Being a host

Last night, I went to a new law student orientation game night hosted by the Winston Churchill Gaming Society (great job WuDi Wu and Sue O'Brien on hosting it!) They had an assortment of all different kinds of games, from simple games like Ticket to Ride to party games like Telestrations to more advanced games like Power Grid.

Thing is, I didn't play a single game. Instead, I hung out by the food and talked with all the new students. I asked them where they were from, what they were looking forward to for the new year, what they did before coming to school.

I enjoy playing games, but I enjoy even more being a host. I consider it an act of love. I know what it's like to come to a group and feel awkward, uncomfortable, or out of place. I like to help people feel at ease.

When I meet people, I like to tell stories from my own life. I don't want to come across as trying to seem shiny or cool or interesting. Instead, I want to encourage people to tell their own stories, to share how shiny and cool and interesting they are.

My friend Joy Yang put it well: "Your gift is to turn to someone and have that person feel interesting, important, and valuable." That is something that I wish to steward well.

Video Games: Identity Maker

Video games played a major role in my identity. Many of my friendships growing up featured games in some way. I remember playing video games with my friends at sleepovers and birthday parties. I remember the excitement of playing a new game with a friend and exploring a new world together. I remember playing way past our bedtimes, ultimately turning off the console in exhaustion.

I also remember bringing my games with me to friends' houses. I remember packing up my PlayStation 2 with a stock of games, trying to decide which ones my friends will want to play. Looking back now, it feels like I was showing off what I had, but that was never my intent. I just wanted to share the fun with others.

But as much as video games played a role in helping me build friendships, they also sucked me into isolation. As we grew older and my friends moved away from games, I gravitated toward the games and forgot my friends. I spent more time playing by myself and less time with others. During those very lonely years, games were my crutch and my poison. They brought me comfort in my loneliness, but that comfort shielded me from the real problems.

I have heard it said that the coping mechanisms we have as children become our dysfunctions as adults. Video games embodied this truth. Games helped me cope with life, but as I got older, they served as an unhealthy escape. It took me a while to decide that I don't want this for my life. Maybe others can enjoy games without problems, but not me.

In the end, games weren't the problem. Even without the video games, I am still me, with my desires for escape, comfort, and control. I am thankful for the season that video games played in my life, but recognize that season is done. Let me face the new.

On Christian Identity

This past week, the picture of a little Syrian boy scandalized the world. Aylan Kurdi, 2 years old, had been fleeing with his family from the violence in Syria to refuge in Europe. His little body, washed ashore on the Turkish beach, carried the tragedy of an entire people.

His story reminded me of another little boy, whose family fled the violence and death in their homeland. His parents were a young couple, ordinary working class folk, who simply wanted to live in peace. But their country was ruled by a capricious leader, bent on the annihilation of an entire generation, and they escaped to a foreign land. This story, of course, is that of Jesus, whose family escaped to Egypt when King Herod massacred all the young boys of Israel.

The story of the migrants in Europe is long and complex. One aspect that stood out to me was the comments of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In closing off his country to the migrants, Orbán declared that it was to hold off the hordes who would threaten Europe's Christian identity.

I don't know much about Hungarian history or European Christian identity. I do know that the word "Christian" means "little Christ." Those who call themselves Christians follow the life and example of Jesus the Christ.

If Jesus were in Europe, would he have embraced the migrants coming to his home? Would he have welcomed them into the safety and comfort of his life? I submit that he would have not. He would have not. He would not stop at that act because his love was not so limited.

Jesus, who came from heaven to a violent and hostile world, who lived amongst the poor and the outcast, whose love was so expansive that he allowed his body to be broken for those he loved, who looked on his murderers and asked that they be forgiven...This Jesus would not be content to live in comfort and safety. He would have gone to the war, to Syria and Iraq, to comfort and love the people there.

We can talk at length about Christian identity, about worldview and lineage and history. But let us Christians bear well in mind that Jesus is the model for how we ought to live. Would we be willing to go to Syria and Iraq, to the violence and chaos and madness, because we know God loves the people there and has called us to be an embodiment of that love? I know that I would have great difficulty in doing so...But God's grace is greater. I pray and ask that the God, who is love incarnate, would continue to expand my feeble heart and to teach me to love. And that God be present to love those caught in this tragedy.

Video Games: How I Got Started As a Gamer

I used to play a lot of video games.

It started as a kid. My dad got an NES when Nintendo first released it. I remember playing a lot of Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, and Bubble Bobble. I remember the World Class Track Meet game and the Power Pad, running furiously on a plastic mat. I remember playing Excitebike at a friend's house.

My real interest in video games happened when I ended up at a hospital. I was about 10 or so. I was there for an operation for a really painful swelling. I was really scared, since I had never been in surgery before. I had to stay overnight. To keep me company, the nurses brought in a TV with an SNES and Super Mario World. I had never played an SNES before. I was captivated by the tight gameplay, immersive world, and interesting challenges. I played that game long into the night. After I left the hospital, my parents got me an SNES (I think we were at a Toys R Us.)

Through the years, video games were a constant part of my life. I remember renting games from Blockbuster and trying to get as far as I could before I had to return them. I especially enjoyed Japanese Role Playing Games, with the emphasis on narrative, worldcrafting, and music. I remember playing Star Ocean: The Second Story, and looking at every item, reading each one's description. I started getting into emulation, playing old games that I never had the chance to get, some of which were fan translations from Japanese. I remember games like Seiken Densetsu 3, Tales of Phantasia, and Front Mission. I remember PC games like Jazz Jackrabbit and Star Control 2.

I actually learned some important lessons from some of these games. Suikoden II taught me that good intentions can lead to evil outcomes. Suikoden III taught me how to respect another person's cultural beliefs, even if you disagree with them. Katamari Damacy taught me to not take things too seriously.

There are so many games that I started but never finished. Metroid Prime. Okami. Final Fantasy I, IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X. And some games that I did. Chrono Trigger. Valkyrie Profile. The World Ends With You. Although even for these, I finished them but didn't complete them.

I also remember when I decided to give it up. After college, I became more and more busy with the responsibilities of adult life. I spent less and less time playing video games. When I did have free time, I wanted to spend it exercising or socializing with friends or reading. At one point, several years ago, I looked at my games and realized, "I don't want this to be a part of my life anymore." I sold some of my games and gave all the rest away, and haven't looked back since.

This isn't to say that I've given up on games completely. The last game I played was an iOS version of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, earlier this spring (although I haven't finished that either.) I still keep up some with gaming news, watching out for new releases. I'm not much for horror games, but Until Dawn seems really well done. I still listen to video game music, which is the subject of another post.

I don't think there's anything wrong with video games. It's just that at this point, I don't want them to be a dominant part of my life. Maybe that'll change sometime in the future. I still consider this medium with great fondness. Games helped me through some pretty tough parts of my life. But in some ways, they helped me mask my loneliness. A subject of another post.

Just for fun, here are some other video game memories:

- Watching my friend in the final battle of Final Fantasy Tactics using Orlandu to pretty much destroy everything.

- Playing Sonic the Hedgehog and trying to see what happens by spindashing constantly (will it rip through the floor?)

- Beating Mega Man X and waiting at the last screen with Sigma to see if something happens.

- Using the ice towers in Warcraft III tower defense and watching as the entire game slows to a crawl.

- Playing StarCraft just to learn more about the story, so using cheat codes in the campaign. Power Overwhelming. Show Me the Money. Operation CWAL. Black Sheep Wall.

- Listening to the sound test in Guilty Gear X and the excellent character themes. Particular favorites: Holy Orders (Ky Kiske), Babel Nose (Jam Kuradoberi), Fuuga (Anji Mito).

- Talking with my friends about which Helper in Kirby Super Star was the best (top choices were TAC and Plasma Wisp).

Wedding #7: Ken and Elaine

This past weekend, I was at the wedding of my friend Kenneth Wong. For those keeping track, this was wedding number seven. The wedding was at a country club up in the El Cerrito hills. The couple made clever use of the outdoor space by giving guests bubble guns, filling the air with bubbles.

Ken and Elaine are both musical people, and in fact met decades ago in choir. There were little touches of music everywhere, from tables marked with musical notes rather than numbers, to paper flowers formed with sheet music, to musical arrangements done by the groom himself.

But what I'll always remember is the giving of the wedding vows. Ken and Elaine chose to go with traditional vows. As Ken was repeating the words, he started choking up. I could feel a measure of his joy to be standing there, saying these promises to his new bride.

The beauty in these vows is that they transform obligation into joy. The promise to continually serve, honor, and cherish another can be difficult. Marriage is in many ways a binding of freedom, a cutting off of certain liberties. Yet it is in binding these freedoms that a greater freedom comes forth: a freedom from callousness, from selfishness, from indifference. To love another this way is to experience the privilege of being called to a greater version of oneself. When Ken was reciting those promises, he wasn't thinking about all the times in the future that he may be tempted to not follow through, to give in to fatigue or self-centeredness or apathy. He was instead filled with joy at the prospect of doing so.

Dinner with Professor Buss

Last week, I was attended a dinner at a professor's home. This was a dinner for students at my school who were in Chicago but were not participating in the On Campus Interviewing program. These were students who were set on pursuing a public interest legal career (with nonprofits or government, not private practice.) We met at Professor Buss's beautiful home in Hyde Park. We ate on the patio, near a garden filled with flowers. We talked about career paths, about her experience conducting legal research in the pre-Internet age, about The Bachelor (I had no idea that the show could be so meta.)

We also talked about gender and race dynamics in public interest work. From our group of ten people, I was the only male and the only person of Asian descent. This mirrors some of the demographics of public interest legal work more generally, at least for nonprofits. We discussed why that may be the case. For example, children of immigrants may feel some financial pressure. Their parents have left everything to come to a new country; for these children, their parents' financial security may hinge on their productivity. Asian families put a high priority on stability, sometimes over self-expression and fulfillment, and children learn that economic constancy is more important than career satisfaction.

Similar dynamics may play out in the realm of gender. Men may believe that they need to be the breadwinners, and so pursue more lucrative career options (BigLaw attorneys start out at $160,000, while many public interest attorneys start out around $40,000.) Public interest work tends to attract people with a more nurturing personality (clients are generally needy people, not companies), which also plays a factor.

What this means for me is that I am entering a field in which there are not as many people who look like me or have similar backgrounds to mine. On one level, this can feel somewhat lonely, but it does encourage me to expand my sights and embrace peers and mentors from a variety of perspectives. Even in law school, I have learned a lot from people like Hannah Lazar​ and Rachel Zemke​ and Jackie Newsome​. I am also excited that I can encourage other people, of all backgrounds, to enter into this work. It is difficult, and it is taxing, but I've seen how it can be so worthwhile.

In the Spirit of Taizé

A few weeks ago, I went with my friends Scott Erdenberg and Tina Erikson to a worship service in the spirit of Taizé. It was my first time to such a service. Taizé is an ecumenical monastic community in France. Brother Roger Schütz started the community in 1940 as a quest for a different expression of the Christian life. During World War II, the Taizé community took in countless war refugees. It has grown from a small house to a large community of over a hundred brothers. Taizé is an important place of Christian pilgrimage; over 5000 people visit it every year in the summer and at Easter. Taizé services hold special value for contemplation, silence, and communal action. Churches all around the world hold services in the spirit of Taizé.

We arrived to a church building filled with hundreds of people. We each picked up a candle in baskets at the entrance. The songs are very simple, sometimes only two lines long, repeated almost as a mantra, accompanied by a small orchestra. There was no sermon. Many people sat in the pews, but my friends and I sat on a floor near the front. There were icons, depictions of Jesus and the saints, facing us.

The two most striking aspects of the service were the candles and the silence. After the first few songs, one person came forward with a lit candle. He shared the flame with a few others' candles. The light started to pass from person to person, filling the whole sanctuary. After a time of prayer and Scripture, we sang another song, during which each person came forth and planted the candle in bowls of sand in front of the icons. The bowls became filled with candles, and it was powerful to reflect on how each candle symbolized an individual person who came as part of this gathering.

Midway through the service was an extended time of silence, about 10 minutes. It is rare to be able to sink deeply into a time of silence, to clear through the frenetic thoughts and center into how God is speaking. I didn't want the silence to end.

The song that stayed with me the most was the Magnificat. As someone who grew up in a Korean Presbyterian tradition, I'm not familiar with Latin. I have heard prayers and songs offered in English, Korean, Spanish, Mandarin, and Mongolian, but never Latin. The reality is that Latin and Greek are foundational languages of the church, used in worship by communities throughout the centuries. Singing these words from the Gospel of Luke, I felt as if I was connected, somehow, to the generations that have said these same words throughout time.

Magnificat, magnificat, magnificat anima mea Dominum.

My soul magnifies the Lord.