K-Haggis

I’m not sure I can ever go back. As I “taste-tested” a spoonful my new concoction of Korean curry with haggis—okay, a spoonful followed by several other spoonfuls—I thought to myself how this dish was so freaking delicious that it was doubtful I could make the old recipe again. Korean curry is fantastic on its own; there’s something so thick and rich and flavorful about it, unlike any other I’ve had the pleasure of tasting. But combined with spicy sweetness of haggis? I could eat it All. Day. Long. (and thus ruin my generally low carb diet along the way…) But it struck me, as I stirred the sauce, that this was the first time I had ever combined genuine ingredients of my ethnicity in an actual dish. Curry from the HK Korean Market (that my mother lovingly sent over via my brother during his training in Glasgow), and potatoes and carrots from Aberdeen, with haggis from locally butchered lamb and beef near Perthshire. My meal was self-representative: Korean and Scottish, with odd bits and bobs from who knows where (perhaps sea-salt from Ireland? Thyme from England? Maybe the cumin and pepper and madras powder is from India, though I don’t know of any family connections there). And yet, though the main ingredients of my curry represent roughly half of each side of my ancestors, you probably wouldn’t see such an even attribution from the way I represented my lineage. Growing up, I always had an absurd pride in the Scot-Irish side of my family, rather than the Korean side, though I was fairly ignorant about both until this past year. Of course, I always told people that I was an American, because I was (Am!) But my impossible name prodded people to insistently ask, “Yes, but where are you really from?” I liked seeing their surprised expressions at the fact that I was half Scottish, and half Korean. Never mind that I knew next to nothing about either line; there is something particularly impressive to Americans about having specific ethnic and national inheritances, despite our claimed pride in being a global melting pot. Though I would never admit it to the other nine-year-old girls in the Sticker Club, whence such questioning often occurred, I was especially proud of the fact that my family could track two majorly PURE lines, while most of my classmates were from a blurred palette of nationalities. However, when it came down to it, I was ultimately proud of the more muddled Scottish side of my dad, rather than the unmistakeable Korean line of my mother. Truly, I only mentioned my Korean ancestry because it was unavoidable in the explanation of my name, but I tried to brush it off as much as possible. This had nothing to do with accents, though it is true that Americans have a strange obsession with English and Irish (and Scottish, since Ireland and Scotland vaguely blob together in their minds) intonations. No, my accent was the distinctively flat, Valley Girl whine of my native California. It had nothing to do with the fact that Scotland was seen as more ‘exotic’ or unique than Korea in my community—in fact, I was the only Asian girl at my school, and one of six in my entire high school church group. The fact is I was always somehow ashamed of my Korean side. I was brought up speaking English, and I loved the language. I devouring multitudes of books in English (yes, I was the nerd reading Les Miserables when I was ten, never realizing the irony that it was translated from French) and I filled countless journals and notebooks of bad poetry and novels in English. In vain my mom tried to teach me Korean. Occasionally she cooked Korean food, which I promptly threw up (except for rice, Soy Sauce, duq soup, and curry). We attended a Korean bible study as well as an English speaking one. She bought me a Korean dress, enrolled me in Taekwondo classes, and continuously hinted of the need to communicate with my grandmother, who was getting elderly. She even sent me to six hours of Korean school every Saturday. I claimed I never learned anything besides reading/writing the characters because I was a teenager in a class of 7-year-olds. But upon reflection, I just didn’t like to acknowledge this other half of myself. A great part of this shame came from the good-natured scoffing of not only my friends, but of my teachers and mentors as well. As I previously mentioned, I had the childhood misfortune of being a self-motivated nerd. This had nothing to do with any direct input from my parents, both of whom were hard-working teachers, yet I can never remember them telling me to “work hard” or “try my best” or “go study”. I think I saw them working, and somehow internalized the belief that I needed, and wanted, to work hard. As a result, I got As. I won spelling bees. I memorized and composed long poems. I led debates. I scored high on the SATs. I went to UCLA. And yet, what did I always hear in return for my efforts? “It’s because you’re Asian”. Always accompanied with that good-natured laugh. Oh how that phrase goaded me. Not just as a kid, but even now, as an adult, smiling politely at my student’s well-meaning parents, or rolling my eyes at my best friend who insists on calling me a “thrifty Asian mama”. I didn’t have enough gumption to purposely flunk a test, but sometimes I wish I did, just to prove that my ETHNICITY (and please don’t mention that socially-constructed, hegemony-building, scientifically-disproved term “race”) had nothing to do with my work ethic. And of course, besides this lack of encouragement or acknowledgement of merit due to my Korean-ness was the obvious fact that many Koreans and Asians in general were not openly valued in the American culture of the 1990s and 2000s when I was growing up. There were no Asian actors in American television, except in some sparse comedic and sidekick stereotypical roles. There were no Asian politicians, writers, chefs, astronauts, policemen, teachers, artists—at least, none whom I could see featured in mass media. This tendency may be changing, though certainly not fast enough! But I’ll get off my soapbox for a moment. For despite these social environmental factors, the issue remains that I was the one who ultimately chose to reject one half of who I was. I was the one who refused to learn Korean so that to this day, my conversations with my grandmother last a maximum of 2 minutes. I am the one who consistently, daily belittles the name my parents gave me, butchering it down to the easiest American pronunciation (think of it as June + ‘hey’, I tell you!), or even the barest “Jay”. It’s not that my Scottish lineage isn’t fascinating, because it is. My great, great, great grandfather immigrated from Buckhaven, Firth of Fife, to Massachusetts when he was a 17 mechanical engineer. He promptly had 4 children, and then died in Cuba from the Yellow Fever, unable to get medical aid from the plantation overseer on account of helping the slaves. His sons became famous pioneers, one marrying directly into Louisa May Alcott’s family. As for the most famous Kirkpatrick ancestor—he was one of Robert the Bruce’s best buddies, the one who would “mak sir” to complete the killing of John Comyn in Dumfries’ Greyfriars church. Yet what makes this lineage more notable to tell than the fact that my grandmother and great-grandmother survived through the Korean war on their own, tightening their belts to keep the hunger pangs at bay? What makes me less inclined to share the story of how they emigrated without father or husband to the U.S. to work in clothing sweatshops, rebuilding their lives again and again despite fire, theft, bankruptcy, and acts of racial violence? If one of the odd characteristics of being American is the fact that I take pride in non-American ancestors embarking on creating new lives for their families, wouldn’t it be just to explore my family heritage in Korea, starting with the numerous first cousins and aunts and uncles whose names I don’t even know, in addition to my Scottish roots? To my new Scottish friends reading this odd, overly-verbose essay of alienation in my own upbringing, please don’t view this as an insult. I love everything I see and hear around me in Scotland—the vast array of both lilting and thick burrs, the fierce pride in Robbie Burns and his epic poetry, especially the one on haggis, the quiet joy as everyone but me hums four repeated refrains of familiar tunes, and even the constant play of shadow and light and rain (especially in Loch Lomond). But being taught in a social justice environment has at least demonstrated to me one thing: my love is not the same as your love. The wide-and-wonder-eyed alien can’t know or love a place the way a native can or does. (Though strangely, I don’t know if I love or know my own California. My Tujunga mountains, now burnt to a crisp, perhaps). And my old American friends, surprised at this sudden apparent emergence of “dis-allegiance”—please don’t take this the wrong way either! Surely all my audiences must be able to see what I’m getting at: the odd, aching feeling of not belonging. For even if you “belong” in your country, are you truly at home in your town, your family, your church, your school, your ethnicity, your education? In the globalization of media, supposedly connecting everyone to everyone, don’t you still question whether your identity is real and solid, and as soon as you feel like you finally fit in, you’re suddenly turned about realizing that the self you believed in all this time is ephemeral, an only partially-recognized refraction in the mirror? The trouble is that I have purposely placed my hands over those tilted half-Asian eyes in the glass, so that I would see without seeing, hear without hearing, my own fragmented half of Korean history. (By the way, this ever-returning ache that occurs to all at some point of life is what Lewis calls “the weight of glory,” a right and true reminder that we are pilgrims in a place that isn’t our home. My thought is that the weight of glory also means that trapped as we are on this side of death, we are aliens without the consummation of our selves. We won’t have faces, our real faces, until we meet Him, face to face.) It’s now night, and by that, I mean after 3:30 pm in Glasgow. My haggis-infused curry is now almost as cold as my fingers, so I think I’ll put away them both away for now and go listen to some fiddle tunes at the Babbity Bowster. One thing I have to say about Glaswegians is that I have never heard anyone say, ‘Oh, it’s because you’re Asian’. Not to say that it won’t happen, since I’ve only lived here 2 months, but maybe my Asian side has finally been overshadowed by my loud-mouthed Americanness? In any case, those of you who have dared to trudge to the end of this post, perhaps from time to time ask me how my K-haggis recipe is turning out. It will be a reminder to me of my determination to know my Korean side, a healthy bout of shame for being ashamed. Again, like I said at the beginning, I’m not sure now if I can ever go back, and I think that may be a good thing.