“Some people don’t care about UX,” he said.

After he said those words, he went on to describe the data behind market research. But for me? I couldn’t hear anything he said. Namely because it sounded uninformed, uneducated, and most of all, ignorant. When he said UX, he meant user experience. The field that I specialized in for more than the last decade.

I countered with the fact that user experience is meant to be seamless. It’s not just graphic design. It’s not what you see on the screen and how you interact with it. Great user experience, and perhaps even product design or experience design depending on the context, considers all areas of impact. It might be the platform (computers that need updates, mobile phones on 4G) or the context of use (lacking great cellular signal, in a hands-free environment). It must consider the right information to deliver, the tasks that need to be completed. And even more so, it needs to be informed by user behavior in the past, present, and the future. It must be informed by repeated behavior, by the way that people navigate through user interface, by the agility of those users, and potential conflicts that exist in this busy world.

And so, I was surprised and not surprised by my sudden intensity. As if he struck my sense of identity and questioned it. But perhaps it was the dismissive way he made the statement as if user experience did it all wrong. My friend called it mansplaining. There was a moment where I wanted to ask, “Did you have a bad experience in regards to the term user experience? Why do you think user experience doesn’t matter? What do you really think user experience includes?” and of course, “why are you saying this? when you know perfectly well that this meetup would include designers?”

But my ear wasn’t feeling sympathetic, empathetic, or compassionate anymore. All I felt was this displeasure that I had felt many times in my career. Where I would need to explain what I do. For most cases outside of my projects, it’s simply “oh it’s just design. it’s to make things easier to use.” Sometimes, I drop the subject when people believe the wrong thing, because it’s not worth correcting. Yet when I am in a safe place where I expect everyone to understand the definition where I don’t have to defend myself or educate people, I am simply appalled and wonder what it means for the future of the industry. There’s a sadness that lies in all of this. That for some people, they don’t care about UX, so that means people like myself…will constantly be devalued. And the skills won’t matter at all.

This desk, purchased when Ikea entered the shores of the Bay Area in Emeryville, when I was a sophomore in college, came to inhabit my first apartment in Berkeley. Tucked against the wall. It endured the fat self-built desktop computer and CRT monitor where I crafted blog posts on scribble, early version of wordpress (aka b2) and browsed the-protagonist forums. It witnessed how I pissed off people and vice versa. It was the DJ table when we decided to have a house party as a retaliation to our downstairs neighbor for being noisy. (Result: it was a bust. as in, it wasn’t really a party at all.) It went to my second apartment in Berkeley, located on the southside, where I spent nights tearing up over a conversation that were simply words on the screen and observed me slack all those two years. It witnessed me preparing my graduate school applications.

Then it sat in my parents’ garage for two years until I returned to the Bay Area.

Then I took it with me to San Francisco to my first apartment. As in the first and only apartment. And here it sits in the corner of the room, perfectly sized for it and a laundry. The wood panels are composite and obviously weak. One of the shelves is in my closet, where it has been for the last 10 years. It is still as messy as when I first had it. Random bowls, random pens, random everything strewn around. It endured a LCD monitor, then decreased to only a laptop sitting on its stand next to a keyboard. The blinds look open it where occasionally pigeons flap their wings and squawk outside the window. But it has paid witness to more than half of my life. Well…almost. I have only used it for approximately 13 years.

Something special happens when you re-watch season 1. Especially for Game of Thrones. I remember my fascination with the show, not because of the extraordinary world in the story, but because it wasn’t like many fantasy shows. No last-minute saves. Realism persists in the story—good men die, bad men win. Not because of a simple good vs. evil, but rather because of appropriate strategy. Much like a political race.

I see people who became dead…now alive once again. Some striking innocence and even arrogance, before these characters were forced to transform. So many people. So much time have passed. Scars arrived. Limbs lost. Throats cut. Innocence stolen.

I wonder this—would I want to know about what happened 5 years ago? Sometimes I don’t want to remember and have completely blocked it from my memory. Emotions may return if I had explicitly described them in detail or marked it perfectly with a single moment, a visit on Foursquare, remnants of a ticket stub, and the like. But sometimes it’s easier to let it steam in its oil until there’s nothing left, except the feelings associated with the people and the objects.

I wonder what I would think 5 years from now. This moment. Would I remember the departure of a dear old friend to a distant continent likely never to see again? Would I remember the anguish of marketing my book? Would I remember the guilt of not going outside enough, not trying hard enough, not doing enough? Would I remember, perhaps in contrast, the satisfaction of me (or perhaps envy the current good health)? What I didn’t know and what I will know. I will likely think all of this, but I will constantly think if you had only known. But no regrets.

Because like a TV show, the pleasure of the now having experienced the past is what matters the most.

A door is privacy. It means, “I am here. I am sleeping. I am working. Respect my presence behind the door.” It means that I am focused. That I am alone. That I am having a discussion. It means that I am deep in my thought process. And most importantly, I control this space.

And yet.

When I was young, I shared a room with my sister. She was probably 3 or 4, and I was only a year older. We were both scared of nighttime monsters, and so we would calm each other down. “I am here,” I said. “I am here,” she said. At least we would both be eaten.

But eventually as our parents upgraded the house, we got our own rooms. Separated by a bathroom where we would rush into each other’s room declaring each other’s names. But if my sister left my room without closing the door, I would yell and scream until the door slid all the way closed.

In college was the only time that a door didn’t exist. I first lived in a quad, literally three other girls and myself. Then in an one bedroom apartment with two girls where I had my bed and desk in the living room, one had both her desk and bed in the bedroom, and another had a desk in the living room and her bed in the bedroom. Then the next year, we somewhat upgraded—I had the living room and she had the bedroom where the bathroom was located. But we went in and out each other’s lives with no door.

And since then, a door.

What would a life without a door be like? To know that your fellow members were nearby within reach. To hear the snores. To hear the gossip. To be entwined in a way that we would never know. I am often at peace during the day when in crowds. Especially in public spaces. I am in my own world, but there are people around me. But then when I want to be away from prying eyes, away from eavesdropping ears, and warm bodies, I crave a door. I crave an environment that is wholly my own. As I sleep into my bed, it is silent and controlled the way I want it. Even the noise from the busy streets don’t pierce the space that I have created.

…it’s likely because of the someone who harbored murderous thoughts about 10 years ago.

What did I do in early October 2013? What was I thinking? Why did I do certain things? What phone did I use? Why didn’t I take any photos? What was I most worried about?

Despite a long history of recording various things online (Foursquare, blog, flickr), in preparation of a potential five-minute storytelling session, I went back to the events of October 2013. Specifically when I was playing Assassins for Come Out and Play. I did win the game later that month, but I couldn’t remember how and who. I remember the hours I spent on 2nd street at the Starbucks watching a building. I remember social engineering my way into a SRO in Union Square and the follow up email that I sent to the game organizer. I also remember how the card slipped out of my pocket while riding and I went back and forth on Valencia to find it, crushed in the pavement 15 minutes later. I searched my email and found some loose artifacts. And even searched my foursquare history. But to no avail.

I needed the artifacts, the actual artifacts of the game. I couldn’t remember who my second kill was. Was it someone who gave up easily? Did I easily get his card? Did he email me? Was I obsessed with who he was?

When I got home, I was obsessed with figuring out the mystery. My room isn’t that big and my possessions are rather organized in certain piles. Formal paperwork. Professional books. Ice cream travel guide artifacts. Paper for shredding. Sentimental papers.

Then I realized how much I loved looking at the artifacts from Assassins. It wasn’t about the fact that they reminded me about the game. But it reminded me about my careful planning, diligence, and…need I say…hunting to win the game. As I went up and down my shelf, I remember how I would stare the cards months later and smile at my glory. Most of my life, all my life, I have rarely won games. I am not physically attuned, so my speed and agility is quite lacking. I would like to think that I am intelligent, but there’s always someone more clever than me. Then the chance games, I never quite feel that I deserve the win because I didn’t quite earn it. So when I gaze on my win for Assassins, I feel pride.

And then like many things that I lose in my room, I suddenly know where to find it and immediately find it. I remember my motivations and goals immediately as I gaze at the photos. I remember standing in the lobby of stubhub, watching a man with a beard. And suddenly, that pleasure of pride fills me up again. I really did work for this and I did it.

Like the Black Mirror episode, I pointed out to Chris (when he returned from a long period of being unreachable by phone; reason: he fell asleep) how I could always talk to his mii on Miitomo. Because that Mii in particular would always be there, would be always be present.

That mii would always be ready to ask me random (innocuous) questions like:

What is your favorite word that begins with “o”?

or

What did you do last weekend?

But because of their trivial nature, the questions make me feel like I am being heard even if it’s not Chris actually asking the question. Then I would type in the answer and receive validation once Chris as himself actually taps the “heart” button and/or adds a comment.

“I can go to Miitomo to feel like I am being heard,” I said. “He will always listen to me. He will always talk to me. He will always smile at the right time, frown at the right time, and get angry at the right time.”

Yet I thought about that though. Isn’t that just lifting the best parts of the relationship? I love being heard and understood. And by crafting Miitomo to take care of that aspect, it’s missing all the nuance of a relationship—the particular ups and downs. The fact that some people won’t be present every moment. The fact that people won’t naturally ask certain questions and expect certain responses. The fact that our expressions won’t appear consistently—sometimes we’re too distracted by something in our lives, sometimes we can’t relate it to ourselves, sometimes we simply just can’t understand. And that is part of the human experience. Because I wonder if being heard 100% with the mii version on miitomo would be fulfilling for the rest of my life.

I wake up, and it feels like a productive cough. I am pleased as thick phlegm comes up.

But then hours later, it is dry again. The itch in my throat refuses to back down. I coax it with hot tea, lemon, and honey. It comes back. Maybe I don’t notice it at first. It’s a small reaction. A clearing of the throat. The stillness of the moment. But then I began hacking. The itch takes over everything. Then I attempt to douse it with medications. But then it comes back at full force, angry. Cough drop. Water. Hot tea. Please, I think, memories of poor timing of the cough attacks come rushing back in the student library right before finals, right in the middle of an argument (where I was right, of course), and during an important presentation. I tell it, Please recover soon. Please return to where you once were. Just don’t do it during the important conversation. The itch recedes. The air echoes down my throat into my lungs. And the fear recedes. For now.

Even Steven (despite being born in Korea) doesn’t know everything about living in Korea.

During lunch yesterday, I asked my mom point blank what she thought about the Mission Local profile on me. I had emailed the article earlier to my parents, and my mom responded back, “I never knew that about you. I learned something new.”

“What do you mean?” I asked during lunch.

“That you have confusion,” she said across the round table.

“What kind of confusion?” I said, trying to see if she understood the intent.

“Yes, confusion.”

I falter and give an hint, “Identity?”

“Yes,” she said. “It seems that you’re confused about being Asian and American.”

“No!” I said. “Not about being Asian American. I am satisfied with that. It’s the confusion or really the conflict being an artist and working in tech.”

And that part is true. I am conflicted with the identity of being an artist—the feeling that I should be starving and struggling…that I should have gotten a MFA. That I should be deeply immersed with artist circles. Yet, when I am with them, I don’t feel at ease. When I am surrounded by tech, I feel like myself. But at the same time, it’s likely from familiarity. My body reacts to unfamiliarity and discomfort. So I rest in that middle ground.

But doesn’t that somewhat translate to being Asian American? What I do know is this: I feel even out of my element in Asia, especially in areas where they speak Cantonese. I feel that I should know how to speak the native tongue, but instead awkward words come out and I quickly resort to English. In parts of America, there are times where I feel uncomfortable because there’s this unsaid judgement that I am simply not white. But for most of my life, my obliviousness serves me well in not noticing that.

Several weeks ago, a friend and I ate at the bar of a fancy restaurant. I was quite pleased that we found seats without a reservation. She’s a bit quiet and with her accent, I know that she isn’t born in the states. But a white middle-aged man sat next to us. Without any prompt, he provoked my curiosity as he recommended dishes and drinks. I listened and perhaps enabled him a little too much. At some point, he turned and said, “Where are you from? China? Vietnam?”

I felt my fists clench and spat, “America. I am American”

He paused, his mouth open.

Noticing his surprise, I felt guilty. In the past, I have pressed my whole Americanness onto unsuspecting, naive strangers. It only serves to their confusion as it’s clear that they’re trying to figure out why I am not white. Much like how I am surprised sometimes when a Frenchman is Asian. I admitted, “I was born here in the Bay Area. My parents are from Hong Kong.”

“Oh!” he said, finding his in and I feel a horrible feeling sink inside me. “I love the dumplings and all the food.”

“Uh huh,” I said, realizing that he was trying to find a common subject. I want to say that I don’t like Chinese food, but at that moment, the guilt overcomes everything.

He drones on and at some point as my friend and I are enjoying the second dish, he said, “I am going to say something complimentary.”

“Um, ok.”

“Your hair, what do you use? How do you have so much?”

“Absolutely nothing,” I respond. “And you don’t realize how difficult it is. it means that hair goes everywhere. Everywhere.”

And at some point, it’s a losing battle. So I file this moment under the very few times that I have experienced microaggressions.