PreFACE
Beauty can be defined as “a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, esp. the sight.” Everywhere you go, aesthetic judgments and perceptions are made. The mass media thrives on this and somewhere along these lines we find ourselves lost in a battle of perfection. If you travel and live in a different country, this ideal perfection still exists, even if it is defined differently. Sometimes, it’s only natural to try to see how you “measure up” according to the “standard.” Me? I am done playing this game. At the end of the day, I want to be remembered for my actions, my impact and the way I treat people, not as a “cute” face… How other people perceive my physical appearance does not define who I am. It is more telling of how we judge each other easily. How long are we going to let ourselves be fooled by the media and by comments thrown at us right and left? There’s an unrealistic bar set by celebrities, photoshop and airbrushes and, for those of us in our everyday lives, it’s tough to compete. You’re so cute… I never realized how pretty you were until I saw you in the light…You are so small…You have a small head…Such a cute face, baby face… Wow, I want to have your body shape… Hair yellow, why yellow? So pretty! Are those eyes real? Hey, stop! Can I have your number? Beautiful…Hi, are you lost? Aww, so cute, but Korean must be too difficult for you… School dinner: One glance at my table. So cute. Sorry, I don’t do English. –Walks away. Gwenchanayo. Naneun hangugoh chogeum malhaeseo, sun saeng nim eun nae yup ay ancheul su ithda… (That’s okay. I can speak a little bit of Korean, so you can sit next to me…) –Still walking away. Laughs circulate the table. I laugh, but inside, I feel like a deflated balloon… “You don’t know my brain the way you know my name. You don’t know my heart the way you know my face…” I sprint along the winding roads I have grown to call home and sing this tune as tears stream down my face. It’s been a day. One of those days when I wish I could wear a paper bag over my head. I am a strong spirit with dreams. I’m begging you to just give me a chance; to not judge me at face value. In return, you will have gained a friend and a shoulder to lean on. “Blonde hair, blue eyes” doesn’t mean ignorant Anglophone. With my Québécois heritage, this label tagged on my appearance has caused me inner turmoil. My ancestors fought for their language to become a legitimate part of their society in the so-called “Quiet Revolution” of Quebec. I am proud of my multilingual heritage and I have the spirit of a fighter. You can be sure that I will do the same for your language. I am not a neocolonialist. This is a cultural exchange. I am willing to learn. I do speak some Korean…Oh, too difficult for me? Challenge accepted: I will study every day. Language Equality In your own country, you should not have to feel ashamed for the fact that you aren’t fluent in English. I shouldn’t have to be ashamed for being me. Yet, somehow, I still feel like a fraud. In past travels, I was the cultural chameleon. It felt like a game. I fooled cab drivers into thinking I was French, Québécoise, even Argentinian. After a time, I even fooled myself. You win this round. I can never pose as Korean. In any case, I’ve outgrown that phase. In Gangwon-do, I stick out like a sore thumb and sometimes it feels disconcerting. Still, I see people bragging about how “beautiful, sexy and cute” they are in Korea. I despair. To me, it’s insulting to be objectified. Better to have someone comment on my strength of character or my actions: things that define who I am to the core of my being, rather than this physical shell. I wish I had the nerve and the language capacity to transmit this message to all those with whom I interact on a daily basis. It would give me the feeling of liberation. Until then, I will utilize the strategies I have available: running and yoga. Ergo, said liberation has come in the form of my first yogic headstand ever. Before Korea, I never had the confidence. Now, if I fall, it’s me who picks up the pieces and tries again. I lift my legs—inhale, exhale—is this what it feels like to fly? Absolutely. III. Comparisons: Measuring Up Wow, I want to have your body shape. I wish I was (X) like you. Upon first hearing this, I’m taken aback. I feel embarrassed to receive comments, especially when someone is comparing… Thanks, but do you know how beautiful you are? From the inside out? Here, it is culturally more acceptable to make comments regarding physical appearance. For me, this doesn’t justify comparisons. It hurts to see co-workers and students compare themselves to me. It makes me feel like a negative influence just for bringing these thoughts into their minds (Yes, I am always thinking about my impact. No, I shouldn’t pretend to read minds). I want to empower those around me to see that, since they are beautiful just the way they are, they shouldn’t feel the need to be anybody else. (Notwithstanding, as I initially stated, it’s hard to compete with media and in a world where we are BOMBARDED with images of what is beautiful and what body shape is in. Body type is being treated like a trend…). This is a lesson on self-love wherever you are in the world. I am surrounded by wonderful people, who radiate beauty from the inside out. What is more, I get the chance to help them to see it in themselves everyday. In the classroom, comments on appearance
Call Grandma
by Candy Lee, ETA ’15-’16 “If you had the entire day free, how would you spend it?” our Korean language teacher asked us. We go around the room, offering up answers in Korean. When it’s my turn, I say, “If I had the whole day free I would talk to my Grandma all day.” I’ve always longed to have a conversation with my Grandma, but the Korean I learned growing up was only functional. I knew how to ask where the spoons were or how much something cost, but my knowledge wasn’t deep enough to understand the nuances of the traditional Korean my Grandma spoke. During the five weeks of our Korean language course at Jungwon University, I felt that there was so much at stake for me. If I could improve my Korean, I could better communicate with my extended family, including my Grandma. I didn’t know much about her, except for the fact that she was my dad’s mom and she lived alone in Seoul. She has an apartment building filled with beautiful potted plants, a small T.V., and one of those old-fashioned telephones that you have to swirl your finger around to get to the right number. I didn’t know if she owned a cellphone. I wasn’t sure what she did with her day. The more I thought about it, the more I realized my Grandma is a mystery to me. *** “Have you called your grandma yet? She’s wondering how you’re doing.” It’s August, and I’ve just moved to my placement in Naju. The summer weather is unbearably humid. I’m speaking to my mom on the phone. Even though we are fourteen hours apart, she still finds ways to nag me and I still find ways to make excuses. “No…” I trail off, trying to think of an excuse. I can’t think of one. “Well, call her! She must be so sad not hearing from her granddaughter.” “Yeah, okay,” I say, knowing that I probably won’t. And I don’t. I’m too busy. Busy planning lessons for my energetic all-boys middle school, busy meeting other ETAs after school, busy watching Korean dramas with my host family. I entertain myself throughout the day and push Grandma far into the back of my mind, along with other things I keep forgetting to do. *** “Have you called your Grandma yet? She said you haven’t called,” my mom tells me yet again. This time it’s October. The danpung[1. A Korean word for the leaves changing color in autumn] covers the mountains and the weather has turned crisp. It’s been over two months since I’ve settled down in Naju. I am an hour away from Gwangju, where my mom’s side of the family lives and a KTX ride away from Seoul, where my grandma lives. “It’s just hard for me to understand what she’s saying sometimes,” I say. It’s a feeble excuse, and my mom knows it. I think of how lucky I am to be living in Korea and how excited I was to reconnect with my family. Now it doesn’t feel like excitement. It feels like a burden. *** Growing up, I never missed my extended family because I just didn’t know what it was like to live around people related to you. Sometimes, however, I would watch a movie or read a book and marvel at the relationships I saw between girls and their grandmothers, how protective and strong and sweet it was. The picture of unconditional love. I liked to imagine that my own Grandma would be like that when I met her. I didn’t know what I was missing out on, but sometimes I would see our family of four—Mom, Dad, Cindy and me—and feel that we were too small of a family, like a little island that drifted too far away from its continent. When I was eleven, my parents told me and my sister that they decided to fly us to Korea for the summer—without them. I hated the idea. My friends would all have two months of glorious summer vacation doing nothing besides watching TV, while my sister and I had to spend our entire two months in a place I didn’t remember, with family we had never met. With the exception of one of my uncles, none of my extended family knew any English. I’ll never forget what my mom said to me. We were both sitting in my parent’s room, on the floor. I had had another crying fit, screaming that I wouldn’t go. “You know I want to go to Korea,” my mom said. “I haven’t been there since you were born. All my family and friends are there. Of course I want to go, but your dad and I have to work. We want you and Cindy to go instead of us. Is that okay?” I nodded silently, speechless, because this was the first time I saw my mom cry. *** That summer, I saw Korea for the first time. It was strange how out of place I felt, even if I looked like I fit right in. It wouldn’t be until I opened my mouth and English poured out that people realized I was a gyopo[2. Definitions vary; broadly speaking, an ethnic Korean who has lived the majority of his life in another country]. I was confused at how “un-Korean” I felt. In America everyone identified me as Korean, but in Korea I was too American to fully belong. This year, I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like if my parents had never gotten on the plane to California. I would have grown up in Korea, never speaking English as I do now. I would’ve attended hagwon[3. Cram school; many Korean students attend these academies after school for supplementary education] after school and would’ve spent my free time going to the noraebang[4. Karaoke/singing room] or PC bang[5. Computer room] with my friends after school. Maybe I would
Hungry Ghosts: Part 3
by Leigh Hellman, ETA This is part 3 of a 3 part series, published here on Infusion’s website. hungry ghosts Historians remain hesitant to conclusively label the assassination of Park Chung-hee as a coup d’état. For the two months following it, Park’s prime minister stepped into the role of acting president and Major General Chun Doo-hwan—Park’s commander of the Defense Security Command—went about ostensibly rooting out political and military traitors. On December 12th, 1979, Chun ordered the arrest of the ROK Army Chief of Staff and—along with his supporters—violently consolidated his control of the Korean military. This, historians agree, was undoubtedly a coup d’état; it would not be Chun’s last. On May 17th, 1980, Chun strong-armed an extension of the nationwide martial law imposed after Park Chung-hee’s assassination—closing universities, banning political activities, ordering mass arrests, and further restricting the press—and dispatched troops to ensure “public order and safety” in the wake of multiple pro-democracy demonstrations around the country. Broadcasts went out assuring citizens that this was a natural transfer of power: Stay inside your homes as we pacify any anti-national insurgencies. Do not congregate. Do not protest. From the barbed wire fences slicing along the Demilitarized Zone to the tropical beaches of Jeju Island, across the sanded-down green mountain ranges that bisect the peninsula five times over, along the craggy coastlines that wind vicious and rocky, in industrializing cities and one-lane villages—everywhere doors closed, shuttered, locked down. Demonstrators reluctantly went home. Lights went out. Everywhere except Gwangju. — The first known fatality was a 29 year-old deaf man named Kim Gyeong-chul. He was clubbed to death by Special Forces paratroopers on May 18th as he passed by a swelling protest that had begun at the gates of Chonnam National University that morning, but had since pushed its way towards the streets of downtown and right up onto the steps of the Provincial Office. Witnesses recount that when Kim didn’t follow the paratroopers’ directive to get out of the way—a directive he couldn’t hear—they struck him to the ground and didn’t stop swinging until he was dead. The people of Gwangju and South Jeolla, infuriated by the surge of violence and simmering after decades of oppression, poured into the demonstrations en masse. On May 20th, the army began firing on civilians (whose numbers now exceeded 10,000). That same day citizens burned down a local news station, enraged by their misreporting of the escalating brutality. By the evening, hundreds of cars-motorcycles-taxis-trucks led a parade of buses toward the Provincial Office. Citizens climbed on the hoods and roofs and waved black-white-red-blue flags that, in their hands, dwarfed them. Over the next seven days, those flags would be used to wrap bodies as they lay in open pine boxes lining the floors of makeshift hospitals and headquarters. Even inside and out of the sunlight, the spring heat still got to them. On May 21st, the army fired into a crowd of protesters on the steps of the Provincial Office. In response, factional militias broke off from the unarmed citizens. They raided armories and police stations for M1 rifles and carbines. Gunfights between soldiers and militia members punctured the blood and sweat-thick air. The army finally began to retreat from the downtown area after the militias obtained two light machine guns. Gwangju was declared by its citizens to be a “liberated” city. — In Washington D.C., President Jimmy Carter and his national security team held an emergency meeting to determine the administration’s response to reports funneling in of a crisis unfolding in the southwestern province of Korea: “We have counseled moderation, but have not ruled out the use of force, should the Koreans need to employ it to restore order.” [1. Carter Administration, Policy Review Committee Meeting Minutes (May 22, 1980)] — It’s strange, but the thing that stays with me is the sound. Relatively few video feeds exist so audio tracks are usually run over grainy still photographs instead. A military stormtrooper—baton raised, black combat boots set, visor shut over his face. A cowering man—torn polyester button-up, arms braced over his head, streaks of something dark tracking down his pants. Unnatural puddles in the street. Flatbed trucks stacked high with arms and legs and skulls blown half-away. And in the background sobs, wails, shrieks like the end of the world is here—is now. Is on these streets. Cacophonies of anger, voices breaking at the pitch. The rat-tat-tat of gunfire, in short bursts rather than sustained, controlled commands. But it’s the singing—the flat, off-pitch, half shout-half melody. It’s the singing that bores into my sense memory and infects my synapses as they crack like club against skull. I don’t know what they’re saying. Between my own pitifully lacking vocabulary and the evolution of regional dialects from then until now, it might as well be a rally of nonsense. I don’t know what they are saying, but I feel it in the sink of my stomach still. Sometimes I watch documentaries in insulated rooms—in ergonomic chairs where I can reign as the always-disconnected, always-distanced, always-safe Other. Sometimes I watch and cry; I cry ugly and personal like a steel fire and crumble in real-time like an active shooter in a classroom like a jagged scar left on a place and on a collective soul from when history stabbed and tore and it healed up but not quite right again. I cry and I feel like a fraud. Like an appropriator, like a common thief. Like this is their pain and their trauma and theirs and how unbelievably white and American of me to remake it as all I mine me. — From May 22nd to May 25th, the repulsed troops hung back on the city fringes and waited for reinforcements. From there, they formed a blockade around the city’s perimeter as sporadic confrontations continued to increase the number of causalities. Within the city, settlement committees were formed to support the citizens and communities. Committee and militia leaders clashed over the former’s call for the latter’s disarmament.