A Sense Of Belonging

I'm trying to put form to my thoughts and it's very hard. I'm a bit too emotionally involved to keep an objective optinion, and don't really know the nooks and crannies of words like ethnicity, so I'm going to run with my gut.

Since I believe genetics is half of what I am, it means that from my viewpoint at 4 months of age someone locked the door between the two rooms and left me in the swedish part, and I willingly upheld this. People would point out the door but I gave pre-set answers and shied away from thinking about it. "Korean" was just a word. When I looked in the mirror, not many days ago, for the first time of my life, I felt Korean. I felt not just like a fake carbon copy, like a Swede with korean colors painted on, like I have before when people have asked me where I'm from. Instead for the first time I *understood* that I'm Korean, like the difference between mechanically solving a mathematical problem and actually understanding it. I felt one with my physical form. Toes dug deep in the sand. It passes, of course, like feelings do. But it was the first time of my life I felt whole. Maybe that is because I've never felt at peace with my physical form, and it's mostly been trouble for me. Maybe it's because I've always felt largely different from most people and have combined that with looking different. Maybe because I haven't felt that I really belong, really is in the right place, ever, anywhere. But I cannot deny what I saw and felt, nor the lasting impression it made. It is as if I can hold my head higher now.

So having Belgian blood doesn't make you Belgian, and people taking you for an American doesn't make you American. What does make you what you are then? And does that mean you do not consider yourself Belgian at all? I have always known I am Korean. Just like I have always been one to carefully consider before making an attempt at something - as a child I never crawled; I watched, waited and then walked. Culture, ethnicity, race, call it what you want. I care not for the labels. Does my form matter: yes, it does. It is as important to my identity as my opinions, my routines and my preferences. In fact, parts of those are shaped by my physical form. To take that to it's limit; would I have been the same without my crippled leg? Who knows. Maybe I inherited that from my father. It's not hard to extrapolate that sense of belonging to a people. Why do you feel Swedish, and not, say, just connected to your family line?

If there is only "culture" and no "ethnicity", then what is it I feel when I see people similar to me? Had people told me I was chinese or japanese, I might as well have felt chinese or japanese. I do not claim the ethnicity of Korean, or to ever become. I claim to be a Korean adopted to Sweden, and I claim my right to the full extent of that state of being, and that includes a Korean piece of identity. This isn't a huge intellectual venture. It's a gut feeling, and I've learned that those refuse to be ignored. And I don't think there is such a thing as "genetics alone". The two comes inseparably as far as we can tell, for now at least.

How can genetics play a part in an individual's personality but not on a grander scale? Genes are inherited from our parents, and shared by our siblings, and in extension that means more and more people. Different circumstances will force the expression of the same traits in different ways, and it will become diluted, but I have family over there, they are Korean, their ancestors were Korean. I may have a bit of Chinese or Japanese or Mongol, of course. If I say "they are my people", maybe you could argue me out of it eventually, intellectually. But the fact remains that I came from their blood, from their soil, from their culture.

How can appearance can be a cultural phenomenon? I can see that my hair is black and has a different texture and that my skin has a different tone. I can feel that my nose is different, even if I can't see it. A mirror puts it on the edge but is in no way the limit. Without surroundings, would I care about my form? Humans cannot live without surroundings, as little as we would exist without genetics.

Can we know how much is nature and how much is nurture? No. Not yet, maybe never. So it's difficult to say if any race have traits that are more genetically common. So for now that topic is on hold on a "who knows".

Mirror Mirror On The Wall...

I dreamed something tonight that I can't really remember anymore, but I loved it and I woke up with a sense of confidence. I managed to shower and do hair and make-up together with my usual morning routine in the same amount of time, and when I stood there, all gussied up in front of the mirror, I though "I should cut my hair myself, instead of going to a salon and paying money for a hairstyle I don't want. I'll do it right now." And I fetched the scissors, but then remembered how much time it takes just to cut the bangs, and left the scissors there as I went to work.

I came home, saw the scissors, and cut my hair. It took quite some time. Showered, dressed up, fixed my hair, although to my great disappointment there was no wax or gel in the house so it only went so-so, and put on party-style make-up - and more. And looked myself in the mirror and thought:

"I'm Korean."

I cut it according to one of the styles Jaejoong have had his hair, as I remembered it in my head (I've compared it now and it's pretty good to be from memory) and put on my Korean jewelry, and did the make-up as I saw a Chinese girl do on YouTube. I dunno what the difference is, really, but...

I look like all those people I've been watching on YouTube, the strange black-haired, almond-eyed ones. I look like him; like JaeJoong. I feel like I found my roots and was torn out of the ground at the same time. God what have I done? Why did I cut my hair like his, why did I put on make-up like this, what will people think? What will they see? Am I the Swede pretending to be Korean or the Korean pretending to be a Swede? Who am I?

But the mirror answered well enough. Korean.

An Answer

I feel that my answer on Nightflyer's comment on the previous post became too long to be a comment. I imagined that someone would think what she thought about what I wrote, but decided to post it as it was to let whatever come come. Because when you ask the question, you'll get your answer. Because this is what I wanted to say:

I understand what you want to say, and I agree, mostly. But that everyone can make their own happiness doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it easier on everyone. It doesn't mean we should ignore shit people throw at us, "turn the other cheek". Even if fact is that life deals you cards under the table, you don't just sit down and take it. You stand up and shout. Because whether or not it helps you, whether or not it helps the ones who come after you, it makes you feel better. It gives you the special word for "pride" or "honor", self-respect, that Asia uses, that we here in Sweden have replaced with "lagom".

That I am adopted is an issue in itself. One I will, and am, dealing with. What's done is done. The question whether international adoption should or should not be performed, however, is a completely different issue and on a different level.

What I dealt with the first post was basically my own feelings and the beginning of me connecting to where I am from; because it is true that where I am from does have significance in the choice of where I will go tomorrow. I am also very aware of that I am the one who have cut myself off from my heritage.

The previous post, however, is aimed more at the later issue, an attempt to bring the question into the light. Adoption has always been seen as a good thing, right? I question that. I propose that it might even be bad, and I'm not the only one. I do that counting all information I know at this point, logically, and that my own feelings agree is only another fact that supports this theory. I am a part of my own test-group. Not scientifically viable, but in real life a rather commonly practiced form. I want people to think about whether what Korea practices is adoption or a dandied form of selling humans.

Listening to someone feeling sorry for themselves is quite annoying. I know I do my own bit of whining, but for your information quite a lot of it is venting and/or the author side of me going haywire because strong emotion is the best food for words and letters. I'd say my flaw is to blame stupidity and systems created by stuidity for all my problems instead of dealing with myself, but I do not feel sorry for myself. I have chosen my path; I could have made it easier, but I will not. Neither would I change the fact of my adoption if I could. I never said I'd rather have stayed where I was; I have no idea how life would have been or who I would have been; quite frankly I have never thought about it. Can't change the past. No point in thinking about whether I would want to.

I know you know me better than most. Do you think I would take an opinion because "everyone says so"?

The land of opportunities

I'll actually continue a bit on the last subject, because I've been thinking a lot about it since I wrote. I've read a lot of stuff, Korean language, history, culture - and viewpoints about adoption coming from both Korea and Sweden. It gives me a growing feeling of that I've unknowlingly chosen to ignore a large part of my life.

Here's some facts that can't be denied:
Many adopted Koreans return to live in Korea when they're adults. Many of those never feel at home there either.
Suicide is considerably much more common in people adopted into another etnicity than their born one.
Korea still gives up thousands of children for adoption even as their economy is now well above the average line. Adoption within the borders are very uncommon. They make millions off foreign adoptions every year.
Korean culture still carries the remnants of a time where an unmarried woman could not have a child. Most children up for adoption come from single mothers.
Sweden adopts many more children from Asian countries than others, like Africa.

There is a strong feeling of sitting between chairs, so to speak. For some reason I'm not yet at the point of being angry, or even accusing, of Korea. Maybe because I've recently read about how rough the road has been for her. But she gives many opportunities. I'm slightly less inclined to give Sweden the nice treatment. Have anyone ever informed parents or the people working with adoption about the skyrocketing suicide rates, about the feeling of sitting between chairs? Sure, it's better than leaving children starving on the streets. But kids in Korea are hardly starving on the streets anymore.

I met the other Korean girl I talked about. We just had a night on town, and as if fate intervened we ran into a group of Korean tourists. They were exalted about every little thing we had to say, though the hardly spoke english. Apparantly I have the same name as a famous Korean singer. They asked who we were, where we were from. My friend knew the Korean word for adopted. All the women of the group said "aaaahhh," and tilted their heads. I got the distict feeling they felt sorry for us.

Maybe they should.

Korean

I've been watching the Olympics. No, I won't ramble about sports and stuff. What I will ramble about is nationality and identity. See, these laste six or eight months I've been feeling myself changing a lot on a certain point. Confidence. And within that lies the fact that I've changed attitude to myself being Korean.

Before I've always ignored it. Seriously. As a child I avoided mirrors. When people pointed it out or asked questions I just turned my head off and answered blank statements that I'd learned from listening to mom. I kept myself completely, utterly neutral to the fact and held it at arm's length. It didn't exactly damage me. No one ever made me do it. I just chose to not handle it at all. (Being made easier by the fact that I've been lucky enough to never have encounteder racism.)

This christmas I met an old man who had been everywhere and met everyone and had had four wives. He was always blunt to the point of rudeness. As soon as he saw me he started talking about that I should go to Korea and find my biological parents. I got angry, actually, but he just kept talking about how nice Korea was and how beautiful the women were and how they all spoke english so I wouldn't have a problem speaking to them. (Not true, as I've found out, the english that is.)

But it got my head going, and the more I thought, the more I felt... maybe. Maybe I should. Another guy at school, also unafraid of speaking his mind, had a theory that the bond between mother and child the first few weeks or months are very important, life-defining. I asked him face to face if he thought being adopted disrupted that and he said yes. People around got uncomfortable, but the oddity that struck me when he said it, was that I agreed.

And this week put two more nails in the coffin, so to speak. For one I watched the Olympics, and the nationalism is always as strongest in sports. I got to see more Korean people than I have in my entire life, and somehow as I saw them, something clicked into place. Just the way they looked and moved. This is my people too. And then I talked to another adopted Korean who have found her family and spoken to them over the phone. They don't speak english, but they talk to her anyway, for some reason. And I felt, as I listened to her story, that it could be me.

It is biologically in our blood, isn't it. The feeling when we stand side by side with someone who shares our genes and our faces and look into the mirror, seeing the ghosts of two of ourselves. And people who have lived with that their entire lives, do you understand it? What you get? I didn't. Not until now, when I'm starting to wonder;

Can you ever replace family?

I'm a mess-y miss-y

Hi. As another pointless, interesting post, and as a continuation on the subject of hairy men, I will mention the conflict between ideals and selves.

We all have some sort of ideal in our heads, right? This is how I'd want to be-ideals. Or this is perfect-ideals. We're quite aware of which parts are possible to achieve and which are not and to which lenghts we're ready to go to get it (like, would you do plastic surgery or agree to be brainwashed?) and those are personal too. I'm thinking something along the lines of: you can think a piece of clothing looks really good and is really beautiful but you'd never wear it yourself. (I'm writing "you" when in fact I mean "I" but you know that already.) You can admire a trait in someone else but not want it for yourself. I'm talking a lot about appearance here but that's because that's how this came to mind for me.

So it's about striking a balance, isn't it? I want to say the only thing that matters is what you think of yourself but I'd be lying. You also have to like the person other people see when they look at you because that is also you. Identity isn't just yours, it belongs to everyone. So.

As for me, I'm often surprised at how well people can understand me, sometimes, because most of the time it feels like I'm running around doing random stuff, wearing random stuff, thinking it's smart because it shows people who I am but I fail. I guess that means I don't fail. But then I'm pissed because I'm so predictable.
It's a mess, isn't it. ^^

Tell me something;

Who am I?

The question of whether I am a man or a woman confounds me; are there only two possible standards? Must I cathegorize myself in one of these? Does who I love and don't love make a difference, do I have to put these labels on myself in order to come to peace with myself? In the final choice, I have simply pointed to my born body to avoid making a decision. Nature made me woman. But does that mean I am a woman? Would changing my body make me a man, any more than I am woman now?

Am I the sum of my actions? The total of my projects? The thoughts in my head? Am I who I think I am, or who you think I am, or is there a universal constant somewhere? Identity has as many variations as there are humans. I know who I am, I can feel the essence of my creature, but does that really make a difference? For the rest of me, thoughts, actions, body, appearance, behavior, clothes, the color of my eyes, it must all contribute to who I am, right? Having a female body doesn't make me a woman, any more than being able to write makes me a writer. But does being a woman mean I have a female body, and being a writer mean I can write? That man can be born in the "wrong" body seems the be generally acnowledged through transexuals. That there are wonderfun writers out there who never got the education to put it to use, I have no doubt. Are these the only options? Is there only "right" and "wrong"? Is this what being a "human" is about? What if I don't want either?

Does this mean every single point of my character is individual and isolated? No man is an island. Cause and effect. They cannot be unconnected and unaffected. This means that being a woman in a female body makes me different than being woman in a male body. This means every single point of my character stands in delicate balance to every other; that variations are endless, that analysis is impossible. Everything about everyone is a sliding scale with a million points of reference and genres and cathegories are useless and despicable.

Following all this comes the knowledge that: knowing what I am will change who I am.

Therefore: Tell me who I am.