Mom made this before The Kid left for the Mainland. Ribs, potato salad, cornbread, and salad. Mom makes good ribs. Koreans do ribs well–kalbi, but these were Memphis style ribs. It is hard to fathom that my parents lived in Memphis for over 30 years! They were pioneering Korean Americans integrating the US. It is often a challenge being Asian in the South where life is constructed under a polarity of Black and White. I have relatives who live there.

Some things I loved about Memphis: Kang Rhee’s Pa Sa Ryu studio, deep fried turkey, cornbread, black-eyed peas, OK, gotta watch or I’ll just rattle off the food! Where my parents lived it was quiet. The madness of heat and the green. The steam and the slowness. I never felt fully comfortable there. But thinking about this more deeply, I am unlikely to return to the Mainland. Some people experience island fever, think they have to get off the Rock. I never feel this. I am aware this is a function of age and where I am. But I am never bored looking at the water. Listening. Looking at the flowers or mountains. Hawai’i nei.