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박지영 Susan Park

@koreatownclass

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• Community Creator
• Corean Language Access Community Center Coreatown
• 501(c)(3) Currently Raising Funds

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I’m going to pin this too. Onjium, Seoul, October 2025. I don’t select “best photos,” no artificial lighting, nor do I choose good natural lighting. No filters. I’ve had no plastic surgery done or injections. I do micro-needling inconsistently. My hair is all my hair. I hit the Korean genetic jack pot for aging from both my parents. They made me stay out of the sun or always wear sunscreen since I was a child. My parents took excellent care of my skin and body. They fed me collagen rich foods extravagantly when I was growing up. I probably had a more nutritionally rich and varied diet starting in the womb than about 99% of Korean people my age anywhere in the world. I’ve done copious research and field surveys on this. I do not position myself as an expert. Americans are so funny. OTHER people decide if you’re an expert. I cite my experience when relevant. I adore fashion and style. I don’t drive luxury cars or carry luxury bags. Except Prada bowling bags with very discrete logos. I don’t do logos at all when avoidable. I love kids and fur babies above well maintained furniture. I put people over material things or property. I spend a portion of my pay on direct aid to poor people IF they can’t get help through the system. Then I try to change the system. I hold government accountable. I expect people to practice basic etiquette. I watch what people do more than I believe who or what they say they are. My nonprofit transforms, uplifts, and saves lives. My goal is to destroy poverty profiteering as much as possible. I have side gigs that I use income from to treat myself to nice things. I’m extremely generous but I’m no fool. I’m cynically compassionate. I know a lot about food, ingredients, cooking, and the business of getting food onto a plate. I’ve been featured in many publications and media outlets. by @koreatownclass

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7 months ago

I’m going to pin this. I don’t understand why people keep getting confused. I was born in Seoul, South Korea in October of 1969 at Saint Mary’s hospital. My family was rich in Seoul. My mother enrolled me in nursery school when I was 2 years old. I attended 2 years of preschool. That’s 3 years of a formal early education in Korea that most Koreans my age didn’t receive. My family moved to LA in January of 1975. Photo is from spring 1975. I never wanted for anything material. My parents worked hard to provide extra nice things for me and my brothers. They didn’t work hard for subsistence or basic needs. Those were easy. In terms of material and trendy things, I had the American dream suburban childhood in the 1970s and 1980s San Fernando Valley. My uncle Mel, an architect from old American money, used to drive me around in his early 1970s Cadillac convertible. It was THE IT car at the time. I wasn’t the poor immigrant child who didn’t get birthday or Christmas presents. My parents, aunts, and uncles pretty much bought me everything that I wanted. I had extremely early access to tech compared to most kids in LA and the U.S. at the time. I’m considered by sociologists and scholars to be a 2nd generation American. I have visited Korea over 100 times and I went back to live there between 1998 to 2003. I lived on Hannam The Hill. I didn’t learn all of my Korean from my parents. I self taught and engaged with Korean society and business. I’m multilingual and learning these languages involved a certain amount of ridicule and racism. I didn’t grow up in Korea. I’m a real person that is known in real life by many of the people who follow me on IG. I can’t lie about things or misrepresent myself on social media. Yes, I really do speak Korean with a high degree of Native fluency. Why is this even a question? There are public videos of me speaking Korean at Korean press conferences and reading speeches in Korean. The stuff I write and say is verifiable. by @koreatownclass

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7 months ago

People keep asking for Korean cooking classes from me. I do private classes in Los Angeles. I prefer to do it in the student’s home. My starting rate is $250 per hour with a three hour minimum. So $750. The price is a flat price for 1-5 students. I bring pantry ingredients. Students pay for fresh ingredients. It includes 1 1/2 hours of shopping for Korean ingredients. I’m best for people who are mid to very advanced in cooking. This includes professional cooks and chefs. I don’t teach beginners. I can also teach classes bilingually or entirely in Korean. I teach correct things. Things that give people confidence. My classes are an opportunity to try my homemade jang. My collection of varieties is unparalleled outside of Korea and most likely even in Korea. I’m doing these classes because there’s a demand. I don’t need the income. If you’re a community based org, then I do donated stuff like presentations and recipe demonstrations. by @koreatownclass

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7 months ago

As an increasing number of Angelenos are going bat$hit and increasingly instigating arguments with random strangers, more women have expressed fear of being out in public alone. There’s also fear of being robbed. 1) Be aware of your surroundings and show that you’re aware. 2) carry your keys in your dominant hand. They’re potential weapons for defense. 3) Wear sturdy shoes and walk like a fighter by driving your body forward and feet firmly landing on the ground. This makes you harder to trip. 4) Hold your bag close to your body away from the street or pedestrians. Don’t suddenly clutch your bag when you see someone that makes you afraid. The sudden clutch is usually racial profiling. Don’t do that. It can upset people (understandably so). 5. Secure your belongings. Don’t leave your purse or phone on a restaurant table or hanging on a chair. 6) Don’t wear expensive looking jewelry or watches. Don’t carry luxury bag brands that are easily identifiable by criminals. Same with luxury clothes. Finally, crimes are of opportunity. The more barriers you create, the less likely you will be targeted. Criminals will move on to easier targets. As for bat$hit strangers, almost none of them know how to physically fight. You can be sure of this when they’re too dumb to realize that you can slap them in the face with your keys IF they even verbally threaten to assault you. by @koreatownclass

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19 hours ago

I’m a high volume tech user. I’m sick and tired of the sheer volume of apps that are essentially forced on me. Nobody has this much space on their phones. I have 3 phones! Too many apps don’t work. AI is slowing everything down. There’s no impactful automation. I’m essentially doing my own customer service while being bamboozled into a fraudulent user experience. Nobody is this bored. Ad algorithms are the biggest scam. I get ads for things that I don’t need or want. Or for things that I already own. There are no personalized ads in my feed. The ads are purely based on gender. AI doesn’t read my face correctly. It reads it as Mediterranean. If I’m speaking English, I’m identified as a white woman. I get weight loss product ads constantly. It’s been like this for years. This means AI or the algorithms can’t figure out my physique. I’m prone to being underweight. But, hey! I’m a woman who posts often about food. So, I MUST be overweight. The same stereotypes about women were present long before AI or tech. The worst things about AI are the misinformation, disinformation, and a fair amount of it is relatively easy to hack. by @koreatownclass

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20 hours ago

Kamilah and I went to the Moroccan Decor store on La Cienega. This is my favorite Moroccan Decor store in LA. I think there are at least two others that are still open. Yes, we get the special treatment for North Africans. Koreans are an ancient people at about 500,000 years. Algerians are one of the most ancient at about 2.4 million years for the first signs of human life. Even before I met my husband, I knew that archaeological evidence from North Africa (the maghreb) was vastly under examined. And that eventually findings in North Africa would change scientific theories and narratives about early humans on the African continent and possibly where the cradle of civilization is. The story of evolution is still unfolding. As a historian, I don’t hold onto single origin theories. I’m fine with examining multi origin theories. African peoples have the greatest genetic diversity in the world. The greatest diversity of skin shades and tones. The greatest diversity of physical features and body types. Note that shade and tone are different. A lot of tourists to France discover North Africa in France. John Malkovich came to my restaurant to talk to my husband about Algerians in France. by @koreatownclass

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2 days ago

I used to work at a bank. I used to licenses in finance and insurance. I used to do fraud and risk management consulting. I do a high volume of transactions using financial instruments at many financial institutions. In other words, I know a lot about this stuff through experience and private conversations with people who are supervisors to C-Suite executives. AI simply doesn’t work in many sectors or industries. At this point, I’m still advising people to keep their money (assuming they have enough) spread out at different banks. I do have some concerns about people doing another Washington Mutual style panic cash withdrawals. CRE (Commercial Real Estate) loan defaults and delinquencies will keep increasing. More billionaires and millionaires will go bankrupt. Their assets sold for pennies to the dollar, assuming that anyone wants to buy them. AI is effing up real time updates on bank transfers. A collapse could happen in between the time money is taken out and money is put in. The money that was supposed to be put in could become hard to trace or untraceable. I’m getting SPAMed by high risk lenders. I’m not high risk and I haven’t applied for a loan in 8 years. The under regulated private credit market is really wonky right now. Who knows how many hidden defaults there are? There are too many entry level loan officers without human supervisors. They’re being monitored by AI. What used to be basic in bank transactions are now done by specialists. Knowledge, information, and transactions are so fragmented and out sourced that finding the master or mistress of the house is a herculean task or impossible. There is no wizard behind the curtain. by @koreatownclass

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2 days ago

Everything is broken. Nothing is working. What is up with these insanely steep driveways into above ground parking lots? There are blind spots at the very top and bottom. What kind of engineering buffoon thought that mirrors would solve the issue of blind spots. Driving into a parking lot shouldn’t feel like a roller coaster ride. This is on La Brea. The blind spot on the way up is worse than the Target on La Brea. Shopping in LA is a harrowing dystopian experience. Shelf after shelf void of merchants. Merchandise held hostage behind locked doors. Sometimes I drive to West Hollywood for a more suburban shopping experience. PayPal isn’t reading debit cards correctly. It’s assigning them to the wrong financial institutions. I tried to change my email password. The app automatically changed passwords for 3 additional email accounts. Email forwarding stopped working and the web developer website was stuck in limbo. Companies have sent me merchandise I didn’t order. I have accounts with them. However, there’s no trace of shipments. I called customer service. I was told that the companies don’t have shipping records. Just keep the items. Okaaaay. AI is broken. Human employees are demoralized. LA feels so apocalyptic. I saw a couple driving a car without a hood. The grinding poverty for the most vulnerable keeps getting worse. The rich are afraid. The mood is weirdly acquiescent for many. Others are increasingly lashing out at strangers. What the heck is LA going to be like during the winter storms? Don’t forget to remind street cleaning services to call LADOT to suspend ticketing for street cleaning days when it rains. That’s what I was told. What’s the next disaster to hit LA? I’ve lived here for 51 1/2 years. It feels like every natural, man made, and economic disaster is happening in compressed time. I’m not an alarmist. I still think that the U.S. can reset for better outcomes. Stop funding forever wars. by @koreatownclass

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2 days ago

My next target. The department of parking meters. Why is metered parking so expensive in certain low and mixed income neighborhoods and so cheap in affluent neighborhoods? Why are there so many barriers to parking in a lot of low and mixed income neighborhoods? Broken meters; coin slots that swallow coins without adding time; and payment apps that don’t work in low and mixed income neighborhoods, i.e. BIPOC communities. The dept of parking meters claims that the price variations are based on demand. Guess what? BIPOC tend to live in more densely populated neighborhoods that also lack free parking. This is thinly disguised racism and discrimination. The dept of parking meters claims that a meter has to have complete failure of all payment options in order for a parked car not to be ticketed. Many very low income people don’t have bank or credit cards or phones that work well enough to use apps. Connectivity is a big issue. Metered parking in prime shopping blocks in Beverly Hills is cheaper than Chinatown LA. That’s just one example of the dept of parking meters implementing things contrary to policy. These municipal parking depts are out of control. It costs more to collect coins from these machines than what someone pays in coins. Hence, all those broken coin slots in low and mixed income neighborhoods. This is redlining via parking tickets. LA is already unlivable and apocalyptic as is. I’m so sick and tired of this kind of BS. It also makes it more difficult to be a small business owner in LA. LA government departments need to stop these extractive practices. $$$ extortion needs to stop. by @koreatownclass

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3 days ago

Cafe Cinema is located on the bottom floor of an office building in Beverly Hills on La Cienega south of Olympic. There’s cheap metered parking and free parking in a lot across the street. Owned and operated by a Korean mother and son duo. It’s good for what it is and the prices are retro. If you’re in the area and want a quick bite to eat and respite from the insanity in LA, this is a sweet spot. I already assumed that they were Korean before I met them. Many of these small restaurants or food counters located in Los Angeles office buildings are owned and operated Koreans. I’m guessing that this mother and son purchased this from a previous Korean owner. Their breakfast items, sandwiches, and plates are only $7.55 and under. This place is affordable for working people. They’re open Monday-Fri from 6:30 am to 6:00 pm. I wouldn’t come later than 5:30 pm. by @koreatownclass

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3 days ago

Blue Elephant, a South Korean sunglass company, in Beverly Hills. Prices are between $33.95-$70. The store was pumping loud music and sales. The thing about Korean companies is that there’s something at every price point from cheap to luxury. Regardless of price, the consumer experience is there. Most stores in Beverly Hills offer escorted customer service in serene environments with special or extra pricey items locked away. It’s obvious that the vast majority of people who come here cannot afford the vast majority of goods sold in this neighborhood. Look around. Count how many people are at the registers or carrying shopping bags. An extremely limited number of people are. So the prices at Blue Elephant seem more than accessible. Buy something here and these people can tell their friends that they bought something in Beverly Hills. Apparently, this location offers exclusives. All the merchandise is on display to try on. The tactile experience is there. Korea number one and I don’t see a sea change happening anytime soon. Korea has something that Hollywood never did. We’re an authentic culture with many aspects that are uniquely or iconically and instantly recognizable as Korean. by @koreatownclass

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3 days ago

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5 days ago