Its been a while since I uploaded anything or even wrote anything, but today I am laying in bed with lots of thoughts running through my head and I thought it would be a good opportunity to express myself through writing.
One of things I wanted to talk about was people in Korea and how my interactions here with people are quite different from my interactions at home. Being raised as a "gyopo" or Korean-American I feel like I can pick up on the small nuances between American and Korean culture. Until I was 13-14 years old, I had been surrounded my kids of different ethnicities and cultures. But as I moved to America, I moved to a city highly populated with Koreans. It was the first time I was able to experience having people "like me" around myself. From then on, I could confidently say that the majority of the people I spent my time with were Korean.In addition, I grew up in a very traditional Korean household; if I didn't speak Korean at the dinner table I would get in trouble my dad. I also grew up often getting "spanked" or physically reprimanded by my parents, something that I think most people people find intolerable. But despite all these things, being the girl who so desperately wanted to hide her Korean heritage during middle school and high school, the moment I realized I was comfortable in my own skin I was grateful for my Korean upbringing and heritage.
Now I know I rambled about my past the people around me and my moving history the whole point to this unorganized ramble is that my interactions with Korean-Americans and native Koreans are some what different.
Being stuck in small city within a large community of Korean-American kids has been interesting. While sometimes I am grateful for the Korean-American community near me, sometimes I feel like I am stuck in a bubble. It's a weird feeling unexplainable. I feel like sometimes I am surrounded by people that I feel i can't deal with.
What brings upon this rant is that today I talked to a North Korean refugee, I talked to her about her struggles and her life as a refugee and I realized that being stuck in a bubble of privileged Korean- American kids really sometimes really makes you forget about how lucky you are. My parents both in their fifties work all week sometimes until really late just to support or family and provide us with what we have and yet I feel like sometimes we can easily take it for granted. Including me. It was seriously a humbling experience. Being in Korea, you are exposed to Koreans of various different socio-economic backgrounds and listening how hard they work to get to school to succeed really humbled me.
I am currently a part of a reunification club at Yonsei, and I get to talk to many different refugees and people who have resettled in the South. It feels refreshing to talk to people who don't complain about the things they don't have but rather are grateful for what they have. It's refreshing to talk to people who don't try to hide themselves, but are rather open. It's refreshing to talk to people who's priorities are actually relevant and meaningful.
I'm not saying every Korean-American is like that, neither is every Native Korean it really depends on the people you meet. Im happy that I was able to meet these people in my time in Korea.
I hope this post doesn't offend anyone but like I said I met a really nice group of people and these are just my experiences.
