Kimchi Mamas

Umma

Later this month, I am taking a trip with my Mom, my Umma. We are going to a tropical island for five days. I am doing this voluntarily and it's not something that I thought I would ever do, especially in the last 20 years.

When I was five or six, my Mom left our family. I think she just packed up and left without telling anyone. I have no memories of the actual day when she left... just lots of memories of her absence. She had had enough of living with my alcoholic and abusive father and decided that she had to leave in order to survive. Even if that meant that she was going to live without her two daughters. She told me later that she cried for three days straight after she left.

So, for many years, my Mom was someone who visited. She would come secretly and tell one of our friends that she was here. The friend would somehow come find us and she would buy us fried chicken. Sometimes we stayed over at her apartment for a few days but she would be gone for work most of the time so me and my sister would have to find ways to entertain ourselves. I remember cleaning her house so that she would be proud of us. And drinking hot water mixed with the powdered creamer and sugar she kept by the telephone with the instant coffee.

When we immigrated to the States, she didn't come to the airport to say good-bye to us. I learned later that no one had told her we were leaving. My uncle apparently called her from the airport when he knew it would already be too late for her to come. If she was allowed to talk to us, I have no memory of it. I was ten years old so it would have stuck in my memory if we did. It would have been in one of those private telephone booths that are now extinct. I just remember being so excited to finally move to America. My Mom wasn't a big presence in my life by then so I don't even remember worrying about her or our relationship... or that I didn't get to say good-bye to her.

I don't know how many days she cried after that.

We kept in touch through letters. Hand written letters. Phone calls were expensive during the 90's. She kept every single letter we ever sent her and one day when I was on maternity leave and she was living with me, I sat down and read them all.

After graduating from high school, I went back to Korea for the first time to visit my Mom. The scene at the airport was one for the movies. As I exited the famous sliding doors from the international terminal at Kimpo International Airport, I scanned the row of eagerly waiting faces for a familiar one.

"So Yeon ah!" my Mom cried out.

"Umma! Umma!" I left my baggage cart and rushed to hug her.

It felt monumental and big. Seeing Umma for the first time in 8 years. I just kept saying Umma and crying. We made a huge scene but we didn't care.

When I had my first child, my Mom moved to the States to live with me for a while. The idea was that she would provide childcare so that we wouldn't have to send him to daycare.

Let me spare you the suspense. It was a disaster.

She didn't speak a word of English and didn't have a driver's license so she depended on me for everything. I was working full time and resented her for being so needy. We got into a huge epic fight and she ended up moving out and then we didn't really talk for a few years. We both needed space. Away from each other.

We started talking again slowly. A text here and there. A phone call here and there.

"I heard there was a fire in California. Are you okay?"

"Yes, we're fine. They're pretty far away but the smoke is really bad."

A phone call to let me know her new address. A text with pictures of the kids.

Slowly we made our back to each other to the point that I felt a little bad about letting her know of yet another vacation that my family had taken to Hawaii. She had never been to Hawaii before and partly because I wanted to go back soon, I suggested that we take a vacation there together. I don't think she could believe her ears.

She was like, "Thank you for even suggesting it. I am so moved."

"Umma, I'm being serious! Tell me when you can go and I'll make the reservations." I said.

"Oh, I am busy. I have English class and so many doctor's appointments. I have to have dental work done and it's going to take two months!"

"Okay. Just tell me when you'll be free. I can work around your schedule."

"Okay. Maybe in the fall."

"Okay. Fall is good."

Her partner called me a few days later and asked me to take her to Hawaii ASAP because she has nothing to do and she is available starting immediately.

LOL

So, my Umma and I are going to Hawaii in a few weeks. I picked the Big Island for her because there's so much variety there and I think she will really enjoy it.

Hopefully there won't be any epic fights. Just a lot of good food, good scenery, and good memory making.

Wish us luck!

Best,

Mary

Musings on Death

I recently watched Dear My Friends on Netflix. It’s a Korean Drama series about a group of elderly friends, mostly women, and their daily struggles with friendship, love, health, and family. All the important things. I found myself alternating between laughter and tears in a matter of seconds. Laughing and crying and laughing and crying. The writing is exquisite but the translation is shit so #sorrynotsorry.

Anyway, I was reminded how much Koreans talk about death. Especially the older folks. My mom has started, in the last few years, to say things like:

• It’d be better if I die soon.
• Old people just need to die.
• I need to die soon.
• People should just die when they get to a certain age.

If we weren’t Korean, I’d think that she needed to be on suicide watch. But this is very normal and common for older Korean folks to say. (All the while taking every vitamin or supplement under the sun to be as healthy as possible.)

Death and comedy seems an odd pair but the show does it so well. In one plotline, a woman gets cancer and is talking to her friend about it, who has already had her battle with cancer. The conversation is so so sad and serious, with them discussing who should be the one to tell the daughter. But there are some hilariously funny moments too with the friend suggesting that all their virtuous chastity and faithfulness to their husbands has been for shit and that they should “give it away generously to anyone who wants it” from now on. Then, they lament that no one would stand in that line even if they were giving it away for free. There is an abundance of Korean cussing which adds to the hilarity.

I used to think it was morbid when I heard older Korean folks talk about death but now I think it’s somewhat healthy. By talking about it casually, there is more opportunity for everyone to think about their own mortality. And to prepare, in ever subtle ways, for the inevitable.

- Mary

Run Lola Run

Four years ago, I became a runner.  Well, not really, but I ran my first "race".  I was previously an adamant believer that one should only run if being chased, like by a bear.  A coworker who'd recently given birth asked me to run with her in a 5K, the Heart Run.  She said it was cool if I ended up walking; I'm a sucker, I was trying to be make nice with fairly new coworkers and said yes.  Thanks to my love of talking when in not normally talking situations, I "ran" the entire thing.  I say "ran" because it's not REALLY running, but more like gentle self-propulsion.  A month later, I ran most of 5 miles in the Alaska Run for Women in one hour flat.

The Moose came the following year at the end of March, so I didn't run in the May Heart Run, but I sure did run the June Run for Women.  And I beat my time!  I finished in 55 minutes!  w00t!!!  Now, somehow, this race had become important to me.  I try not to be competitive, but running allows competition without all the hurt feelings.  It's a solo sport that is made even better by solo-ing with 7,000 other women in this event.  There is something incredibly liberating about running through the middle of the streets in downtown Anchorage with this insane posse of women.

Book Club Discussion Post: "Please Look After Mom"

Hey Book Clubbers!   Welcome to the discussion thread for "Please Look After Mom." 

Please submit answers to any or all of the following discussion topics in a comment below:

1. Initial impressions of the author's overall writing chops, style, theme.
2. When Chi-hon asks Mom, "Did you like to cook?” how does Mom’s reply summarize the divide between her own and her daughter’s generations (p. 60)?  How would YOU answer if your child asked you the same question?
3. Out of all the major characters (Chi-hon, Hyong-chol, the younger sister with 3 children, Mom, Dad), who do you think was most responsible, if anyone, for Mom's disappearance?
4. What are the details and cultural references that make this story particularly Korean?  What elements make it universal?
5. One of my favorite parts was the story of the bizarre friendship between Mom and Lee Eun-Gyu (p. 200-211).  Were any mysteries solved with their story, or did it just enshroud Mom with even more layers of secrecy?
6. Grade the book on an A-F scale

I will gather answers and post a summary in two weeks, resulting in our very first official Kimchi Mama group book review!  So please make sure to at least grade the book!

--Julie

Teaching me to live

My mum and me before my parents' divorce.

Today’s post is about mothers.   Well…my mother to be exact.  We’ve had a rocky relationship.  You see, she didn’t raise me and when I say she didn’t raise me I mean that I can count on my hand (just one hand, not both) how many times I saw her as a child after my parents divorced.  When I was 13, I boarded a plane to visit her in New York City.  I remember the excitement and fear that I felt; excitement at seeing her again and in a new big city that I had never visited before but also fear.  Would she know me?  Would I know her?  Would we get along?  Would she like me? 

That last one was so important to me.  Already I was the butt of many jokes at school.  I was bullied by the other children to the point that every night I’d cry myself to sleep and wish that I was somebody, anybody but me.  I was convinced that I was unlikeable.  I mean what else could possibly cause the other children to torment me relentlessly.  It mattered to me that my own mother might see something in me that she liked.  As I stepped off the plane, it was with a big sigh of relief that I instantly spotted her, recognized her despite the 6 years that had passed since I last saw her.  I approached her with trepidation but hope and then she said it.  The first words out of her mouth after not seeing her daughter for 6 years.  “You’re fat.” 

You’re fat.  Fat.  Fat.  Fat.  I couldn’t tell you much about my trip, because I don’t really remember that much.  But her first words I remember vividly because they cut me to my core.  The idea that the first thing my mother would see about me was the fat on my body was the confirmation I needed that I was indeed unlikeable.  Nothing else mattered because I was fat. 

Over the years, I’ve pushed those feelings deep down inside me.  They are still there but I’ve learned that it’s not socially acceptable to express true self-hatred; that nobody really wants to hear about how broken you really are.   In this society we seem to encourage self-degradation, fat talk is pretty prevalent, but nobody really wants to listen to the pain, the gut-wrenching sadness that comes from not loving ourselves. 

There were more trips and visits with mom and before each one I would steel myself for her insults and the criticism, the incessant criticisms.  It didn’t seem that I could do anything right.  It didn’t matter how hard I worked in school; it didn’t matter that I was compassionate and kind; it didn’t matter that I tried hard to be a good person and mother.  Nothing was good enough.

Between visits, I found myself avoiding her phone calls, waiting months to call her back.  It wasn’t that I was trying to punish her for her cruelty; it was just that I didn’t have the energy to pursue a relationship with someone who clearly didn’t seem to think there was anything redeemable about me.

The last time she came for a visit was in 2010, when my daughter was 2.

Last month she visited.  My sister had just delivered her baby and mom flew out to stay with her for three weeks.  Three weeks is a long time to visit.  If things had gone smoothly, mother would have stayed at my sister’s the entire time.  But things didn’t go smoothly and she ended up at my apartment.  And there we were again.  Mother and daughter.  We sat around and watched my daughter play.  At first, I thought I could escape her critical eye; she was so focused on other matters.  I was deluding myself.  Within two days, the criticisms started. 

I didn’t pick after myself or my family quickly enough.  I had too much garbage and junk in my home.  I didn’t wipe down counters or bathtubs after use.  I didn’t use a liner in the bathroom trashcan.  I let my daughter leave out her dinosaur toys for one too many nights in a row.  I wasn’t thin enough.   None of these were unforgiveable or huge crimes but the constant nit-picking was exhausting.  I nodded my head not even attempting to defend myself.  Yes, Momma.  Yes, Momma.   I know, Momma.  I’ll try harder, Momma. 

Every once in a while she would stop and just look at me.  I have no idea what she was thinking.  Perhaps she was annoyed that I was so agreeable.  Perhaps she thought I was ignoring her.  Perhaps she was in a fighting mood and wanted me to argue with her.  Perhaps she was wondering how her own daughter could be so unlike her.  It is pointless though to try to delve into somebody else’s mind; it’s hard enough to get in our own heads. 

And then one day she said something that shifted something for me.  She was in the middle of criticizing me for some infraction.  I can’t remember what it was.  I was nodding my head; I was tired.   I almost missed that her tone had changed. 

“Robin, I didn’t go to school; I don’t know about school, books, learning.  I know how to live, that is all I know.  I know how to live.  I didn’t raise you.  This is all I can do.  I can teach you how to live.  Teach you how to make life easier.”

I won’t pretend that our relationship dramatically changed over these few words, but I will say that suddenly I understood something that I had never understood before.  As much as her criticisms hurt, they have never been about me.  They are words from a mother who never raised her daughters, who doesn’t know how to relate to them beyond “helping” them.  In her mind, she is not criticizing as much as she is trying to impart wisdom.   It’s the only way she knows how to be a mother.

From her most recent visit, my daughter misses her already and wants her to come back.  This means so much to me.  I want them to have the relationship my mother and I never had.

I tried to remember her words for the rest of the visit.  I held onto them when she would nit-pick about my weight, my parenting, and my housekeeping skills.  I listened intently.  I asked her to come back to teach me to make Kimchi.  She smiled and agreed that the next time she visited we would get a jar and she would show me.  And then she left.  My house was quiet again or as quiet as it can be with a 5 year old child living in it.  The next day when she called, I felt the familiar urge to ignore her phone call, but I made an effort to pick up the phone.  And when she called again the next day, I picked up the phone again.  My mom is never going to change.  I cannot undue the past or the fact that her criticisms still sting.  All I can do is remember her words.  She wants to teach me to live so my life is easier.  I may not like the way the message is delivered but the message is still one of love, the only love my mother knows how to give.  She just wants my life to be easier.  I can live with that.  

Robin

Happy Omma's Daze!

Just a little Mother's Day fun from our K-boy, Mike Song, and his ever-faithful and good humoured Omma, Laura.

Thanks to iamkoream.com for the head's up . . .




--Angie in Texas is now planning a dubstep inspired dance.

To Every Thing There is a Season

Earlier this winter we celebrated warmer, spring-like days here in South Texas. There was so much happiness and hope in our little family – the way spring is supposed to be. What spring is supposed to mean. But as all South Texans know: if you don’t like the weather: stick ‘round, it’ll change.

With a fierce, biting wind reminding me it was still winter, my world became cold and barren.

My daughter confessed to cutting.

 

We are the definition of a normal, modern, blended, American family. We struggle with schedules, negotiate the school-work balance, commute to and from extra-curricular activities, schedule social time among adolescent and adult friends, cope with extended family matter dramas and move through our daily lives as a family living alongside two ‘tweens.

What I had written off as normal ‘tween girl drama I can retroactively see now as warning signs. Stereotypical signs, too! Tumbling grades (check!), increased arguments with us, (check!), a new passion for fighting with her brother (check!), yelling matches and hurling hurtful words (check!), periods of deafening total silence (check!).

As a hip, consciously-aware, educated, socially active mother (certainly not like the old-school Korean mother I grew up with!) I knew and understood the stage of growing up she was going through.  She was in the early stages of adolescent spring! The winter of child childhood fading. I could even empathize with the season of adolescent spring: the bright sunlight moving from family to friends, chores and homework to trips to the mall with friends and PG-13 movies in giggly, awkward groups. 

And yet here I was am trying to understand. I’ve Googled. I’ve read. I’ve Tumblred. I've seen and read things that have broken my heart a million times into a million pieces. I’ve gone to see our family therapist. I’ve cried. I’ve begged. I’ve pleaded. I’ve prayed. I’ve overdosed my daughter with “mommy and me” time(!) not because I particularly enjoy spending countless hours talking about My Little Pony, cats and watching Animal Planet, but because I’m too scared to leave her alone. Too scared what I may find when I come back.

Knowing what I know about Koreans and depression; knowing what I know about my Korean parents, depression and alcoholism; knowing what I know about my own struggles with depression, alcoholism and addiction I wish I knew more about how to help my daughter. 

Sometimes I think we are moving through this season of hurt, but then I am reminded of the very meaning of seasons and that cutting isn’t just a one time thing, a one hundred time thing, or even a one thousand time thing . . . it’s a lifetime thing. 

But like the approaching spring, there is hope.

There has to be hope.

 

Hope springs eternal in Texas.

 

 

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy mother's day to all the Kimchi Mamas out there! May your day be filled with laughter, joy, hugs, smiles . . . and of course, kimchi!

 

-Angie in Texas will be celebrating with her Kimchi Mama with . . . kimchi!

Best of the Worst

What's the worst thing your mom or dad has ever said to you?

My dad told me yesterday that he shows his love to me by yelling at me. Um... no thank you please?

Do your parents show you how much they love you by criticizing you too?

Here are some of the best of the worst things I've heard over the years:

• If you're not going to teach your children Korean, don't even bother bringing them to see me.
• Your sister does ____ , why don't YOU do ____?
• You are less than an animal.
• &^%#$% you &@^%#$^!!!

So, let me hear them girls (and boys). What's the worst thing your mom or dad has ever said to you? I know the Koreans can dish out some mean words.

- Mary

Intimate Partner Violence

Today I attended a conference about intimate partner violence (IPV), or domestic violence (DV). It was the 10th anniversary celebration of some sorts. I don't work directly in the field but my work partners with the folks who do the work.

Why am I writing this post on the Kimchi Mamas blog? First because it's near and dear to my heart and second because Korean women (and their children, wives of Korean men, women of all color, and even some men) continue to be victims of intimate partner violence. I want to do my part to help it stop.

I learned today that IPV is complicated. I knew that but I think I still had some amount of judgement deep within me. It really is not as simple as "Why don't you just leave?"

The facts are that most women do end abusive relationships. It takes an average of 5 - 7 years and many attempts before she leaves, but still, she does leave. These women are resilient and should be commended for their resiliency.

I also learned that children who witness domestic violence can be scarred for life. I mean, I kind of knew that from personal experience. The worst thing that my dad did was get a knife from the kitchen and threaten to kill my mom and us. I think I partially blocked this from memory but I remember that knife vividly. I was very young. What I didn't know is that children's brain development can actually be affected by witnessing IPV and that they can get post traumatic stress disorder as well. And most of us probably also know that there is a cycle of violence. Children from violent homes grow up to either become abusers or victims themselves. 

At the conference today, one of the speakers shared a training video that all police officers have to watch. They were pictures and voice recordings of actual victims. As soon as they started playing the 911 calls from children, I had to leave the room because I could not control my emotions. As a mom, it just hit a nerve that never was there before.