aBit of… KOREAN HISTORY, Part 1: Just Like Me
When I was around eight years old, my older brother, age eleven or so, bought a large hardcover book from Barnes & Noble called “US Small Arms of World War II,” a comprehensive guide to the exact subject matter named in the title. While the weaponry itself wasn’t enough to hold my attention, I found the book a solid gateway drug into the history of the war itself. I soon found myself engrossed in narratives from American operators on their various encounters during the European campaign: futile attempts at keeping warm without a fire in trenches and foxholes, discovering their first concentration camp and staring at the emaciated faces of people classified as ‘undesirable’; dropping from the sky to fight a foreign enemy in the name of freedom.
We read this book until the pages literally began falling off.
In contrast, it took me a very long time to study up on my native Korea, and it wasn’t until my early twenties that I began my research. While I spoke Korean fluidly and without an accent, I was by no means fluent, and I had no interest in changing that. I’m sure those who grew up as immigrants or TCKs or whatever in the 90s are well aware of the fact that it was decidedly uncool to be foreign back then. In some ways, it’s still regarded as more of a gimmick now than a real movement, but the sideways glances, slanting of eyes, and the myriad variations of “ching chang chong” were definitely more common, overt, and intentional then than they are now.
By fourth or fifth grade, I had grown tired of my classmates’ rankled noses and looks of disgust at my lunches comprised of kimchi, braised lotus roots, and purple rice.. As I grew, so did my resentment for having been born Korean. I rolled my eyes at the various attempts from K-pop labels to market 2PM, Wonder Girls, and Big Bang in the US. I either ignored people who spoke to me in Korean or responded solely in English, and shushed my parents in public, as if speaking more quietly would make our eyes larger, our hair less black, and our skin less yellow. Instead of learning to embrace my roots, culture, and people, I became more and more intentional, almost aggressive, in distancing myself from them.
There are two scenarios where people make this face:
When a song is a certified banger
When a classmate’s lunch isn’t a ham sandwich
It was my trip to Korea in 2016, my first since I was a child, that finally helped me to reflect on and unseat my deeply entrenched self-hate. Among the many sights I beheld there, I was most surprised by the fact that everyone there, from the shop owners to the construction workers to the police officers, was (quite obviously) Korean - just like me (!). The goings-on of a neighborhood in Korea seemed to weigh differently on me compared to a Korean neighborhood, because as opposed to the latter, where Koreans gathered to create what is essentially an ethnic panic room, outside of the former were more neighborhoods and towns and cities just like it that were also de jure Korean. Looking back, this experience was pivotal in normalizing and validating the Korean part of my identity in the depths of my own mind.
I made it a personal mission to photograph as many bowlcuts as possible during my time in Korea. This one features five. Feel free to ask about my Google Drive folder titled “Bowlcuts of Korea.”
After I left, I started speaking more Korean. I studied my people’s long history of resistance and valor, which wasn’t all that different from the WWII narratives I loved so much. I started bringing Korean food to work and even sharing with colleagues. I stopped shunning the Korean part of my identity and finally began exploring it. The trip ultimately taught me that growth isn’t always about moving forward in time. There is value in revisiting your past, not just to pat yourself on the back for how far you’ve come, but also to reclaim parts of yourself you lost along the way.
Chapter .26 features the HANBOK cardigan in a beautiful linen-like ramie-cotton blend, as well as the all-new HANBOK t-shirt and pleated shorts, which were inspired by Joseon-era methods for garment construction, fine-tuned for style and comfort in 2024. Alongside our anticipated custom hand embroidered Dickies pants, knit tops and bottoms, an exclusive t-shirt is set to release strictly to FAMILY & FRIENDS only. Early access password for the chance to purchase the exclusive t-shirt will be sent to email subscribers only on Saturday, June 22nd at 9AM EST. The rest of Chapter .26 will go live to the public at 1PM EST. See below for images.
Join us for the next couple of months for some additional coverage on our Korean heritage-inspired story.
