living in lockdown

Today is June 1st, a new month.

I used to view each month as a new chapter in my life—a new goal, a new way of thinking, a new thing to think about on sleepless nights.

With each passing day, the world becomes so much more like a movie—I see pictures of people’s silhouettes standing in backgrounds of fire, masked men who have the power to release the government’s secrets, masses running in the streets with their fists up high.

I wonder if the future’s APUSH students will grimace when it comes to the year 2020. Will they all let out a collective groan as their teachers list off the many events of this year?

Every day is making history, and I want to be physically there. Make the change.

  But instead, I find myself stuck at home in a blanket fort, watching the news with wide eyes. My parents don’t allow me to step foot out of the house because they are afraid that I’ll see too much. I watch some kids on the news get shot at by rubber bullets, bruised and bloodied faces look straight into the camera and into my soul.

I listen to sad music and watch movies to evoke more sadness out of myself. I visualize it coming off of me in waves, like sheer royal blue floating off of me. My future is so shrouded at the moment—I wonder if it’s worth paying for school when almost half of it will be online. The idea of a gap year comes to me but I wonder if this time could be used efficiently and if I could steel myself to make use of it.

The world feels like it’s a movie, and my life is not. It’s a shattering truth. I always knew that this was a fact, but I rarely spent enough time to think about it so directly. But when I do, it feels devastating, and I feel like I have been doing nothing my whole life—like I’ve been sitting in the middle of an intersection with no idea where to step foot.

And this is where a gap year comes in handy.

But I wonder if I can really create myself anew if I don’t have as many opportunities as I would have had. I can’t travel somewhere to experience a different environment, nor can I physically teach about my passion for writing and poetry to an audience. I can’t escape the grasps of my parents, who do not want to let go of me yet.

Today is May 31st, six days after the murder of George Floyd.

The video of his death spread like wildfire on social media—and I watched with wide eyes as I saw him on the pavement with a knee on his neck. It was horrifying.

There have been protests, marches, riots blowing up across the country. People standing on cars, holding signs that say Black Lives Matter as they are pepper sprayed and tear gassed. Like something straight out of a movie, the country is aflame in anger and anguish and the overall need for change. Social media feeds me ways on how to not be identified through computer scans using face paint designs, and how milk or water can reduce the pain of being tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed. Instagram is now a place where people bring awareness to the situation, listing petitions and funds to send donations to.

I have been trying to do my part as well. At first, I had also reposted awareness and tips on what to do: text FLOYD, ENOUGH, and JUSTICE to 55156 to receive information about the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery and the link is in my bio to sign petitions and get extra information. But the more I delved into Instagram stories and posts, I started to feel slightly uncomfortable. It feels like it’s slowly starting to become a competition. People start posting things like “You aren’t doing enough. You know who you are.” and “Reposting things isn’t enough. Show me your receipts.” Although I know that the underlying concept is to add to the change, it’s becoming a toxic race to see who understands the situation better and who is doing the most for it.

After spending many days watching people push each other down and compare their words to others, I decided to look at my phone less and limit the amount of time I spend on social media. I am currently taking a free online course provided by Yale called “African American History: From Emancipation to the Present” to better understand the oppression and struggles that African Americans have faced. I talked to my parents about the issue and educated them on what I have learned through the course. My parents don’t understand it 100%, but I have been trying to help them understand.

These days, I’ve been having fun regressing back to things I’ve liked as a child.

I realized that I haven’t really taken the time to watch and play around with things I used to love when I was little: comic books, DS games, and TV. I feel like I was just so caught up with the flow of growing up that for the past few years, I never slowed down and looked back at myself. Constantly, I was looking forward, looking for ways to better myself, become smarter, create new hobbies and friends. And at this time, when it is still, I am looking over my shoulder, at the things I had treasured as a kid.

I uncovered my Nintendo DSI (pastel pink), my Nintendo 3DS, and my old Gameboy from a storage box in my father’s closet, covered in dust and buried under heaps of old radios and cassette tapes. Everything was in pristine condition—the chargers, the game chips, the stylus, and accessories grouped up neatly in plastic bags. Immediately, I fell down the rabbit hole of Princess Peach games and Nintendo Dogs. Something about the cliche beep bop’s and dun dun dunnn’s of the games in my hands brought a sense of excitement within me. I spent a few hours gripping the controls as I landed Donkey Kong first place in several Mario Kart races and solving mysteries in my Scooby Doo: Who’s Watching Who game.

Opening up Pokemon Rumble Blast, I saw my previous game history already registered and I remembered the last time I played—5th grade. It’s crazy that seven years have passed since I’ve last held my Nintendo DSI, screaming over Pokemon matches and not reading the directions as I continued to die in the game.

Sorting through several other storage boxes, I found my parents’ cassette player, and hundreds of cassettes from the 1990’s and so on. Popping some new batteries in, I danced around in the living room with my mom to Wonderwall by Oasis and Can’t Buy Me Love by The Beatles. I turned the dial so that it played richly, something that I could never hear with regular headphones. Finding these old gems was exciting, and my parents’ eyes glowed as they relayed stories of music back then and my father’s dancing skills. He boasted about his moves at his high school dances, and I attempted to do the Sprinkler and Roger Rabbit as my parents clapped and joked for me to never try again.

It’s been a couple of days since my last journal entry.

I was actually out camping with my family. Staying cooped up in the house was starting to get on all of our nerves so we decided to spend a few nights outside for a change. Recently, a few camping sites have opened up at half capacity and zig zag spots. Since it is outdoors and there is an empty space between each group, I guessed that the chances of me getting exposed to COVID-19 were low.

My family always has bad luck with camping—we’ve ended up camping in the desert on the hottest day of the year, camped up high in the mountains on the first rainstorm of the season. I once found a family of scorpions in my sleeping bag, and we once left our site for a walk and came back to our dinners being eaten by crows. We didn’t buy air mattresses until after the desert incident, and found out that two of the mattresses had holes in them the first time we used them. This camping trip was looking alright—it wasn’t raining, and the birds left our food alone.

The fire was a little sad, to be honest… my dad has too much of an ego and even though the fire was more of a pitiful flame, he wouldn’t let anyone try to add logs or fan the embers. It was kind of funny, my dad boasting about being a professional camper and not even being able to make a fire to roast marshmallows with. I settled on eating my third cup of ramen for the day.

It’s been about half a year since we’ve last gone camping, so my family may have underestimated the temperature overnight. I found myself scrambling to put on two pairs of socks and attempt to gather warmth with my measly two layers,,,, my dad snored happily as the rest of us shifted around in our sleeping bags. Our “summer tent” was still not fit for camping in May.

Hi, I skipped yesterday’s entry—

You know when you have those off days where nothing really sparks something within you? Morning coffee and waking up to sunlight doesn’t give me the same joy they used to have. Laying in bed yesterday didn’t make my mind wander; I just ended up feeling sluggish and lazy. I spent the majority of yesterday looking for something to excite me.

And I think I finally got a hold of something. :-)

Did you know that the month of May is Pacific Islander and Asian American Heritage month? I didn’t. I was browsing the online library catalogue a few days ago and noticed it featured a couple of books to celebrate. As an Asian American, I felt happy that there was a month titled to Asian culture, but looking on social media and in real life, it feels as if not that many people know about it. I wonder if in the future, kids will be taught about Pacific Islander and Asian American Heritage Month. I wonder if in the future, children will learn about mandu guuk and dim sum and the countless beauties of Asian culture.

Born as a second generation Korean, I’ve adopted a lot of Asian mannerisms from my parents but I am also very much in tune with American culture because I have lived here all of my life. A big part of Asian culture is to try to avoid conflict—it’s better to ignore than to attack. And I saw this when the first news of COVID-19 hit American media. I’m lucky to not have faced large acts of discrimination or have to defend myself from racism, but in the beginning, I was very worried about my mother. She can only speak around 20% of English, and when a man verbally harassed her at the grocery store, she didn’t do anything and came back home feeling very shaken up.

I wondered what made this man feel like it was necessary to follow her throughout the store aisles, breathing over her neck and calling her the Coronavirus. I wondered what made him think that it was alright to point at a random middle aged Asian woman and pronounce that she is the culprit of the disease. I wondered why my mom just took it with her head down, refusing to look at him in the eyes. And then it hits me that that was just how she dealt with it: ignore and try to forget.

But it doesn’t really sit right with me.

Looking at the Instagram feed on @nextshark, I spent a couple of days watching the acts of hatred. I saw shame and embarrassment on the faces of men and women who looked like my parents as they quietly glossed over it. And it hurt so much.

So, I shall be writing again.

Today, I will be seeing my two close friends for the first time in over two months.

How crazy is that?

The last time I wasn’t able to see my friends for a while was the summer of 2014, when I took a long trip to Korea over summer vacation. Not seeing them in person for over two months feels super weird—the last time I saw them, it was still chilly and I had complained everyday about the cold weather. Back then, wearing a sweater was necessary, but once it hit lunchtime, it was way too hot for a jacket / sweater. Now, it’s shorts galore and prime time to be at the beach :-( .

We met at the Peet’s Coffee at Cedros Avenue—they took orders at a table they brought outside and dropped a dollop of hand sanitizer onto each of our palms after we paid. A small line of people waited for their drinks, each spot marked with blue masking tape to ensure social distancing. I sewed my mask at home—it’s three layers of fabric (the middle one is felt), and my friend asked if I had swiped it from a Starbucks barista because the green color matches their aprons. I laughed. And I realized that the only way people could tell if you’re smiling is if your eyes crinkle at the corners.

Today’s iced whole milk latte (with a single packet of Splenda) tasted good, a nice amount of foam at the top and a good amount of espresso. We sat at different benches and talked a little louder than usual so that we could hear each other.

Since quarantine has been pretty uneventful for each of us, we talked about the past. We talked about how we met each other, some memorable moments, old text conversations, and what we were doing in May of 2019. I feel like we all understood that the future was shrouded in mystery, and that we didn’t really know what was going to become of our senior graduation, summer vacation, and college in the fall. With the news that many schools are resorting to online learning for all of the first semester, I’m worried as to how my experience as a freshman in college will be altered.

The three musketeers were finally reunited, six feet apart and with masks.

I woke up to the sound of the news—something about a virus that’s affecting kids and related to COVID-19. My parents were never fond of electronics (TV, phones, computers, video games, etc.) so when my mom started turning on the news a month ago, it hit me that things were getting serious. I watched the news blare on as I drank a cup of coffee and a bowl of Lucky Charms with no milk.

It is Saturday, but it really does not feel like it. Friday nights and Saturday mornings were the best times of a normal week—times where I didn’t have to worry too much about school work and responsibilities. It was at these times where I was able to slow down and put my mind at a standstill. Now that my current state of life is void of most responsibilities, I find myself itching to move about and try to replicate the tempo that I used to have.

Today I plan on taking a walk, going to the Korean market (H-Mart), and skateboarding for a bit.

I ended up not taking the walk. I went to H-Mart and stood outside in a line where people trickled in and trickled out, a security guard slowly motioning for me to enter. Inside, is chaos.

I would say that the Korean markets I’ve been to can be pretty packed at times, but today was so much more than I had envisioned. I’m guessing that there was at least five times the normal amount of people there today, milling about in the aisles, squeezing past each other in the seafood corner. Of course, everyone has a mask, but there were so many people that staying six feet away from each other was impossible. I stood next to my cart and wiggled my hands loosely covered in the only pair of gloves I have.

As soon as I woke up this morning, B O R E D O M gave me a pounding headache and I was aching to go somewhere. It was 9:00 am when my mom asked if I was up to drive to LA for a little road trip and of course I said yes.

I was actually born in LA county, so it wasn’t really anything new—we always visit the same places and eat at the same places. I haven’t gone on a road trip in a while, so the ride was rather uncomfortable because I get car sick easily. After a good two and a half hours (there was a crash on the way there), I reached our destination—a Japanese grocery store. We always go here after our LA kendo tournaments, and so this gave me a little bit of nostalgia as I walked through the clean aisles.

Finding a place to eat was a bit of a problem. My family is NEVER a fan of eating in the car, so we looked around for a bench or a table to sit at. Passing through different outdoor shopping centers, we finally reached one that had a number of different places to sit at. LA is currently under Phase 2 of the steps to California’s lift of the lockdown, but it didn’t really make much of a difference—everything was still takeout and mobile order. I ate two onigiri and drank a Sprite on a metal bench in one of my childhood spots, a shopping center that now houses the ghosts of stores I used to visit on the weekly.

In a way, eating here made me sad. I remember ice skating with my friends here, getting Jamba Juice when I got good grades, my mom forcing me to play the violin at the music store nearby. The buildings haven’t changed their shape at all, their colors only fading in the strong sunlight. The stickers on my old dance studio are still there, but there’s a big “FOR LEASE” sign slapped on its windows. I danced for six years and stopped going when I was in second grade.

There’s a lot less people walking around because of COVID-19—the quiet hill I used to live on is so much more quieter. We get bored so we board the car.

We drive on the 101, and watch the masses form along the Hermosa, Laguna, and Crystal Cove. Interestingly enough, there are a large number of people outside at the beach, some running and some standing still on the shores. There is a police car or two at each beach, but the cars are empty, so the masses continue to grow in size. Mostly people in their teens to 30’s, they lug their beach chairs and blankets and spikeball equipment to the sand, barely any masks on them all.