Passport Country People…

Posted: 7th December 2009 by admin in Uncategorized

For most TCKs, their passport countries and people from passport countries are few of the
things that gives us the hardest time as TCKs

Well, the reason is that we expect more from our passport countries and/or people from passport countries
and it goes the same way for people from our passport countries to us

Anyways, I’ll talk about my own experiences 🙂

Koreans from Overseas:

They’re the category which I am having/had hardest time with

With Koreans from Koreans, if I explain my background and prove that I still act Korean (because I still do),
they accept me more
(It’s true that they see me more as an American/or at least..an alien, but at least I never got a huge vibe
that they look down on me because of that. I’ve heard of worst experiences from other Korean TCKs, and I
wonder why I haven’t gone through those yet)
Besides, we learn from each other as we talk about life in Korea and my life in the U.S.

To me, most Koreans in the overseas who spent some of their significant part of life and who still maintain strong cultural root, are even more conservative than Koreans in Korea
I also dislike the fact that many of them only hang around with Koreans and cling to Korean-American community

Korean-Americans might understand me more somehow, but they are very, very American to the point
that it’s hard to get close to them (the monos I had the most problems with so far are American monos)
From them, I get a feeling that I get judged harshly because of how Korean I act (in their eyes at least) and the fact
that sometimes I want to talk to them in Korean (regardless of the language that they will answer back, as long
as their understanding of Korean is fluent)
Well, it’s because 99% of my friends in the States (and when I was in Bangladesh) are non-Koreans, so it’s
easier to lose the fluency
I also need to understand more of the reason of their judgments toward Korea, especially if it’s harsh
(If any Korean-Americans are reading this post, hopefully they make a comment about Korea to anyone in
more careful way)

Maybe I need at least 1 good friend from that category to prove me wrong if it’s wrong

Koreans from Korea:

As I said at the above, I feel that they’re more accepting than Koreans at overseas because of my personal
experiences
But then, at times, it’s hard to relate to their experiences, especially when it comes to high school and university
The fact that despite the fact that I grew up in Korea 1/2 of my life, most of my memories about Korea is
consisted in 2000-2002 (almost 3 years) era, and the fact that I only have 1 close Korean friend who grew up
in Korea (I have other Korean friends in Korea too, but she’s the only friend out of them who I can say that I am
close to) confirms it
Because Korea is a culture of collectivism, it’s hard to be accepted if people (as a crowd) don’t like you,
while in western culture, people care less about their own friend’s/friends’ opinion(s) as long as they like the
person because of the culture of the individualism
I also wonder how conservative they will be, especially when it comes to love relationship and family
If my husband turns out to be mono Korean? How would he handle my best friends (who are Asian-Americans)
and my other friends who are not Koreans? How would I and him clash when it comes to managing the
household?
I have yet to find out…one of the reasons why I would like to live in Korea for at least short time
At least, I’m thankful that they never made fun of my accent(s) or looked down on me because of how
I speak in Korean so far [while some Americans did…coughs]
Even if I get a 100% confirmation that I don’t belong here, I’ll get lots of lessons out from that experience

  1. Anonymous says:

    *It’s funny though

  2. Anonymous says:

    I think someone could find a lot of similar things to the ones you have described in a certain bottom drawer in a wardrobe in my parents house. 🙂 It seems to be common to most people who travel to keep little things as if they represented their memories. It would be really cool to meet up with a few TCKs sometime, each with his or her own box of memorabilia. But then each could probably fill half a day with stories based on the things they brought. It could be tiring. And there probably would be a lot of sad stories as well. But the sad stories are usually the better ones.