Hiring Nikki as managing editor two years ago was easily the best professional decision Nicole and I have ever made. I STILL HAVEN’T MET HER, which is outrageous, but nobody’s fault (surely it’s somebody’s fault), but everything she has ever written here has been absolute gold, and I want to make sure everyone gets a chance to re-read some of her back catalog and say nice things to her on Twitter.
How To Tell If You Are In A Korean Drama
You are a woman of modest means, yet you only seem to date men who own hotels.
You are a nice girl who knows exactly one nice guy. You forget about him a lot, but gosh, he sure is nice. Whoever he is.
You spend roughly 35% of your day sitting in fashionable cafés having very intense conversations.
You own like three Samsung Galaxy S6s and so do all your friends.
Friendship and Race and Knowing Your Place
The funny thing is, you don’t spend a lot of time wondering what it is about your friend’s life that has led to you being, as you so often are, the only nonwhite person in the room. Instead, you ask what it is about you. How did you — of all the brown people in all the towns in all the world — slip past their usual defenses? What is it that made you acceptable?
If John Cho Were Your Boyfriend
If John Cho were your boyfriend, your dad would not be able to help himself; he would insist on inviting the two of you over for an all-day classic Star Trek movie marathon. John Cho would be a good sport about it, even when your dad stubbornly refused to have mercy on you both and skip the odd-numbered films. About halfway through The Wrath of Khan your dad would start on his usual rant about the new Star Trek movies, and how they are certainly entertaining but they aren’treally Star Trek, you know, so much as Star Trek for people who don’t know anything about Star Trek, and John Cho would just nod respectfully and think about how lucky he is to be part of your life.
If John Cho were your boyfriend, you’d learn to like California – you’d have to, because that’s home for him and he needs to be there for work. To make it up to you, in between projects John Cho would take you on thrilling, unforgettable vacations all over the world, and soon you’d have to buy one of those little packs of extra pages for your passport.
“Did You Ever Mind It?”: On Race and Adoption
The hopeful parents began by asking if I had ever felt as though my adoptive parents weren’t my “real” parents. No, never. They asked if I had ever been in contact with my birth family. At the time, I hadn’t. They asked if I had ever had any “issues” growing up with white parents.
For the first time, I hesitated. “What sort of issues?”
“Any sort,” said the mother-to-be. “Did you ever mind it? You know—not being white, too?”
My Grandmother, The Time Traveler
How To Tell If You Are In A Famous Opera
You discover that you have been flirting with your own brother and think, eh. I could do worse.
You join the priesthood to get over your ex, and end up having sex with her in a church.
“Do you offer same-day service?“
Openness in adoption means more than acknowledging the fact of the adoption, “honoring” the birth mother’s decision, celebrating “Gotcha Day” on the legal anniversary. Openness means that everything is on the table. Openness means recognizing the adoptee’s right to their own history (insofar as it can be known) and their own feelings about adoption.
Why the Trend of Adoption Crowdfunding Makes Me Uncomfortable
Helen Cho, Age of Ultron, and Representation Feels
With Helen Cho in Age of Ultron, we get an Asian woman in a big-budget major motion picture who:
1) has a name,
2) gets more than thirty seconds of screen time,
3) does not die immediately after being introduced,
4) has no apparent martial arts skills,
5) is neither a math tutor nor a geisha,
6) gets to talk and say smart things — even in a roomful of white characters, who actually shut up for a minute and listen to her when she is explaining her science and why she’s a boss,
7) does not exist solely to give some white lady no one cares about questionable relationship advice, and
8) is not a crime lord and/or running a shady as fuck business out of a big scary warehouse.
The rational part of me knew all of this was ridiculous. The card wasn’t ours, no matter what the statement said — of course they couldn’t make us pay $1400 plus interest if we hadn’t spent it. But I’ve never been good with money. I don’t mean I can’t earn it, or hold onto it, or value it; I mean just thinking about it makes me feel terrible, uncertain and small and afraid. I never expect good things to happen, financially speaking, and even when things are going well I expect to lose what I have.
If LeVar Burton And Yo-Yo Ma Were Your Dads
What Goes Through Your Mind: On Nice Parties and Casual Racism
The night after Christmas finds me seated with relatives and friends at my in-laws’ crowded dinner table, enjoying a delicious meal and happily chatting about television — one of few topics that’s nearly always safe to discuss in mixed company. Of the fourteen people laughing and passing laden platters around, only one is new to me. Someone mentions my interview with Constance Wu of Fresh Off the Boat, and this, apparently, is her cue to look up and address me for the first time since we exchanged our initial his and nice to meet yous.
“Do people ever tell you that you look just like everyone on that show?” she asks.
This question strikes me as so bizarre, so beside the point, that at first I think I’ve misheard. “Excuse me?” I wait for her to clarify, change course.
She repeats her question. She appears to be perfectly serious: “You must get this a lot,” she adds, when I don’t immediately respond.
Positions I Am Ready To Fill In Your Charming Beach Town
Sand Dune Treasure Hunter
Apprentice Taffy Puller
First Mate on a Crabbing Boat
Owner/Sole Employee of the Gently Used Paperback Shop
Local Artist Working Mainly in Seashells and Epoxy
Nosy Librarian With a Penchant for Solving Crimes
Campsite Manager Whose Dark and Mysterious Past We Never, Ever Speak Of
Friends, how I have loved her. We cannot possibly celebrate her enough.
THESE POSTS ARE TOO SAD, STOP.
They just seem to be coming so soon. We still have two weeks left! Let me pretend it’s all okay until the last minute.
Yes! They are forcing us to pre-grieve.
DON’T DON’T DON’T WE HAVE THREE WEEKS EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE.
Oh my god you all I have been looking at my calendar wrong this entire week. I have three weeks to get clevermanka.net up and running by the end of the month? NO PROBLEM.
You’ve GOT this
YES, THREE WEEKS. THERE ARE 30 DAYS IN JUNE. IT’S NOT FEBRUARY FOR PETE’S SAKE.
I think the fact that the first was on a Wednesday was throwing me off. I thought we were into the second full week as it shows on my calendar.
If it makes you feel better, I did the same. Earlier this week I spend several minutes staring in despair at the locked church where I pick up my monthly produce box. It turns out they dole them out every second Tuesday (and this Tuesday was only the first one)
That’s what I’m doing! I am doing my best to deny everything.
I HAVE GONE FULL OSTRICH. HIDING MY HEAD IN THE SAND, AVOIDING THE TOAST COMMEMORATIONS, PRETENDING THEY ARE NEVER GOING AWAYYYY
-SOBS INTO MALLORY’S SHOULDERS-
TOASTAGEDDON IS NIGH
I’M NOT OKAY WITH ANY OF THIS
I just cannot face the reality of July 1. Can we renegotiate? Would tears make a difference, I’m crying here.
I would fight Nicole for John Cho, but I also love her. And she bought a Hamiltine from me on Etsy for her husband! And I was like OMG NICOLE CHUNG I KNOW YOU HERE HERE IS YOUR CARD I HOPE YOU LOVE IT.
(Sorry not sorry I will fangirl about ANYTHING AND ANYONE) (I mean not ANYONE but anyone who deserves it as Nicole clearly does. DON’T GO)
I DID LOVE IT, SO MUCH and my only regret is that I cannot give the same card to my husband every single year.
(He always outshines me when it comes to card-choosing and gift-giving, it’s OBVIOUSLY a competition, and this was the first Valentine’s Day I CRUSHED HIM)
John Cho recently followed me on Twitter, and now I am too shy to ever share IJCWYBF again, so I’m glad others remember it fondly.
You followed me, and John Cho follows you. Which means John Cho and I are BASICALLY BEST FRIENDS NOW so thank you THAT too!
Come on, one more time, before the closing. Today, for example, would be a great day. HE LOVES YOU, NIKKI, AND A FAVE/RT iS JOHN CHO’S LOVE LANGUAGE FOR YOU.
/enabler
I still think with envy of her combination dry cleaner/cafe.
Their hours are still very weird! I’ve only managed to go twice when they’re actually open. The waffles were excellent and they can really press a nice shirt.
Nikki! I am not on Twitter, but I wanted to tell you that your writing is PHENOMENAL and I am so grateful to the Toast for bringing you to us. I will be following your writing wherever people are lucky enough to publish it 🙂
thank you Becca!
Nikki, your writing has actively made me think about things i have never thought about before, which is basically my favourite thing for an author to do. Of the many, many gifts the Toast has given me, your work is right up there. Thank you.
Yes, agreed! I think I tried to phrase this sometime either on twitter or on a recent article, and didn’t do it so well as you. Nikki, what xolandra said — your writing always makes me think, and maybe reconsider thoughts I’ve had without really examining where they come from (society or what I believe, personally) and is always very beautiful.
Also, that Levar and Yo-yo piece is seriously, like an anxiety coping mechanism that made me feel 100x better after reading.
thank you both so much!
Sometimes I reread the LeVar/Yo-Yo post on very stressful days. It’s like a soothing gift from my Past Self.
Nikki, I can’t pick one because ALL of these are my favorite.
💙
“(surely it’s somebody’s fault)”
Bryan Goldberg, for not throwing money at you?
I know that’s who I blame.
We *all* blame Bryan Goldberg
Thank you so much, Nikki. You are super funny and smart and kind and I think your writing makes people better.
thank you!!
A) We love you, Nikki!
B) I’m reading the K-drama post with renewed eyes, as my household recently stumbled across the show “Boys Over Flowers” on Netflix (now sadly removed). I’m sure it’s not the height of its genre, but it does depict an impressive level of interpersonal violence, including someone getting flipped end-over-end by a blow from a fire extinguisher.
Oh look there’s a recommendation thread in the comments, bye bye.
A) I love you all too! So much that I’m really going to give Toastie Slack a try, even though I typically find Slack overwhelming.
B) Look back fondly on your past productivity; it is all over once you start watching dramas.
The one thing I miss about no longer being single is that i can’t stay up till 3am watching kdrama and then get up at 6 to fit in another episode before I have to go to work anymore. (GOONG)
Speaking of! How does one access/get on to Toastie Slack? It’s all an opaque wall to me.
Niiiiiikkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!
Adriennnnnnnee!!!!
I think it’s safe to say that we are all going to be Nicole Chung readers/followers wherever she publishes in the future.
thank you!!!
You wrote so many amazing and important pieces–I feel like I’m a more conscientious person for reading what you’ve written here, and I’m really looking forward to reading the things you write for other sites. Plus, I remember the beach town jobs thing being so lovely to read in the middle of winter (because April is the middle of winter in Boston) and it really made me smile. Thank you so much!!
thank you so much! I’ll definitely keep writing, and will be back here to bother people about my book in a while.
(April = winter, oh my god, you need to move. (so do I.))
I love you, Mallory. Thank you for giving me the best job.
NIKKI WE LOVE YOU TOO. SO SO MUCH. Your stuff on casual racism helped me survive many such encounters myself among friends and colleagues here in this country so far away from home. I love your work, and I don’t know you but I love you also.
-gives you bushels of love-
This is great, Nikki is great, her writing is great, and I still find the ‘best friends forever’ tag completely adorable.
<3
I keep telling myself, oh it’s fine, this is fine! It will be GOOD to try something else! And it works, mostly, just as long as I don’t think too much about
– the staff
– the Toasties
– the writers
– the amazing pitches
– the gorgeous essays
– The Pitch Meeting for Wishbone
– a hundred other things
and now I guess I’ll be adding “Mallory’s sentimental tags” to the list.
I want to thank Nikki for being made of solid gold and sunshine and blinding wit and generosity that spills forth into my life every now and then. Thank you for letting me bring my drawrings to The Toast, and reading everything I send your way, and I hope we can meet some day, too.
Also Nikki’s daughter is going to be the Secretary General of the UN one day, for real.
I’m so glad we got to work together, Marissa! I hope we can again.
Also, oh my god. When I told my older daughter that HRC had clinched the nomination and would likely be president, she was equal parts excited and disappointed that SHE won’t be the first woman president.
We’re ALL disappointed that your daughter isn’t going to be the first woman president, but she’ll be president some day.
I just started rereading the first one and I’m already crying!! Man, Nikki, your writing is amazing.
aw, thank you! I think it’s funny you said this, because the first one is How To Tell If You Are In A Korean Drama.
Oh man, Nikki! I love all your posts, but the Yo-Yo Ma/Levar Burton is my favorite – just so lovely and soothing. I’ve shared it with everyone I know. <3
that one might be my sentimental favorite, too. Peak Toast!
I love Nikki.
I love The Toast.
This post is the best and also the worst.
Luckily, the end of the The Toast is DEFINITELY not the end of Nicole Chung and I am super excited to follow her to wherever she goes next!
(Also I love Nikki for being the other half of my proudest collabos ever.)
<3 <3 <3
at least we can always say we introduced many Toasties to the Wonder of the World that is Daniel Henney’s perfect face.
Nikki, your articles about race and adoption and well-meaning white people helped open my eyes to a different perspective–I eagerly read them when they were posted and have thought a lot about them since!
I re-read a few of them today and was just blown away by your writing and how you manage to make something so deeply personal be so understandable to someone without the same experience–and also how you manage to say “You cannot understand because you don’t have the same experience” in a way that I feel as well as hear.
I’m following you on twitter and look forward to reading lots more writing of yours in the future!
thank you so much. I’ve said this a lot, but I’m luckier than most writers who tackle these topics because I’ve been able to publish so much in a safe, moderated space (for the best readers and thinkers!). There are some pieces (like the dinner party one) I might not have wanted to publish anywhere else.
When Nicole and I met last week, she mentioned we could sometimes drop in and post things now and again, and just knowing that’s an option made me feel so much better!
I really think I’ve grown as a person through reading your work.
that means so much to me, thank you for telling me!
I think about the dinner party one a LOT, about how keeping quiet prevents a certain kind of social discomfort but allows people to go on hurting other people, intentionally or not. And also about whose responsibility it is to say something–or maybe, who’s better situated to say something.
Places that have awesome commenters are (almost) always heavily moderated–I was very glad to hear how the-toast tried to protect authors from the worst of it and know I benefited from it as a reader. (I’m glad that we might occasionally get more things on here, too!)
Hello I am late to this party Nikki is VERY WONDERFUL.
May every person in Hamilton become a huge fan of hers and may she solve all the beach town mysteries while making the best toffee
kbye
thank you, Liz!
I’m pretty sure Pippa Soo and I are predestined to be best chums. One day she’ll realize it, too.
Y’all need to stop with all this nostalgia because I’m trying to rent out my house today and it’s SUPER HARD to read contracts through my tears. Plus, apparently it’s “fiscally responsible” to run credit checks and shit and I would far rather go down the Nikki Writing Rabbit Hole.
Nicole Chung, you are Pure Gold. <3
The nostalgic posts! I was not quite prepared, either. I believe there are many more in store.
GOOD LUCK finding the perfect tenants. We have excellent tenants in the house we still own (in another state) and while I wish the house had just sold when we had to move, I feel lucky we’ve always had very good, responsible tenants living there.
I love all of our editrices so much.
Everything I have read by Nikki has been great, and I’m going to miss her work a LOT.
(Also, the K-drama post didn’t make much sense to me at the time, but I spent what feels like most of this term in “History of Pop Culture in East Asia” analyzing and watching in bemusement Boys over Flowers, Winter Sonata, Midnight Kitchen, Jewel of the Palace, etc. so it makes a LOT more sense now, and is very hilarious)
I am going to keep writing for sure. Links on Twitter, book in at least a few stores hopefully! 😀
Nikki feels like a warm and soft blanket. Your posts always feel insightful and yet comforting. Thank you.
ps. Way to have grown up in Oregon. It’s like the soft satin edge to the Nikki blanket.
everyone from Oregon is like a warm soft comforting blanket; it is a statewide trait.
I remember when Nikki was hired – I was pretty new to The Toast and newly laid off and I was *so jealous* that she got this dream job (even though I did not apply because I was not at all qualified).
I think it was Nikki’s reply to the commenter talking about calling her (adopted) niece her Han princess that first won me over. And then she continued to blow me away with her writing and humor and general awesomeness and now it’s impossible to imagine The Toast without her.
I was pretty sure everyone in the world (or at least 800-some people?) hated me after I got this job! I FULLY RECOGNIZED it as a dream job and kept wondering when I’d wake up.
That commenter talking about his niece on Facebook was a man, and even though my reply was (I think) SO kind, he got all defensive and we had to block him. Which is amazing, because we don’t really moderate FB comments, and have blocked like three people ever.
OMG – I’m so sorry you had to block that guy. I’m not sure why I remembered him as female, but it doesn’t matter. I thought your response was incredibly kind and gracious – I was impressed by it.
p.s. everyone here was so kind and friendly and GREAT to me from day one, so thanks for NOT hating me (or just hiding it very, very well if you did). I still remember/look back at the comments on my welcome-aboard post! This is the most generous, funny, brilliant community ever and its like will never be seen again.
This disproves the unlikely idea I had that, since the Nicoles met irl, “The Best Of Nicole Cliffe” was Mallory’s way of saying “NO, SHE’S MINE”.
Nikki your writing always has me turning it over in my head the whole day when I read your essays and I’m still not entirely how to completely put that into words, but it’s a very good thing and It’s so great so many people get to see your fantastic writing. I hope whatever you do next is as dream job-esque
thank you so much!
You guys, I have joined reddit and all but this is my third large-scale community collapse in the last 6 years (LJ, original Slacktivist, Toast) and I am starting to lose the ability to bounce back from habitat loss.
: /
Nikki, you have encouraged me to examine my own feelings about my adoption in a totally new way, and for that I will be forever grateful. I composed tons of essays in my head for your adoption series, but never submitted any because they weren’t ready. But I’m so glad I started – thank you.
This is so nice to hear! Good luck with the writing, and if you ever want someone to talk to about adoption or someone to read your stuff, let me know.
This is so nice to hear! Good luck with the writing, and if you ever want someone to talk to about adoption or someone to read your stuff, let me know.
thank you so much!
Nikki’s posts are always such a joy.
<3 <3
oh man imma cry. I would not have realized the problematic narratives surrounding adoption, or how that affects a transracial adoptee growing up, and now I have my eyes open a little bit more.
Important Note: Nikki writes kind & encouraging editor emails! Her response, passing on a pitch I sent in to the Toast (my first! much handwringing), was SO encouraging that I was more confident in my piece after I read the technically-a-rejection than I was before. Definitely crediting her with giving me the guts to keep foraging ahead.
<3
I’m just seeing this now! Your pitch was good, we just ran out of time really, but you should write it if you still want to and send it out!
<3 <3
I'm just seeing this now! Your pitch was good, we just ran out of time really, but you should write it if you still want to and send it out!