JejuGranny

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Warm greetings! Thank you for visiting JejuGranny. My name is Brenda Sunoo. And yes, I am a granny who is living on Jeju Island, South Korea. 

Think about it. If you have ever had a granny that you loved, wasn't she the one who may have helped raise you? Spoiled you? Fed you? Protected you? Gave you a wad of cash on your birthday? Even spanked you when you deserved it, and then kissed you afterwards? 

Most of all, isn't she the one who helped inspire you to become the person you are today? I loved my grannies. And I love stories of other people's grannies. This blog is my tribute to these elders and my gratitude for being one. 

I believe grandparents can remain passionate and purposeful no matter how old we become. 

Leap, Laugh, Love! 

If you have any granny stories you'd like to share, please contact me. Guidelines: 800-1,000 words. One related photo and a website you would like to promote. 

 

You don't have to be a granny to write about one: b13sunoo@gmail.com.  

  • Sakada, guest contributorTHREE ORANGESA group of us were guided over a wooden wharf, each board tilted against the next, uneven and salty. We walked into a warehouse-like building. So official, so dank, so cold and shuttered in by heavy fog.A tall man talked to me through his coyote teeth, with spit falling out of the sides of his mouth.He looked in my bag and snatched upthe three oranges. I was a new immigrant in a new land.I was here in America to marry the manin the photo, the photo I clutched in my left hand. I only spoke Japanese. I only carried one bag and one suitcase. The bag held my three oranges, my favorite kimono, a picture of my mother and father taken the week beforeI left Japan. The oranges were from Hawaii.I bought them from a happy manselling them out of a cart nearthe boat’s back gangway. I ate oneevery day. First I just held the chosen orangein my hand. It reminded me of the sunshine on my face in my family’s garden. As my fingerspulled at its soft flesh, it reminded me of my mother’s softness, her voice overflowingwith a pitched sweetness. One orange a day,as the boat churned its way to San Francisco.The oranges were from a happy man in Hawaii.The tall man took them out of my bag as ifthey belonged to him. He did not look at me.I could not stop myself from looking at him.“Hey Walter, help me out over here” a shorter man shouted, interrupting. The tall man turned and left.I felt the hard floor pushing me towards submission. I heard my mother and father’s voices, advising me to be cautious,but I grabbed those three oranges off the counter,put them back in my bag, and walked into America. _____________This poem is part of a series of poems I am writing about my Obachan (grandmother). I was very young when she died, so I did not know her as I would have liked. I do carry her name, Masako, as my middle name. (Second from right in the photo)In being asked by Brenda to write about my grandmother, I found myself channeling poems. So the poems are written in first-person. Three Oranges is the first poem that came through. In this way, I am getting to know my Obachan on a deeper level, and have Brenda to thank for that. My current project, Save Our Democracy, is both inspired and fueled by my Obachan. I am inspired by the fact that she was an immigrant who came to America with her dreams and desires, for both love and democracy. I am fueled by her strength, fortitude, and courage. My grandfather died and left her as a single widow raising three young children, and she went on to truly shape the trunk of our American family tree. I feel proud that she was such a “badass Obachan,” and she continues to be my role model for now facing the challenges of our times.  Indeed, we are facing tremendous challenges this year. Save Our Democracy recognizes that America’s democracy is in danger and sees the 2020 elections as critical. The Save Our Democracy call-to-action is to frame your conversations for maximum impact, use those conversations as alarm clocks for your unwoke friends and family, and  create a tidal wave of Democratic voters. The book, Save Our Democracy: Wake Up Your Unwoke, Un-decided, Apolitical, Non-Voting, I-Don’t-Care-About-Politics Friends and Family is available here: https://tinyurl.com/SaveOurDemocracyBook. I am available to speak and/or train, individuals or groups, online and in-person. Check out www.SaveOurDemocracyBook.com and www.facebook.com/Sakada.SaveOurDemocracy for more information My poetry book about caregiving and grief, Into A Long Curl, is available at https://tinyurl.com/IntoALongCurl_____________________Sakada is a poet living a wabi sabi life in Southern California. Caption:Masako Isaki, second from right.
  • Little GrandmotherEsther Thorvalds, guest contributorAmma Lilla (pictured as a young girl, in the middle of the photo) is a woman who has no interest in following any of the written and unwritten rules of being a grandmother. An amma, who falls asleep on the couch watching soap operas with the volume turned all the way up, instead of quietly reading in bed. An amma, who takes American line dance lessons and prefers to make friends at the bar rather than the traditional sewing club. An amma, who scandalously, does not knit.My other amma knew all the rules in the granny rule book by heart. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a picture of her in the dictionary if I were ever to look up the word “amma”, the word for grandmother in my language. She’d be standing in the kitchen (I rarely saw her sitting), wearing her soft pastel pink apron with the flowers, the perfect short-cut grey curls on her head, you would never guess it was a wig. Maybe she’d be holding grandpa’s cup of coffee, black with two sugars. The look she must’ve had on her face when her son got together with my mom and she met amma Lilla. As the youngest of three, she got the nickname Lilla, meaning little. And even though she later grew up to be an average sized woman (maybe even a little taller than average) she would always be called Lilla. Even when she became a grandmother, she was called amma Lilla; Little Grandmother. But it’s okay, she likes being thought of as young. As a child I asked her how old she was and I memorized the answer: She was 47. At the time, I didn’t realize her age changed every year, but she liked being 47 years old, so we agreed to keep it that way. She is still 47 today.Amma Lilla is two people; the day-time amma and the night-time amma. Both live inside the same body, but they are completely unaware of each other’s existence. Much like a coin, the two sides will always face away from each other and it is physically impossible for one side to see the other. They don’t even share the same memories. When I tell day-time amma about night-time amma, she says I’m making things up. Both ammas would do anything for their family, although they go about it in very different ways. Day-time amma likes to ask me about my life, but those conversations often drown in worries about anything and everything. I tend to keep things from her, even mundane things like problems with my book-keeper. Her heart is fragile, you might even say it is “little” and I’m afraid there’s not enough room for all those worries in there. Night-time amma is different. She still worries, but speaking her mind comes easy and sometimes it is as if she has no restraints. She would probably tell me to just fire his book-keeping ass and get on with it. But she will always get “little” again and complain about her body or the fact that we don’t call her enough. Night-time amma once told me the story of how she got rid of grandpa. I never really knew the man, only ever talked to him on the phone. When he would call, my mom asked me to pick up the phone and say she wasn’t home. He would sigh and hang up. That was the entirety of our relationship and I have no other memories of that man. But I’ve heard stories. I know amma Lilla spared me a lot of pain that older members of the family had to endure. The story of how amma Lilla broke free started as a volcanic eruption. I’m not speaking metaphorically. Hundreds of people living on a nearby island had to abandon their homes when the island suddenly decided to grow an extra mountain. The people sought refuge in the capital and as you can imagine, the event affected many families. It affected my grandparents too, in the most unlikely way. They didn’t live on the island, they lived in the capital and they were one of those people who opened their home to the poor islanders who lost everything. They hosted a couple, whose home was destroyed in the eruption. My grandpa and the woman had begun having an affair. Unfortunately, for grandpa, it was night-time amma who caught them in the act. Like a mother that lifts a car off her baby, Little Grandmother grabbed her husband, pulled his naked body off the woman in their bed, walked to the door and threw him out of the family for good. The Eldfell eruption of 1973 By Esther Yr Þorvaldsdottir, currently traveling the world, missing her amma.
  • Hoàng Chi Trương, guest contributorI learned what it meant to be a grandmother from my mom, from the million ways she showed her love to the grandkids as soon as they arrived at the door. She showered them with LU butter cookies, Vietnamese egg rolls, tapioca banana chè dessert that she made earlier that day. They were sent home with personalized knitted sweaters or embroidered pillows. Of all the material things she’s given my children, I treasured her lovingly handmade items the most. It was her unique display of love while not having much money as a new refugee in America back in those days.As a young girl, my mom reluctantly gave up schooling for her safety since traveling between villages would mean increasing her chance of being molested by the French and Viet Minh soldiers. She grew up watching the French Colonialists who dominated the landscape during the day, and the Viet Minh or the League for the Independence of Vietnam at night, led by Ho Chi Minh, as they plotted to regain our independence. Instead of learning math and writing, her father wanted her to focus on the art of domesticity, learning how to cook, knit and embroider to become a more eligible bride. Before she married my father, she helped her sister with the family’s rice planting, harvest, and other chores. But she also had villagers commission decorative pillowcases for special occasions such as a wedding or new babies, or the occasional sofa pillows in the salons of wealthy families. After she became a wife and mother, she used her skills for her family. She  sewed, embroidered, and knitted articles of clothing or decorations, and started the traditions of baby’s first set of knitted bonnets, sweaters, booties, and gloves. Each baby or grand-baby would be blessed with a set of her embroidered pillows, including a half moon head pillow and two long bolsters for the crib padding. Traditionally, the patterns were usually of flowers, bamboo, and birds. But when we came to America, she added the popular designs of the Sanrio Hello Kitty because her kids loved them.We came to America in 1975, and by December that year, my brother was born. Bethel Lutheran Church sponsored our family, and the kind ladies in the congregation gave my mom a white bassinet with frilly white laces. I don’t remember if she knitted or sewed anything that year for the new baby because we had just arrived in Fresno in August. I don’t think my dad knew where to buy yarns or knitting needles, or that they were even on his priority list.Soon after we moved to our house on Anna Street a year later, my mom had a few anodized aluminum knitting needles and yarns. She knitted sweaters for her baby boy while watching TV yet not missing a beat or having to look down at her stitches. The rhythmic metal needles making the click-click sounds was oddly soothing. I watched my mom with fascination and admiration. We were poor in those days, but we felt grateful and happy because we had each other. My mom didn’t drive, so my dad took her to Beverly Fabrics for yarns, and she knitted a lot of gifts for each of her children and grandchildren. She also bought white cotton fabric to sew pillowcases and colored embroidery floss for embroidery.I felt proud that I could sometimes contribute to her artwork by buying carbon paper for tracing designs onto the white fabric for embroidery. She asked me to thread the needles because I had better eyesight than hers. Occasionally, my mother showed me how to make a braid of different color floss for easy access whenever she needed a new strand. She taught me how to unravel the skein of yarn and wind it into a ball before knitting because it would roll off smoothly that way. Sometimes she didn’t like what she knitted. If an item got too small, my mom would ask me to unravel the pieces into a new ball so she could start another project.In those hours of sitting near her while we watched TV, I would be her helper with these tasks to speed up her work. The jobs were never time-consuming or complicated. I appreciated the feeling of being helpful or even needed by my mom. I learned how to knit and embroider simple stitches. She loaned me her spare set of needles and showed me simple stitches, or how to add or subtract them. She even showed me how to knit a hemline or cables.  Despite her attempts to teach me, I only embroidered annoyingly simple items. It must be my lack of patience and practice which my mom had plenty of throughout her life.We didn’t say we loved each other in Vietnamese until we were older and more Americanized. When she was in the early stages of Parkinson’s, I began to tell my mom that I loved her. She smiled in her modest way and responded that she was happy and gratified that she has lived and given tirelessly to her husband, children, grandchildren, and her children-in-law. She had no regrets. My mother knitted and embroidered her enduring gifts of love to her children and grandchildren and though she never said it, her “I love you's” were intertwined in these stitches. I am learning from my late mother what it means to be a grandmother and keeping her legacy alive through my writing on memories of her love, sacrifices, challenges, and triumphs.Hoàng Chi Trương, Author of TigerFish and No Ordinary SueGet TigerFish, a memoirGet TigerFish AudiobookGet No Ordinary SueWebsite: www.ChiBeingChi.comTwitter: twitter.com/ChiBeingChiInstagram: www.instagram.com/hoangchitruong.author/ Facebook: facebook.com/beingchi
  • Guest contributor Ton Thi Thu NguyetThe words {quote}granny, granny{quote} sound so sweet coming from a child born when one’s granny is still alive. I was an unfortunate child because my grandma had passed away when I was born. I only saw her photo on the altar when my mom took me to my uncle's house to observe the anniversary of her death, a Vietnamese custom.In my mind, she was like a fairy. She sat holy-like on an old style wooden chair while holding a fan made of goose-feather. Her hair was completely black. I was also told that her polished-black teeth from areca nut and betel leaf added to her charming smile even at an old age. It is considered typical for Vietnamese beauty. This image remains deeply etched in my mind and heart. Having been born without a grandma, I always wished to remain healthy until I had a grandchild. At age 54, my wish came true. I can’t express my feeling at the moment of my grandson's birth. He was so lucky to be held by his grandma who took him from the arms of the midwife. I put him in a tiny cradle filled with the happiness from both his mom and his grandma.Every two hours, he would open his eyes. When he looked at me with a special flash, I knew he was hungry. Unable to wait, he cried until he woke up his mother from her tired and paintful sleep.I love them both as if they were my drops of blood. We were three generations together in a small room at the hospital. I could feel three layers of happiness. While showering them with motherly love, I began to think about my own mom who passed away when I was only 10. That's why I feel my daughter, MyMy, was as unlucky as I was because there was no grandmother to hold her as I did for her son. The maternal link exists as a vain of blood in our bodies. Once the child hurts, the mother feels more painful, and the mom's mom feels even ten times more painful, and so forth. That demonstrates how great the love of a grandma is for her grandchild. The truth is that when I just had my daughter, I loved her the most. I still miss her so much when we are separated. I would sacrifice everything for her. But since I became a grandma, all of these feelings are now reserved for my grandson. I am certain that my daughter will have the same feeling once she becomes grandma. In Vietnam,  we have a very famous saying about the family love: “Tears always flow to the lower gap.”Time flies! I have been in the position of grandma for 10 years now. I feel satisfied with my grandson as he is growing and getting better year by year. Now my grandson and I are the same height. Even if we are far away, we can still see each other every evening via video. Sometimes, we three generations gather together for the holidays here and there or out of the country.Wishing to live or living to wish, whatever it is, I wish to become a great-grandma in my 80s. Then I will be able to witness my daughter feeling the joy of becoming a grandma!Legend of the areca nut and betel leaf in Vietnamhttps://sites.google.com/site/vietnamesemythsandlegends/the-legend-of-the-betel-leaves-and-the-areca-nuts
  • 



I was born in South Korea.  When I was two, the Korean War started with the sudden invasion of South Korea by communist forces.  I became a homeless refugee with my mother and older sister, as well as many of my countrypersons.  
After the fighting ended, I lived with my mother’s relatives before coming to America.  It was the best year of my childhood.  I lived with my great-grandmother, grandfather, grandmother, mother, an uncle and my older sister.  
I especially liked my great-grandmother, Whang Yungyoung. There was a special bond between us.  She was the oldest and I the youngest in the extended family.  I slept with her.  She felt warm.  I sensed her love for me.  
I was the only one in the family that was born in South Korea.  All of my extended family, including my sister, were born in North Korea.  My parents decided to move to South Korea, when they noticed harsh treatment of Christians and anyone connected to America.  My father was a Christian minister, and he was studying English.  He wanted to study in the United States (US) or in Europe.  He, in fact, went to the US to study when my mother was pregnant with me (her pregnancy was hidden from my father.)    
After the Korean War ended, my mother decided to live with her family before going to America to join our father.  
We joined our father in Los Angeles, when I was eight.  He was the minister of a Korean church where I met other Korean children, among them Brenda Paik.  We became part of the Sunday School group; and we had fun at picnics and house parties.
As I was growing up, I did not remember what it was like to have been in the Korean War.  There were no photographs to help me remember.  My mother told me about her experiences during the war.  
It was not until I was in my twenties, that I became consciously aware of my feelings and of being in the war.  At the time, I was in counseling due to being unhappy.  Although my life seemed to be going well, there was something missing in my life.  
The missing part was my childhood memories.  I had a wonderful counselor, Henia Haidu, who had experienced being in World War II, as a Jew, in Europe.  She was much older than I, and she seemed to care for me.  She took me to a “Rebirthing Session” where through deep chest breathing, one was able to come in contact with one’s childhood memories and feelings.  Henia was with me as I began to remember being the little girl in the war.
After the session, I wrote a poem of my experience of being in the war.  I remembered being alone and hungry; and so happy with a ball of rice that was left for me.  The poem is Ball of Rice:

Ball of Rice								
My ball of rice:  nice
warm, light and bright.

Where is mother?  
Where is sister?
	Gone.
	Alone.
My ball of rice: nice.

I eventually wrote more poems about the Korean War from what I remembered, what my mother told me and from stories by American Korean War veterans that I met after coming to America.  The poems were collected into a chapbook, Sungsook: Korean War Poems. The title is taken from my Korean name, Sungsook, that I was given at birth.  Portia is the name that was given to me in America.

When Brenda Paik Sunoo told me about her granny project, I thought, “I am not a grandmother, but who I really remembered was my great-grandmother.”  So for Jejugranny, I wrote the following poem about my nohalmony, which is great-grandmother in Korean.

My Nohalmony, My Great-Grandmother

You and I, 
we have a bond.
You are the eldest and I am the youngest in our Korean family.
In your eyes,
	I feel your joy watching me eat kim-chee with chopsticks or
	walking wiggly-waggly in the front yard.
Your hands of a life-time of touches now stroke my hair, nurture my goodness.
I run into the folds of your arms after being scolded for 
dropping sticky sauce on the floor.
I stay in your warmth until I soften into happiness.
In the night, between the comforters, 
you mumble words of sorrow raising a young son alone.  
Within the warmth of your wrinkles, I learn a gentle strength.  
After going away, away to America, 
I heard from mom that you had died, in Korea.  
You had dementia with loss of memory and needing care.    
Yet now, in the still moments, 
	you smile and weep with me.   




After my retirement from my career in Public Health, I became involved in promoting poetry in our community (Bakersfield, California) and producing events for peace; most notably, the International Day of Peace on September 21st of each year. 

There are selected poems from Portia’s chapbook on her website www.portiachoi.com.   The chapbook, Sungsook: Korean War Poems, is also available from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Sungsook-Korean-Portia-S-Choi/dp/1482007258.
  • Eric Hobson, guest contributorGrandmothers—we are each issued an unmatched pair at birth. These are important ladies in your life as each contributes about 25% of your DNA; that’s a total of half of your genetics. If you are lucky, grandmothers will live long enough to be a factor in your formative years.I was fortunate enough to have both grandmothers live during my adolescent years. Both were born in the late 1800s and were college educated (extremely rare in those days). My paternal grandmother, Bess Hobson (photo on left), attended a music conservatory, and my maternal grandmother, Virginia Nichols (photo on right), graduated from Stanford University, with a degree in Romance languages. Both lived with me for many years.The larger influence came from my maternal grandmother after her husband (my grandfather) died shortly after I was born. She then moved in to help my mother raise me. She was a very proper Victorian lady in all things. I only heard her swear twice in the 15 or so years she was with us. Both times were because of some I said or did.The second time involved a situation of yard work and trash collection. Mom had hired me and a buddy to clean up the yard. In the course of our chores, we placed some soil and rocks into the trash cans. Trash collection was scheduled on the same day, and the gentleman charged with emptying our cans did not appreciate our efforts as the cans were obviously a bit ‘overweight.’ Being a nice gentleman of Italian ancestry, as were most trash collectors in San Francisco in those days, he proceeded to communicate his displeasure with our behavior. The lesson became somewhat bellicose and was overheard by Grandma Virginia inside the house. She made haste to the breezeway where the trash cans were located and proceeded to chastise the gentleman in Italian and English for his unsavory language (her term) suggesting that his parents might not have been married (Italian being close enough to English that the meaning was fairly easy to translate).The first time that I heard Grandma Virginia curse was directed at me. Most children go through a stage where they don’t like eating the crusts of bread. I was no exception. Well, being a bright child and with something of a smart mouth, not always connected to the brain's censor, I got in trouble. Now I don’t mean to suggest that this was the first nor the last time that my mouth got me into trouble as anyone who knows me will confirm. On this occasion, I chose to make my case for not eating the reviled crust of my lunch-time sandwich. The conversation went something like this:Grandma:  “Eat your sandwich”  Me: “I don’t like the crust!”Grandma:  “Eat!”Me: “No!”Grandma: “Think of all the starving children in the world” (this was shortly after WWII and during the Korean conflict)Me: “Give me their addresses and I’ll send these crusts to them!{quote} (see smart uncensored mouth)Grandma.: “You DAMN kid!”Me: “        “ (speechless and shocked)I didn’t even know my Grandmother knew how to swear.I knew less about my paternal grandmother, Bess. I believe she attended the music conservatory in San Jose that became the music school part of the University of the Pacific. She was a pianist. My greatest regret is that I could never convince her to play for me. Her life was very different from that of my other grandmother. I learned that her husband had committed her to a state hospital for ‘involutionary melancholia’ (depression). I assume this was after 1911 and before 1918, which represents the date of birth of her two sons. I recently learned that she had another pregnancy that resulted in the birth of another son in 1908 who died after only two days – sounds to me like post-partum depression.I have not found in the state records any information about a divorce, so perhaps she and my grandfather had a legal separation and not a divorce. In any case, some time in the thirties they no longer lived as man and wife.At the end of WWII, my mother, with me in tow, returned to the West Coast from the East Coast where my father had been stationed throughout WWII. Mom made sure that I met and had a relationship with all of my living grandparents.Grandma Bess supported herself in Redwood City as an office worker for the State of California until she retired in the 1950s. In the mid-50s, she moved into the mother-in-law apartment in Mom’s house. It is during this period that most of my memories emerge—mostly around food.Once a week, I would go down to Grandma Bess’s apartment for supper. I would always request her carrot salad. It was a simple mixture of grated carrots mixed with raisins and pineapple chunks dressed with a simple mayonaise dressing. I could have made a meal just from that concoction.Having to live frugally after her divorce, she had always lived in a studio apartment because her salary and later state pension and Social Security were not very generous. Bess’ favorite dessert was butterscotch pudding. Bess found a way to serve single size portions that she could afford (this is long before such things were available). She let me in on her secret – Gerber’s butterscotch pudding baby food. I still, on occasion, get strange looks when I buy a jar or two at Safeway supermarket.In the late 1950s, Bess moved into a different apartment where she could serve as concierge of the building in exchange for a reduced rent. By this time I was learning to drive and for the next few years I would drive her back to her new apartment after our weekly dinners.Both Grandmothers lived long lives. I was fortunate to have had their love, wisdom and their hand in helping me live long enough to now be a grandparent X 5.Eric Hobson is a retired high school teacher and college instructor. He is a disabled Vietnam veteran who writes poetry and lives in Reno with his wife, Eileen, of 50 years.Here's a recipe for carrot and raisin salad--with mayonaise:https://www.dukesmayo.com/recipe/carrot-raisin-salad/
  • Noah benShea, guest contributorMany years ago, I wrote a line in one of my books that has grown more true to me over the years. I suspect the greater truth was always present. It just took me some time to grow more present. Life can be like that. While I have long thought this is true:“It is the silence between the notes that makes the music.”What I have only more recently recognized is that this can also be true with the people in our lives. And family is a way of holding hands with forever.My mother’s mother, Annie Lazarus, came down with an appendix attack two weeks after my mother was born. The family was poor, the doctor was drunk and Annie died. My mother was placed in an orphanage and sustained her own private hell. When my mother was very late in her life, and I stood by her bed, she wept for her mother. When I asked about the need for this sorrow so many years after the fact, she scolded me saying, “This is my hurt. Don’t you try to take it away from me!” Hurt can be a sculptor in our lives. Every work of art does not illicit happiness. But feeling. I was named after the mother my mother never knew. When my mother passed, I was given the hand painted photo of my grandmother. This photo is old, and I am much older than Annie when she passed. She is on a wall in my office. Before I head out of town to give a talk, I kiss the frame, am sure I see my grandmother smile at me, and I absolutely feel her presence in my life. Here too is the silence between the notes that makes the music. In all of our lives there will come a time when we learn that those who are absent may have gone away, but they are not gone. The veil between the worlds is very porous. I have repeatedly reminded others of this, if only to remind myself. The truth does not go into hiding because we shut our eyes.Those who we have never met are still able to meet us. And will meet us on the other side. In life, silence can be a silent presence. Noah benShea, author of {quote}We are All Jacob's Children--A Tale of Hope, Wisdom and Faith{quote}Copyright 2018 All rights reservedTo order the book:https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-All-Jacobs-Children/dp/1732476004?
  • Gail Whang, guest contributorI retired in 2007 from the Unified School District in Oakland, California. At age 61, my body was as stiff as a board. When I bent over, I could only touch my knees. I also suffered for years with a frozen shoulder. A longterm workoholic, my idea of de-stressing was to scream at the top of my lungs whenever the Warriors scored a basket. If not watching TV sports, I was also addicted to Korean dramas. My latest, “Mr. Sunshine” on Netflix. But one day, I received a postcard in the mail. It was an ad for Qigong classes in a neighborhood yoga studio.  Never having done any meditative practice before, I was intrigued and ready to try out a new activity. I had witnessed my parents, from ages 50 to 80, practice Tai-chi and extol its benefits.I remember the first day of class. We were a small group of 10. Even though the movements were gentle, my hands could never reach beyond my kneecaps. I kept thinking to myself, “Oh god, I can’t do this!”But I stuck with it. After several months of classes, my teacher, Kirstin Lindquist, introduced the idea of a 100-day challenge. Being goal oriented, I took on the challenge of practicing 100 days in a row in order for Qigong to become a habit. It didn’t matter where I was. My daily practice continued under the Eiffel Tower in Paris, during a safari in Tanzania, on the cliffs overlooking Iguazu Falls, Argentina, and under the reunification statue in Pyongyang, North Korea. I’ve even practiced in an airplane en route to Vietnam. As of September 2018, I’ve reached 3,800 days in a row—missing only a few days due to pneumonia and my mom’s recent passing.  Eight years into this practice, I went back to school to become a teacher of qigong.  After completing a year long certification program, I now teach Qigong to students of all ages, including my grandchildren... ages 3 and 15. At age 72, I can now bend over and place my palms on the ground. Oh, I still scream when the Warriors beat their opponents. But my greatest satisfaction comes when my students tell me they’ve overcome their insomnia, anxiety, aches and pains.Gail is a master of Wild Geese Dayan Qigong and teaches classes at Energy Matters Eastbay in Oakland, California. www.energymatterseastbay.com
  • Elaine Murata Sunoo, guest contributorMy Grandma played a major role in our family throughout our lives.  One of many memories is Grandma in the kitchen.  She owned the kitchen!After World War II, as Japanese-American families began their resettlement after leaving the internment camps, it was not uncommon to have multi-generations living together under the same roof.   I felt only comfort and security that my widowed grandmother, my father, mother, and older brother by six years all lived together.  During those years, my mother, who loved to cook, enjoyed having extended family and friends over for a meal at a moment’s notice.  But, life changed in an instant for us when my mother died very unexpectedly.  She was 40 years young, I was 10 years young, and Grandma was 66 years old!   She stepped into our kitchen and feeding the family became her responsibility and the kitchen became her domain.I loved her cooking!  I loved the Japanese meals she prepared:  Rice, tsukemono, varieties of fish, vegetables.  On special occasions, she would make maki sushi and inari sushi.    Every Boy’s Day, she would roll sushi which she would share with the aunties/uncles/cousins and close friends.  Every Girl’s Day, she would prepare (everything from scratch) sweet manju and again would share with many of us.But, cooking was sometimes challenging as she tried to please her two young grandchildren.  I learned many years later, that Grandma asked her daughters to teach her how to make a few standard “American” meals for us.One day, as a high school student, I came home upset that as part of our club’s big potluck dinner event, several of us were asked to prepare and bring a casserole.  I had only a very vague idea what a casserole was – and no clue how to prepare one . . . and I assumed Grandma was even more clueless than I.   Turning to my brother, I explained my dilemma.  Before I knew it, I was in tears, feeling sad that  “If I had a mother . . . .  “Well, to my surprise, he suggested a do-able solution:  Grandma, he reminded me, makes spaghetti using Lawry’s packaged spaghetti sauce.  “Just cook some hamburger and onions, add the packaged mix and a can of tomato paste and water.  Then, mix it together with cooked spaghetti noodles. Grate cheese over it all . . . throw it into the oven!   That’s it!”On the evening of the event, the casserole turned out fine. I proudly took it to the potluck dinner.  But, I realized that I much preferred Grandma’s comfort food to the assortment of casseroles on the buffet table . . . and I came to appreciate her endless efforts to feed and please us. Grandma died in her sleep peacefully in 1990 at age 98, after hosting a large family dinner two days earlier. She amazingly prepared some of her specialties!  I know it was her way of saying good-bye to us all!And now, as a 70-year-old daughter and grandmother, I am cooking my grandma’s Japanese comfort food for my 101-year-old father. Elaine Murata Sunoo is the childhood friend and sister-in-law of JejuGranny. (In November, Elaine's father, Tetsuo Murata, passed away peacefully and quietly in his home in Los Angeles, California.)Photo of Hisayo Inouye Murata – 81 years oldTo learn how to make some Japanese comfort food, view:https://www.foodandwine.com/blogs/9-japanese-comfort-foods-make-right-now
  • Dexter Kim, guest contributor I remember my amusement when my dad told me he joined a gym. It wasn’t because he wasn’t physically fit—he rode his bike to work every day until he retired—but I didn’t see him as the kind of guy who would be pumping weights and checking out his 70-something-year-old guns in the mirror. I’m sure I thought it was good that he wanted to get out of the house and stay active, even if I was skeptical he would go on a regular basis. But go he did—not to pump iron but to splash around in water aerobics classes and to steam his arthritic bones in the sauna. He tried to convince my mom to join after her own retirement but she was immovable in her refusal. Despite being 11 years younger, she was an even less likely gym rat candidate than he was. There was just no way her Korean War frugality could ever conceive of throwing money away on something so frivolous. Besides who had the time? He was able to use that frugality against her, however, when he bought her a membership for Christmas, knowing that she would never allow that money to go to waste. So she went with him, albeit begrudgingly at first.As the years passed, the gym—along with aerobics at the local senior center and tai chi at the park for my mom—became part of their daily routines. But despite all the exercise, my dad’s health was in decline. Along with the rheumatoid arthritis, neuropathy and a host of other ailments—that he would, without warning, list off to complete strangers—had set in. Slowly my mom took over the role of his caretaker, which was no easy task. The pain and knowledge that he wasn’t able to do a lot of things he could when he was younger made him often grumpy and short-tempered.I’m sure there were days when he woke up feeling he would rather stay in bed than jump in a pool with a bunch of elderly ladies, but when he was there, his demeanor changed. While my mom was in her yoga class he would hold court in the lobby and chat up anyone passing by. “Suddenly, he’s like a different person, smiling away,” my mom would say. Even though these interactions were primarily with members of the opposite sex, my mom harbored no jealousy and even encouraged his behavior because it improved his mood so dramatically. That kind of thinking struck observers as highly modern for a Korean woman of her age, but she was always, first and foremost, a pragmatist, so if socializing made him feel better, and in turn, made him easier to get along with at home, she was all for it.More than four years after my dad’s death, my mom still attends the gym with a religious fervor, sometimes twice a day. It’s not only her workout spot but also her community center where she makes lunch dates and connects with friends. Maybe it’s also comforting for her to spend time in the place where he was often the happiest. When he gave her that first membership, we laughed about how his gift seemed more for himself than her. Now I wonder if he anticipated that it would continue to keep her moving and healthy after he was gone. Perhaps not, but I can imagine his look of satisfaction and amusement with the idea, smiling away.Dexter Kim is a writer, editor, filmmaker and former Korea Times English Edition staff writer.Never Too Old to Find New Friends:https://www.aarp.org/relationships/friends/info-04-2011/never-too-old-for-friends.html
  • I grew up living with my maternal grandmother, Yim Ai-sung. In Korean, we refer to grannies as “halmoni.” Mine immigrated to the United States from Pyongyang, Korea in the early 1900s. In 1916, she met my grandfather, the Rev. Yim Chung-koo, who died in his 50s in 1939. So I only knew my halmoni as a widow. She lived with my family in Los Angeles. If anyone were to ask me how I learned about Korea history and Korean culture, it was certainly through her. She not only cooked Korean food, but spoke and taught us how to read Korean. Halmoni also took us to the Korean Methodist Church every Sunday, and told us stories about our ancestral homeland.The only time my halmoni didn’t live with us was during my high school years. I would visit her nearby apartment and watch soap operas and TV dramas together. In particular, she liked to watch “As the World Turns” and “Dr. Kildare.” Actor Richard Chamberlain made her swoon while she smoked her cigarettes. She was an expert seamstress, and sewed most of my Halloween costumes over the years, including an angel’s gold satin dress. I think of her frequently, even though she passed away in the mid-60s. In fact, I still use the same brass Korean ladle that she used to serve mandoo, a Korean dumpling soup. If ever I had to flee from the house in emergency, it’s the first item I would grab. As the late Anthony Bourdain says: “When someone serves you their food, they are sharing their story, their history.” To view a list of the word “grandmother” in different languages, go to:https://www.verywellfamily.com/ethnic-names-for-grandmothers-1695525
  • If you think you’ve got too many pictures on your Iphone, take heart. You can easily delete, store them on an external hard drive or send them to Dropbox or ICloud. But what about all those piles of family photos stored in boxes in your attic, basement or garage? According to Mitch Goldstone, president of Scan My Photos, “The average household has 5,000 photos.” Yikes!What to do? Even if you didn’t scan all of them, take a few special ones like I did of my mother on her honeymoon. Yep, grandmothers were once young and fresh brides before they turned grey. I love this 3x4 inch photo I found of my mom. It was taken by my father on a cheap camera. My mom appears impatient. “It was such a hot day when your dad took that photo!” I gave it to a professional photographer who scanned, enlarged and converted it into a larger sepia-toned photo. When others view it, they think she’s a model promoting the beauty of Yosemite National Park. So don’t throw out all of your old prints. Sort, save, touch-up and share. You just might find a gem at the bottom of that box. For more information about scanning old photos, go to:http://framework.latimes.com/2010/09/21/boxes-of-old-photographs-%E2%80%93-and-a-simple-solution/
  • Today, I begin with a tribute to my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Tycine Webb. She taught at Sixth Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles, California. We’re talking ‘50s. Imagine…at age 99, she authored a book of poems entitled “Political Chronicles” that followed the U.S. 2016 presidential elections and much of its subsequent drama. My favorite teacher is still taking the lead. Bravo, Mrs. Webb! Here is what’s written on amazon.com:“Political Chronicles 2016/2017 is a book of poetry that captures the climate of the 2016 presidential election and subsequent continuous post election drama. The crazy and oftentimes deplorable behavior that Trump displayed during and after the campaign is directly and humorously confronted in this collection of poems. At 99 years of age, Tycine Randolph Webb has a way of {quote}telling it like it is{quote} that will have you laughing out loud so much that you will actually feel better in light of what is happening right before our eyes in this country. In the first section, poems like {quote}Credentials{quote} address the questions that we all had about the qualifications of Trump as a presidential candidate. In it she says, {quote}When applying for a position, You need a resume-a good disposition, The man's credentials we need to review, You might have missed a clue.{quote} The second section is about the first days post-election. In poems like {quote}Hope Fades{quote} she questions Trump's ability to lead the nation in a positive direction. In it she says, {quote}if hoping for a future that's bright, So far nothing looks right{quote} The last section is an ode to Obama, Michelle, and Hillary and how their leadership and professionalism will be missed. Hang on for books 2, 3,......for as long as Trump's in office, the antics will continue and the poems will keep flowing!”To purchase Mrs. Webb’s book, click on this link:https://www.amazon.com/Political-Chronicles-2016-2017-Written/dp/1522030166
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