Excerpt from "1985"

Here is an excerpt from my life story titled "1985."  I revised and presented this portion of my life story at Oakland Word Reading held at Caesar Chavez Branch of Oakland Library earlier this month.  The full story will be published in the Oakland Word Anthology book set to publish in June, enjoy!

Six months after my first accident, Aunt Song and I were walking back from a bathhouse when I got hit by a taxi.  I was living in Song-Do with Father, and Aunt Song came to live with us for several months before following her parents to Florida.  Our one-room home in Song-Do was not equipped with a bathtub or a shower stall.  Our bathroom consisted of a communal out-house and two buckets, one to wash our faces and the other to pour water over our backs when it got sweltering hot in the summer.  I loved the neighborhood bathhouse with its numerous temperature-controlled pools where I dog-paddled around for hours.  One day, on our way to the bathhouse, I said proudly, "Aunt, I can run fast!"  Without looking, I dashed across the road bee-lining for stairs leading up to the bathhouse.  I heard a loud screeching of car breaks and Aunt screaming, "HyeJin!  You crazy girl, your dad will kill me if you got hit!"  I laughed off the incident.  On the way back home, I wanted to show Aunt that I was indeed an excellent runner.  "Aunt, this time, I can really run!"  I dashed across the street, not seeing a taxi speeding downhill.  For the second time that year, everything went BLACK.

I woke up to a stench so powerful I gagged.  I had thrown up Kimchi soup Aunt Song had cooked for lunch all over my shirt.  Seeing me stir, Aunt exclaimed, "HyeJin, why did you have to run across like that, not once but twice?  I'm in such trouble!"  I had broken my right thigh bone upon impact, flying up over 20 feet.  I could not open my left eye because that side of my face skidded on the concrete road to break my fall, resulting in a huge scab covering my face for weeks to come.  Doctor told me, "You are lucky to be alive; you would have died if you fell on your head instead of on your face."  I ended up in a body cast and lived at the hospital for several months.

During my hospital stay, Mother paid me a visit.  Every year, Mother got her fortune told by a famous fortune teller.   Forbidden to see me after her family's refusal to take me in following the divorce, Mother started getting my fortune told, to check up on me.  In 1985, the fortune teller predicted my two near-death events.  In panic, Mother tracked me down to Song-Do.  She knocked on the door of our house only to find out from our landlady of my accident and the subsequent hospitalization.  Mother made a secret visit to the hospital late one night while I was asleep.  Aunt later told me that Mother silently cried by my bedside.  I wished I was awake then, to see my mother again, and also to tell her, "Mother, please don't cry, I am a big girl now.  I survived 2 car accidents, I can survive anything.  I cried too, Mother, the last time I saw you.  You were hiding behind a bus stop, watching, as your mother and your brother walked me to my uncle's restaurant and left me there inside, without a word.  Father came later, yelled and carried on.  I missed you, Mother, but I am alright now, so don't worry about me.  I will be careful, I promise."

Commuter Thought No. 2

BART commuters are creatures of habit.  We stand on the right side of escalator leaving left side open to commuters anxious to catch a train, running down the escalator as of their very lives depended on it.  At the receiving end of these rushing commuters, I imagine a big breasted, aproned matronly woman with curlers in her hair brandishing a spatula threateningly, a child coloring a scene from My Little Pony in her coloring book while a babysitter glances impatiently at the clock on the wall, or a scantily dressed lady lounging on an animal print chaise sipping red wine surrounded by artfully scattered rose petals and tea candle lights.  I chuckle at the thoughts.  What or whoever waits on the other end, commuters take daily rituals seriously.

You can spot a tourist or an occasional BART commuter right away because she will stand on the left side of escalator as if her action fits the schematics of BART commuter physics.  Soon a lefty commuter shouts down impatiently, "move over to the right if you are just going to stand there!"  Red cheek stained, the culprit turns around with a questioning look on her face quickly transforming into a look of dawning understanding when faced with so many impatient, sometimes angry visages looking down at her.  Muttering a quiet apology under her breath, she steps aside to the right and the dammed up commuters once again resume their torrential descent toward the train platforms.

While in the train, commuters must resist the gravitational pull toward the train doors with all our might.  On rainy days, trains are jam-packed but you find commuters opting for the crammed vicinity of the door with their faces pressed into smelly armpits amidst poking backpacks instead of moving further down the train car to enjoy the spacious isle.  This magnetic pull to the door prevents the rest of us to squeeze into the train.  A frustrated man shouts, "we want to go home too, now move into the isles and make room for the rest of us!"  The slow shuffling of feet loosens the magnetic, invisible cords wrapped around the commuters' waists chaining them near the doors.  The commuters waiting to board the train impatiently stomp their feet and rush in as soon as a slight opening in the sea of bodies is visible, to occupy any free space available.

Oddly, I find these random shouts of frustration amusing and satisfying.  As with habits, we become complacent and do not pause to think about or speak out about daily going-ons.  We walk around like those zombies in Shaun of the Dead, each in our thoughts, thinking of deadlines at our jobs or bills we have to pay sitting on our kitchen table waiting to be put in the mailbox, then WHAM!  The frustrated "now move over so I can catch my train" shout-out from our fellow commuter jars us out of our daily zombie walk, and we nod and mumble our full agreement.  We should be awake to live every moment of our lives, be it in the packed train cars surrounded by strange faces because, after all, we are alive.

*Photo courtesy of Will Harper, SF Weekly Blogs

Oakland Word, Oakland Local

As some of you know, I have been participating in Oakland Word (http://oaklandword.org/) creative writing workshops since February, thanks to Oakland Public Library and Cal State Library Grant.  Oakland Local (http://oaklandlocal.com) wrote several articles regarding these workshops and decided to run a series of stories featuring some of the writers participating.  Kenji, the program director of Oakland Word, wrote the attached article with an excerpt of my life story which will be published in Oakland Word Anthology, scheduled to be released in June.  Thanks to Kenji at Oakland Word and to Oakland Local!  What wonderful contribution to enrichment of local life.  We truly appreciate both of your endeavors.  <3, HJ

Here is a link to the article: http://oaklandlocal.com/blogs/2010/04/hyejin-yus-house-birds-excerpts-oakland-words-emerging-writers.

Here is the article taken from Oakland Local:

HyeJin Yu's "House of Birds": Excerpts from Oakland Word's Emerging Writers

Kenji Liu Wed, 7 Apr at 12:39pm

HyeJin Yu

Oakland Word has attracted writers from a wide range of backgrounds, representing some of the kaleidoscope of histories and perspectives that make up Oakland and the Bay Area. Our second excerpt comes from HyeJin Yu, who took the "Life Stories" workshop at the Main Library with instructor Bisola Marignay. The complete story will be published in the Oakland Word anthology, due out in June 2010.

OW: Why do you write? Who do you write for?

HJY: I write mostly for myself because writing is such a cathartic process for me. It's a great pleasure to write about how I see the world or what my life experience has been. If someone else reads my work and is inspired, that is a plus but I will continue to write for therapy.

OW: How/why did you choose Oakland Word?

HJY: A friend found out about Oakland Word through her Oakland neighborhood e-newsletter and told me about the program. Since I was working on my life stories, Bisola's Oakland Word workshop peaked my interest.

OW: Who are your 3 favorite writers and why?

HJY: Zora Neale Hurston, Maxine Hong Kingston and Bharati Mukherjee. These women writers inspire me to delve into my Korean heritage and write about it because our racial and cultural background color our writing and I find their works fascinating due to cultural elements.

OW: Did you learn anything surprising about yourself from taking the Oakland Word workshop?

HJY: Instead of writing life stories as if I was just telling a story, I learned to paint scenery with my words. I also learned to be a stronger person by writing life stories thereby facing and resolving painful past experiences. Oakland Word's workshop has made a tremendous, positive impact in my life.

OW: Will you be writing more? What kind of support do you need to write more?

HJY: I will definitely continue to write on my blog and also on my life stories compilation project. As far as support goes, it would be nice to have a local writer's group where we can share our writing and get a feedback from other writers like we have been at Oakland Word workshops.

---

Excerpt from "House of Birds" by HyeJin Yu

"Hang on!" said the policeman, looking over his shoulder. I wrapped my arms tighter around his waist as we sped along a narrow winding street up the hills of On-Chun-Dong. Cold wind whipped my short hair around and I burrowed my face deeper into the warmth of his back. Last night's events played out in my head.

I was huddling under a desk inside a concierge office in an apartment building where I've been living with Nam-Chun-Dong ajumma (“older woman from Nam-Chun-Dong” in Korean) and her family for past six months. The concierge office was no more than an enclosed glass stall big enough to fit a desk where a concierge sat guarding the entrance. Every day after elementary school, I would run into the apartment, throw down my backpack and leave to hang out at a nearby playground until it got dark and ajumma came home. Then came the winter; I could not keep warm at the playground no matter how many pairs of socks I put on. Our building concierge, God bless him, took a pity on me. He let me crawl under his desk and keep him company with my endless childish chatter until ajumma came home. Truth be told, I'd been hiding out mainly from ajumma's thirteen year old son who always liked to play rough with me, calling it tae-kwon-do or judo and flipping me around like a sack of potatoes. Afterward, I would always find a bruise or two creeping up on my body. I knew he did not like me; as a matter of fact, nobody liked me here except ajumma and that's because she was dating my dad behind her husband's back. She even lied to her husband about my real identity so I could live with her. I would not like me either if I was one of them.

---

HyeJin Yu first fell in love with the San Francisco Bay Area and its proactive residents while studying music and religious studies at University of California at Berkeley in 1996. She moved to Oakland from Florida five years ago and currently lives near Lake Merritt with her fiancé Travis and 3 kitties. When she is not biking around Lake Merritt with Travis or spending time with her East Oakland youth mentee whom she's been mentoring for two years, you will find her working on her literary blog called Lyrical Journey in Life (http://hyejinyu.blogspot.com). Since late 2009, HyeJin has been compiling life stories and poetry about her childhood experience in Busan, South Korea. Writing life stories and poetry has been a therapeutic and rewarding process for her. HyeJin thanks Oakland Word, for giving her motivation to continue her writing and opportunity to share her creative work with fellow Oakland residents.

About Kenji Liu

1.5 generation Japanese-born Taiwanese American expatriate of New Jersey suburbia. His Pushcart Prize and California Book Award-nominated writing arises from his work as an activist, educator and cultural worker. Kenji’s poetry chapbook You Left Without Your Shoes was published by Finishing Line Press (2009), available on Amazon.com. His writing has appeared in Tea Party Magazine, Kartika Review, and the 2009 Intergenerational Writer’s Workshop online anthology Flick of My Tongue. Kenji was a presenting literary artist at APAture 2009, a multidisciplinary Asian Pacific American art festival. He will be the new poetry editor at Kartika Review starting with issue 7 and is working on a multi-genre full-length collection of poetry, prose and visual art.

Bike Love

I've been following my friend Meli's blog, http://bikesandthecity.blogspot.com/, for some time now.  Her love of bikes (and her love of coffee y boys) is infectious.  Not to mention that my fiance Travis commutes on his bike and is forever working on upgrading his bike parts.  Surrounded by endless bike talks and action, how could I not join in the fun?  The problem laid with my memory of a bike accident involving a car over 15 years ago in Berkeley.  I was hit by a car on a bike, albeit at a low speed, and I recall the driver getting out of the car to exclaim, "OMG, this is not my car!"  Gee, thanks, for asking if I was okay!  Luckily, I escaped this accident with few scratches and bruises but the mental trauma must have been great as I had not ridden a bike until recently.  So, in celebration of my new-found love of bike riding, please check out a blog post by Meli featuring me and my beloved bike (cameo appearance by Travis and his badass bike), <3 HJ

Link to the story:
With Love from Oakland ~Bikesandthecity.blogspot.com

Link to blog post by: http://bikesandthecity.blogspot.com/

Commuter Thought No. 1

One morning during my commute to work, I stood on a BART platform a few feet away from an escalator waiting to catch a train into San Francisco.   Swaying from side to side, I was lost in the hypnotic sounds of Brazilian Girls while playing Sudoku on my I-Touch.  I am a seriously committed multi-tasker.  A pair of Nike sneakers caught my attention and I looked up from my exciting game to find a middle-aged African American man standing in front of me wearing a baseball cap and a windbreaker thrown over a T-shirt.  He was talking and gesturing, seemingly unaware of my blank stare.  I took ear-buds off my ears and asked in an indulgent manner, "Can I help you?"  "Does this train go to San Francisco?  You see, I am trying to get to a limousine company at Fisherman's Wharf in the city and I wanna know if I can take the next train here."  Pointing to the BART train/schedule display panel, I replied, "The next train to San Francisco will arrive in 2 minutes.  I am taking that train and getting off at the station you need to get to, so you can follow me out when you see me get off."  Encouraged, the man replied, "Thank you.  I went up to two other ladies before you, but they didn't wanna hear what I got to say.  Both ladies told me, "Sorry, not today, I don't have any."  I was wondering what they were talking about.  I guess they thought I was panhandling or something."  I found myself shaking my head and exclaiming outrageously, "That is messed up!"  But deep down, I knew that I was guilty of this at some level.

I use my ear-buds as a shield against unwanted verbal contact with other fellow commuters or panhandlers.  If I am not reading, writing or playing games on I-Touch, I stare at the moving darkness beyond train windows to avoid meeting anyone's eyes.  When has commuting become such a detached, inhumane process?  Because of so many commuters pack into BART and so many peddlers line our streets, have we desensitized ourselves and passively avoid stranger's contracts?  The man needed a simple help, and instead, we let our perception and our misguided judgment rule our lives and we ignore his harmless request.  Us commuters are all busy people and we use public transportation system to get to where we need to go, but isn't commuting a major part of our lives? Are our lives not affected by our commute?  I recall a tap on my shoulder one morning as I was typing away a story I was writing on my I-Touch memo pad, totally unaware of my surroundings.  I looked up to see a lady's face and my gaze followed her pointed finger out a BART window to see a bright rainbow hanging across the sky over West Oakland station.  My face broke into a smile to match hers and we giggled at the beauty shared.  It was a special moment I might have missed had she not chosen to share with me.  I was grateful for her spirit and was touched by her generosity.  No matter where we are and what we are doing with our lives, please take a moment to breathe in and appreciate the beauty of people around you.  Lend a hand if you can, it only takes a second out of your busy life.  We are humans after all.

 ~Photo from DailyCal.org, courtesy of Alan Wong.

Good bye, Bubbles, for now.

Why is it so hard letting go...

Bubbles has been by my side for over 9 years now. She has been through everything with me. As a kitten, Bubbles lived with her sister, Moomoo, and a parade of my former housemates' pets: 3 pitbulls, 2 albino pythons, and 1 akita/rottweiler mix, a giant of dogs. Fearless was Bubbles among myriads of animals in the house.

Always ready for an adventure, Bubbles would run sideways on closet walls, matrix style, to catch insects. She would follow any visiting dogs around like a guard dog ready to pounce if any sudden, wrong move on their part. She was our insect exterminator; she was ready to defend us from home invaders.

When Bubbles was 1 years old, I came home one day to find half body of a lizard lying on the kitchen floor. Mind you, it was a big lizard, just its lower body including the tail was about 3.5 inches long. "Good job," I praised Bubbles and searched around for the missing half of the lizard, head and all, but could not, for the life of me, find it. The next morning getting ready for work, I sat down to put my shoes on and as soon as I put my right foot in the shoe, I felt something hard touch my big toe. I immediately knew then where the missing part of the lizard diappeared to. I yelled so loud and ran around the living room, hopping on one foot, shaking off the touch of the dead lizard from my foot. As I said, Bubbles was our protector. She made sure we were safe from this lizard invader and at the same time, gave me a present to show off her hunting skills.

Bubbles was Queen of our home. She was in charge of the other kitties. We could never make her do anything and if we berated her, she would give a sort of meow to say, "You can't tell me what to do! I am my own cat!"

God, I miss her, the real Bubbles, not this ghost of her I see every day now. When is it time to let her go? When is it alright to say, "Hey, I have done all I can do. Now, it's time for me to let you go." Caring for Bubbles on her last days of struggle with feline lymphoma, I constantly think of Christine. Christine, my grandmother, stood by and took care of Granddad in his last weeks of battling cancer 10 years ago. How unbelievable difficult it may be been for Christine to see her husband dwindle away to nothing but a shell of human, knowing she can't do anything but be that light of warmth, of comfort to ease his passing.

I draw my comfort in knowing that Bubbles was loved. Bubbles had a wonderful family and a good feline life in this lifetime. And maybe, just maybe, I will see her again and I hold onto that hope with hope. Good bye, Bubbles, for now.