At 14, 506 ft, Mt. Whitney is the highest peak in the continental U.S., so acclimating is key. We worked remotely from Mammoth (8,000 ft), spent a night camping at 10,000 ft and another at Whitney Portal (8,000 ft) before attempting our big climb. On our way up, we saw at least three people heading back down due to altitude sickness. The elevation is no joke!
The climb is made up of three stages. The first 6 miles and 4,000 ft is up to Trail Camp, where backpackers lucky enough to grab a permit can camp. Then it’s another 1,000 ft up 99 switchbacks (there are really 99–we counted!). Then it’s the last two miles and final 1,000 feet. We left at 2:00 AM and submitted at 10:30 AM. We hung out at the top for 30 minutes or so and then headed back down, arriving back at Whitney Portal at 5:00. So it look us 8.5 to climb and 6 hours to descend.
The sign at Whitney Portal warns that getting to the summit only half the journey. You have to come back down. It was taxing climbing the 11-miles to the top. But it was arguably more grueling to have to come back down. Hiking poles are key to saving knees and toes!
Go to Tbilisi, Georgia to get deeper into kimchi making?
I’ve been making kimchi on and off for several years, empowered by YouTubers like Maangchi and a growing number of Korean cookbooks written in English (*Korean Home Cooking* is a favorite). But knowing how to do it with “son maht” has been elusive.
“Son maht” literally means hand + taste, i.e., cooking by feel.
How a person likes her kimchi is varied and personal. There’s no “right” answer about how spicy you like it, how fermented, how fishy. But I didn’t understand the nuances that would turn a follow-the-recipe batch of kimchi into a this-is-how-I-like-it kimchi…in other words, into my kimchi.
When Mrs. Greyhound asked me to help her make a batch of kimchi in Tbilisi, I said sure. I had Kate send me a photo of the recipe out of the book but soon realized that we were going to have to improvise. Mrs. G had some glutenous rice flour, gochugaru (Korean chili powder), and fish sauce in her pantry. We found napa cabbage in the local markets but no daikon radish or chives. And we only had table salt on hand, not the kosher or sea salt that the recipe called for.
I had to think—really think— about each step as we went. How should I adjust for the fact that table salt is much finer and saltier than kosher salt? What could be substituted instead of daikon?
In the end, I was quite happy with the results. Even more encouraging, I started developing a sense of a kimchi groove…my own version of sohn mat.
(One tip I’ll offer is that you want the wilted cabbage to taste good, with the right amount of saltiness, before you mix in the other ingredients.)
I like making mak kimchi (meaning easy, because it’s pre-cut, unlike poggi kimchi, which is stored and fermented in half-cabbage chunks.)
I came home and made another batch…this time, I didn’t even have to look at a recipe.
I read a beautiful essay in the New Yorker by James Marcus who lovingly recounts his father’s last days. As I read, I had a sense of how hard it would be to see my parents—currently in their 80s and healthy— decline in such a way. They might be blessed to die peacefully in their sleep, but one or both of them might go through what so many do: travails of illness that bring intense suffering to their last weeks, months, years.
I rebelled at the thought. NO. I didn’t want them to suffer as the parents of so many of my friends have suffered. And I didn’t want to have to see it.
This Lent, I’ve been ruminating on Peter’s denial of Jesus, which is depicted in all four Gospels. When I was younger, I read this as a kind of cautionary tale. When the chips were down, Peter was ashamed to be associated with Jesus. And then this thought would follow soon after: if someone as bold as Peter chickened out under pressure, what chance did I have in a similar situation?
Someone once told me about a Christian grad student who was in a university math class. As a joke, someone wrote on the board, “[Famous mathematician] is god and [famous math professor] is his prophet.” The Christian grad student stood up in class and said something along the lines of, “there is only one God and Jesus is his son.” In a different vein, I read about the life of missionary physician Helen Roosevere, who served for decades in a clinic in the Congo, was beaten and gang raped by rebels, then chose to return to the Congo to continue serving. To “not deny Christ,” I’ve often thought, must be made up of bold decisions like these.
These days, I’m seeing Peter’s denial in a different light. If courage and intensity of commitment were what was required, Peter might have done okay. He doesn’t seem like someone to shy away from conflict. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he lunges forward and slices off the ear of the high priest’s servant. So why did he, just hours later, turn away from Jesus?
After all he had been through with Jesus—the miracles, the teaching, the palpable sense that the reign of God was breaking into history—Peter had to confront Christ’s suffering. After all that had happened, was this the way it was all going to end?
Maybe he even had ideas of fighting or rescuing Jesus when he entered that courtyard. As soon as denied Jesus, though, the reality and finality of what is happening seems to hit him. Jesus predicted Peter’s denials and despite the strength of Peter’s convictions, he couldn’t even stop that from happening. He weeps. There is something so deeply human and existentially honest in Peter’s weeping. Utter failure, utter loss.
This Lent, I am pondering how to receive—not deny—Christ’s suffering, as it manifests in the world, in others, and in me.
My mother likes to sit and watch us eat. Okay, that sounds a little creepy, but it isn’t. It is one of the reliable pleasures for a Korean mother to see the people she loves—especially her children—eat. My mom will prepare the meal but rarely eat with us. Instead, she’ll sit and make conversation, ready a moment’s notice to refill a bowl or go out to the refrigerator in the garage and bring in more kimchi.
One of the early fights that Wes and I had went something like this: we’d be at a restaurant and when it came time to order dessert, I’d decide to pass. Wes would order something. When the piece of cake or pie came to the table, I would reach across with my fork and take a bite. This struck him as quite rude.
“But you said you didn’t want any,” he’d say.
“Are you seriously unwilling to share a single bite of your dessert? How selfish can you be?”
And so it went.
In Korean culture, as in many cultures, eating is communal. Eating is sharing is eating. If I’m going across campus to meet a colleague and plan to grab a coffee on the way, it feels natural to ask my colleague if he or she would like one as well. To clarify: it’s not that other people would never do this, but for me, it’s instinctual. I never think, oh, I’m Korean. Let me bring my friend a latte. I just do it. Or, lest you think I’m some amazingly generous person or something, if I don’t feel like bringing a friend a coffee, I make sure I finish my drink before I get there.
In Korean culture, it’s rude to eat something in front of someone else and not offer to share, even if that person chose not to order dessert, fries, or whatever. (I found this excellent video explanation, but it’s for advanced language learners so it’s in Korean with Korean subtitles). 😳
Our current housemate hails from Mexico City and when I told her this story about sharing food, she told me about the time she and her friends ate with two visiting Canadians.
“Why are your Canadian friends so rude?” One of her friends asked her after dinner. “We were all passing our plates around and they just sat there eating their own food.”
I can just imagine them, can’t you? Two white Canadians—for some reason, I imagine them wearing matching red scarves—doing their best to fit in by being polite but missing a big social cue.
The other day, Anna’s boyfriend sent me this little GIF.
[gfycat data_id="gaseousterrifickawala"]
“I do that!” I said. “Does Anna do it, too?”
“Every time,” he replied.
A couple of days later, Kate sent a photo of eating dduk guk (rice cake soup, the traditional food of lunar new year) with her boyfriend. He’s a grad student and had a mountain of homework to do, so she got take out and brought it over.
In the matter of food, I’m delighted my girls skew toward their Korean side. Because really, it is an excellent way to be.
It’s hard for me to pass a used book store without buying something. Used books are tantalizingly affordable. “I remember so-and-so telling me about this,” I’d think to myself as I picked up Don DeLillo’s Underworld. “Oh, I really should read her,” I’d say to myself, picking up Isabel Allende’s House of Spirits. In my heart of hearts, I know I’m not going to read many of the books I buy, but that’s not really the point. I love books and I enjoy giving them a home. It’s aspirational.
That being said, for 2019, I’ve decided that I will read one book a month that I own but haven’t read.
“You have enough unread books to do that for an entire year?” asks Wes.
Yes. At the rate of one book per month, I could go for years.
The first book from my unread bookshelf was Yellow, a book of loosely linked stories by Korean-American writer Don Lee. The stories are set in a fictional Northern California town that feels very close to Half Moon Bay or maybe Santa Cruz. All the main characters are Asian American.
Yellow was published in 2001. I tried to remember what “Asian American” literature felt like back then. Before Yellow, all the major literary moments for Asian American lit (as far as I can recall), dealt directly with racial identity in one way or another. The highlights:
Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston (1976)
No No Boy by John Okata (1978)
Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989)
Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee (1995)
And then, here comes Yellow, short stories about Asian American people living in the Bay Area, with problems that intersect–but aren’t solely about–their ethnic or racial identities.
There are so many different kinds of books by Asian American writers today. I experienced Yellow as an interesting book, with some stories stronger than others. Had I read it twenty years ago when it first came out, though, I think I would have been blown away.
The above photo is of a print by artist Jane Mount, a thoughtful and generous gift from friends.
Once a month or so, Wes spends the weekend caring for his parents, who are fragile and need round-the-clock care. They have a wonderful caregiver with them from Sunday night until Friday night. The weekends are then covered by one of their adult children. I’m not sure big families always work out this well, but in the case of my in-laws, their investment in the raising of five children is paying full-circle dividends. Four of the five kids live in the area, so they share the load, faithfully taking their once-a-month turn.
When Wes is away, I’ve learned to relish the quiet by intentionally keeping my weekend a bit more unscheduled. I exercise, read, write, pray, think. I usually tackle some chore, like cleaning out the fridge. It’s not that I can’t do those things when Wes is home. But his weekends away naturally keep some of the social activities—eating out, traveling, gathering with friends or family—at bay. Perhaps more importantly, it gives me stretches of time when I’m alone. In those moments, I realize how rare and precious these moments of quiet are.
Wes and I recently returned from visiting our dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Greyhound (their nom de voyage), in the Republic of Georgia. We’ve been friends with the Greyhounds since we were all in college, and they are very dear to us. So as soon as COVID made international travel seem doable (if not quite prudent), we made the plan to visit them.
Georgia is a land of rich culture, a complicated history, and some of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Which is why Wes, Mrs. G., and I were sitting on a grassy hillside just outside the mountain town of Zhabeshi, waiting for Mr. G to return from Natela’s. We had hiked nearly ten miles on this, the first day of a four-day trek, and we were tired. A blog we’d been following promised us a low-key beer garden at about this point. The mountains were incredible to behold, the company was equally wonderful, but it was hot and hard-going, and we kept talking about how good that cold beer would taste. When we passed through the village without a beer garden sighting, Mr. G. took matters into his own hands by asking a man at a construction site if there was a market nearby. That’s when he was directed to Natela’s house.
While Mr. G went hunting for beer, the rest of us plopped down onto a grassy hill. Almost immediately, a cat and dog meandered over to us. Georgians seem very tolerant of—welcoming even—of stray animals. They are petted and fed and otherwise treated like friendly neighbors. So we weren’t surprised to see these animals approach us. What did surprise us was their appearance. The cat—a trim, spry creature—had a two-tone face. And the dog had what looked like eyebrows and a grin.
“That dog looks weirdly human,” Mrs. G. commented.
“It’s the mouth,” I said. “It looks like it has lips.”
“I think someone’s trapped inside,” Mrs. G. said.
After what seemed like a rather long time, Mr. G. appeared with a two-liter of room-temperature beer and four disposal cups the size of tiny cups you’d get at the dentist. Natela turned out to be a kind woman and very happy to sell Mr. G. some beer and bottled water. Then why did it take so long? She’d been in the middle of shearing a sheep, and it took a few minutes for her to finish up.
In the four days we trekked across mountains and stayed at guesthouses, why focus on this story? I suppose it’s because the trip consisted of two kinds of experiences. On the one hand, immense natural beauty had us oohing and aaahing. On the other, a series of small moments of laughing or discomfort or connection made this trip memorable. I’ll mostly rely on these photos to give you a sense of the natural beauty.
As for other memorable moments, here are a few more:
Debating and discussing whether we would try and cross a river on foot or pay the equivalent of $7 US dollars to be taken across a river on horseback. Deciding to go by horseback, only to turn around to see Mr. G plunging into the river. “Uh, I guess he decided to cross on foot.”
Listening to a fellow guest in the very rural village of Adishi ask for milk for her coffee and realizing that our host had stepped out to grab milk…literally. Well, not so much grabbing the milk, I suppose as the udders.
Making it to our final destination, the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ushguli, home to dozens of Svan towers which have been used since medieval times as barn, home, and defense post, all rolled into one.
Trying to leave Ushguli with a driver whom we had hired to pick us up, only to realize that we’d inadvertently crossed some kind of taxi syndicate who was very unhappy with him and us. We couldn’t understand a word they said, except maybe the mention of Mr. G’s workplace as an excuse, but it took a long time before we (very relieved) were on the road.
Eating at a local restaurant in Mestia that was proudly flying its pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian colors.
Watching the movie Dede in a local pub, then finding out the movie was cast and shot locally, in the very area we had just trekked through. The woman who runs the pub happened to be the casting director and the director’s sister…a local event indeed. Read more about the movie on Mrs. G’s blog.
Three of my closest compatriots have gotten enthused about birding. Really enthused. Like, read-textbooks-buy-equipment-set-weekend-and-vacation-plans-by-it enthused. When people you love are really into something, there’s a spillover effect. And while I’m not a birder, hardly even “birder adjacent,” it’s been a pleasure to grow a bit more aware of our feathered friends.
One day last spring, I looked out my home office window and noticed a rather plain brown bird hopping along with twigs in its beak. Back and forth it went along the ground in front of my window, presumably building its nest. “I’m working and you’re working,” I thought. “But you have to commute.”
Walking along a wooded path in the Berkeley hills, I heard a loud chirping, then spotted a dark-eyed Junko sitting on a branch, singing its little heart out. Its tiny triangular beak opened and closed, opened and closed. “You look just like a cartoon version of a bird singing,” I thought.
I walked by a house and noticed a dove hanging out in the front yard. “Why are you just sitting on the ground like that?” I wondered. The next day, I passed by again and the dove was still there, this time flitting in and out of the bushes. “Oh, I see,” I thought. “You live here.”
Looking back over what I’ve written, I see that there’s a good amount of “direct address” to birds. Is there a birder word for that?
It’s September and I’m driving a vast stretch of Highway 80 with my husband and adult daughter, listening to a San Francisco Giants baseball game. We’re returning to the Bay Area after backpacking in Colorado, a last-minute detour to avoid the wildfires ravaging parts of California. The Giants are at home, playing the Atlanta Braves and leading 4–2, until Atlanta scores three runs to pull ahead. In the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and down to his last strike, Giants second baseman Donovan Solano (just returned from a ten-day Covid quarantine) hits a home run to tie the game and sends it into extra innings. Our car erupts in cheers.
I didn’t grow up a sports fan. My Korean immigrant parents didn’t know anything about America’s pastime. Making a life here took every bit of energy they had, and besides, I was a girl. My brother played volleyball and collected trading cards. I read books and played the piano. To me, baseball fans went to the ballpark with their dads and learned obscure lore at their grandfathers’ knee. They listened to the games under their covers at night, transistor radio pressed to their ear. Like everything else I learned about American life, all I knew about baseball fans I got from TV.
That changed in the fall of 2010. My husband and I were working on a big painting project, so on weekends and evenings, we donned primer-splattered t-shirts and worked while listening to the local broadcasters call the game. The Giants were in the playoffs, but a knowledgeable friend said they wouldn’t go far. To my amazement, San Francisco beat Atlanta in the division series, the Phillies in the championship series, and then defeated the Rangers to win the World Series. I started paying attention at just the right moment. Lightning struck and I was hooked.
Like millions of others, I’ve struggled through the past eighteen months of the pandemic. As I cycled through anxiety and depression, paralysis and rage, consolation arrived from an unexpected source. The 2021 Giants were made up of aging stars, unknown youngsters, and journeyman-like platoon players. They were projected to be good-to-middling, maybe winning 75–80 games. Then, early in the season, they started winning.
Sometimes they won by hitting home runs and playing outstanding defense. Other times, the victory was by the flukiest of margins: a clutch hit, a favorable umpire call, or an opponent’s error. It didn’t matter. Day by day, game after game, the Giants kept winning. Center fielder Mike Tauchman defied gravity to rob Albert Pujols of a home run. LaMonte Wade Jr’s clutch, late-inning hits earned him the nickname “Late Night.” Shortstop Brandon Crawford’s diving stops and acrobatic throws embodied grace under pressure. The pundits and the naysayers and even their own fans kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. They weren’t supposed to be this good, and yet here they were. From May through September, with the richer, astoundingly talented Dodgers breathing down their necks, the Giants hung on to win 107 games and the division by a single game. In doing so, they gave me something that was sorely lacking in this difficult pandemic year. I almost didn’t recognize the feeling: I felt cheerful.
Last Thursday, the Giants lost 2–1 in the final game of the NLDS, after an intensely fought, five-game series against the Dodgers. The season is over for San Francisco. Fans of other teams will continue riding the postseason roller coaster, while Giants’ fans contemplate both a disappointing loss and the magic of a season like no other.
Here’s what I’ll remember: we’re barreling down I-80, the night so black we could’ve been hurtling through space. It’s the bottom of the eleventh now, the game still tied, Atlanta on the field. The bases are loaded with just one out, but the Giants have run out of position players to pinch-hit so the manager Gabe Kapler sends pitcher Kevin Gausman to the plate. We groan. Pitchers are generally terrible batters. Gausman falls behind in the count, then works it full. We lean in, hearts pounding, hardly breathing. Gausman hits a sac fly to deep right. From third base, Brandon Crawford breaks for the plate and executes a perfect fade-away slide. Once again, the Giants win. And there we are — my husband, daughter, and me — beleaguered from the year, still grimy with Colorado dirt, flying through the dark expanse and screaming for joy.
I highly recommend spring backpacking in Big Sur. The hills are still green, wildflowers are plentiful, and it’s not too hot. Let me tell you about the trip that Wes and I took last month (April 2021)
But first, my dehydrator.
I was gifted a very fancy dehydrator and took the plunge to prep two backpacking dinners, as well as some fruit to add to oatmeal. So before I show you pics from our trip, I need to show you photos of this process!
Thai curry, basmati rice, mushroom risotto, and fruit ready to go into the dehydrator.All that food shrunk down to this!I even made this “cozy” to keep food warm and save fuel.
Our first night in Big Sur, we rehydrated the Thai curry and basmati rice (cover with water, soak for 15 minutes. Then heat for 10 minutes on stove, then remove from heat and finish rehydrating in cozy for 10 minutes).
A big success! I feel very empowered and can’t wait to try more kinds of food.
I felt so proud.
Back to Big Sur…
We hiked in at the Pine Ridge Trailhead at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. The trail had just re-opened after being closed for several years due to fires and we appreciated all the trail maintenance that had been done, especially as we passed branch after bush after clump of poison oak. Seriously, so much poison oak. Everywhere we turned, we saw poison oak flourishing. Shiny leaves and matte. Scalloped edges and smooth. Budding with tiny flowers. We hiked along and tried to avoid contact but felt a little doomed, especially when someone wanted to keep exploring, even beyond where the trial had been cleared.
Bushwhacking through what we hope isn’t poison oak.
We found an idyllic spot to camp at Barlow campground. We weren’t sure if it was because so few people had been through recently, but there were no mosquitos, even near the water. The campground even had a newly-constructed pit toilet set up the hill from camp. Unfortunately “far” still meant you could look down and see campers walking around. That was exciting. Also exciting — the preponderance of ticks. Hey, never say this blog sugarcoats the tougher realities of backpacking.
Unfurled fern.
We had a really good time but because poison oak doesn’t show up until about three days after the fact, it took a few days before we could relax and say we’d made it out, rash-free and (mostly) tick free.
I didn’t grow up backpacking or even camping, really. So the pleasures of extended time in the wilderness is still a relatively new pleasure for me. But what a deep pleasure it is.
We did it! After months of “it would be fun if we…” and “we should…” we’ve managed to launch the inaugural episode of Anna and Her Mom Talk About Stuff.
Take a listen and let us know what you think in the comments!
I take a sip from the frozen daiquiri, then offer it to my friend. She takes a long pull from the straw that was just in my mouth. It is the first evening of our New Orleans trip and we’re at a crowded barbecue restaurant with the friends who are hosting us. The pink concoction seems a fitting way to kick off a NOLA vacation. It’s colorful, boozy, and goes down easy.
During the day, we see the sights. We kayak across swampy waterways, cutting through the glassy reflections of cypress and tupelo. We take a tour at the Whitney Plantation, the only museum in Louisiana exclusively dedicated to the lives of the people who were enslaved there. We sample beignets and go through the line at a lunch buffet—twice. On Sunday after church, we go to a small sports bar to watch the Saints play. The restaurant has set up snacks for everyone to share: we join the line for pulled pork sliders. Whenever the Saints score, we high-five everyone and the restaurant sends around a tray of free vodka shots.
At night, we squeeze ourselves into bars that are so crowded that we hand our crumpled bills to strangers who pass our money to the bar, then deliver drinks to us the same way, passing our beers hand-over-hand.
At another crowded bar, my friend gets into a discussion with a friend-of-a-friend about how race impacts education inequity. For a reason no one understands, the man she’s talking to gets offended. You know how those conversations go, right? You’re not even disagreeing and yet you find yourself getting more and more worked up?
This is what I remember about that conversation: not so much of what was said but how they stood. The term “social distance” has not yet entered our vocabulary. The man leans in to make his point; my friend is polite but stands her ground. They shout to be heard above the din. Their faces are inches apart, their invisible breaths aerosolizing in the air between them.
As I was a child growing up in Los Angeles, school taught me about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Even more than any particular history lesson, I remember my feelings in response, a feeling I only ever dared articulate among other Korean-Americans. Yes, the internment of Japanese-Americans was bad, but not nearly as bad as what Japan did to Korea. As an immigrant from Korea with parents who had lived through the occupation, I’d heard chilling stories of what life had been like under Japanese rule. I felt utterly justified in my feelings.
I’ve been thinking about this in light of the uptick in violence and hate speech against Asian- Americans (and around the world) in the era of COVID-19. I read an excellent piece by Cathy Park Hong in the New York Times Magazine and then did something I rarely do—would caution any sane person against doing—I scrolled down past the end of the article to the comments.
Why did you do that? I can see you waving your arms as a warning. Go back! Go back! Are you crazy?
Why did I venture into the intellectual cesspool that is the comment section? In my defense, I’ll say that I’d deeply resonated with Park Hong’s piece and—in a moment that I now see was naïveté—I wondered how it had resonated with my fellow Americans. Maybe I would see lightbulbs going off. Some understanding, some compassion.
There were a variety of comments, some interesting, some loopy. But in response to the disturbing, violent, often-criminal acts against Asian Americans, I noted two themes emerging along the lines of: “Yes, I hear what you’re saying, but…”
China. Commenters brought up China, geopolitics, wet markets, and pangolins. Why? For the same reason people act out against Asian Americans in the first place. America sees Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners. It doesn’t matter how many generations a person has lived in the United States. It doesn’t matter how hard-working, self-sacrificing, or accomplished a person may be. When push comes to shove, Asians are foreign.
African Americans and Latinx folks have it worse. As Park Hong writes in her excellent book of essays, Minor Feelings, racism isn’t a “competitive sport.” But America often treats it like it is.
The comment section of that article felt like it had a particular and menacing message for me and all other Asian Americans: be quiet and stop complaining. Did the commenters really mean it that way? Or was it my own internalized racism that makes me receive it so? Both? Does it matter?
I am ashamed of my coldness toward the suffering of Japanese Americans during World War II. I was bigoted and prejudiced. I felt enraged and helpless about what Japan had done to Korea and used those feelings to justify the hardness of my heart toward the suffering of my fellow Americans, my fellow human beings. That was my personal, individual wrong.
Now I also wonder how much, as a young person, I had already begun swimming in American waters: Asians are perpetual foreigners. Victims are to be pitted against one another. There is always a new way to justify racism.
