It all started when I got a new number. I changed my numbers frequently because I wanted to try different low-cost carriers and plans in an effort to stretch my meager student budget. In the end, I gave up and got a smartphone after years of barely managing with spotty service and whatever free wi-fi I could find at the moment.
I liked my new number. It had an evenness and symmetry that was easy to remember and fit together like a simple jig saw puzzle. Strangely, I was getting calls not long after I got the new phone. First it was from CVS about a medication I had to pick up.
It would ring at inopportune times during school forcing me to abandon my Iron Maiden ringtone. I eventually ended up blocking all calls from CVS, but the calls never stopped. They were usually automated calls looking for a woman named Janice.
Sometimes I got to speak with a real person. The conversation usually went like this. "Hello, is this Ms. Janice so and so?" "No, you have the wrong number, this is Asian man." "Oh, I'll put that in the notes. Thank you."
The strangest moments came from the random texts I would receive sometimes from who I pieced together were her cousins. Warm, effusive text messages that never stopped coming despite my polite replies that I was actually not Janice, but an Asian man with no relation to Janice except for inheriting her old number. I was eventually placed in a family group chat where I would receive the occasional holiday greetings and messages of familial love and affection.
It felt odd. Not so much of the mistaken identity or their stubborn insistence on ignoring my attempts to clarify the situation. Perhaps this Janice was an incorrigible prankster with a history of impersonating Asian men.
What struck me was how different my relationship with my family was. My cousins, and I haven't talked for years. We all lead lives of our own, and we barely keep in touch. Some I haven't seen since we were children. The only time we get together is for funerals and weddings.
It wasn't always like this. When we were kids, our family would always get together over the holidays. The women would cook, the men would drink, and the kids would play. We would play card games, board games, or just run around in the playground. I always looked forward to the holidays because it meant playing with the cousins and eating good food.
Over the years, a lot of things happened, and my parents had a falling out with a lot of the relatives. It never crossed my mind to stay in touch with my cousins because my parents were usually in charge of keeping tabs with family. When I did try, I was actively discouraged by my uncle due to a strange combination of shame and self-pride distinct with Koreans. My sister and I were doing well professionally while my other cousins were stalling despite graduating from "brand-name" universities.
I remember watching this movie called "Avalon" about an immigrant family assimilating into the US. In the beginning, the family was very close because it was a strange new place, and they were navigating it together. But as time goes by, the family slowly drifted apart.
They started to live farther away leading different lives. Even though they make an effort to keep their familial bond intact, real and imagined slights manifest into an irrevocable split within the family. Family no longer has the same meaning as it had in the past. The role of family had atrophied and replaced by the modern concept of the nuclear family. In our case, by the local Korean evangelical Christian community.
Hearing other people talk about spending time with their family always fills me with a sense of jealousy and shame. I am a cultural oddity, a product of an alienated and dysfunctional immigrant family subject to pity.
Children who are born in the US from immigrant parents usually struggle with their self-identity as they must figure out how much of their cultural background to embrace. I was lucky in that I was born in another country so I see myself fully as an immigrant. I know that I belong nowhere, and in a way that is liberating because I am free to pick and choose from both heritage.
I am not Korean nor am I strictly American. I am rather a gestalt that embodies the ideal of this country: a mutt. Whatever was lost in the past, I can't undo. But I can build something new from the distant memories of a naive family hoping for a better life in a strange land.
I liked my new number. It had an evenness and symmetry that was easy to remember and fit together like a simple jig saw puzzle. Strangely, I was getting calls not long after I got the new phone. First it was from CVS about a medication I had to pick up.
It would ring at inopportune times during school forcing me to abandon my Iron Maiden ringtone. I eventually ended up blocking all calls from CVS, but the calls never stopped. They were usually automated calls looking for a woman named Janice.
Sometimes I got to speak with a real person. The conversation usually went like this. "Hello, is this Ms. Janice so and so?" "No, you have the wrong number, this is Asian man." "Oh, I'll put that in the notes. Thank you."
The strangest moments came from the random texts I would receive sometimes from who I pieced together were her cousins. Warm, effusive text messages that never stopped coming despite my polite replies that I was actually not Janice, but an Asian man with no relation to Janice except for inheriting her old number. I was eventually placed in a family group chat where I would receive the occasional holiday greetings and messages of familial love and affection.
It felt odd. Not so much of the mistaken identity or their stubborn insistence on ignoring my attempts to clarify the situation. Perhaps this Janice was an incorrigible prankster with a history of impersonating Asian men.
What struck me was how different my relationship with my family was. My cousins, and I haven't talked for years. We all lead lives of our own, and we barely keep in touch. Some I haven't seen since we were children. The only time we get together is for funerals and weddings.
It wasn't always like this. When we were kids, our family would always get together over the holidays. The women would cook, the men would drink, and the kids would play. We would play card games, board games, or just run around in the playground. I always looked forward to the holidays because it meant playing with the cousins and eating good food.
Over the years, a lot of things happened, and my parents had a falling out with a lot of the relatives. It never crossed my mind to stay in touch with my cousins because my parents were usually in charge of keeping tabs with family. When I did try, I was actively discouraged by my uncle due to a strange combination of shame and self-pride distinct with Koreans. My sister and I were doing well professionally while my other cousins were stalling despite graduating from "brand-name" universities.
I remember watching this movie called "Avalon" about an immigrant family assimilating into the US. In the beginning, the family was very close because it was a strange new place, and they were navigating it together. But as time goes by, the family slowly drifted apart.
They started to live farther away leading different lives. Even though they make an effort to keep their familial bond intact, real and imagined slights manifest into an irrevocable split within the family. Family no longer has the same meaning as it had in the past. The role of family had atrophied and replaced by the modern concept of the nuclear family. In our case, by the local Korean evangelical Christian community.
Hearing other people talk about spending time with their family always fills me with a sense of jealousy and shame. I am a cultural oddity, a product of an alienated and dysfunctional immigrant family subject to pity.
Children who are born in the US from immigrant parents usually struggle with their self-identity as they must figure out how much of their cultural background to embrace. I was lucky in that I was born in another country so I see myself fully as an immigrant. I know that I belong nowhere, and in a way that is liberating because I am free to pick and choose from both heritage.
I am not Korean nor am I strictly American. I am rather a gestalt that embodies the ideal of this country: a mutt. Whatever was lost in the past, I can't undo. But I can build something new from the distant memories of a naive family hoping for a better life in a strange land.
No comments:
Post a Comment