El Dorado Vintage Shop
By Nayeon Park & Tingting Wei
![sewing needle, hamster, flowers and text: El Dorado Vintage Shop](https://girlswritenow.org/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
Accompanied with the nostalgic pictures of our childhoods are a series of short stories.
brother vx-1435 vintage sewing machine, mint condition, lifetime warranty, refurbished with stickers
The Brother VX-1435 sewing machine is a delightful addition to any household. I would know. With its 14 stitches, this machine can sew and repair nearly any rips you may have in clothes, blankets, or more. The stitches weave through my skin, each poking loop riveting my flesh together and reminding me of the motherland. Even so, I struggle to keep a tight grip, bundles of seams fall out and scatter my patchwork memories of sweet-smelling grass fields and the buzzing of the silvery, summer cicadas. Such stitches include zig-zag, buttonhole, and zipper. The warm smell of roasted chestnuts and kittens bathing in the sun are replaced 14 years later with mothballs and terra-cotta roof tiles. The remnants of halmoni and harabuji, ee-mo and samchun, jeonju and go-san are shoved away in the attic that holds old blankets and buttons from my childhood. It’s starting to seem like the only memories that last are the ones that seep under my skin and stay warm under my tongue, which is shorter than those of my classmates’ due to the hangul that once sculpted it. It’s a simple machine to use, but it’s got features you won’t want to miss.
– Nayeon Park
Bidding price
Sewing Machine
Bid #1 Anonymous (1/23/21)
Bid #2 Anonymous (2/4/21)
Price
$60.00
$65.00
$80.00
hamsters in heaven
there must have been something in the water because all three died young, the Tumor One, the One Called Hammie the Hamster, and then there’s the One I Can’t Really Remember but my mother cried over, or at least i think she cried over because that day she was in the shower for two hours or three, so long that I thought she might have fainted or slipped and banged her head against the tub
I remember checking the doorknob (locked) I remember pressing my ear against the white door (cold) and I remember trying to hear something (running water)
When she finally comes out of the shower all pruny her pores still weeping, she says, I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t do it again, no more hamsters ever again
So these are it, these hamsters in heaven.
Condition is “Used.” Shipped with USPS First Class.
– Tingting Wei
OLD ONE-OF-KIND PAINTING
Made in the early 2000s, Watercolor on Paper “Snowy Night” Made with Love
$14.98
Watercolor Piece, perfect gift for young children or baby showers. Bundled in red, he peeks through the thick wool scarf at his very own creation. The other kids in class sang about someone named “Frosty”—a snowman. There is a faint stinging sensation on the tips of his fingers, the snow seeping inside the wool mittens Mother gave him. This piece features a young boy and a snowman. He looks at the tips of the snowman’s fingers, made up of twigs and branches. “Much colder than I am, probably.” He was taught never to be the only one complaining. The crisp air filters through the chartreuse scarf that is perforated enough for licks of snowflakes and icicles. A sort of candy—sugar-free and refreshing. Buy now and get the painting framed for free! He wishes that he was a little boy in a painting, framed for all to see and never having to go home. Springtime brings bunnies and tulips, but he will in exchange have to say goodbye to his chilly friend.
Toys in my grandma’s drawer
$29.66666666666666
gently used condition, preserved by my grandma for a decade, a green stuffed pepper and a purple dinosaur and a weird-ugly Barbie doll with her head twisted in a way that maybe can’t be fixed. Ronald McDonald because KFC was the luxe thing to eat back then
Comes with a wave of embarrassment, like yes, of course, these are childhood toys, toddler’s toys, expensive toys stowed away in drawers, toys too precious to play with. Anyway, I’ll double the wave of embarrassment, so it’ll come with my mother’s embarrassment for free—Grandma how could you be so silly! She’s a teenager now, she doesn’t play with those toys anymore!—and the sentimentality of the whole thing will grow on you, will age well like wine and be even more valuable in the future, so here I offer you these toys for $29 (and 2/3) for the whole bundle, vintage & authentic!
Performance
Process
This multimedia piece was a collaboration between Tingting and myself. We thought about precious childhood items and expressed our feelings about them through a spontaneous, experimental writing style that felt like a mix of an eBay listing and a diary entry. We both had a lot of fun rifting off of each other’s old memories and interpretations of childhood souvenirs. —Nayeon
![Nayeon Park](https://girlswritenow.org/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
Nayeon Park
Nayeon Park is a junior in high school who creates works of writing and art inspired by the cultures she has experienced growing up surrounded by immigrants, people in the arts, family, and diversity within NYC.
![Tingting Wei](https://girlswritenow.org/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
Tingting Wei
Tingting Wei is a Sagittarius sun, a Gemini moon and Gemini rising.