| most everyone living in this region of china are cho-sun-jok, which means that they are korean by heritage, but are chinese by citizenship. i look at all of the students, and they mostly communicate in korean. when i first came to china, i thought that i would be learning a lot of chinese, but i must confess, i haven't learned much of it at all. if anything, i've been brushing up on my korean. all the buses, taxis, shops, salespeople operate in korean! even the signage here is in korean, and i have seen the same lady wearing a han-bok plastered on billboards all across town.
and what's even more interesting to me is how involved the students are with korean pop culture. there's not much american culture here--no one seems to know or care about hollywood, and this is the one place on earth where there are no mcdonalds (which is kind of nice actually). but the shopping malls play korean pop music, and the dvd shops are chock full of korean dramas. everybody watches korean dramas. there are "PC bangs" (internet cafes) scattered throughout town where students go to watch them through the night. fashion, food, fun--all korean. kind of weird, to the point where sometimes i forget i'm in china. i often think i'm in korea.
having said that, you ask students if they are chinese or if they are korean, and they very adamantly and very quickly reply, "i am chinese." i ask, "so if you were watching a soccer match between china and korea, who would you be rooting for?" without hesitation they reply, "for china, of course!" sometimes, i'm even met with a flabbergasted expression, as if! makes me not want to tread those waters anymore.
but i'm fascinated. so i pry a little further. i ask my class what makes or formulates a person's identity. they tell me it depends on where a person is born. and i have to ask, "so, when you look at me, do you see a korean, or do you see an american?" they see a korean. but i was born in kansas city, MO! :) so then they say that i am korean b/c of my blood and heritage. but...their blood and lineage is korean...so...
another sensitive topic: taiwan. one of my teammates is taiwanese, and when the students ask her if she's chinese, she replies, "i'm taiwanese," to which she gets a shocked reaction. when i spoke about this with my roommates, they became incredibly riled up about how taiwan is really a part of china, and i sensed a resentment towards anyone who differentiated the two countries. to them, taiwanese are chinese by blood and heritage. but when i bring up the fact that perhaps the taiwanese consider themselves taiwanese b/c they were born there, they don't really have much to say in response. their faces are obviously upset though.
i'm surprised by the students' loyalty to china, and perhaps that's just evidence of how i was raised in america. i, too, have been indoctrinated by the american ideologies of freedom and democracy, and instinctively think that communism is bad. but is that the proper response when sharing with those here?
i'm reminded of my time in college when i struggled through my quest for an identity. am i korean, or am i american? korean-american? my asian-american studies courses got me all riled up and uber-sensitive towards any hint of discrimination. but ultimately, what got me through that whole awkward stage were two things: first, the freedom and opportunity to think things through for myself, and second, realizing that my true identity was found in him and him alone. all else then became secondary.
not to diminish my cultural heritage. i see now how my identity--korean, american, korean-american--is what positions me to be strategic in his master plan of bringing glory back to himself. in fact, i'm so thankful that i am who i am and that i went through that formative time. when my sense of identity felt elusive, caught "in between," and hanging in limbo, that's when it was so imperative for me to find solid rock to stand on. i am a C first and foremost! and more important than my own identity, is knowing His identity and His attributes that live in me!
i can only hope that that's what the people here might experience one day soon. |
