Korea and I, we’re cool

Growing up abroad, I had a pretty awkward relationship with South Korea. It was a place that “claimed” me as its own, with its dark green passport marking me as its citizen and with my Asian eyes, flat nose and black hair, it was a place where I camouflaged flawlessly into the crowd. I was taught its language, its culture of respect, and its customs under Korean parents, but the feelings were never mutual since I could never claim South Korea as ‘my own.’ Our family would occasionally visit the ‘homeland’ every 3 years or so during the summer vacations, and the thrill of experiencing a “new” (at least for my sister and I) culture was always there but would quickly wear out within a couple of weeks and after 2 months, I would always be ready to go back “home” (which happened to be Turkey with whom I also had an unbalanced relationship since I claimed it to be mine, yet the feelings were not returned – it was also a place where I stood out like a lemon amongst pistacchios, a fact that was daily pointed out to me wherever I went).

There were always so many things that I disliked about Korea and its culture – these were the things that I felt I could never be part of or acknowledge as part of ‘me.’ This compiled with the pressure and emphasis that my parents would place on me to embrace the culture and identity, as my very own, led to a greater resistance on my part, leaving me with a great identity crisis for the better part of my adolescent years. Not to mention that I was educated all my life in English under American teachers which meant that the way that I thought was ‘American’ (which is so very hard to describe in words). Also the Korean people I did grow up with were not really Koreans but third-culture kids(TCKs) like myself who were lost inbetween cultures and identities. So I continued to resist my Korean identity. In high school, I declared that I would not live in Korea – so Korean college was never an option that I saw for myself. My very worried parents felt differently, of course.

But now, I stand a graduate of a Korean university and a proud survivor of 5 years in the city of Seoul (how I got here is a long story of its own telling to do), and I feel this 5 year journey, as rough as it was, has given me a gift of maturity and an expansion in my heart for cultural understanding. What I struggled with during the transition  wasn’t just the pressure to adjust (which happens to be one of the greatest skills I have), but it was the pressure to quickly reconcile the long lost time between South Korea and I, and become best friends – even worse, family. It had long claimed me as its own, and that’s what I struggled with – the fact that this was ‘my identity’ but that I knew nothing about it and the things that I was discovering were just puzzling.

The honest fact is, my reaction to Korea was totally different from my behavior towards other cultures. Towards other cultures, I was more open and willing to embrace or accept the things as they were. But towards Korea, I was especially critical and harsh because deep down I thought that once I accepted things as they were, I would become a stranger to even myself. These thoughts are so intricately complicated that even now I’m having a hard time putting them into comprehensible words. Simply put, my mode was ‘rejection.’

But what happened? I survived, and came out a better person because I’ve gained cultural understanding. In the process of being judgmental, Korea has (ironically) taught me to be less judgmental towards culture. Albeit there are still things that I don’t understand (the rudeness of ajummas, the emphasis on physical beauty and perfection, etc.), but what would culture be without its quirks, big or small.

Am I “Korean”? Parts of me definitely are. Am I proud of my Korean identity? I definitely am. And I am not a single identity. I am a compilation, a mish-mosh, a consolidation, a junction, and fusion of several identities – and I’m glad Korean is one of them.

I’m glad that I gave Korea a chance to grow on me (through the bickering, stress and temper tantrums). I’m grateful to this country for teaching me to be open to and accept culture for what it is. You can claim the right to diss or judge, only after you make an effort to understand and accept things for the way things are. There are things that I still struggle with, things that I may not like, but equally there are also things that I like, respect, and admire.  I’ve found that ‘objectivity’ is the best approach – like for any other relationship, there are aspects that we like and dislike (or simply find odd) in our friends or family members. But to solely focus on the negative without even trying to look at the positive, is throwing away what could be a good and valuable relationship.

So I just want to say that now, South Korea and I, we’re cool.

And I hope that others will also give cultures a chance, whether it be a brand new one or a culture that’s claiming you as your own even though you feel like strangers. I promise that the relationship, although it’ll take time to work out, will be rewarding in the end. Stereotyping or generalizing not only puts the culture and the people into a small box, but it also puts the person who is doing the stereotyping and generalizing into a small box as well.

This is also part of a personal message that I am writing to myself as I am about to get acquainted with another new culture in a couple of days:

Don’t judge, but keep an open heart and a willingness to get to know. You will be giving yourself an invaluable relationship.

emperor penguins are my new favorite animal

Sacrificial. Loving. Protective. Persevering. Patient.

Sitting in the comfy dark red theater seats, I found the qualities of an ideal spouse on the wide screen before me in the form of a chubby adorable emperor penguin. Who knew they had such admirable characteristics (both in their roles as a spouse and as a parent). Parenthood and the love and sacrifice that follow are apparently equally universally transcendent in all animals, and perhaps homo sapiens could take a leaf or two out of the emperor penguins’ books. It made me think that ‘fatherhood’ and the instinctive fierce sacrificial love that parents have for their children is a big part of how God created us in His image, since He placed that in all His living creatures.

Tears in the Atlantic (2012), directed by Jinman Kim

The well-filmed story (one of the best storytelling that I’ve seen in a documentary) depicts the beauty of the South Pole, which subtlely conveys the desire to put a stop to the commercial pollution of the Atlantic. I was glad that the director did not edit the film with a blaring condemning and guilt-inducing message but left it to the grandeur of the nature and emperor penguins, the ambassadors of the South Pole fauna in all their cuteness, to convey the soft plea.

with Sora unni and the not-so-cute penguin

I also thought that the final scene depicting the baby emperor penguins’ journey of independence left a befitting encouragement to Sora and I, both of us soon to leave the country and head to unfamiliar places by ourselves without the help of our families: “After overcoming the various struggles, the penguins are only that much closer to the beautiful ocean they are heading towards.”

Who defined ‘success’ anyways, let’s walk to our own drum beat – in the end we will see a beautiful ocean before us and every step, every struggle will have been worth it.