It’s been several weeks since I was turned down for the Masters of Asian Studies program I applied to. I know somehow deep down that it's fine, it wasn't meant to be, and years from now it won't matter. But the rejection still burns hot and sharp in my chest—humiliation stings me. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but I had applied out of a desperation to somehow legitimize my Koreanness. I could have a degree, a piece of paper bought and fought for that I could wave at anyone who thought me an imposter. Here, look, I earned this! I have proof I am Korean! This is enough now, right?
The inadequacy I feel now feels the same as when I was younger. I remember explaining to strangers that my mom was Korean and my dad was American (white was always implied) and receiving raised eyebrows and surprised looks in response. Then having to explain with embarrassment that, no, I don’t speak Korean. No, I haven’t lived in Korea. These felt like important distinctions, requirements that I didn’t meet, and because I didn’t check these boxes it must mean that I am a fraud. Not really Korean.
It’s a sentiment that is familiar to most mixed-race children. Never quite being fully one or the other, an outsider in both your mother’s and your father’s worlds. As a child eager to please and desperate to fit in, not being able to relate to other Koreans or speak knowledgeably about Korea felt like the ultimate alienation. I thought I’d gotten over such loneliness, but receiving the rejection email has brought it all rushing back. 30 years later I am still that little kid desperate to learn all I can about Korea in an attempt to finally be Korean enough.
Wild chive, dallae, had been on sale at the Korean market. The smell of dallae, earthy and pungent, had always been one that reminded me, somehow, of Busan. My halmoni’s apartment, sun streaming in through cracked windows, the humid air lazily stirring thanks to a dependable rotating fan, carrying the scent of a distant ocean and mixing with the smells of her bedroom, barley tea and mugwort and hemp fabric. So I bought it and decided to try my hand at making dallae muchim.
I was tired, the past week had been exhausting for me in so many ways. I had been going through the motions without feeling them—a foggy, malaised kind of highway hypnosis. But cutting into the stiff stems the smell overwhelmed me and brought me hurdling back to the ground. Earthy and intense, the sting of garlic, the light whiff of chlorophyll, the dampness of the dirt clinging to thin roots. It smelled so much like the memories of drowsy summer afternoons with Halmoni.
I have forgotten, in my desperation to analyze my existence, that existing should simply be enough. My own lived experience is all I need to find solace instead of anxiety in my heritage. The comfortable memories of a small child, huddled in the corner of her grandma's traditional medicine shop, fiddling with cinnamon sticks and ginseng roots in heaping burlap sacks. Watching her wrinkled hands open the red lid of a yogurt drink for me then fondly rub my back, familiar words of aigo!, choayo, yeppuda, saranghae eunjini mixed in with a blur of Korean I can’t understand. But I know she loves me, from the tone of her words and the way she huddles me close to her. How her eyes brim with pride as customers catch my eye, how she chatters away at length glancing back at me to smile and laugh as she packages up bark, leaves, powders, whatever is needed for the particular ailment. I wonder if I could speak with her about my depression what kind of remedy she would concoct for me. Or if she would simply continue to hold my hands in hers?
At my best I feel pride and a sense of familial connection when I think of my heritage. At my worst I am torn apart by a continuous cycle of identity crisis after identity crisis—feeling like a fraud in my own culture. An imposter no matter where on the planet I am. My existence serves as an offense on either side of an impossibly large ocean I could never hope to cross. Where is there to rest when there is nowhere you belong? And how long can I hope to continue treading water?
Even if I don't believe it fully yet, I know that Korean culture and heritage is my birthright, and no one on either side of the globe can deny me that. But for today I'm crying, the tears burn my eyes as I work gochugaru into the bowl of chopped chives, the smell reminding me so much of a place that now seems like a dream I can never have again.
