I did a Guest post recently on my friend John's blog about seasonal and occasional Korean foods. You can see the post here.
He is a Korean American in that he is full Korean but was adopted by Americans. Koreans who were adopted by Americans is fairly common. I feel like I have met just as many adopted Koreans as I have Chinese in terms of Asians. Anyways this post is not about being an adopted Asian. It's about Food and how no matter where you grew up there is a deep seeded culture of food that is left in your genes.
In going along with my food theme I thought it would be fun to associate some of my favorite Korean foods with their American cultural counterpart.
Kimchi Bokum bap (Kim chi fried Rice) - I once told my husband Kimchi Bokum is like and equivalent of hamburger helper. It's a quick and dirty food that even a kid could make. You'll almost never see it at a nice restaurant and it's very enjoyable after drinking. Kimchi, rice (not even fresh), an egg or two and your choice of meat ( I like spam or pork). I add about a 2 tsp of butter, a little sesame oil and fry it all up.
Oojinoo (Dried Shredded Squid) - It's like potato chips or popcorn to me. I remember in Seoul when I went to the movies with my brother or friends we would pick up the un-shreded variety outside of the theater roasted with a peanut butter. Chewing those delicious little tentacles was much more quiet then a noisy munch of popcorn.
Dduk boki (spicy korean rice cakes) - If Kimchi Bokum Bap is like Hamburger helper then this is like a late night Mac & Cheese for college kids and drunks. Rice cakes in Lincoln log form in a spicy sweet sauce with onions, fishcake, spam (hotdog) and I like to top mine off with some kraft cheese. I also had in Mandoo (dumplings) and ramen noodles.
Bap (Rice) - Seriously it's like our potatoes, it goes with everything.
Mandoo (Dumplings) - My favorite versions of mandoo is gunmandoo (fried mandoo). That crispy shell surround the delicious meat and veggies is so good. I would pair mandoo with chicken fingers or chicken nuggets but I think the process is much more intense then breading some select cuts of chicken. When you make mandoo you gotta clear out half a day at least to make it worth your while.
Kim-Bap (Korean version of California Roll) - I hope you all know that California rolls were invented mostly for the American consumer. It's like the training wheels of sushi. Kim-Bap is like a Korean version but not training wheels, it just is what it is. Rice rolled with seasoned ground beef (or spam or hotdog), Daikwon (yellow pickled radish), carrots, spinach, rolled egg, are amongst the most common ingredients.
Next time I talk about food on here it's going to be about Korean Drunk foods and bar foods. Bowls of Chex be damned, that's not how they roll in Korea.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Interracial?
My husband who is a White American Male told me that sometimes he forgets I'm Asian. We have known each other since high school which is 17 years. We have been together for a total of 8 years. I speak perfect American English without the slightest Asian accent. I eat the same things any other person in the States would. Are we really interracial as a couple?
By definition because I am of Asian ascent and I look the part of an Asian and he looks the part of a American we are considered interracial but we both have US social security numbers, we were both born here and went to school here. So is the only defining interracial characteristic one's heritage/culture? If we take it that literally we can easily argue that everyone is interracial in some way.
This term interracial is just a big grey area in my head.
The stranger and more comforting thing to me is that my husband doesn't even think of me as an Asian person most of the time. I'm just his wife, his Esther, his best friend and companion. Isn't that wonderful when relationships completely transcend silly terms like interracial?
By definition because I am of Asian ascent and I look the part of an Asian and he looks the part of a American we are considered interracial but we both have US social security numbers, we were both born here and went to school here. So is the only defining interracial characteristic one's heritage/culture? If we take it that literally we can easily argue that everyone is interracial in some way.
This term interracial is just a big grey area in my head.
The stranger and more comforting thing to me is that my husband doesn't even think of me as an Asian person most of the time. I'm just his wife, his Esther, his best friend and companion. Isn't that wonderful when relationships completely transcend silly terms like interracial?
Friday, February 10, 2012
Dating Asian Part 1 - Appeal & history
One of the major parts of life and especially confusing on all parts is dating. Now add into that dating an Asian. It doesn't matter if you are Asian yourself or not it is still a mess. There is always the war of the sexes then you add in cultural prejudices, customs, religion sometimes. It quickly becomes a much stranger task.
When I was in high school I was looking for a particular type of guy. Korean FOB (Fresh Off the Boat) who could break dance. Yes I had very strange standards, to be fair I was in high school, into going out clubbing, raves, break dancing and aggressive rollerblading (yes this totally dates myself). Aside from having a particular type I was attracted to for various reasons dating was a weird beast.
Let me explain at least the first part of my "dream boat" guy when I was in high school.
FOB aka Fresh off the Boat, which to my friends automatically meant it was a Korean person who recently came from Korea. I found them fascinating and like a direct link back to my culture. It didn't even matter to me how poor their English was. I think I actually liked their English to be worse so that I could try to learn Korean from them or make up some sort of communication. Some where in my misguided youth I thought that dating a Korean from Korea would help me identify better. Culturally speaking, dating in Korea when I was in high school was very stunted and different then it is now and vastly different from western style dating. That was back in the mid 90's. Anything too sexual or even mentioning premarital sex was offense and banned from Korean public media. Birth control was even still on the hush hush and you would never see any advertisements for anything sex related or overly provocative at all.
Anyways dating back then was very much idealized by dramas and poetry (yes poetry). Korean culture like many Asian cultures is big into poetry which makes things much more romanticized then they are or need to be. This was kind of fascinating to me as a teen. The idea that someone isn't always trying to get you in the sack and will truly "court" or woo you over. It's all just cake (aka a lie).
Moving on I remember how dating was different with a FOB. First there were the language obstacles and this was just when the internet was starting up and e.mail wasn't as accessible and as it is now. Cell phones and pagers were also rare when I was high school. If they were long distance then it was a lot of letter writing back and forth. If they were local we'd usually be hanging out in a big group so someone could help us translate it out. The funniest is just declaring to each write in our native languages and trying to understand each other or getting a friend to translate. I remember the first time I heard the phrase "Gwe mae roo cho goo shipoo" translates to "I want to bite you" I was a little bit frightened. Then I learned it was a term of endearment to mean, you are so sweet I want to bite you like a peach (fruit).
For me dating a FOB was part of my teen identity crisis. I think being an Asian American teen can be much more confusing then your average all American teen. Not only were you going through all the teen angst and puberty of everyone else you questioned your value and your attractiveness to others around you, at least in my case being a minority. I remember later how some guy friends confessed to liking me but never would of dared to ask me out because they thought I would reject them since they weren't Asian which is funny because I felt the same way in reverse. I sought out other Asians to date because in my head that would be easier and less confusing. In reality it wouldn't of mattered at that age, dating is all confusing as a teen no one knows what the hell they are doing.
I'll stop here because that is a lot to chew on and I think I covered most of my bases of early teen Asian American dating. I'll continue with more stories and the college years in some more posts.
Looking back did you find dating or not dating an Asian part of your identity teen angst? Do you think it helped you or hurt you at all if you did? Does it even matter?
When I was in high school I was looking for a particular type of guy. Korean FOB (Fresh Off the Boat) who could break dance. Yes I had very strange standards, to be fair I was in high school, into going out clubbing, raves, break dancing and aggressive rollerblading (yes this totally dates myself). Aside from having a particular type I was attracted to for various reasons dating was a weird beast.
Let me explain at least the first part of my "dream boat" guy when I was in high school.
FOB aka Fresh off the Boat, which to my friends automatically meant it was a Korean person who recently came from Korea. I found them fascinating and like a direct link back to my culture. It didn't even matter to me how poor their English was. I think I actually liked their English to be worse so that I could try to learn Korean from them or make up some sort of communication. Some where in my misguided youth I thought that dating a Korean from Korea would help me identify better. Culturally speaking, dating in Korea when I was in high school was very stunted and different then it is now and vastly different from western style dating. That was back in the mid 90's. Anything too sexual or even mentioning premarital sex was offense and banned from Korean public media. Birth control was even still on the hush hush and you would never see any advertisements for anything sex related or overly provocative at all.
Anyways dating back then was very much idealized by dramas and poetry (yes poetry). Korean culture like many Asian cultures is big into poetry which makes things much more romanticized then they are or need to be. This was kind of fascinating to me as a teen. The idea that someone isn't always trying to get you in the sack and will truly "court" or woo you over. It's all just cake (aka a lie).
Moving on I remember how dating was different with a FOB. First there were the language obstacles and this was just when the internet was starting up and e.mail wasn't as accessible and as it is now. Cell phones and pagers were also rare when I was high school. If they were long distance then it was a lot of letter writing back and forth. If they were local we'd usually be hanging out in a big group so someone could help us translate it out. The funniest is just declaring to each write in our native languages and trying to understand each other or getting a friend to translate. I remember the first time I heard the phrase "Gwe mae roo cho goo shipoo" translates to "I want to bite you" I was a little bit frightened. Then I learned it was a term of endearment to mean, you are so sweet I want to bite you like a peach (fruit).
For me dating a FOB was part of my teen identity crisis. I think being an Asian American teen can be much more confusing then your average all American teen. Not only were you going through all the teen angst and puberty of everyone else you questioned your value and your attractiveness to others around you, at least in my case being a minority. I remember later how some guy friends confessed to liking me but never would of dared to ask me out because they thought I would reject them since they weren't Asian which is funny because I felt the same way in reverse. I sought out other Asians to date because in my head that would be easier and less confusing. In reality it wouldn't of mattered at that age, dating is all confusing as a teen no one knows what the hell they are doing.
I'll stop here because that is a lot to chew on and I think I covered most of my bases of early teen Asian American dating. I'll continue with more stories and the college years in some more posts.
Looking back did you find dating or not dating an Asian part of your identity teen angst? Do you think it helped you or hurt you at all if you did? Does it even matter?
Monday, February 6, 2012
Joking Around
In the midst of working on this Blog I have gotten a lot of reactions from friends. Many of them don't even realize how much of a struggle it can be for Asian Americans with their cultural identity issues.
Tyrell: distract me
me: BAM!
And some of them just like to push my buttons. I'm so used to this kind of joking I think I've grown a bit callous by it. I make silly racial jokes about Asians all the time and for me it's almost natural to look at the stereotypes and laugh at it. There are times when I forget that it makes some of my non-asian friends uncomfortable.
I was at this book binding party and we were asked to fold paper. My friend looks at me and says something like,"oh you're really good at that". I replied "what because I'm Asian I know origami?" and chuckled. A complete joke and my friend stammered a bit saying how she didn't mean it like that. I knew how she meant it but I was just being an ass.
When I was younger I used to get angry and really offended by this kind of joking around and I think it hurt more then helped. Lashing out at people is not a good way to educate them but if you joke along with them and then politely correct them in a civil conversation it makes much more of an impact. Also when people know that something of your personal make up can push a button they are more likely to remember that and use it against you later. Sad but unfortunate truth. My husband had these two roommates in college. One was white and the other Filipino. Everyday when the two parted the white guy would says "See you on the FLIP side". It seems extremely offense but as long as the Filipino guy didn't care it was just a casual friendly thing they did all the time. I think somewhere as I was growing up sarcasm and ass like jokes became much more acceptable as a way of diffusing the bad taste of stereotypes.
Some would say there is always a bit of truth in jokes and yes I believe that. A lot of Asian jokes do stem from stereotypes but that is no different then jokes on most anything, like women being bad drivers, or men liking sports. I think that is something a lot of Asian Americans lose sight of where offense can be worse then it really is. I suppose the ending statement of this post is to learn not to take it so seriously, it's just a joke, we all make them.
Have you heard any good Jokes lately?
(Don't worry I'm not easily offended or worried about the PC as long as it's not graphic).
Tyrell: distract me
me: ehhh I'm writing a blog on asian identity issues
Tyrell: omg
me: http://letsbeas
Tyrell: you mean how you can't tell asians apart? so it's hard to tell their identitiy?
And some of them just like to push my buttons. I'm so used to this kind of joking I think I've grown a bit callous by it. I make silly racial jokes about Asians all the time and for me it's almost natural to look at the stereotypes and laugh at it. There are times when I forget that it makes some of my non-asian friends uncomfortable.
I was at this book binding party and we were asked to fold paper. My friend looks at me and says something like,"oh you're really good at that". I replied "what because I'm Asian I know origami?" and chuckled. A complete joke and my friend stammered a bit saying how she didn't mean it like that. I knew how she meant it but I was just being an ass.
When I was younger I used to get angry and really offended by this kind of joking around and I think it hurt more then helped. Lashing out at people is not a good way to educate them but if you joke along with them and then politely correct them in a civil conversation it makes much more of an impact. Also when people know that something of your personal make up can push a button they are more likely to remember that and use it against you later. Sad but unfortunate truth. My husband had these two roommates in college. One was white and the other Filipino. Everyday when the two parted the white guy would says "See you on the FLIP side". It seems extremely offense but as long as the Filipino guy didn't care it was just a casual friendly thing they did all the time. I think somewhere as I was growing up sarcasm and ass like jokes became much more acceptable as a way of diffusing the bad taste of stereotypes.
Some would say there is always a bit of truth in jokes and yes I believe that. A lot of Asian jokes do stem from stereotypes but that is no different then jokes on most anything, like women being bad drivers, or men liking sports. I think that is something a lot of Asian Americans lose sight of where offense can be worse then it really is. I suppose the ending statement of this post is to learn not to take it so seriously, it's just a joke, we all make them.
Have you heard any good Jokes lately?
(Don't worry I'm not easily offended or worried about the PC as long as it's not graphic).
Friday, February 3, 2012
I'm American
Back when I was in high school I remember these two brothers that were in orchestra with me. They were ABC's (American Born Chinese). They spoke fluent English without an accent of course. I remember that the younger one from my class would get really annoyed and irritated when people asked him what he was or what kind of Asian. He would nearly spit at them, "I'm American". I always answered that I'm Korean. That is what people expected to hear not, "I'm American". It threw a lot of people off and it used to piss me off a little. In high school I was one of those Asian American kids that wanted to know everything about my culture I felt lost and like I didn't quite belong anywhere. I never dated anyone from my high school partially because no one every asked me out, maybe they were too scared that I was so KP (Korean Proud). I had notebooks with hangul (Korean characters) written on them, K-pop singers in my locker and notebook instead of whomever was popular on the radio at the time. I didn't think I was better then anyone, I just thought I was connecting with my culture. I was even going to a Korean church regularly in addition to my Home church was was predominately white (ok so we were the only Asian family at my church while I was growing up).
Looking back to this guys answer, "I'm American", I think I understand it better now as an older adult. Back when I was a kid I was so blindly proud of my culture without knowing the roots of it just the surface pop-culture that was going on and how nice it felt to hang out with other Korean kids since I grew up only knowing about 4 other Korean families only one of which went to my school district and was my age. I don't know if it is the jackass in me or just the plain truth but when people ask me what I am I find myself answering "I'm American" a lot more because in truth I am. I was born and raised here, my citizenship is for the United States of America. I speak American English fluently. All signs point to the fact that I am American. I'm also just kind of an ass and I like to see the confusion in people since they aren't expecting that.
I have a fun little list of things I like to say when people ask me"Where are you from?".
"Upper Arlington" (that's the city I grew up in)
"Columbus" or "Grandview Heights" (that's where I live now)
"Ohio" (The state I'm from)
"The United States"
"I just came from the Bathroom"
How ever if they were smart enough to ask the question they meant to which is usually "What ethnicity are you?", then I can whole heartily answer "I'm Korean". Which is sometimes followed by their interpretation of "Ahn young haesayo" (Hello) which is just silly to me and depending on my mood for no real good reason at all seems offensive and presumptuous. These are just my feelings. I can only imagine the increased annoyance of friends who are adopted or mixed who encounter the same questions.
Looking back to this guys answer, "I'm American", I think I understand it better now as an older adult. Back when I was a kid I was so blindly proud of my culture without knowing the roots of it just the surface pop-culture that was going on and how nice it felt to hang out with other Korean kids since I grew up only knowing about 4 other Korean families only one of which went to my school district and was my age. I don't know if it is the jackass in me or just the plain truth but when people ask me what I am I find myself answering "I'm American" a lot more because in truth I am. I was born and raised here, my citizenship is for the United States of America. I speak American English fluently. All signs point to the fact that I am American. I'm also just kind of an ass and I like to see the confusion in people since they aren't expecting that.
I have a fun little list of things I like to say when people ask me"Where are you from?".
"Upper Arlington" (that's the city I grew up in)
"Columbus" or "Grandview Heights" (that's where I live now)
"Ohio" (The state I'm from)
"The United States"
"I just came from the Bathroom"
How ever if they were smart enough to ask the question they meant to which is usually "What ethnicity are you?", then I can whole heartily answer "I'm Korean". Which is sometimes followed by their interpretation of "Ahn young haesayo" (Hello) which is just silly to me and depending on my mood for no real good reason at all seems offensive and presumptuous. These are just my feelings. I can only imagine the increased annoyance of friends who are adopted or mixed who encounter the same questions.
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