Kimchi Mamas

Roots (part 3)

Read parts 1 and 2, here.

Well, as you can probably guess, my youngest gomo (aunt) decided to immigrate to America. I have never ever asked her about this and I don't think she even knows that I know this story so I don't know exactly why she decided to immigrate... but I have some educated guesses. My youngest gomo is pretty driven and she's also very smart. She probably would not have been able to go to college had she stayed in Korea because of the fact that she is a woman and that she is the youngest in the family.

My oldest uncle (kun appa) is the only person in my family that was educated. He was the first son so of course he was bestowed this privilege. Actually, he was educated to become a priest (see Roots part 1 re: my family's Catholic heritage). He's no longer a priest though but that's a different story for a different time. My father, I think, barely went to junior high school or maybe a bit of high school. (My mom didn't graduate from high school either.) My other uncle and other aunts also did not go to college. Education in Korea during those days, and even now, is very expensive. Especially college. So had my youngest aunt stayed in Korea, she would not have been able to pursue her studies... something that she wanted to do very much.

Roots (part 2)

So, last time, we left off with my hal muh ni becoming pregnant long after my hal ah buh ji was gone. I am not sure how this happened. Well, I know the mechanics of it (heh) but I am not quite certain of the circumstances surrounding it.

My oldest cousin told me something that implied that my hal muh ni was raped. Something about how women those days couldn't do anything if a man forced himself on them... But his mom (my oldest gomo) implied at a different time that my hal muh ni had had an affair with a local man. She said something about how my hal muh ni's mom (or her grandma, I'm not sure) was "into men" and how that "bad character trait" lasts 3 generations. Sounded like bologne to me but I'm just reporting here.

Roots (part 1)

This is the story of how I ended up living in the US. I think it's pretty long so thus, I put part 1. And due to its sensitive nature, I've opted to leave this post anonymous. I've told snippets of this story to a lot of my friends but never had time to write it all down. What better place to do it than here on Kimchi Mamas?

It all starts with my grandparents. My hal ah buh ji (grandpa) and hal muh ni (grandma) were apparently pretty well off during the pre-Korean war times. My hal ah buh ji owned a mill and my aunts and uncles told me that if you had a mill during those days, that meant that you were pretty well off. My hal ah buh ji, I was told, was also quite a handsome man. He was totally in love with my hal muh ni and he would even take her on his horse to watch the movies when the movies first came out. He was a community leader and a faithful Catholic. He never turned away a hungry person who knocked on his doors. These are all just stories I heard from my aunts and uncles so I'm not sure how much of it is true but they seem to be truthful... 

Vigil

I used to be awakened by the sound. A deep, raspy cough that repeated again and again. As if the lungs were held hostage. But insistent enough to puncture the wall between my parents' bedroom and mine.

In the hollow of the night, I used to lie awake and listen. Captured and paralyzed by it. Quieting my own breathing to listen, even though I didn't want to hear. When all else was silent, it sounded like a rhythm from an Edgar Allan Poe tale. At a time when we were all meant to be asleep, getting our rest after a day's worth of living.

It hadn't always been this way. There used to be a time when we all breathed healthy breaths. When we had slept soundly. When coughs hadn't raise the specter of something more.

Cleaning Out the Closet

We've been busy cleaning out our 1300 sq. feet hobbit house to prepare for the arrival of the little guy.  We have clutter all over the place.  I used to live here alone until Jeff moved in almost three years ago.  We merged two households into one and banished most excess belongings to a storage unit in the South Bay near where Jeff used to live. We now live surrounded by a hodge-podge of mismatched items and piles of random things that have no place to call home. 

We've been slowly trying to bulldoze through the debris for the last few months.  I hear the little guy is going to be pretty darn little, but boy, talk about all his stuff. Just dealing with the necessities -- mainly the crib -- has been a challenge.  Two weeks ago, we moved our wardrobe down to the garage to make room for the crib in our bedroom, where we expect him to stay at least three months.  I have since been sorting through our clothes in our closets and drawers to make room for his tiny outfits, diapers, and toys, buying extra bins to place under the bed and figuring out what needs to stay, what can go.   

All In a Name...

The summer after I finished fifth grade, my family moved from Flushing, Queens to the suburbs of Houston. For the past three years, I had attended P.S. 20 just two blocks from our high-rise apartment building. We played in the asphalt-covered playground at P.S. 20 and sometimes hit tennis balls against the handball court wall. By this age, I had done enough research to know that this was not the childhood I was meant to have.    

One or two Judy Blume books would have been enough to teach anyone about the proper American childhood. I had read them all. For starters, we were supposed to live in a house. Our own house. Not in some apartment building where the downstairs neighbor banged on his ceiling the minute you ran from the bedroom to the kitchen. And this house, our house, was supposed to be in the suburbs. And everyone was supposed to have a lawn. With sprinklers. And the house was supposed to come with at least one pet, preferably a quadruped. 

The Unofficial Official Koreatown

Just as KoreAm Journal has a cover article in their March issue about the gentrification of Los Angeles' Koreatown, the New York Times is writing today about cross-ethnic tensions over the Bangladeshi community's push to name a certain section of what is assumed part of Koreatown, Little Bangladesh.

One of the things I love about Los Angeles is that even admist supposedly clear-cut neighborhood identities, there is usually significant diversity. This is especially true of Koreatown. It remains, however, the center of social and civic life for much of Southern California's Korean community. So go ahead and call me biased, but Koreatown is Koreatown.

- Nina

In Search of Redemption

I'm not the only Korean kid whose parents acted as if becoming a lawyer or a doctor were the only career options. For my parents, the doctor path was the first line of offense. Throughout high school, we were barraged by comments like, Don't you want to become a doctor? Dr. Rosenberg is such a gentleman. He always pays his bills on time. Look how well his wife dresses. Along with some downright dirty, guilt-tripping pleas like, Wouldn't it be nice to have a doctor in the family? Think of how you can help us when we grow old. Imagine if we developed heart problems... They found ways to weave these hints into any random occasion, bearing testimony to their faith in the Chinese water torture method. If you repeat it often enough, my mother once confessed, it will seep in.

Every time I tried to point out that I fainted at the sight of my own blood and that I hated chemistry, my parents dismissed me with a wave of the hand. You can become a doctor if you try hard enough. As if it were only a matter of effort. Their bombardment continued until I declared myself an English major in college. Soon, my parents began telling their customers that English was a perfect major for pre-law.

We found your birth father! Oops, no we didnt.

My fellow Los Angeles mom blogger Amy Anderson flew back to Korea yesterday for the first time since she left thirty-six years ago as an infant. She was selected to go as part of Overseas Koreans Foundation's "First Trip Home" project. She is a Korean adoptee.

Amy's a comedian, but her recent post about the lead-up to her trip brought me to tears (and not from laughing). Long story short: she was sent an e-mail from a social worker saying they had found her birth father and he wanted to meet her during her trip, but then she was sent another e-mail a little over an hour later saying that that previous e-mail had been sent to the wrong person.

- Nina Moon

Domestic Violence

This post is near and dear to my heart. 

As a public health student, I learned that Korean American families had one of the highest domestic violence (DV) rates among all ethnic groups in America.  Makes sense.  Historic male chauvinism combined with rampant alcoholism among a generation who grew up during a war (or the aftermaths) seems to be a healthy recipe for DV to thrive. Sprinkle it with a fiery temper and the passion (oh the passion!) that seems to be a part of Korean culture.  It may be a recipe for disaster.

Recently I read some stories here.  They are heart wrenching.