2020: Korea on the brain
Originally written February 2020
Like a majority of my peers, I took driver's ed the summer after I turned 15 to get my learner's permit. There was a boy from a nearby high school who had the same driving time as me. Sometimes we drove together in the same car, but more often we were told to drive to a common lunch spot by our driving coaches. His name was Ben...and he liked me.
Ben was (is) Korean.
Like, actually Korean. Like, his parents were (are) Korean and he was (is) his parents' child.
At that point in my life I did not identify as Korean. I was surrounded by white all the time and physically looking Korean was a real inconvenience to my adolescent goals of blending in with the natives.
There were many hours spent talking to Ben on the phone. He was a very kind soul.
It makes perfect sense that when we finally got to the point where he wanted to go places and actually hang out instead of just talk on the phone I ghosted him. I told my mom to tell him I wasn't home when he called and eventually he stopped calling. It was the '90s; it was easy to hide.
It's horrifying to think of treating someone like that now, but back then I felt justified...maybe even angry about it. I had my eyes set on boys who had the perfect, chiseled jawlines of James Marsden or Paul Walker. Were Asian guys going to be the only option? And for how long? What happens when they found out that I spoke no Korean and knew absolutely nothing about the things that made me look the way I did. I mean, I didn't even know the real importance of protecting myself from the sun or have an established 12-step beauty routine for my face for God's sake!
Years later, I saw Ben when I was walking through campus at A&M. I suffered through a painfully long, 2 minute, awkward AF conversation, burning red with embarrassment by the end.
I deserved it.
Except for a few racist remarks thrown my way through the years and desperately wanting the fresh, Cover Girl faces I saw in my magazines (that looked nothing like me) this was the most memorable incident where my carefully constructed brain space was interrupted with thoughts of Korea. What would it be like if I lived with other Korean people? Even though we would still be the minority, at least we would have each other? Would I be considered cute or ugly in Korea? Am I like any of the family members I have never met? Does my biological mother ever wonder where I am or who I am? And, seriously, how the eff do I do my eye makeup?
I was no amateur though.
I knew exactly how to file the thoughts away and carry on. Happily, even.
In the summer of 2016, I took Alex to Korea heritage camp for his and my first camp. I wrote about it here and have since reverted it back to draft because it was incredibly cringey to re-read (much like most of my posts are and probably this post might be someday).
I was level expert at my craft at this point in my life...but I was caught off guard that summer. Way off guard.
I was an adult and parent sitting in sessions every day learning about myself, as an adopted child. The presentation gave names and explanations to all the things I felt on and off growing up...and my childhood self wasn't having it. She kept reminding me that we worked too hard our entire lives to let stuff like this interrupt us now. To top it all off, the sessions were being led by my actual social worker who worked with my parents when I arrived from Korea. She had witnessed those first months of my parents expanding their family, starting with me. What were we like when she visited? What did my parents ask? What advice did she offer? Could she even remember enough to tell me anything about myself in those first days here?
I had a great childhood and my childhood self has always congratulated me on never making my adoption from Korea a big deal; she was proud I always kept things light and played it cool. These sessions though...I suddenly felt exposed and humiliated...that my lost identity was somehow threatening to be an issue now...in adulthood...the time when I was supposed to be THE me...when all of this wasn't supposed to matter anymore because I felt like somehow you transcend it with age...or something?
Camp that summer cracked open a previously dead-bolted door, just wide enough for me take a peek inside. It offered the beginning of a conversation I needed to have with myself before I could cross the threshold because once I decided to walk inside, there would be no easy way of closing the door again. I couldn't file it away or joke it off anymore and I needed to explore my real feelings because, if nothing else, I asked myself, "How am I going to be able to sincerely help Alex through his feelings if I can't even face mine?"
I'm not the only one I have to think about anymore.
 |
| middle school? high school? does it even matter? #90s |
Like a majority of my peers, I took driver's ed the summer after I turned 15 to get my learner's permit. There was a boy from a nearby high school who had the same driving time as me. Sometimes we drove together in the same car, but more often we were told to drive to a common lunch spot by our driving coaches. His name was Ben...and he liked me.
Ben was (is) Korean.
Like, actually Korean. Like, his parents were (are) Korean and he was (is) his parents' child.
At that point in my life I did not identify as Korean. I was surrounded by white all the time and physically looking Korean was a real inconvenience to my adolescent goals of blending in with the natives.
There were many hours spent talking to Ben on the phone. He was a very kind soul.
It makes perfect sense that when we finally got to the point where he wanted to go places and actually hang out instead of just talk on the phone I ghosted him. I told my mom to tell him I wasn't home when he called and eventually he stopped calling. It was the '90s; it was easy to hide.
It's horrifying to think of treating someone like that now, but back then I felt justified...maybe even angry about it. I had my eyes set on boys who had the perfect, chiseled jawlines of James Marsden or Paul Walker. Were Asian guys going to be the only option? And for how long? What happens when they found out that I spoke no Korean and knew absolutely nothing about the things that made me look the way I did. I mean, I didn't even know the real importance of protecting myself from the sun or have an established 12-step beauty routine for my face for God's sake!
Years later, I saw Ben when I was walking through campus at A&M. I suffered through a painfully long, 2 minute, awkward AF conversation, burning red with embarrassment by the end.
I deserved it.
Except for a few racist remarks thrown my way through the years and desperately wanting the fresh, Cover Girl faces I saw in my magazines (that looked nothing like me) this was the most memorable incident where my carefully constructed brain space was interrupted with thoughts of Korea. What would it be like if I lived with other Korean people? Even though we would still be the minority, at least we would have each other? Would I be considered cute or ugly in Korea? Am I like any of the family members I have never met? Does my biological mother ever wonder where I am or who I am? And, seriously, how the eff do I do my eye makeup?
I was no amateur though.
I knew exactly how to file the thoughts away and carry on. Happily, even.
In the summer of 2016, I took Alex to Korea heritage camp for his and my first camp. I wrote about it here and have since reverted it back to draft because it was incredibly cringey to re-read (much like most of my posts are and probably this post might be someday).
I was level expert at my craft at this point in my life...but I was caught off guard that summer. Way off guard.
I was an adult and parent sitting in sessions every day learning about myself, as an adopted child. The presentation gave names and explanations to all the things I felt on and off growing up...and my childhood self wasn't having it. She kept reminding me that we worked too hard our entire lives to let stuff like this interrupt us now. To top it all off, the sessions were being led by my actual social worker who worked with my parents when I arrived from Korea. She had witnessed those first months of my parents expanding their family, starting with me. What were we like when she visited? What did my parents ask? What advice did she offer? Could she even remember enough to tell me anything about myself in those first days here?
I had a great childhood and my childhood self has always congratulated me on never making my adoption from Korea a big deal; she was proud I always kept things light and played it cool. These sessions though...I suddenly felt exposed and humiliated...that my lost identity was somehow threatening to be an issue now...in adulthood...the time when I was supposed to be THE me...when all of this wasn't supposed to matter anymore because I felt like somehow you transcend it with age...or something?
Camp that summer cracked open a previously dead-bolted door, just wide enough for me take a peek inside. It offered the beginning of a conversation I needed to have with myself before I could cross the threshold because once I decided to walk inside, there would be no easy way of closing the door again. I couldn't file it away or joke it off anymore and I needed to explore my real feelings because, if nothing else, I asked myself, "How am I going to be able to sincerely help Alex through his feelings if I can't even face mine?"
I'm not the only one I have to think about anymore.
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