Photo Credit:  Robin Holland

Where did all these candles come from?  How can I possibly be expected to blow them all out?  My wife, my children, and five grandchildren are all looking at me, waiting for me to take a breath much-too-deep for a man my age, and to put an end to this fire hazard.  My son Ethan and his wife Karen are both math teachers, so I assume that it was their idea to light up all 75 candles on the cake.  Seventy-five candles!  You can imagine the scope of this cake, like an ocean of chocolate waves…

My wife is straight ahead of me at the other end of the table.  She has the camera.  Her face is a zoom lens and a blinking red light.  “C’mon, deep breath,” my wife the zoom lens says.  I breath in, exaggerating the effort.  Everyone else around the table follows my example.  Together we blow.  A team effort.

Ethan and my daughter Jeannie have each come from a few states away to be here.  My son Austin lives across the country,  but we will be seeing him in just a week for my granddaughter’s baptism.  It is good to have my family around at a time like this.  What I mean is that no one should turn seventy-five alone in a bar, or alone in a basement, or alone in a park.

This is a preview of Jimin Han's novel in progress "A Separate Inheritance"

My OBGYN says she’s not surprised that a Columbia University student was murdered by a Korean man. “Don’t you remember a while ago the same thing happened at Collins College? A Korean student held three people hostage and then killed two of them? You see, Koreans again. We Chinese are told from when we’re very young that Koreans are too passionate for their own good.”

Passionate? I’m so stunned by her words that for a moment I’m speechless. I don’t know if it’s because she’s not Korean and I am or because Dr. Chung in her glittery  red shoes is the most fashionable doctor in midtown and confidence glows about her and she thinks she can talk about something she knows nothing about. Nothing

 Photo credit Miriam Berkley (c)

Meeting (MEE-ting), n., Korean slang: a group date.

“I don’t date Korean girls because they all remind me of my sisters.”

Chul’s tone was offhand, but there were weights of guilt, regret, anger—and above all, mother—attached to his words.

“And when you date Korean girls, it’s like there’s so much cultural baggage that comes along with them