Obviously I knew that by coming to Korea, I would look like the majority of people (for once in my life). And I knew before arriving in Korea that my minority status would switch. In the USA I'm about as American as they come (I believe in freedom of the individual over the good of the whole, diversity, democracy, etc) but I am a minority by race. In Korea I am a cultural minority but my face is SOOOO Korean.
Yeah, let me repeat that, my face is SOOOOO Korean!! I confuse many Korean people, actually let me take that back. I confuse ALL Korean people!! The first thing out of every Korean's mouth when they hear me speak for the first time is, "Aren't you a Korean person???" (in Korean of course) I get this in taxis, department stores, grocery stores, in school, etc etc etc. Here ethnicity and culture go hand-in-hand. Here it is a very foreign idea that a person who's face looks so Korean is not really a Korean.
Foreigners here who look foreign (esp if you are white) are treated like super stars. Korea is a very homogenous place and so if someone clearly sticks out as foreign, they are greeted as someone special. However if you don't look foreign and you speak English, you are treated with skepticism. And apparently if a Korean person speaks English with a good accent, to other Koreans they are considered snobbish. Hence I get dirty looks all the time when Korean people (especially middle aged women) hear me speak English.
Most of the time I can't communicate with most people. I can speak a little Korean, but nothing on the level that can express complex or abstract thoughts. So when I see foreigners, sometimes I feel a sigh of relief knowing that there are people who I can probably talk with. But they look at me as just another Korean person, and not an American.
So the combination of these different things has led me to feel as if I am a ghost sometimes. I'm nothing special to Koreans or Westerners, and so effectively they don't really see me. And who I am is not what I am projecting to these people, and this projection is not anything that I can control either. In the USA I can better control the personality that I project to strangers b/c our surrounding symbolic system is the same. Here, my face says it all, whether I want it to or not. It wouldn't matter how I dressed, how I carried myself, my mannerisms, my face is Korean and so I am assumed to be Korean, and a snobby one at that. It is a very interesting dilemma.
This hasn't really bothered me yet, if anything it amuses me. I may have the quality of a ghost from afar, but then I retain that element of surprise when I actually have to talk to people. And then when I drop the adopted bomb, hehe, oh man. But that will be a topic for another posting. ^_^
aww, you're special to us :)
ReplyDeleteHi Nicole -- This post, of all the ones you've written, really resonated with me. For you describe the very phenomena that I've imagined would be my experience if I were ever to return to the 'homeland'. In this case, imagination equals fear: this is precisely the reason why I've never gone back. I've shared with you that we have a great deal in common and an equally great deal in difference. But one thing that's clear is that I too possess an unmistakably Korean face and I too am unable to speak Korean with much fluency (though my pronunciation is at native-level proficiency, according to Mi-Hyun!). All I can say now is that my thoughts are with you, as well as my admiration for your courage in doing the very thing I've long feared to do myself.
ReplyDeleteIRONY LIVES! I'll be very interested to see what drawings hopefully come out of this new, nuanced experience of otherness. Also, it would be cool if your secret, ghost status starts to manifest in some sort of superpower.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I realized after seeing an English-speaking comedian and laughing until we couldn't breathe, that humor is also, as you say, complex and abstract, and without that being able to participate in the language around us on that level (in our case, Czech) we hadn't laughed like that in months. After that we started seeking out hilarity online, just to get that fix you can only get from a good solid full-body laugh. Strange to write it now, but it actually seemed to improve our health!
ReplyDeleteso very interesting indeed. it is quite a position you are in, blending in in one sense but then having a sort of barrier still. how is the korean speaking coming for you? it'll be interesting to see how that changes your perspective when you can converse not as a snotty american! (although they totally have you pegged correctly for that one ;) As much as I would like to travel to korea or japan, there's this nervous part of me worrying about walking down the street...i mean i am freak enough here, i can't even imagine there! maybe if i had you and sorae to protect me! i am soo into your blog ;)
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