Kimchi Mamas

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!

My first Christmas memory

Guest post from the lovely Jomama.

Picture a little girl, about 5 or 6 years old, supposedly.  It's hard to believe that can be accurate, since she is so small stepping off the plane that has just brought her from Korea to New York's bustling airport (Kennedy or LaGuardia?  I'm not sure)

Two people are waiting for her--both Caucasian.  One is a plump middle-aged woman, with curly brown hair in a styled hairdo--freshened up at the salon she visits every week.  The other is a tall thin man, and the little girl has to crane her neck to see his face.  They both embrace her, taking her from the greeter who relieved the chaperone that flew across the Pacific Ocean with her to bring her to her new family.  This will be the last time for a while that she will be able to speak to anyone, as she does not yet understand any English words.  The small bag that was packed for her by the orphanage was lost somewhere along the flight.  All she has is the clothing she is wearing, which include rubber shoes (kudus) that are too big, and held on her feet by rubber bands.  She is clutching the papers she drew on to occupy her during the flight.  The lines make no sense to her new parents, since they are the beginnings of hangul, Korean writing.  No loops or curves are visible as you would see in Roman letters.

Kimchi Mama guest post by Michelle from Wife and Mommy

Please welcome guest poster Michelle from Wife and Mommy! I met Michelle at Blogher '09 and knew immediately after having lunch with her that she needed to tell us her story. She shares an aspect of her Korean-American life here and I am sure many of us can relate. —Stefania Pomponi Butler

Of all the areas in which I feel insecure about raising my children, exposing them to their Korean culture is the most worrisome for me.  I am uncertain how to teach them the traditions and nuances of the beautiful, rich culture that my own parents taught me.

I’m a first generation Korean-American—I was born in the U.S.A., effectively beating out my entire family to citizenship.  Growing up, I felt split between two cultures.  At home, I was a dutiful Korean daughter.  I served my father Korean meals that my mom prepared.  I did as my parents expected, studying hard and bringing home good grades (for the most part).  I played the piano and violin.  I followed my father’s rule, even though I internally rebelled against my father’s attempt to have us speak only Korean in the house.  

My American persona emerged when I was at school and with friends.  I eschewed Korean culture and did everything I could to forget my Korean-ness.  I was embarrassed by my parents’ odd Korean manners.  I didn’t want to bring my friends over lest they smell our kimchi kitchen.  I was timid in asking my friends to remove their shoes upon entering our home.  I ignored Korean peers at school and went out of my way to not be associated with them.

My exposure to the Korean culture was simply what I absorbed in my day-to-day living.  I managed to avoid the dreaded Saturday Korean School that my sister was made to attend, but now I can’t read and write Hangul.  I made no effort to learn Korean customs nor have Korean friends despite my parents’ desire for me to do both.  

I married a white-bread American guy and we now have three beautiful multicultural children.  My desire to know more about Korean culture has increased in an effort to teach it to my kids.  Since they aren’t immersed in Korean culture in their home as I was, how will they ever learn about it?  I am not Korean enough to adequately educate them.  I lean on my parents to show their grandchildren, but they live overseas now and we only see them once a year or so.  

So I try.  We go to the Asian grocery store as often as we go to the regular supermarket.  I attempt to make my favorite Korean dishes so their young tongues can develop an appreciation for the delicious flavors of my childhood.  We have dolls dressed in traditional hanbok.  We read Korean folk tales and eat a lot of rice.

For now, I hope it’s enough.  Maybe I’ll see if I can find a Korean school for them to attend once they are older.  

***

Michelle is a Wife, Mommy, former school teacher, writer, and procrastinator (among other things). 

Michelle's parents immigrated to the U.S. a year before she was born, thus giving her the distinction of being the first American citizen in the entire extended family!  She grew up in the DC Metro Area, where she still lives with her white-bread midwestern boy, The Husband, and their three children:  Bito, Cupcake and BabyMuffin.

She writes about her life at Wife and Mommy.

New Kimchi (Shutterbug) Mama

Hi, folks!  I'm Sarah-Ji, the new resident Kimchi Shutterbug Mama.  I'm honored to be a part of the Kimchi Mama community!  I have to say right off the bat that I'm mainly a photographer, not a writer, although I've been blogging for over 7 years.  It takes me a long time to write posts that make sense, which is why I pretty much threw in the towel on my mommyblog and began photoblogging instead.  

I was born in Seoul in the early 70's and immigrated to Chicago with my family when Carter was president.  I was young enough to pick up English quickly (while losing Korean rapidly) and yet old enough to remember getting ttuk-bokki (spicy rice cakes) at the shi-jang (local market) or wandering the hills of Wonju where my grandfather ran a yoo-chi-won (kindergarten). 

I'm married to Ted, whose homebrew blog has a much greater following than my own.  He not only makes great beer, but is also a kick-ass drummer, works part-time at Trader Joe's and was a stay-at-home dad for the first 4 years of our daughter's life. He still does all the cooking and most of the cleaning, but then again, I'm the one who spends 11 hours a day away from home at my corporate day job.

 

And that brings me to one of the reasons I'm eligible to contribute to this blog: my daughter Cadence.  She's 4 1/2, 75% feisty, 25% sweet, 100% kick-ass.  She makes my life equal parts full of joy and exasperation, often within the same hour.  It is because of her that my heart overflows with compassion for every parent I see with a child having a public meltdown.  I keep telling myself that I want my kid to think for herself, to question authority and to never blindly accept the status quo, but sometimes I think I'm crazy for wanting this.  Let's just say that life in our home is seldom quiet...

 

I delight in meandering the streets of Chicago with my camera.  I love the indie music scene here, and after a 5 year hiatus, I'm starting to hit the live venues again.  I cherish my non-evangelical, all-inclusive little church community.  I dream about living in the Pacific Northwest, but our roots are firm here in Chicago.  I want to grow my own food eventually, although I've never grown anything, but I could probably live on rice, kimchi and kim.  I'm hoping to be a part of an urban family that will provide my daughter (and myself) with arms for hugging, shoulders to cry on, ears for listening, hands to high-five, and stories to pass down.

So that's me in a nutshell.  I post photos daily on my photoblog and am a founding contributor for Shutter Sisters, and I look forward to being a part of the Kimchi Mamas community as well!

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself...

I'm a long way from my days of being an officer of my undergrad Korean club and hosting kimbap study breaks. That was in the early 90's, when the KA community was rippled by the aftershocks of the LA Riots and I was buried under questions of my identity.  Back then, I had my hands on every novel and memoir written by an Asian American, and given their limited number, spent more time drawing from works of other hyphen Americans. I also spent a few summers attending programs in Korea to learn the language and to try to wrap my fingers around the Korean side of me. What does it mean to be Korean American and where do I fit in? A few of us even started a Korean American journal called kilmok and spent many nights filling pages with angst ridden words. We reached out to the likes of Angela Oh and Elaine Kim with our thoughts, and they kindly reciprocated with words of their own.

You are me and we are all together

(...although I am sure I am not the walrus.

Sorry about The Beatles reference - couldn't help myself.)

Despite all the country-hopping, losing whole sets of friends at a time, and relocating so many times that I don’t even know how many more hands I need to borrow to be able to count them all on fingers, I don’t fare well with changes.

I am a nostalgia-monger. I spend more time missing the old ways and trying to figure out how on earth I will get used to the new ways. I suppose it might be an immigrant syndrome as well; in order to miss the “old country” less, one sometimes has to hang on to the motherland’s traditions

However, our new look on Kimchi Mamas is fabulous.  We are indeed spicier.  We feel rejuvenated.  We didn't even outsource; we used our own.  We have been adding new voices.  And, yes, we will burn your tongues.

Ah...but, I am an old dog.  My ability to learn a new trick depends on whether there's a fresh strip of bacon dangling in front of me as a reward.

Hanging on by a thread

I thought this might be a good time to re-introduce myself to everyone since I’ve enjoyed reading the introduction posts by our new Kimchi Mamas and the re-introductions by some of the other KM’s. I went back through the archives and discovered that I’d never really written an introduction post when I first joined the blog, so here goes!

I am a mama to two hapa kids, a daughter who is 14 and a 10-year old son. I’m a social worker, and currently work at a non-profit agency. I will soon be re-entering the university as a Ph.D. candidate in Social Work at the “seasoned” age of 40! I joke that I’m making up for time, as I spent most of my 20s and half of my 30s starting and dropping out of college and 8 years of being a stay-at-home mom. Oh, do I wish I’d had a Kimchi Mama-type group back then!

I can only guess as to my origins of birth – I know it was likely somewhere in the Daegu area of South Korea, sometime probably in 1968. The reasons for my unknown birth information is that I was found abandoned on the Daegu City Hall steps in a box, wrapped in quilts, in February of 1970 and I appeared to be about a year old. According to the city hall records, I had a note with my name and birthdate pinned inside my jacket which would have made me 14 months if accurate. I was immediately whisked off to White Lily Orphanage, run by the Catholic Church, in the city. I lived at the orphanage for 5 months before being transferred to another orphanage in Ilsan (closer to Seoul) where I stayed just over a year before I was placed on an airplane and flown to Minneapolis, Minnesota where I was picked up by my adoptive parents. I was just under 3 years old.

Introductions

Hi. My name is Mary and I am a Kimchi Mamas addict. =)

I thought I'd take this moment while the baby (and hubby!) are napping to write an intro/first post!

I am "um-ma" (mom) to an almost 1.5 year old son and live in Northern California.  Yes, I do say hecka.  My son has his first ear infection and tested negative on his PPD skin test for Tuberculosis (apparently, there is an outbreak in the community right now).  My husband is obsessed with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and is always asking if he can practice the rear-necked chock or arm bar on me.  (I always say no.)  He even practices the moves on our son who doesn't even know how to tap out. 

My kim-chi connection?  My husband and I are both Korean American.  I'm the more "fobby" version, having immigrated to the US when I was in the 5th grade.  I consider myself very lucky to have come at that age because I was able to retain most of my Korean.  Although my Korean isn't good enough to defend myself in a verbal ping pong match (aka, a verbal fight) with my mom... much to my frustration.

Right now, we have two huge containers of kim-chi in our garage refrigerator and they are both very very fermented.  I think there may even be tiny islands of mold on top.  I will probably make it into kim-chi chi-gae (soup) sometime but my kim-chi related cooking has declined recently since the baby can't handle spicy food very well yet.  We (Ok... I) actually tried to feed him some kim-chi man-doo (dumplings) yesterday but he kept wanting water and grabbed his tongue with his fingers so I'm guessing that it was too spicy for him.  Come on son!  You were exposed to a lot of spicy food in the uterus. Get with it!

I pay for my son's diapers by working full time at a big company.  They pay for his health insurance and for that, I am very grateful.  Actually, they pay for the husband's and mine too!  In my spare time, I read books for free at the local-nationwide-chain bookstore, try to do yoga, or think about things to do for my jewelry making hobby.

I am so excited to be a part of this on-line community!