Thread by @jboyolee

My mom and dad will finally close their last small business at the end of this month and finally retire. They are 74 and 78 respectively. Their story is worth knowing so here is this little thread. Someday I’ll write this out properly.

My parents were born during WWII in Korea during Japanese occupation. It was a hellish time. My dad was one of 5 boys but two of his siblings died in infancy. My mother was also one of five and was born into a bit more privilege. My father comes from the North. My mom the South.

Soon after WWII ended, Korea was quickly launched into another conflict. A proxy war between the US and the Communists. By the time my mother was 7 she was an orphan having lost both her parents in the Korean War. Her families meager money stolen by an unscrupulous uncle.

My father became a North Korean refugee and spent his adolescence in refugee camps across South Korea. Constantly moving because his father was a war criminal in the north and capture would mean immediate death.

Both my parents are smart and while few of their Korean peers were educated my father eventually became an economist and my mom an accountant/book keeper. They built a very upper middle class life in Korea by the time we kids arrived.

But life in South Korea in the mid70s was uncertain. The country had a GDP equivalent to Cameroon and it was still a military dictatorship. With three girls, they saw no real future for their children.

They eventually got the chance to immigrate to the US in 1978. The US was in the midst of an oil crisis. NYC was nearly bankrupt. Crime was sky high. There were no large communities of Asian Americans. My mom got a job sewing dresses in a sweatshop.

My economist dad worked at the Fulton Fish Market. They faced hideous racism. We family of six (eventually 7) lives in a one bedroom apartment until I was 11. There was no health insurance. I qualified for free school lunch. I learned to speak English watching Sesame Street.

Eventually my parents saved enough to buy a small bodega on 53rd and 8th in Manhattan. Back then it wasn’t Columbus Circle. It was Hell’s Kitchen. Life did not get easier for them. It got harder. My dad woke up every day at 4am to drive to the Hunts Point Market for produce.

At 6am my mom got up and started her 90 minute commute to the city to join my dad and open the store. My grandmother (who arrived via chain migration) took care of us kids. My parents closed the store each night at 11pm and drove the hour back to our home in Queens.

One of my fondest memories from this period was watching my mom’s closing ritual. Every night as they prepared to close my mom would walk through the store to find all the damaged but edible food. She’d package it all up.

As we walked to the parking garage she would hand out bundles of food to each homeless person we encountered on the street. My mom was City Harvest before City Harvest. My mom still does stuff like this all the time.

They did this 7 days a week 364 days a year. They only closed on Christmas. No vacations. My dad spent nearly 5 years surviving on 4 hrs of sleep. My mother 6. My mother developed TB during this time and nearly died. We kids didn’t learn about this until our 20s.

One day my dad didn’t show up with the produce to open the stores. Several frantic hours later my mom learned that my dad fell asleep behind the wheel of the car and wrecked the van. He only had a concussion.

As the 80s progressed and NYC real estate prices rose, the owner of the building where my parents had their shop informed them that he just sold the building and they’d have to close shop by the end of the month. They were devastated and depressed.

They sold what they could and brought home what they couldn’t. I will never be able to eat Campbell’s Manhattan Clam Chowder again.

Even as a young kid I could see how this sudden change impacted them. It was weird to have them home all of a sudden. It was the best time but also scary.

About a month later, our uncle tipped my parents off about an unprofitable athletic shoe store in Jamaica Queens that was for sale on the super cheap. Without hesitation they went and bought it.

This is where my mom’s accounting and book keeping skills became critical. She began inventorying everything. She figured out what sold (Timberlands and Frye boots) and what didn’t. She figured out how much was being lost through employee theft (a lot).

And most importantly, my mom being an extrovert’s extrovert, chatted up ppl in the neighborhood and asked what they wanted. Sneakers. So w/ the help of their English fluent preteens they applied for new shoe accounts. We immigrant kids learn to navigate adult spaces real early.

Life became a bit easier for my parents. People don’t buy shoes before 9am and they stop buying them after 8pm. Suddenly 18 hr days became 11 hr days. Still 7 days a week, 364 days a year without vacations but they weren’t complaining. In fact, they never complained.

My parents are natural business owners. One store became two became three. And eventually they got a much coveted and extremely difficult to attain Nike account. It was game changing. By the time I was in HS we had moved to a small house in Queens.

It’s with these stores they sent us kids to college and grad school. The greatest tragedy of their later years was the death of their eldest child (my sister) at the age of 31.

Even after each of my sister’s and I began attaining our own career success my parents never let up. In the 41 years since they arrived in the US they have maybe taken 5 vacations total. We kids have been imploring them to retire for the better part of the past 15 years.

My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s a few years ago. He has a limited amt of time before he loses most of his mobility. The goal now that they are retiring is to pack in as much travel as possible. My @United 1K status couldn’t have come at a better time. Upgrades for them.

My mom plans to spoil her grand babies. My dad’s goal is to survive till he can see his eldest grandchild (my oldest) graduate HS. I so wish I could wave a magic wand and make him healthy. My parents so want to see the world.

My parents are curious, kind, progressive, loyal, intellectual, and environmentalists. All my values are their values. My dad taught me about AIDS and discrimination of the LGBTQ community when a family friend committed suicide in the early days of the AIDS crisis.

As a refugee, my dad always reminded us kids to look to understand who in a society is the most marginalized and oppressed. He taught us to never forget that as Asians we are accepted more readily then darker skinned POC but we will forever always be foreigners.

My mom taught us kids to always look beyond ourselves. She always finds a way to be kind. To share what she has. To make someone feel important.

My parents are incredible people and I wish there were more of them in this world.