Korean Quarterly

Giving Voice to the Korean American Community

Creative

Forever Woman

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A very short story | By Sophia Epony Kim (Winter 2025)

Jongno Disrict 2017. Photo by Sophia Epony Kim

His hair is slicked back, I don’t like his look, and there is no way I would have given him a second glance at the club — he looks like a nalady — but I feel somehow obliged. That’s my problem. He’s sent his friend over to retrieve my number. And even though I have the feeling it’s a mistake, I write it down. Later, when I find out he paid this friend ₩10,000, I am both flattered and dismayed.

At the restaurant where we meet, he looks at my face so hungrily I avoid his eyes. Still, he has no problem opening up. He tells me about his upbringing, about his father having an affair, and how he decided then that he would avoid this temptation by finding a woman he finds so attractive he will never want another. He goes on about the beautiful Korean woman he dated who ate with her mouth open, smacking loudly, and how unattractive it was. I cannot eat or smile after he tells me this, and become wooden like a mannequin. And they don’t know about carnal matters, Korean women, he adds. I have no idea what he is talking about. He registers my blank expression and stops. Sex, he says, instructively, and my face turns red.

He asks to stop by his apartment before we head to the club, the club where he first saw me. As I wait by the door, I hear everything: How meticulously he brushes his teeth and the three pumps of cologne he sprays on. As he slips on his shoes, he insists on my leaving my small backpack to retrieve later after we have danced. I demur and his face closes.

At the club, he talks only to his teacher friends, barely acknowledging me. It’s fine. I’d rather not be near him or his friends. We ignored the white teachers, downing one Corona after another while standing at the end of the bar, ogling women. My friends and I yell and laugh over the loud techno music. They don’t know who I came with, thankfully. “Santa Maria” starts and I pull them to the dance floor, on the far side, where I can dance freely without being watched. This song undoes me. I don’t know any of the lyrics and I don’t know where Santa Maria is, but the music sends me somewhere else and I close my eyes.

When a slow song finally comes on, we’ve had enough, and I find him still rooted in the same spot, his face now dark. I thank him for dinner and say goodbye before leaving alone. He gives me a perfunctory nod and looks away as if he could care less. It is this last impression, so cold, that liberates me from any doubt I’ve done the right thing. I have succeeded without having to say a discouraging word.

But even now, decades later, I find myself wondering from time to time: Did he find his forever woman?

Memories of my mother

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Reflections on kimchi-making, inner strength, growing up hapa and knowing someone’s character through their hands | By Trish Broome (Fall 2024)

I was eight years old when my mom, brother and I moved from the American army base in Pusan, Korea to Newport News, Virginia. It was during the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and Korea was beaming with excitement and pride. But I wasn’t. My American father was staying behind to manage the officer’s club while the rest of us went to a strange new place. I would go from being a sassy, outgoing “mixed breed” in Korea to a shy, insecure and depressed “China Doll” in America.

My dad never moved back in with us. I later found out the move was the start of the divorce process for mom. She had put up with my father’s alcoholism for over 20 years, but infidelity is what finally did it for her. Even though my mom didn’t grow up in this country or have a lot of money, her experience living as an orphan and being a determined, single woman helped her raise her two children alone.

Right after the divorce, when I was in the sixth grade, is when I started writing. I would turn all of my English assignments into poems and write for hours to release the anger and depression built up inside of me. I won a sixth grade “Drug Free” rap and got an A+ on my first ever short story, “The Lousy Life of Lauren Lewis.” I wrote a lot of dark poetry (as most teenagers do) and used writing as a form of therapy.

I continued writing throughout college and adult years, mainly personal essays about being raised by a single Korean mother and being mixed race and living with mental health issues. My dad came back into my life just in time to see me get married and have his only grandchild. Then he died in 2016 within four months of discovering he had stage 4 lung cancer.

I spent years grieving over his death, and turned to drinking to escape the reality around me. When I got a DUI in February 2023, I finally realized I needed to break the cycle. So, instead of drinking, I turned to writing poetry. I have now been sober since March 1, 2023 and I write daily to keep my mind clear and my feelings focused.

The loss of my mother has been the hardest emotionally on me. I don’t think there’s a better way to describe how I feel about her than to share the message I posted on Facebook after she passed:

It is with a heavy heart that I share my mother, Bok Ja “Pepsi” Smith, passed away peacefully on July 4th at 2:12 am. She had a stroke and severe head trauma, and like everything she did in life, she fought as hard as she could. But, it was her time to go. She was 79 years old.

My mother was the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She came to this country from Korea not knowing anyone but my dad, not speaking English, and unaware of the cultural differences. Since she was an orphan at a young age, she knew how to adapt and be independent. So that’s what she did. Especially after my parents divorced. She raised two kids on her own, working multiple jobs and sacrificing her personal happiness for our well-being. She never complained about anything and had a huge heart. She treated everyone with respect and took care of the less fortunate. She was my real life superhero.

I will forever think of the 4th of July differently from now on. She has freedom from pain. She is a bright, shining star, and I will look for her whenever I see fireworks or stare off into a beautiful night sky.

I will continue to write about my mother and share her story whenever possible. It is a story of resilience, love and strength. And I will continue to write how I feel and what I’ve experienced to connect with others and show we are more alike than different.

Memories of My Mother’s Kimchi

I used to be jealous of my friends whose mothers baked chocolate chip cookies from scratch, or who knew how to make the perfect pan of lasagna. My mom’s idea of baking was burning the bottoms of premade Pillsbury cookies, and she often added ketchup to spaghetti sauce because, “It’s the same ingredients.”

However, where she lacked in cooking Americanized cuisine, she more than made up by making some badass kimchi.

The process of making kimchi usually started with my mom asking, “Do you want to go to the Korean store?”

I knew exactly what that meant. It meant picking the perfect bundle of scallions and cloves of garlic. It meant carefully examining each head of Napa cabbage or bunch of cucumbers. If we wanted to be a little dangerous and have an extra stinky fridge, we’d choose a giant mu (Korean radish) to cut up into cubes for kkakdugi.

Mom usually had the other ingredients at home, so we’d wander around the store and pick up items like naengmyeon (Korean buckwheat) noodles, dried seaweed and a giant 15-pound bag of rice.

Then I’d run to the candy and snack section. I’d wait until my mom was in line to pay to ask her to get me a bag of shrimp crackers or a pack of sweet rice candy. She usually said yes if other customers were around.

The anticipation on the ride home was unbearable. I loved freshly made kimchi as opposed to the traditional kind that is stored and soured over time. My mom knew it, so as soon as we got home, she would pull out her oversized tin bowl and go to work.

Watching her make kimchi was like watching a dancer on stage. She was quick and graceful in every movement:

Wash and salt the main vegetable.

Dice the garlic and scallions with a large butcher knife.

Put garlic, scallions, red chili pepper flakes, sesame oil, tiny salted shrimp and sugar in bowl.

Rinse the salt off the main vegetable and then chop into desired size.

Put vegetable into the bowl.

Mix all ingredients thoroughly with bare hands.

Taste a few pieces to make sure it’s perfect.

Put kimchi into container(s).

Eat with every meal.

We did eat kimchi with just about every meal. If we didn’t have rice or noodles, we would use it like a condiment on hamburgers and hot dogs. It tasted amazing on tuna fish sandwiches or mixed into Hamburger Helper.

Every Thanksgiving, I’d put piles of it on my plate. The juice would run everywhere and mix with the sliced turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes so every bite was packed with a spicy punch.

One of my favorite memories of eating kimchi was on Saturday mornings in the late ‘80s and ‘90s in Newport News, Virginia. I would get up early to watch cartoons like The Smurfs and ThunderCats. Instead of eating cereal like most kids did, I would eat a big bowl of rice mixed with butter and soy sauce. I’d grab the entire container of kimchi from the special mini fridge we kept in the garage and crunch it happily as I laughed at the screen.

If I wanted to be fancy, I’d eat it with a can of Vienna Sausage.

The year 1992, when I was 12 years old, is what I call my “glutton for kimchi” year. That’s when my mom told my brother and I she was divorcing my American father. I don’t remember one specific time eating kimchi, I just remember eating it all the time. Why? Because stress-eating it comforted me from the adolescent hurt and anger I felt towards both of my parents.

Throughout middle and some of high school, my mom had a small flea market shop called The Lion’s Den near downtown Newport News. She would sell stuff like giant hoop earrings, fake diamond engagement rings, incense and Starter jackets. I enjoyed helping her out on the weekends. She would make sticky rice in a small Zojirushi rice cooker and we’d eat it behind the sales counter.

I loved seeing customers sniff the air and wrinkle their noses when they smelled the kimchi.

For one high school birthday I invited a bunch of friends over for a party. My mom made bulgogi and kimchi. Twenty years later I still have some of those friends raving about how awesome her food tasted that day.

In college, I moved about three hours away to live on campus. Not only was I homesick, but I craved my mom’s kimchi at all hours of the day. I could be taking an exam, walking to class or sleeping in my dorm room and suddenly I wanted it. So, at least twice a month, I would drive my 1990 Honda Accord home to satisfy my cravings. Mom always had either fresh kimchi or kimchi soup with SPAM on the table when I arrived.

When I saw it, I knew I was home.

I moved to Maryland after college, but I always found a way to drive back to Virginia to have mom’s kimchi.

It was my solace after a few breakups, several bouts of anxiety and depression and a handful of job changes.

It brought me happiness after I got married and when I had my daughter in 2015.

It even comforted my mother and I after my father died suddenly of stage four lung cancer in August 2016.

I guess you could say that many times, kimchi saved me. It saved my sanity. It saved me from loneliness. Most importantly, it saved my relationship with my mother. Neither of us are good at talking about our personal problems or sharing our feelings, but when we made or ate kimchi together, we didn’t need to talk much.

We were together, and that’s what mattered.

A few weeks ago, I took my four-year-old daughter to visit my mom. In the kitchen, she had a giant tin mixing bowl sitting over the sink with the Napa cabbage resting in salt.

This time, I sat back as she and my daughter made kimchi together for the first time.

At 74, my mom still knows how to make a badass bowl of kimchi. She just does a few things differently.

Instead of taking the time to carefully and quickly dice up the garlic, she puts it in a Ziploc bag, sits on the floor and bangs it with a hammer. (Pretty awesome food hack, in my opinion.)

Instead of using regular sugar, she uses Splenda because now she has a mild form of diabetes.

Instead of using the smelly little salted shrimp with beady eyes that always creeped me out as a kid, she uses fish sauce.

Despite the changes, it still tastes damn good.

No matter how hard I’ve tried to make kimchi like my mom, it doesn’t taste the same. That’s why I have to eat her kimchi.

It’s the only kimchi that can make me feel vulnerable and alive at the same time with every mouth-burning bite.

It’s the best.

Now that I’m older, I do think that part of my love for my mom’s kimchi is that I associate it with my love and respect for her. I think of how she lost both her parents at a young age and how she came to this country speaking little English. I think of how she raised two kids as a single mom, often working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

I often think of how her food will be one of the last connections I’ll have to my Korean heritage after she is gone. My hope is to never lose that connection.

Originally published on Medium, July 24, 2019

She Embodied Strength

I asked my 9-year-old daughter what she thinks
“to be strong” means?
She said, “To be brave and willing to help others.”
I was proud and smiled.
Then I thought of mom.
I flashed back to a few weeks ago,
lying fragile in the SICU,
victim to a stroke and brain trauma.
unable to respond to our soft cries.
Even in that moment, she was being strong,
holding on until her children could make peace.
Every day since then, I think of her and how she exhibited strength.
She saw dead bodies and begged for rice in ration lines during the Korean war.
She lost both of her parents as a child and became an orphan.
She married my American G.I. father during the Vietnam War and moved to the U.S.
She divorced my father after 25 years because he chose alcohol over family.
She worked multiple jobs to raise two children and helped them go to college.
She continued to say my father was a good man, even after he died of cancer.
She forgave me when I followed his path and loved me when I got sober.
She survived and battled quietly without complaint.
She did all of this with a smile that could light up rooms
and a kindness that didn’t discriminate.
That’s what “to be strong” truly means.
That’s my umma.

I See My Mother’s Hands

How lovely, to look at my eight-year-old daughter’s hands,
at her long, slender fingers and half-painted
nails and think, “Those are my mother’s hands.”
Deep-rooted memories surface that reveal why her once
smooth hands are now rough and wrinkled.
Hands of a child that begged for food during the Korean War
and wiped away tears when both parents died suddenly.
Nails that broke repeatedly at the
dry cleaners where she sewed and stapled tickets for years, as
slender fingers stirred ramen with chopsticks daily for lunch.
Hands that held my U.S. soldier father’s hands in Korea,
always much smaller and colder, with
nails that anxiously dug into the plane’s seat after she married and
departed for America.
Slender fingers that danced with Napa cabbage while making kimchi.
Hands that picked up empty cans of
alcohol when dad had passed out on the couch.
Nails rarely painted because of manual labor jobs,
doing everything possible to support your kids after the divorce.
Slender fingers that balanced Virginia slim cigarettes for years,
holding onto hope for your family’s future.
Alone, again, like when you were young.
Nails scratched from grinding garlic and
drenched in sesame oil for the feasts you made to show affection.
Slender fingers holding cold food at dad’s memorial service,
haunted by his memory while surrounded by his wife and strangers,
anxious to return home and eat rice again.
Nails that lovingly scrubbed your only granddaughter’s head and
delicately scratched her back as she slept.
Slender fingers awkwardly dialing us to video chat.
Hands of survival.
Hands of love.
My mother’s hands.

Seoul uniforms

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Comforting conformity meets uncomfortable truths for one Korean adoptee traveling incognito in Seoul | By Suni Miller Zmich (Summer 2024)

While in Seoul, I purposely woke up early one morning to people-watch. I walked to the business district and sat down. Holding my cup of Korean-strength coffee, called an Americano (ha) – black, no ice – the skyscraper sentries surrounded me, seemingly protecting the workers from interlopers like me. The last of the morning city work crews power-washed the sidewalks to commence another clean-slate day. I noticed the lack of excrement and grime that proliferates in many American cities.

Sipping my coffee, I sat on a polished stone half-wall next to a shiny building entrance. Men and women arrived en masse via buses and trains. A uniform sea of smartly-dressed serious men and seriously-thin women flowed by.

The office workers wore outfits put together from an understated color palette of respectful hues – cream, gray, beige, and black. They looked like they coordinated their outfits the night before, like American middle schoolers. Women wore conservative pencil skirts and fashionable flats or medium-height pumps. Although they must have worked in a variety of jobs, they all looked like bankers, lawyers, or engineers – the hardworking money-making aggregate.

The occasional appearance of navy felt slightly naughty. Maybe that brand of naughty reminded me of decades ago – my early corporate accounting days (in which men dominated the industry in blue suit solidarity). I began my accounting career right around the time women arrived in large numbers on the American corporate scene. My female classmates and I entered the corporate world after interviewing in our navy-blue suits, white blouses, and practical heels, unaware of the misogyny awaiting us down the numbers-road.

As I continued to sip my Americano, the appearance of an occasional flippy floral dress delighted me. At one point, a red billowing blouse jolted me into the present, disrupting the homogeneity of it all. I wondered if those flippy nonconformists felt as free as I do in unrestrictive fabric. Or perhaps the crowd reminded them that they were fools in their textile rebellion. I quite enjoyed the flippers, as I keep several brightly-colored pieces in my wardrobe, having abandoned my business suits years ago.

*  *  *

As the flippers stood out from the crowd, I thought about how I always stood out from my adoptive family. My darker skin made it unavoidable. One of my cousins once told me that I looked like the “N” word (after spending time in the hot Florida summer sun – my skin was bronzed dark) and made it clear that I wasn’t a real Miller. I wonder if the Korean flippers felt like they weren’t real business people.

Embracing my adoption feels analogous to wearing the free-flowing fabric. I suppose I am flipping off familial expectations to conform. I have (finally) realized that it is impossible for me to forget my biology. I cannot abandon my ethnicity in order to gratefully assimilate into my family’s genetic majority without leaving a piece of me unfulfilled.

I have chosen to let go of certain adoptive family members who do not accept my Korean-ness – and instead choose to embrace the relatives who see me for my uniqueness, not for the conservative suit of conformity I used to wear.

*  *  *

I did not see one homeless person that morning in the business district.

My Korean-Korean friend Claire told me that after the last train departs each day, homeless people are allowed to sleep in the lowest underground level at one of Seoul’s largest train stations. They are required to leave before the first train of the morning arrives. Throughout the night, the bathrooms are left open to all. City workers clean the station after the homeless leave every day so that the paying customers can have a pleasant transit experience and remain oblivious to the plight of the less fortunate from the previous night.

Being an adoptee is not unlike the experience of the unseen homeless in Korea. Historically, Korean society relegated adoptees to invisibility. Socially, we were placed in a position several stations below ground (through the benevolence of the government). If we were raised in orphanages, we were minimally cared for and allowed as little visibility as possible. Whispers of our existence were to be tidied up and cast into anonymity when daylight appeared. If we were internationally adopted, we were officially erased when we left the country, as the government nullified our citizenship status.

We are an ugly stain (as if stains could be pretty) on Korea’s report card and a reminder of generational shame.

In addition to teaching me about the homeless in Korea, Claire also taught me about Korean societal norms. She lived in Texas when she was four years old. Her family moved back to Korea when she was eight. During the four American years of her young life, she learned the freedom of original thought long before she had to make the adult decision as to whether or not to join the group-think of Korean society. Claire told me that she relates more to Korean adoptees than to her Korean-Korean friends. When she said that to me, something about it endeared her to me.

Maybe I was waiting to hear someone say they prefer Korean adoptees over the real thing.

For most of my life (on some subconscious level) I have felt like the second, third, or fourth choice – taking whatever validation I could get from would-be friends. Claire and I click. She doesn’t get offended by my brutally honest assessments and proclamations, and nor do I find offense with hers. I love her outspokenness – I trust her way more than people who beat around the American bush.

True to Korean conformist culture, Claire’s friends have bluntly (but not unkindly) told her that she is different. They often give her a hall pass for her Americanized behaviors, for which she feels compelled to be grateful.

Claire smokes. My adoptive father used to smoke. My husband used to smoke. I used to smoke. (We’re talking about cigarettes, here…) Over the decades, I’ve always loved the naughty smell of cigarette smoke (and still do), and at times I wish it weren’t unhealthy so that I could resume the habit. In Korea, you often see groups of men outside, harmoniously smoking together like musicians in an orchestra. Once in a while, you will see a woman furtively smoking solo.

When Claire was younger, it was considered bad form for women to smoke in public. Of course, Claire being Claire, she smoked whenever and wherever she pleased in Korea. On one occasion, an older Korean man yelled at her to stop. When she refused, he smacked the cigarette out of her hand. The frustration she described when relating certain interactions in Korea made sense when I observed the orderly fishbowl of humanity that is Seoul’s business district.

As a displaced Korean, I yearned to be part of the Korean business society gliding before me that morning. And admittedly, I could absolutely be tempted to conform (and give up the hope of resuming a relationship with cigarettes forever) if it were possible to seamlessly rejoin my biological collective. I might actually love spreadsheets again.

As a misplaced (or maybe misfit) American, I also yearn to be part of the red-white-and-blue hive. Even though some do not view me as one of them, my life was shaped by American values, habits and social rules. Many of my Pentecostal, military, redneck, and Jewish childhood experiences were the same as those of my white friends.

I love it (not at all) when people speak loudly and slowly to me, assuming I don’t speak English – or when others pretend that my perfect American accent is hard for them to understand. And without intentional thought, some assume my citizenship status is not the same as theirs simply because of my race.

Sitting in the Korean business district, I felt like a trespasser. In America, no matter where I am, I often feel the same.

*  *  *

On another day in Seoul, I navigated one of the shopping districts. My Asian face was as standard as every other pedestrian in Seoul, and I felt solace in the uniformity of it all. Packed in with myriads of other shoppers, my anonymity was a surprising gift; without a second look from anyone, I was walking in the street, passing small well-lit grocery stores, smelling grilled meat infused with garlic, and peering into fashionable clothing stores. I relished the sense of anonymous belonging as I navigated through the crowds, enjoying the freedom of being ignored.

That calm unfortunately evaporated as soon as I stepped into any of the shops. I was again a foreigner when interacting with the shopkeepers. I struggled to remember my Korean language lessons, and it wasn’t because I had truly forgotten. Instead, I think my ability to communicate was hampered by the mix of emotions I experienced while visiting my original culture, blocking me from speaking the most basic of phrases. The salespeople usually switched easily to English, greeting me from behind their state-of-the-art cash registers with mild smiles, hellos, thank yous, and goodbyes.

In contrast to the awkwardness of shopping in Seoul, I always felt breezy when popping about in New York City with its racially diverse population and lack of language barriers, as most people speak some English. Seoul has more residents than New York City, yet Seoul’s square-mile footprint is half that of The Big Apple, making its population density both weighty in comfort and melancholy.

*  *  *

Moving within the different districts of Seoul was easy. The Korean train and bus system should be the world’s civil engineering gold standard.

While visiting Korea, my husband, Kurt, a civil engineer, geeked out on the city’s infrastructure. He said the transit system blew American standards out of the water. The sanitized trains reach every corner of Seoul. The buses are filled with people from every district. Even the platforms lack the chaotic aggressive energy of the train stations in American cities. The system is so orderly and clean that no one would ever guess some Korean stations become benevolent shelters for the homeless at night.

In many stations, the tracks are behind a wall of sliding glass doors. When the trains arrive, the platform doors open in tandem with the train doors. Passengers quietly line up on either side of the sliding doors prior to each train’s arrival. The onboarding riders wait on the platform while the outgoing passengers exit. The process made me think of a conveyor belt in a manufacturing plant of uniform widgets. Pausing, moving, connecting, pausing, moving, connecting with the cadence of engineering precision, smelling of engine lubricant and steel.

The train rides were also infused with order. Most trains have seats with their backs to the windows, so that seated passengers face one another across the train. The space in between is for standing passengers, who hold overhead bars or straps, standing perfectly in line with each other like soldiers in a parade. There is an unspoken rule to never speak loudly or make eye contact. No one seemed to think it was weird that the seated passengers benignly stared at the standing passengers’ stomachs and crotches when they weren’t staring at their phones.

In the hothouse weather of August, we were sweaty Americans amid millions of sweatless Koreans. My husband’s gray t-shirt was 75 percent drenched with sweat, and 25 percent damp with the incessant humidity. On one train ride, he obediently faced the window, holding on to the suspended overhead rail with his armpits out like an Old Spice antiperspirant commercial. The young man in front of him couldn’t take it and moved to another seat, making us crack up (quietly) to ourselves.

Much like the engineered order of Korean train stations, I achieve orderliness in my home by making our bed on most days. The act itself is a welcome vestige of my military upbringing, a two-minute activity that provides me with a semblance of control. I can’t think clearly in a messy environment. Making my bed sets my mind up to be ready for the unforeseen surges of creative melancholy release. Glimpses of past losses and future ideals often come to me in the morning before I board my day’s activities with the comfort of premade predictability.

Kurt finds my bed-making cadence perplexing. He thinks it is easier to not make one’s bed.

While using the Korean transit system, I noticed art was incorporated into the orderliness. Poetry graced the glass doors of the station platforms. I took an initial stab at translating the poetry by myself, a sad attempt. My toddler-like Korean language skills and trying translation through the Papago language app were insufficient.

My friend Bomi Yoon Newman helped to right my translation wrongs. The correct translation was even better than what I originally thought. I love the Seoul-fulness of the words. They speak directly to my heart’s version of Seoul. Two of my favorite poems follow (if there are still translation errors, they are entirely mine):

Prunus Persica (Peach Blossom)

~ by Bang Inja

You’re a book of 10,000 pages.

Unfinished reading in my previous life.

A full 10,000 petals of flowers that came all the way to this life.

Waiting for me in the unreachable mountains.

I can’t move on to my next life without reading you.

Page after page, I turn you, deep into the spring night.

But you once again become 10,000 pages ready to rebloom into 10,000 petals.

I Want to Comfort Myself

~ by Young (2021 Citizen Contest)

The daily act of keeping a diary can weigh so heavily.

A journal untouched as months go by.

Within it, a bygone-self breathes.

An abandoned soul fighting a lonely tide.

In solitude, I battle tomorrow’s ache.

The dark shadows of yesterday weighed heavily.

Faded trifles.

Why could my heart only whisper into the pages?

Keeping sounds from lending ears.

I whisper solace to myself.

I long to reach back to the years of pain.

And gently cradle my sorrow with a comforting embrace.

The movement within the train stations mirrored how I often feel – a disciplined regularity that somehow guides my internal poetry of angst, sorrow, beauty, and joy. And what ties those disparate emotions together is an externally-facing tidiness.

While the complexity of the Korean spirit is fused into my personality, the American spirit is in there too. Trying to remove either culture from my world would be futile – no different than trying to remove a basic element from a compound and expecting the atomic equation to remain stable. Prejudiced people in America do not want me on their continent. Go back to where you came from. Conforming Koreans cannot relate to my Americanness.

I am Korean. I am American. I am both. I am neither.

Like many other transracial adoptees, I have been relegated to the in-between, if such a place exists.

For now, my community belongs with the displaced – both Korean and non-Korean as well as adoptees and non-adoptees. I love and appreciate my non-conforming friends. We often commune over the dinner table, a place where all are welcome and food sings universally. Our chosen family – an unlikely mix of colorful personalities – clicks together like an assortment of Christmas lights because of (not in spite of) our differences.

Recipe – Gimbap or Kimbap (Sounds somewhere between G and K – if you like mnemonic devices, think Gutsy Korean)

Serves: 10

Prep time: 45 minutes

Cooking time: Zero minutes

  • 15 sheets gim (seaweed paper, commercially known as nori) – Get the large squares used for sushi rolls with orderly perforations that look like train tracks.
  • 3 C uncooked rice (sticky rice, aka sushi rice) – It’s probably too much, but to come up short is a travesty. Excess rice can be shaped and made into kimchi balls.
  • 1.5 C bulgogi (Korean-style marinated and barbequed beef) or 1 can of Spam if you wax Americana nostalgic. If you are from Minnesota, definitely use Spam to support the state’s economy. That special ham was born two hours south of Minneapolis. If you’ve run out of places to tour in the world, visit the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. I love that place. If you are a vegetarian, scratch the bulgogi and Spam. Use tofu instead. Another option – I’ve heard certain meat substitutes like Impossible Foods are good, too. I have yet to try them, but my non-beef eater friends have enthusiastically endorsed those products.
  • 4 steamed eggs
  • 1 oversized or two average-sized carrots – All carrots must be at least nine inches long. Size definitely matters in this situation. You need the carrots (sliced lengthwise) to be firm and uniform in width for the entire length of the seaweed roll for a pleasing appearance when the gimbap disks are cut.
  • 1 bag fresh spinach or 10 oz. frozen – thawed and squeezed as dry as a homeless person in Korea
  • 1 yellow pickled daikon radish
  • ¼ C sesame oil
  • ¼ C toasted sesame seeds as brown as Korean skin

Rinse rice and sassy mouth four times. Five if you over achieve. Cloudy baptismal bath. Emerge renewed. Fire ready. Sticky kernels cling to memories. Starchy aromas awash in foggy strobe lit loss. Swamp surrenders to brackish ocean’s edge. Rock tissue paper scissors. Gim conquers all to embrace. Find the key somewhere between G and K. Glossy side down. Hide the light. The rice spread thin just shy of the edge. Sheets wrinkle and crave attention the second they rip in half. Sandwich the white. Protect the proteins and organics from the sticky. Lay the carrots stiff. Along the dotted lines without dinner. Unprotected transit platforms. Spinach tossed like pins. Sesame oil and toasted seeds. Yellow radish carved into uniformity. Pressed and rolled into mummified shrouds. Sealed sticky line. Newbie mats. Oldie free forms. Forced compression. Conform. Brushed with a sesame oil kiss of bliss and betrayal. A drop too much sends Freitag over the edge. Henckels blades. J.A. not J.C. Sin cheapens no more. The uneducated mistake disks for sushi. Cry you are Korean. Blow the whistle. Reminders of boarding angst. Trains churn to the cadence of past and present uniformity. Alpha. Chug. Bravo. Chug. Crush it. Crush it. Roll over no more.

Editor’s note: This essay by Suni (pronounced Sunny) Miller Zmich is an excerpt from her memoir-in-progress consisting of stories, life-recipes, and poetry. Suni is a retired accounting manager and lives in Minneapolis with her husband Kurt.

(left) Suni doing a selfie with her daughters, nephew, and husband while enjoying Kwangjang market in Seoul.  (right) Suni in Minnesota, perfecting her version of kimchi – Korean with a pinch of American. 

Creative

by

Poetry by Hollee A. McGinnis (Summer 2020 issue)

A cool rainy Monday morning.
Sleeping in with my little child
Tucked deep in the sheets
Beside me.

Gently the wind moves the blinds.
Click clack.
The birds chirp cheerily.
Rain or shine.

Time to slow down,
What is the rush?
No panic.
Just each day
One after the next.

Learning to live
Each moment,
Moving into the next.
This morning, a gift.

See how life can be
When you actually live with it?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Displacement

by

Poetry by Heather Hauck

Photo by Heather Hauck

Don’t assume that I am
grateful to be here
Six Asian women shot
left for dead
Can you hear me?
Your violence is killing us.
I’m drowning in a bottomless pit of whiteness:
Keep my head down, don’t be too emotional,
always be agreeable,
and don’t look too Asian-
assimilation

Are you surprised that I speak in perfect English?
The look on your face shows so much disdain
Chink, go back to your country
I want to scream, Fuck you. Do you think I like it here?
Exhausted from proving that I exist,
I swallow my pain

The moment I stepped off the plane
with my brown slanted eyes and
coarse black hair
I stuck out from a sea of blonde waves
and fleshy white faces
A mother once told me that I looked like a china doll
and I believed her

I imagine my birth country
where mountains give way to the sky
the blossoms of lilacs fall like snow
and gold leaves of ginkgo trees
line the streets below
At night crying babies soothed on backs
of black haired
ommas
singing our ancestors’ songs

Given away at birth
my homeland is a myth
Go home you say?
I have no home.
I turn and walk away.

A letter to my birthmother

by

Poetry by Heather Hauck (Summer 2020 issue)

Myeongdong, Seoul. Photo by Heather Hauck

Dear Birthmother,

Today is my birthday
I took an afternoon walk along the Han River
where I stopped to peer over the edge
of the low concrete bridge
Below me a sea of black-haired
mothers bobbing in the midday heat
a glance up from a familiar face –
high cheekbones round moon face
I want to believe that was you birthmother
but instead it felt like a painful reminder
of another year gone

Have you looked for me?
I’ve always searched for you
inside the crowded stalls of Dongdaemun market
in the brown eyes of wrinkled faces
Among the stone Buddhist temples
In the vials and swabs of my DNA
yet –
I am still
your missing daughter

For nine months
you gave me life inside
your womb
And birthed me out of trauma, out of han
that
seethed
deep inside the
wounds of our damaged bodies
And each year on my birthday
when I’m alone
in the stillness of the night
I let myself dream of
jeong, a deep mother-daughter
love
And I wonder if I believe
in possibility

Moment

by

Poetry by Hollee A. McGinnis (Summer 2020 issue)

A cool rainy Monday morning.
Sleeping in with my little child
Tucked deep in the sheets
Beside me.

Gently the wind moves the blinds.
Click clack.
The birds chirp cheerily.
Rain or shine.

Time to slow down,
What is the rush?
No panic.
Just each day
One after the next.

Learning to live
Each moment,
Moving into the next.
This morning, a gift.

See how life can be
When you actually live with it?

Dancing with my ancestors

by

Poetry by Hollee A. McGinnis (Summer 2020 issue)

Photo by Hollee A. McGinnis

Ancestors. Who are you?
Cutoff from blood and biology
I have lived so long,
Most of my life,
Without you.

Ancestors. Who are you?
What knowledge and
experiences
Wisdoms and
Sadnesses have you
Passed on to me, but I don’t yet know?

Ancestors. Who are you?
Faces I imagine
I see in the mirror
Reflected back at me.

Ancestors. What are you?
Spirits, thoughts, my dreams
Coming to speak to me
Guide me.

Ancestors. What are you?
My dreams deferred
My longings and wantings
Of things so ancient
So old.

Ancestors. How are you?
It has been forever since
We have been in touch.
I did not even know
You had been there
Hiding.

Ancestors. Where are you?
Here in my hips
Rooting me deep.
There in my feet
Walking me, steadily.

Here in my heart,
my hopes and dreams.
There in my hand,
Helping me make the foods
To feed my soul.

Ancestors. Where are you?
An-ce-stars. Stars twinkling bright
In the deep dark night.
Watching and bearing witness,
Cheering on the sidelines.

Ancestors. When were you?
Here, there, everywhere?
Eternal yet not.
Here yet gone.
Present yet absent.

Ancestors.
I am finally opening
To your presence.

I dance with my ancestors and my body speaks:
Left, right, back, forward, side to side.
Who? What? When? Where? Why?
Bending softly into question marks.

Opening, opening, opening,
To receive you.
But why?

Who are you?
I don’t know you.

Heavy sadness
Separation loss grief
LONGING.

Yet I want to know you.

WHO ARE YOU?
The body speaks:
I reach out and hold your hands,
Grasp them. I have never known them.
I reach out and touch you.
I trace my hands about your face,
Your shoulders, arms.

I hug you and place my
Head on your shoulder.
We embrace. Ah yes.
I have known you so long.

I bow low.
But you tell me to rise, little one.
It is I who is to be revered.

The hopes and efforts
of those who lived before me
Here.
Now.

I cry as I allow myself to
Know who you are.

Tears of joy.
Tears of sorrow.
Tears of longing.

WHERE ARE YOU?
The body speaks:
Arms scan left then right, searching.
Arms float up and around
Circling the body
Tracing the butterfly wings
On my back.

We are here.
In the sun,
The air, the trees.

We are here.
In your body.
Lifting you up.

We are everywhere
That you need.

We are here.
The wind
Lifting your wings.

We are here
Always.

WHAT ARE YOU?
The body speaks:
Hands move into heart shapes.
Hips swivel into shapes of infinities.
Movement, soft, flowing, gentle,
All through the body.

We are Love.
We are Infinity.

We are the movement
Through the trees.
We are the force
of Life’s longing.

The movement between
Left and right
Right and left.

We are balance
Of light and dark
Dark and light.

We are the laughing rivers,
The breeze.

When is the now.
The here.
This moment.

Always besides you
Dwelling in you.
Your ancestors.

Origins

by

Poetry by Heather Hauck (Summer 2020 issue)

Before I was born
the erasure of my origins
were imprinted in my genes
the survival of my maternal bloodline
lingers distant in the air like
the fragrant scent of cherry blossom
in full bloom

Before I understood my otherness
I stare at my reflection in the mirror
slanted brown eyes
thick wavy coarse hair- not straight
like the typical Asian
My olive skin
rich in melanin
No one has ever uttered
You look just like your mother
And I wonder if I’m Korean enough

Before I spoke my first word
I had no family tree
Last night, halmoni appeared in my dreams
soothing me on her back
the creases of my chubby legs poked out from her hips
her worn hands folding the garlic into the cabbage
the fermented smell of kimchi
inviting me in
And I belonged

Before I knew that love existed between
my birth mother and my abandonment
I tried to hold space for her
but somewhere inside
the fragments
of loss and reconciliation
I let her go
and for the first time
I grieved

Korean Quarterly is dedicated to producing quality non-profit independent journalism rooted in the Korean American community. Please support us by subscribing, donating, or making a purchase through our store.  

Send your poetry, essays, photos, artwork, or other creative material to publisher@koreanquarterly.org

The price of adoption

by

Poetry by Mi Ok Song Bruining (Winter 2020 issue)

Artwork by Mi Ok Song Bruining

Betty, my adoptive mother loved
sharing the story
of how much I cost my parents.

My adoption fee was $ 1500
in 1966: The same price
as a brand new 1966 Ford
Country Squire station wagon.

This dream machine was fully loaded,
white, with simulated wood side paneling,
complete with blue pleatherette
bench seats and the third row jump seats.

Betty lamented
that she and my father had to wait
until the following year
to buy their grand vehicular achievement.

The year after I arrived,
now a full-fledged member of my white,
Dutch American,
upper middle class,
suburban family,
I rode in that station wagon,
tortured
with car sickness.

I was living the American dream,
with nausea and vomit
each time I rode
in that land yacht,
to relatives, church, the mall, on errands,
and to our New England summer home,
four agonizing hours north
of our New Jersey residence.

I remember that station wagon
with glazed and watery eyes,
a cold sweat and green complexion.

Eventually, I grew out of car sickness,
yet sill break out
into a cold sweat,
every time
I see a Ford Country Squire station wagon.

Korean Quarterly is dedicated to producing quality non-profit independent journalism rooted in the Korean American community. Please support us by subscribing, donating, or making a purchase through our store.  

Send your poetry, essays, photos, artwork, or other creative material to publisher@koreanquarterly.org

Copyright ©2025 Korean Quarterly. All rights reserved.

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