Korean Quarterly

Giving Voice to the Korean American Community

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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.

Tranquility and practicality share one space

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Inside the Korean House: Architecture and Design in the Contemporary Hanok ~ By Nani Park and Robert J. Fouser

(Tuttle Press, North Clarendon (VT), 2023, ISBN #978-0804-85046-9)

Review by Bill Drucker (Fall 2024)

Although Korea’s urban landscape is constantly changing, traditional architecture persists among the tall glass-and-steel structures.  The aesthetics of harmony between man and nature still thrive.  The best examples of simplicity, functionality and beauty by design are reflected in the Korean hanoks,or traditional homes.

This architectural study examines the hanok’s uniquely Korean history, design, and structure. The first hanok or chosonjip (both literally mean “Korean house”) were built in 14th century Korea and Manchuria. 

Hanok designers apply the principles of fengshui (in Chinese) or pungsu (in Korean) in the design of each house and its location to ensure it is aligned with nature and the earth’s energy. The right location is scouted using geomancy; ideally, mountains are at the rear of the home, and a river or stream is to the front.  Hanoks are usually made from local natural materials such as wood and stone.  

The designs of these houses vary, but there are many common elements.  In the colder northern regions, the hanok is a created in a square design with a center courtyard to retain heat better in the winter.  In the southern regions, the hanok is generally made in an L-shaped design to be more open for optimum airflow and light.

The authors have made liberal use of interesting photos and a large format to allow the houses to speak for themselves. The reader/viewer is able to see how modern designers have kept the design principles and spirit of the Korean house, while adapting the design to modern living.

Because of the colonial Japanese occupation (1910-1945), Korean War (1951-1953), and the era of post-war poverty, the construction of hanoks stopped for a long period of time. Many of the  remaining homes fell to ruin.  After the nation began to recover economically, there was a trend to preserve traditional Korean arts, including performing arts, visual arts, design, and even traditional agricultural products and cooking. In the obsession to its national identity, hanoks were also revived and renovated, and new hanoks were built. 

These hanoks, most of which were new or newly-renovated in the post-war era, are frequently studied by scholars and historians.  The structures have been renovated and maintained by designers and architects.  Today, it is rare for new hanoks to be built, due to the high cost of and urban real estate and custom building. There is also the matter of practicality of hanoks compared with more cost-effective and efficient modern home designs.

As with the Buddhist temples, hanoks possess a spiritual quality.  They invite, they welcome, they offer the very best of shelter for the mind, body and soul.  This book offers a tour of 12 of the best Seoul hanoks.  

There are several grander hanoks in Seoul, and many more that are more humble. One fancier Seoul-area hanok, Oidong Pyulchang, was due to be destroyed in the 1950s during a movement to tear down big estates in order to replace them with smaller and more-efficient housing.  The house was saved by moving it to a remote site outside the city.  This hanok reflects the grandeur of pre-war upper-class estates.   The current owner is a Swedish woman, whose family has lived there since the 1960s. There are European accoutrements, however, this hanok has retained many harmonious Korean design elements.

Another Seoul residence with a grander history is in the Anguk Dong neighborhood. The Yun Posun Residence was the home of South Korea’s second president, and was later occupied by his son.  Its common rooms, used to entertain important guests, reflect an upper-class opulence. Other rooms reflect a more traditional simplicity and its outside gardens encourage rest and quietude.

Several hanoks are known for their thematic designs.  Known as “the house of emptiness,” the hanok known as Mumuheon is designed to reflect the austerity of the Zen Buddhist tradition. The principle of mu/wu or emptiness is everywhere, yet the design is also pleasing and inviting. The house has no chairs or beds. Instead, there are wood floors with cushions. The floors are heated using the traditional ondol method, with pipes running under the floor. In tradition, the smoke from a fire on one side of the house would be routed underneath the floor. This house is now heated by hot water running in the ondol piping system.

Another unusual hanok is Bansongjae, which has a living pine tree incorporated into its structure.  Situated on a hill in Samcheong-dong, the home has an upper and lower level.  Because of its elevation, this hanok has splendid views of the city and Inwangsan (Inwang Mountain).

There are several houses described that are a combination of traditional ideas and modern design elements. A hanok in the Gahoe-dong area, Janyeongseosil, is known for its wooden lattice work that captures the lights of the city at night and the sun’s warmth during the day.  The house is designed with a southern exposure intended to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  A long, open terrace of wood connects the house to the courtyard.

A more modern hanok, called Moto Hanok, is also located in Samcheong-dong. Modest and small, it is designed to be modern and comfortable for a family. Most rooms have views of Inwangsan and the city.  The design exploits every space for an innovative feel. Bicycles hang from the wooden beams.  Ceiling windows allow natural light to flow into the rooms.

Hwadongjae or the “house of becoming one with others” is in the village of Joanni, and the only hanok in a rural setting.  The hanok is notable for exercising contrasts; traditional versus modern, formal versus casual, and urban versus rustic.  Its design is minimalistic, with functional living space incorporated harmoniously with outdoor space.  

This is a beautifully-produced coffee table-style book.  The large format allows for some inspiring and detailed images that reflect the Korean ideals of harmony, tranquility, and resilience.  The authors follow the rules of hanok style by design by letting the houses speak for themselves.  Just a one-page description of each hanok is all that is required for the reader to learn about and appreciate the unique Korean structures that stand up to, and may possibly outlast, Seoul’s many cold, concrete towers.

A love-and-hate story of immigration

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In Search of My America ~ By Jid Lee

(Austin MaCauley Publishers, 2024, ISBN #979-8-8869-3561-5)

Review by Bill Drucker (Spring 2024)

In this memoir, the racism, gender warfare, academic politics, and cultural collisions are not just social and historical explorations.  For author Jid Lee, these issues are profound personal experiences, and a significant part of her chronicle of life in America.

Lee refers to the “banality of racism,” which encompasses the daily occurrences, the small but frequent acts and events that indicate to her that she is often seen by others as a racial stereotype. She observes racism as a pervasive, day-to-day experience, often unchecked and unchallenged.  It persists despite hard-won civil rights laws and social support of tolerance.  The excuse that racism is an irrational, non-human force doesn’t hold true.  Lee describes it as an ingrained human characteristic, and to dismiss or deny it is to deny our humanness.

Lee was born in 1955, and while she was still in her parents’ home, a fruit peddler came to the door and offered to sell the leftover produce for half price.  The peddler noted how pretty Lee was and made a psychic prediction. She has four knives in her head, the peddler said; not to kill anyone, but to be decisive, and to boldly cut down the barriers that lay in front of her.

Her home in Korea was very traditional.  Her family felt that education was a virtue.  That family value helped Lee get through college and graduate studies. In line with traditional values, Lee’s older brother received all the rights of the firstborn son.  It was expected that he should be the next head of the family.  The family arranged a good marriage. Their father had the prospective wife investigated to find out her academic achievement, family, health and character.  In fairness, the bride’s father, too, investigated the groom.  The new couple was expected to fulfill family duties, and be given every opportunity to succeed financially and academically.  Her brother went to Harvard and lived with other Koreans in an academic community. While there, he and his wife were tethered to his Korean family.

As a graduate student in the U.S., Lee’s behavior, inexperience, and gender and social gaffes caused trouble.  At one social occasion when she joined her brother and other Korean men at Harvard, she blundered into a conversation uninvited.  Her brother pulled her aside to remind her about the gender segregation.  While the men sat in one table discussing academics, politics, and world affairs, the women were supposed to congregate at another table, and talk about domestic matters and children.  In this scripted scenario, Lee crossed boundaries, broke social taboos, and ostracized herself.

Even in kinder moments of concern from members of the Korean American community, she heard condescending comments.  Well-intentioned people offered pointed advice.  “You’d better get married before you get too old.  I’d love to introduce you to a man, but I don’t know any.” Although the comment may be intended out of compassion and respect, the flood of cultural clichés felt to Lee like verbal assaults.   

As an educated woman with a strong, rebellious mind, Lee needed to hone her instincts; the knives that the fruit peddler mentioned.  She had problems in overstepping with her brother and his wife, and also in her relationships with American men.  Her encounters with men were often emotional, and filled with minefields of racism and sexism.

Before moving to Kansas for her Ph,D., Lee’s brother made pointed comments about her partner, Jonathan. He called him a total loser and a bum, and advised her to dump him.  He was right, but her rebellious nature got the better of her. 

Her Kansas academic career was also characterized by racism, gender inequality, and campus politics.  In the second year of her Ph.D. program, she hoped that her professors would recommend her for a teaching position.  Teaching English 101 to the freshmen class would provide experience in her field of English language, and provide a stable income. She was rejected with a scripted speech.  Was it racism when a less-accomplished white woman candidate  Ph.D. got the job? European student candidates were given priority for the same position.

Lee refused to swallow her pride.  Those knives came out.  She took the case to Affirmative Action (AA) and threatened to file a complaint. After that, her professors granted the teaching position. It was a small battle won. Lee realized that they did not see her as a Ph.D. candidate, but an Asian immigrant woman, a foreigner who spoke in accented English. 

Lee wanted equal opportunity.  At the very least, she wanted valid reasons for why she was denied.  She could not accept any arbitrary decisions or tolerate the campus status quo. Lee could not step down or accept rejection without a good reason. Failure was not an option.

As an academic, Lee worked hard.  Along the way, Lee had an awakening when she encountered other writers who wrote of similar immigrant experiences, gender, race and struggles with two cultures.  Maxine Hong Kingston was one of Lee’s influences.

While she focused all her energy on earning her Ph.D., Lee suffered physical and mental health issues.  The years of studies, racist battles, stress of being passed over by less-qualified candidates, living and eating badly, the damage of bad relationships, and the innate fears of failing caught up with her.  She went to the campus health facility for treatment and was prescribed heavy-duty drugs for depression.

Lee was honored in Kansas for her academic publications.  She produced two critical works on the topic of women of Korea and America, one of which was printed in a prestigious journal.  Thinking she was riding high, she submitted the other article to another journal and got rejected by them.  Lee tracked down the editors and heard the rationale of why her article was bypassed in favor of another Asian American woman author. The editors didn’t want to publish two articles written by two different Asian American women in the same issue. So obviously, they were being racist because they never hesitated to publish two different articles by two different white women in the same issue.

From Kansas, Lee moved to another university in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  The institution boasted idealism, free thinking, and tolerance of diversity, but in that region of the U.S., the Ku Klux Klan was still active. She acknowledges that college towns are not free of racism, but they are at least a place where critical analysis on the subject is tolerated. Racism occurring in the academic universe can at least be examined, questioned and corrected.

American idealism always preaches a good game, but Lee discovers that it still refuses to acknowledge the systemic racial prejudice permanently baked into the culture.

This starkly honest memoir is an insightful, and at times, painful journey of one very uncompromising woman. Leaving Korea and its traditional trappings, she tells a story of making her way in a new culture, with all its pitfalls and difficulties.  In the process, Lee finds her own identity as an educated woman, writer, and a free and independent person. 

Lee’s memoir resonates at many levels: She writes engagingly about academic pursuits and her drive to succeed, her decoding of American social dynamics, and her relationships with men and women.  Living her formative years in America, Lee comes to terms, and could even joke, “I’m a peasant from Korea.  I’m not a civilized American like you.”  She also came to terms with how she would always be perceived, even with all her credentials, as a Korean professor of English, not just an English professor. 

Lee is confident and articulate in her writing, laying down persuasive and insightful narratives, addressing hard issues with blunt candor. With a first-person voice, she speaks of the significance and consequences of the unequal social dynamics found in both a small university campus and in the larger American landscape.  Lee can be strident.  She confronts the micro-aggressions of racial profiling and gender stereotyping and cannot un-see them. However unwelcoming or conspiratorial, however, Lee continues to embrace her “husband country” as home.

Lee has now lived in the U.S. for over forty years, starting when she was an international student. She earned her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in English.  She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1989.  She is currently an associate professor at Middle Tennessee State University.  In addition to In Search of My America (2024), Lee has also published To Kill A Tiger (2010), and From The Promised Land to Home (1998), all in English. 

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. 

Their voices live on

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Voices of the Korean Comfort Women: History Rewritten from Memories ~ By Chungmoo Choi and Hyunah Yang, ed and trans.

(Routledge Publishers, London, 2023, ISBN #978-1-03-223057-3)

Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Summer 2024)

(photo on right by Stephen Wunrow)

On August 14, 1991, 67-year-old Hak-sun Kim, a survivor of the Japanese military sexual slavery system (referred to as the comfort women) was the first to publicly share her story.  She told of being taken from her home and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.  In the decade that followed, hundreds of other former comfort women came forward to share their testimonies, and an international campaign launched and grew in strength and numbers to demand a formal apology from Japan and obtain monetary compensation for the victims.

In 2000, the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery was held in Tokyo, at which nine women bravely shared their testimonies (KQ attended and covered the tribunal in it’s Winter 2001 issue). These nine stories were translated and edited by Chungmoo Choi and Hyunah Yang in their powerful anthology, Voices of the Korean Comfort Women: History Rewritten from Memories.

The Japanese military systematically kidnapped or coerced tens of thousands of mostly teenage girls from countries it occupied before and during World War II; they came from China, the Philippines, Burma, Indonesia, Okinawa, and other areas of the Pacific Rim. Because Korea was a longtime colony of Japan (from approximately 1910 to 1945), the largest number of these women were Korean. Many of them were either killed by the Japanese, or died by suicide during or after the war. Thousands have never come forward, due to the shame that it would bring upon themselves and their families. Thus, it is difficult to know the depths of the horror experienced by these women.

With the help of six translator who were all doctoral students in the East Asian Studies Department at the University of California-Irvine, the editors interviewed nine survivors, meticulously recording their stories over several months in 2000. Since then, all nine women have died, and the number of known former comfort women is dwindling, believed to be less than 10 today.

Editors Choi and Yang include an excellent introduction, providing key context about the history of the sexual slavery system. They include descriptions of the use of systemic rape as a weapon of war in recent history, for example, during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995, the Sudanese Civil War in 2012, and in even more recent conflicts in Nigeria, Myanmar, and Ukraine.

Though awareness of the former comfort women and their story is becoming more widely known, reading what happened to these nine women, in their own words, is shocking. Kap-sun Ch’oe wrote how just as she would try to clean herself up after a Japanese soldier raped her, another one would come in, over and over. Many of the women were denied food and experienced severe malnutrition, and others became addicted to opium to escape the pain.

This destruction of individual lives, as well as the permanent harm to families and communities, is apparent throughout these nine testimonies. After Japan was defeated in World War II, many of the women attempted to return home, but were shunned by their families. Yun-hong An was pregnant when she returned home in 1945, but she was rejected not only by her family, but by her entire community, who spread rumors about her and called her a “tramp” and a “bad girl.” She was forced to give birth to her baby in a barn.  

Several of the women expressed guilt about what happened to them, as if they were to blame for the crimes committed against them. Ok-son Han said, “The story of my hardship, you cannot write in one book, you need several books. I need many more days and nights to talk about it all, and it’s still not enough, more so because of my sin of going as a comfort woman.”

All of the women were taken as teenagers, though one, Sun-man Na (pseudonym), was taken to Japan in 1941 at age 12, along with a paternal aunt. She worked at a comfort station near Hiroshima, where she was repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers. Her story illustrates the many ways that the women tried to resist; she bit the men, tearing parts of their faces off with her teeth. One of these men twisted her arm and broke it, and she lived with a crooked arm for the rest of her life. The interviewer noted that her left arm was bent outward, and she could not raise it above her head.

Kap-sun Ch’oe was more than 80 years old during her interview. She shared that although she was lonely, she was happy that she could finally talk about her painful past. Even amidst the horror and pain of these memories, there is great strength and hope in the stories, and the reader develops appreciation for the women’s courage to share their stories publicly, and that it is a privilege to be able to read them.

When parallel lines intersect

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Lines ~ By Sung J. Woo

(Unsolicited Press, Portland (OR), 2024, ISBN # 978-1-956692-50-1

Review by Bill Drucker (Summer 2024)

On a foggy day, in New York City, Joshua Koslov and Abby Kim engage in two possible “what if” scenarios.  In one, the two literally collide by the Washington Square Arch.  They engage, they date, and they marry.  In the second scenario, they pass each other in close proximity in the fog, and do not meet.

With this rather brash premise for a fictional work, Sung J. Woo weaves a set of intricate narratives, one with the protagonists Josh Koslov, a frustrated writer and Abby Kim, a talented artist in a parallel existence; and the second in which they are in an intersecting existence.  The story, in two scenarios,  is set in contemporary New York City, a location familiar to the author, who earned his Master’s of Fine Arts from New York University.

The author explores the characters of Joshua and Abby – their human relationships, their inner lives, and certain chance moments that are seized or passed by.  The story is simple.  The complexities are in the decision-making and impulsive choices they engage in, and their consequences.

Woo has written an engaging, modern love story.  It is, however, a literary exercise in “what if” scenarios with variations of possible opportunities and vagaries of chance. The reader has to be accepting of the technique in order to get into the novel with understanding and enjoyment.

That said, Woo executes this literary exercise with creativity and a lot of emotional detail.  There are themes of fate, blind chance, the butterfly effect, and the popularized “sliding doors moment” all suggest that seemingly inconsequential moments do indeed alter the trajectory of future events.

This literary device has been written about, and played out in movies, such as the Polish art film, Blind Chance (1987), the American Sliding Doors (1998), and the German film Run Lola Run (1998).  All of these works play on a “What if I made this choice” premise. 

Blind Chance is laden with philosophical and ideological gravitas in which the protagonist is given three choices.  Sliding Doors is a slick, Hollywood romance with conditional premise; that the life of the character Helen (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) will go in two very different directions based on whether she does or does not catch a certain train.  As with the novel Lines, there are some significant consequences put in motion through the characters’ simple acts. There are certain bleak and fatalistic premises in these works, as exemplified by the character Josh’s perpetual disappointment with the results of his own actions.

In Lines, the two protagonists are young, educated New Yorkers who both aspire to be successful professionals; Josh as a writer and Abby as an artist. Abby and Josh are a couple in one scenario. In the other scenario, Josh is with Marlene, and Abby is with Ted. They navigate their marriages, their professions, support their spouses, tolerate their respective mate’s self-absorption, talk of children, and various successes and disappointments.

In his writing, Woo shows his knowledge of the young, educated and mobile class of New Yorkers rooted in literature and art.  They are familiar with Hemingway, Tolstoy and Dickens.  They have given their cadre of hi-tech professionals a combined acronym, FAANG or Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google.  This mobile crowd moves in highbrow circles and act like they belong, when they are actually not rich. They get around by riding a PATH (Port Authority-Trans-Hudson rapid transit)  or MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) train, and grab a lot of snacks from outdoor food vendors on their way to fancy events.

Disappointment seems to be a subtext in the life of frustrated writer Josh.  His manuscript has been turned down so many times, he does not even bother to count any more. However, he remembers everything about his debut novel, The Tragic Tolstoys.  He ruminates over how it took nine years to complete and how it was rejected by publishers 26 times.  By the 27th time, expecting another rejection, a little-known publisher offers to take it on with an advance of a paltry $100. It is hardly worth celebrating, but his wife Marlene insists they celebrate.

Josh stews over the success of a fellow writer.  His ego agrees with the New York Times review, which pans the writer’s ability as mediocre, describing her effort as “contrived, schematic, rootless, obvious.” Still, Josh decides to call and congratulate her for getting a review in a prestigious newspaper.

She welcomes the call and says she remembers Josh’s name on an NYU listserv, adding cleverly that he is a “fellow survivor of the creative writing program.” Josh makes a low-handed dig at the negative review.  She cheerfully shrugs it off.  They chat and then she excuses herself to pick up her child.  The reader wonders at this action, since Josh is described as jealous, spiteful, and self-flagellating. He is portrayed as conflicted about and envious of his colleague’s comparative success, while seeming to deny those feelings.

At his book opening, Josh is let down by the small size of his author photo which he perceives as another sign of his insignificance. Although he does not expect a cheering audience of fans, he is disappointed by the small showing.  The presence of Abby the artist, who is now pregnant, lifts his spirits.

In this scenario, Abby has had success on the internet selling her beautiful miniature artworks.  Her titles for her artful disks are fanciful, such as Cycling Guide to Lilliput.  Josh is taken with the marvelous little scenes, and begins to write creative vignettes to accompany the description of the artwork.  Abby’s fans love it, and she emails Josh, complimenting his creative writing.  On the street, Josh gets praise for the little stories but nobody ever mentions his novel.   

As the success of the miniatures rise, and Josh spends more time writing the vignettes, his life gets complicated.  His new pursuit becomes consuming.  When Marlene asks what he’s doing, Josh say nothing and closes his laptop.  Abby’s husband Ted also questions Josh’s literary contribution.  Josh begins dreaming about the tiny paintings.  He wakes up with his wife Marlene but he imagines her to be Abby.  Even when his son is born, he is still preoccupied by thoughts of Abby

In both scenarios, Josh is unhappy with his life, and his writing is stagnating as he turns 40. In both of his lives, as the Josh married with Abby, and the Josh married to Marlene, he falters as a husband and as a writer.  It’s his own doing.  His life with Abby is winding down after five years.  His life with Marlene also ends as Marlene succumbs to cancer.  

At the funeral, all Josh can think of is how his pants are too small.  The barn door could pop open anytime.  Josh looks at a roomful of sympathetic strangers.  Is this what it all comes to?  He suddenly realizes he has been a coward all his life.  Josh gets up to leave. As he hurries to open the doors, he cannot get to the outside light fast enough.

You can’t begrudge a writer who is popular and established from stepping over conventional literary boundaries into a more experimental form and format.  The literary device stretches the mind of the reader just as it does for the writer. This author’s literary shift doesn’t come out of the blue.  Woo’s writing history shows many forays into the unusual; one example is his earlier novel Skin Deep.  That novel deals with tennis and porn, identity and therapy. 

Woo plays with a subtext of geometry.  Each chapter is a parallel or intersecting narrative.  In math, parallel lines never intersect.  Among humans however, parallel lines/paths/lives can and do intersect.

Artist Dina Brodsky incorporates her beautiful miniature scenes into the storyline, which gives the novel another unique characteristic and fun factor.  By themselves, the disk-shaped illustrations are exquisitely detailed artworks.

Woo is a recognized short story writer, essayist, and novelist. His winning novel Everything Asian was published in 2009.  Other novels include Deep Roots, Love, Love and Skin Deep.  His writings have appeared in literary journals and magazines.

A look at modern Koreans’ lives

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The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories ~ edited by Bruce Fulton

(Penguin Books, London, 2023, ISBN# 978-0-241-44848-9)

Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Summer 2024)

It might seem intimidating to tackle such a large volume as The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories, but editor Bruce Fulton has put together a delightful collection of modern Korean short stories, ranging in length from 6 to 44 pages. Fulton, a professor of Korean literature and translation at the University of British Columbia, clearly holds these writers in great esteem. He and his wife Ju-Chan Fulton have translated many of these works over the years.

These 25 stories were written between 1934 and 2013; in the collection, they are arranged thematically rather than chronologically. Youngmin Kwon, a professor of Korean literature at Seoul National University, provides an excellent introduction to these themes, and also adds a brief chronology of Korean history from the late 19th century to the present, which places each story in its proper historical context.

The first section, Tradition, highlights the struggles and resilience Koreans demonstrated during the Japanese colonial period (1911-1945, when Korea was colonized and ruled by Japan).  Hyosok Yi’s When the Buckwheat Blooms introduces the character Saengwon Ho, a middle-aged peddler of goods in the countryside who reflects on the trajectory of his life with fellow stragglers. Ho relates the story of a lost love, the town beauty whose family fell on hard times. The two had one night of passion before she mysteriously disappeared with her family. Ho’s comrades are tired of hearing about his bad luck in love and life. But a new young companion he meets on the road seems to offer him a new perspective. Is there a glimmer of hope, in the midst of oppression and sadness?

A powerful theme in the collection is gender roles. In his introduction to this section, Kwon notes that until the modern period in Korea, writing was considered to mainly the domain writers who were upper-class men, and women writers were discouraged from publishing their work. Luckily this is changing, and today women fiction writers are growing in numbers and acclaim.

In Yujong Kim’s Spicebush Blossoms, a teenage boy and his family work as tenant farmers for the rich family of a girl around the same age as him. The girl continuously antagonizes him, sending her rooster to attack his smaller rooster. Hijinks ensue, including the boy feeding his rooster gochujang (Korean spicy pepper paste) in order to goad him into attack mode. Clearly, there are gender and class roles that must be followed here, but they are challenged in a humorous way.

In The Last of Hanak’o  by  Yun Ch’oe, a group of 30-something men have been a bit obsessed with one of their woman classmates from their university days. Among one another, they call her Hanak’o, meaning “the Nose,” because it was her most striking feature. In college, she was the cool girl, always up for a drink or a late-night meal with them, listening to their problems with their girlfriends with no judgement. Many years later, one of them tracks down Hanak’o, and happens to read a feature story about her in a prestigious magazine. He realizes how little they actually knew about her. Why had he and his friends never considered anything about her personal life, or asked her any questions at all, as they passively fantasized about her?

Any collection of 20th century Korean literature will include stories about the Korean War, and there are a few powerful stories on this topic in th section entitled Peace and War.  In Land of Exile, Chongnae Cho writes not about the horrific three-year period of fighting between the North and South, but about how that time  left deep scars on the Korean people – emotional, political, and economic.

Another powerful section is Hell Choson, which Kwon describes as:

the discontent of a generation of young people who have dutifully obtained a university education only to find a paucity of jobs commensurate with their education. More generally the term reflects disappointment with a lifestyle marked by economic inequality, crony capitalism, excessive work hours and inadequate salary, and the societal manifestations of this malaise, such as the highest suicide rate among the OECD nations, a negative birthrate and a divorce rate that hovers around 30 percent.

This theme is perhaps best illustrated by the renowned writer Kyung-sook Shin in her House on the Prairie. The title may conjure up warm and homey images of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s novel Little House on the Prairie, and it indeed begins with a young, hopeful couple moving into an abandoned cottage on a prairie. During the next few years, they create a beautiful life, with the husband working at a construction site not far away, and the wife delivering home-cooked lunches to him every day. Soon they have a baby to complete their idyllic picture of domesticity, but clearly there is a crack in the frame. Shin, a master storyteller who has touched on themes of loss and grief in her many novels such as Please Look After Momand I’ll Be Right There, somehow captures the feeling of Hell Choson in her slim short story of only six pages.

It must have been a difficult task to choose only 25 short stories for The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories, but Fulton has done an excellent job of curating a wide range of works by acclaimed Korean authors – some light and funny, others dark and tragic, with most somewhere in between. For an introduction to modern Korean literature, this collection is not to be missed.

Solidarity and sisterhood equal survival

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If I had Your Face ~ By Frances Cha

(Ballantine Books, New York, 2021, ISBN #978-0-5931-2946-3)

Review by Bill Drucker (Summer 2024)

The provocative title, hinting at feminine longings, is an effective one for this story told from the perspective of five young Korean women, Kyuri, Miho, Ara, Sujin, and Wonna, as they navigate their lives in competitive modern Seoul, including careers, relationships and personal dreams. The narrative explores Korean social mores, including beauty standards for women, and women’s roles in society.  

Despite an image of a progressive nationhood, South Korea is still exists in a cultural pendulum swinging from aspirations of modern liberalism to the Confucian, patriarchal society that has sustained the country for thousands of years. The nation works toward prosperity, but still has a wide rich-poor gap that the South Korean leadership seems not to desire to change.

Author Frances Cha has produced an engaging story which examines modern Korea’s issues of gender, identity and status, social norms and attitudes through the voices of her characters. Kyuri is the enviable one, from a conventional perspective; she is described as a dazzling beauty who attracts the attention of men and the envy of other women.  She works at a room salon, where her job is to entertain rich men.

Kyuri shares an office-tel (small apartment) with artist Miho. Miho is connected to society’s upper echelons through her artwork, but cannot participate in that lifestyle, and has a precarious relationship with a rich boy, Hanbin, heir to a conglomerate. It is a dizzying world of wealth and prestige, but Miho is very wary of material and social trappings. 

Her friend Sujin wants what Kyuri has – money and attention. She believes it is all due to Kyuri’s beauty, and Sujiin is willing to undergo painful and expensive plastic surgery to be beautiful like her friend.  Sujin is the voice of “oh, if I had your face.”  Hair stylist Ara is Sujin’s roommate.  While Ara tries to inject reason into Sujin’s obsession, she also has one of her own; she is a mad fan of a Kpop star. 

Last is Wonna, married to a nice but fumbling husband and succumbing to a life of being a housewife and mother, or so she thinks at first.  After several miscarriages, Wonna becomes pregnant.  As her concern for her unborn child grows, her marriage starts to disintegrate

All of the characters are smart, if at times blinded by relationships, social pressures, and personal desires.   All of the characters in their own ways are observing life at the top economic and social classes in Korea, although they are able to mix in that world only in a minor way.  By the luck of their birth, they do not have the background to ever aspire to it.

Kyuri invests in her looks with expensive cosmetics, but she also saves her money, knowing that her life as a hostess cannot last forever. Once, Kyuri observes a woman who walks into the room salon and seems to own it.  Kyuri can see that the woman is only average looking, but she seems to possess wealth and status, which gets the attention of the men around her. Kyuri admires that quality but feels she will never attain it.   

Ara has a good job at a hair salon.  She is worried that her Kpop star is becoming hugely popular and will soon leave Korea for a world tour. The price of a ticket is now far beyond Ara’s reach.  At the hair salon, a clumsy new girl, Cherry, grates at Ara.  At closing, Ara tells the manager she will clean and close up shop, but that Cherry should help.  When Cherry does a poor job on the bathroom, Ara yanks Cherry’s ponytail and shoves the lazy girl’s face into the (purportedly) clean toilet.  

At home, Sujin, still bandaged after her plastic surgery, tells Ara that she looks worse than her.  Sujin gives Ara a ticket to see her Kpop star, as an early birthday gift.  Ara stares at the ticket and starts to cry.

In the background, a solidarity of sisterhood galvanizes the group of women in this story as they encounter oppression and setbacks.  They may slight each other, and be judgmental, but they are a tight-knit and loyal bunch.  After working long days, they often meet for soju and food. Even Hanbin, rich son of a film celebrity, takes a stool in his expensive outfit. The women enjoy men’s attention, but can be hostile in response to unwarranted advances.

Cha underplays the men’s roles.  Hanbin is handsome, well educated, and well heeled.  He was the boyfriend of Ruth, an art dealer who committed suicide.  After her death, he gravitates to Miho.  When he can’t get his way with Miho, he scowls and retreats.  The women observe this behavior with scorn, saying that since he is good looking and rich, he could not be nice as well.  

Other men in Seoul are attentive and obsequious.  At the cheap bars, the women get additional service, free drinks and food.  Some men, rejected, walk off like petulant pups.  Bruce, a frequent salon guest, when slighted by Kyuri, takes petty revenge.  The owner slaps Kyuri in front of everyone to placate Bruce.  The message is that Kyuri has to appear to know her place, as a show for the clientele.  In fact, the owner knows Kyuri’s value as an employee and would not fire her. 

Wonna, the married woman of the group, suffers a disastrous marriage breakup when her husband, after pressuring her to have a child, walks away when he loses his job and feels he can’t deal with a family.

In the course of the story, the women progress in their lives and attain certain degrees of maturity.  Miho knows that she doesn’t need Hanbin to fulfill her artistic ambitions.  Ara knows not to obsess anymore.  Even Sujin, so desperate and willing go through the cost and pain to look pretty, realizes, like Kyuri, that this life won’t last.  At a soju-jib (portable tent bar with plastic stools), she gets admiring looks from the men.  Kyuri tells Sujin not to pay attention.  Sujin replies “Let me enjoy this.”

The author describes the Korean obsession with surgically-enhanced looks, but refrains from ridicule. Instead, she describes the topic in a serious way.  The obsession with cosmetic enhancements is a contradiction of the Korean appreciation of natural aesthetics.  In a recent Miss Korea beauty pageant, nearly all of the contestants looked alike; similar versions of the perfect Korean woman’s face. Should one laugh or cry?

The narratives are witty, sometimes gritty, and grounded in urban Korean experience.  Cha is familiar with Korean values, since she was born there, and western values, because she was educated in the U.S.  In its tone, however, the novel feels very Korean.  Cha does not interject any western feminist ideas into the story.  The five young women struggle through work and the many complications of their lives in very Korean environment, showing that they are smart, capable, resilient and unfailingly supportive of one another.

Cha writes with a realistic feel for urban Korea. The five very different women characters provide the author with a wide variety of topics and voices.  Though they are developed as social prototypes, the women are sympathetic representatives.  Her treatment of each character is engaging and skilled, and her writing carries humor and pathos.

The author grew up in the U.S., Hong Kong, and South Korea.  She attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire as an undergrad, and received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University, New York.  She has taught in both American and Korean colleges.  She resides in Brooklyn (New York) and in Seoul, South Korea.

A warning in black and white

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Korean Americans and the hidden threats embedded in Project 2025 | By Mark Hagland (Summer 2024)

There are a huge number of issues that Korean Americans should consider in relation to the current presidential election and its potential outcomes. Let’s be clear: A second Donald Trump administration would be the most virulently anti-immigrant administration in history.

One doesn’t have to rely only on the former President Trump’s near-constant maligning of immigrants in his speeches, interviews, and social media posts. Despite the fact that Trump has perceived widespread voter rejection of many of the plans set forth in Project 2025, even disavowing knowledge of or links to the writers of Project 2025, in fact, some of his closest advisers are deeply involved in Project 2025. If enacted, the plan is designed to immediately enact sweeping changes in how the federal government works.

There are a lot of elements in the nearly 1,000-page document addressing how federal power would be concentrated in the presidency by increasing the control by the executive branch and reducing the independence and power of the judicial and legislative branches.  In addition to the general immigration and diversity topics discussed below, the plan also calls for: Curtailing the civil rights of LGBTQ-plus and transgender people; ending protection of reproductive freedoms; instituting the firing of  50,000 professional civil service employees and replacing them with individuals chosen for their loyalty to the extreme right-wing agenda; and radically changing other federal services, such as international diplomacy, to emphasize fealty to a certain right-wing agenda and de-emphasize professionalism and independence in federal policy endeavors.

Many who have investigated the Project 2025 process warn that there are related secret documents that have not been made public. Obviously, one can only rely, for the moment, on what is in the publicly-released document and on what has been said by Trump, his running mate Sen. J.D. Vance, and others who support Project 2025.

But, as immigrants (and people with immigrant family members), we should understand that the document represents extreme anti-immigrant positions, many of which would be slated to be enacted on Trump’s Inauguration Day, with no public oversight whatsoever.

Here’s one example: Beginning on page 143, the writers take aim at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency, which manages application processes for immigration.

Among other things, it states that:

Since January 2021, USCIS’s priorities have been misaligned, and this has transformed it into an open-borders agency, ignoring the critical role that it plays in national security, public safety, and safeguarding the integrity of our immigration system. USCIS should be returned to operating as a screening and vetting agency.  Regulatory efforts have focused on easing asylum eligibility in a manner that is guaranteed to exacerbate asylum fraud as people surge at the border. Emphasis also has been placed on removing legal barriers to immigration, such as the use of public benefits. These actions violate statutes, erode congressional intent, and provide a significant magnet for continued illegal immigration. Additionally, USCIS resources have been misappropriated to focus more on creating and expanding large-scale parole and temporary status programs that violate the law and are otherwise contrary to congressional intent instead of focusing on a more secure and efficient process for those who are seeking benefits. The ever-increasing number of applications filed has made it difficult to vet applications adequately for eligibility, fraud, and specific national security and public safety problems.

Further down, on page 145, the document states:

The incoming Administration should spearhead an immigration legislative agenda focused on creating a merit-based immigration system that rewards high-skilled aliens instead of the current system that favors extended family–based and luck-of-the-draw immigration. To that end, the diversity visa lottery should be repealed, chain migration should be ended while focusing on the nuclear family, and the existing employment visa program should be replaced with a system to award visas only to the ‘best and brightest.’ Internal efforts to limit employment authorization should be matched by congressional action to narrow statutory eligibility to work in the United States and mitigate unfair employment competition for U.S. citizens. The oft-abused H-1B program should be transformed into an elite program through which employers are vying to bring in only the top foreign workers at the highest wages so as not to depress American opportunities. Additionally, Congress should: improve the integrity of the temporary work visa programs; Repeal Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations; permanently authorize and make mandatory E-Verify; and end parole abuse by legislating specific parole standards.

Carefully hidden inside those paragraphs is a clear subtext: The incoming Trump administration would strangle the current immigration system and use the levers of power to end immigration into the U.S. for individuals not favored by Trump and his cronies. While in the White House, Trump made it clear that he would prefer limiting immigration to white people of European origin; and the complete revamping of immigration processes to be under the close control of handpicked administrators would virtually guarantee that racial discrimination and discrimination based on national origin would become the new norm.

Another area of concern is around the determination on the part of the document’s authors to end and reverse all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in government, business and the workplace, educational institutions, and across American society. For example, beginning on page 561, it states: 

Even though numerous federal laws prohibit discrimination based on notable immutable characteristics such as race and sex, the Biden Administration — through the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and other federal entities — has enshrined affirmative discrimination in all aspects of its operations under the guise of ‘equity.’ Federal agencies and their components have established so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices that have become the vehicles for this unlawful discrimination, and all departments and agencies have created “equity” plans to carry out these invidious schemes. To reverse this trend, the next conservative Administration should: ensure that the DOJ spearheads an initiative demonstrating the federal government’s commitment to nondiscrimination.

The document further states:

The department should also lead a whole-of-government recommitment to nondiscrimination and should be working with all other federal agencies, boards, and commissions to ensure that they are both complying with constitutional and legal requirements and using their authorities and funding to prevent discrimination not only internally, but also at the state, local, and private-sector levels. This will require particularly close coordination with several key agencies, including such obvious candidates as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; the Departments of Defense, Education, and Housing and Urban Development; and the Securities and Exchange Commission. It will also require enforcing contractual requirements that prohibit discrimination on federal contractors. Reorganize and refocus the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to serve as the vanguard for this return to lawfulness…

It goes on in this vein, based on the completely wrong assumption that DEI programs have harmed individuals rather than helping them.

When we look at the history of anti-Asian discrimination in this country, it is clear that such discrimination continues into the present day, and that unless efforts are redoubled to end all discrimination against all people of color, the same discrimination will continue into the future.

Those two examples from Project 2025 concerning immigration policies and discrimination against marginalized groups are just the tip of the iceberg. All of us should be deeply concerned and even alarmed, by the fact that the Republican nominee for president in 2024 has embraced and would empower a process of anti-democratization that could be implemented on Day One of a second Trump presidency.

Combined with Trump’s and top Republicans’ constant racist diatribes against immigrants and people of color, it is clear that Trump’s candidacy represents a grave danger to Asian Americans, as well as to all people of color in this country. The gains that we have made under the Obama and Biden-Harris administrations have been very significant; we cannot afford to go back.

As an immigrant of color and an Asian American, I am deeply concerned by what I am seeing and hearing. I urge every voter to read and learn on their own and to draw their own conclusions about all of this; I’ve already drawn my own.

Author’s note: The Project 2025 document is at this link.  There is a one-page summary fact sheet about Project 2025, compiled by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, at this link.

Clash at the family table

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Jesa shows mismatch of modern life and Korean gender roles | By Martha Vickery (Summer 2024)

Jesa movie poster and filmmaker Jee Hoon Seo.

A new filmmaker who grew up in both Korean and Korean American culture is premiering a short film entitled Jesa, which hints darkly at the emotional complexities and perils of growing up in two cultures.

Jee Hoon Seo has a newly-minted film degree earned at New York University (NYU), and this fall he is jumping into a year fellowship in scriptwriting, and is also planning to enroll in graduate school at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.  

At the same time, his 14-minute Jesa, a thesis film for his NYU degree is being shopped to a variety of film festivals and other screenings.  The film, which is mainly in Korean with subtitles, includes the well-known Korean American actor Esther Moon. Moon also played the role of Mrs. Oh in the award-winning Minari, a 2000 film about the Korean American immigrant experience (KQ review here). She was also in the 2022 Netflix drama Partner Track.

Seo describes his film Jesa was “heavily inspired by my own upbringing” and “the only film I wanted to make when I started at NYU film school.”  In Korea, a jesa is a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of a loved one’s death, performed as part of a family get-together.  The centerpiece of the ceremony is a table decorated with the loved one’s photo, along with an elaborate spread of the person’s favorite foods and drinks. After the ceremony, family members visit and eat some homemade food.  

The ceremony is heavy with tradition and steeped in the Confucian value of respect for one’s elders. Preparing the ceremonial food is traditionally the purview of the women, particularly the daughter-in-law of the family, while the ceremony is performed by the men.  Some aspects of the ceremony could be indecipherable from the perspective of Korean kids growing up in the U.S., and the film points out that culture gap.

In Jesa, the two brothers of the family, an older teenager and a pre-teen, growing up in the U.S., view the ceremony as outsiders.  The other attendees are adults, either immigrants or visiting from Korea.  The film is too brief to get into each of the characters’ stories, but the viewer gets to know the mom who is working non-stop in the kitchen, making the many dishes required for the ceremony.  The viewer also gets to know the two sons; they check in with their mom, and help around the edges.  She speaks Korean with the older son, and with the pre-teen younger son, she speaks in Korean and he answers back in English.

The audience also finds out that the father lives in Korea, and is supporting his wife and sons to live in the U.S.  He is visiting his family in the U.S. for the jesa, and wants his sons to understand the importance of the day.  The two sons are clearly allied with their mom, and the central tension in the film happens when the husband blames his wife for an infraction of the expected decorum. In the conflict, dangerous cracks appear in the thin veneer of Confucian tradition that the family has constructed for the occasion.

The film that almost wasn’t

The movie almost did not happen.  Seo said he started at NYU as a film major, then had to take a hiatus to do his mandatory two-year military service in Korea. Upon returning from military service, “then COVID happened and I kind of put it aside,” he said.  Having doubts even about pursuing  a career in film, he still needed a thesis project after his first film, and became “desperate to pick a subject, and it made sense that this is the only one that I had in mind to do, and would regret not doing if I gave up film.”

Another complication was a serious injury he got whle playing soccer that had him laid up, anxious and uncertain. “It was a pretty bad injury where I couldn’t really go out of my room, and I was confined to a space and was going through a period where I didn’t know whether I could continue to direct.”

At that point, the filmmaker said, “I was like ‘I don’t even know if I can make a film, but if I’m going to do it one last time, this will be it.’  Because it was the film I always wanted to make, and maybe partly what got me into this in the first place.”

Seo said he does not identify with either the older brother or the younger in the film.  Instead, he explained, he concentrated on the modern-day meaning of the ancient jesa ceremony. The film touches on ideas of family and growing up Korean American, as he thought about them as a child, and as he derived deeper meaning about them as an adult.  

Seo (left) does a selfie with the cast of Jesa.

A knack for casting

Seo worked hard to find actors who were native Korean speakers for his film, paying attention to how well they portrayed emotion while speaking in Korean. He recruited Esther Moon, who plays the mother, after they met during his internship with Bound Entertainment.  “I was surprised at how emotional her performance could be in Korean, which is rare in the States, and thought she would be ideal candidate.”

Seo tried to give each actor something to do, even if it was small or in the background. For example, the younger uncle (played by Jude Kim), gets a few laughs in his mini-scene with a bottle of soju that saves the day.

The older teen Tae Young (played by Sung Chul Choi) clashes with his father in defense of his mom after his dad shouts at her in front of the family. Her infraction of the rules is stumbling and spilling soup on the way to the table.  The scene was understated at first, but was developed into a “screaming match” between Tae Young and the father, he said. There is an interesting use of sound when the younger brother Jin Young watches in shock as his father and brother shout at each other, and the scene fades out with a high-pitched tone that increases, in volume, as if the younger brother’s mind is blocking out the harsh words.

There was a screening at NYU this April, and Seo’s team was awarded the “Best Ensemble Acting” award, he added, “It helped validate for me that our performances were great.”

The roots of Jesa

Despite living in the U.S., Seo also spent time in Korea with his relatives, particularly his beloved grandparents. “And to this day, we practice the ceremony,” he said. But, for him, there was a disconnect.  “I was growing up in America with my mom, who raised me kind of by herself.  My dad was still in Korea, and she was taking care of me and my brother, she was going to school learning art therapy,” Seo explained. “She was very busy and was doing this all by herself. It made her a very powerful and independent woman, in my mind, but when it came to being in Korea and doing these ceremonies, she was very much subjected to this specific role.”

As he grew into adulthood, Seo said, his mother started to tell him more about what was happening behind the scenes during some of those key childhood years.  He heard some explanations of things he always thought were ‘off,” he said, “Not just in the ceremony, but in her marriage.  So this film a way to kind of express, finally, those kinds of thoughts and ideas that as a kid I had but wasn’t ready to put out there and express.”

In Jesa, Seo distills his emotions and revelations into a story that describes a mix of tension and unhappiness in the mother, and rage in the father which is disproportionate to the small mistake that happens during the ceremony. Both brothers’ views are also revealed.  “There are two perspectives – innocence, and then adolescence where everything is very hot-headed and you want to fix things, but that can be a bit destructive,” he said.

The older son is frustrated and only partially understands about his mother’s oppressive marriage to their dad; the younger son perceives just a glimpse of his mother’s unhappiness, consoling her and offering to share his prized honey cookie with her instead of eating it by himself.  

Viewpoint from two cultures

In straddling two cultures, Seo realizes how it changed him, and added complexity, as well as discernment, to how he views the world.  The filmmaker shows the viewer the biased and incomplete view of both brothers, and plays with the idea of two unreliable narrations of reality as the camera calmly observes.

After the food is on the table and the ceremony begins, the camera shows the mother standing, unseen, at the back of the room. Seo said he remembers the women of his family sitting in the kitchen during the ceremony.  “They had already done all the work, and the ceremony is just a short thing, maybe a half hour. If there were a lot of guests, it could be an hour of standing. So for them, it was finally their time to have a break,” he explained.

Even as a child, he remembers feeling “that it was so odd that they do all the work but at the end of the day, the men just sort of take the lead. They have a sense of pride and ownership over the ceremony, but all that work is not acknowledged.”  In telling the story, he said, “it made sense to kind of isolate the lone mother figure to dramatize the separation. Everyone else is related by blood, except her. It’s shown, but no one really talks about it.”

Seo said he has “maybe more American ideals about an egalitarian society” than someone who was brought up only in Korea.  He remembers admiring certain views of his American classmates “They seemed to all have this trait of being able to call out the B.S. and say ‘this is not OK – I don’t condone this.’”

In part, he reflected, the story of Jesa was catalyzed by his inability to express how he saw that such cultural practices were a mismatch with modern society.  As an adult and a “fuller version of myself,” he said, “I can now say ‘I don’t think this was the best way to enforce tradition or culture.’ I cannot do anything about what happened, but I can still do my part to tell the story.  It is partly my mom’s story, but I still had my views as a bystander, and that’s the only story I could tell.”

Creating a film about one’s own experience, even when only loosely based on one’s own family, is tricky.  “I definitely had a lot of fear, and had to take precautions,” he said.  However, he said, his family, particularly his grandfather, had always urged him to be honest.  “I wanted to make something I could stand by and be honest about. And this ceremony and my family – they are still people I love and a culture and history that I really value.  But at the same time, I could notice the flaws, and I’m sure other people could notice them too.”

Microcosm of a changing Korea

During his childhood in the mid-2000s, Seo believes he was living through a time in Korea when the traditional strict rules of gender roles, at least certain ones, still applied.  Although he did not know it at the time, things were changing in Korea, and his family, with some in the U.S. and some in Korea, were feeling it acutely.

These days, Seo observed, “Korea is in a very transitional phase. Younger people have a lot of vocal power, and really can just kind of stick it to the older generation and say ‘I don’t want to get married, I don’t want to have kids, and I want a career. I don’t want to have to live with another family.’”

There is also a demographic of what he calls “traditionalist families”; his father’s side is typical of this. Despite his grandfather’s love and high regard for his brother’s wife, “there is an expectation” by his grandfather (and other Korean elders) that women will get married around age 30 or younger  “and then they are expected to bear kids, and my grandfather wants grandsons and great-grandsons.”

Seo has reflected upon some things his mother shared after she saw the film. “One was that when she married – she was 24, and I’m now 25 – her parents apparently literally told her ‘you are marrying off to another family, and you are going to spend the rest of your life with them, and you are going to be their daughter-in-law, and you are going to perform that role, and if it doesn’t work out, you cannot come back, and you have to ride it out.’”

Being told that there was no support system for her was traumatic, Seo said. “It may not have influenced her decision to stay [married) because… like 80 percent of the childrearing was her responsibility.  She said it definitely would have been less stressful and traumatic if her family had told her they were willing to take her back. But she didn’t have that option.”

Having such deep conversations with his mother informed his scriptwriting for Jesa, which is set in the mid-2000s. “The more I think about it and look back, I can see that it was a totally different time, when women had different responsibilities to follow that were not dependent on how they felt or what they wanted.”

As a filmmaker and a storyteller, Seo continually asked himself if he was presenting it “in an authentic manner, without trying to enforce a view or a lesson.”  Too little information, and the audience will not perceive the message; too much and it would become didactic.  Seo believes he hit the balance.

There are moments where the film is depicting the best parts of a family gathering – the food and the laughs, he said. “But there is a sense that we know something is not quite right.”  

Since the mid-2000s, Korean culture has changed, Seo said. The jesa ceremony has become less common. It is also less common for the daughter-in-law to be solely responsible for the preparation. “People are doing it differently because they don’t see the necessity of someone going through all that work …or now, there are delivery services where you can just have the food delivered [for the ceremony],” he said.

Jesa will be screened at two New York film festivals in August – the Asian American International Film Festival and the Greenpoint Film Festival. As a short film, it can compete with other short films, but is not the type of film that typically brings in revenue.  Sometimes, a short film can be a “proof of concept for a feature,” he said, but he does not plan to make Jesa into a feature-length film. However, the film will be useful as a kind of “calling card” about him when investors or anyone else needs to see a sample of his work. Right now, he said, it will not be available for viewing outside film festivals, but he wants it to be on some kind of platform in the future.

During the production of Jesa, he had a chance to apply for a fellowship that required a TV pilot script for entry.  He had no script that fit the bill, and he had a three-week deadline. “I thought that I had always wanted to write about my soccer team – we had a Korean soccer team at NYU, and we had won three championships back-to-back.  And there was always a little bit of drama.” He wrote a script and sent it off on line.  “We went ahead to shoot the [Jesa] film, and months later, I found out that I got one of the fellowships I applied for.”

Film fellowship and grad school

Thesis films in film school tend to be self-reflective, with coming-of-age themes, Seo said. The new film  “will be a rom-com, which is a very different genre and a very different feel … I like romance, and I like soccer, so the next projects will continue to inherit my Korean and American views and experiences, but I feel like family drama is not the only medium or genre I’m interested in.”

The fellowship, from the Hollywood Radio Television Society (HRTS), will also include helpful support in the form of script development and with consultations about how to pitch the film to investors. The HRTS also holds networking and educational events of interest to filmmakers.

At the same time, he will apply for a graduate program from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, where he will continue learning, directing and writing for another two years.

After getting  audience feedback from screenings, Seo said he was pleased that audience members liked the theme of coming-of-age and family interaction.  “I took that as high praise,” he said.  Seo is persuaded that in writing about his own Korean family, the most important information the film imparted was not related to Korean culture as much as it was to universal experiences everyone has with their families.

Other friends and former classmates who came to the screenings knew little or nothing about  Korean culture, but that didn’t matter, Seo said.  “Some of my friends from Boston, and a former roommate from rural Connecticut came to see it,” he recalled. “and my roommate said ‘it reminds me of some conversations I’ve had with my mom.’”

Seo said he is not committed to making Korean family dramas, but he is driven toward the authenticity of writing about his own truths.  “I do things based on my experiences, because I feel things and I want to express them and go on a journey to figure out why it is bothering me or interesting me,” he said. “I think [Jesa} was able to give me a lot of closure in a lot of ways. And now, I’m ready to move on to another subject.”

A trailer for Jesa is on the Asian American International Film Festival website, at this link.

Copyright ©2024 Korean Quarterly. All rights reserved.

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