge waste of time. this is my split experience with video games. 

my experience with sports (part 2)

these days, as i mentioned previously, i follow one sport religiously. MMA. aka mixed martial arts. and a lot of these MMA fighters have foundations in combat sports such as wrestling, boxing, tae kwon do, karate, jiu-jitsu, and kickboxing. and like every other korean kid, i did tae kwon do and came close to wrapping that glorious black belt around my gi, but alas it was not to be. my mom saw the price that came with it and took me out. it was 300$ for the belt and uniform. this was the mid-90s and if i remember seeing my dad’s paycheck correctly, that was more than half of what he earned every week. and between putting fish and rice on the table and paying rent, there just wasn’t enough money to have a tae kwon do black belt in the house. a part of me wonders where i’d be if i continued tae kwon do. if i dedicated all my time to it. unbeknownst to me at the time, MMA was on the rise. royce gracie was tapping out guys twice his size and getting big checks for his troubles. i was just a fat kid whose mom signed him up for classes so she didn’t have to buy jeans from the Husky section at the store.

i remember my first day at tae kwon do, i showed up in jeans and a shirt with my uniform in hand and i was late. my dad scolded me and told me to change and i did. right in front of the entire class in the area where everyone left their shoes. then i realized that there was a changing room on the other side. at least my white belt matched my white briefs. not a good start to say the least.

the class went on and i joined the rest of the class, other korean kids whose parents wanted them to learn Korean karate. i learned the form and basic techniques such as a front kick and punch aimed at the solar plexus. it was great. i loved going to tae kwon do, especially after making friends in the class. there was a brother and sister combo, who were blue belts i think. yes, the sister was cute, but she was also older than me and i was always intimidated. there was a big dude who was a brown or red belt and very jolly and nice. there was a white kid who had a younger half-black brother that he always looked out for during class. the younger one was a crier, so the white kid would always be there to comfort him and he was a cool kid. there was a time when we just messed around one class because our original instructor wasn’t there. instead, a round Korean woman with short dyed hair taught the class and she had a sick sense of humor. which i found hilarious. we were goofing off so much that she threatened us that she’d chloroform us and that we’d wake up years later as old men. i was crying out of pure joy. the half-black brother started crying. and white brother consoled. good times. there was an older Spanish dude, who always looked angry doing his form, he was cool though. he always kept the younger kids in line. like this one time when i was watching the kid next to me slowly pick a big booger from his nose with his lips and eat it. the older Spanish dude nudged and told me to focus. i appreciated that. and appreciated the kid who was willing to eat his booger rather than smear it on his uniform.

i always looked up to martial artists. all the big action stars that i saw in the movies were martial artists. steven seagal, before he started eating, jean claude van damme, chuck norris, bruce lee. all the dudes that could kick ass without a gun were the guys i looked up to. i wanted to emulate them in every way. karate chopping bad guys, kicking people in the face, getting the girl in the end, and punching that one last bad guy who miraculously survives and tries again to kill the good guy even though he knows it didn’t work the first time, so why would he think the second time would be any different when the good guy severely injured him before and will probably finish him this time. silly. anyway, that’s why i loved tae kwon do. i didn’t consider it a sport and even now, MMA isn’t considered a sport by some people. one thing i did know. martial arts were way more interesting to me than putting a ball in a hoop. i wanted to be good at it. i felt that i had a natural inclination towards the skills and techniques we practiced. i was never made fun of, unless we were making fun of one another. kids were disciplined there. there weren’t teams and i wasn’t picked last. we were all in it together, regardless of ranking. i rose through the ranks and i saw a couple of my friends get their black belts, which i also was looking forward to until my mom ran into a 300$ brick wall. i quit, i didn’t think much of it at the time, at least i lost weight my mom would brag to her friends. 

but i wish i kept going. after tae kwon do, it was back to feeling crappy on the blacktop again. i wish i continued to learn and perfect those skills. i later got my black belt in a combination martial art called hwardo, but it was so my extracurricular activities section on my college applications wouldn’t be blank. it wasn’t the same. back then, and even to this day, martial arts was the purest form of competition to me. so what if you could make a basket, hit a ball over a fence, and throw a ball into a endzone. if i could knock you out, i won.

those feelings of pride and ego linger in me, but i still believe that martial arts and now, MMA, is the only sport that i felt competent in. i felt what those other boys felt when they scored points running around with a ball. i felt good when i sparred with other kids, except for that one time i made a kid cry after kicking him in the stomach. the other time i kicked a guy in the stomach, i felt good because i didn’t like him.

sports will always be a source of pride. and i guess martial arts were that for me. it still is. so if you see me go for a flying sidekick on the basketball court like bruce bowen. you’ll understand that it came from my prior experience. 

my experience with sports (part 1)

i suck at them. 

no, that’s not it. i mean it’s true, but it’s not the full story of my sports playing experience. 

so i was born a boy. this is a big deal. in most cultures, having a boy as your first child is important. it means the family legacy will be carried on, someone else will continue to make the family name proud. but this isn’t necessarily true, re: charles manson, adolf hitler, and osama bin laden. some people don’t really care what gender their children will be because they just want a baby to love and hold and bail out when they get into the trouble with the law. at the same time, a lot of men want sons and mothers want daughters. i was the firstborn male of the family and i have a little sister. at this moment, my mom is talking to my sister about food and cooking and whatever else women like to converse about. gucci, gucci, gucci, fendi, fendi, prada. 

men talk about sports. at least, that’s what the stereotype is. my dad is the only Korean man i know that watches American football. all the other Korean dads watch golf and sit around naked at saunas drinking soju (Korean liquor, tastes like watered down vodka, yes still gross). my dad on the other hand, sits around eating nuts and watching football. naked. just kidding. my dad watching football is the most American thing about him besides voting and lying about his taxes. but unlike other dads, he never taught me about football. i remember every Monday night on ABC, there’d be an NFL game on and my mom, me, and my sister knew that the TV was my dad’s for the rest of the night. he never made me watch games with him. i’d catch glimpses of the games, but i was never interested enough to ask my dad questions like, “what is a football?” “what are rules?” “why are all NFL games 4 hours long?” “why can’t we have two TVs?” 

it wasn’t until elementary school recess that i started to show some interest in sports or at least feign interest in them. i realized that while i was playing tag on the playground, my other contemporaries were on the blacktop playing basketball, football, or kickball. whenever a game of tag would die down or the special ed kids would come and scare us on the playground, i’d wander around looking for something else to do. i remember going to the blacktop and watching some of my friends play football. 

“it’s 3rd and 2!” 

“no, it’s not.”

“yeah, it’s 3rd and 2!”

i didn’t know anything about football really, but i knew that you punted on the 4th down, so 3rd down was important. i also knew that you had to get 10 yards to get to another 1st down. not too shabby for an overweight tag player. but i had no idea how they were keeping track of the yardage. there weren’t any markers on the blacktop. and i think they were playing tackle. on the blacktop. i had a realization that maybe i wasn’t as manly or boyly as i thought i was. 

i always prided myself on being physically strong. i beat everyone at arm wrestling in church. i could even beat my mom. to give you a picture, my mom is 5’3 and a buck twenty. so yeah, pretty strong.

after seeing my friends play on the blacktop, i started to evaluate on what it meant to be a man. and from what i witnessed on the blacktop, it was evident to me that men played sports. it was even more evident to me at church. the one place where i thought i could find solace and comfort in playing games not involving catching or throwing balls. all my friends played basketball and football. football i didn’t mind so much because even though i couldn’t catch or throw, i could tackle the guy with the ball. that was awesome, especially bulldozing through smaller Korean boys. i started to pay more attention to the football games my dad watched and what i learned was that my dad cursed a lot during Redskins games. and that a 2 minute warning was issued at every half. that’s all i needed to know. but basketball was different. putting a ball in a hoop required a lot more finesse and skill and a lot less tackling. i sucked at it.

so began the ridicule. i had avoided much of the ridicule in football since i could just use my brute strength, but i couldn’t hit the guy with the ball in basketball, so my options were limited. my friends knew i sucked. i knew i sucked. so the best thing to do was to make fun of myself.

“hey, ryan made a shot.”

“i didn’t mean to.”

ha. ha. ha. 

i didn’t have anyone else to blame but myself. while they played sports on the weekdays and ran around outside. i was inside watching copious amounts of cartoons, playing video games, and reading books. i was doomed from the beginning. luckily for me, i was good at making people laugh, so that’s what i did. 

“you suck, ryan.”

“sure do.”

ha.

“oh no, ryan has the ball.”

“what do i do with it?”

ha. ha.

“shoot the ball, ryan.”

“please go in.”

ha. ha. ha…ha. 

of course all the insults started to add up. i was beginning to get a little annoyed and let one of my close church friends know it. baniel* was a good friend of mine, who was also extremely athletic. he went to basketball camp during summer. he played on organized teams. he was good at what i wasn’t. and he was a nice kid, but not during games. 

“geez, ryan. how’d you miss that.”

“i’m sorry. it was a mistake. i just make mistakes.”

“but you make so many mistakes.”

and that was it. i made a lot of mistakes. started to make them in football too and whatever sports that involved balls. i couldn’t catch or throw them so i couldn’t play them. kids started getting bigger so i couldn’t really bulldoze through people. i really didn’t have much self-confidence after all that. i always felt like i had to be good at sports, but i never enjoyed them really because i had this chip on my shoulder. the only times i had fun playing sports was when we were just messing around or goofing off. but most of the time it was competitive. i felt like i had to be good at whatever sport that was being played to impress my friends or to have anyone like me. sports became the bane of my existence. every Sunday was like a tryout, another opportunity to show my friends that i could be reliable. but i wasn’t. so i fell back to making jokes and making people laugh. 

deep down, i wanted to be like my athletic friends. i wanted to show off to the cute girls at church. i wanted the attention and glory. never turned out that way though. to this day, i’m still moderately terrible at sports. still can’t catch. can’t put a ball in a hoop. can’t hit a ball with a bat (used to be able to, another experience for another time). but i’m glad i suck. well, not really. if i was really good maybe i’d be a professional athlete, but anyway. it’s good that i suck because it’s humbling and it forces me to be good in other areas. i can still make people laugh. with my words, not by my terrible lack of athletic ability, although that may cause a few chuckles or disappointing head shakes. 

for the longest time, i’ve associated my worth with sports. i’ve associated my manliness with athleticism. and a part of me still does. it’s probably why i watch MMA. it’s the purest form of competition and a part of me thinks that maybe i’d be good at it. i almost got my black belt in tae kwon do when i was 10, so maybe there’s still some untapped potential in me even though it’s been 14 years. you’d think that i’d be more sympathetic to those who aren’t athletic like me or who have different hobbies like i did/do, but it’s some sick cycle where i’ve become like my friends who poked fun at me. i don’t make fun of people less athletic than myself, but i can’t help but feel superior to them. it’s how i imagine my friends felt about themselves when they looked at me. it’s like i’m still trying to impress a bunch of 10 year olds. i’m still trying to become the topic of gossip among the girls. i’m still trying to be cool. i’m still trying to be a man. and that’s been my experience with sports so far. 

*i’ll give you 3 guesses as to what his real name is.

my experience with changing majors

when i was a kid, all i wanted when i grew up was to be like the men i saw on tv who were successful, good looking, and wealthy. i wanted to wear a suit and tie, carry around a briefcase with important papers and perhaps a ham sandwich, and make a lot of money doing those two things. i wanted to be a businessman. i didn’t know what these businessmen did, but they seemed to be happy peering down condescendingly at the blue collar workers aka people like my parents. so when i decided a little over halfway through college that i wanted to change my major to english, my mom had something to say about it. 

“NO. just keep the stupid major you’re in right now. you’re not going to amount to anything with an hnfe (human, nutrition, food, and exercise) degree* anyway.” 

she didn’t say that, but she was strongly opposed to me changing my major that far ahead in college. i was crushed. i really hated where i was going. which evidently could’ve been to the LA Galaxy (see below). why the sudden change? i wanted to study something i cared about. i wanted to write instead of filling in bubbles. i wanted to read creative words instead of technical mumbo jumbo and use words like mumbo jumbo on tests and not get points taken off. 

i went home one weekend and had a discussion with my mom to justify my decision. i was hoping it’d be easy and that she’d empathize with me. i was going to give her good reasons as to why i needed this. but before talking to her, i decided to eat dinner with a glass of champagne, which was my first meal of that day. i had learned in the intro to hnfe class that not eating seriously cuts down the enzymes that break down alcohol in your stomach. i found out while talking to my mom. as i stumbled upstairs to my room to lay down for a few moments, my mom came in asking why i wanted to change majors. i gave a very articulate explanation, mumbling how much i hated it and then throwing up in her face. just kidding i didn’t throw up in my mom’s face. that only happened once. a long time ago. anyway, my mom stuck to her guns saying that she didn’t like it and i got pissed. so there i was piss tipsy (not drunk) and i stumbled down the stairs to the living room to get away from the 5 foot 3 inch unsympathetic major changer killer that was my mom and sat down on the couch. 

i was near tears because of my mom’s lack of support and the champagne had gone straight to my tear ducts. 

as i was beginning to lose hope, my dad walked in and sat down next to me. here we go i thought. another lecture from dear old pop about how it’s good to endure and to be a man and to suck it up and just do it. and it’d be great advice for any other competitive situation especially eating or picking out splinters from your finger with a needle, but not this time. i didn’t want to hear it. 

then he caught me offguard and started talking about how this was my life.

“this is your life. not mom’s, not mine, yours. you don’t want to regret something like this. you have one life, you should do what you want. if you want to change majors, you should.” he said this all in korean. luckily, for me there were subtitles. 

my dad surprised me with his support and inspired/motivated me to REBEL against my mother. no, he really did inspire and motivate me and i’m glad he did because i switched majors to english, studied what i wanted, wrote some decent stuff and had good teachers and experiences that i hope to continue. since i just got into a grad school. yay. all thanks to recommendations from my English teachers at school and my dear old pastor. all thanks to my writing samples which couldn’t have been written unless i had gone through all those creative writing courses. all thanks to the GRE’s, which i could’ve done without, but taught me big words like “imperturbability.” what does it mean? i don’t know. i just know how to spell it. no, i don’t, i used spell check. 

where i am right now, there is a crossroads ahead of me that has been shaped and constructed according to the paths that were given to me and that i chose. all God’s plan, and me changing majors was part of that too. so to those who have doubts of changing majors because they’re afraid of their parents disowning them or not making money in the future or just being uncertain of their own ability in their passions, forget all that. if you have a passion and you can STUDY it at your college? why wouldn’t you do it? of course i still have regrets of not trying harder or not taking some opportunities to write more or revise more, but those pale in comparison when i think “what if i had never changed majors?” i’d be miserable wondering “what if i did change majors?” you don’t want that to be you. if you want to change majors, think about it, make sure you’re not just doing it because it promises wealth (i tried looking up briefcasing and suiting up as majors, but they don’t exist. i later found them under douchebaggery in the pamplin business college). i’m at a crossroads that i want to be in right now because of the previous choice i made at a crossroads earlier in life. make sure you make the right decision now so you can make right decisions later. man, that sounded really self-helpy, or should i say joel osteeny. 

this has been my experience. now create yours. man, now it sounds benny hinny.

*not true, a girl i know is interning with the LA Galaxy. i know soccer isn’t big in America, but the LA Galaxy is like the Liverpool or Manchester United of America… if anyone in America cared about soccer. still pretty cool though. 

my experience with religion

when i was a kid, i thought that everyone went to church on Sundays. parents worked on the weekdays, kids went to school, Saturdays were cartoons for kids and drinking for the adults. but Sundays were for everyone. and everyone went to church, or so i thought. 

i remember the first time i found out that some kids didn’t go to church. i was the new kid in 5th grade at London Towne Elementary. a kid named j.j.* sat in front of me in music class, so while we were taking out our recorders to toot out shrill, terrible sounding renditions of yankie doodle we conversed. it came to a point where j.j. talked about his weekends and i told him that on Sunday i went to church. i asked him if he went to church and he shook his head.

WHAT? 

i didn’t say that out loud, but that’s what was going through my head. glass shattered, water turned to ice, recorders turned into flutes. my world was flipped upside down. i don’t know why that shook me so much. i just didn’t know that was an option. to not go to church on Sundays.

up until high school and college, i can remember the few Sundays we were not able to attend church. one was during the blizzard of ‘96. i stayed in and watched jaws III, best worst movie ever. the other was when my sister caught pneumonia and had to be rushed to the hospital. i was more excited than worried since i could finally catch an episode of the Hulk (cartoon) on the boob tube at the hospital. then she died. just kidding. she’s alive, studied hard, and is about to graduate from college. and it’s all thanks to the lessons learned from when she had pneumonia. not really. and the other churchless Sundays were when our family would go on 2 day vacations. my dad worked 6 days a week and it was rare that he could get a day off to take us to disney world. so he didn’t. instead we went to hershey’s park. and it rained the whole day we were there. candy was good though. and the other times were when we went to the beach. where i got lost for a few hours during which my mom thought i drowned. if there’s any theme you’re picking up here, let me make it clearer. if you don’t go to church, bad things will happen to you. just kidding, but that’s the logic that i followed when i was a kid.

this was my experience with “religion.” i use quotes because i didn’t know that Christianity was one of the many religions out there. i thought Christianity was like math or history or science. it’s all true and we all need to know it, but it’s hard to learn, so we go to class for it. 

since then, i’ve learned that many people believe in different things. whether it’s Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, Nothing, or Lady Gaga. check how many twitter followers she has and you’ll be surprised that she doesn’t have a church named after her yet. 

i stuck with Christianity and wanted my friends to become Christians as well. although, i couldn’t articulate the reasons until much later. i still thought, and think, that Christianity is truth, but i was complacent about my friends believing in it. i just wanted to be cool and assumed that if you went to church on Sundays and smoked cigarettes on the weekdays, you were cool, so i would hang out with the cool kids to rub their cool off on me. didn’t work. 

another instance of my religious confusion came in high school. my friend, a cambodian kid named jimmy**, walked into the library where all the cool aZn kids hung out. i knew he was buddhist, but i saw a crucifix hanging around his neck. i pointed at it and asked him really cool-like, “wHaT’s Up wItH tHaT?” he answered back, “i converted this weekend. catholic.” i was happy. i was glad that he had repented and believed in Jesus. “tHaT’s AwEsOmE.” he agreed and we didn’t really talk much about it. i’d just notice the crucifix around his neck and be comforted. some time after i saw him, but noticed that the crucifix was missing. we began talking and he told me his dad was going through a rough time with his health. jimmy said that he had to switch back to buddhism for his dad. 

WHAT?

again, all in my head, but this time i was really confused. i didn’t understand how one could just switch religions like you were switching underpants. it didn’t make sense to me. i mean he was doing it for his dad, so i could empathize, but i couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that not only was he repenting his repentance, but he was betraying Jesus. so i slapped him with a Bible. just kidding. if it would’ve knocked some sense into him, then i would’ve. 

it’s been quite a few years since then, and i’ve listened to lot of sermons and learned more about Christianity during the past 3 or 4 years of my life than i have in my previous 20. i’ve grown to dislike the word, “religion.” 

mark driscoll defines religion as things you do to get close or right with God. this is where Christianity differs. Christianity is about what God has done for us. so now, whenever i hear the word, religion being tossed around i see it as negative. if people call Christianity a religion i tend to disagree internally because it’s not. it doesn’t fit in with any other religions and even if your history teacher says Muslims, Jews, and Christians worship the same God, we don’t. religion seems like a menu where you get to choose which sounds most appetizing to your spiritual hunger. but the truth is that we’re all broken and hungry and nothing will satisfy us except Jesus. not religion, not rituals, not good deeds. and this is where people disagree. this is where people fight. i can’t say much about that. i know Christians have done wrong. so people will blame religion for much of the world’s undoing.

this world’s been undone since adam and eve’s fall. God’s been working to redeem since then. i know people don’t want to believe this because it means that they’ll come to a similar realization that i did. WHAT? but i know that that realization will be a positive one. many won’t agree on the definition of religion let alone what i believe. there’ll be a lot more experiences regarding religion and what constitutes one and etc. but so far, this has been mine. 

*real name kind of rhymes with his fake one? yes, he is a guy, so that eliminates any feminine sounding initials.

**rhymes with his real name