A ranking of all the times I’ve been micro (macro?) aggressed
Plus: a nobel prize winning south korean novelist and a great new banh mi in nyc
I feel like May’s newsletter got a little too heavy and serious, so for this month I thought I’d keep it light and fun. Here’s a ranking of the top three times I’ve gotten micro-aggressed in the city.
For context: I am not Chinese.
THIRD PLACE
This is the incident that sparked the idea to write this newsletter, because it happened just a few weeks ago. I was on my way back from a gorgeous solo morning at Brighton beach and transferring to the Fulton stop on the G train. For my non-NYer friends, sometimes when you have to switch sides of the track, you have to walk under the rail line in a dingy little tunnel that always smells like piss (so I’m told; I don’t have a sense of smell, for which I am grateful). All this to say: it’s not a space I feel particularly good or safe in even under the best of circumstances. As I was descending down the stairs in the tunnel, a middle aged man who was crossing the opposite way waited until he was about to pass me to hit me with the ni hao.
I have to assume his breath smelled bad because it was warm when it hit my face, but again, no sense of smell means I have to leave that up to the imagination.
Not good. Bonus points because we were semi-alone in the damp, nasty tunnel, but it doesn’t quite have the juice to make it into the Number 2 spot.
SECOND PLACE
I wish I had a more original microaggression for Number 2, but I have to keep it honest. This was yet another ni hao I received, but this one was late at night as I was walking home alone on Halloweekend last year. A bunch of men were sitting on the ramp of an empty commercial space and I had to walk past them. They stayed silent until almost the last second, as if holding it back, as if they knew it was not the right thing to say — until one guy blurted it out anyway. Ni hao.
Ugh!
Bonus points because it was nighttime and because it was only one single block from where I live. You’re going to ni hao me here? In my neighborhood? On my block?? In Williamsburg??
Unacceptable. But it doesn’t hold a candle to my number 1 spot, a story I milked for weeks after and am milking once again here. Drum roll please…
FIRST PLACE
This story is best told in person where I can physically mime it all out like the circus clown I am, but alas, I am a “Writer” and I am “Writing” so this is the medium you have to receive it in.
To set the scene: It was the last day of the Manet/Degas exhibit at the Met and it was packed. Like balls to the wall crazy. I almost immediately got separated from my friends and resolved to just meet them outside after. I was enjoying a painting from a respectable distance, hands clasped politely behind my back as you do, with a few other art lovers when a woman pushed her way in front of all of us to stand nose-to-nose with the painting.
Me and the older gentleman to my right exchange side glances, like ugh, can you believe it. I always enjoy this moment: when me and a stranger get to briefly bond over someone else being annoying. Well anyway, I go to move on and he follows me, leaning in.
“These days, some people have no courtesy at all.”
I nod along politely in commiseration, say something like, “Yeah, man, totally, I get ya.” Meanwhile I am (politely) angling to keep it pushing, but before I can leave, he adds: “Well thank you for having a sense of courtesy.”
And then he BOWED AT THE WAIST. A 90 DEGREE BOW, HIS PALMS FOLDED TOGETHER AT HIS CHEST, and went xie xie
He xie xie’d me. I got xie xie’d. At the Met! At the Met Manet/Degas exhibit!
Really, it’s the bowing and the folding of the hands that really puts it over the top.
Reader, as a reminder, I am not Chinese.
(Although this poses the question: would it be better if they correctly micro aggressed me with Vietnamese? Or would it be worse. I guess I would be impressed? But it would also be freakier... Like how did you clock me like that and why do you know Vietnamese phrases…)
What I’m reading
I’ve been in a terrible reading slump lately because of a peculiar problem: the book I’m reading is too good!! It’s enjoyable, but hard to pick up because I feel like I need to be in the right mood to really absorb it. I’m going to try to fix this by diving into something else and then returning to it later.
We Do Not Part by Han Kang (trans. from Korean by E. Yaewon, Paige Aniyah Morris)
The one book I did manage to read in June was We Do Not Part by Han Kang, a recent Nobel Prize in Literature winner. The novel follows a woman in modern-day South Korea whose friend calls from the hospital: she’s suffered an accident and needs an urgent favor. The request leads the protagonist, an accomplished but severely depressed writer, to leave for Jeju Island on the cusp of a blizzard to tend to her friend’s pet bird. Through a dizzying journey of metaphorical and metaphysical sleights of hand, Kang reveals the beating trauma at the heart of the novel: a civilian uprising and massacre that happened on the island under the watchful eye of the United States in the lead-up to the Korean War. The facts of this massacre were suppressed and censored for decades, leaving survivors trapped in the past by a government that refused to acknowledge it.
Kang asks how we can reckon with violent legacies of suffering and survive the reckoning. It’s a dark and heavy novel, but propulsive, even as our protagonist, struggling through unknown streets toward her friend’s cabin while caught out in a blizzard, slips between nightmares, dreams and hallucinations. Not an easy read by any means, but very meaningful.
9/10
Currently reading: The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden
The bed stand list: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, Playworld by Adam Ross
what i’m eating
The banh mi’s at banh anh em (banh’s sister restaurant in the east village). Both the pork and chicken are very good! It’s walk-in only and packed, so I recommend ordering for takeaway and finding a nice bench somewhere. Speaking of dishes you can easily find in houston but have to scrounge for in the city, the al pastor burritos at taqueria al pastor in bushwick are good — not texas good, but good.
As y’all know, I am an AMC gal, so I’ve been hunting for good spots for pre- or post- movie din near all my lower Manhattan spots. In kips bay, I love the chicken 65 biryani at hyderabadi zaiqa (but the goat dum biryiani is also good). Tonight I’m trying a new Indian place nearby before I see F1… will lyk.
I need to end it here for right now, but don’t be too surprised if I pop back into your inbox in a week or two with a follow up! But also… don’t be too surprised if I don’t.
Okay guys I’ll talk to y’all soon <3
anna x