The Only Part About My Trip To Korea You'll Get To Hear From Me.

EARLY ON
I never wanted to go to Korea. It was a truth that I didn't like to admit the older I got, because the older I got, the more in tune I became with my cultural identity. But, prior to my identity-awakening (which is really just in the last two years), in high school, I liked to gloat about not having ever been to the country, as if it was something to gloat about. I particularly enjoyed admitting this to non-Asians, because then they'd be double-surprised that I not only speak American English, but that I also am so American that I've never been to what they assumed was my home country. Back then, I was never to the point where I wished I was white, but I did always want to be a white-washed Asian (because it's honestly cooler than being just white).
When I met with my mom in Korea, she was quick to remind me of my smug attitude growing up: years of proclaiming that I will never visit Korea in my life. "So what do you think?" she asked me. I began to consider how awful it must have been to listen to your daughter hate on the country you were born and raised in, along with the inherent cultural, historical, and ethnic part of you and your daughter that obviously cannot be denied. Only when she asked me what I thought did I even feel remotely disappointed in my past self.

PRE-KOREA, POST-BOOKED FLIGHT
Once it was about two years, then three years into my relationship with Cliff, I kind of had a sense that a trip to Korea was going to be inevitable. Cliff is so 1.8 and I'm so 2nd gen. Then, just before our fourth year together, we booked a flight to Korea. I didn't want to think about it, so I didn't. Literally the day before our flight, I just started feeling mentally unprepared, which is so unlike me. As I've been telling everyone, I was scared to go. I was scared to realize I belong neither here nor there. As a defensive move, my only plan was to go to Korea and make sure they all knew that I am very much Asian American.

UPON ARRIVAL
I realized that it was effortless to make sure they all knew I was Asian American. At the same time, it felt similar to the way I experience New York City's Chinatown: how do I let people know I'm not one of them, even though we share the same small eyes, yellow skin, dark hair, and dark eyes?
The most shocking thing for me was to see that everyone looks the same. And I don't mean that they're all Asian. I mean head-to-toe fashion. All the women had straight, orange hair, pale skin, red lipstick, red eyeshadow, stick straight eyebrows, and the same damn dress over the same damn top. It blows my mind that they would want to look like everyone else. In America, the squeaky wheel gets oil. In Asia, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

THE COMPLEXITY THAT IS GENERATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN IDENTITY
My fear of not belonging anywhere actually didn't happen. I felt wholly and utterly American, and I was so fine with that fact that once I understood this (which was early on), I felt comfortable to be myself. The biggest-- and maybe the only-- barrier for me was language. Due to my past avid distaste for all things Korean, I refused to be proficient in the language. I only regret this because I can't exactly be comfortable being myself if I can't communicate who "myself" is. Image, demeanor, and body language surprisingly only goes so far. For someone who values having opinions and sharing them, it was hard to have opinions and not know how to express them. Did they understand that I really am American, or was it expected that I should know the language because I look like them? Why was it shameful that I haven't previously visited Korea before? Four, five generations from now, would it still be shameful that a Korean American has never visited Korea or doesn't speak the language?

I FELT BAD THAT I WAS MORE EXCITED FOR TOKYO
Several friends texted me before I left New York to send well-wishes for my trip. They were more excited for me than I was for myself. I attribute this lack of excitement to my lifelong fear of facing the identity crisis I've always been in. But, as time went on and jet lag was beginning to fade, I felt a tinge of reluctance to leave. Although, that can be for various reasons, including returning to the worry-world that is Not Vacation, I like to think it was because I had a slew of epiphanies and connections to my life as I knew it while I was in Korea. I guess that's just my sorry attempt at making the trip worth it. I'm genuinely grateful to Cliff and his family for making the trip possible, and I'll need some time to really think about what it really means to me.

Japan, on the other hand, was where I faced my obsession with the exoticism and romanticization of Japanese culture. I have my Asiatic biases, and they're pretty severe-- I acknowledge this. Everything in Tokyo was done with tasteful quality, efficiency, cleanliness, and respect. All manners. All was endearing. They value silence and rules, but also appear to struggle with their inner turmoil of secrets and guidelines. Maybe that's why they have to express their individuality through other means. Their sense of style was inspiring, and made me want to embrace my Asian body frame and use it to my advantage, instead of always seeing myself as less-than. Of course, in America, Asians will always be less than the whites (or rather, all POC are less than the whites, some more privileged than others such as my own race).

My travels, particularly in Korea, helped me recognize the cruel difference of being Asian in America versus being Asian in Asia. It was motivating to see that Korea has its own standards of what is "success" or "cool" or "good" or "bad," and none of it had to do with race, as it doesn't exist. Yet, none of those standards in Korea applies to Koreans in America. "Hyphenated" Americans have to redefine themselves where they might not need to if they lived in their country of origin. So, when a person immigrates to a multiracial and multiethnic country like America, they are stripped of their standards. Whatever they were before, they're no longer. They are vulnerable to whatever it is that white Americans see them as, and either choose to accept it, or fight against it.

CITIES
I never considered whether or not I would actually love New York as much as I loved the thought of it, but I find I love it more. So much, that in spite of the seemingly endless hardship I've felt only since moving here three years ago, I choose not to attribute any of that to the city. But, after this trip, I really started to consider: what makes New York so special to me? It may be the greatest city in America, but what about the rest of the world? I imagine that self-proclaimed "wanderlusts" ask themselves the same question.
I recall a friend of mine in Cincinnati who once told me that she no longer wanted to move from one place to another so that she could finally settle to establish a love of her community.

I'm happy to return to chilly weather, my favorite time of the year in the East Coast.



*More curated photos here.