Category: What’s Important?

Instant Ramen: An Instant Favorite

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It’s midnight, your parents are asleep, but you are starving. Looking through the kitchen, your initial expectations of cupboards brimming with your favorite snacks fall short. Instead, you’re left staring at the cold, barren wasteland of your refrigerator shelves, desolate save for the random ketchup bottle, carton of spoiled milk, and jar of mayo. 

Damn it.

Your pride and stomach battle into the night as you contemplate spoon feeding condiments into your mouth—anything to occupy the empty expanse that is your stomach. But, eventually, you come to your senses and regain your sanity.

What the hell would you do?

Your instincts kick in: it’s practically second nature at this point. You grab the square package, sliding out the fried noodle cake and plopping it into the boiling hot water. At last, the end of your starvation is near, measured by the two-minute recommended cooking time on the Maruchan packet. Finally, you sprinkle in the oddly colored, MSG-loaded chicken seasoning onto your bowl like salt bae sprinkles coarse sea salt on a medium rare filet mignon. Slurping down your midnight snack, it tastes obscenely salty, watery, and artificial. 

The fruits of your night’s worth of labor. In the darkness and through hungry eyes, it looks a lot better. I promise. (Source: The Spruce Eats)

But don’t lie. On those late, lonely nights, those instant noodles taste like a meal from a Michelin 3-star restaurant.

***

Whether it be a hungry teenager, a broke college student, or an overworked, nine-to-five adult, instant ramen has undoubtedly become a staple in kitchens worldwide since its invention in 1958. And, I mean, it’s easy to see why. With it costing an average of thirteen cents in supermarkets and taking a maximum of five minutes to make, instant noodles fit snugly into the hustle and bustle of everyday life, seasoning people’s lives with an extremely heavy, beef-flavored hand. 

But, what’s so weird about this makeshift meal is that, frankly, it’s freakin’ delicious. Let’s be real: that small, off-white colored chunk of wavy noodles and yellow powder taste absolutely phenomenal. There’s countless explanations for this disparity. Perhaps it’s the fact that one bowl of Cup Noodles has forty-five percent of your recommended sodium intake, making it a scarily salty snack (that you shouldn’t eat more than 2.22… times a day for those keeping track at home). Maybe it’s due to the massive amounts of monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer that gives ramen it’s savory, artificial kick. It’s probably safe to say that ramen is not good for the body, but good for the soul.

Or, most convincingly, it could be because society adores efficient products designed to streamline the lives of everyday citizens.

See, to eat instant ramen is literally to consume consumerism (see what I did there?). Try to think of any other full meal that can be purchased by the sixty-fours and tastes exactly the same each time you make it. With American ramen companies such as Maruchan releasing new flavors like Creamy Mushroom, Picante Beef, and Oriental (ironic, I know), America has rapidly simplified this artisanal Japanese delicacy into a microwaveable, machine-made fast food product. 

Other countries seem to take an opposite approach. Indonesia’s famous Indomie ramen noodles use five different flavor and spice packets to pack that South Asian punch when imitating their own national dish in instant noodle form. Japan has created an instant ramen bowl so complex it has won a Michelin Star.  Costing around $30 for a pack of four on Amazon, I find these inventions to be a complete steal when compared to the dainty plates from high-end restaurants in Chicago or Los Angeles. Now, these innovative pre-made noodle dishes are what I call ramen.

An instant ramen bowl with a Michelin Star. That’s right, the star given to top restaurants is graphically printed on this plastic container. (Source: BudgetPantry)

In fact, I’ve even managed to whip up something in my own kitchen that can easily knock the commercial edge of a pack of ramen out of your bowl. Here’s my very own ramen creation, crafted on the basis of countless late homework nights and hungry study breaks.

Jason’s Not-So-Instant Ramen Recipe:

  • Heat a pot of water to a boil
  • Add Shin Ramen flavor packet and noodles
  • Cook until noodles separate from the clump
  • Stir to combine, then carefully crack an egg on top of your pot
  • Place enoki mushrooms on the other side of the pot
  • Allow the egg to poach and the mushrooms to blanch in the boiling soup
  • Top with scallions, serve with a side of kimchi
One of hundreds of times I’ve made this recipe. Warning: addictive and delicious. (Source: my kitchen)

Although it takes an extra ten minutes or so to prep, this recipe can substitute for a substantial lunch or dinner. To be honest, this recipe has made me love instant ramen so much that my parents have placed a “ramen quota” on my consumption: only two packs or less of ramen per month. As a practical and obedient son, I naturally handle this limit with one of my favorite quotes.

“Rules were made to be broken.” 

                                 -an absolute genius

 

While instant ramen has penetrated into the cupboards and lives of nearly every American alive, its true cultural and innovative roots still remain elusive. Halfway across the world, Asian countries continue to symbolize their backgrounds, providing delicious yet accessible forms of their nation’s favorite dishes to their people. It’s vital that we recognize and come to respect the culture behind one of America’s favorite midnight snacks and explore the various other forms of our curly-blocked, salty-powdered friend.

I promise, they’ll become instant favorites.

Works Cited

Brickman, Sophie. “The History of the Ramen Noodle.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 20 June 2017. Web. 21 Nov. 2019.

Gordinier, Jeff. “Ramen: A Quick Fix for the Soul.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 June 2014. Web. 21 Nov. 2019.

Nissin. “Cup Noodles, Chicken.” Nutritionix. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2019.

Jokes: The Unbreakable Bonds of Human Connection

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This was it.

Posing for our Math Team banner, my fellow captains and I knew that these next few minutes were no joke. This next picture would serve as the face of our club that was to be displayed in the cafeteria for the entire school to see. 

The photographer peered through his camera lens, aligning the perfect shot as we all took one last breath and put on our game faces.

*FLASH!*

Rushing over to see the snapshot, I was overcome with emotion as I reveled in the absolute perfection that unfolded on that camera screen: Josh, Allen, and Anne, staring steel-faced into the camera—their arms crossed, shoulders square, with our team’s silverware glistening behind them to flaunt our nineteen state championships and over fifty-years-in-a-row as DVC champions.

And me, clutching tightly to a fluffy stuffed bear smushed against my cheek, grinning goofily in the background.

 

This year’s Math Team banner, located in the small caf for all those interested in seeing it in real life. (Source: self-taken)

To this day, I’m not sure what the caption word, “prime,” is supposed to be referencing: our dominant state competition performances, a clever math-y pun, or my picture perfect pose. Regardless, this Math Team captains banner has become a sort-of inside joke amongst my teammates, creating a secret bond of understanding in a largely individual and competitive activity. Ever since its rise to fame, the stuffed bear (named Stokes) now acts as our club mascot, with last year’s teammates passing the plushy to new members throughout the school day as a fluffy, snuggly surprise. And, of course, incoming freshmen flock into practices in search of Stokes’ iconic, photogenic face, but leave instead with a newfound curiosity for competition math.

While not a member of the team, our very own Mrs. Evans couldn’t help but snap a selfie with our Math Team mascot. (Source: self-taken)

While humor is an aspect of my identity I pursue for enjoyment, it also has a powerful role in developing a sense of community and teamwork.

 Like just about anyone else, a good laugh is something I can never pass up on. Whether it be a classic schadenfreude response to a friend’s struggle with a girl or the more risqué jokes of a Cards Against Humanity game, I’m all for some good fun once in a while. 

However, all jokes aside, the concept of humor can actually play a huge role in the success of a school club team or professional company.

Take the Math Team banner, for example. Sure, it looks silly. Of course, it attracts sideways glances in the hallways. And, with good reason, both the photographer and our math team head coach (Mrs. Moore) were skeptical at the idea. But, ever since the banner has went up in the small caf (which was very late, if I may add), our $150 spent on that piece of fabric has gotten a lot more than just giggles and glances.

Instead, Stokes and I managed to advertise Math Team while also making the exploration and discovery of competition math more accessible. From sophomores and juniors that I TA for in AP Physics 1 to freshmen in my PE Leader class, I have been notified of my artistic choices quite frequently this past week. It makes sense, after all: walking down a hallway with countless banners of stone-cold debaters, DECA competitors, and chessmasters (and Jeffrey Cheng, I might add), the one cute, adorable thing in a sea of intensity instantly draws people’s attention. Oh, and also the fact that there’s a stuffed animal in the picture next to me.

However, after the laughing and eyebrow raising is done, the same string of questions always seem to follow: what is Math Team? When are practices? Can I join? Soon, I couldn’t help but spot some familiar underclassmen faces at practices, picking up past competition packets and listening in on our coach’s lessons. While it may have started as a joke, my humor seems to be having some seriously positive effects on our Math Team culture and team structure.

And I’m not alone on this idea of humor’s benefits. In an article for Forbes magazine, Michael Kerr, an international business speaker, describes what he calls the “humor advantage.” His research indicated that “companies have used humor and a positive fun culture to help brand their business, attract and retain employees and to attract customers.” The fact of the matter is that, even in professional workplaces, your entire community—your customers, employees, and bosses—are humans just like you. While they may be donned in a suit from nine to five, I’ll bet that almost every one of those same people enjoy a good football game or family Monopoly game at night. Given this, I can’t help but see the power that humor and relaxation can have in even the most professional aspects of our lives, whether it be a joking side comment or a $150 portrait of a stuffed animal.

(A short but sweet video by Michael Kerr himself detailing his term: The Humor Advantage. Source: Youtube (Michael Kerr))

Humor is funny, but it also has the power to create. I use jokes to foster teamwork. My humor nurtures exploration. Most importantly, that stuffed bear and I created a hilarious photograph that also sparked a passion for learning within my community.

Pretty funny how that works, right?

Works Cited

Smith, Jacquelyn. “10 Reasons Why Humor Is A Key To Success At Work.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 20 June 2014, www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/05/03/10-reasons-why-humor-is-a-key-to-success-at-work/.

Reparations: Repairing A Mindset (A Reflection On The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates)

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“Why should I be punished?”

The thought made sense at the time. Whenever the topic of reparations for the black race was brought up, it never seemed to click. I had never owned slaves, never whipped, manipulated, or sexually exploited another human for my self-interest. More importantly, being Asian-American, neither had any of my ancestors or anyone I knew, for that matter. It seemed to me that I was completely detached from the problem: it wasn’t my fault.

But as soon as I offered that question in the heated discussion that was unfolding amongst my speech and debate friends, my lack of political perspective was soon exposed.

“Read The Case for Reparations” was all that was shot back, leaving me in a confused yet speculative silence.

Just this past Monday night, I spent around two-and-a-half hours reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ work. Put simply, it has completely altered my outlook on the concept of reparations while also leaving me with some questions specific to my ethnic background.

Here’s how The Case for Reparations managed to repair my world perspective.

The cover page of the article that managed to alter my worldview in a couple of hours. (Source: The Atlantic)

Although I had learned about the horrors of slave treatment in antebellum America in history class, I’ll be the first to admit that my broad understanding of America’s history of oppression was incomplete, at best. Of course I’d learned in my APUSH class about Sally Hemings, who was raped and abused by founding father Thomas Jefferson and bore six of his children. Sure, I had read about how slaves were beaten by their masters while forced to keep a smile on their face, and I was violently struck with emotion while watching 12 Years As A Slave in class. But I’d never truly felt the racism present during 1920s Jim Crow America, where one Mississippi senator had stated that the best way to prevent African Americans from voting was to “just [lynch them] the night before the election.”

While reading, I learned about how this racism continued into the recent past and persists in our present society. In the 1930s, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) based their private mortgage policies on hand drawn regional lines, segregating black communities into areas deemed “less stable” and “unfitting” for these opportunities. I read in shock about the 20th century use of “block-busting,” or hiring black actors to walk around white-dominated neighborhoods, where they’d “then cajole whites into selling [their homes] at low prices” on the premise that black families in their neighborhood would decrease the value of their homes.

A residential security map of 1939 Chicago. The red areas were predominantly black neighborhoods, deemed “more hazardous” and “unfitting” for FHA insurance. (Source: The Atlantic)

Compounded with the recent shootings of people like Trayvon Martin and Atatiana Jefferson, I came to understand the piece that I was missing when I had asked my initial question: that the privilege we enjoy in America today came at the cost of oppressed groups of people in our recent past. While I may not have incited racism or been openly racist in my lifetime, the luxuries I enjoy today—my home, my belongings, my dog Patch—were largely paid for by the people of yesterday, and we are all subsequently indebted to them. Would America’s booming economy today have been realized if it had not been for the massive amounts of slave labor used to farm King Cotton? Clearly not. Reparations are not a punishment, but rather a necessary repayment to those who have suffered. 

With this newfound mindset, I turned towards a topic Coates comments on and that is (frighteningly) related to many of our current coffee-driven, essay-writing lifestyles: affirmative action. 

Now, this topic has been extremely controversial for decades, with recent college admission scandals only further exacerbating the severity of this inevitably imperfect system. However, a common rationale behind this institution of implicit advantage is one of reparations—that providing oppressed minority groups an edge for future further education is precisely the repayments needed and explained by Coates in his article. With this, I can wholeheartedly agree.

A short video detailing the rationale behind affirmative action in the college admissions process. (Source: American Civil Liberties Union)

My new question continues from Coates’ line of thought: then why are Asian American college applicants held to a higher standard of admission than white Americans? 

By taking Coates’ side on his case for reparations, I can’t help but notice the disparity when applied to the relative positions of races other than the black-white dynamic explored in The Case for Reparations. Japanese Americans were forced to relocate into internment camps during World War II as a response to the Pearl Harbor attacks. All Chinese people were prohibited from immigrating to America and deemed ineligible for naturalization in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. While these actions are incomparable to the treatment of blacks in American history, and while I could not feel luckier to be born into a loving Chinese family enjoying the affluence of suburbian Naperville, the rationale behind this seemingly hypocritical philosophy intrigues me.

When it comes to affirmative action, it’s hardly arguable that Asian Americans statistically receive the least compensation. From the recent Harvard admissions case revealing that Harvard scores Asian Americans lower on their “personality” rankings, released admissions data revealed that Asian Americans were being accepted at rates noticeably less than their white counterparts. Yet, those same statistics showed that “Asian American applicants had academic credentials and extracurricular track records that were, on average, stronger than those of other racial and ethnic groups, including whites.”

Extrapolating my perspective on reparations for the black community to my own ethnicity, I can’t help but notice a small disparity that is not collinear with historical events and current evaluations. However, this question I pose is largely made in a theoretical and ill-informed nature. Regardless of its answer, The Case for Reparations managed to open my eyes to my surroundings, not only literally during that tiring Monday midnight but figuratively, as well. It has resonated with me as I now understand how reparations for blacks are necessary in the present to equally move into the future, as the powerhouse machine that America has come to be was paid for at a high price by those once pressed between her gears. 

Coates couldn’t have put it better: “if Thomas Jefferson’s genius matters, then so does his taking of Sally Hemings’s body.”

~~~

I did not intend to offend or insult anybody through this essay, but rather explore how my own naivety was transformed through this stunning piece that, once shared with me, I thought worth sharing with you. I strongly recommend you read the piece itself as well as pose further questions or responses in the comments to further explore this topic. 

Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

 

 

Works Cited

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 24 Sept. 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/.

Gelman, Andrew, et al. “What Statistics Can’t Tell Us in the Fight over Affirmative Action at Harvard.” Boston Review, 15 Jan. 2019, bostonreview.net/law-justice/andrew-gelman-sharad-goel-daniel-e-ho-what-statistics-cant-tell-us-fight-over.

The African American Policy Forum. “Chinese Exclusion Act.” AAPF, aapf.org/chinese-exclusion-act.

Where is Everybody?

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Sitting in Los Alamos National Lab, physicist Enrico Fermi looks up from his lunch break and asks his colleagues a question that has been debated ever since.

“Where is everybody?”

From sci-fi blockbusters to the recent Area 51 raid endeavors, extraterrestrial life has caught the attention of children and physicists alike. I’m sure that almost everyone, at some point, has gazed into the star-studded sky and wondered: is anyone else out there? 

While I cherish my childhood memories of the Toy Story martians and the oddly shaped Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, the physics behind the topic itself is even more intriguing. Here, I’ll offer my human insight on this alien problem and try to convince you of two things. First, that other intelligent life forms exist in abundance nearby, even in our own Milky Way galaxy; second, that the reason why we haven’t received signals of other life is due to our own lack of intelligence and technology.

Let’s start where just about every physics lesson begins: with an equation. 

The Drake Equation (taken from the SETI Institute)

Formulated in 1961 by astrophysicist Frank Drake, the Drake Equation offers a prediction on the number of advanced civilizations in a given area. In layman’s terms, this equation is essentially an alien population predictor. With some data points with stars, planets, and percentages, Drake calculated between 1,000 and 100,000,000 other intelligent beings in our galaxy. Math doesn’t lie, and our question appears to have been answered. 

Where is everyone? Simple: all around us.

But that’s not satisfying, is it? For one, if these calculations predict so many other intelligent life forms around us, why have we not seen signals of contact from them? This is where Enrico Fermi’s lunchtime speculation comes back to the forefront of discussion. His infamous question, now formally known as the Fermi Paradox, is, to this day, completely unsolved. However, I would like to consider four different hypotheses and unpack both their viability and the implications they provide to humanity as a species.

(Above is a video explaining the basic concepts regarding the Fermi Paradox, as well as a brief introduction to the solutions discussed below.)

The first potential solution has been coined the Zoo Hypothesis, with the explanation being just that: we are like animals in a zoo. Humans do this all the time. From zoo exhibits to national parks and reservations, we often observe less intelligent animals in their natural habitats and avoid interfering with their ecosystems. Replace a zebra or panda with humanity and the bars and cages with a galaxy, and you have yourself a fascinating perspective of our universe and those watching from the outside—Exhibit Earth of the Galactic Zoo: the human species. I wonder how much the entrance fee would be to see the 2020 elections pan out.

But we don’t always leave other animals alone, and this philosophy allows us to arrive at a more humbling solution to the Fermi Paradox: we’re just too stupid to hear alien signals. To put this into perspective, imagine being stranded in a desert all alone. After billions of years of wandering, you come into contact with another species—a desert ant. Isolated and lonely, you try desperately to have it acknowledge your existence. You tell it stories, sing it songs, and write it letters. Will the ant ever realize that there’s a much smarter animal attempting to make contact with it? Of course not—some species are comparatively more advanced than others, making communication between the two impossible. But that’s just it.

Another well-known hypothesis is the Great Filter. At a basic level, it states that there are multiple steps for species to be complex enough to harbor galactic communication, and that we are one step away from doing so. I, as do many theoretical physicists, find this near impossible to believe. Consider the Earth alone, with around nine million plant and animal species. While we may reign supreme on our home turf, the probability for our superiority at the predicted scale of around one hundred million species seems far-fetched, at best. 

The basic principle of The Great Filter, visualized (taken from Medium)

A more eerie rendition of the Great Filter takes us to our last solution: intelligent beings self destruct. Whether it be from overpopulation, pollution, or unsustainable environmental practices, the energy and resources required to maintain a complex, technological society are extremely taxing. Perhaps species, before gaining the ability to communicate intergalactically, destroyed themselves. They ignored their planet’s atmosphere and exploited natural resources, leading to their gradual, yet inevitable, extinction. Sound familiar? It should—it tells the horror story of our current battle against climate change and carbon emissions near perfectly.

While these hypotheses remain speculative in nature, a common truth seems to arise no matter which angle you attack the problem from—we are not nearly as smart as we think we are. Regardless if it be through a lack of technology and resources or the overuse of it, humanity as a whole remains oblivious to the world around them both domestically and in the Milky Way. To answer the question, “where is everybody?”, perhaps it’s best to first look retrospectively at ourselves rather than the cosmos above.

 

Works Cited

“Drake Equation.” Drake Equation, SETI Institute, www.seti.org/drake-equation-index.

Jasty, Kunal. “6 Mind-Bending Solutions to the Fermi Paradox.” Medium, Radio Open Source, 30 July 2014, medium.com/tag/astronomy/archive.

Kurzgesagt. “The Fermi Paradox – Where Are All The Aliens?” YouTube, YouTube, 6 May 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc.

Shostak, Seth. “Fermi Paradox.” SETI Institute, 19 Apr. 2018, www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/fermi-paradox.