Kimchi Mamas

You Know You Grew Up Korean/Korean American/Korean Candadian If . . .

The local Sunday paper had a fun article today that got me thinking about growing up Korean in the US. So I've come up with a list of "You know you grew up *Korean/Korean American/Korean Canadian if..." of my own. 

Please add your "you know . . . " in the comments.  =)

--Your mother ever gave you guilt about . . . well anything... (Bonus if she pounded her chest with a fist while doing so!)

--You had 2 fridges: one for food and another for kimchi (or else ALL your food tasted like kimchi).

--You ever had to translate a school note, explain a holiday project and/or had a hard time completing the 3rd grade family tree project because there were some family secrets/shame involved and/or there were a lot of branches on that tree with "eemo and samchun".

--Your friends NEVER spent the night.

--Roasting ghim over the flame on the stove.

--You roasted that ghim for ghimbap - which you ate on day-long, car trips, got out, took a look around, ate the ghimbap and got back in the car. You always returned the same night.

--You were a hobo, a clown or a ghost for Halloween more than once.

--You got hit on the back of the head (a lot).

--Your aunt or uncle would pass you a $5 bill and tell your parents "te-sah, te-sah." He or she was your favorite aunt or uncle.

--Your mom made you sweep the carpet, told you you would DIE if you slept with the fan on pointed in your direction and/or were told that women should never sit directly on the floor.

--Threw up from having "han yak". It was usually dark brown, liquidy and has been boiling for hours...Or your mom smeared honey on a piece of boiled ginseng - like it would make it taste better.

--"Fought" for the dinner bill or insisted on paying while out with your non-Korean friends and then was SHOCKED when they were like "ok!"

--Your dad would get drunk, sing sad Korean folksongs and reminsce about the "good times."

--Thanksgiving dinner included the turkey and mashed potatoes, but also yakimandu, kimchi and japchae.

--Your parents scheduled long distance calls to relatives in Seoul and Busan/Pusan/Busan/Pusan.

--Hotdogs have always been a part of jampong.

--You would rather go to school than be sick at home where your mom would make you clean the house.

--Dad smoked Marlboros or Camels and drank Coors light or Budweiser. Mom never smoked or drank, to your knowledge.

--You had a used station wagon or Buick.

--Going to college was NOT an option.

--There's a random collection of blue produce rubberbands in the house.

--Beef jerky was your parents' favorite American snack food.

--You couldn't have a dog (or a cat).

--Hated eating kimchi with almost every meal as a child, but craved it when you went to college.

--You've heard your mom say "why would I ___ for that? I can ___ that!"

--Two words: Korean School. After church lunch in the Fellowship Hall on Sundays.

So what's YOUR "you know if..."

Laughing about childhood because crying isn't as much fun!

--Angie in Texas

*The side note I'd like to add is that this will mostly apply to those of us who grew up Stateside in the 70's, 80's and 90's.

 

Heejun's Rise to Stardom

American Idol's Heejun Han is the Korean American zeitgeist.  He is showing the world how funny, charming, thoughtful, and kind our boys can be, and why we love them so much.  He is goofy, but with a palpable gravity that shows incredible character and depth.  And his voice?  He can do soulful, he can do gravelly, he can keep up with the smooth R&B operators.  Most of all, he sings like a red-blooded male.  He sings with REAL BALLZ.  Yes, with a Z!  Check it out:

I honestly couldn't contain myself while watching that clip.  I squealed like a schoolgirl seeing him laughing and dancing with those special needs children.  And when he told the audience how he fell into a deep depression, and those kids helped him recover, my heart shattered into a million pieces, and I turned into a puddle of goo.  A big pile of LOVE GOO!  OPPAAAAA!!!

Ahem, sorry.

It also broke my heart when he kept dogging on his looks.  I'm all for self-deprecating humor, but I think he really believes he's not good-looking, which is total BS. Just look at this screenshot:

He looks like any Korean actor in a Maxim coffee commercial!  Heejun, this ajumma gives you the Kimchi Cougar Sleazy Eyebrow Raise of Approval!

Sorry, Jeremy Lin, but Heejun has stolen my heart.  I hope this doesn't go down as another turnover.  Hoo-ah!  

(Jeremy, I'm actually just kidding about the turnover thingy.  I still love you.  Call me!)

--Julie

Open Thread Thursday - Almost Friday Fodder . . .

I am a HUGE fan of the PostSecret site! And as I Korean immigrant whose parents seemed to always have (family, past, etc.) secrets, I find PostSecret to be a really neat idea about how just releasing the secret really frees you from the binds of the secret...

Anyhow, I saw this on last week's (11/5/11) secrets and immediately thought about posting it here on Kimchi Mamas. Though I can't read what is written in hangul, I definitely can relate to what is written in English.

And I also think that's another thing that makes PostSecret so neat: almost no matter what a person's secret is, someone out there shares it, too.

It's been a long time folks, it's OPEN THREAD THURSDAY - what's on YOUR mind?

--Angie in Texas is glad to be back in the blogosphere!

 

 

 

 

What's the "right" way to ask about your children's ethnicity or race?

I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments on my last post about ethnicity/race here... but now I am curious...

What is the "right" way to ask questions about a bi-racial/multi-racial (or not-so-obvious ethnicity/race) child's ethnicity/race? Especially if the child is only with one parent and it's not obvious, or if the child is adopted from a ethnicity/race not the same as both or either parent. Or is it even Kosher or PC, to ask about ethnicity/race anymore?

Some of the wrong ways might be:

Is your child adopted?

Is your wife/husband Oriental?

Is that your friend's son/daughter?

Are you the nanny?

Is he/she from China?

Where is your family from?

If you are the parent of a multi-racial or biracial child, how would you prefered to be asked about your child(ren)'s race, if at all?

 

- Mary

Why There Needs to be a Different Standard of Depression for Koreans

When I feel depressed, it's hard to tell the cause: is it stress in my life, my mood disorder, or merely because I am Korean?

Talk to any Korean person of my parents' generation about depression, and most likely they will equate it with laziness ("When we don't want to get out of bed or work hard, we don't call it depressed"),  privilege ("They don't have to worry about anything else"), or  insanity ("Are you going to tear up your clothes and put flowers in your hair?").  They just don't view it as a real chronic illness.

But yet, it obviously exists, even for Korean people.  Domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide are major societal problems, and those often are side effects of mood disorders.

I'm starting to wonder if the problem lies in the usual criteria for diagnosis.  If you look at the normal list of symptoms for depression and you knew Korean people at all, it seems like we are ALL depressed!

According to the Mayo Clinic, depression symptoms include:

• Feelings of sadness or unhappiness
• Irritability or frustration, even over small matters
• Frequent thoughts of death, dying or suicide
• Crying spells for no apparent reason

In Korea, these are all considered normal.  We even have a word for it: han.  An excellent article in the LA Times on han can be found here.  We all carry around a sadness and trauma that is so ingrained it might as well be part of our genome.  Suffering and death are recurring themes in our art, our folklore, our history.  Hell, it's even the main philosophy of kimchi: preserve everything you can for the day -- and that day definitely will come -- when there is nothing.  It is the reason why when you piss off your mom, she says things like "Do you want me to die now?  Will that make you happy?"  Sigh.

• Reduced sex drive
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt, fixating on past failures or blaming yourself when things aren't going right
• Changes in appetite — depression often causes decreased appetite and weight loss, but in some people it causes increased cravings for food and weight gain
• Agitation or restlessness — for example, pacing, hand-wringing or an inability to sit still
• Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches
• Loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities
• Insomnia or excessive sleeping

These things are also very common...but these I put the blame squarely on nurture, not nature.  I am still convinced that my parents had sex only two times in their lives: that is why my sister and I exist.  And Korean parents are the kings of the extreme guilt complex, unconstructive criticism, harsh-ass punishments, mysterious aches and pains, the neverending war against dust and hair on the floor, and equating food with love...which take care of the rest.  Again, a Korean would look at that list and think, "Yeah, so what?"

• Slowed thinking, speaking or body movements
• Indecisiveness, distractibility and decreased concentration
• Fatigue, tiredness and loss of energy — even small tasks may seem to require a lot of effort
• Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things

These might be real bellweathers for us, but then again if I told my Korean doctor that I felt these symptoms, he would probably give me some nasty Chinese herbal potion to flush out my liver and reprimand me for being fat (in all seriousness, my childhood doctor's nickname for me was "Cow" and would constantly nag me to take diet pills.  He was a friend of my dad's.).  Maybe some Korean-specific research needs to be done, so we can get an idea of what depression looks like for us, or maybe we are indeed all afflicted with it.

--Julie

Some Reactions to "Paper Tigers"

Wesley Yang's recent essay, "Paper Tigers," was published as the cover story of New York Magazine yesterday.  Have you read it yet?  I just did, and my head is reeling.  Much like Manny Pacquiao delivering blow after blow in the ring, Wesley Yang overloads the senses with vivid imagery, damning statistics, compelling interviews and profiles, and the occasional "fuck you" thrown in for good measure.  It is a long article, and I write short blog posts, so I'm only going to talk about a couple points here, but please bring up other points of discussion in the comments if you wish.

Okay, first assertion by the author I wish to talk about: Asian Americans, although we have fantastic college acceptance and graduation rates, meet a "Bamboo Ceiling" in the corporate world, evidenced by some anecdotes and the fact that only 1.8% of Fortune 500 companies have Asian CEOs.  Therefore, all the math drills and cram schools we force our kids to attend do not guarantee success in life after school.

First off, I agree that this Bamboo Ceiling phenomenon exists; I just don't think the statistics he has chosen to use even begin to prove his point.  If we go by the Fortune 500 measure, everyone in America besides these 500 CEOs hasn't succeeded, and I'm sure many of them beg to differ.  And I'm not talking from the "money doesn't guarantee happiness" point of view either...fine, you want to judge success by Benjamins, I can talk Benjamins.  

How about the thousands of Asian Americans who can say: "I may not have made $37 million dollars last year as CEO of PepsiCo (ironically CEOed by a woman of South Asian descent), but as a boring-ass middle-tier lawyer I did make $300,000."  I dunno about you, but that still seems like success to me.  And don't forget all the Asian Americans who knowingly opt out of the rat race either by becoming public servants, activists, artists and designers, church leaders (I wonder what the combined net worth of all the Korean churches in America is...I bet it's not too shabby), and self-employed.

It's tough to become a Fortune 500 CEO, or any kind of CEO that necessitates moving up the corporate ladder.  The reason why so many of them are tall white men is because their predecessors were tall white men.  The Old Boy Network has been around for what, 12 generations now, and that club is hard to get into, and it usually involves multiple generations of inherited money, power, and connections to people like governors and board members, so they're not bound to look kindly on some fresh-faced 2nd generation ethnic-American whose family's net worth cannot buy a congressional district.  I think it's amazing that even 9 Asian Americans managed to pierce through that veil.  Go them!

Which brings me to my second point: you think Asian Americans have it bad?  Talk to a Latino or African American.  Their "success" numbers drop off in high school, let alone college.  Or how about women of all races?  Injustice comes in many flavors.

My second cause of dismay was the uncomfortably long portion dedicated to learning pick up artist tricks in order to bone white girls.  After all this compelling talk about real Asian American issues, with no segue at all, suddenly I'm thrust into a world I don't think I'm meant to witness with a motley crew of alpha-males-in-training.  Their mission statement: "What is good in life?"  “To crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women—in my bed!”

Work and life success equated with contrived sexual conquests?  Really?  Who invited me to the sausage fest?

However, this bombastic tone screeches to a halt near the end when he starts talking about Amy Chua's Tiger Mom book.  In fact, his review is the most nuanced and intriguing I've read on the topic, and it actually made me want to finally read the book.  Which brings me to my final reaction: despite the gut-wrenching, angry ways he describes his own and the world's shortcomings, Wesley Yang strikes me a pinnacle of his definition of success.  He has a semi-naked picture of himself published in his barely-edited cover story for New York Magazine, for goodness' sake!  And dare I say, despite his first few paragraphs, he accomplished this as an Asian American.

PS: While I was writing this, Ask a Korean's response came into my feed reader.  It's some good shit.

--Julie

You Win Some, You Lose Some

My son, Isaac, is currently in first grade, and this academic year has proven to be one full of self-discovery and -actualization.  I always thought hearing his first words was the most breathtaking parenting moment, but witnessing him trying to place himself along the myriad of spectrums of identity, has been nothing short of magic.

The other day, he told me how some boys like to play rough while others liked princesses, and how he was somewhere in the middle.  Believe me, that is some pretty insightful analysis from a boy whose favorite YouTube video features a cat hiccuping and farting at the same time.

A few weeks ago, while I was volunteering in his classroom, I came upon a pen pal letter he had written.  It went something like this:

Dear Pen Pal,

Hi!  How are you?  My name is Isaac and I am Korean.  Are you Korean too?  I am very good at addition and pretty good at subtraction, and I am a good listener.  What do you like to do?  I hope you write back soon.  Bye!

Isaac

Did you see that???  He said he was Korean.  Be still my heart!  I can die now, my work on earth is done.

So when it came time for this month's show and tell (the assignment was to bring something that symbolizes your family's winter traditions), I asked him if he wanted to bring in his han bok and talk about how Koreans celebrate New Year's, namely how we go to our grandparents' house, bow to them and get money, then eat a huge meal involving soup, fish, and the like.  He was keen on the idea, and we rehearsed a few times to make sure he was prepared.  

The morning of his presentation, we had another walk-through and I nearly fainted when he said, "My name is Isaac and I am going to talk about New Year's.  This is my, uh...my...Hong Kong, which is a kind of Chinese or Japanese thing you wear."

I suppose we are all works in progress, right?

What IS the right way to ask....

You know what question I'm talking about! Some of the wrong ways to ask are:

1. Where are you from?

2. Where are your parents from?

3. Where were you born?

4. Where were your parents born?

5. Where did you grow up?

6. Were you born here?

7. What nationality are you?

8. Are you Chinese?

9. I love sushi! (Wait, that's not a question!)

10. What language do you speak at home?

11. Ni hao ma? (Wo hen hao.)

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.

Being Other; Being Whole

My daughter and I were at Chicago's Field Museum for a kid's theater show, and we happened to pass by this photo exhibit of portraits of people who are part Asian.  It's a selection of images from Kip Fullbeck's Hapa Project.  He also has a book titled the same as the exhibit.

It was interesting to see so many different faces who are all part Asian and to read the descriptions of how people define themselves personally.  My daughter was too hungry for lunch to take the time to look at each photo, but I did wonder how much she has considered being "other."  As far as I know, she is the only mixed race child in her class, and she knows that Mommy is Korean, and Daddy is not, and she is both.  

I doubt she's given it much thought, and I'm not sure what guidance I can provide in encouraging her to reflect on her identity as she grows older.  I hope our postmodern sensibilities will allow us to embrace the complexity and seeming contradiction of having a racial makeup of certain proportions that do not equate to how one actually identifies oneself.  I don't know how my daughter will take her "half Korean-ness" and "half Caucasian-ness" and integrate them into an identity that is holistic and truly her own self; I just hope I can be the support she needs on that journey.

~ Sarah-Ji

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In addition to the Hapa Project, Kip Fullbeck has a newer project called MIXED which features portraits of mixed race children and is also out in book form.

To see if there is an exhibit of either project near you, click here.