Kimchi Mamas

Kimchi Book Club

A few weeks ago, I found myself in Capitola between my son's soccer tournament matches.  We wandered into the Capitola Book Cafe to wait out the break.  While the boys manhandled the "Where's Waldo" books in the children's section, I stole a few minutes to explore the grown-up fiction aisles.  I was looking for the sequel to my book club assignment, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo".  (A longtime Sci-Fi fan, I'll read pretty much anything with "Dragon" in the title).  Even though this was not sci-fi, I still enjoyed it.

I spied a book I had not heard of before--by a Korean!  The Calligrapher's Daughter features a picture of a young woman in hanbok on the cover, and is written by Eugenia Kim.  Having read and enjoyed Joy Luck Club, and Memoirs of a Geisha, I hoped this Korean story would be at least as enjoyable.  Besides, even if I couldn't get the online store discount, I would be supporting an independent bookstore, and also a Korean "sistah".

I found the sequel I was looking for, and added The Calligrapher's Daughter to the pile.  The boys also found some books they could not be parted from, and we checked out.

I have not finished the book yet, but I already want to tell you how much I am enjoying it!  The writing is descriptive and evokes life during the Japanese occupation.  I must admit my Korean history is very weak, and having been raised in white America, it is fun getting a fictional peek at what life might have been like a few generations back.  I have read Pearl S. Buck's The Living Reed, which was also interesting.  But this book is primarily from a woman's perspective, unlike Buck's book which focused on a father and his two sons.

Who Jomama?

Hello!  I've been reading Kimchi Mamas for over a year now, and submitted a guest post last year about My first Christmas Memory.   I was delighted to be invited to join as a regular, even though it took me a month to get my act together for my introduction.

Having been adopted at age 6, I arrived in the US speaking fluent Korean and no English.  I quickly lost my native language, and mastered English to join my first grade class 6 months later with no accent.  It would take me much longer and more effort in college to regain any semblance of fluency in Korean again.  

Basic stats:  I am married to a bek-in (white guy), and we have two hapa boys, Teddy (11) and Barley(8).  Although DH and I both grew up back East, we have migrated westward, until landing in Silicon Valley, where we both attempt to balance work and family life.

I never heard the term "banana" or "twinkie" until I was in college, but instantly related to the term.  Having been raised by white parents in a 99% white community, it was a major research project for me to learn what it meant to be Korean.  I was fortunate to meet a good Korean friend in college, and then spend a year at Yonsei Hanguk Uh-Hakdang, learning to speak, read, and write Korean.  By the end of the year, I was able to defend myself from taxicab drivers who criticized my lack of fluency in the mother tongue.  Phew!

6.25. 육이오

Today is 6.25. 육이오. Today is the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. The Forgotten War as many call it. Apparently, a lot of Americans have forgotten about it. Well, not me.

My grandfather died during the war. My father was a toddler when the war broke out and walked until his feet bled, trying like everyone else, to flee to Pusan. The war made my grandmother a widow, and in a way, is the reason why I am even in America. If it wasn't for the Korean War, I am pretty sure that I would be living in South Korea right now.

My deepest gratitude goes to all the soldiers who fought in the Korean War to defend South Korea. I also thank the countless people that worked to help South Korea recover from the war and help it be the amazing and economically thriving country that it is today. Thank you.

- Mary is taking a moment to reflect on this day even though she should be preparing for her son's dol (1 year birthday) tomorrow.

Open Thread Thursday

It's Open Thread Thursday!

What's on your mind today?

Go Korea!  The South Korean team is advancing to the Round of 16!  wha-ee-ting!

Happy Father's Day!

Today I wanted to take a moment to give a shout-out to all the amazing diaper-changing, bedtime-story-reading, Lego-playing Asian dads out there. Happy Father's Day.

--Weigook Saram

Konglish Kids

I haven't written much here lately but I think I have a pretty good excuse.  I'm in the middle moving my family to Korea.  Daegu, Korea to be exact.  Our stuff is packed up and gone, presumably on a boat headed towards the motherland and I'm typing this post out from our hotel room as I stress about the epic flight that lies before me.  (I am clinging to the fact that we are on a Korean Airline Flight where the service is amazing.)

We will be there for 3 whole years.  It's kind of mind boggling to imagine how changed we might be when we return.  3 years isn't a short amount of time -- especially for kids.  It's more than a lifetime for my daughter.  And being the Kimchi Mama I am, I couldn't help wondering how this would affect my THIRD generation KA children.  How will it affect their language?  How will it affect their perception of social rules and how they perceive themselves ethnically and nationally?  

Might you other Kimchi Mamas be interested too?  If you are, come join me on my adventure at Konglish Kids.  It's the blog I started to kind of keep track of how this move and immersion into South Korean society affects my third generation KA kids.

One favor to ask though.  I've been pretty open over here and in my other blogs about our identities.  The babes were younger and we were in a safer location.  Captain J however, has requested that I continue blogging only if I do a better job as this anonymity thing.  I've closed down my personal blog that I used to use our real names on, and on Konglish Kids I've come up with super secret code names.  So if you could please help me by starting to use the super secret code names if you need to use names and just be super secret about names and places in general.  I hope rather than us, it'll be more fun to talk about what's actually happening, if anything actually happens at all.

The Definitive Guide to Asian American Children's Literature

Summer vacation is upon us, and I'm sure a lot of you Kimchi Mamas out there are looking for summer book selections for your little ones!  Luckily, I happen to be high school buddies with Dr. Sarah Park, who recently sent me a link to an online bibliography specializing in APA and AIAN literature.  It is called Talk Story and it seeks to help families foster a home environment based on literacy and cultural awareness.  Be still my beating heart!

The book lists are meticulously curated and span a wide variety of cultures, subjects, and literacy levels.  I started drooling while perusing through the Korean and Korean American list, but honestly, all the other cultures' selections are equally as enticing.

Direct Links to Book Lists:

Asian Pacific American Book List

American Indian/Alaskan Native Book List

Happy reading!
Julie

---------------------------------------------------------------

More on the Talk Story website:

Talk Story: Sharing stories, sharing culture is a literacy program that reaches out to Asian Pacific American (APA) and American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) children and their families. The program celebrates and explores their stories through books, oral traditions, and art to provide an interactive, enriching experience.  Children and their families can connect to rich cultural activities through Talk Story in their homes, libraries, and communities. We welcome all ethnicities to customize Talk Story as needed for your community family literacy needs.

More on Sarah:

Sarah Park is an Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her research interests include representations of the Korean diaspora in children’s and young adult literature, youth services librarianship, social justice, transracial adoption, and Korean diasporic history

 

Marrying Out

I am the product of an interracial marriage; my dad is white and my mom is Korean. And because of my experience as the biracial child of an interracial couple, I have always felt like race should have no place when it comes to love. Call me naive, but it confuses and offends me to to hear people talk about how they wouldn't date or marry a person of such-and-such race. Of course, attraction and love are tricky, complicated subjects when it comes to race (i.e. when does attraction cross over into fetishism?). But, ultimately, it makes my head explode to consider the idea that I would refuse to fall in love - or refuse to marry somebody I loved - if that person were of a different race than me. The idea is to me - a biracial person - personally hurtful.

Ultimately, however, I married a Korean American man. Being Korean was not on my Future Husband Checklist, but marrying my husband and starting a family with him has connected me more deeply to my Korean American identity. I am both proud and grateful for that. I like that my husband and I share a culture, identity and experience as second generation Korean Americans and I love being able to share that with our kids, but I know also that neither or marital bliss nor our familial strength are based predominately on those commonalities.

These experiences - as a mixed-race person married to a somebody of my own race (sort of) - make the recent report on the rise in interracial marriage by the Pew Research Center endlessly fascinating to me. Even more exciting perhaps is the section of their report on the Millennial Generation (teens and 20-somethings, that would include me) that reports on the near-universal acceptance of interracial dating and marriage among my generation. The first report on interracial marriage claims that 1 in 7 U.S. marriages is interracial or interethnic and this has got a lot of people very excited. As groundbreaking as this might seem, this CNN opinion piece by Cornell professor Daniel T. Litcher suggests that everybody calm down, take a deep breath and realize that the reason we've seen such a rise in the first place is that the baseline was so low to begin with. It was only in 1967, after all, that interracial marriage became legal. In other words, we've come a long way, but only because there were virtually no interracial marriages a couple generations ago.

Children's book review - Ten Oni Drummers

Kind people sent us some some children's books to review.  I got two books and one is called Ten Oni Drummers by Matthew Gollub, illustrated by Kazuko G. Stone. 

 

Open Thread Thursday

Up for making shik hae anyone?

Read any good books lately?

It's Open Thread Thursday! What's on your mind today?

- Kimchi Mamas