“What is Korea?”

 

That was the question asked to me last December in an elevator, as I was two floors away from making it out, almost free from hearing whatever the hell that was.

 

I had just come back from getting my hair done. I was feeling good– grateful that it turned out how I wanted and hopeful that others would notice. 

 

But alas, my eyes stole the show.

 

The sole spectator was a man. He was so irrelevant, his two-minute existence on my timeline so fleeting, that I hardly remember enough to write about him. 

 

I didn’t answer the question because frankly, I was dumbfounded. 

 

A bunch of mouth noises stammered out of me. I don’t think I articulated one coherent word. Instead, I stepped off the elevator, continuing to stammer, feeling like an idiot. 

 

This continued down the hallway, into my apartment and bedroom, while I stripped from my jeans into my pajama pants, and as I laid down in bed. Sprawled like a hollow shell, I was numb from bewilderment. Shocked by the stupidity. 

 

Months later, I still think about that moment. 

 

Although I am half-Korean, grew up in the American South, speak the language at a limited proficiency and only recently began smiling while talking about my heritage instead of shaking in fear, I’ve decided to answer that man’s question.

 

– 

 

Korea is not China

 

The story of how I got slapped in the face with those three words begins with the country west of the one in question.

 

“Are you Chinese?”
 

I had gotten on the elevator before him. One floor passed before the doors opened. I hadn’t said anything to him, didn’t even make eye contact. But I guess to him, that was an invitation to speak.

 

“No, I’m Korean,” I said.

 

I was annoyed. I should’ve been angry, but I opted to be tame. That correction was my answer to his question. I thought we’d be done after that.

 

“What is Korea?”

 

We’re back to where we began, because there isn’t much of a middle or end. A choppy, three-line interaction where my upturned eyes did more talking than our mouths. Geography is not his strong suit, but I guess keen observation skills are. 

 

What the elevator man doesn't know is that he is not the first person to ask me that. He’s not even the tenth. He brings up another story that involves the same question. 

 

I was nine, playing on the McDonald’s playground with my friend, who is also Korean and of the same age. A boy– white, maybe two years younger than us– comes up to us.

 

“Are you guys sisters?”

 

“No,” we said. 

 

“Are you guys Chinese?”

 

“No,” we said.

 

–

 

Korea is the word “umma”

 

“Mom.” The first Korean word I learned and the one I use most. 

 

My mother immigrated to America from South Korea when she was in her twenties. The Big Apple was where she planted her first American seeds. 

 

And in me, the Korean ones. She is the one who showed me everything about our culture, which was so fundamental, because that was an education I could not have gotten anywhere else. And one I most likely would’ve never explored on my own. 

 

Although being white is only half of me, it was my whole world, whether I liked it or not. 

 

I was one of ten Asian students in my entire high school. To most, I was only a pair of upturned eyes. Honestly, I could’ve introduced myself like this:

 

“Hello, my name is Ching Chong. I’m really good at math. You can find me being the “Asian friend” in that group of white ones. I also eat dog.”

 

Because that’s who I was to them. 

 

Every night when I was 11, I prayed to God to have a white mom. 

 

I was so ashamed of being Asian that I called upon the heavens to turn back time, before my mom and dad began dating, so that my dad could have married a white woman, thus making me white and more socially acceptable. I didn’t like saying “umma,” I wanted to say “mom.”

 

Was I really that ashamed?

 

Umma, I love you. Thank you for not being white. 

–

 

Korea is Korea

 

It’s taken me a lifetime– literally, my lifetime, 20 years– to accept who I am. I’ve grown and struggled so much to approve of myself, to test the various perceptions others have against me. It took a lot of reworking my internalized racism, questioning why I felt ashamed in the first place. 

 

I began loving my culture during the pandemic, when I had months away from school and endless access to the internet. Once thinking Kpop was cringe, it became what I listened to all day. Refusing to watch Kdramas with my mom, now it was all I binged.

 

I shouldn’t have to answer the elevator guy’s question. Not just because he’s irrelevant, but because society forces the responsibility on people of color to explain why racism is not okay. On top of expending effort every day just to survive within the system that oppresses them, people of color are expected to educate others on behalf of them. We don’t owe them anything.

 

But I’ve spent my whole life forgetting I have the right to speak up, and I’m in the mood to begin practicing now. I am not answering his question for him, I am answering it for me.

Dear Mr. Elevator Man, 

 

Here is your answer: Korea is a country in East Asia. 

 

Korea is pickled vegetables. Korea is clapping while laughing. Korea is being able to do the Asian Squat. 

 

Korea is having your fingertips smell like garlic after cooking. Korea is not knowing what breakfast food is. Korea is Kpop. Korea is really long and awkward but charming Kdrama titles. 

 

Korea is not China. Korea is not eating dog. 

 

Korea is umma. Korea is Korea. Korea is me. 

 

Sincerely, 

Ching Chong