I realize that my blog entries since the “Beautiful or Not” (something like that) entry, my blurbs have been mostly factual and frankly rather boring. To make up for my lack of meaningful thoughts and feelings, I will be as honest and personal as I can in this entry. This might get heavy….I am bracing myself. FYI: If you are easily offended, if you have a sensitive stomach or if you can’t stand someone else’s truth, please stop reading now.
First off: My “Beautiful or Not” entry made way for a number of email responses. The collective response seemed to be “I’ve felt the exact same thing all my life so thank you for putting words to those deep and “secret” feelings.”
So here is how the beauty-thing applies to everyday life:
In the States, I feel ugly because I feel different. I feel different because people treat me differently than they treat white people. They treat me like a second-class citizen, because they consistently assume I am bad, I steal, I am poor, I am uneducated etc.
I feel ugly because when I was a teenager in Sweden I often heard “ching-chong,” “go back to China,” and because my friends constantly had various boyfriends but I didn’t. What normal, white, teenage, Swedish guy would want to be with an Asian girl? Not many, few, none….somewhere in that range of numbers. As juvenile as that may sound, my teenage years were very formative in how I still feel about myself today.
In Korea, I feel like an outsider because I am a foreigner. I can deal with that. I can deal with being treated like a second-class citizen because it’s not based on who I am. It is not based on my skin color. It is not based on assumptions. It is simply based on not being a Korean speaking Korean citizen.
It is NOT personal. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference.
So what do I do about these feelings? What has been the best way of dealing with these feelings? For me it has been talking with people – thanks especially to Linda and Tobias for listening, for asking questions and for caring.
Now, lets leave the appearance topic and go deeper – to happiness and trust.
Happiness.
I am happier in Korea than I have ever been before. I am happy for sunshine, for bad Korean dramas on TV, for 비빔밥 [Bibimbap, a Korean food dish], for my favorite Korean aloe drink and for a number of other small and seemingly insignificant things. I am happy to be here. The Korean language still sounds like complete incomprehensive random sounds/grunts, but I love it and I want to learn it, for I too want to utter complete incomprehensive random sounds/grunts. I love walking down the street and look like everyone else (not like a former place of employment where I was the only person with black hair, except for the cleaning lady (she was fired after a short while; I was laid off after only one and a half year.)) I love trying to describe what I look like when “black hair” or "Asian" no longer does it….you have to be relatively creative here.
Trust.
This is tough stuff. I do not trust. I cannot, and should not, talk about trust. I am filled with mistrust. Many feel this mistrust is due to the abandonment that was their first, relatively speaking, “welcome to the real world”-bang-your-head-against-the-wall sort of experience. I say it may be due to me hitting my head too hard on the sidewalk as my birth mother threw me on the sidewalk before walking away. Ok, blankly honest, I do not trust anyone, but I hope to be able to trust one day.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was deep stuff. I was completely honest with you and I feel strange being this open. But this is it. This is how it is. I do not expect anyone of you to understand me. I am simply telling you how I feel. Accept it or leave it. This is who I am. These are some of my struggles. These are some of my deepest thoughts.
Hey! Don’t say I didn’t warn you in advance…..for I did.
PS: Thanks Linda. I miss you tons.
PS: Tack Tobias. Jag ser fram emot att traffa dig om du kommer hit nar jag ar har.
