rain or shine

The 772nd Wednesday Demonstration.

Every Wednesday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

Since January 8, 1992.

For readers in Seoul: Come out next week, especially, to show your support for a global action week organized by the

Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan

A big turn out today--even bigger than last week--despite the rain.

One of the organizers, sporting their trademark yellow vest, addressing the crowd.

Some of the hal muh nis (grandmothers) under a tent.
(In Korea and the Korean diaspora, you often refer older women as hal muh ni)

This guy kept looking back at my brother and me. I wondered why--and then I saw him join his Korean wife...who had a baby carriage.

Some of the hal muh nis. The organizers handed out ribbons to the crowd and we tied them together, forming several big ribbon circles within the crowd.

Shouting the traditional end-of-demonstration demands for justice. I still haven't heard them clearly enough to figure out what they mean.

glamour girl

Last summer, I tried to spend time with my hal muh ni (grandmother) at least a few times a week. One day, we'd meet for for lunch or dinner somewhere around Seoul. One day, I'd stop by after work for dinner at my yeemo (aunt)'s house where she lives half of the week. And, every Sunday, usually, I'd go over and spend the afternoon with her at my sam chon (uncle)'s house where she spends the rest of the week.

Nosing around her apartment one Sunday afternoon, I discovered some old family photo albums and saw that my Mom was quite the glamour girl in her youth. In both family portraits, she's really the only one you could call glamorous, I'd say.

Even now, at fifty-eight, when she and I stopped at a bar to use the bathroom at 2 A.M. during an all night drive down from San Francisco, guys my age were offering to buy her drinks.

searching for new sheroes

So, most readers probably know that Hilary Duff is a personal shero of mine. To launch into a full explanation would take too much space, but I've loved her since the Lizzie McGuire days and have seen her twice in person.



The summer before starting Yale, I drove up to Hollywood with friends for the premiere of A Cinderella Story and while I was in London last semester I was probably less than ten-feet away from her as she performed in a Soho club.




But she's been disapointing me lately.

First, there was her turn as a Maxim cover girl.

Then the "op-ed"(I apply that label loosely) she penned for the The Observer, entitled, "What I know about men ..." It featured Hilary spouting such gems as:


"I'm not, like, a crazy feminist. I think women definitely need men. Like, I couldn't imagine having a girlfriend!"

"I want to have a husband and two kids and a nice little life baking pies."

"Women are definitely home-makers. We're obviously very different from men."

And, then, there's her new orientalist music video for the single, "Stranger."


You won't have to wait too long before you see her decked out in "Indian" jewelry and make-up bellydancing because because, you know, just like all feminists are lesbians, all of Asia just oozes sex.

I'm not abandoning her just yet, but suggestions for new personal heroes are welcome.