dia beacon: fall 2015

Throwback to jeju, in black and white

There are days when I randomly crave Familiar Things from my childhood, like the kind of food I grew up on, sound of the aggressive rain during the monsoon season in Korea, walking around the tiny narrow streets of Korea with my hand in my mother's, or just simpler things like the sound of my own language and what it meant to have family nearby. I miss and crave all of those things even when nothing triggers them. For awhile I couldn't wait to get back. All I knew, at 12 years of age, was that I had just temporarily moved to North America until I could go home, and I never imagined I would never move back ever again. This was a huge deal for me. I had such a strong identity rooted in my country and language that until I finally accepted the fact that I am supposedly something called a 1.5 generation Korean-American, a new, awkward breed of species that all of my peers and I were still struggling to figure out, I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to be. My tiny little brain couldn't quite grasp the complexity of my identity because I had never once considered what it meant to be a minority somewhere or what it would mean to feel like I don't truly belong. I'm sure this is a similar struggle across generations of immigrants and everyone deals with it differently.

So when I finally decided to visit the motherland for the first time in 10 years last March, I was anxious to find out if I'd fit back in the country at all. On the surface level, I've managed to retain most of my Korean vocabulary so people would say stuff like "Wow, you don't sound like you ever left!" and not treat me like a foreigner, which was great. I instantly belonged to the sea of people everywhere I went, because I obviously looked like everyone.

Nothing significantly life-changing happened during or after those 3 weeks, besides the awkward moments of meeting younger cousins who absolutely had no idea who I was (or could care less). Like the sky didn't open up with a thundering voice that told me who I'm exactly supposed to be and told me the answer to the burning question and frustration I've carried for half of my life.




The most precious thing that happened though, was just hanging out with family and learning deeper about my roots. My grandparents spent hours telling me how my dad was blue when he came out of my grandma's womb and she, being a nurse, basically brought him back to life and they believe he's a miracle child. I learned that my uncle, who's a talented TV producer, has a library filled with literally all the classic literature and music you can think of. I watched another pair of aunt and uncle argue from the backseat of their car. I literally visited all of my families' homes (my mother's side of the family is huuuge), spent hours looking at photographs that are at least 40 years old. I hold my family dear to my heart, and maybe that's supposed to be more powerful to me than having a strong tie to a country or a culture or a language when it comes to the whole identity thing. After all, every person's identity is unique and ultimately more complicated than we'd like it to be.

Anyway, the motherland will always be incredibly precious to me and I will miss it indefinitely, no matter where I am. I'm still unsure of how to categorize the Familiar Things - but I think I'm okay with not assigning it a country, or a group of people, or a specific sound or smell and accepting that it's an infinitely growing list of everything I associate myself to be. Or whatever my long-term memory decides to hold onto.



Okay, anyway, woah, that was a long rant. I'm sorry if you accidentally stumbled in here from that one Russian spam site (which, wildly enough, is the main driver of traffic to this blog according to Google. I have so many questions.) and was attacked by this aggressive rant on a 21st century Asian American identity crisis. Anyway, I've been wanting to upload these film photos from my trip to Jeju last year - they had light leaks so I deemed them ruined but they don't look so horrible in black and white. I was listening to a collection of sound from Jeju (literally just like, sounds of the earth) and was inspired to edit and post these.

los angeles x long weekend

To go along with this specific post, I highly recommend reading this, because I haven't read anything better that describes the struggles of living in both of these magnificent, beautiful and absolutely ridiculous cities (New York is a madhouse at the moment because yes, it snowed, and yes, it's now all melting and turning the city into the most disgusting, slushy dump).

Los Angeles was beautiful. I genuinely enjoyed it - I'm sure it's very different when you're visiting vs living (as it is for New York City), but the flawless weather really spoke to me. IT NOURISHED MY SOUL. I know that's really aggressive, but I'm not sure if I'd ever get tired of waking up to perfect weather almost everyday.

We ate a lot, went to the beach, had car problems, got stuck in traffic, took a lot of pictures, saw old friends, and barely slept. I lost my voice. It was so relaxing and exciting all at the same time.

And if you have 3-4 minutes to kill:

CA in CA 2016 from Ariel Min on Vimeo. List of stuff that unfortunately did not make it into the video:
- colleen and me hanging in the jacuzzi
- colleen and me getting lost in skid row
- a tiny bird pooping on me
- colleen's fabulous mother and the mimosas/cookies she made us (camera died and cut out the footage, boo)
- the rest of footage of colleen's dog :(
- our numerous lyft drivers
- the most amazing brunch ever
- most stuff we ate
- MINA and NICK
Music: The Chainsmokers - Roses (ft ROZES)

06// W U J U

Last weekend, I met my cousin's baby boy in Atlanta. My cousin, the father of the baby, is the oldest cousin of all, and is the first to get married and have a baby, so this is kind of a big deal (we have a huge family on my mom's side, of two uncles and four aunts, plus twelve of us children!).

And here he is, Wuju Ryan So! Isn't that such a pretty name? Wuju means space in Korean. He is tiny. He is so soft. He poops really well. He eats well too. He's pretty calm for a baby I think (like I know anything about babies). I think he liked me. He threw up on my shoulder at one point (no no go ahead, it's not like it was my favorite shirt or anything), and even though I basically had no idea how to hold him properly, I managed to make him fall asleep in my arms (the best feeling ever). At the end of the trip, I concluded that babies are pretty freaking heavy. Kudos to all the moms out there!

We went to a park near my cousin's apartment for an impromptu photoshoot for the baby and the family. I must admit, I fell in love with Atlanta a bit this past weekend - it's calm and green, with rolling hills and attractive houses. It reminded me of Texas, but better.

05// reflections

Hi. This is what I look like.

Okay let me be real. I still have a lot of trouble explaining what "ariellamin" is because my name is Ariel and not Ariella, so why call myself something I'm not? It all started in freshman year of college when I met this guy who was really into classical/jazz music and one night he was driving me home and played Ella Fitzgerald and said something like, "Hey, your name could be like... ariELLA." No joke. So I came home and told all my friends and they thought it was hilarious so they started calling me Ella as a joke and that was around the time I made my Twitter account. Back in 2009 I didn't think Twitter was anything serious so I basically made the handle, ariellamin. Of course now I just regret that forever because some other Korean girl took the handle arielmin and SHE DOESN'T EVEN TWEET REGULARLY. But whatever. Such is life.

I also got brand new glasses because my eye doc told me to. As soon as I picked these up I went to go see a movie by myself to see if they help me at all. Turns out they do. Also, going to the movies alone is actually quite nice - I can cry at dumb scenes and no one cares.


I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, with 2015 wrapping up and I suddenly have a lot of things to do and undo. I'm learning to accept and deal with a lot of regrets and to be proud of some bold decisions I have made.

One thing I’ve realized while living in New York is that if you really put your mind to it, you can do a lot of things you thought you couldn’t do. Everything is a mind game, really. It’s more obvious here than anywhere else, because everything about this city is designed to push your limits. I find myself rarely comfortable, physically and mentally. If you let it break you, it will. But if you don't, it won't.

This morning when I heard my train rolling into the station, I ran from the street, up the stairs, through the turnstile and up another flight of stairs and wedged my foot between the closing doors and made a grand entrance into the train car. Everyone awkwardly watched me trying to catch my breath. But such obnoxiousness is nothing unusual in this city. I have a growing list of things odd things I’ve done and faced so far - like going to a sit-down restaurant (or the movies!) by myself, surviving getting stuck in a revolving door with another human, my uber being surrounded by a motorcycle gang in east Queens, bargaining with bartenders, surviving street harassment, scouting and picking up furniture from the street, barely avoiding stepping on a giant rat that in Brooklyn, being more decisive on an ice cream flavor, etc. Sometimes this city pushes you to do random things and you rarely have time to think about it. Indecisiveness is not one of the traits in the surviving species in New York, and I had to accept that quickly.