...FROM YOU! I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU

Wednesday, October 02, 2002

 
one man's trash is another man's treasure

congratulations to dgklberg for winning my Donkey Kong N64 box +Exp Pak + Rumble Pak NR! eBay auction. The winning bid was a whopping $31.

good shit. i was looking to sell it for only $15. i bought the game 3 years ago for about $45. im probably going to spend the rest of the evening looking for more junk to sell.

i remember how my paternal grandmother loved garage sales. it was back in san jose and on a rare US visit she asked me why these people had all their stuff laid out on their lawn. she laughed and laughed when i explained her the whole concept--she really got a kick out of it. we cruised to a couple of them whenever we had the chance. my memory's a bit fuzzy but i think she always tried to haggle a good price on stuff that piqued her curiosity.

she lived in the korean countryside most of her life and as a kid i used to think she was so old-fashioned and backward. i feel guilty cuz as a kid when she came to america to visit our family i thought she was embarassing in public. once at the supermarket she pulled out her coin purse and attempted to get rid of as many of her coins as possible. there was a small line and the cashier looked impatient. i was mortified and sternly told her to pay in cash. as we were walking away i told her in my broken-ass korean that in america you're not supposed to do that. she told me in korea people liked it when they gave you a lot of change.

as i grew older, i learned that she was indeed a very shrewd businesswoman. she bought a bunch of apartment units in a very rundown apartment building many years ago and left them to my dad and his siblings. a couple of years ago the buildings were torn down and replaced with very modern apartments in what was now a very prime location on the side of a mountain with a view of about half of seoul. since my dad owned a unit from the old slummy building, he was automatically entitled to one of the new units. this was part of my grandmother's plan all along and it made for a very nice inheritance gift for my dad. she passed away a couple of years ago when i was in high school. i was too 'cool' to even cry when i heard the news.

his brothers and sister sold their units for a handsome profit and my pops lives in his unit since he works at yonsei university which is literally next door. its a huge 4 bedroom apartment with a patio attached to every room and all brand new state-of-the-art apppliances. very nice by seoul standards. the view is breathtaking and on a clear day you can see most of seoul's towers, buildings and bridges.

i think she would have laughed and enjoyed the concept behind eBay too.