where i am.

These immigrants are funny. Immigrants of all kinds are a funny lot, I guess. They come here or there, to a place like this. To be part of one of the most interesting social experiments (at least the largest) humankind has endeavoured in the past couple hundred years. I guess I'm exaggerating, of course. There's been some interesting social experiments in the past (just not this large, unless you count the macro stuff.), I'm sure. Well, actually, let's count the macro stuff.

We've been up to some funny shit.

Now, this is my first post, of course, so I'm allowed to be broad and to leave ideas hanging, leaving them to be finished some other time. That's the beauty of first posts. Of first steps. Of youth.

These immigrants are funny, by the way.

They're parked outside my window, honking their horns, hollering at each other (and by hollering, I don't mean whoopin' and hollerin' hollering. I mean they're communicating with each other. Loudly.) at 3:30 in the morning. That italicization was not a typo. I meant it like that. I do that a lot. All kinds of fun things. I'm obviously a fun guy. You can tell in the way I write. and italicize. Yeah. Also not a mistake.

So anyway, THESE IMMIGRANTS ARE FUNNY.

Some would say that they're just inconsiderate. Rude, maybe. Socially detestable. A self-righteous some.

Self-righteousness is one of those human traits that, when studied, really says a lot about humanity.

Yeah, I know I keep saying human-. Whatever, I can be broad. I promise I don't do it often.

No, just kidding, I do. All the time.


Makes me feel important. Like I'm figuring out the secrets of the world when I speak. But, that's just where I am right now. Who knows where I'll be later. Like on my second post. My next step. Still, youth.


The secrets of the world, caterpillar.


I am no butterfly yet, no Emperor, a monarch of no kind. I'm just scribbling on the inside of my coccoon. And hoping for some light sometimes. Even with layers and layers left to scribble through. And eventually, I may even emerge, to unfurl magnificent wings that will flutter the air around me and make shiver the world, causing torrents in places unseen, chaos in order I did not set
Even if I end up a moth, it would be nice.


But the world is a bright, almost blinding place, fellow caterpillar. Filled with funny ass stuff, though, so let us not avert our eyes even a moment. Funny ass stuff. Like:


THESE IMMIGRANTS.


I guess it's because of where I am. I live here, in Los Angeles, on the Eastside of Koreatown. Now just because they're Koreans, and just because it looks like it's a nice, upper class pseudo-town sometimes, doesn't mean that this is not a ghetto.


There's a high concentration of Korean people in Koreatown (Yeah, who'd'a thunk it? Shaddap. Just read.). Of course, there's also a lot of Hispanics, but Hispanics are kind of the uber-immigrant race. They, as a general concept, live everywhere. They're more mobile than the White groups. It makes them the actual mainstream, in some ways, not just in their sheer number, but in the wide area they cover. In California, anyway.


I'm not talking about the Hispanics, though. I'm talking about these damned Koreans. The ones yelling outside my window. At 3:45 now. A. M.


They're here, with a sense of manifest destiny, like the rest of us. Well, the rest of you. I'm Korean, too. I guess. Korean-American? I can add the American, but it's difficult to shed the Korean. No matter where I am right now in this carnation of my developing identity, being born in Korea to parents that were born and raised in Korea impacts me. It's categorial (no second "c". On purpose. Look it up.).

And of course, it's not so much just from looking in the mirror and noticing that I am actually the most Korean-looking a person can get without...no, I am about as Korean-looking as anyone can get. Period. But anyway. It's because my parents are Korean, and they speak Korean. And I grew up as a Korean child. Somewhere along the way, I consciously diverted and added that -American, but I'm not smart enough, or dishonest enough, to denounce my youth. They were steps. Like these posts. And in living (and blogging), I find it best to look at the whole picture at first. Broad. And not try to narrow down the view, by ignoring what came first.

So, yes. I AM A FUNNY ASS IMMIGRANT.