Nature is metal.
Buford Highway Farmers Market. Doraville, GA.
At the top of this post there is a picture of a plaza signage that has some significance if you are Asian and grew up in Metro Atlanta in the 90s. This was a once a week ritual that got my parents excited whenever we pulled in. Every time it was worth the extra 30 minute drive from Johns Creek just to get the ingredients to make our food at home. If you’re Asian like me, there may have been similar sentiments in your own life. If you’re Asian and was born in the late 90s, early 2000s…. you’re welcome. Us and your parents worked really hard to make Pleasant Hill Road what it is… ungrateful bitch :P (KIDDING)
Buford Highway Farmers Market was great as a kid. So much activity and life. So much culture and diversity in one place, all the time. Not a single white or black person in sight sometimes… only Latinx and Asians everywhere. It smelled like ass. It was great. Truly a sanctuary for bi-linguals all over the state. Before HanGang opened, it was the only place my parents knew to buy Kimchi for our home.
It’s an obvious answer when asking why my parents were so hype about going to the Asian market. You can’t buy red pepper flakes at Kroger…. back at that time not even sesame oil. Soy sauce was in most grocery stores… but either some american brand or overpriced kikkomons. Leaving every trip with a few to-go kimbap and dduck packs was the highlight of every trip. The taste when those snacks are fresh for a young korean kid is unmatched. Truly some of my fondest memories and favorite times spent with my family. How much difference a grocery carrying the food you eat can only be felt by only certain people… bi-linguals.
I grew up going to a Korean church. For most Korean families, This was the one day in the week that held so much importance…. and in some cases it’s not because of Jesus. Korean church for our parents was the place where they could let their guard down. No code switching and in every interaction they were afforded the ability to eloquently speak about life. As a kid, watching my parents talk to other parents… it felt so precious. Every conversation, every word and gesture had so much depth. I could see their personalities coming to life, because usually its the language barrier that leaves them for a loss of words. I feel so dumb when I try to speak Korean, I know there were times when they felt dumb trying to speak english as well.
Religion growing up was taken straight out of the white evangelical playbook. Church culture, morals, values all taken and influenced by the ever powerful spiritual colonizer. The english speaking kids ministry had it way more nuanced than the korean speaking parents ministry. We all grew up praising white jesus. We all believed it was white jesus that saved us. There was no debate about it because… there was nothing else to compare it to. White missionaries from USA and England planted churches in Korea way before I was born… shiet probably even before my parents were born. White jesus was engrained thick in our religious culture. We knew nothing else.
I think most people stumble upon multiple awakenings or revivals in their lives. I remember the first time I actually cared about what I was wearing. I was in the 3rd or 4th grade…. My dad bought me a Nike winter coat.. It was black with red sleeves and had the Nike logo on the left chest. That same day he bought me a pair of black Nike CB 94’s. I was introduced to the Nike air bubble that day, and insisted that I buy the bigger size so my shoes could have the air bubble in them… (insisted is a nice word…. basically I was being a little brat shit) I had clown feet, but I wanted my first-time ever stunt to be done with incredible poise. Whether or not it was a success, I don’t remember… I think my first attempts of being a hypebeast was over taken by various outdoor activities with friends. The Barkley’s didn’t last long…. that I do remember.
Another moment of awakening was freshman year of college when I got introduced to Black Star and Black on Both Sides. I grew up knowing my calling in life was to love my neighbor as I love myself…. Regardless of color, race, culture, creed, etc. I have no memories of my parents being malicious toward anyone growing up, but we grew up in a neighborhood that had little problems and little diversity… Things were so chill where I lived we never had any issues. One of my memories when I was a child I have related to race and why it matters is when my dad once bought a car with cash. We had been car shopping all day, and finally got to a place where a transaction started. All I remember is that the salesman was FUCKING nice to my whole family, and my dad was laughing a lot. I remember when we got home, I overheard my dad wholesomely saying to my mom, “That guy definitely changed his style once I put the cash on the table… He probably thought we were some poor oriental people…” Both of my parents laughed and I remember thinking huh… I guess people do really care about stuff like that…
Back to freshman year. I knew my mind, body and soul was all about good vibes and equality, but I never did any research or learned about the ways of inequality… I knew there was large populations of poor black people, but I never questioned why that was a thing… until I started to do the research and started learning myself. So much ignorance in my eyes. So much I needed to learn about life… So much CONTEXT I did not understand.
Some people live their whole lives missing that particular awakening… More on that to come in part 2. I’m sleep af.
