1.46 in the morning...
dawn of wednesday in the midwest
early evening in seoul
we left today i mean yesterday i mean two days ago
i mean
im really not sure
... and landing
this time
didnt feel like
it always has
"coming home"
this time it was
"back to the place i live"
... this time we left home of our own accord
our decision
and our
right
im drinking soju and milkas
cuz i dont know what else to do
they say
"cant wait till youre back"
and then they dont appear
disappointment
and some wasted won
... i watched the neighbor's light go out
the candles have bent
i can only assume the heating in here
was working
"too well"
maybe i'll
watch a movie
i think id like to cry
for something
or maybe just exhaustion
and too many hours spent flying over ocean
and
land
and worlds
and
time
... maybe i will eat something
maybe i should go to bed...
there's no one to smoke the last smoke before bed with
all the faces are so white
and bloated
... well fed
on super sized fast food freedoms
... im exhausted
minneapolis
is not
korea
... the quiet is almost haunting
no one out on the streets
just a few cars with headlights
and convenience stores
bars close down in 8 minutes
minneapolis
is where i live
... seoul...
its where im from
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
things to miss
(from l-r: sora, anja, kim, su-yoon, julie)
I.
i shall miss
(smoking)
the last cigarette
before bedtime
(in the kitchen)
sitting on the ground
round an ashtray the size of a full moon
when standing here on earth
... mugs of tea
... su yoon and her
laughter
sleeping on the edge of a futon
careful to keep distance in our sleep
sharing every hour of the day
with a friend
... i shall miss the
uneven streets
the
inclines
and
dips
as if the earth is bursting at its very seams
cobblestones jutting out
... mandoo
kimchi
kimbap stops
and
pickled radish
i shall miss
the
fish vegetable
scarf and mitten
pirated dvd
vendors
the buses
that shake the ground
the way the sun sets over a city of 12 million
... i shall miss
the t-money
dangly bling from your phone
tv in the palm of your hand
women in high heels
men who make beckham seem butch
and
"special price for you"
sing songs
on the streets
the "tell me tell me"
k-pop booming from every store
and
rice cakes whenever you desire
... miss the
streets full of people
where if youre not korean you stand out
and old men humming to themselves at crosswalks
... thirty one point six years ago a silver stork
with jet engines beneath its wings
carried me away
one way ticket to
"america"
and"opportunity"
... at 32 i finally hopped on the return leg of that
departure
... today
we leave
simply put
...
so much of me would like to
stay
II.
"my family"
my family
for being orphaned
ive got a lot of family
... more than 155,000
brothers and sisters
scattered
to lands long ago conquested by england spain and france
because our land
our motherland
refused to let us grow our roots
... and then there are the ones we never hear of
who all we have been told
"do not have it easy"
... i am the first in my bloodline
i will be the only
... but i have a lot of family
and they
they
have my heart
III.
"little girl little girl
where did you go?
to the land of rice and yellow skinned people?
did you find you mother?
what was it like finally looking like everyone else?"
... no one's yellow
rice is hard to grow here
koreans didnt always know what to make of us
... we got overcharged because they thought we were foreigners
prices dropped when they heard the truth
jaws dropped
when they heard that one big word
"ibyang"
... ive been to london
and ive been to france
ive walked the baltic shores
and stood by lenin's tomb
but nothing that i have ever done
no place that i have ever seen or lived
could be so much as this
dear friend
dear friend
ive been to (the)
land of tigers
magpies
emperors'
and
pride
the land from which i am
descended
the city
which lies rich inside of me
not to epcot
but to
the land of the han
... my people
my race
my mine.
IV.
we leave in hours
on a plane
headed west
i want to board the flight
watch a lot of films
eat food
drink bloody mary's
and
sleep
i want to
land
in minneapolis
speed away to my flat
and spend the next days and weeks and months
just writing
just being
V.
maybe you are here
maybe you kept looking up
remembering
wanting
wondering
maybe one day
you will be found
maybe one day
i'll be allowed to know your name
... im leaving omma
but i returned
i dont know if we shall ever meet
my parents
they liked to tell me
that we would meet in heaven
id like to see you here on earth
cuz im not so sure if there is even heaven
... how is it that i can love a face i cant recall?
a voice id never recognize?
a hand i dont remember taking mine
still
omma
i came back
i came back for you
not to find
but to somehow
know
ive spent weeks now in your city
maybe we passed each other
maybe you got on the train as i stepped off
i met more like me
ibyang i mean
... omma know
that after being here
i think i finally
can
forgive you
Monday, January 7, 2008
thoughts in 2 parts
we are
these faces
(in a mirror)
mirrors handed to us
by
decades of white hands
decades of a system gone wrong
so we believed the lies...
cuz we needed truth
... cuz we needed something more
than
"i dont knows"
and
"she loved you so much
thats why she left you"
never questioning
the logic
... donning the uniforms
of
white middle class
conformity
cheerleaders
basketball players
track and field
athlete stars
marching band
and
"like oh my gawsh's"
... replacing
any kind of anger
questions
hurt
with
"please"
and
"thank yous"
and
"PTL's"
"praise jesus amen hallelujah
PRAISE THE LORD"
... like susan some of us grew up and forgot
(narnia)
saying
"oh yeah korea?
that was a nice game of make believe
now lets be grown-ups"
some of us like lucy
tumbled through a wardrobe
without hesitation
just believing
... i
more like edmund
was a traitor
...
wanting
needing to believe
angry from
not knowing
how to
name this
rage
...
II,
which one in this mirror is me?
which one of us is the
TRUE
korean
i am focusing
she is looking without knowing
she stares straight ahead
its the woman in the background
who haunts me most
korea's ghost
we are
products of our
country's
export laws
see now
what the west has won
see now
what the east
has
looked away from
she stares blankly straight ahead
oblivious
thinking us
"kyopos"
when really
we are
ibyang.
the past couple days - daegu and white lily and a lot of fish
first: images and facts... to be followed by word rambles
took the train from seoul on friday ...
down to daegu with su-yoon... julie... and "gabi" the interpreter
upon arriving we checked into our motel... (more on that motel later)
... and got a cab to white lily - where julie was adopted from...
we were greeted by sister theresa... or terry... or... tess... a... nun with a sense of humor and generosity... (more on her later as well)
white lilly no longer serves as an orphanage but instead as a montessori... (closed in 1994) ... it is (in my opinion) a former ghost of itself... a story that will be told... known by only a few... already it is receding into some kind of past memory... it seemed that every question received an "i dont know" or "the files are gone" ... but they do still have the basement where the orphans were kept... which... my cynical side found almost humorous (thought to self "oh sure keep the orphan babies in the basement")
sister theresa... was a world in and unto herself... and if there is a heaven im sure that she shall be leading the comedic relief section...
i wondered a lot about the phrase "a history erased" ...
upon leaving white lily (after sister theresa had bought us dinner and shared wine made by the sisters - with us (memories of homemade wine in sirvintos with rita and her family and memories of rita's stories about her grandmother getting drunk off of siphoning the wine) we were picked up by a taxi driver who mistook us for future nuns (thought to self at that moment of friends in minneapolis "see! i told you!!!) who was quite concerned about our religious beliefs and our finding our birth parents (thought to self: he's like the white people - everyone telling us how we need to feel and what we should do next)
gabi headed back to seoul... and we went back to the motel waiting for anja and sora to arrive...
come to think of it... if there is a heaven i think that gabi will be the one taking photos of every little nuance on her mobile phone and squealing in delight... that being... if there is a heaven and if heaven has mobile phones
we spent the next day wandering around daegu shopping... and shopping... and shopping... and shopping... i swear to whomever that i have not shopped this much since i was 18 as i have in the past 3 weeks... i could only think of friends back home who would have been in some kind of shopper's paradise... you go into a kind of shopper's trance...
the streets in downtown daegu were literally named for what was sold... i.e. "herbal medicine street" and "sock street" and "rice cake street" ... personally i was most fascinated with "fish pole street" (ok it wasnt a full street just one giant telephone pole pegged with fish... )
daegu (according to the web and tour books) is known for its textiles apples and beautiful women... apparently several miss korea's have come from daegu...
... ive tried to contain my jealousy on that one ;-)
anyhow... so here are images from shopping and shopping and shopping... and the "shanel motel" which was located near the versace motel and the bulgari motel... designer rip offs are everywhere... ive collected some cards from the entrance of the motel steps that i think some friends back home may enjoy (a bit too much)
oh and i also had this huge fascination with the fact that the building outside of our hotel room had 40 replica busts on its walls... tis true that it is the little things in life which matter most...
we left daegu today (sunday) ... and just got back from the casino tonight - casinos are only open to foreigners... went with su-yoon julie anja and scott higgins ... (somehow i think that grandma and grandpa wall would quite like the idea of scott and i hanging out in seoul playing blackjack... )
unfortunately pictures werent allowed in the casino... gailor - im sure that you will be able to get a pretty good mental image of what i will look like (fixated on the slot machines)
tomorrow is our last full day in seoul... in korea... we'll have been here for about 3.5 weeks...
i dont know that being here has resolved any questions... more than anything raised more - the unresolved no longer feels avoidable... ... which i guess ive always suspected would happen... hence my waiting so long to return...
but ... im glad that we have come here... im glad that i had a friend to come with... more specifically im glad that julie and i were able to do this together... 3.5 weeks and we havent killed each other... (im sure shes had moments of wanting to throttle me... )
but in all seriousness... not only for the fact that its incredibly difficult to travel with another person plus to do so overseas... plus to do so for 3.5 weeks where you are together everyday... and then to compound it with the reality that this has not and was not just some winter holiday... but rather... coming back to the place that we were born... when we both have different intense emotions about it... i dont know... to say the least...
i am grateful.
... ....
going back to minneapolis... i dont know... how i feel about this... whiteness... realities... questions from friends... im not ready to be bombarded nor to cheapen this whole experience with tales of "we saw this and went there" nor am i ready to explain the things that i have yet to share... ...
... and yet it will be quieter... less crowded - no one to shove past or be shoved by... no people spilling out from the underground... no 4am busy streets... etc etc etc... back to the solitude of my flat... staring out the window feet propped up on the sill... staring onto the neighbor's backyard...
and i do have the concept for the play that im supposed to write for the playwrights center for the spring... got it over a week ago sitting in a bar listening to some band play... i have the title and the idea - the direction i want to head or rather that it wants me to head...
but
... i also have more anger... or... i now know what my anger is... ive not been able to name it for 32 years... and now i know it... and to name a thing is to know it...
i know that i believe that international adoptions need to come to an end... that celebrities are not heroes for collecting babies... that what needs to happen is for the social system in countries like korea needs to be changed - re-structured so that its children are not being sent away....
i know that i believe that ... it is important to grow up in the country where you were born... or rather to have the choice...
that love... does not make everything ok... that love is not an excuse to erase someone's history...
that adoptees... are their own breed... their own race...
we are neither here nor there...
its hard to explain this
i think ive been trying to...
... i cant help but wonder... what it would have been like to grow up here... i never used to wonder about this... but now i think about it all the time...
ive never felt proud of being from florida or the states... maybe thats why it was always so easy to assimilate into whatever culture i lived in overseas... this is the first time in my life that i have ever genuinely felt proud of being from a place...
i know that i am not "korean" ... but i was born here... and i am proud of this... and proud to see the people with all of their idiocyncrisies (only men can smoke in public... if youre over the age of 50 its ok to cut everyone in the que... to hack snort spit and hock in public... for alternative lifestyles to be declared "non-existent" ... that a pound of coffee costs more than my winter electric bill and just a little less than when i have the a/c running... etc etc etc) ...
... i AM looking forward to seeing friends again... to have time alone... to be back in my flat... to smoke where-ever i please... to see the dirty pretty thing that i have found myself missing more than i expected to... to have saturday brunches... (in fact just to have brunch will be wonderful)
but the food the people the sights the sounds the smells the... knowing that this is where i was born and somewhere in this city of 12 million i have a birth mother etc...
... im not sure what it will be like to be back...
i guess just as with any journey... once you leave you never really truly go back... and if you did then it would mean that the journey was for naught.
(photo by julie at "shanel motel" in daegu... all video clips on this blog are also by julie)
took the train from seoul on friday ...
down to daegu with su-yoon... julie... and "gabi" the interpreter
upon arriving we checked into our motel... (more on that motel later)
... and got a cab to white lily - where julie was adopted from...
we were greeted by sister theresa... or terry... or... tess... a... nun with a sense of humor and generosity... (more on her later as well)
white lilly no longer serves as an orphanage but instead as a montessori... (closed in 1994) ... it is (in my opinion) a former ghost of itself... a story that will be told... known by only a few... already it is receding into some kind of past memory... it seemed that every question received an "i dont know" or "the files are gone" ... but they do still have the basement where the orphans were kept... which... my cynical side found almost humorous (thought to self "oh sure keep the orphan babies in the basement")
sister theresa... was a world in and unto herself... and if there is a heaven im sure that she shall be leading the comedic relief section...
i wondered a lot about the phrase "a history erased" ...
upon leaving white lily (after sister theresa had bought us dinner and shared wine made by the sisters - with us (memories of homemade wine in sirvintos with rita and her family and memories of rita's stories about her grandmother getting drunk off of siphoning the wine) we were picked up by a taxi driver who mistook us for future nuns (thought to self at that moment of friends in minneapolis "see! i told you!!!) who was quite concerned about our religious beliefs and our finding our birth parents (thought to self: he's like the white people - everyone telling us how we need to feel and what we should do next)
gabi headed back to seoul... and we went back to the motel waiting for anja and sora to arrive...
come to think of it... if there is a heaven i think that gabi will be the one taking photos of every little nuance on her mobile phone and squealing in delight... that being... if there is a heaven and if heaven has mobile phones
we spent the next day wandering around daegu shopping... and shopping... and shopping... and shopping... i swear to whomever that i have not shopped this much since i was 18 as i have in the past 3 weeks... i could only think of friends back home who would have been in some kind of shopper's paradise... you go into a kind of shopper's trance...
the streets in downtown daegu were literally named for what was sold... i.e. "herbal medicine street" and "sock street" and "rice cake street" ... personally i was most fascinated with "fish pole street" (ok it wasnt a full street just one giant telephone pole pegged with fish... )
daegu (according to the web and tour books) is known for its textiles apples and beautiful women... apparently several miss korea's have come from daegu...
... ive tried to contain my jealousy on that one ;-)
anyhow... so here are images from shopping and shopping and shopping... and the "shanel motel" which was located near the versace motel and the bulgari motel... designer rip offs are everywhere... ive collected some cards from the entrance of the motel steps that i think some friends back home may enjoy (a bit too much)
oh and i also had this huge fascination with the fact that the building outside of our hotel room had 40 replica busts on its walls... tis true that it is the little things in life which matter most...
we left daegu today (sunday) ... and just got back from the casino tonight - casinos are only open to foreigners... went with su-yoon julie anja and scott higgins ... (somehow i think that grandma and grandpa wall would quite like the idea of scott and i hanging out in seoul playing blackjack... )
unfortunately pictures werent allowed in the casino... gailor - im sure that you will be able to get a pretty good mental image of what i will look like (fixated on the slot machines)
tomorrow is our last full day in seoul... in korea... we'll have been here for about 3.5 weeks...
i dont know that being here has resolved any questions... more than anything raised more - the unresolved no longer feels avoidable... ... which i guess ive always suspected would happen... hence my waiting so long to return...
but ... im glad that we have come here... im glad that i had a friend to come with... more specifically im glad that julie and i were able to do this together... 3.5 weeks and we havent killed each other... (im sure shes had moments of wanting to throttle me... )
but in all seriousness... not only for the fact that its incredibly difficult to travel with another person plus to do so overseas... plus to do so for 3.5 weeks where you are together everyday... and then to compound it with the reality that this has not and was not just some winter holiday... but rather... coming back to the place that we were born... when we both have different intense emotions about it... i dont know... to say the least...
i am grateful.
... ....
going back to minneapolis... i dont know... how i feel about this... whiteness... realities... questions from friends... im not ready to be bombarded nor to cheapen this whole experience with tales of "we saw this and went there" nor am i ready to explain the things that i have yet to share... ...
... and yet it will be quieter... less crowded - no one to shove past or be shoved by... no people spilling out from the underground... no 4am busy streets... etc etc etc... back to the solitude of my flat... staring out the window feet propped up on the sill... staring onto the neighbor's backyard...
and i do have the concept for the play that im supposed to write for the playwrights center for the spring... got it over a week ago sitting in a bar listening to some band play... i have the title and the idea - the direction i want to head or rather that it wants me to head...
but
... i also have more anger... or... i now know what my anger is... ive not been able to name it for 32 years... and now i know it... and to name a thing is to know it...
i know that i believe that international adoptions need to come to an end... that celebrities are not heroes for collecting babies... that what needs to happen is for the social system in countries like korea needs to be changed - re-structured so that its children are not being sent away....
i know that i believe that ... it is important to grow up in the country where you were born... or rather to have the choice...
that love... does not make everything ok... that love is not an excuse to erase someone's history...
that adoptees... are their own breed... their own race...
we are neither here nor there...
its hard to explain this
i think ive been trying to...
... i cant help but wonder... what it would have been like to grow up here... i never used to wonder about this... but now i think about it all the time...
ive never felt proud of being from florida or the states... maybe thats why it was always so easy to assimilate into whatever culture i lived in overseas... this is the first time in my life that i have ever genuinely felt proud of being from a place...
i know that i am not "korean" ... but i was born here... and i am proud of this... and proud to see the people with all of their idiocyncrisies (only men can smoke in public... if youre over the age of 50 its ok to cut everyone in the que... to hack snort spit and hock in public... for alternative lifestyles to be declared "non-existent" ... that a pound of coffee costs more than my winter electric bill and just a little less than when i have the a/c running... etc etc etc) ...
... i AM looking forward to seeing friends again... to have time alone... to be back in my flat... to smoke where-ever i please... to see the dirty pretty thing that i have found myself missing more than i expected to... to have saturday brunches... (in fact just to have brunch will be wonderful)
but the food the people the sights the sounds the smells the... knowing that this is where i was born and somewhere in this city of 12 million i have a birth mother etc...
... im not sure what it will be like to be back...
i guess just as with any journey... once you leave you never really truly go back... and if you did then it would mean that the journey was for naught.
(photo by julie at "shanel motel" in daegu... all video clips on this blog are also by julie)
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