Black Bean Noodles (자장면, 炸酱面 )

Black Bean Noodles are a great Korean-style Chinese dish, but I'm sure MJ would prefer the Korean version and that I associate the tasty black bean noodles with the Korean style, but in all honesty I've had both Chinese and Korean versions and they're both great. It's one of the most basic staples of Asian culture, to have noodles topped with sauce....noodles are like the bread for a sandwich in Western Culture, they go well with anything. Chinese people can make a LOT of noise eating these noodles ( no matter what kind of noodles). MJ and I went to a Korean restaurant near Atlanta, there's a large Korean population there, and a Chinese couple next to us slurped EXTREMELY loudly, and now MJ has attributed that behavior to me and reminded me not to be so loud in eating, talking, and just generally anything. My protests that making noise while eating is actually a compliment to the quality of the food go unheard. 

More significantly, the dish is the subject of a famous Korean song "My Memory of My Mother" sung by the boy band G.O.D. (not a religious name, it's short for Groove over Dose). Excellent theme about a family growing up poor and not having much money, barely saving enough to have black bean noodles (a staple dish that's relatively inexpensive) and the mother giving it to her child and saying that she doesn't really like them. Eventually the mother dies and the child laments that he never got to say how much he loved her. Quite the classic tale, and a reminder of how much parents love their children, and the true essence of being a parent, that hopefully MJ and I can one day achieve. (There are aspiring writers and aspiring filmmakers. We are aspiring parents!) I'm sure we've heard plenty of rags-to-riches tales or stories like A Christmas Carol with Scrooge and Tiny Tim and the plight of poor families, but I can really resonate because I experienced that as a child and still feel the same emptiness and desperation that I felt then when I see people going through hardship (watch the documentary "Betting on Zero" about Bill Ackman and his hedge against the Herbalife company, there's plenty of poor gullible people who get swindled by others and sink deeper into poverty). The more people I meet, the more I realize not everyone went through a low-income childhood as I did and not everyone can relate to the plight of the poor, and can't sympathize. As I get older and further away from those times even I sometimes forget those roots and where I come from; the current coronavirus outbreak will cause a tremendous amount of lost jobs and desperate workers with little or no income unable to pay their rent for the foreseeable future; it really makes me put in perspective some of my own financial losses in the stock market as trivial compared to the life-and-death situation those people are in. 

Oh but also the lesson of "tell your parents you love them" is also important; I should probably work on that as well. 

The most famous boy band from Korea nowadays, of course, is BTS, short for a Korean term called 방탄소년단,  防彈少年團, or Bulletproof Boy Scouts. 

Which is a little sad because the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy earlier this year due to numerous sexual abuse allegations. One of the saddest things in America is how the most well-esteemed and well-intentioned organizations can completely fail the most vulnerable members of our society, children. There are about 2.2 million youths who participate in Boy Scouts, and I even participated under a similar organization called Cub Scouts and understood the value of doing outdoor activities, woodworking, teamwork, and developing character. Yet Boy Scouts leaders, the Catholic church, teachers, and other organizations that allow people to serve in positions of power over kids and there inevitably are some bad actors who ruin it for everyone. Reminds us why we as a nation can't have nice things.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan