27th Birthday

DATE: 3-16-2010
TIME: 5:30 pm
LOCATION: Starbucks in Dunwoody
Mood: Nostalgic



It's funny Its my 27th birthday and all I can think about it how RADICALLY different my life has evolved (for the better) in just 10 years. My mom always says that one day I will blink, and I will be in college, married, have children... I never blinked till this year.

I see how fundamentally different my life is today than it was 10 years go today....

NOW THAT IM 27...
1. It's my actual birthday, and I am at starbucks studying and using this break to blog online
2. I spent my morning making my own breakfast and waking up when i wanted too
3. I then spent lunch with my Boy Allen Yang and just caught up with him about whats going on in his life
4. I think about my future alot because I realize I actually have one, 24 hrs seem to go by so much faster now...
5. I'll be spending my birthday dinner, probably dressed up real pimped out at Silk Resturuant with 30 of my closest friends from 3 different spheres of my life.
6. I got this new fob hair cut, b/c i was in the process of growing my hair out after having it shaved for 4 years and I didn't want to go to my boy ERICS WEDDING!!! wth....(first one out the crew) and so i told the noona to do wutever she feels is necessary to fix my massive clump of LONG hair
7. Rockin Republic Jeans, Rize Up clothing red T , w/ matching red and black A town hat, with Red and Black Gearex on my feet.
8. Climbed out of my bed at my parents house even though i own my own town house with 4 roomates.
9. Driving a 2007 black Lexus Camry... its not a typo!
10. Want a soulmate

WHEN I WAS 17...
1. I woud have be at my friends house chilling or prepping for my b day.
2. I would have woken up to my mom yelling at me that im late but still eat my cereal before i go to High School.
3. I would be dreading what nastiness the lunch line was gonna have, and decide to skip lunch with my Boy Lam ( real name, last name is Dam... TRU Story)
4. I never even thought about tomorow because I thought today was going to last forever!
5. I would have asked one of my hyungs to rent out a hotel room so me and my homies (TEK Skwad) could drink and get wasted.... again...
6. I had short spikey hair that I gelled with two long bangs in the front that went to atleast my nose...
7. Jnco's were the ish with any polo or black top.... Flip Flop adidas of Filas Slippa,
8. Climbed out of my bed at my OLD house in brooke farm
9. Driving around my white jeep grand cherokee limited edition!!!
10. Wanted the cute korean girl that only dated the white guys.... eww

10 years... Blink of an Eye,

Appreciate life, don't wait till its taken from you, and everyone grumbles for you, take it by the reins and make it yours,

Follow me on Twitter and YouTube - TEKx316

TEK-316-RuR

Just spent New Years with the entire family (30+) heads at my parents house. Man it was such a ill time really sharing the love while we broke bread... or slurped on Duk Mandoo Gook. There was something special about this year. Everyone left in tears of joy at just how blessed we are to have such a large family and still have so much love for one another, and it got me thinking....

EUN EMPIRE
As far as I know the Eun Dynasty started off in Mi Rang (mee lyang) South Korea. Translation da dirty dirty south of South Korea. Its like a hour south of Busan. Anyways my great grandfather became the first Christian in our family and later became a pastor. This is the beginning of the dynasty.

So no doubt they grew up po' den a mo fo! Especailly in those times! Korea?!! dawg everyone was poor! Then my grandfather (Godfather of the Eun mafia) after being a japanese captive in the world war, wanted to study in college so my grandma (Tru OG of Eun's) worked at a comic book store ( mah nah bbang) and paid for doods tuition. Dats love people. Dats sacrafice right there. How many of you girls would do that for a man you REALLY loved... or for you boys vice versa?

In 1978, Godfather Eun decides theres no future left in korea for the Eun's and says "lets break our butts to Ah meh lee kah" (America people!) Boom! we planted straight up into ATL! before dis city was even on the map! After selling everything we owned, Grandpa saved up 25,000 dollars to come to america and transfered the funds to his brother to hold in america till we got here. Well sure enuff we get here and the cash is GONE! So literrally two suitcases each, clothes on your back, and money in the wallet is all we had. ATL in the late 70's? Looking like they did off the airplane...pshhh NO KOREANS! America just started to integrate! AkA HARD ASS TIMES!

So wut is a GODFATHER suppose to do with a huge family and no money. Take his no English speakin butt and go do construction work in the heat of the South from 8 in da am to 8 in pm EVERYDAY! The heir to the throne Jay Eun (aka my pops) was in da Korean Army, so he could not help. His younger sister (Jacobs mom) worked odd jobs and Uncle Jack the last son was in High School. (Also very tuff time to be korean in school)

1980: Opportunity came. The same relative who lost all our money came across a vacant resturaunt. So wut did we do. We opend up 1 of the 3 1st! korean resturaunts in ghetto down town ATL!!! Dats right History Makers. Korea House (which was ours and the best), Mirror of Korea, and Joh Sohn Ohk... lil ATL history lesson for you new cats. I got a newspaper article to prove it. My grandma was da cook, Aunt was the hostest, dad was the waiter, mom was an assistant, and uncle was da bus boy. You want to talk bout humble beginnings... Yeah it was small, ghetto, grimey and cheap, but it was DANK! Ted Turner was a regular (pre multimillionaire, he was just a low millionaire at the time) And my grandmas fav story, RICK FLAIR came and ate there! She loved her some wrestling!

1983: Danny Eun is born (aka Future Investment). I dont remember but my mom always feels so bad for me cause she says i grew up in da kitchen of our resturaunt. We was so poor I slept ontop of the fridge with layers of blankets as an infant. When i was 3 or 4 we had no money so I played with guns made out of card board boxes my dad would cut out for me. And my mom would make dough out of flour so that i could have play doh. These moments I vividly remember...

Then tragedy struck and our resturaunt burnt down. We was poor as hell as is. Now we have no business. Wut do we do? Give up... go cry? or pick up, have faith in GOD and get back to hustling! So we rebuilt that shack, and even started GOLDEN STELLA!

My mom tells me how when we started they put our store on the 3rd floor in the very back b/c we were new and Korean. No one even knew we existed. She says that they would be lucky to see 5 customers a day! If we sold a 100 dollars we thought we was ted turner. My dad would open up the store with my mom at 8 am and then close at 6pm. then they would go to the resturaunt and work till 12 midnight. And you complain about ur day?! Please.... Everyday they did this so their children could play with real toys, not live in a house with 8 other family members. Just like many of you my Grandma raised me. I never saw my parents as a kid. Yeah they came home stressed and at times took the stress out on me and my brother, but looking back man they loved us, they worked sooooo hard for us, I appreciate my family so much.


2 common themes.

1. We prayed and we prayed, we kept our faith in God
2.We hustled... Even when life took a dump on us we climbed out of the crap and kept hustling.


TEK-316-RuR

4th Generation

12/07/09




So I had dinner with my boy sunawh today at a Thai joint that has the illest Chicken Red Thai Curry, and it happened to be down the street from my parents crib. I normally have dinner with them on tuesday's but i decided to swing by anyways since I was in their hood, and just say hi. When I got to their home, it was empty and silent. My baby brother david was upstairs doing his homework, Andy was down stairs doing his Bible Tribe (Bible Study) thing in the basement. So I walked down the hallway to my mom's bedroom and she was in her bathroom in front of her vanity winding down and taking off her make up. I walked in sat on top of the sink and just started to chop it up with her. We talked about everything! What went from a "stop by and say Hi" turned into a 2 hour converstaion about our family, her business, he joys and her pains, and about just everything under the sun. I felt like she was just looking for someone to converse with and get certain things off her chest and just someone to dialogue with. But it was so beautiful to sit there and just chop it up with my moms. I feel like I don't do that enough with all my family members. But my mom deserves my attention and love the most, just b/c how she raised me and been there for me. She never doubted me even was a wack as hell as a teen and crushed her heart over and over again. She always loved me and supported me.

Anyways she shared a story with me and i wanna share it with you all,

KIM JANG - Story of the difference of appreciation b/t 1st generation and 2nd generation.


Kim Jang = (loose translation) When the moms of a certain town BACK in the DAY would get together right before the winter time to prepare KIM CHEE! yes our most treasured .... ummm treasure.... anyways, Wut the moms would do is 10 to 15 of them in one town would get together and start to moo chu (prepare) the kim chee together. They would do this b/c they needed to make a HUGE batch that they could have for the winter. Every mom had her own secret recipe so they would even trade and share different batches with one another and after all the days work is done they would all go back to their own homes. When they got home they would get these HUGE jars and dig a hole in the ground and bury this jar. B/c it was so cold in the winter the temp would naturally preserve the kim chee and a family would be able to have kimchee all fall and winter long. You gotta understand that meat was a RARE commodity and everything was either rice based or noodle based and so KIM CHEE was soooooo valuable and made every meal a complete meal. They would bust their ass off just to have enough kim chee for the coming cold season. They valued something so simple.

To us being 2nd generation Korean Americans, we take kim chee for granted. There is such a huge divide between the way our parents appreciate things and the way we appreciate things. Even if our families are wealthy now or well off we don't appreciate the things we have b/c we don't understand how valuable things are b.c it was given to us by birth. Whereas our parents had nothing growing up. You assume Korea was just alike America in the 60's and 70's but we were coming out of being a 3rd world nation! Our parents lived worse conditions worse than the ghetto's that we know of today. So even though kim chee is given to us freely at restaurants and we can go to H Mart and buy are jar for merely nothing, our parents appreciate the crap out of something so simple b/c they understand how valuable it use to be and how hard moms would work to make it just so the family had something to eat in the winter.

Again im not talkin bout kim chee just to talk about it, I mean everything that we have, house, cars, clothes, a pantry full of snacks. Even though our parents live in the same luxury there is a HUGE difference in appreciation b/c they once did not have, but we for the most part of our lives did have. Thank you parents for working so hard as immigrants in this nation during times of civil unrest and racial discrimination. Thank them that you will never have to know what it felt like to be like them. To have to send your younger brother to your neighbros house and lie and say you just need a small bowl of rice to take on a field trip but really your bringing it back for your whole family to share with a few pieces of kim chee... Appreciate what you have and what your parents provided b/c neither of the two is garunteed to be there tomorrow.


Danny Tek Eun

Grandpa Eun By Andy Eun

A true story by Andy Eun

My Grandfather is an amazing man of God. I just felt like writing a little story to honor him.

Just about two hours ago, my mom and I shared a meal over our kitchen table. Microwaved white rice, hehjang gook, and some leftover spicy pork. As we sat with our feet reclined, we started talking about the friends we knew. Friends who were hurting.
Realizing in that moment, that there is so much pain all around us. And it is real. Whether its the oldest sister of four children working full time while trying to nurse her younger sister in the hospital, translating for her parents who feel helpless.
Or whether its the little boy whos 17, who has never met Dad. Wondering what he looks like. Feeling trapped in mysterious lonesome.
Or maybe its the family that struggled as immigrants back in the early 80's. Single father of two boys, working the alterations store to feed his two kids.

and this is where the story began...

So my mom tells me this story of how my grandfather poured out his life to help people in need all around him. While working at our restaurant known as "Korea House", one day a father of two came in with his two boys looking pale and lifeless. Face emaciated from hunger he sat in the corner of the restaurant with a look of dispair.
In the compassion of Christ, my grandfather goes in the back and cooks up the biggest bowl of soup with beef, with all the love he could muster up.

And he brings it out to this man.

"Here, this one is on me. Eat this soup and feed your two boys. Let us know if there is anything else you need before you leave".

With tears in his eyes, all he can say is. "gahm sah hae yo" (thank you)
And they eat with no worries. Maybe the best bowl of soup in the whole wide world.

And still to this day, this man says of Mr. Ho Ki Eun, " I will never forget what he has done for our family."

Look around the world today, and you can find pain behind every street corner and veiled smile. The question is, does anyone really care anymore?
The only scary thing with all of our humanistic thinking that has permeated our society, is that as we scientifically explain everything, and cognitively explain how depression works, we lose the belief that our life has more unseen cravings. That there is so much more to this life that we can not explain. That maybe, we were created.. to make soup.

This is my grandfather. A man of God. A man who has poured out his life to serve others. And I want to be just like him. Thank you for reading.

One Chance and One Chance Only

Do you ever sit and think about UR life... I mean seriously imagine life as a pure, beautiful, gift. Something that you did nothing as a sperm cell, to create the life that you live. How you use to be an infant who could not even clean up your own poop and had to be hand fed, and now looking in the mirror you see a giant head with facial hair and baggy eyes. Or for you girls, a head full of hair, fake eyelashes and piercings in weird places.

Well I was just thinking about how much time has passed inbetween birth and this very second right now. How iv'e encountered some many different lives along my path. How I dont have a single friend from child hood( 4 -10 years old). How thankful I am of the friends I met in High School and how they transitioned from friends to family! How I graduated High School (Dunwoody Represent!) and College (Auburn) on time! and now im in Graduate skewl.... for freakin THEOLOGY! Wut the heezy...

I can't help but wonder how many lives I have affected both positively and negatively. Especially negatively, man I did some pretty douche baggy moves when I was young. Everything was about me and how I can be happy and feel good. Peoples well being and happiness was the least of my concerns. It was survival of the fittest out there. And now im ponder on my life and I wonder man did I ruin something that could have been some beautiful today, friendships and past relationships. Not anyone in particular but ALL of them. Money? Sex? Popularity? Ego? Image? did I let these things ruin something beautiful?

We all can say don't live in regret and don't dwell on the past. Well too late I just did, but I do believe history is the blueprint for a better future. I know exactly what NOT to do. My mistakes become failures only when I refuse to learn from them.

2010 is year 27 for me, and it will not be lived like year 26.

TEK-316-RuR

My First Blog

Really this is what you think???


Man I just finished up my mid terms for my second year at seminary and it was dope b/c it was almost like a week vacation b/c I only had one exam. But somehow it made me lazy and I didn't study like I normally do, and today is Monday and I have 3 classes tomorrow and I found myself all scatter brained and having MAD ADD! It only took one lazy week to throw me off my grind. Its crazy how habits keep you going, or prevent you from going.

Anyways the main point of this blog is I can't concentrate right now so I decided to let my thoughts free. Maybe I have too many thoughts bottled up in my mind and I just need to let them out so new ones can come in and process. Being in Seminary, I take a lot of Theology classes which basically ask the hard questions in faith and basically in in LIFE!

I learned that faith is not an approach to a religion. It's an approach after LIFE! Its a pursuit of LIFE. They say God is the creator of life, and I completely agree. It's just we have this messed up idea of Who or What God is. Im not gonna go into that today b/c that's a whole hour discussion in of itself. But I really just wanted to air out some thoughts I have about my self.

In the past year that I enrolled in seminary people have been looking at me or treating me differently. Im not even a pastor, or an ordained official for the "Church" yet the way people see me and treat me has changed just b/c im in school. I mean its not like we treat people differently b/c they enrolled into law school or they are going after their masters in business. But for some reason b/c God is involved in my education people think iv'e randomly metamorphed into some holy spiritual being. But my friends will tell you im still the same dumb, chill, temptation fighting person I have always been. Even at church before I had an official position there the kids saw me as an older brother but now they treat me a little differently because I am the Jundo...

Just b/c Im in school or the religious system decided to put a title on me doesn't mean somehow my whole molecular and intellectual structure miraculously changed... All the sudden I can't be around conversations that talk about sex? or violence? Certain people want to crack jokes about me having virgin eyes/ears? Really Im a born again virigin??? People can't be honest and tell me how they really feel b/c all the sudden im going to judge them and condemn them to hell? Im the same dude, and I always will be, Im just pursuing after LIFE! I want more out of my life, I want a deeper understanding of my existence. I feel like pastors in the past have created a fake non genuine image of themselves and that's the way people perceive them to be. It's not real, its not genuine, its the greatest disguise an hoax in the world b/c we won't let them be free, have problems, and admit sins. Just b/c there in a position of faith doesn't make them perfect, we gotta stop putting these unrealistic expectations on them. Yes they are called to a higher standard but lets keep it 100.... Let's not forget there still human....

I don't know, We make too much Hocus Pocus out of Christianity and God. To me its not so mystical and over spiritual. God created life, so how is it that we can't imagine God being life itself, and more importantly Love... Not the Notebook/Twilight/50 first dates kind of love, I mean Love that makes life worth living, and Love that keeps the spirits of Man Alive.

TEK-316-RuR