American Appearance Culture and Cultural Appropriation [1] It’s not a surprise that there are many cultural differences between Korea and US. One of the things that I find interesting is that the way American people pursue Beauty differs from the way Korean people do. Of course, as the way Korean people look like is different from what American people look like, what is in favor varies. But in the sense that both of Korean and American people purse, so-called, fake image, at least they have something in common. Amongst teenagers here in the states, the ideal image of female is big lips, big breast and big butts with thin waist. Well, as long as people didn’t go through any heavy procedure or surgery, they don’t look fake. The thing is that when they went extreme to keep up with the current trend, they look really fake, not looking like an actual human being. It even makes some people have a kind of repulsion against this body image. We can’t help but talk about Kylie Jenner as far as this trend. A famous magazine, Forbes, actually addressed how successful she was with her cosmetic business, highlighting that she is a self-made person. But how can she be possibly considered self-made, when she started her business with a quarter of a million dollars? When we think twice about the real definition of self-made, self-made person refers to the one who really made it without any financial support. She is being criticized for not only being born on third base, but also exploiting African-American Culture. When you think about the statue of African-American, the first image that might come across in your mind would be big lips and big butts like the body image that teenagers consider perfect. I started wondering if it hadn’t been for Kylie Jenner, African-American culture would be ignored and unappreciated? This also leads me thinking that actually African-American people should be thankful her for parlaying their culture into her business, given the fact that their culture got more recognized? Or should it be considered Cultural Appropriation, because Kylie Jenner appropriated their culture for her business profit? I’m not sure how to look at this cultural phenomenon, but simply put, how I feel about this is that it’s such a shame that a lot of female don’t see there’s any problems with this ridiculous body image.

A trouble you come across at work (2) Another problem is that our company actually has a couple of other companies. The other companies are like my company’s partner and we use the same office. So she was hired by one of my company’s partners in the first place, her wage was decided way higher than any other employees. Given what she does at work ( just an assistant ), she’s not worth getting that much of wage. But she thinks she deserves to get it when actually I saw her doing something else a bunch of times. This is why I find it so unfair the fact that she gets paid way a lot when she doesn’t do work that worths that amount of money. I don’t know how I deal with this type of person who doesn’t know her place and gets on high horse, like she’s doing such an amazing work Thanks in advance for anyone who will correct my journal or even just read! :)

A trouble you come across at work (1) At some point, I started having issues with one of my coworkers. Although we are in a different team, since I work in accounting and whenever it’s payday, we have been going back and forth regarding her paycheck. First of all, she works part-time. She works 20 hours a week compared to other employees who work full-time, 40 hours. She started working 3 or 4 months before I came here and her schedule used to be consistent. So back then it wasn’t any problem to follow up on her work hours. But at some point, her work schedule became inconsistent and I always had to make sure if she works her given hours. So I asked her often when she came to the office and how many hours she worked. For convenience, we decided to share a daily log sheet but she didn’t update it and sometimes she said she left a bit later actually when she left earlier. It seems like she did lie sometimes just to show that she worked her given hours when actually she didn’t do any work. The thing is that even though she works part-time, her pay is fixed, which makes things more complicated. For example We get paid twice a month, every 1st and 16th of the month(on average every two weeks, we get paid). Since her wage is fixed, her pay is not calculated by hours. This means, during the pay period, even if she worked more than 40 hours (since she works 20hours a week), it’s not considered overtime and she gets paid more, unless there was a pre-approval for overtime, because her pay is fixed like other employees who get salary. But since I always check her work hours every time she comes to the office, she got the feeling that her pay is calculated by hours, when it’s not. So I tried to explain this to her, she didn’t get this because in her shoes, she wants to get paid more. Had if someone clarified her salary is fixed in the first place, she would understand things better. In her point of view, I look like a person who doesn’t want to pay her right and doesn’t do my job correctly. But I’m doing my job and my boss even said what I looked at this problem is correct.

05/05/19 Today's Diary [2] Even if someone is your family, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can have high expectations of her or she has to be better than anyone else [2] And none of them want to hear that they look like my dad when the fact is all of us have been affected by my dad because we’d lived together for a while. I know my dad is not a good example of a dad but all of us have to admit that we must’ve been affected by our dad in many respects and there’s nothing wrong with that. All we have to is accept it and just move on. But my brother can’t just let it go as easily as I did and it got him into a depression. Given his personality where he always plans things out and he chews on something over and over again, it’s hard for him to let what happened to him go of. So I needed to step in to mediate but I told both of them to have a seat and let everything out that’s on there mind because what I said to them could be delivered in a wrong way rather than what it really is. Anyways although I mumble-jumbled a lot though, what I’m trying to say is even if he’s your family, don’t expect him to just know everything that is on your mind. You have to talk things out with the person and don’t expect him or her to be better or perfect just because he’s your family. I think all the trivial argument comes from our higher expectation where we think “oh she is my mom so she’s supposed to understand everything and if something goes wrong, she has to be changed “. Actually all of us are a human being. We have to think first that your mom is a person before your mom and family. You have to respect your mom and don’t take her for granted. But most of us and even people who already acknowledge this easily overlook the true fact that we have to express gratitude to our family but for some reason, we don't be thankful very often when actually it can be the easiest thing to do in the world. Looking at all the arguments that me or my brother had with mom, they also came from lack of expression of gratitude. Ironically enough, there are many people who always express gratitude to others when actually saying thank you to their families is one of the hardest things to them.

05/05/19 Today's Diary [1] Even if someone is your family, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can have high expectations of her or she has to be better than anyone else [1] Last weekend, my brother and mom had a big argument. There were many reasons why they got into a big fight but it seemed like the underlying reason was misunderstanding and expectations of each other. My brother has a different personality from me. Both of us grew up in a divorced family. But since he’s introverted, he’s been taking the fact that my parents are divorced more seriously than me and overthinks and lets it into his life to the point where he’s so stressed out from that. It seems like he can’t even function normally sometimes. I do never think that even if your parent are divorced, you’re unlucky or someone who has to get empathy from others. Now that he’s been going through some stuff, he thinks that he’s in a phase where he feels depressed most and he can’t make it anything because he already failed. He’s insecure about himself and he’s not confident with whatever he does. And all of these lead him to think that our mom should not have had him in the first place. Because whenever me or my brother have an argument with mom, she often complains about how hard it is to raise me and my brother. This is why my brother told my mom that she shouldn’t have given a birth at the first place. Also he thinks he grew up in an unhappy family and how unlucky it is to have a dad who didn’t do his role properly. He just thinks he should not have been born in the beginning. He feels like whenever something happens to him or worries him, there’s no one for him who can listen to his concern and support him. And he wanted to clear the air by talking to my mom if something he did upset my mom or there was a miscommunication. But I think my mom is a type of person who suppress her feelings because she doesn’t want to make a big scene by letting it out. Actually she bursts things out in the end and that makes things worse though. So even if she is not feeling well, she always doesn’t express her feelings and pretends to be okay. Also in general, girls tend to be more sensitive about women’s feeling, my mom misses me caring about her because even though my brother takes care of her, the way he does is different from me. She said she doesn’t feel looked after as much.

The worst possible Roommate You would ever meet (2) So when the girl disappeared, I pretended to be really nice just to get her back home and have her sign on the paper that she will move out on that date no matter what happens. On the day everyone moved out, she didn’t even still pay and my roommates couldn’t even get the deposit back cause the deposit was used to the two months’ rent that she didn’t pay. Luckily, the building broke the rule and made payment plan for her that she will pay off in 5 months installment. They made paper and had her sign on it. If she can’t pay, they will file a lawsuit against her. I learned a really tough lesson though, it was a nightmare and the girl was the worst possible roommate ever. Through this terrible experience, I became a bit more picky about choosing a roommate. How hard it is to find a right fit, especially when you've never met this person before and you know nothing about him / her.

The worst possible Roommate You would ever meet (1) I had never had an experience living with roommates until I came here and then I live here in the states with roommates. Unfortunately, I have a really bad experience with roommate. Once I would live with three roommates and one of them took my & other roommates’ rents for two months. Since me and my other two roommates write a check to her, she was in charge of collecting money and paying the rent to the building office. I’d lived with her for like 9 months and for the other two, they had lived with her more than 1yr. We hadn’t had any issues with the rent and all of us got along well so we trusted her until things happened. Long story short, she started having issues getting money from home starting earlier this year and she couldn’t afford the rent. She kept hiding the truth from all of us cause based on what she said she didn’t want her problem to be others’ problems when actually she should’ve told us earlier so that we could’ve helped her, like raising money and borrowing her. (Actually she only pays like 600$ while the rest of us pay like $900-$1000 and each of us could’ve borrowed her $200) So the rent with the late fee & legal fee kept adding up and in the first place I believed her lies because the building office filed an eviction against us with an eviction case and I was at a loss. The girl with the money issues told us to go to the lawyer’s office, claiming that the manager at the office say things differently so there’s no way for them to win the case or whatever. Every word that comes out of her mouth was just a lie and lie. She even spend our rent to pay the lawyer’s fee without even asking us, saying that we don’t need to pay cause she’s responsible but it turned out she spent our money. The building office also knew in the first place that she’s such a liar. For the whole one month, I was so anxious and freaked out cause I was literally at a loss. I even went to the building office for two weeks to ask them to help me and my roommates and luckily they were nice and suggested the best way and even extend the due date several times. But the girl kept lying and even disappeared for three days right before the due date. Every moment, she kept lying and all of us were so exhausted. My roommates couldn’t even move out until she pays things off and they wanted to move to the studio in the same building.

Should we keep shopping at shops that are fast-fashion brands? (2) To sum up, just to maximise their profit, the fashion brands just make clothes for a fraction of cost by using cheap labor and it comes at a high environmental cost. But I’m not saying that from now on you have to stop shopping at those fashion brands. It’s not like you have to go from one extreme to another. Below are the solutions that I think: On the fashion company side, the fashion brands have to realize what problems they have been causing so far, especially labor-wise. They need to pay them at least the living wage. Everyone has every right to get paid minimum wage and that is the law every corporate has to follow no matter what. They can’t just take the difference between paying the living wage and not paying it just to make a profit. If needed, they higher the price of the clothes as long as they’re honest with the customer, admitting that they’ve been underpaying people and now they will do pay and treat people right. That way consumers appreciate their apologize and move to change and keep consuming those brands. On the consumer side, people slowly stop shopping at fast-fashion brands and start looking for an ethical brands. But here’s a dilemma that make people hesitate to shop at ethical brands, because those brands are usually expected to be expensive and don’t have a variety, which means they don’t have as many options as fast-fashion brand does. So people eventually might end up shopping at fast-fashion brands as usual. Well, consumers pay more for a high-quality clothes at an ethical brands, instead of buying a lot of cheap clothes and the money you spend might come out even in this case. For example, it’s like you buy a pair of pants for 200 bucks, instead of paying it for 20-30 bucks at problematic brands. In order for you to do this, there has to be a change in your mindset, because it’s like minimalize your closet with high-quality clothes as opposed to a big closet with low-quality clothes that you don’t wear that often and eventually throw away. But actually this solution is like the fashion brands literally pass their responsibility to the customers. And this is why I think the corporate is the one who take initiative to work on issues they cause.

Should we keep shopping at shops that are fast-fashion brands? (1) Recently I found out there are many issues with fast-fashion brands after watching videos and it got me thinking of consuming fast-fashion brands. The point of “Fast-Fashion Brand” is that people get clothes at a low cost. But there’s an obvious reason for you to be able to buy clothes without paying a lot. Actually what’s really going on behind fast-fashion brands is exploitation. This labor exploitation is happening a lot in developing countries. ( Now that I think of it, I’ve never seen any labor in western countries , and it’s probably because the labor is far expensive and factories cost a lot to maintain it ) People who work in Sweatshop get underpaid for working long hours. And most of them are women and children. Ironically enough, these are the ones who make feminism t-shirt when they are treated and paid shit. Needles to say, the working condition is really harsh and terrible. What they get paid is even way below the living wage. This is the main reason why they(fast-fashion companies) can sell clothes at a low cost and even high cost, claiming that some of their lines are eco-friendly and high quality but still there’s an exploitation behind it. Since clothes are cheap and trend changes constantly and quickly, we just end up getting more clothes in our wardrobes that we did in the past just to simply keep up with the current trends. So in this day and age, we just have obscene amount of clothes, buying them senselessly and impulsively. This exploitation and price have been linked to environmental issues. This is mainly related to how fast the trend changes.The corporates present new designs very often like every week to make our clothes in our closet look old-fashioned and nudging us towards new trends. And the clothes that are not trends anymore end up on the landfills. The clothes are recyclable though a lot of clothes are thrown away to a point where they just outstrip the current capacity. There’s another problem with this. Actually the fashion brands don’t want to donate clothes, claiming that it will ruin their corporate image, which is a bullshit. Given there are so many people out there who can even afford clothes, it would make sense and sound helpful if they donated them instead of piling up the landfills with the clothes.