The old days were better.
The past was better than the present.
This is often said when life gets tough.
Bruno Mars over Michael Jackson.
Jay-Z over Tupac.
Maroon 5 over The Beach Boys.
LeBron James over Michael Jordan.
Tom Brady over Joe Montana. Well, this one has been surpassed.
Leonardo DiCaprio over Marlon Brando.
John Cena over Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Everyone said that the 'past' was better than the 'present'.
Especially the colleague teacher I often work with, Samantha Green, was almost a 'nostalgia enthusiast'.
Together with another colleague teacher, Jack Malone, the three of us would sometimes gather at a pub downtown to watch broadcasts and drink.
Samantha always repeated essentially the same story with a slightly different content but the same conclusion: "The old days were better," whenever she got tipsy.
Today was no exception.
As soon as we arrived at the pub, she would start by slamming down two shots of vodka—hence her nickname 'Two Shot'—on a cold winter night, clinking her shot glass loudly before speaking.
"Damn, we've gotten so old."
Here we go again.
"Back in the day, I used to ride my bike all over the neighborhood after school. It was really fun."
"Right. And those marshmallows we used to roast on camping trips every weekend were to die for."
Jack Malone chimed in, sitting next to Samantha. He was Black and Samantha was White, so our group was quite diverse, which is very important nowadays.
Both were quite aged, unmarried due to personal reasons, and were completely friendly with each other.
"I wanted to be a singer-songwriter back then, but now I'm just playing piano in front of kids."
"Who wouldn't feel that way? I dreamed of being Jordan when I was in elementary school."
"I was all about Mariah Carey."
From the first time hearing "I am your father" in Star Wars Episode Five, to the moment Michael Jordan won his sixth championship in Chicago and stepped down from the throne himself.
Any American of this age would remember all sorts of stories like these, and I just listened quietly before slowly asking.
"So Jack, you would consider Jordan the GOAT over LeBron, then."
"Oh, of course. God, LeBron has no romance."
Jack Malone, still an NBA fanatic to this day, expressed a highly personal opinion.
Regardless of records, the mere fact that he switched teams to win championships disqualified him as the GOAT in Malone's view. Hearing this, a drunken Samantha giggled and shouted.
"Do you realize you've been repeating the same story hundreds of times?"
"I know. But I'm curious. This season LeBron won his sixth championship, tying with Jordan. I wonder if Mr. Jack Malone's opinion has changed."
I chuckled and looked at Jack. With beer foam on his mustache, he said seriously,
"As I said, LeBron lacks romance."
"That damn romance."
"What is that?"
"Jordan started with the Bulls and ended with the Bulls."
"Didn't he go to Washington for his third comeback?"
"That wasn't Jordan."
"Then, was it Weldon?"
Everyone was more outspoken than usual, probably because of the alcohol.
In the midst of this, Samantha suddenly tapped my shoulder as I laughed along.
"God, tell us about yourself. What did you like most when you were young?"
"Well..."
I slightly pouted my lips.
"Maybe novels."
"Novels?"
"Yeah, I liked stuff like pulp fiction."
"Oh, I liked that too. Stephen King's Misery. Honestly, I was introduced to it through the movie. Anything else you liked?"
"D&D or comics? I think I played some board games too."
"Oh, you were a total nerd."
Jack grinned, and I responded lightly.
"But I was good at studying, so I helped the basketball team pass their quizzes when they couldn't."
"Ha! Yes, yes. I did receive a lot of help from the nerds."
"Shin, you must have been really good at studying."
"Yeah. I was pretty good."
"I studied hard too."
"Samantha, you?"
Jack snickered and teased her, and Samantha bristled.
"What? Are you dismissing me because I'm a blonde white woman?"
"No, no, not at all. Damn, why do we have fried chicken on our table right now?"
"Shin brought it from KFC. He gave two pieces to the bartender and got permission."
"Shin! How dare you......!"
"No, that wasn't the intention. In Korea, we often eat chicken with beer, so I brought it. It's really good. Chicken and beer."
I raised my hand lightly to prove my innocence.
There are stereotypes that blonde white women are dumb. There are stereotypes that Black people like fried chicken. There are stereotypes that Asians are pushed to study a lot by their parents.
Based on our own stereotypes, we cracked some dark humor and continued drinking.
I glanced briefly at the television in the corner of the pub.
Just then, a drama had started broadcasting, and Samantha and Jack, sensing my change in gaze, turned around to look. It was a zombie apocalypse drama titled 'Dead man's heaven.'
Samantha took a sip of vodka and began, "That's been quite popular lately."
"Really? What's it about?"
"The main character's wife gets bitten by a zombie, and he tries to cure her."
"Huh? Why cure her?"
"Well, if my husband got bitten, I wouldn't cure him either, but I didn't expect you two, who aren't even married, to crack such a joke."
I was at a loss for words, and the two of them started giggling and watching the drama. "The lead actor is really handsome."
"Is he a newcomer?"
"Yeah, those blue eyes are no joke."
"Huh? Why, Shin. Didn't you like this drama?"
"Hmm, well..."
I dodged the question. It seemed pointless to discuss likes and dislikes.
Because the author of the original novel of that drama was me.
***
I once seriously pondered why Samantha and Jack yearned for the past. My conclusion was simple: because reality is harsh. Despite their age, they hadn't settled down due to their personal circumstances and continued the same daily routine, so they naturally missed their childhood days, which had been full of new experiences.
But I was different.
Unlike Samantha and Jack, I did not long for the past.
I no longer had memories worth missing. My childhood was a struggle to escape misery, a resistance to shed the relentless poverty, and a process of coming to terms with the discrimination I could never escape.
After my father, who ran a Korean grocery store, was killed by a gunman, my mother and I were literally thrown into American society. To survive in this jungle-like place, we did whatever we had to do, and there were many things I still did not want to remember.
As a child, I did not want to burden my already struggling mother.
So, I lived as a well-behaved, model student. I didn't make close friends and focused solely on my studies, striving to quickly secure a stable and good job. In the society of America at that time, Asians were not seen as those who could follow their dreams, and our family even less so.
The only time I could dream was when I read novels.
The only deviation of a good son to a single mother was genre novels.
Sword and sorcery, hard-boiled, horror, science fiction, and others—I forgot my tough daily life momentarily while reading these novels.
Novels were an escape for me, a tool that allowed me to feel freedom and dreams.
Then, pushed by time into adulthood, I became an English teacher at a nearby public high school, and around that time, our family's circumstances improved significantly. However, conversely, life felt empty. I only had to go back and forth between work, home, and church.
One day, I stumbled upon a website selling old, used novels on the internet. There, I found "Conan the Barbarian" and "Dark Forest," novels I had enjoyed in high school, and impulsively bought them. In my youth, I couldn't afford the hardcover books and had to cut out stories from biweekly magazines and bind them to read. This memory suddenly stirred something in me.
From then on, I began collecting old novels.
Not stopping there, I also collected D&D rulebooks, board games, and comics. It was compensation for my lost childhood. Gradually, my basement filled up with this collection, and even though I thought it was a strange hobby, I couldn't stop buying and amassing novels.
"I don't do that now, though."
When I arrived home, the air was silent and eerie.
"Phew."
Inebriated, I walked down to the basement.
There were five bookcases, each about my height, filled with novels. After checking how full the dehumidifier's water tank was, I leaned back on an old sofa.
I had stopped reading the many novels I had collected.
At some point, I realized these novels weren't for me anymore.
The novels I revisited as an adult were filled with racial stereotypes and clichés. The muscular white macho, Conan, fought against an evil Asian sorcerer and won, and in the Detective Lam series, a Chinese tycoon was harshly reprimanded. Horror novels portrayed Eastern cultures very narrowly.
I could no longer see these novels with the same innocent eyes as before.
Samantha Green idolized Mariah Carey. Jack Malone idolized Michael Jordan. But as an Asian, I had no one to idolize.
"Was it just Bruce Lee? Johnny Yoon?"
It was a harsh reality.
The tools that once helped me momentarily escape from unfair realities were, in fact, encouraging that unfairness more than anything else.
So, I wrote my own novel. It was an act of comforting my younger self and a struggle to reach out to others like me. I poured my thoughts and myself into my writing.
It was a satisfying experience. In my writing, I depicted myself as I couldn't in everyday life or as an ideal character, and I felt great satisfaction. Fortunately, a publisher took notice of my novel, and it was published.
My first horror novel, featuring a Korean-American protagonist, was criticized as outdated on the internet and flopped miserably.
But I didn't give up writing. I continued to interact with the publisher and wrote more. With my second and third books, my passion for writing deepened, and so did my desire for success.
Then one day, an editor said to me...
"Your writing is good, but your personal style is too strong. You seem to be missing the essential points because you're too fixated on that style. If you wrote novels that more people could read, you would surely be successful." After leaving that comment, the editor resigned due to health reasons.
However, that remark nagged at me, so I gradually started to tone down my unique style. The thought of making a profound impact on readers or changing their perceptions faded away. I just wanted people to buy and read my novels and, through that, to bring in some money for me. Around that time, I realized how crucial money was for a novelist—it was a measure of people’s recognition.
After my fourth, fifth, and sixth works, I wrote 'Deadman's Heaven.' A work successful enough to be adapted into a drama. Since Season 1 aired, the drama's protagonist, who was 'white,' received significant public support.
As I became more aware of mass appeal, I didn't specify the protagonist's race in Deadman's Heaven. I used a name that could be common across multiple cultures. It was fine as a novel, but when it was sold to be made into a drama, problems arose. The production company wanted to cast a white actor.
I naturally objected. It didn't have to be an Asian protagonist, but definitely not a white one. I conveyed this opinion to them, but the production company ignored my protests, citing contract terms that said 'the author's wishes are respected as much as possible, but adapted to production circumstances.' This clause gave them considerable leverage.
And then I lost all motivation.
I finally understood completely. No matter how much I struggled, the giant media industry operates on the logic of capital. It's impossible to go against that. And I, too, sold my pride for money and accepted that fact.
Though the drama achieved even greater success due to its adaptation, that was all there was to it. I compromised with reality and made a lot of money at the expense of dishonoring my childhood.
'What's the use of all that?'
Of course, the success of Deadman's Heaven wasn't solely because the protagonist was white. Having written several works, I had learned how to engage readers and naturally came to write more mainstream stories, which also contributed.
But the content creators still believed that a white protagonist sells. 'Or maybe switch the white character for a Black one afterward.'
It was not an Asian.
Laughing ironically at the reality, I slowly closed my eyes.
I was shattered enough to lose all desire to write.
'Yet, if someday, after a sleep, I wake up suddenly motivated again.'
I wanted to prove to the world that someone like me could also be a superhero. As the floodwaters surged around me, I slowly closed my eyes.
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