1/31/2022 ‒
Sticky sticky

It's the Lunar New Year once again, which means at some point in the past few days Shalla and I went tikoy-buying for our families.

It's the time when Shalla would tell me about how the people who would hurl Chinese stereotypes at her would be the same persons who would wonder loudly if they'll be getting tikoy this year.

It's also the time when I would insist on getting our families tikoy that's not widely available. I mean, the stuff available in malls do it in a pinch, but I remember a few years back, when I found myself roped into a Binondo food crawl with Shalla's former work colleagues, smack in the middle of Lunar New Year celebrations. The place was really crowded - I'm sure someone tried to slash my pockets, which is a shame because it was a new pair of shorts I wore on that day - but you wouldn't see Chinese-Filipinos. Apparently they skip the day because of the crowds.

Read more »

1/30/2022 ‒
I eat alone

For a moment, it felt like we had run out of shows to watch. Netflix has gotten boring, YouTube can only do so much, and we're accidental cord cutters, because I chose to get a landline phone rather than cable TV. So we had to dig a little deeper.

What we ended up watching was Sister's Slam Dunk, a five-year-old Korean variety show. (By the way, "variety" in Korean television parlance can be loosely called a "reality show", where a cast of celebrities do challenges. There's no big prize in the end; just people bouncing off each other.) I watched the second season - which saw the formation of a girl group out of two comedians, two actresses, and three singers - religiously, but I haven't seen the first season, which (partially) did the same thing and found itself with a really big success. So, we thought, let's watch that, then. There were episodes on YouTube, after all. Full ones. Officially uploaded ones.

The show's premise was to fulfill the dreams of its six cast members. The girl group thing was the second dream, and took eleven intense episodes. But the first was about getting a license to drive a bus and tour her friends to somewhere in Korea (which did kind of happen), and these shows would have to establish the chemistry between the cast, so on the third episode there was a mini-dream thing where more lower-stakes dreams were fulfilled.

Read more »

1/25/2022 ‒
Stan politics

I've followed K-pop long enough - six years in full immersion, nine years in total - to be able to say that I've seen the best, and worst, of fan behavior.

Yes, it doesn't just happen in K-pop, but for some reason it's more intense when it comes to those acts. I mean, have you seen, say, One Direction fans rent billboards to celebrate, say, Liam Payne's birthday? (And maybe beg that he return to the group and fulfill that reunion pipe dream?) Well, maybe they have, and I just don't know.

But you get the idea. K-pop fans can be really intense. The moment you step into the fray you're asked - demanded? - to choose your side, and defend it to the hilt. Sure, you can choose not to do so - I find that following everyone helps, and even then it doesn't always work - but the noise will be so loud, and the need to belong be so overwhelming, that you end up doing so anyway.

Read more »

1/06/2022 ‒
It's your fault you don't have any friends

I would say that, generally, I don't have many friends.

Yes, this depends on where my head's at in a given moment. Sometimes I'll feel good and be amazed at how many friends I actually have. More often, though, I'd say I have absolutely no friends. Colleagues, classmates, yes. Friends, well, that's harder to say.

Yes, I'm almost 33, and at this point I should not really be whining about being where I am at this point. But almost all of the time, the feeling of being isolated and alone is crushing, more so these days when we're not really supposed to be out for "non-essential" reasons. When you're alone with your thoughts and you can't really do anything about it, well, that's difficult. Knowing you can't really just speak up even to those you feel really comfortable with, more so.

Read more »