As my parents
intended, I never faced any English problems. I excelled in Language Arts and
often corrected people’s grammar. Likewise, no one made a fuss about my
inability to speak Korean. Although Anaheim and Seattle, the two cities I grew
up in, are heavily populated with Asians (and a significant percentage of them
Koreans), no one blinked twice when I admitted to not speaking Hanguk mal.
Even the
elderly who only spoke Korean gave a wrinkled smile and reassured me in a
wordless language, “You grew up in America. It's understandable.”
The rare few
who did mind lectured me in broken English, “You must-uh lun Korean! Eet bery
bery impo-tant!” And I would nod without really listening, brushing them off as
old geezers and traditionalists who needed to get with the times.
My
grandparents were two Koreans who did not mind my monolingual status. I lived
with them for eight years, and as long as we could communicate the most basic
ideas, such as hungry
and TV remote control, our
lives rolled on merrily.
During junior
high and high school my mom began to dart her eyes worriedly across the dining
room table from my wordless grandparents to wordless me. After my parents
divorced, Mom was the only bilingual resident—the only person who could talk to
everybody in the house.
This
realization troubled her. Now and then she asked me, “Don’t you want to enroll
in Korean school and learn Korean?”
To which I
would scrunch up my face and cut her off with a firm, “No, Mom.” Attending
Korean school meant sitting in the beginning class, where the five-year-olds
fidgeted in their seats. The thought of them sneaking glances at me, the
embarrassed giant newcomer, was mortifying. Besides, in a society where no one
cared if I spoke Korean, where was the incentive to learn?
Bananas and Twinkies are terms describing a person of Asian
descent who is extremely Americanized. By the time I entered college, I was the
Banana of the Bananas and the Twinkie of the Twinkies. Nevertheless, I decided
to enroll in Korean 101 out of curiosity. On the first day of class, I walked
into a room filled with wide-eyed white students and half Koreans who, like me,
were never taught their mother language.
I was the only
full blooded Korean, which turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. A
blessing because I held an advantage over the students who knew nothing of
Korean culture. A curse because, for the first time, deep humiliation stung me,
a full blooded Korean taking Korean 101.
To my
surprise, I loved the class. When I spoke my first sentences, I grew motivated
to learn more. When I wrote my first paragraphs, I glowed with excitement about
my progression. I consistently received A’s on exams, and classmates came to me
for help. By the time I boarded the plane back home for winter break, I
flattered myself into thinking, Oh girl, you’re practically half fluent!
Of course, I wasn’t
even a quarter of a quarter fluent. When I arrived home, I realized that talking to
my teacher’s assistant in basic textbook jargon was very different from talking
to my seventy-year old Korean grandmother. I froze as I tried to understand her
speech, but the words coming from her lips just sounded like noise. Within an
hour of returning home, we had reverted back to our caveman talk, a language
consisting of small words and pointing.
It was the
first time I lamented over my monolingual state. It hit me that after almost a
decade of living with them, I had never had a conversation with my grandparents. I
knew nothing of their childhoods, political views, or hobbies. Not even their
favorite color.
I don’t know
if my ancestors lived as tyrannical nobles or your run-of-the-mill kimchee
merchants. However, I do know that ever since the king Dangun first ruled
Korea, or so the folktale claims, they ate Korean foods, practiced Korean
customs, wore Korean clothes, and spoke the Korean language. For thousands of
years they did this, teaching the language from parent to child. And for what?
So that it could end with me, a girl with an Asian face and American tongue?
Will I lounge around and give birth to a new line of generations who will
contrast so starkly in speech and manner from their forebears?
The idea
haunts me, perhaps more than it should. After all, in a day of mass
communication and globalization, there is nothing wrong or unusual in being an
American even if you’re ethnicity of origin is not that of an American. Still, I cling onto my
heritage and language in hope that I can get a firm grasp on them before it is
too late.
If I was to
board a plane and fly to Seoul, South Korea, I imagine I would see something
like this: crowds of people who look like me but don’t sound like me, trying to
get by in an overpopulated country. Someone might ask me a question: “Do you
have the time?” “Can you direct me to the bank?” Nervously, I would try to
answer in a heavily accented voice and, with a cocked brow and incredulous
look, they would demand in a wordless language, “Are you Korean or not?”
This
is why once I have children, I will teach them both English and Korean. I will
teach them to balance both cultures, to embrace both heritages, and to converse in
both languages.
