Guns and Butter Blog

My father was partly educated in the United States. When he first came to the U.S. decades ago, most Americans, despite the fact that tens of thousands of Americans died during the Korean War, did not seem to know where Korea was... or cared where it was.

My father was usually asked whether he was Chinese or Japanese (occasionally Vietnamese), something similar to the King of the Hill dialogue:

HANK: So, are you Chinese or Japanese?
KHAN: I live in California last twenty years, but first come from Laos.
HANK: Huh?
KHAN: Laos. We Laotian.
BILL: The ocean? What ocean?
KHAN: We are Laotian. From Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population 4.7 million.
HANK: [after a long pause and a blank stare] So, are you Chinese or Japanese?

From this experience my father came away with the conclusion that Korea will always be unknown and, consequently, the Korean language will be useless outside tiny Korea.

Boy, was he wrong! Last week, my wife and I were watching the hit TV series "Lost," to which we are admittedly addicted, and what do you know, almost the whole episode is in Korean! This was the third episode to feature the characters Sun and Jin prominently and contain substantial dialogue entirely in Korean with lots of Korean extras.

Had my father heard that, in his lifetime, a popular American TV series would feature major characters who are Korean, who speak almost entirely Korean dialogue, he'd laughed!

Thanks to my finally useful linguistic skill, however, my wife was able to hear the more detailed, nuanced translation (see, I am not reflexively opposed to nuance) of what went on the show, not the truncated subtitle than ran on the program (we did not, however, derive any special knowledge or insight into the mysteries of the show).

For example, during the show, the Sun character and her date have a revealing moment where the date tells her (according to the "official" show translation), he intends to move to America and marry his secret "American" girlfriend. The actual word spoken by the actor, however, was not "American," but "white person." A very subtle distinction, but a meaningful one, in my view.

This is consistent with what I often observed in Asia and, in fact, much of the rest of the world. They think that America is a country of whites with a few black entertainers, athletes and criminals mixed in. Much of the rest of the world does not seem to understand that, in fact, the U.S. is a pretty ethnically diverse country.

I attribute this to the popular media, which for a long time showed America, indeed, as a largely European-descended country with black, slave- descendants as token side characters. Aside from "Hawaii Five-O," "Kung Fu" and "M.A.S.H.," it was pretty unthinkable to put Asian-Americans in the mainstream popular media.

I think this view, however, is beginning to change, not least because of shows like "Lost." I am pretty vehemently opposed to "affirmative action" and certainly don't agree with those who demand proportional representation in anything, including acting. But voluntary, creative choices in adding interesting ethnic characters, not products of politically-correct tokenism, certainly make the overall product more interesting.

In any case, my father would've considered it unthinkable too, that a Korean film would win the Grand Prix at Canne (my father is a movie buff). He'd also be flabbegasted about the "Korean Wave" sweeping much of Asia (now there is a backlash). His "old" Korea was a society that slavishly copied Chinese and Japanese popular culture. Now Korean actors are supposedly replacing Hollywood stars in pitching whiskey to Japanese audiences.

And just today, I saw a burly non-Korean (non-Asian, too, for that matter) chef show how to make not only Bulgogi, but also Kimchee (Kimchi!) on TV. Now, that one would really freak my mom, who is convinced that only slightly insane non-Asians would eat Kimchee (excepting my wife, of course, who is blinded by love). I've have paid money to see my mother's face when she'd witness a bearish white guy teach an American audience how to make "pungent" Korean fermented cabbage dish.

It's a different world today, I tell you.

My own epiphany, however, came earlier, long before these commercial and culinary successes. It came from my wife (then girlfriend).

My parents always expected me to return to Korea after finishing graduate school. With my father's extensive contacts there and my Ivy League education, they were of the opinion that I'd be very successful in my "home" country. My parents envisioned a life for me, one filled with a driver, an aide to carry my briefcase and other luxuries beyond the reach of the modestly prosperous in the U.S.

Though pro-American, they were always skeptical about race-relations in the U.S. They'd always say "Why would you want to waste yourself in America? You'd always have an Oriental face there. You'd always be never more than a sidekick. You come back to Korea, and you can be number one, the main star, in anything you do." They'd always dismiss my response "But America is different today" with a wave "You are young and idealistic. The real world is different. We don't want you to find that out when you are older, when it's too late."

Needless to say, I didn't listen. My love for this country has grown more deeply. I feel more American today than ever. The epiphany, the final nail in the coffin of my parents' pessimism, occurred years ago when I asked my then girlfriend, now wife of many years, who is of the quintessential Middle America (it doesn't get any more Middle America than Des Moines, Iowa, folks), what she saw when she looked at my face.

She responded without even thinking, "I see you. I see James." It didn't even occur to her that she should see an Asian. She just saw me, someone she loved.

Now we're just another American couple, watching "Lost," eating Bulgogi and Kimchee, going to the local gun range (*I* got *her* into exercising her Second Amendment right) and voting Republican.

Isn't this a great country or what?