Hello America! As of today my book YOU SUCK, SIR is available in your country at all fine booksellers. If possible please order through your favourite indie bookstore. 🙏

In his tryst with faith as a pastor, Bae came face to face with his love for writing and teaching, which he eventually left to pursue standu

It’s been ages since my last update but hope it was worth the wait. I am proud to announce that YOU SUCK, SIR is being published by Arsenal Pulp Press for wide distribution. Lots of new entries mixed in with your favourites. Now available for preorder in North America with global orders available this summer. Thank you!

Thanks for that stroll down memory lane. I’m going to make dinner for my partner and have her listen to The Smiths as I paint for her every moment for which these songs provided the soundtrack to my teen years.

Nothing in my youth broke my heart like the breakup of The Smiths. Every year, I play The Smiths after school in my classroom hoping beyond hope that there will be one student who gets their music. The last student who perked her ears up and asked, “Who is this?” was one of my Lit 12 seniors from 2001. She’s a Facebook friend now and, to this day, has great taste in music. Morrissey may be a bit of a loon these days, but “Cemetery Gates” is what introduced my friends and me to the wit of Oscar Wilde. And I would give all my front teeth to play half as brilliantly as Johnny Marr. There will never be another band that combines literary irony, over-the-top melancholy, and shimmering melodies the way The Smiths did in the 80s. The closest was The Verve, but then they broke up as soon as they really got going. Seems you can have only so many insanely talented men in one room before their egos start brimming over into one another.

What makes it more difficult is that deep inside, if your parents are loving, they are only pushing you because they love you and worry about you. But I find that parents who “push” their kids in a certain direction, despite all their love and concern, are missing one essential thing: trust. Asking a parent to trust you is one of the harder things you could do as a young person. It’s even harder if you’re not financially independent. Personally, if your parents are paying for everything, you have no right to ask them to pay for a program they don’t believe in, but it’d be really cool of them if they did. So if you’re going to seek another course, you should make sure you have the financial means or a plan to get there.

I’m forty-six. That means I’m at that age where I am watching the parents of my friends pass away on a regular basis. Many of my friends have chosen their careers based heavily on their parents’ wishes (and I’ve learned this isn’t just a Korean thing). After they become parentless, I have had to watch them struggle with that question of “What have I done with my life?” They now have to live the rest of their lives with someone else’s dreams. Untethered from their parents, they often drift aimlessly for years. Watching people you love go through this is heart-wrenching, that realization that you’ve lived over half your life and only now to have it hit you that you’ve done very little that is actually of you and for you . (We used to call this a form of mid-life crisis. I’m not sure if people still use that term.)

One day, your parents will no longer be here for you. That’s a fact for all of us. And generally speaking, after your parents are gone, you will be middle-aged with a career and perhaps a family. If you choose a career you don’t like just for your parents, you are going to have to live with that career after they’re gone.

As to your question, I’m going to tell you what I’ve told many of my own students one-on-one. But please remember that you have to interpret this to fit your own context, goals, values, etc. It’s not a one-size-fits-all scenario by any means. If your parents’ approval affects your level of personal happiness, don’t follow my advice. This is for people who love their parents but know deep inside that their parents will “turn around” eventually. And warning: this might get a bit depressing.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard of a Homeland Security degree. I’m intrigued. Your letter is about to send me down a rabbit hole of research for the rest of this morning!

Hi ILikeToBearobot,

When I was really young, there weren’t too many Asians in my elementary school, so I got into the occasional scrap and got called “chink” and “Chinaman” quite often. My only comeback was, “I’m not Chinese!” Back in the early 70s, kids my age had no idea what a Korean was, so in hindsight, it’s all kind of funny in a surreal way to me.

But in terms of regular school bullying, no. I’ve never been a victim of that. But this issue strikes a chord with me because at one time, I was on the other end. I was a bully.

When I was in the 9th grade, I started becoming semi-popular. I was the first kid at my Canadian high school who knew how to breakdance. (Yeah, that’s all it took back then.) This is also about the time I started realizing I had a sense of humour. (Thanks to a teacher of mine who really helped bring me out of my shell.) So, things started changing in my life quite rapidly, including the people who wanted to be my friends and the way I carried myself in the hallways. It was like I was trying on different personalities for size. It was an awkward phase. But during that time, one of my classmates (I’ll call him Cam) started feeling pushed out of the group by me. We were never really close, but he’s the guy who hung around because he was a friend of a friend. Plus, he was super shy and nice, so he had the kind of personality that no one notices in high school.

One day, I was called into our vice-principal’s office. There was an angry looking man sitting next to him. That man was Cam’s father. He told me that Cam hadn’t been at school that week because he’d been feeling depressed and wanted to kill himself. Why?

Because of me.

Cam’s father proceeded to list off all the ways I would tease Cam and make him the butt of my jokes. There were days when I would be hanging around Cam, and he’d be laughing with the rest of us, but then he’d go home and cry.

I’ll never forget that day. I went home, closed my door, and really took a hard look at myself. It was like Cam’s father held a mirror up to me and I hated the way I looked. I had no idea I had become that person. But Cam’s father had provided ample evidence, and I remembered all of it.

The next day, I went to Cam’s house since he hadn’t returned to school. It was the first time I’d ever been inside, and the first time meeting his whole family. I asked to be alone with Cam. Then, in the living room, I apologized to Cam. I went over exactly what I had meant in my joking, and how I hadn’t meant to cause him pain, and how sorry I was for it all.

That’s the day we became friends. And because I felt responsible for causing so much anguish and self-hatred in Cam, I made a personal vow to take care of him and build him back up. I started including him in all my social events. We listened to and discussed music together. He became my brother. My blond, blue-eyed brother.

We went to separate universities, and when he told me how miserable he was at his school, I persuaded him to come to McGill with me where I was VP of my fraternity and could get him in. I knew if he started hanging around my frat brothers, it would complete the journey of bringing him out of his shell. He transferred and joined my frat.

Then the strangest thing happened. He loved the frat life. In fact, he was becoming a true “frat bro” just at the point when I was growing disillusioned by it. And because I suddenly went from party animal to spiritual seeker, I became a target. And for the first time in my life, I was bullied. It wasn’t physical bullying (except for one time), but a sense that “you don’t belong.” I never felt threatened by my frat brothers, but the frat life tends to promote a pack mentality, so when one guy starts something, it starts to pile on. And my responses to the verbal barbs wasn’t measured since I wanted to sting them back. But the thing that deeply hurt was that the person leading the charge was Cam. The friend whom I’d brought to McGill to heal his spirit for which I’d partly felt responsible was now forcing me out of the frat. It even got racially charged at one point when he hung a Nazi flag on his bedroom wall for everyone to see. There was only one other person of colour in our frat at the time - a big, black dude from Washington, D.C. He was my best friend. We quit together.

Two years later, our frat chapter pretty much folded. After over a hundred years of history at our school, it ceased to exist. I was the second to last VP at that chapter. Turns out even a fraternity can only handle so many imbeciles at any one time. But it was then that I bumped into Cam at the main library. We hadn’t talked since I quit the frat two years prior, so it was an awkward meeting. But we chose to grab a coffee. We took our drinks and sat on the balustrade by the entrance overlooking the campus gate. And we talked for about an hour. And he apologized. It was sincere and thoughtful and came from the heart.

So when it comes to bullies, I don’t see “a bully.” I see the person who is a bully right now. At one time, I was a bully. But someone held a mirror up to my actions and allowed me the chance to change. At another time, Cam was a bully, but he was a thoughtful, intelligent man who went through some growing pains to become a better man.

This does not mean we tolerate bullying by any means. It only means that we should, if possible, extend grace to one another to allow the opportunity for personal growth and change.

I hope that answers your question! I’m sorry if I veered off topic. I’ve told this story to so many students (usually to bullies whom I take aside to tell them this episode from my life) that I’m grateful for the opportunity to share it here.

Thanks,

Mr. Bae

(You Suck, Sir)