Stories I Wish I Could Tell My Grandfather
Stories I Wish I Could Tell My Grandfather By Jen Choi Every late November or early December for the past 17 years, my family and I drove down from New Jersey to Virginia to visit my grandfather. Always around the anniversary of my grandmother’s passing, the annual trip would begin with a visit to 할머니’s1 grave before sharing a meal with 할아버지2 and spending time together in his home. Korean traditions wrote much of our time with 할아버지, from the deep 인사3 we would give to greet him to the containers of home-cooked 밥4 and 반찬5 that my mother would bring to fill her father‑in‑law’s fridge. This would be the one time each year I would see my grandfather. Yet every year, as we drove down along the East Coast to see him, I would feel a pang of nervousness because of the language barrier that had developed between our generations. Korean school was forced upon me during my elementary and middle school years, after which I did what I could to resist my heritage. Most of my friends were not Korean American or even Asian American, and Korean felt unfamiliar and awkward on my tongue. A consequence of my rejection of my heritage was that visits to see my grandfather were often uncomfortable, out of fear that he would say something to me that I wouldn’t be able to understand or that he would ask me something that my limited Korean language abilities would leave me ill‑equipped to respond to. Most of the memories that I can recall of 할아버지, especially from when I was a lot younger, consist of 할아버지 giving—like the times he entrusted me and my siblings with prized possessions such as pocketbooks and old family pictures, or the times he gave us 붕어빵6 ice cream to munch on as a sweet dessert. Year after year, my siblings and I would perform 세배7, as our annual visits were shortly before the New Year. And year after year, despite the fact that we had all grown well beyond the age of receiving 세뱃돈8, 할아버지 was always eager to give it to us. 할아버지 filled whatever gaps existed between us due to language with his generosity. Last year, 할아버지 was 94 years old. Over the years, his condition had declined significantly due to many health concerns, especially with his hearing and speaking. The decline in his physical condition happened to be around the same time as when I started to truly connect with my Korean heritage for the first time. Part of this journey of connecting with my heritage involved relearning Korean as an adult, which saw much progress through self‑study during the pandemic. But as I was making progress with my Korean language abilities, 할아버지 was losing his ability to communicate altogether. The last time I had seen him, in December 2023, he had long been unable to speak and had just been released from one of several recent hospitalizations. Because he could no longer hear or speak, there was never an opportunity to tell him that I was going to live and teach in Korea for a year. 할아버지 ultimately passed away on December 15, less than a month before I moved to Korea for my Fulbright grant. As I reflect on my time in Korea so far, I find myself feeling incredibly grateful for many things, among which are the relationships I have built with people here. Before coming to Korea, I never had the courage to speak in Korean with Korean adults other than my parents. Now, more than halfway into my grant year, I can think back fondly on memorable experiences and meaningful conversations I’ve shared with coworkers at school and with relatives who I’ve come to visit often. Yet, for as much joy and gratitude as I feel for these interactions, ones that I couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago, I realized recently that I also feel a deep sadness for the fact that I was never able to experience this with 할아버지. I wish that I could communicate with him with the greater ease that I am now able to with my Korean coworkers and aunts and uncles. I wish that he had known that I would be in Korea before he passed. I wish that I could tell him about how my experience has been here and how I am reminded of him, especially when I spend time with my dad’s side of the family; 고모9 bears a striking resemblance to him and has brought him up in conversation. But it’s not just about the things I want to express to 할아버지—I also want to hear from him directly about the life he lived here in Korea before he emigrated, especially now that I myself have set foot in the motherland. I want to hear him share about what it was like for him to leave his homeland in his late 50s to immigrate to the States. I want to ask him what joys and challenges this experience brought him, in search of a possibility that perhaps there are similarities to my own experience of moving across borders. I realized recently that I mourn not just the loss of 할아버지 but also the conversations we never got to have and the stories I wish I could tell him. One of the last things that 할아버지 ever said to me was about five years ago, when he expressed how proud he was of me for being a teacher. At the time, I had just started teaching only a few months after graduating college. In the years since, moments of discouragement with teaching have often brought me back to these words, and it has never been without feeling deeply moved. For all the obvious sadness about what couldn’t be shared between us during 할아버지’s lifetime on earth, there is also a comforting hopefulness that he would be proud of me now for living and teaching in the motherland. And at the same time, living in the land of my ancestors has taught me to
At Summer’s End
At Summer’s End By Ky Pontious, 1st Year ETA In Florida, the year passes in a humid haze. We eagerly look forward to and then reminisce about the handful of chilly days in an endless cycle. Everything is green. It is hot. We sweat. We blast the air in the car to cool our leather seats. We cover our eyes and squint against the sun as we lumber into the store. Then, hurrying back with our groceries, we try to outpace the beads of sweat perched on our temples. Our routines are as steadfast as the summer surrounding us. In one unendingly vibrant season, a year can blend into two or three, slipping away. Unrooted, I forget to observe, drifting past opportunities to make landmarks in time and memory. As I circle the sun again and again, I have found that the most dismissible and cliché refrain is true: each year passes faster than the last. This realization sits on my shoulders like a yoke. And with the start of a new year, I find myself blown across the planet. My arrival to Punggi is frigid; the silent landscape a mystery that feels tightly closed against me. But as I move through it, I notice that I have traded crows for magpies. I look down and there are no small lizards skittering across the sidewalk, no squirrels scrambling up every tree. The howling winter wind pierces my coat with a determination I have never felt before. Having been steeped in shades of green my entire life, the cold gray seems to linger. But as the ice eventually recedes, a new visitor arrives, bringing color. It is spattered here and there in the distance, then suddenly it is everywhere. Cherry blossoms line the roads and their petals collect in the gutters like snow. They turn familiar trees into strangers. Then, as abruptly as they appeared, they vanish. I wonder if I will remember the distinct sound of those bloom-laden boughs swaying in the wind. Their transience is a reminder that each experience has a first and last, with the timing of the latter almost always a mystery. Will I be here to greet them again next year? Surrounded by spring, that lingering cold suddenly seems like a memory from long ago. I feel a new responsibility to keep every observation close. If I am to be under this yoke, heaving my memories through the years, I want my burden to be a heavy one. This responsibility is bittersweet. In the open tranquility of the countryside, I find not an absence, but a bounty. I begin cataloging the plants, insects, and animals I encounter, each adding new meaning to the landscape. My walks become punctuated with pauses, and sometimes I even find myself running late. Had there always been so many kinds of flowers in the world? Just there — growing against the sidewalk’s edge — a violet blossom I then learn is named the “balloon flower.” While eating lunch one day, my co-teacher leans over and says,“This side dish is called ‘doraji.’’’ He shows me a picture. It is like seeing a friend I was not expecting. I lift it to my mouth and taste the root of that violet flower that had previously caught my eye, inspiring me to unearth its name. So this is Punggi? Neon spiders waiting in their webs and ripened persimmons breaking open on the pavement. Morning glories blooming in purple, blue, and red, then closing against the oppressive summer sun. Rows and rows of apple trees frame the fog-draped mountains. I greet them all as I walk by, despite never knowing when will be the last time. This trip around the sun feels different. I am in a new place, but through its many changes, Punggi slowly reveals itself to me. The spring cuckoo outside my window, once as dependable as the early-rising sun, has gone silent. Instead comes the shrill unified hum of cicadas, always just out of sight. As I walk through town, I step on a single fallen ginkgo nut and feel that summer is ending. [Featured photo by Wendy Owens]
Sunday BEEF
Sunday BEEF By Iris Hyun-A Kim In the Netflix original series BEEF (minor spoiler ahead), there is an iconic scene when Danny, played by Steven Yeun, goes to church. Danny, a Korean American handyman embroiled in a heated revenge stand-off with a stranger, unexpectedly decides to attend Sunday service. He walks in during the timely performance of “Come to the Altar” by the praise band. The camera flits between singing attendees with their uplifted hands and Danny’s slowly shifting facial expression from uncomfortable to emotional. At the musical climax, Danny bows his head and begins to sob. In 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which may have come as a surprise to many Americans that their new neighbors hailed not from China or Japan, but from the tiny peninsular nation that was split in half just 15 years prior. Towards the end of the 20th century, the Korean diaspora community comprised the largest part of new immigrants in the United States, according to the “Boston Korean Diaspora Project” by Boston University. With them came the increased consumption of cabbage (for kimchi), a boom in Korean-owned corner stores and laundromats and the occasional halmoni picking greens off the side of the road. But before any of those instances even materialized, there was the Korean-American church. Korean Christianity grew alongside the southern peninsula’s post-WWII ideals of democracy and freedom and was quickly brought over by immigrants in the following decades. By the time Danny reached the multigenerational English-speaking ministry in the Californian suburbs, a particular sense of community existed within the Korean-American Church — uncanny details of which were portrayed in the BEEF church mise-en-scène. The sight of folding chairs and Danny munching on a donut after service brought me back to the long Sundays I would spend running around my own hometown church. Whether religious or not, many recent immigrants found themselves in a Korean church on Sundays to meet the established immigrants, forming connections and ushering them into assimilation. There were plentiful opportunities to do so, as Sunday corporate worship was only one of the many events happening throughout the day, even more so the week: hiking trips for the elderly and interchurch sports tournaments for youth kids, summer camps and Saturday hangul classes, early morning prayers and after-hours small group gatherings. Babysitting was always free, and kids could always find something to do in the back storage rooms of a building that never went dark. No matter where you were in your beliefs or immigration status, there was a place for you. Like Danny, I found myself crying in the first church service I attended in Seoul for some inexplicable reason. I was fully surrounded by a cacophony of voices singing out, instruments reverberating the room. But despite the ongoing efforts to adjust to life in Korea, I could not help but feel the disconnect with that Sunday. While Danny cried and entered a strangely familiar and comforting community, I cried for the strangely unfamiliar, the discomfort of the land that my body left before it was formed. [Featured photo by Kierstin Conaway]