Korean Mother Connection

Two highly intelligent friends have asked me why I am so “into” retaining my connection to Korean culture rather than simply accepting the fact that I am part of the American melting pot. “Because I was raised by a first generation Korean woman,” I reply. When your mother is born in a foreign country, you can’t help but be exposed to her culture. You metabolize it. It becomes a part of you—half of you, really. When that parent eventually dies, that connection to the original country is weakened and risks becoming lost. It is up to you, the American-born child, to preserve that thread.

My connection to Korea and motherhood began shortly after coming home from the hospital after having given birth to my daughter. My Korean mother, who had come to stay with us a week before my due date to help out with the new baby, insisted that I be fed seaweed soup—an unctuous pork broth containing slippery pieces of kelp—to replenish the iron I had lost from the birth and to facilitate milk production. Being in fog of painkillers those first few days (I had had a C-Section), I drank the soup willingly and found the taste to be not unpleasant. The broth did seem to help me regain my vitality quickly. My mother explained to me that all Korean women drink seaweed soup after giving birth: it’s an age-old tradition that generations of Korean women have handed down to their own daughters. After having imbibed this mysterious soup, I felt that I had become a part of this tradition.

For the past year, Kimchi Mamas has been instrumental in helping me connect to my Korean roots, which are held tenuously in place only because of my Korean-born mother. My father is Caucasian. I was born in California. I neither speak nor understand Korean. I have Korean relatives living in Korea, but I haven’t seen them since 1980. I have a Korean cousin (and, by now, hapa second cousins) living in L.A., but, sadly, have not seen them in more than a decade.

My mother (who’s now called “Halmoni” more frequently than “Mom”) is my only true connection to Korea. And because I am her only offspring, I feel strongly compelled to keep this bond alive. I want to hold tightly to the Korean traditions I’ve learned from her, to memorize her stories, to learn the superstitions, to sing the lullabies, and to prepare the cuisine. I want to absorb her sensibilities and ensure that those feelings are passed down to my own daughter. Kimchi Mamas has served as a constant reminder that I am connected to my Korean roots. And now that I am a mother, honoring and maintaining this connection has become more important than ever.

--Twizzle

Comments

[beloved]

Well, I know I'm a white girl and all, but I've always said I was Korean in a previous life and maybe this explains my passion for the language, culture, people, etc. It's nice to see others valuing it, too. I actually struggle with this a lot with my students (who come from Chinese, Mexican, Filipino, & Peurto Rican backgrounds); I feel like they are so quick to deny their ethnicities in the pursuit of fitting in. I understand them because they are young, but I hope one day that they will be able to embrace the beautiful cultures of their parents and ancestors.
P.S. I hate that stinky melting pot analogy. Salad bowl is so much preferable to me.

[eliaday]

Let me just play devil's advocate a little...

I kind of see culture a little bit differently - I see my culture as being Chinese American, not Chinese. I feel extremely connected to my mom and her mother, but my grandma has lived in the US for nearly 60 years, and my mom was born and raised in Brooklyn and says "oy vay" more often than I hear her curse in Chinese.

The beautiful culture of my parents is that of kids who grew up in NYC. Their language is English. Their food is a mix of meat loaf, spaghetti, and stir fried veggies with rice.

My daughter calls my mom Gi-gi, which is short for Grammy, and my dad is Pop-pop which is short for Grandpop.

To me, all culture evolves with time. And I am happy to call my culture Chinese American culture. My roots are in America. I feel most connected to the stories of my immigrant ancestors, who came here almost 100 years ago.

I don't think that it is sad or a loss of culture that I don't really speak Chinese or celebrate Chinese traditions. I view it as an evolution of culture, as the creation of something new that spans two different cultures but belongs to neither.

[Kyong]

I love how with many Korean foods, there's this holistic, spiritual connection. Miyuk gook was also eaten by my mother after her hysterectomy. She also made a huge vat of it when I had my daughter, so I would eat it every day for a week. It is said to restore a woman's natural balance and strength in pregnancy, after giving birth, and any upset to the reproductive organs. Also, seawood soup is the traditional woman's birthday soup in Korea. I believe it may also be traditional for men as well? But the connection to woman is strongest.

I think I already see the melding of cultures happening more in the Korean American community as it has in the Chinese American. With each successive generation, this "blended" cultural identity becomes a bit stronger. I'm a 1.5er, and I can speak perfect English to my child whereas my parents could not. What's gained is that I can communicate with my child in a way my parents could not with me, but the loss of something like one's native language is still huge, and I do feel a sense of sorrow.

[Jess]

My mother is also a first generation Korean, and though I was fluent in the language as a child, I lost all of it when I came to America. Because, as a 4-year-old, I CHOSE to forget Korean in order to fit in better at school. How I wish I could go back in time!

Because I haven't seen any of my Korean family since then (with the exception of my Halmoni, who my parents flew to Virginia as a surprise for my college graduation), I am also worried about losing my ties to Korean culture when my mother is no longer here.

I'm so glad I found this blog because there are so many similar and unique experiences related by the contributors. And thank you for sharing your stories!

[Angie in Texas]

I think Jess said it best: when I moved here as a 3 year old, I lost my language - I actively chose not to speak it as an adolescent so I could fit in - AND now I regret it almost every day.

BUT it is through the blogging community that I find support, laughter, tears and a sense of belonging where before I didn't completely fit.

Thank you to the Kimchi Mamas and thanks to the Rice Daddies (for letting me see there are good Asian guys out there).

[Ka_Jun]

Assimilation is not a desirable outcome.

[kim]

Thanks for posting this, Twizzle - I definitely feel like I'm in a similar boat. I really didn't give my Korean side a second thought until my daughter was born. Given that she's even more Korean than myself (3/4 versus 1/2), and knowing how many varied yearnings I have to know more about my Korean family, the language and so on, I feel like I owe it to her to educate and expose her to all things Korean. Unfortunately, I feel very ill-equipped to do so (and DH doesn't really help) - thank goodness for the KimchiMamas and it's contributors for keeping me on track. I really appreciate the shared stories, laughter and tears that I find here as I try to figure out how to shape my daughter's sense of self (as well as my own).

[carol]

Twizzle - beautifully written. I can really sense your love for your mom. And connecting through food has definitely been an ongoing theme in my parental relationship too! Although I'm full-Korean (American), I can relate to so many of your feelings. I do feel a strong pull to know more about "being Korean", especially because so much got left to the wayside growing up. I almost kind of feel indignant about it, that it's something I should have been entitled to having two full-Korean immigrant parents, and somewhat resent that I have to now go back and remedially correct it. But it will never be the same as just having it all along.

eliaday - I agree that it's an evolution, that you can take the best and worst of both worlds to create something entirely new - and good. I think the pang of loss is more prevalent for second generation kids, and then for hapas even more because they literally have a foot on both sides (and a third, growing up in the U.S.). We can't help but feel as though there is a cost to this evolution, like a cultural divestment taking place in the process as opposed to a natural adaptation. Maybe because we're still so close to the source, having one or two parents who immigrated, speaking the language, not being assimilated fully. That whole "so close, and yet so far" thing. I will say you and Twizzle definitely have a right to feel differently, and what I love about Kimchi Mamas is that there is room for both viewpoints. I hope my son, being third generation like yourself, will have the same healthy self-esteem that you do - especially being a dual minority with somewhat dueling strong cultures. I definitely think having family nearby, and growing up in an environment where you saw healthy reflections of your culture helps. I will have to work a little harder at it though, since having extended family or other Asians or Peruvians or hapas is not a given. I guess we just have to move to California or Hawaii someday (I wish) - sigh, the sacrifices we make! :-) I am going to try to pass on what I can, and give my son opportunities to learn more, but leave it up to him as an adult to identify himself.

[Teresa E]

Thank you for your post, Twizzle. I can completly relate. I also have a burning drive to retain my Koreaness. Which is hard to do as I grew up and still live in New Mexico. When I was a kid, I hated being Korean. I didn't identify myself as being Korean. Most people, here in New Mexico, thought I was hispanic (I am half Korean/half Irish). I hated having a Korean mom who cooked octopus and spoke broken English. I wanted June Cleaver and mashed potatos. But now, at age 38, I am so grateful for my mother and her rich culture. Every time I eat delicious Korean food, I think, "I am sssooo lucky to be Korean!" (I ate miyuk gook and washed-kimchi for a month after having each of my babies!)

I agree with you that being raised by a first generation immigrant is different than being raised by someone who grew up in America. Being raised by a Korean of my mother's age (66), especially, was different than being raised by someone who had never been touched by war, famine, poverty, death, humiliation, opression, and so much sadness, first hand.

My mother decidely raised me the "American" way. Like many women of her generation, who immigrated to the US, she wanted to leave the past behind. By marrying an American, she was banished from her family and cut herself off from Korea when she left there as a young woman in 1965. I knew little about her life in Korea, or her country/culture, as she would not share. Every time I asked she would reply, "you don't have to know."

Mostly, I learned about being Korean through childhood songs, superstitions, folktales, and the FOOD. As an adult, I have had to work so hard to learn about my heritage - scraping bits and peices of information together. The more I learn, the more I realize how Korean I am. Although my mother never counsciously taught me about being Korean, even tried to protect me from it, I too metabolized it. It is in our blood, our genetic code.

I started studying and speaking Korean at age 35. At 36, I begged my mom to go with me to Korea to see family members I've never even knew I had. So many of them. I cried when I saw Korea. I felt that it was a part of me and me it.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences. Thank you for helping me be Korean.

[felicity]

When my brother and I were growing up, our parents chose not to teach us Korean because they thought it would be too much work to be bi-lingual and they wanted us to easily assimilate. I really, really wish they hadn't decided that. Both my brother and I pick up languages very quickly and it's always felt like a missing piece of me to not speak Korean. But I am determined to learn now.

I don't have kids yet but thinking ahead to when I will, culture has become so important to me and it's now taking work to try and "increase" my Korean-ness when I'm so Americanized. My mom always told me to pay more attention to what she was doing in the kitchen and she was right because I now really want to be able to cook Korean food for myself and my white FI and our future kids.

[HCG]

For whatever reasons, my parents gave us a very half-baked identity experience. Basically there was only a small window of korean people they could handle being around (couldn't live in a town with too many of them, couldn't tolerate going to church regularly b/c it was just easier to hang out with school buddies to play golf etc.), so as a result my brothers and I suffered in terms of our grounding. I just wanted to be normal whatever normal was. I just knew we weren't. I thought it was about ditching all things korean but now I realize it was not that at all, it was my parents approach, or rather lack of ownership. Flash forward to now and I have a 9 month old son I'm reading korean books to --- in a desparate attempt to connect him to something else other than the english language. Ironically I may wind up fluent if I continue at this rate.

My husband last name is Chinese but he is of a mixed cultural background and he knows no language other than english and his personal experiences with each background he has is fairly superficial. This was because his own mother had identity issues of her own (she is Anglo-Indian) and couldn't give a straight answer to her own kids to the question, "what are you?" And yet she kept telling them they were Chinese, over and over again. You are right, it is the mothers who drive the connections to identity -- in his mother's case she wasn't really equipped to ground them either, despite her own personal experiences.

Anyway, from all of this we're trying to do the best we can to make our child's life as grounded as possible. Which means introducing languages as early as possible and a broad range of experiences. Ehh, we all do the best we can, right?

[Gillian]

I too was born of asian mother and white father.I completely understand the worry that your connection with your korean roots will be lost when your mother dies. That is true, but only to a certain extent. My mother died before I even had time to think about roots, (before I was a mother myself), but it was this loss that strengthened my resolve to "become" more chinese.

Naturally, the truly personal touch is lost with the death of a parent (such as the soup), but it can be replaced. You have found your pseudo mothers, Twizzle. Wish the rest of us the same luck.

[NA]

To all Korean Mothers / Parents :

I am a 25 year-old-lady from Indonesia and looking for Korean Mothers/Parents who want to adopt me and bring me to Korea. I am now working. You don't have to be worried if you are not fluent in English, you can teach me your language (Korean).

Thank you for reading this.

NA

[happybell]

I'm half Korean, on my dad's side. I don't read or understand Korean at all, except for the few words I can still remember from my not'so distant childhood. You see, dad died when I was about to turn 8, and since then I've basically lost all my roots to Korean culture. I do love the food, and I'm still trying to learn how to preapre decent kimchi since my dad did all the "korean cooking" and my mom never learnt anything (at least nothing helfull).
I've always tried to keep in touch with my heritage, but found it was almost impossible , since I live in a country were you can hardly see an Asian. Though a Japanese started teaching Korean (yeap I said Japanese)a few years ago, I've never made it to his classes becuase I'm working at that time of day (which is a pity). So, I still haven't learnt Korean.
Anyway, what I really wanted to say is how much I envy you!! I'd love to have someone teach me all those tings!! Try to keep those threads to the Korean culture alive. From own experience I can tell you that you value them even more once they're gone.

[Naomi]

I want to say thank you to all of you who made posts on this page. I'm 23 and am half Korean, on my mother's side, and half caucasian. My father met my mother in Korea almost 30 years ago when he was serving there for the army. I just lost my mom and I'm heartbroken over it. I spent most of my teenage and college years engaged in a very difficult relationship with my mother. We fought often, and I feel terrible about it now because during the past year I finally came to the realization that many of our misunderstandings arose because we had difficulty relating and understanding each other, culturally and linguistically. My non-hapa friends have said,"Oh, don't feel guilty...it's typical for mothers and their teenage daughters to fight." I could never quite get them to understand the uniqueness of the issues facing 1st generation Korean mothers and their hapa daughters.

I miss her terribly and I just keep thinking that I squandered it - all of my time with her, all of those rare times that she actually tried to teach me something about herself and her culture. I'm determined now to learn about my mom's culture and language, but I constantly fighting this, "it's too late" mentality...I can learn to make kimchi, speak her language, but I'll never get to do it with her, or know exactly how she did it. I'll never know exactly what she put in those soups she gave me when I was sick. We haven't even had her memorial service yet...so you can see how fresh and painful this whole situation is for me. We hadn't been speaking for the past year and a half for various reasons...all of them stupid. The most painful thing about all of this is that the time apart from her (while she was alive) made me realize how much I valued her and the heritage she gave to me. I kept telling myself that when I came to my hometown for Christmas, I would end the stupid feud by surprising her at her house...that we would be ok and could start over...that she would teach me about herself...and myself. I even planned to write her a letter so that I could make sure I said everything I wanted to say, about how much I loved her, valued her, who she was...how sorry I was that I had misunderstood her for so many years. I planned on doing all of this this Christmas...and then on December 2nd I found out that she had passed away. I'm afraid that I'll lose my connection to her, since I've lost her at such a young age. I dreamed about having her at my side when my children were born. Now I'll never get that chance.

Anyway thank you so much to all of you for your posts. I'm devastated, but reading your comments makes me feel, for the first time, like I'm not alone or crazy for feeling some of the things I do. I hope this website stays up for a long time. I think it's long overdue.

Naomi

[Kim]

I am looking for anyone who is able to help me. I am trying to locate my Korean birth mother who I havent seen in 27 years. If you have any info on where to start or would like to help please email me at scott808778@yahoo.com
Thanks soo much

[sabrina]

this site is great. i am korean/white. a war baby if you will.

[spicymamasf]

Naomi,
oh the woes you must be facing, girl...I'd give you a big unni-yah hug if I could.
I haven't lost my mother (to death), yet, but as I am of an age where more of our parents are passing than we'd like, I've had to ask myself some serious questions - perhaps in the automatic way we do when we ask, what if? I'd be crushed. And I feel you as a hapa daughter of a 1st gen, Korean mama, too. The typical mother-daughter pull is very unique for us. Some of us burn that bridge....
Without offending whatever belief structures you may have in place, I'd like to share with you my belief that all the obstacles, be they emotional, physical...all those barriers come down after death and our parents can be there for us in ways they never could in life....to hear us say sorry, to share in large or small triumphs, 1st paycheck, 1st home, 1st child, 1st jar of homemade kimchi, 1st pot of perfect rice, 1st blurting out of flawless Korean swear words :o)...and failures, 1st liver spot, 1st parental tantrum w/said swearwords at unwitting children, 1st ruined, overmarinated bulgolgi, 1st realization that we can still be pissed at them when they're gone...
It's never too late, sweetheart, they will ALWAYS be with us.

My mother is Korean Buddhist and you better believe I hear often the 10's of 1000's of lives we've had to live to share a mother-daughter relationship. Regardless of how we feel about it - good, bad, too long, too short - it's deep.

xoxo
~spicymamasf

[Deana]

Hi! I am also looking for my birth mother, Yon Choe, who I haven't seen in about 21 years. Any thoughts on where to start? Please email at
deana-m@hotmail.com

[Kim Henderson Tillman]

Hi Everyone!
I am half-Korean by birth mother and american by dad. I am looking for my Korean mother, Kim Mun Cha, who I haven't seen in 27 years. I need help in search and where to begin. Please email me at kimhenderson1@cox.net. Thanks and I am glad to find this site. It has help me to know that I am not alone. I know this website will help me feel more connected to my hertiage.

[Kim Henderson Tillman]

Hi Everyone!
I am half-Korean by birth mother and american by dad. I am looking for my Korean mother, Kim Mun Cha, who I haven't seen in 27 years. I need help in search and where to begin. Please email me at kimhenderson1@cox.net. Thanks and I am glad to find this site. It has help me to know that I am not alone. I know this website will help me feel more connected to my hertiage.