The more I refused, the less my mother tried until she grew tired of me rejecting her culture and language. I pushed my Korean heritage away as much as I could as a child because, in my naivety, I couldn’t understand why when I went out with my white English father, people would question whether we were related. I couldn’t understand why my features became a talking point at school and why, if I said I was half-Korean, nobody had heard of the country.
These experiences of feeling “othered” or like you don’t belong in a place you supposedly are meant to feel is home can make you feel like an outsider. This is depicted inwhen Nora explains she doesn’t cry any more since moving to Canada because “nobody cared”. When Nora meets up with Hae Sung for the first time, you sense a feeling of loss within Nora – of the person she used to be, of her Korean identity, and even her level of Korean proficiency.
As a mixed-race British-Korean, I also feel this state of not quite knowing where I feel most at home. Living in the UK, I fall into the British-Asian category, so I’m merely seen as “other”, with much ambiguity around “where I’m really from” and “where I learned English”. Yet when I visit Korea, although I can blend in much more, I am not proficient in either Korean or the culture, so I also feel an “outsider” or “alien”.
Growing up, I loved hearing my mother’s stories of Korea, but all my knowledge and knowledge and understanding of the country was through her lens. I wanted to create my own stories from my own perception of Korea. I wanted to make my own Korean identity outside of the secondary experience told to me through my mother’s memories.
After feeling guilty for the first 16 years of my life as to whether I affiliated more with my English side or Korean side, I slowly began to realise that I don’t have to “choose” – it’s not an identity crisis. I am English but I am also Korean, so I am happy west and east.
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Source: FinancialReview - 🏆 2. / 90 Read more »