Identity

"I'm having an identity crisis."
"So you think going to Hong Kong is going to help? Heck, everyone in Hong Kong has an identity crisis."

"I'm having an identity crisis."
"Yes, I think everyone who is Asian has an identity crisis. But they get over it."

"I'm having an identity crisis."
"Why?"

In the end, my identity crisis went away, partly because I got distracted by meeting M., partly because I had a new job to get used to. I can hear the meshing of identities in my voice, in my accent, every hour - it quavers between the Pacific Rim and rolls around the Atlantic. A bastardised English accent with English grammar going to pulp, but, as M. says, "it is what it is".

I think I would have suffered more if I had not experienced living in Seoul and in Hong Kong. Being in Asia as an Asian is a great thing - you are the mainstream. You really don't have to explain anything to anyone - everyone already knows what you are about. It is comfortable, like wearing a tailormade suit. I was sad to move to the States (and I think my parents were sad for me) because I would be in the minority again, living with whatever that entails. I know what it's like to be in both worlds, though, and that makes me more confident in me being just me. I do wonder if my identity crisis would have ever gone away had I not met M. - being with him makes it possible for me to eat Korean food every day yet complete the crossword from the New York Metro together.

My dad was terribly excited about 'Native Speaker' being reviewed by the New York Times.
"Think about it," he said. "He's a Korean, and he's being taken seriously! The New York Times!"
I didn't think of it that way - in my mind, I thought that was how it should be (not knowing the meaning of what it is to be a minority, I thought it was normal for Koreans to get something into the New York Times), and if I were to read the book, I would read it for its merits, not because it was written by a Korean. But when I actually started reading it, I realised I couldn't be as detached. As I read the novel it became more clear that the narrator had his own identity crisis - the awkward and sometimes incorrect use of Korean, for instance, and the obvious misunderstanding of Confucian culture. It astounded me as to how the narrator had such a chip on his shoulder about being an Asian in a predominantly Caucasian society - the narrator blamed his Koreanness. He saw his Korean heritage in such a negative light. M. thought it had something to do with the attitudes of the time.
"You know, they used to say the States was the melting pot of cultures," he said. "I think now the approach is more the 'mixed salad'."
If you had been brought up not to appreciate differences in culture, but rather see the differences as an anomaly, something to be removed and replaced with the mainstream culture, you would resent your own background.
"I think I would have been pretty unhappy if I was brought up that way," M. said, indicating that times have changed since then.

I thought about other Korean Americans I know - how some of them grew up never mixing with other Koreans because they thought it was 'uncool' and they didn't want to be branded 'the Asian'. Over time, and with age, they came to realise their attitude only made them more unhappy, so they tried to meet up more Koreans. One of them even made me talk to her mum on the phone as proof that she was making more effort to make Korean friends. It struck me as so ridiculous then - the mother was so happy I was Korean, she was extremely emotional - but maybe now I can see what it was all about.

My identity crisis was just one of many, a loop in a wider chain felt everywhere around the world by people who are in the minority. One thing I do know is that it is easier to embrace the different facets of yourself, rather than to replace them with something else. You are what you are.