I awake to the jarring melody of my alarm. It is 5:30 am, but I am not going to go back to sleep today. My heart drums with excitement as I sneak out to the living room, where I find my father preparing decorations and my mother heating up an enormous pot of miyeok-guk. Twenty minutes later, we are ready. Cake in my hands, we creep into the bedroom across the hall where my brother sleeps. Everything is perfect. For four mornings every year, my family wakes up at the crack of dawn to celebrate each of our birthdays. I don’t know when or why we began this tradition, but ever since, birthday mornings are the biggest celebration of the day. We have developed an unspoken routine and roles which we take on with earnesty. The preparation consists of: Setting up the living room We hang up a string of balloon letters which spell out “happy birthday” and tape them to the top of the fireplace Setting the kitchen Cooked the day before...