To the white guy who tried to give me pointers on how to snag a white guy:

My professional obligation in the context at hand was to convince you to sign a contract that would fork over half a million dollars to my company and so I couldn’t say then any of what I am about to say now.

First, sit back, sailor, no even farther. Do you see what I am doing here with the gesturing? I am drawing a circle with a 10 foot radius around me. This is my personal space. Do not enter. We each have our own copies of the file. You do not need to crawl so close and peer over my shoulders. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. My hubby is a very big, brawny (Asian) man and you know those Asian men… they’ve got tempers… you wouldn’t want to incite his. Plus, he’s got youth on his side. You evidently do not. So don’t get zippy with me, old man.

No part of the conversation reasonably opened the course for your digression into how wonderful Asian women are, how wonderful white men are also, and how the two are perfect for each other. Adam and Ai-Ling, was your joke. I bet you were set out to bring it up. I could have said, “Pluto.” And you would have replied, “Yes, Pluto, you know that reminds me of Asian women and white men…”

You started in about Asian men first, yes, if I recall, that’s how it started. “Why are Asian women marrying out in staggering numbers? It’s because Asian men are so horrible to their women. They mistreat them. They neglect them. They don’t know how to make a woman happy.”

In the instant with no chance for aforethought, I didn’t know what else to say but a dull, contrived “now we’re just stereotyping.”

“That’s why every Asian woman I know is so desperate to snag a white guy, but for some reason they just can’t. They don’t know how. They’re shy, they’re more traditional, they don’t know how to talk to a white guy. Let me give you some pointers.”

Up to then, my strategy for dealing with you had been to be completely non-responsive to the shit you’d been saying.

Then you asked me, “Is your husband white or…”

I stopped you right there and said “he’s Asian” in the same tone one might say “fuck you.” But you didn’t have a clue. You said “oh.”

You paused before you went at it again, croaking on. Shall we summarize? Let’s see, you mentioned how high the divorce rate is in China, how easy divorces are to get over there, and you know why there are so many divorces in China? Because the Chinese men there don’t know how to take care of their women. And now these Chinese women divorcées. What are they to do? A Chinese man would never agree to marry a divorced woman! These Chinese women now have no choice but to marry a white guy. We white guys, we don’t care about things like that! We’re open-minded.

Oh, you mentioned something about Japanese men being short, so someone as tall as me (I’m not actually that tall, but you’re right, I’m taller than you) wouldn’t ever want a Japanese man. You asked whether my husband was tall. I said yes, a whole head taller than me. You said, “huh, that’s odd.” By the way, you urge, I really oughta visit Tokyo. Fascinating place. Lots of single Japanese women there, you said. You know why? You weren’t even really asking, you know. I didn’t say a thing and you jumped right on. Because they’re so intelligent and so beautiful that they can’t find any Japanese guys to match. My attention was on the wall clock. You realize this part of the conversation took 32 minutes, by itself, right?

Believe you me, I was on alert for any chance at all to reel the conversation back to business, but you kept yapping and yapping and yapping away. Every statement out of your mouth was even more incendiary than the one before. I bet you thought you were complimenting me, or at least the women from my race? We’re so intelligent. We’re so driven. We’re so beautiful. We’re so feminine. This segment of your drivel went on for about 15 minutes before you tied it back to white guys.

You: “So this Asian woman, she has a Ph.D., she’s stunning like a supermodel. She marries this white guy. A janitor! Can you believe it?”

Me: “How unfortunate for her.” Since unresponsiveness was failing miserably for me, I opted for a little subtle snark to your inane remarks. Oops. Too subtle. You missed it completely.

You: “No! You’re missing my point! He may be just a janitor, but he worships her! He treats her like a queen! He treats her better than any Asian guy ever could. It’s not about money. Asian women just want to be loved!”

Me: “No, we like the money.”

You forced a laugh, a big howl of a laugh. “You’re funny,” you said. Perhaps you don’t know Asian women as well as you think. Because, no, we really do like the money. I cast my eyes purposely down at the dotted line and slid the contract a little closer to you.

20 more minutes of rambling and then you told what you thought was a joke, I’ve already forgotten it now, but then you did one of those smiling sighs that people do after a laugh and before the last bit of air from that breath left you, I interjected. “Well then, shall we wrap up?”

I stormed out of there pissed off, but no, not at you, not directly. I was pissed at myself for not saying everything I wanted to say. I was pissed at my job, and at life for being put in that situation. I was pissed at the world and its injustices, because people like you will end up winning anyway. You will be the Adam to your Ai-Ling, not a clue in the world about the reality of interracial dynamics. You will be convinced until the day you die that you saved your Ai-Ling from a horrifying fate of being married to an Asian man. No one will ever be there to successfully refute you.

And to the 8A community, yeah, I know what I did here. I brought it up, IR. It was about time or something. The Asian Godwin strikes again. On a humorous note, one of the things that white guy said: “You know, people don’t talk about interracial dating between white men and Asian women enough.” To which I wanted to reply, “You obviously do not read 8A.”

By Louis

I was speaking to one of my professors that only until recently I have gained tremendous respect for. His philosophy when he first came to Canada as a new immigrant was to completely immerse himself in a new environment by being receptive to it and not posting up a ‘shell’ of isolation like most people do. It broke new ground for me because I realized that although we attribute the word ‘assimilation’ as something that is bad, it is essential to adapt. It is what we are as humans, we adapt to new situations, new environments, new ideals. It’s how we survive.

This man not only made the effort to meet new people from other cultures. He was so strongly motivated to perfect the English language that he practiced everyday through conversations with his landlord, Caucasian friends, and colleagues. I was amazed at how well this man could carry a conversation in English. Besides his moderate accent, in some respects he was a better conversationalist than me. Myself being a second-gen Canadian who grew up speaking it as my native tongue. But wait, there’s more. This man not only wanted to perfect the English language. He told me that after he retires from his research (which is well established on its own), he wanted to learn how to dance, how to play music, and he even wanted to write a book. This man was a veteran as far as I was concerned. He is a true White Tiger. Sorry, let me backtrack for a bit, lets go to what I actually mean by this definition of a White Tiger which I came up with a while back.

I came up with the term White Tiger because it reflects the idea of what it’s like for an Asian person to be born and grow up in North America. There is this conflicting paradox where Asians feel bound by the shackles of Chinese culture whilst trying to integrate smoothly into the Western world. Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s get back to the story…

I guess what I’m trying to get at in this post is that you should always seek help when in need. Inspiration can come from anything. Motivation can come from anyone. Whether that be as White Tiger or a Purple Walrus for all that matters (Don’t ask, I have no idea what a purple walrus actually is, although a Hippie from the 60s might apply). Keep those people you care about close to you, and engage in them as much as you can. Life is too short to wait around and be discouraged by the lack of opportunities that are presented to you. As an Asian-American caught between the dichotomy of Western and Asian cultures, one must make their own opportunities in life. Whether it’s about relationships, role models, parenting, or school, a balanced lifestyle is out there and it’s wating for you.

White Tigers are strong and confident. They know what they want. They have to be if they want to survive in a fast paced world.

ABOUT LOUIS HO: I’m an Asian-Canadian living in the Greater Toronto Area. I’m currently doing an undergraduate degree at McMaster Univeresity in Hamilton, ON, but in my spare time I like to blog about issues relating to the nuances of being an asian in western society. I’m a self-proclaimed ‘White Tiger’.

Life is hard enough as an Asian. Not all of us can get perfect SAT scores, graduate from medical school or trick out a Honda Civic. The pressure to embrace our culture remains but sometimes, we just don’t want to. How To Be A Bad Asian is an ongoing series of personal essays by the 8Asians writers about what sets us apart from the API community, how we deal with the stereotypes that we put upon ourselves and why we all can’t be that perfect Asian. It’s time to be bad.

First, I want to make it clear that my son is the bestest, smartest, and cutest baby in the world. I’m not just saying that because I’m his dad. I found this Internet poll confirming it:

Okay, here’s my confession: I secretly think all East Asian babies (especially newborns) look alike – even mine. I know I’m not supposed to think that but I do. It started when some friends posted pictures of their newborn on their Facebook page. I did a double take because their baby kinda looked like mine. Thinking that maybe it was just a fluke, I did an “Asian baby” Google image search and found a bunch of pictures of Asian babies that looked eerily similar to my son.

Here are two that could pass for my child:

Before you send me hate mail, I’m not saying ALL East Asians look alike. Well, not all adult East Asians at least. (Don’t believe me? Read my article, Do All Asians look Alike?) I’m just talking about the little babies.

I have to be honest, this worried me. Does the fact that I think all East Asian babies look alike make me a racist? Or worse yet, a bad dad? To make me feel better (or maybe to make me feel less alone) I decided to scour the Internet to see if anyone else thought the same thing.

I found two people that agreed with me. One was just a passing comment on MySpace and the other was on a personal blog.

Here’s a screenshot of the MySpace comment:

Okay, that’s pretty weak. But it’s proof that someone else thinks like me!  And here’s the blog entry where a person compared a picture of her baby to some babies she/he found on a photography website

What’s crazy to me is that those three baby pics could be pics of my son.

The more I looked into this phenomenon, the more I found that some people (regardless of race) thought all babies looked alike. On this site, an anonymous poster asked if it was normal that she/he thought that all babies looked the same.

Notice that 92% of the people thought it was “normal.” In the comment section, most of the people seemed to agree.

I know this doesn’t prove anything but it does make me feel a little better. And that person wasn’t the only one asking that question. I found lots and lots of people asking the same thing. To be fair, there were an equal number of people who said that babies don’t look alike and that anyone who said so was stupid.

However, there are academics who are studying this phenomenon. There was an English study I found asking why all babies look the same to men. The study concluded that:

“The study showed women aged up to 51 were able to determine an “attractive” baby by its chubby cheeks, large forehead, big round eyes and button nose – men struggled to distinguish a cute baby from any other.”

The study also found that menopausal women had similar results as men. I’m not in a position to say this study has any validity or not but it does kind of make sense to me. Or maybe I’m just trying to justify my own failures as a parent.

I’d like to end this article with a note to my baby. In the off chance you read this 20 years from now, please know that even though you looked like every other Asian baby out there, I always knew you were way smarter and cuter than all the rest. Please be kind to me in my old age.

Let’s watch, shall we?

Joz: Is this supposed to be cute? Funny? Out of curiosity, would people think it’s cute to dress their babies up like Hitler? Or Mussolini? I remember last year, a Danish artist caused waves when she dressed her baby like Hitler & other “evil despots” but hers was an exploration of evil.

Moye: I think it’s funny and cute. Mostly because it made me realize how much Kim Jong-il DID look like a fat baby.

Moye’s right, you know: Kim Jong Il did kinda have that fat baby look about him. Sure, a fat baby that imprisoned generations of families and had live lobsters shipped to him as when riding in trains through Siberia, but a fat baby nonetheless. What do you think?

(Hat tip: Brian R.)

This article was originally posted on ryansappa and has be reposted here with permission.

By Daniel Kim

The subtitle to this should be “The Death of the NCO [Non-commissioned officer] Corps.” This is a post I didn’t want to write, if only because of certain memories I knew it would stir. I’ve thought, what could I possibly have in common with two kids half my age, whom I’d never met, and who killed themselves in the place “where empires go to die?” Quite a lot, actually, and it took another person I’ve never met to help me see the similarities. Thank you for that, Captain Srinivasan.

Here I’ll concentrate more on Army Private Danny Chen than Marine Lance Corporal Harry Lew, mainly because the allegations of what happened to Lew, while shocking, are far less egregious than what happened to Chen. This doesn’t make the situation surrounding Lew’s suicide less tragic by any means. I’m no apologist for the Marines who hazed Lance Corporal Lew, but you just don’t fall asleep on guard duty while you’re in enemy territory, which could potentially jeopardize your unit. You might deserve some punishment and extra duties or training, but as corrective action, not demeaning like what Lew had to suffer.

No one who has ever spent any amount of time in the infantry (not the 2 million or so in all ranks in all services, but the roughly 5% of those who fight their enemy in what we euphemistically call “close combat”) will tell you that it’s easy. Far from it, and we even had a darkly funny motto: life is hard, welcome to the infantry, wear your helmet. We take pride in marching 12 miles with a rifle, helmet, and rucksack in less than three hours, training unrelentingly during field exercises with live ammunition, hitting 36 out of 40 targets out to 300 meters away with an M4, knowing by heart all nine lines of a medical evacuation request. As one of the few all-male specialties in the Army and Marine Corps, this is a place for Type-A personalities who lead either by personal example or “size 11 motivation,” occasionally both, though leadership by screaming is not unheard of. The infantry is not for the imaginative, physically or mentally weak, or faint-hearted; this sort is usually culled in a pitiless military Darwinism before deploying, and might find gainful employment in a support specialty. It is an unforgiving environment where strength and physicality are valued and respected, but also remarkably welcoming once you’ve proven yourself. One of the proudest moments of my infantry career is when I was first called a “mother******,” the ultimate term of endearment and acceptance.

Let the “pogues” (People Other than Grunts) have their sprawling forward operating bases (FOBs) with air conditioning, dining facilities with salad bars and soft-serve ice cream, shuttle buses, even Starbuck’s and Pizza Hut. The average infantry soldier or Marine lives outside the FOB, sustained by only what he can carry in his assault pack, not even bathing or brushing his teeth because that precious water will be needed for drinking; besides, water is heavy, trust me. It’s almost a Lord of the Flies existence, but by necessity. The weak link who can’t meet the unit’s standard for push ups, or falls out of a five-mile run in garrison, might not have the stamina or intestinal fortitude to carry a wounded 200-pound mate out of the line of fire. That under-performer might not be able to hike over two mountains with a 100-pound pack, plus 60 pounds of body armor and ammo and weaponry, then engage the enemy in a firefight at the end of the march, when he’s so tired that his very bones hurt. We are not the heroes of a Tom Clancy whiz-bang high-tech thriller, and we will never kill someone with our bare hands like some ninja or super-spy. We’re the guys with uniforms so nasty they could stand up by themselves, who would fight with our teeth and toenails to keep the boys in our platoon alive, who fight secure in the knowledge that the guy next to us will, if need be, take a bullet for us.

I mention all this because it informs non-infantry people what “grunts” do for a living. It isn’t all dress green (now blue, alas) uniforms, drill and ceremonies, or even the now-passé tradition of shined boots. Let’s also not forget, most importantly, that anything deemed out of the ordinary, not “normal” for that unit or in that moment of time, is easy fodder. This appears to be what happened to Chen in an almost all-white unit. For Asian American soldiers like me, it could mean getting pummeled by good ol’ boys at the Hidden Door bar at Ft. Benning, GA, because they could, and because I wasn’t one of them, a white Southerner. It could mean the snide or malicious comments that many of us withstood for years, because we actually exceeded their low expectations of any Asian American soldier. As much as I hate quoting my father, he was right in that you have to be better than them, for them to see you as an equal. And when that happens, as it did for me (mostly), I just became Sergeant Kim and that was the end of it.

I see young Chen, and see myself twenty years ago. Maybe not the best runner, maybe not the most tactically or technically proficient, but certainly not the worst and deserving of the treatment he received. From all accounts, he was, like me, a kid who tried, and could have only gotten better with time and better mentoring. Thankfully, I was never hazed because of my race; many of the noncommissioned officers (NCOs, corporal and above) who brought me up were either black or Hispanic, and didn’t have the time to tolerate such stupidity in their units. This didn’t prevent the odd bar fight here or there, but that was always off-post, never part of any official duties. What this signified, at least to me then, was that it was just a few knuckleheads – not the US Army as a whole. Once I became an NCO myself, I hardly ever encountered it, and would come crashing down on anyone who tried to mess with an Asian American “joe,” or junior soldier.

And that brings me (finally) to the point of this post: where were Chen’s NCOs? Digging deeper, what happened to what we call the NCO Chain of Support, which is supposed to mirror the Chain of Command and be a guiding/calming force for any unit? The closest civilian analogue I can think of is that of a foreman vs. manager when describing NCO vs. officer roles within a unit. When I first became an NCO, I had to learn this creed by heart, and I still have that in me as much as the Ranger Creed. As one of my instructors at “Sergeant School,” or PLDC, said, the first stanza of the NCO Creed differentiates us from any jumble of so-called sergeants as can be found in most of the world’s militaries. At the risk of sounding like an old fogie retired soldier, NCOs took pride in being NCOs in my day. We would think nothing of ensuring our words and actions could only be perceived as the standard to which our junior soldiers should aspire. If I maxed the push ups in the physical fitness test, I expected my joes to match that; if my joes didn’t have the skills or knowledge they needed, then I as their NCO and primary trainer was responsible. What happened, then, that there are no less than four NCOs among the eight charged in Chen’s death?

From the available sources, it seems as if the NCOs in Chen’s unit either turned a blind eye or took an active part in what might have started as hazing, but became infinitely more sinister and crushing. Indeed, Chen’s entire platoon chain of command, from team leader to squad leader to platoon leader, has been charged in his death. If the charges prove true, that begs a deeper question. Above the platoon, which is roughly 30 soldiers led by a lieutenant and a midlevel NCO, comes the company. The company can have three or four platoons, is led by a captain and a senior NCO, and if a platoon can be likened to a family, then the company is your extended family and the battalion is your clan. And nothing happens in 2nd Platoon that you don’t eventually hear about in 1st or 3rd, even if the platoons are separated by up to ten kilometers and live on separate FOBs.

Since this is the case more often than not, I would like to see if the company’s commander and first sergeant are or are not being held accountable along with the 8 men who’ve been charged. If a platoon leader and platoon sergeant, the two most senior men in that subunit, are charged, then wouldn’t it be fair to assume that their superiors, the commander and first sergeant, had some inkling of what was happening? They are, after all, responsible for the company as a whole, which included Private Chen’s platoon. Above even them are the battalion’s commander and command sergeant major, each with up to twenty years’ service and supposedly old enough to remember what goes on at the platoon level. Who are they and will there be any kind of accounting for their actions or inaction?

Soldiers and former soldiers talk about a “failure of leadership” all the time. I’d heard of such failures, but had never seen one or read about one until now. If my boy were to follow in my footsteps and join the Army, what should I tell him about the leadership of the service I still cherish? What should I tell him about the service I love, which allowed this utter failure of leadership that leaves me sad and disappointed? Should I, twenty years hence, tell him to be twice as good to be seen as a white soldier’s equal? Should I tell him to become an officer so that he won’t have to experience anything like Chen or Lew as a junior enlisted man, and in doing so perpetuate the endless Asian American class discrimination against enlisted folks? Or will he, as I did, not worry about all that, and serve his country anyway?

ABOUT DANIEL: I served in the US Army infantry for 12 years, got out as a staff sergeant, and that informs who I am. I’m also a husband and father. Professionally, I run restaurants for a living, and even briefly owned my own.

Most of my friends don’t know this about me, but in college, I tried to join the Marine Corps. I haven’t told too many people about it; when I think about it now, it seems absurd. But when I was in college, I actually took the bus down to the recruiting station, spoke to an officer, and filled out a card. That was eight years ago.

My attempt to join the military has since faded from memory. This week, they came flooding back in as I read the New York Magazine article about the human side of the Private Danny Chen’s story. The article is powerful; it explores Chen’s life in high school and also describes how his suicide affected the people who cared about him. The story also reminded me of the time I told my parents I wanted to be a soldier.

Although I had already made up my mind to join, I was reluctant to tell my parents because I wasn’t sure about what to say. I remember wanting to frame it in terms of career benefits. “Joining the military will give me leadership experience that will help me get into good graduate schools,” I wanted to say. I thought that was the best way to go, since I wasn’t sure how to explain to them the other reasons why I wanted to join.

My mixed motivations reflected my general feelings of uncertainty about why I wanted to do it in the first place. “It’ll be a good experience,” I told my friends. The few people who I told were very supportive. I sensed, though, that they were confused about my true motivations. Joining the Marines isn’t something a typical college student does after graduation.

When I told my sister, she was also confused. So I tried the career benefits angle, and she responded by wondering aloud whether there were better ways to get into grad school. She had a good point. Does it make sense to commit to four years of active service (and four more as a reserve) just to improve your admissions chances? It would be smarter to increase my grades or my standardized test scores. So I figured that I might as well come clean.

“I’ve always felt that being Chinese makes me feel like people think I’m less American than other people,” I confessed. “What better way to prove how much I love my country?”

My sister, better than anyone else on this planet, knew where I was coming from. She didn’t try to talk me out of it and instead was incredibly supportive. Who knows, maybe she thought that this was just a phase I needed to get through. In any case, the conversation reassured me. That is, until she asked, “Have you told mom yet?”

I hadn’t. I was dreading it. What could I possibly say that would allow them to understand that unless I joined the military, I would never feel like I really belonged?

In any case, I decided that there was no way around it. I had to tell them. If I was going to really do this, they’d find out sooner or later. So reluctantly, I called home.

As predicted, my mother began to tell me all the reasons why I shouldn’t join. There are many ways to engage in public service, she said. Military service is for people who don’t have the advantages I’ve had in life. What remained unspoken was that these advantages came from their sacrifice. My parents had given up so much and made so many personal sacrifices so that I would have a secure and comfortable life. They worked hard so that I wouldn’t have to do something like join the military.

“We know someone who joined the Army,” my father said. “His family is poor and he grew up in a bad neighborhood. He almost failed high school and couldn’t go to college. What saved him was that he was able to join the Army and make a future for himself.”

“Those are the kinds of people in the military,” my mom interrupted. “They aren’t people like you who went to a good school and can get a good job.” I could tell she was getting upset.

But so was I.

“You know, this is exactly the kind of attitude that’s wrong with America,” I said, angrily. “We’re all protected by the military but it’s only the poor and the uneducated who serve the country. Most middle class people know nothing about actually fighting in a war.”

“What if you die? Do you realize that when you join the military, your life is no longer yours?” She began to cry.

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “This is the only way I can truly become an American!” I blurted out.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve made my mother cry. But it was the first time that I made her cry without actually having done anything wrong first. The mere possibility that I might die was too difficult to bear. The phone conversation ended shortly after that. To this day, I can’t recall the rest of that conversation.

I’d anticipated that they wouldn’t support me. But until I heard my mother cry, I only understood that in the abstract. Hearing it firsthand crushed me.

It made the cost of military service more real.

I couldn’t do it.

The following week, I called the recruiting station and withdrew my application.

No matter how often Religion and Depression in Asian Youth – a topic that was blogged on 8Asians three years ago – is blogged about, written, or discussed, I’m not so sure we’ll come to a concrete, definitive conclusion. But that’s okay. I’ll pose the question here for discussion: Is religion really the cause of depression in Asian teens?

It breaks my heart each time I read a news article or a blog post about someone taking his/her own life. It saddens me to imagine the sadness, hopelessness and loneliness someone might have been going through as they made the heart-wrenching decision to end their own life.

Some studies are actually pointing to religion as being one of the causes of depression in Asian youth. And in some ways, I can understand why some would come to this conclusion. That said, I don’t think religion causes depression as much as I don’t think religion cures depression. When I was in high school, I struggled with bouts of depression. And even I had many thoughts about what it would be like to end my own life. (And those movies some public schools included in their curriculum about how bad suicide – among other things- was, only peeked my curiosity more.) And I actually became a Christian in high
school and got involved in a Christian church. And I remember several of my friends made fun of me for being religious. But Christianity as a religion isn’t what brought me out of my depression; it was what I gained as a Christian, a growing relationship with God and other believers who had someone perfect (Jesus) to hope in.

In some ways, I do wish there was a simple answer to what is causing so many young folks to be depressed, so much to the point of taking their own lives. Because if we had a simple answer of the cause, maybe we have the chance of coming up with a solution. But when there are so many different people, struggling with different things, and dealing with it in different ways, it’s hard to have a blanket solution and answer.

(Image credit: iccpastor)

Life is hard enough as an Asian. Not all of us can get perfect SAT scores, graduate from medical school or trick out a Honda Civic. The pressure to embrace our culture remains but sometimes, we just don’t want to. How To Be A Bad Asian is an ongoing series of personal essays by the 8Asians writers about what sets us apart from the API community, how we deal with the stereotypes that we put upon ourselves and why we all can’t be that perfect Asian. It’s time to be bad.

I came across this commentary on Korean language instruction. It sparked some memories of my own experience in language class.

While I was in seminary – a graduate/professional program for those who are pursuing ordained church ministry – I decided I wanted to try the Korean language course at the University. When any seminary student wanted to take a course at the University the registrar required a petition, and I rationalized it would help my development as a pastor since I was serving in the children’s ministry at a local Korean Presbyterian church. But, I namely just wanted to say that I was technically a Princeton student for a semester.

Well, the course kicked my ass.

It was the hardest class I was taking at the time, and that meant it beat out Biblical Greek and Systematic Theology II. At the beginning of the semester, I took an assessment test, and the teacher thought that I was good enough to be in the “advanced” Korean 101 class. I felt pretty good… even uncharacteristically cocky. The class consisted of me and two Princeton graduate students in the Asian studies department. One student was Japanese, and the other, I think, Italian. Well, as it turned out, the Italian was doing the best out of all of us. I can’t tell you how terrible I felt about it, especially since the teacher was Korean. That just didn’t help anything at all. Even though she was young and hip, she may as well have been channeling my grandmother and all her potential disapproval.

I ended up getting a B. Barely. Which means I basically failed. And what’s sad is that I worked crazy hard for that B. I can’t remember anything from the course except how to turn a verb into an adjective modifying a noun. Which, I can’t even come up with an example for right now.

It’s hard to quantify how much Korean I actually know and can use in a conversation. I make a decent first impression with “Hello,” and “Nice to meet you,” but then the conversations pretty much disintegrate after that. I do say certain phrases in Korean with ease (like “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” and “Happy Birthday”) and I have random Korean songs memorized that I conjure up perfectly like the Korean National Anthem, John 3:16, or the Moon Song. And, reading is relatively easy since the alphabet is incredibly straightforward, but I usually don’t know what it actually means, and of course, I probably sound like a doof. My parents taught me the alphabet when I was young, but I didn’t attend Korean Language school. Unfortunately, the biggest issue is that my bah-ruhm (accent) is not good. My parents can rarely decipher what I’m saying unless I’m saying that I’m hungry or tired.

For a long time this was something that embarrassed me. I didn’t like going to Korean restaurants without my parents or other fluent Korean speakers for fear of being found out and chastised, and I constantly felt unsure about myself. But, in the last few years or so, I’ve come to grips with it. It’s who I am. And I know I’m not alone in it. Plus, I’m too old and tired to care anymore. If I have the opportunity, I do speak it, as much as I’m able, and I don’t worry about how I sound. But, then I realized that a lot of Koreans, especially the ones that work at restaurants actually speak English, too, so all that really matters is that I get my ox-tail soup. Language isn’t the only thing that makes anyone Korean (or whatever other Asian language).

That being said, I love language, and am fascinated with it. I discovered a new found respect for it. At the time, it was interesting to see how the different systems work (Greek vs. English vs. Korean…although I wonder if all the languages got mixed up in my head that semester), and all the different cultural idioms were wonderful. I just suck at it. Unless it’s put to song. Anyways, I can redeem myself by doing the proper Asian parenting act of living vicariously through my children. I really do hope the babies learn Korean. But, also something useful like Spanish. And, Chinese. And, Arabic. And for fun, I’ll teach them Pig Latin.

(Image Source: Galt Baby via Mihee on Pinterest)