Korean Quarterly

Giving Voice to the Korean American Community

Korean book review

One brother’s crossing

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Nuclear Family ~ By Joseph Han

(Counterpoint Press, Berkeley, 2022, ISBN# 978-1-64009-594-6)

Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Summer 2024)

At first glance, the Cho clan in Joseph Han’s debut novel Nuclear Family seems like a typical Korean American immigrant family in Honolulu. With the help of their 20-something daughter Grace, Umma and Appa run a popular Korean plate lunch restaurant (“plate lunch” is a very Hawaiian reference to an old-fashioned restaurant serving hot lunches.) Grace’s older brother Jacob has a job teaching English in South Korea, as part of his broader quest to learn more about his heritage. The building of the restaurant business has not been easy for the family, but Appa thinks they are finally on their way to achieving the American Dream.

Then one day, while working at the restaurant, Grace hears a story on TV about a Korean American man who was shot while attempting to cross the DMZ into North Korea. Who would attempt to pull off such a ridiculous and dangerous stunt? But then she looks more closely at the television, and notices that the man in question looks suspiciously like her brother. It couldn’t be…

But of course it is Jacob, and soon she has to break the news to her parents that their son (who was shot but not killed) is now being detained by the North Korean government. Soon it’s all over the local and international news, with the general consensus being that Jacob was a spy, though for whom it’s not clear.

In the ensuing weeks, Umma and Appa attempt to recover from their shock, while also mourning the loss of many of their regular customers, including old friends who avoid eye contact on the street. They also receive several prank calls telling them to go back to North Korea where they came from, even though neither of them has ever been there.

Appa’s nerves are frayed. On top of their son’s dangerous predicament, they were so close to opening up a second location of the restaurant and finally being able to purchase their own house. After his son’s crossing of the DMZ, and the news about it, business is flagging.  He becomes very short-tempered, and when a cockroach lands on Umma in the restaurant, he freaks out and tries to kill it, which is not a good look in front of their few remaining customers.

Grace tries her best to dissociate herself from the stress by avoiding her parents and getting high with her friend David whenever possible. Suddenly, the façade of the perfect Korean American family has come crashing down.

Han’s chapters shift back and forth in time between various family member’s perspectives, including the isolated Jacob. The author hints at some reasons why Jacob may have attempted a crossing of the DMZ. We learn that during a tourist-trap tour of the DMZ, Jacob became incensed at his tour guide’s simplistic depiction of the Korean War, and how the role of the U.S. is conveniently left out. Why not tell the whole story, and explain that Korea was just a convenient playground for superpowers with larger international agendas?

Back home in Hawaii, Appa fears for his son Jacob’s health and safety, but he also does not know how to connect with his own son. Years ago, he saw Jacob crossing the street in Chinatown and was about to roll down his window and ask if he needed a ride, but then he saw that Jacob was holding hands with another man. Was that really Jacob, or were his eyes deceiving him? Without a clear conclusion, he drove away in silence.

In addition to the four main members of the nuclear family, Han includes the perspectives of his grandparents, Halmeoni and Haraboeji, and the stories of how they were separated from their own family members during the Korean War. Halmeoni is now old and weak, and can barely walk without help, but she remembers being a little girl in Korea, walking up and down the vast Korean peninsula searching for her family. We learn that Harabeoji had another family in Korea that he was separated from before he met Jacob and Grace’s Halmeoni and started a new family.

The author uses his text in creative ways, sometimes repeating the same word over and over across an entire page to convey the DMZ, or a squiggly line in the form of the 38th parallel (which is not a straight line, as those familiar with Korean geography will know) to divide sections or chapters.

Han also draws upon his own experiences as a Korean American in Hawaii to depict the lives of the fictional Cho family sharing quirky insider tidbits about the unique Asian American melting pot of Honolulu. In January 2018, people living in Hawaii woke up to an emergency alert on their phones, saying that there was an incoming ballistic missile and that they should seek immediate shelter. Many thought that it was North Korea dropping a nuclear weapon on Hawaii, and said goodbye to their loved ones. Clearly, it was a false alarm, but one that woke many people up to what was really important in their lives – this incident is also reflected in the lives of the Cho family.  

The stories of each member of the Cho family epitomize the Korean concept of han – the feeling of grief, resentment, and regret stemming from so many individuals’ stories, as well as the collective history of Korea as a colonized land taken over by foreign powers and divided into two, a move that has divided families for more than 70 years.  The division of Korea is now a permanent wound that is a unique and painful part of Korean and Korean American culture, and reverberates in the lives of all Korean families today.  

Musing and stress eating

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I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki ~ By Sehee Baek

(Anton Hur, trans., Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2022, ISBN# 978-1-5266-5086-3)

Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Summer 2024)

The cheeky cover of Sehee Baek’s  I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki has a whimsical graphic novel-type illustration of a young woman laying face-down at the edge of her bed, huge bubble-sized tears being ejected from her eyes, while reaching out with her chopsticks for a delicious bowl of tteokbokki on the floor. It looks like she is in a momentary funk, and stress-eating the most delicious late-night snack in the world.

However, this playful cover design is a bit misleading, as readers soon learn. Baek struggles with dysthymia, or persistent mild depression, and her slim “therapy memoir” is a collection of her random musings and conversations with her psychiatrist. In the introduction, she explains that she wrote the book as a record of her struggles and her progress, with the hope of moving in a more positive direction.

Baek’s honesty about her depression is both disarming and refreshing at the same time. She shares quite personal details and dark emotions, and is unafraid of expressing her annoyance at other people who try to help her. “Sometimes, when someone tells me to ‘cheer up’ when I’m going through a tough time, I just want to wring their neck.”

Baek includes some simple and useful advice from her psychiatrist, words that all of us can benefit from. For example, Baek puts an inordinately high value on how other people perceive her, which sometimes leads her to spiralling into depression. Her psychiatrist points out that how she thinks about herself is far more important than what others think about her, and we then get to see how Baek does her best to apply this advice to her life in real time.

It’s hard to know exactly how to take in I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki. Is the author being brutally honest about her depression, or is part of it performative? Does she really put her depressive thoughts on hold in order to eat tteokbokki? If she is really being honest, it is admirable that she’s putting herself out there and being vulnerable, but at the same time, don’t we all have these similar thoughts, wondering what people truly think of our work, and aren’t we all to some extent insecure about how we look or self-conscious about something dumb that we just said? Perhaps it is the novelty of her sharing of these musings that makes it a ground-breaking, clever book.

Portraits of ordinary elders who survived extraordinary times

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Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers: Remembering the “Comfort Women” of World War II ~ By Seong-won Han

(Tuttle Publishing, North Clarendon/VT, 2023, ISBN #978-0-8048-5663-8)

Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Summer 2024)

About 20 years ago, artist and historian Seong-won Han’s work on a documentary on war and women led him to the stories of Korean women who survived military sexual slavery by the Japanese, the so-called “comfort women.”  These women were abducted and taken to what the Japanese called “comfort stations” to be repeatedly raped by members of the Japanese Imperial Army. The comfort stations were located throughout their conquered territories in Asia during World War II.

In 2019, he interviewed about a dozen of these women, who were in their 80s and 90s; he also drew portraits of them. Han compiled these drawings, interviews, and accompanying text into the slim but powerful volume Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers:  Remembering the “Comfort Women” of World War II.

Though Han’s book may look like a graphic novel, as much of it is formatted in cartoon-like panels, he treats his interview subjects with great reverence, introducing each halmoni (the Korean term for grandmother) at the beginning of each section with a color portrait and short biography. Some of the women are depicted in simple line drawings and a stark black background, and others are depicted in more detailed paintings with gorgeous backgrounds.

Rather than focusing on the years of terror and violence through which these women suffered, Han’s goal was to focus on their strength and resilience, and the new lives that they created after the war ended. He wanted to write about the women as regular halmonis, mothers, neighbors, and friends, whom readers may have encountered without knowing anything about their past lives.

Despite Han’s desire to focus on the positive, there is no denying the horrendous suffering that these women endured, and he includes their painful but important histories in his narration. For example, one of the interviewees, Gab-soon Choi, was only 15 years old when she was taken by the Japanese Imperial Army to a Japanese base camp in Manchuria, where she suffered unbelievable atrocities. After the war, she walked south to her home, traveling for more than four years, begging for food along the way. She lived the rest of her life alone, until her death in 2015 at the age of 96. Han’s drawing of Choi is breathtakingly beautiful, as she sits looking up at the stars, waiting for the apology from the Japanese government that never came.

Another interviewee, Gun-ja Kim, was born in Pyeongchang in 1926, and at age 17 she was already engaged to be married when she was kidnapped and transported to a Japanese comfort station in China. She attempted to escape many times, but was beaten each time, becoming deaf in one ear. After the war ended, she returned home to her fiancé, but due to the shame, he committed suicide. Her baby daughter also died at only five-months old. She lived with these multiple sources of pain until she died in 2017 at the age of 91. Still, she spent her life advocating for others, and donated her life savings of 100 million won ($760,000) to a Korean foundation to help students pay their tuition. Han uses wide brushstrokes and only four colors to paint Kim, whose eyes twinkle with joy in her portrait.  

Most of Han’s drawings are in a simple comic book style, but he includes about 10 more realistic paintings of the grandmothers at the end of the book. Perhaps they had a say in how he depicted them, as their personalities seem to emerge here, either playfully in a field of flowers, regally in a full length flowing hanbok, or a close up showing gray hair and the deep creases of both hardship and strength. The subject matter is difficult, but the end result is not to be missed.

Defining themselves

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Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants ~ By SunAh M. Laybourn

(New York University Press, New York, 2024, ISBN #978-1-4798-1478-7)

Review by Alice Stephens (Spring 2024)

As the demographic age of Korean adoptees becomes older, they have assumed control of their own narrative, producing literature, media and works of art in which their own identify is defined. They have also taken control of their group’s critical legal and human rights issues, lobbying for a law that would protect adoptees’ citizenship even when adoptive parents failed to secure that citizenship as children. 

These creative and self-aware activities by what is now a mature and established U.S. immigrant group are described in depth by sociologist (and Korean adoptee) SunAh M. Laybourn in her recent book Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants.

As a Korean-born person in a white, American family, I have spent a lifetime grappling with being a transracial, intercountry adoptee, but there was one part of my identity that I habitually ignored. It was not until my 40s that I recognized how being Korean is part of my heritage, and that another piece of my identity is that of an immigrant. I could perhaps efface that part of my story and identity because my father was an American soldier, making U.S. citizenship part of my birthright. But the reality is that he abandoned me in South Korea. If I had not been adopted, I would not have been eligible for U.S. citizenship.

Adopted in 1968, I was naturalized in 1971, and among my adoption documents are my naturalization certificate, a welcome letter from Richard Nixon, and a pamphlet explaining my rights and responsibilities as an American. It was not until Adam Crapser’s deportation case hit the news in 2017 that I became aware that the American government had no laws in place to guarantee citizenship to all children adopted from abroad.

Laybourn explores the “exceptional belonging” experienced by Korean adoptees and the impact it has on their identity construction. The author explains in the introduction,

I define ‘exceptional belonging’ as the condition for being extraordinarily equipped for inclusion through culturally constructed narratives of deservedness while also being routinely identified for exclusion whether through formal policies, informal practices, or interpersonal interactions.

Through the lens of exceptional belonging, the author closely scrutinizes the unique place that Korean adoptees occupy in the American continuum of hierarchy, with whiteness as the apex.

In the course of her research, Laybourn gathered information from an online survey, in-depth interviews, Korean adoptee events, and analyses of adoptee-centered films. The majority of those interviewed were adopted into white families and were in their 20s to early 30s in 2016, when the interviews were conducted. Some had been long involved in the adoptee community, while others were new to it.

The popular American immigrant story usually depicts loss, struggle, and self-sacrifice. But the typical challenges of immigration — such as gaining entrance to the U.S., assimilating to a new culture and language, establishing financial security — do not apply to the infant or toddler adoptee. Through proximity to whiteness, they are not subject to the usual indignities of being a fresh-off-the-boat newcomer.

Growing up, it is not unusual for the Korean adoptee to identify as white, and to deny or reject their Korean origins. Laybourn claims that for adoptees “it was within their family that they first encountered positive feelings associated with being American (i.e., white) and negative feelings associated with being Korean.” Socialized to view themselves in a white racial frame, Korean adoptees then encounter resistance from others in society, and even from within their own families, who may engage in overtly racist language, or convey a more subtle form of othering through comments like “We don’t see you as Asian.”

Once the Korean adopted person is separated from the protection of their family, it becomes clear that they are not allowed the benefits of being white. They are asked insensitive, probing questions such as “Where are you from really?” and “Do you want to look for your real parents?” They are held to the stereotypes of the Asian model minority — hardworking, obedient, good at math — and the girls and women are subject to sexual fetishization — exotic, eager to please, sexually knowing.

They experience the same garden-variety racism of racial epithets, jeers, and casual or explicit discrimination experienced by every other Asian in America. This can be perplexing to the adoptee. “Transnational transracial adoptees confuse the ‘us’ and ‘them’ of in-group/out-group boundaries. Korean adoptees raised in white families are one of ‘us’ — white family members — and one of ‘them’ — Asian foreigners — conflicting racialized positions,” the author observes.  

This idea of being a foreigner despite proximity to whiteness has manifested itself into frightening reality for some intercountry adoptees who, upon reaching adulthood, discover that their adopters never obtained American citizenship for them. Adulthood, according to Laybourn, transforms Korean adoptees from “adoptable orphans” to “deportable immigrants.” Laybourn uses the example of Adam Crapser’s deportation to South Korea as testament to the transformation of a child in need of saving to a foreign adult with criminal tendencies.

Twice adopted into abusive families who neglected to get him naturalized, Crapser was a catalyst for adoptee activism, as numerous intercountry adoptees began to discover that their parents, too, had abrogated their responsibility to naturalize them. The adoptee community was outraged that Korean children could be separated from their families in order to complete an American family, then left with no legal protection when their adoptive parents failed in their duty to make them American citizens.

“The irony was that for undocumented adoptees this better life [that adoption purportedly offered] was similar to the life they may have had in their home country. They existed on the fringes of society, unable to partake in the benefits as citizens,” the author writes.

The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 rectified the situation for intercountry adoptees under 18 years old, but does not cover adoptees who were older than age 18 at the time the act became law in 2000.  Galvanized by this issue, adoptees began to organize and advocate for themselves, creating groups such as the Adoptees Right Campaign and Gazillion Strong to promote passage of the Adoptee Citizenship Act (ACA), which would bestow automatic citizenship on people adopted by U.S. citizens.

“Advocacy for the ACA was distinct from previous adoptee citizenship legislation, as it was primarily spearheaded by adoptees for adoptees rather than by adoptive parents or adoption agencies,” the author points out. While trying to move away from the image of adoptee as child, ACA advocates found that “legislators could be moved by thinking about white interests more than immigration interests just as they were at Korean adoption’s inception.”

Therefore, it was more efficacious to emphasize the protection of white family interests, and to emphasize that adoptees were “good” citizens who were in this situation through “no fault of their own,” distinguishing them from “bad” undocumented immigrants, who have been subject to increasing vilification in this time of extreme political polarization. Though iterations of the bill have been introduced multiple times in Congress, the ACA has yet to be passed, leaving an untold number of adoptees in jeopardy of being deported from the only country they have ever known. Meanwhile, immigration laws have only become more draconian and the naturalization process more fraught.

From the collective identity of adoptee activism, Laybourn then examines individual identity formation, which typically happens well into adulthood, once the adoptee is somewhat autonomous of their adoptive parents and fully cognizant of the micro-aggressions and othering that happen within society, friend groups, and their own families. Often, they begin to reclaim what was denied to them, such as Korean culture and Asian solidarity. They no longer avoid thoughts of their birth families for fear of being disloyal or ungrateful to their American parents. That change in perspective often leads to their engaging in active searches, including trips back to Korea. They find validation and support by being in community with adoptees, no matter class, religion, sexual orientation, and other differences.

Creative works that seek to capture the Korean adoptee experience have sprung from adoptee efforts to define themselves in society, and Laybourn plays close attention to the film documentaries Twinsters and aka Seoul, which she explains as “two contemporary mainstream adoptee cultural productions created by adoptees, as sites of disidentification, where adoptees rework the normative meanings of adoptee, adoption, family, race, and citizenship.” Taking a fine-tooth comb to the documentaries, the author makes an argument for how these films reframe the Korean adoption narrative by giving adoptees control of the story and making the broader public aware of the global community that is manifested in meetings like the International Korean Adoptee Association’s tri-annual Gathering in Seoul.

She also dissects the controversy around the non-adoptee-directed movie Blue Bayou, which was perceived as using Crapser’s story without his consent, and not going far enough in promoting adoptee citizenship rights, resulting in a disavowal by adoptees, meant to be its target audience.

Events are moving fast in Korean adoption studies, and Out of Place does not include recent news such as South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation investigation of adoption, Sweden’s halting of Korean adoptions following claims of malfeasance, and Denmark’s commitment to end Korean adoption for the same reason, all of which were instigated by adoptee activism. Popular movies such as Joy Ride and Return to Seoul, while not adoptee-directed, are moving the adoptee narrative away from sentimentalized savior stories. And within the last five months, three critical adoption studies by Korean adoptees have been published, including this one.

Though this is a scholarly work, the writing and concepts are accessible to the general reader. Through terms like “exceptional belonging,” “public racialization,” and “adoptable orphan, deportable immigrant,” Laybourn gives a vocabulary to that peculiar niche Korean adoptees inhabit in their own country, whether citizens or not.

Growing up in the shadow of Japanese occupation

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Beasts of a Little Land ~ By Juhea Kim

(HarperCollins, New York, 2021, ISBN# 978-0-06-309357-7)

Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Summer 2023)

During a bitter snowstorm in 1917, an impoverished Korean widower named KyungSoo Nam hunts for food to feed his starving children.  Finding nothing, he lays down in the snow, ready to meet his beloved wife in death.  At that moment, he spots a young tiger – a prized species whose hide, bones and meat could be sold to feed his family for several years.  Though he is tempted to raise his bow and arrow, he remembers his father’s wise words from when he was a child, to never kill a tiger unless it tries to kill you first. 

A short time later, a brash young Japanese officer named Captain Yamada stumbles upon the Korean hunter, weak and almost frozen to death.  Yamada and his entourage have lost their way on the mountain in the heavy snowstorm. They reckon that if they help revive this nearly-dead hunter with their provisions, he will be able to guide them out safely.

During their deliberations, the tiger returns, ready to pounce on Yamada.  Suddenly alert, Nam steps between them and locks eyes with the tiger, who recognizes his face from their earlier encounter and immediately retreats.

This is the gripping opening scene of Juhea Kim’s debut novel, Beasts of a Little Land, a sweeping project spanning five decades of Korean history.  After the dramatic prologue that hints at elements of Korean folk tales, Kim dives into an expansive story that includes about a dozen main characters.  Jade is a young girl from a poor rural family who joins a courtesan house to help feed her parents and brother.  She is taken in by Dani, the house mother and a celebrated courtesan herself, and befriends Lotus and Luna, two sisters who are also being trained as courtesans.  Along the way, Jade meets JungHo, an orphaned boy who is part of a street gang, and they begin a decades-long friendship.

Though all of these characters experience joy, sadness, love, and heartbreak, the shadow of Japanese colonization of Korea darkens every aspect of their lives.  As the Korean Independence movement begins to grow, Kim introduces us to new characters who are willing to risk everything for freedom. 

This epic novel is an ambitious undertaking, and it is clear that Kim has done her homework.  She has apparently researched Japanese colonization, Korean gisaeng (courtesans), the Korean independence movement, the Korean Communist Party, the liberation of Korea, and the arrival of the Americans. She also tackles broader topics such as classism in Korean society and the construct of nation-hood and empires.

In telling this wide-ranging story, Kim experiments with different literary techniques, such as changing from first-person to third-person narration.  She also adds tidbits of worldly wisdom at the beginning of some chapters, before classifying her characters.  For example, “All the men in the world fall under one of two categories.  First – and far more numerous – is the man who discovers at some point in his life that he cannot and will not succeed any further beyond his present state… The second and exceedingly rare type of man is he who never has to give up rising and expanding until the end of his life.” 

Because there are so many characters spanning several decades, it might be helpful for readers to draw a diagram of names and relations.  As Jade grows from a teenage apprentice to a well-known courtesan and eventually a famous dancer and actress, she stays loyal to her childhood friends, but also meets a cast of new characters. 

HanChol is a penniless rickshaw driver who is besotted with Jade, as he drives her home from the theater each night.  Later, he goes to night school and makes something of himself, mentored by Sungsoo, who also loves Dani.  Meanwhile, an old-money man named Myungbo becomes involved in the Korean Independence Movement and takes Jungho under his wing, sending him on a dangerous mission to Shanghai. 

To her credit, Kim does not give in to the temptation to wrap things up nicely, as of course Korean history has never been very neat and clean.  There is true and unrequited love, loyalty and betrayal, tragedy and redemption, and ultimately, great beauty in her story.  At 400 pages, Beasts of a Little Land is not an easy read, but readers who stick with her will ultimately be rewarded.    

One night on April 29, 1992 ~ Sa-i-gu

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Troublemaker ~ By John Cho

(Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2022, ISBN# 978-0-7595-5447-4)

Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Spring 2023)

Twelve-year old Jordan Park tries his best to stay out of trouble.  His parents work very long hours at their store in Los Angeles since immigrating from South Korea nine years earlier, and he does not want to cause them any additional stress.

So it is very bad news for everyone when Jordan gets suspended from school for cheating on a Spanish quiz.  He is too afraid to tell his parents, so he confides in his haraboji (grandfather),  who spends his days sitting in the living room watching old sitcoms.  Jordan has never been sure how much English his grandfather really understands, so feels like his haraboji may be a safe confidante. 

However, Jordan’s dilemma quickly takes a back seat to a much bigger crisis.  Author (and film actor) John Cho has set the date of his debut young adult (YA) story Troublemaker at April 29, 1992, when civil unrest and looting erupted in Los Angeles as a result of the not-guilty verdict of four white police officers in the brutal beating of an African American man, Rodney King.

The resulting destruction from fires and looting in Koreatown caused billions of dollars of property damage to businesses. The day is commemorated by Korean Americans as Sa-i-gu (literally “four-two-nine” in Korean, for the month and day of the disastrous events).

Jordan’s father is late coming home from work on that day, but the rest of the family is glued to the television, watching news of the protests that are creeping closer to Koreatown.  Jordan’s mom expresses annoyance at the protesters, as they are blocking roads and preventing people like her husband from returning home.  His older sister Sarah defends them, pointing out that the Rodney King verdict was wrong and that people have a right to be angry. 

Though Jordan knows he’s already in deep trouble because of his suspension, he is also worried about his father.  He calls his friend Mike, whose parents also own a business in Koreatown, and they decide to make a dangerous trek back into the city to try to help.  It’s a gripping story, filled with suspense and relevance for both kids and adults.

Cho was initially planning on writing a different YA book during the pandemic, but after the civil unrest that erupted in cities around the world following the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, he decided to tell a story that was close to his heart.  Like Jordan, Cho also immigrated to the U.S. from South Korea as a boy and grew up in LA, so he writes from experience. 

An accomplished actor (Star Trek, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Searching), Cho displays a deft touch in his writing about some very difficult issues.  Though Troublemaker is a middle-grade book, Cho does not shy away from talking about police brutality, gun violence, racism, and the reasons that Korean businesses were specifically targeted during the LA riots. 

Jordan is a good kid, but he feels as though he has been living in his sister Sarah’s shadow.  In his eyes, she is every parent’s dream, with perfect grades, lots of friends, and most importantly, an obedient and respectful demeanor.  The pressure is getting to him, especially when his teachers and parents bluntly ask him why he can’t be more like her. 

Likewise, Jordan’s father is under a great deal of pressure. His first business failed miserably, and he is desperately trying to hold onto his second one.  They both take their stress out in unhealthy ways, including hurting the people they care about most. 

Though the Rodney King riots took place 30 years ago, the issues brought up in Troublemaker still feel timely and urgent.  Like a good film, Cho’s book does not tie up the tough conflicts neatly with a bow in the final chapter, but provides an excellent launching pad for discussions among readers of all ages. 

Saving Hawaii’s Korean history

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The Paths We Cross: The Lives and Legacies of Koreans on the Big Island ~ By Seri Luangphinith

(Ka Noio ‘A’e ‘Ale Press, Hilo, Hawaii, 2017, ISBN #978-0-6920-3348-7)

Review by Jennifer Arndt-Johns (Summer 2021 issue)

In December 2020, I traveled to the Big Island of Hawai’i. During my visit, I picked up a used book entitled Hawaiian Journey at the historic Spencer House in Waimea. This account by Joseph G. Mullins (1978 edition) summarizes two centuries of turbulent Hawaiian history. One section, Newcomers, includes a page allocated to the Koreans, with a black-and-white family portrait and a summary of Korean immigration to the Hawaiian Islands.

I was hooked. On previous visits to Hawai’i, I hadn’t seriously contemplated Korean immigration history to Hawaii, but after returning to Minnesota, I started researching the topic in my spare moments. The Big Island of Hawai’i is inarguably my happy place, so I typed into Google “Korean history Big Island.” This is how I discovered the work of Seri I. Luangphinith, an English professor at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo.

Luangphinith’s The Paths We Cross: The Lives and Legacies of Koreans on the Big Island is a well-researched and heartfelt exploration of ordinary and extraordinary Koreans who immigrated to the Big Island of Hawai’i in pursuit of a better life.  Unlike the Mullins book, with its one page of Korean Hawaiian history, The Paths We Cross is 201 pages of detailed local Korean American history related to the Big Island.

The book is written in both English and Korean, to encourage connection, inclusion and generational continuity, Luangplinith reported.  This decision demonstrates the editor’s understanding that in the generations succeeding the ilse, (first generation) few speak the Korean language.

As an adopted Korean who is not fluent in the Korean language, I appreciated the intention and sensitivity to the complicated issues surrounding the loss of language. While I could not read the pages presented in Korean, I was inspired to see the written Korean and English on facing pages.  Interestingly, the idea for the book emerged from an effort to develop a Korean language studies program at the University of Hawai’i Hilo.

The book is written in a personal and organic documentary style that invites the reader to accompany Luangphinith on her journey. She details the early immigration history of Koreans to the Island, paralleling her own discovery, along with colleagues, of this little-known story.  The project is believed to be the first major attempt to document Korean immigrants’ lives on the Big Island.

The book makes space for voices of those whose stories are significant, yet seldom told. In her research, the editor and her team discovered that a Kurtistown charcoal factory was operated during the 1930s by Independence Movement fighter (and later South Korea’s first president) Syngman Rhee. In an interview, Luangphinith said was surprising that even among the local community, this history has been relatively unknown to this day.  

Rhee had a home in Mountainview (which still stands, but is now privately owned).  He was also a major player in larger efforts dedicated to education. A collaboration between the Korean Christian Institute and Dongji Investment Company helped fund Inha Technical College that would educate Korean Americans.  According to various scholars, it is believed that such pro-active commitment to education by the first generation enabled the second and third generations to rapidly advance in society.  The book cites the work of scholar Yong-Ho Ch’oe citing that “By 1930, Koreans had one of the highest rates of school attendance, second only to Anglo-Americans and bypassing both the Chinese and Japanese.” 

Early Korean immigrants endured extreme hardship starting in 1903 when they arrived as contract workers for the sugar plantations. Fleeing Korea and hoping for opportunity, they discovered a different set of challenges in acclimating to and finding belonging in a new land. From their humble beginnings as the lowliest laborers, immigrants raised up some of the first Korean American leaders.  Ronald Ibarra emerged as the first Korean American administrative judge and Harry Kim emerging as the first Korean American mayor.

The book addresses the critical role of art in the community. Luangphinith acknowledges the “value of art in conjunction to struggles over language and sovereignty to Korean Americans on the Big Island — when all connections to culture have been lost.” The book includes prints of work of East Hawai’i Korean artists Kim C.S. Chang and Su Ok Kim. It also includes documentation of The Paths We Cross exhibition presented at the East Hawai’i Cultural Center in 2017. It included works from prominent artists of Korean Hawaiian artists Hae Kyung Seo and Byoung Yong Lee, among others.

The most compelling section of The Paths We Cross is the documentation the editor and her team of Korean immigrant gravesites on the Big Island, and the tracing of these names back to the unified Korea that existed prior to the 1948 division. It is a true work of heart that has entailed locating, transcribing, etching, photographing and archiving individual graves at sites throughout the island.

The effort has connected them with others who are committed to preserving Korean history on the Island. To date, the team has located 300 grave sites on the Big Island and transcribed over 150. The index sheets they have created are to be archived at the Hawaiian Collection at the University of Hawai’i Hilo’s Mookini Library and the Hawai’i Plantation Museum.

My son and I met Luangphinith on the Big Island in June. She invited us to join her for a short “Korean History Tour.” We met outside the historic Palace Theater in Hilo, where she detailed the locations and types of Korean businesses that used to be located there, and the history of various city blocks.  We then ventured on to ‘Alae Cemetery, located just a few minutes North of Hilo,  a beautiful landscape that overlooks the Hamakua Coast. There is a Korean section is set amidst the Chinese and Japanese sections. As we strolled by the grave sites, Luangphinith recited the stories of each one, as if she had known the individuals personally. She lamented that there were a few first-generation graves that they could not yet decipher due to the deterioration of the incised script over time.  Her main concern is that “time is running out.” I resonated with both the beauty of the cemetery and the palpable energy I felt of disconnection that lingered in this sacred space.

Before we departed ‘Alae Cemetery, Luangphinith placed some potted plants upon a few of the graves and brought a small pinwheel to place upon a young child’s grave. I was deeply moved by her gestures. She said that when she once flew over the cemetery, she noticed that the Japanese and Chinese sections always had flowers and were apparently tended to by someone, but the Korean section was not. She said it saddened her and so she tends to the forgotten graves when she visits.

The Paths We Cross: The Lives and Legacies of Koreans on the Big Island demonstrates how the human spirit pushes individuals to seek new horizons, often with great sacrifice and loss that is difficult for succeeding generations to comprehend. In history’s honor, the following is from a book written by Hyujeong, a Joseon-era monk revered for leading an army in Korea against the invading Japanese in 1592:

            When walking on the field covered with snow

            Do not walk without thinking.

            The footsteps that I leave today

            Will be the milestone for future generations.


The Paths We Cross traces the footsteps of Korean American pioneers from generations before us.  May we, as modern-day seekers have reverence for their journeys, as if they were our own.

(Author’s note: The Paths We Cross: The Lives and Legacies of Koreans on the Big Island can be purchased through the University of Hawai’i – Hilo Bookstore. Limited copies are available. A second edition is slated for publication and release in 2025.)

The self-aware drifter

by

My Year Abroad ~ By Chang-rae Lee

(Riverhead Books, New York, 2021, ISBN# 978-1-59463-457-4)

Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Spring 2021 issue)

Many students hope to do a semester or a year abroad during their time in college.  After all, when would post-college adults ever have another opportunity to live in a foreign country for an extended period, free from the responsibilities of a job, mortgage, or child-rearing, while soaking up a new and potentially exotic culture? 

Tiller Bardmon is one such college student, who attends (in his assessment) a medium-rate overpriced liberal arts school on the East Coast.  The summer after his sophomore year, he is working as a dishwasher at a local restaurant, trying to save money for his study-abroad program in the fall.  One day, while filling in for a friend as a caddy at a local country club, he meets a man named Pong who takes a keen interest in him.  One thing leads to another, and Tiller does end up going abroad, but not to his bland rich-kid-at-the-Sorbonne type program.  Instead, he spends the next year hopping around various far-flung Asian locales as Pong’s assistant. 

In his previous novels, such as Native Speaker and The Surrendered, notable Korean American novelist Chang-rae Lee honed in on one or two main characters and their specific issues.  In his new novel My Year Abroad, Lee is much more ambitious, with more than a dozen compelling characters and many detail-rich settings. He reveals a vast knowledge and understanding of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, local surfer culture in Hawaii, isolated country estates in Shenzen and Macau, and even the culture of suburban American cul-de-sacs. 

Tiller is a typical nice guy who has been flying below the radar his whole life.  He is one-eighth Asian, a random fact that he thinks is the most interesting thing about him.  He grew up in a boring suburb of New Jersey, raised by a single father after his mom left them when Tiller was in elementary school.  His father did the best he could, but they are not particularly close, as evidenced by the fact that Clark does not even raise an eyebrow when Tiller doesn’t see him for an entire year, instead checking in with vague, periodic texts about his study abroad program and promising to have dinner together when he returns.

Perhaps Tiller’s average-ness and humility is what initially draws Pong to him – first as his caddy, then as a taster at his yogurt shop (creatively named “WTF-Yo!”) and finally as his assistant/travel companion as they jet off to Asia with Pong’s business associates to market Pong’s latest venture, a new health drink called Elixirent. 

My Year Abroad oscillates back and forth: the present day, when Tiller is living in a New Jersey suburb with Val, his older girlfriend of a decade or so, and her seven-year-old son Victor;  and the past, a description of his life-changing year abroad with Pong and his associates.  The story of Val is a subplot. She has her own mysterious personal history, and she and Victor Jr. are living under the witness protection program.  She and Tiller have an instant connection at a mall food court, and seem to abide by the “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy in their relationship. 

Readers may find themselves rooting for Tiller, the underdog.  He is a young man searching for his identity, perhaps clinging to Pong as a father figure and Val as a mother figure, and drawn to Asia as his ancient homeland (12.5 percent).  Pong is more grounded, but he is also searching for some greater meaning to his middle-aged life.  His teenage daughters have no interest in talking to him, his wife seems to prefer when he is away on business trips, and his elderly father keeps putting his dirty laundry into their refrigerator. 

As expected, Lee’s dialogue in My Year Abroad is funny, irreverent, and at times profound.  Its narrative is that type of deep, soul searching conversation that is only possible when one is on break from the daily grind of regular life, such as during, well,  a year abroad.  At one point, Pong asks the younger Tiller for advice.  What would he do in this particular situation?  Tiller can’t believe that the worldly older man is actually asking for advice from him, a lonely, boring kid with no prospects.   His answer is ironic, showing that there is more to this young man than meets the eye:

Aside from my not liking having to be alone, my lucky deal as a kid of (relative) privilege was knowing that as long as I didn’t totally fuck up, I’d end up at a decent college and fall into a decent job and maybe meet a woman way more special than I deserved and join the ranks of the daily showered while we all waited around for something compelling to happen.  So yes, I told Pong I would have signed on, though not specifying that it would have been for nothing else than the regular shuffle of footfalls on the ceiling, familiar voices reverberating down the stairs.

In the present day, neither he nor Val works a steady job, but Tiller is able to fund their comfortable middle-class lifestyle with a magic credit card that keeps on giving.  It’s clear that it is Pong’s credit card, but there are lots of obvious questions:  why does Tiller have it, how much can he spend until it’s maxed out, and where is Pong now?  What happened during his year abroad? 

In answering these questions, Lee crafts his most ambitious and brilliant work to date.  Though Tiller and Pong are the main characters, there are other quirky, well-developed characters who flesh out both ends of the story.  There are sexual escapades on several continents, drunken karaoke nights, yoga retreats with yogis from Wisconsin, identify theft, several near-death experiences, and one terrifying human trafficking/slave labor situation.  One wonders how Lee knows this many random facts, but somehow he weaves them all together into a brilliant, hilarious, heart-breaking narrative. 

Copyright ©2024 Korean Quarterly. All rights reserved.

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