Fall, 2016
Imagine; after having gone months on end unsuccessfully looking for jobs, you now wake up every morning not only looking for work, but also a home.
I had been so preoccupied job hunting, I’d totally forgotten that, uh, yeah — leases end. November was creeping around the corner, and although the option to renew was on the table, it really wasn’t an option.
The terms had changed; my co-tenant was looking to live with only one roommate this time around, not two, meaning I’d be paying for both rooms on my side of the apartment. Double what I had initially been paying. For two rooms too small to do anything with.
An empirical rip-off, no matter how you spun it — and it should go without saying I was too fucking broke to be considering this a realistic possibility.
So the most (read: only) solace I could find from my situation was that I had time. My tenant let me know a month or two in advance, and that further tested my capabilities: in this case, whether or not I could adapt to survive where I wanted to be.
Desperate doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’d wake up every morning and start my day, every day, thinking about all the shit I’d have to figure out. Like, I’d regain consciousness and the first thought that’d cross my mind would be how far behind I was in…life, really.
No stable job, no stable income, and now, no place.
But I’m only human, right? So — for the sake of my sanity — I had a mini-dialogue, helping me keep myself together.
“Yeah, you’ve got a lot of fucking shit to sort, but start with one. One bite at a time. One look at a time. One day at a time.”
And it starts with having a roof over my head.
At first, that had been enough for me to stay resilient. “I’ve got it. Crib first. Stay focused,” I’d tell myself over and over. That’d be enough to keep my mental together. Keep things internalized; like, there’s no need to air out your bullshit to strangers.
But I reached the point where I had no mental energy not to speak on it. My life was an ordeal, and all these loose ends consumed my conscious. I was working, hunting, and motherfucking hunting. I couldn’t think of anything else. That’s all I’d do. Look for work, look for housing, and hustle at Scarr’s.
So for the first time ever, I reconsidered a mantra I followed my entire life: I asked for help.
And before I move on, let’s just get this out the way: there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help.
You are a person, and people are people. What makes you think you’re fundamentally any different? People are going to have their hardships. They’ll be trudging along and doing better or worse based upon their standards, circumstances, and aspirations. But bottom line, they’ll always be striving for more.
Now, how people go about this is a whole different story altogether — but asking for help makes so much sense. You’re concerned you’re going to bother? I promise your e-mail or phone call or carrier pigeon will be a blip in the sendee’s day — if that. Concerned you’ll get ignored? Get over it. Or shoot over a quick reminder. Concerned you’ll sound dumb? You thinking that sounds dumb.
People are grinding, growing, and aspiring for greater things. They’ll empathize with you for trying to do the same thing, and, if anything, feel a little flattered that you came to them asking for guidance or advice. Find solace in that. Let that build your confidence and reach out. Speak up. Be clear. Be brave.
It makes me laugh now, but I was embarrassed to ask for help — concerned about coming off as groveling. I still try to understand where that idea comes from, and, honestly, the only way I can frame it is dumb pride. Like thinking I’m above it. Or construing the worst possible scenario where I ask for help, and then get flamed for being incompetent and needy.
But, turns out, if you’re honest with people, you’ll find out that there are people as honest and hardworking as you are.
I chatted with an alum on multiple occasions who heard me out despite zero mutual connections simply because I wanted to know more about his field. I had some Posse alumni speak with me solely because I was Posse. It’s amazing how far one element of affiliation will take you with initial strangers.
One graduate even showed me around her work office after lunch and introduced me to a number of coworkers. I even became actual friends with a career advisor since my ass was constantly getting curbed and coming back, yet that didn’t stop her from supporting and encouraging me in my professional endeavors.
That’s what I mean by great people. People who don’t evaluate you based on the situation you’re in, but how your responding to your situation. How you’re moving. What you’re doing. What you’re trying to get into. How you’re trying to figure things out. They’ll listen, they’ll suggest, but more than anything, they’ll support — however they can. Those are some fundamentals I’ve seen in honest, hard-working people.
That mentality and belief carried over to Scarr’s. Honestly, I probably would have just kept to myself and drowned in stress had I not worked the front of the house. Chatting with some of the regulars got me to know them on a personal level, and from that point on, we’d chat about life and what we had been up to. How’s work? How’s your girl? What you been up to? Oh, word, that shit finally happened?
And sure enough, I’d become comfortable enough to drop a personal question of my own.
“You wouldn’t happen to know any realtors around the area, would you?“
Sure enough, someone did.
I wish I could pinpoint an exact time when I realized this dude was actually a cool guy, but it honestly just came from constant interactions with him. Some days, he’d come through and ask to bum a cigarette. No prob. Other days he’d pop by with his pen and let me puff out front while the shop was slow. Good looks.
Small interactions like that — the type of you don’t remember the specifics of, but after a couple episodes, your perception of that person becomes warmer. More personal.
But he dropped the number of a Chinese realtor who knew families in Chinatown. Whenever a spare room showed up due to a kid or relative going out of town or moving out or whatever, families would be looking to rent. And this realtor would be the go-to person to find someone to take that room.
That’s where I came in.
I met a couple that lived eight blocks from where I lived since their son had moved out, and…well, that was it.
That’s all I knew; why they had a spare room, where it was, and how much it’d be per month. They didn’t speak a lick of English. The agent was there to function as the translator between the two of us in our first meeting.
We met at the apartment, and I introduced myself with a ‘Nihao’ and a deep bow. A universal Asian gesture that will always win you brownie points fuk ya
But I took a look around while the realtor broke the situation down to the family. The first thing I noticed was the state of the apartment. I took a seat right by the front door, my arm against the dining room table that hugged the entrance and the fridge — nearly the full length of the sole common area of the apartment.
Besides being small, this place was ancient. Off white tile flooring lined black. A dimly lit kitchen where I spotted dried, adhesive rat traps. A sole window in the common room/kitchen staring directly into the brick building out front. And a bathroom where the toilet and bathtub braced each end of the sink.
Then I saw the “contract.”
Or, rather, I saw them whip it up.
They noticed my little notebook, asked for it, then ripped out the last page where they wrote a couple lines in Chinese, along with some numbers.
I focused on the numbers.
Fuck it, this will do.
The meeting lasted maybe around fifteen minutes. I was allowed to move in the day before my lease ended at my place on Orchard. They let me hang onto the contract.
There were only three factors that I concerned myself with: security deposit, rent, and duration. Reasonable, reasonable, and beyond reasonable. Turns out I could stay on a month by month basis. Perfect. It really was all I needed.
Mentally, I came thinking this current situation would be nothing more than a pit-stop. I’d be back on my feet and leave this family in peace. Beyond that, I didn’t even waste my time considering other luxuries. I got a room and a roof. Can’t complain about that. And, bottom line, I was in the same neighborhood I had been living at for the past year. A neighborhood that, at this point, I was comfortable to call my own.
This will do.
At this point, I considered my ass unemployed. Scarr’s wasn’t enough, and I was being phased out. Made sense though. We agreed that this would be a short term gig, and I put two and two together to realize they found someone more permanent to take my shifts.
So in a weird way, it was almost like a clean break; new place, cheaper rent, no gig.
Yet despite all that, I wasn’t worried — at least when it came to the bare minimum of surviving. Because in the end, I lived with a family. A family that was a staple in their community based upon the fact that everyone in the building knew them (not to mention that everyone in the building was Chinese).
Hard to imagine them collectively scheming to take my liver in the middle of the night while I’m in bed.
Not to mention, I’m Asian. Not Chinese, sure, but from what little I know about Asian culture and the like, there’s a common thread in lifestyle of ‘if you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you.’ The smiles and body language throughout our introductory exchange of conjuring a contract where I bargained my life made me believe that living by this mantra would work with this family.
So — figuring my life out alongside long time locals giving off vibes I’m already familiar with due to my own upbringing as an Asian-American? Sure, why can’t I live with them?
We signed the contract, I got my keys a couple days earlier than expected (another good sign), and a day before my lease ended at my old spot, I borrowed a trolley from my cornerstore deli to dedicate the whole fucking day going back and forth from my old to new home moving all my shit. No fucking joke. Clothes, dresser, containers, books, tv, and all.
But with that, I found a new place to live. Check that one off the list, even if it entailed living with a family in a space that I no longer owned, but borrowed. I essentially exchanged an apartment for a room, and shaved a couple bones of my rent. Fine. Fair trade.
And you know what? That was enough — because, in some crazy way, I still had my peace of mind.
I joke with friends saying that during this time in my life, I was an exchange student taken in by my Chinese family — but I don’t think it’s too far off the mark. It’s surreal to think, really. Like we didn’t know anything about one another — names included.
Yet there was enough for mom and pop to agree that I could live with them. Enough for us to look at one another, put the pieces together in our own ways, and trust in each other’s vision as one and the same.
I had nothing but my gut guiding me through this ordeal, so you’re damn right thinking I played this safe. Shit, there’s a reason why I say exchange student, not resident. If I used the kitchen, I’d leave it the way I found it. If I came home late, I’d be careful about slamming the front door, and starve if I’d have to use the stove. Little things like that I’d made sure to take care of — because there really was no other way for me to communicate with this family other than through my behavior.
And the more I look back at this time, the more I realize how invaluable my time in Miami was, too. Because, once again, I was in a place I had no right being.
My Korean-American ass raised in a predominantly hispanic neighborhood was now squatting in a predominantly Chinese neighborhood. But growing up in Miami, coexisting with those who had a whole other language and culture I knew very little of molded me to become fond of unfamiliarity.
Crazy how that works out — grow up in an environment where you’re perpetually out of place, and eventually the associated sense of discomfort dissipates from it.
And you’d think that looking the part would suffice when you’re merely trying to exist, but it was tougher to make out Chinatown than Miami.
Yeah, I stuck out like a sore thumb back home, but I definitely could construe some sentences together in Spanish if communication was necessary.
Chinese?
Chinese??
Shit, ain’t no Spanish, English, or Korean understanding gonna help me put two and two together in Mandarin or Cantonese.
The mental gymnastics my brain would go through to try and communicate. ‘Wo’ is ‘I’, right. But…‘I’m tryna shower, have you already?’
Wo…wo…
Wo the fuck.
Point to the bathroom and run my hands through my head like I’m lathering my hair. Then “hm?” with a question-intonation to make it clear I’m asking a question. Jesus.
Ain’t no familiarity with romance languages nor Hangul gonna help me bridge this gap.
Ethnic similarity didn’t mean jack shit when it came down to exchanging dialogue. Communicating via perception of body language can only take you so far, and it is crippling to see the real-time disappointment in someone’s eyes when they realize you’re not what they thought you were.
My attempt at damage control? A nod and the saddest “I’m sorry. I failed you” smile on my face. Fleeing the scene like a goddamn con-artist.
Looks aren’t everything, even if you look like you belong.
This move was just the start of further illuminating the lack of understanding my own identity. Like; okay, no shit you’re gonna have a hard time and feel like you don’t belong because you can’t communicate, but to feel less comfortable around folks of your own ethnicity versus those otherwise?
Questions about ‘not being Asian enough.’ Questions about where I belong. Questions I hadn’t even bothered formulating during my time at Hamilton, let alone in Miami. A year out adulting, and along with piecing my life together, I’m really thinking about being part of a community —what that even means or what that would even be for me. A genuine desire to truly understand my own identity, despite my out-of-place upbringing and my currently out-of-place living. Kinda bizarre; why now? This thought processing — a projection of my loneliness? Or a newfound awareness from my exposure in a predominantly Asian neighborhood?
Wild; before this, I was just a couple blocks away — and questions like these didn’t even remotely cross my mind. Mind you, I’m still in the same neighborhood, but now I’m really wondering where my ‘place’ would be — where I ‘belong’.
All while trying to secure some stable income without having to exchange my soul.
But I got a roof over my head.
Yeah, I can do this.
Big thanks to the sis Cellini for the pics. Check out her stuff here.
