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 halmoni1 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 hangul2 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]
