If there was a contest for the most hermit-like family during the Omicron wave, I am certain my family would be triumphant. I recently made my mother a photo book of our year of staying inside and going nowhere and it included a photo of my kids in an East Village community garden holding those bug zappers that look like tennis rackets and swatting flies with them. As memory serves, a garden volunteer who was wearing rubber gloves and potting some plants, stopped to take pity on my bored-looking kids as we sat in the garden one weekend afternoon, handed my kids two bug zappers and showed them how to use it to kill flies. This made my photo album. I do not jest. Though we do have friends, I assure you, we do not have a pod. (We apparently missed the 2020 pod-formation window. You snooze, you lose!) Indeed, my six year old struggles to write a “weekend story” each Monday at school. For two weekends straight, I have threatened to take both kids to the Nazi stolen art exhibit at the Jewish museum, one of three desolate NYC museums I feel confident going to right now. (It’s a stellar museum but as it is our default, it’s lost some of its appeal). Last weekend, the four of us headed to the Museum of the City of New York where they had three exhibits, yes three exhibits that entertained us–the puppet exhibit for my 6 year old, an activism exhibit (for my son) and an interactive 1980’s music exhibit, in which I lost my husband for more than an hour. Did I mention there were free 1980’s video arcade games on the same floor. The Golden Ticket! To my surprise, my Roblox-obsessed daughter sat and watched a slow-paced 30 minute film of a shadow puppet show narrated by someone with a quiet, lilting voice. Indeed, I lauded my own ability to sit through this “entertainment.”

After this exhibit, I of course, had to try to make some plastic shadow puppets with jointed limbs. I would like to make ones with plexi glass like the one pictured above as the thin acetate I used does not look like it will endure.

I hope you will try this simple and satisfying craft. You of course, do not have to make Kdrama themed ones but I wanted to, in celebration of Korean-American day. Happy day (already done) to my four Korean-American friends and family and to all of you appreciators of Korean/Korean-American culture. xoxo