Where is my Friend's Home? 내 친구의 집은 어디인가

Individual lives are so unique because at any given time, I can be doing something with my life that is totally separate from what the mainstream is doing, what the whole rest of the world is up to. There can be a thousand things other people are focused on right now like going back to school (MJ and I officially moved to Durham, NC and joined in Move-in Week at Duke University this week), the stock market trending down and possibly falling off a cliff today due to this arcane concept of "inverted yield curve) (Dow down 800 points!), the Hong Kong protests becoming even more violent and the Chinese government possibly needing to send in government troops, the advent of the dog days of baseball (literally nothing going on in the world of sports nowadays except baseball, and even that is dragging on. Meanwhile, Durham, NC has a great baseball team, the Durham Bulls, and free fireworks that we can see out of our building! The atmosphere and size of Durham Stadium is worthy of a major league team, and it possibly outdraws the MLB team it caters to, the Tampa Bay Rays). There's a whole world of minor league affiliates in minor league baseball and smaller towns around the U.S. that have these teams and actively root for them, they're not just farm development grounds for prospects. 

Gavin DeGraw is in concert! Just came by Durham tonight. And MJ and I have discovered the wonderful benefits of being a member of Costco, and were sucked in to becoming Executive Members, despite my distaste for hard sell marketing at the door. And U-Haul moving was a difficult experience! I wish moving were easier, but it's a necessary cost for preserving the comforts of home (same bed! Same shelves! Same clothes) even though the physical location is moved. I've realized again the value of having a home.....as in most things, the value of home only stands out when you don't have it for a long time. I hadn't been home for quite a long time while working in New York, and coming back to a home, even a new home, was comforting rather than feeling like I'm on the run all the time (not sure who I'm running from, the law, the loan sharks, the mafia?) I've been pretty spoiled as I've always had my parents' home in Southern California as a fallback for "going home" and feeling at home, but it's also being able to see the people at home, like my family, or like MJ in our new home, knowing that there will be someone to share the home with. I think I didn't really appreciate the value of the home during my bachelor days because I usually lived alone, so it didn't really matter where I was, and I could move around without feeling too different. Sure I had roommates (and I do miss some of my roommate experiences) but they're nothing like seeing one's family at home and restoring a part of one's life that's missing. 

That feeling of home is the premise behind the Korean show Where is My Friend''s home? (available on Netflix under "The Homecoming." I started watching as a way to hear casual Korean conversation with Korean captions (Korean shows are good about that!) to study while being entertained and keeping my attention span focused on something for more than a few minutes at a time, but the show is really good at showing a group of gentleman from different ethnicities representing different countries (but all speaking Korean) going to one members' home and meeting their families. There's something authentic about watching someone meet their families that draws one in and draw tears out of one's eyes (Survivor the reality TV show always had a family episode each season), but I really like that they explored one's home to really build character development (drama writers can really take a page out of that). So yes, in the dead heat of summer (thunderstorms billowing all around), in Durham, North Carolina, there is an Asian guy born in China and grew up in the U.S. binge-watching the 2015-2016 Korean television show "The Homecoming" on Netflix. Don't think anyone else is doing that, nor will anyone else do that for a long time. Which is kind of cool, how our individual stories involve our own lives that are personalized for us. Just like our homes. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan