…Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.
Time: 1996-2009
Place: Any of your typical public establishments (eg. retail store, restaurant)
Sales Representative: Incredulous.
“How’re you guys doing today? Are you… both being helped?”
I know why he pauses; it’s not through derision or ill will, but ignorance and living in a sea of White.
Of course we are, can’t you see that other employee’s directing my dad? And what 13 year old shops at Target without a parent?
“Yeah, we’re good,” I dejectedly answer. My father doesn’t deem my response enthusiastic enough, so he subconsciously (and in the nicest way possible) says ‘fuck you’ to everyone who’s given us a crooked look, with fatherly aplomb:
“Everything’s fine, this is my son! (insert requisite parental bragging that embarrasses us yet initiates us into the realm of unconditional love)”
Me: Different.
~~~~~~~~~~~
My journey back to South Korea began in Latin America. I had not fallen into $32,000 like Will from http://www.amazon.com/You-Shall-Know-Our-Velocity/dp/1400033543 and wasn’t in El Salvador for a day en route to Korea; instead, I was on a two week trip with peers from my university, sponsored by Global Outreach. In San Salvador, unofficially nicknamed the “Murder Capital of the World,” I first legitimately considered returning to my birth country.
Digging the foundation for a school in Zaragoza.
Eugene (a senior from Villanova who came down to El Salvador with similar intentions): Hey, can I ask you a forward question?
Me: Yeah, go for it.
Eugene: Are you sure? Because I don’t want to offend you…
We’ve been staying in the same house in San Salvador for several days now, sleeping in the same barracks with a dozen other guys. This is the first time Eugene and I have spoken.
Me: Trust me, lemme have it.
Eugene: Were you adopted?
Me (impressed that he was able to surprise me, even with his disclaimer): Woo, nice to meet you too, Eugene. But yes, I was adopted.
Eugene: Because (insert other girl’s name) said that you were Korean, I don’t know how she knew that, and I work with a foundation that sends overseas adoptees back to Korea to learn about their heritage and search for their birth parents.
Me: Heh, thanks Eugene. Real nice of you, and ballsy, but that doesn’t really bother me—the biological parents stuff—too much. I’m not really interested. I’m too Americanized.
The conversation continued on egg shells, not fearing that we would offend each other, but more from futility; a stranger, in 15 minutes, wasn’t about to tear down the fortress that’s kept me contentedly white for 20 years.
Eugene: In case you change your mind, here’s my contact information. I’ve had buddies who felt the same way as you did and they went and came back so different. Lemme know.
Me: Thanks.
Suddenly, the thought of being in an environment where I wouldn’t be different, where I wouldn’t have my niche carved out by stereotypes and cinematic caricatures, immobilized me just as much as my fears of never fitting in did.
~~~~~~~~~~
I decided to stay in contact with Eugene after the trip. We emailed periodically, discussing the probability of my getting to Korea through his program, and the improbability of my winning a scholarship to fund its $3,000 price tag.
Simultaneously, my internship in the finance department at RandomHouse was starting and my three bosses—Kim, Tang, and Wong—all greeted me warmly. On my first day they took me out to lunch to get sushi. Ed and Oui, both in their early 30s, were bombarded with my precocious viewpoints on marriage and ‘how old is too old to have children (for the sake of the child)’. I’m exhausting like that.
I half-heartedly applied for the scholarship and found out that I didn’t get it via Facebook; in class I noticed a student who spoke frequently every class wasn’t there, and I, diligently and industriously checking my newsfeed rather than engaging in discussion, noticed that said student had just “won the Tobin Study Abroad Scholarship. And will be studying in Israel this summer!” Fuck that. Fuck him. Who needs Korea, anyway? I’m fine here.
They're all on Facebook. And the ones that aren't are looking at the people below them that are.
Ed, Korean with the same birthday as me, was my primary supervisor. He taught me the basics of Excel and promoted the thievery of books around the building. But what I’m most grateful for was his ability to thaw my frigid rejection of all things Korean.
Enthusiasm towards Korea increased during my time at RandomHouse, unfortunately, I was without an option to get there now.
~~~~~~~~~~
Hopes dashed, I randomly got an email from the Korean Boston Consulate sometime in April. The woman I was also emailing with from Eugene’s organization forwarded it to me. It alerted me of some “Korean Homecoming Program” for overseas adoptees, sponsored by the Korean government, that was all expenses paid. Obviously I wasn’t going to get it, nor did I need it, so I let the application deadline pass. But three days after when the Consulate emailed me, saying they would accept a late application and sponsor me, I frantically wrote out a melancholic personal essay about my life, dug up my passport, and filled out my first half-English / half-Korean form.
I went to Korea, for 10 days. It took a direct thirteen-hour flight over the North Pole to get there.
My back hurts thinking about it.
I didn’t look different, I didn’t talk much about being adopted, and I don’t remember the names of places I visited or the food I tried. And I didn’t try to. Those didn’t matter.
It would be ludicrous and inevitably unfulfilling to try and recapitulate my experience, especially with the ignoring of tangible detail and focus on personalized emotions—a person would be forgotten, an interaction overlooked. Instead, I remember the steps that got me there and the people I met, not my destination. And the realization of why I needed it:
Time: 7:00pm on July 11th, 2010.
Place: Across the street from 2496 Hughes Avenue, my apartment in the Bronx.
Local neighbor: good-natured.
My dad and I just went food shopping. With him pushing the shopping cart I didn’t have to add up the cost of things constantly in my head. We drove back with heaps of groceries and started unloading them from his car.
“Whoaa, someone’s gonna eat well tonight!”
“Heh, yeah. Thanks. I rarely get to eat this good,” I replied.
“Can I come on over for dinner? Cook me up somethin’ special,” he said in the friendliest, and least perverted way.
“Yeah sure, haha!”
“Who bought you all that?”
I point to my father, a portly man who’s 2 inches taller than me and 70 pounds heavier. Brown curly hair and a propensity for burgers and television over mathematics and manners.
“And who’s he?,” the local man unashamedly asks.
“My father.”
Me: Me.
