First Moon

Hi,

Welcome to the first episode of Sitting Together, a blog. I'm taking it back to the early days of blogging and e-journaling. I guess this will be a bit of both. Sitting Together is somewhere between manduhandu and hwasunni, something between business and creative practice. Am I sitting with you? Am I sitting with myself? My Other Self? This will be home to announcements, ramblings, and musings alike. I have become impatient with the… things… and I am hiding away here. Bear with me while I find myself in this space. 

A Few Updates:

Kimchi Making Workshop -

Kimchi Workshops have been selling out and going well. My deepest gratitude to all our participants. Thank you so much for joining us at Workshop Studios for our first classes there. It has been a learning experience for me as well, and I hope to bring constant improvement to the course. If you have feedback, I would greatly appreciate an email about your experience. I will be creating a Google form survey for anonymous feedback as well.

Our next class is on Saturday, February 15th, 5-8pm. Tickets are available, per person, on WorkshopPGH.com until they sell out. This class will include a small buffet along with the course. You do NOT have to come as a couple to participate. Feel free to come with a friend, fam, sweetie, or on your own. All are welcome.

Upcoming/Community Events -

Anne Chen presents her solo show, Chinoiserie Behavior, at Seton Hill's Jodee Harris Gallery, this Friday 1/31, 4-7pm. Thrilled to be going to support my dear friend. Hope to see you there! I have room for a few more to ride along. I suggest going over a couple of hours early to visit the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, open 10am-5pm, a hidden gem of the region.

Love is in the air as the days grow longer and spring approaches. Queer Craft Market & Pittsburgh Vintage Mixer present: Sexy Time Market (18+) 9/7 at Union Project, 6-9pm. Sexy? Yes. Steamy? Mm-hmm. Vintage & Craft? Yep. Manduhandu will be there with the noms, and… other stuff?

Also, will be at Love Bug Market, Sunday 2/9, 11am-3pm. This event is hosted by WorkshopPGH at their Pennwood studios. As you all know, WorkshopPGH hosts wonderfully fun and inclusive events. Kelly and staff are always supporting our LGBT+ maker community. I am very excited for this one!

Mend&Meal is back with Otto Finn & Old Flame Mending 2/13, 5-8pm at Otto Finn on Bulter. Event tickets are available at Old Flame Mending's website. Meals are available for preorder via DM @manduhandu or email (menu will be posted this week). There is limited space, so please be sure to register. This is our first Mend&Meal of the year. Bring your hand sewing projects (other small fiber crafts are welcome) and join us for community time.

I will be traveling with Rona of Otto Finn, to ACC 2025 American Craft Made Baltimore, February 21-23. I will be assisting Rona for the show/travel. This is not a Manduhandu event. Come visit us!

Other News -

Last fall, my mom and I made a bunch of zines. Thanks to all who viewed and purchased them at the Pittsburgh Zine Fair, the Photographic Print Fair, and beyond. Mama, Becky Sungja Kim, has released three books: the long awaited Korean Food Jang, Blessings and Meditations, and HEALING HILL. All three are available now on Amazon for Kindle or physical copy.

Korean Food Jang has been republished in its first public edition. This book has step by step recipes with pictures from Mama herself. Jang is truly a labor of love, and so is this book. I hope you will receive it as such.

Also,

I am shipping the last of the forgotten tees out this week. I have some extras which I will have available at my upcoming events and online. Sorry to say the black tees were not printed. If you paid for a black tee and have not already spoken to me, please reach out for either refund or replacement.

In The Only Girl in the Orchestra - a short documentary about the legendary Orin O'Brien, first female member of the New York Philharmonic - O'Brien said of the double bass, "it must vibrate to stay alive."

Mustn't we all abide this fundamental truth?

English is my second language.

It's hard to believe or conceive, considering how lost to me my mother tongue, how far from fluency I've become. Yet when I cry to my ancestors, it is in the voice of a child between worlds, broken between shame and love and the lack thereof.

Seollal, the lunar new year, is just beyond the bend of light. Seol설 nal날, the day of a new age, when we become one year older, all together, under the Dark New Moon, the second after the winter solstice, the first glimmers of hope on the horizon. If we've made it this far, we've made it through the Darkest of nights, and that is no small feat.

Just like dieut mutated into digeut for laziness and forgotten reason. So has seolnal become seollal, and the day is lost. As I return to my mother tongue, I find she is not as I left her. She has been morphed into incomprehensible gibberish. To my horror, nobody seems to notice. Not the ones who shamed me for losing my voice, nor those who took it from me. (They're one in the same.)

As we ring in the new year, I reflect on the parts of my heart that have been broken by my ancestors, living and dead. The crumbled bits they stuffed into a heart-like satchel (soft and bloodied, buried in the shallow grave of my chest). I unfold them into my open hands and let them fall to the ground. I watch them disolve in the cold winter rain.

I wonder,

If I pour the seeds of my soul into a mortar, crush them with the weight of the world, let the pine sap cover my bear flesh, let the slap sting my cheek year after year, how will I ever grow?

Seolnal, the day of the new age. I think to stop handing them (my ancestors) the ripe fruits and carefully prepared offerings. I think about the lies told in perpetuity through generations, stories of martyrdom and sacrifice and blind faith. I think it's okay to let go of the myth and the legend. I think it's okay to be simple and kind instead of grand and powerful. I wonder how deep I would have to dig through the mountain to find a man of my blood like that. Simple and Kind.

And there it is, so clear.

They are not
ashamed of me.

They throw their own shame down to be free of its weight. They throw it down onto my shoulders to relieve themselves so they might go already from this place. So that I might carry it for them until I find what to do with it. They throw it over my eyes to blind me and have me believe it all true and good. The lies they've told, the evil they've done.

I laugh as it all melts with the snow. I am left unburdened, lifted. Nobody, living nor dead, casts a shadow so dark as the Dark Moon. I laugh until I cry and cry some more. First Moon of the year. Wonder what the dark will show this time around. Suppose we set our intentions now and keep our word.

새해 복 많이 받으세요

saehae bok manhi badeuseyo

(New year) (blessing) (many) (receive)

Wishing you many new year's blessings.