Ah I was on a good daily entry streak till Friday and I did let myself slide on not posting anything during this weekend because of a simple reason - it's the WEEKEND. And I still don't feel guilty about it. Hmm maybe I should take out the 'daily' from the titles. But I did start drafting Saturday's (#4, 3월 20일) entry while I was having dinner out alone. I did have a bottle of beer with my noodle soup and 멘보샤 then when I was done with dinner I stopped by a cocktail bar and had a smoky martini (when I was ordering the drink, the bartender tried to warn me that there's a strong hint of some cognac or spirit that don't know about. It was funny cause all I heard them say behind their mask is "are you okay with aardvark?"). When I got home, Ben and I did a Tuca and Bertie drinking game as part of saturdate (get it? Satur-date?), so I was just having a good time and wanted to maybe continue the reflection when I was having less fun and when I'm more sober. I guess what I'm trying to say is, my willingness to make entry #4 happen got crushed by booze and fun times. Anyways, here's what I wrote on Saturday:
Blog Entry #4 [2021년 3월 20일] - rough draft
Well there are actually a lot i want to touch base on today. While having dinner outside at 진진 alone, I read various articles about Korea’s sexist interview questions thrown at female applicants (in Korea gender is still very binary, and yes they still do require you to show your gender and a photo of you when you’re applying for a job. If you are interested here’s an article about the specific incident in English https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2021/03/07/national/socialAffairs/sexism-discrimination-video/20210307182800307.html) and the tragic mass shooting that took place in Atlanta targeting the AAPI community. Guess this just reminded me there is no escaping of discrimination and threat that people have to face because of the way they are born.
It’s really fucked up. Most responses I get when I share my experiences with people is rage and getting told that I should forget about it as they are just “uneducated pricks”. But if you are a person who never has to face the same experience, do you know what it feels like to have those “uneducated pricks” literally spit on your face because of who you are? How self deprecating it is to realise what ever you do you’ll always have limits imposed by white supremacy and misogyny? It’s impossible not to lose hope. Anyways this isn’t exactly what I want to talk about today so we’ll move on.
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Annnnd jump to now, I'm sitting here in front of my computer not having any clue what I actually wanted to talk about that day. I think it'll come back to me. I hope it does. That could've been my blog's breakthrough point on figuring out what my blog is actually about, other than someone's open diary.
I spent Sunday with my brother, wandering around Seoul. Well, wandering in between 공덕 and 광화문 to be specific. To me, and probably for many people, Seoul feels like a nicely cleaned kitchen. Just before a visit from the health inspector or something like that. And because of this sterilised surface, it's hard to imagine anything else from it. But walking from monumental apartment colonies to what is the last area awaiting to be redeveloped in 마포구 made me realise how foolish it was of me to not question how my city was portrayed by the state. Knowing how densely populated Seoul is (causing the skyrocketing of the housing market, some says it's huge a contributing factor of Korea's low fertility rate, etc) and how much it has changed since I can remember, I didn't even stop to imagine there were areas still left to be redeveloped. It felt weird seeing council funded murals of the little prince and Mondrian patterns while climbing up the hilly residential area that is soon to be redeveloped. After the walk my brother recommended a book called 갈등도시 by 김시덕. I'm only 30 pages in so far but I'm already learning so much about the city's periphery and the communities that were constantly pushed and neglected by lawmakers, politicians, and fellow neighbours who makes up those peripheries. Think I'll do a book review once I'm done with the book. My brother and I are planning to go checkout the areas mentioned by the author next week.
Hmm what else is there to write about. Oh I've been feeling extremely defensive lately. Think it's the your'eanunemployedartmajorwithoutfuturejobsecuritywho'sleechingontheirfamilyyou'resuchaloserdoyouknowthatwhydidyouevenquitthatlastjobughsuchadumbfucktheyweretheonlyplacewillingtohireyou!!! mindset that really got me lately. Also I think I'm pmsing. or not, I never know when my period's going to hit me.
Tomorrow I'm going to go checkout this refill station in 망원동 called 알맹상점. They're the first ever refill station/sustainable store opened in Korea. I've been meaning to check them out for ages but this is the right time - we're very low on laundry detergent.
Wellp, that's about it. Think this is a good point to end my jumbled blog entry trying to summarise the past three days haha
To conclude today's blog entry, here's my todo list from today (I had none for the weekend, so this is just for Monday 22nd) and a photo of the smokey martini I had on the 20th, two photos taken in 아현동 during the walk with brother on the 21st, and a photo of cherry blossom I spotted on my way to 이태원 station today after the dermatologists appointment.
TODO
Send over final draft of aunt's research proposal ✓
Go for dermatologists appointment ✓
Do 30 mins of exercise (yoga or running) 𝗫
Start washing duvets and get ready to TAKE OUT SOME SUMMER BEDDINGS woohoo ✓
