learning Korean.

Now Playing: Paradise by Coldplay (when she was just a girl, she expected the world, but it flew away from her reach, so she ran away in her sleep.)

I am what they call a second-generation immigrant. I was born here and my sister was born here, and my brother is buried here, but my parents were born overseas. There are too many hyphens in my nationality/ethnicity: I am a Korean/Chinese-Singaporean - Australian. I normally tell people I am just Australian or that I am Korean-Australian, and sometimes I mix it up by just saying I'm Korean. All of the above confuses people, actually, because if I say the first they wonder why I'm not White or Aboriginal, when I say the second they wonder why I'm so dark and not the demure, quiet Asian girl, and when I say the third they babble away in Korean or speak to me in very, very slow dumb-dumb English and all I want to do is drown them in Shakespeare quotes.

When I was little, I was a little superchild. I couldn't write a word (ironic, no?) but I could read anything you put in front of me and I was fluent in two languages (or as fluent as a two year old can be in any language): Korean and English, and I could sing a few Chinese songs.

People pick on me constantly for being monolingual. Which is not really fair, because I am Australian, and just because I look Asian doesn't mean I have had the perfect opportunities or environment to suddenly pick up any language. Learning a language in Australia is really, really hard; the LOTE program in the education system sucks, everyone here speaks English and there aren't that many people to talk to in a foreign tongue. To compound this, I am not Chinese; we don't speak Chinese at home and I don't have any emotional connection to China other than the fact I made my ballgown there. My father is Korean, doesn't speak Chinese, and Korean is very very different to Chinese; conversely, my mother can speak Mandarin and Cantonese but neither are in any way related to Korean, and so English is our only common language, just like most other households in Australia. I can really only communicate in English, although I can understand very basic French if it's said very very slowly and clearly (well, I get the gist of it), and I know the Korean alphabet, and I can understand and speak very, very basic Korean. But for all intents and purposes, I can only really get ideas across to people in English.

I don't remember learning English. I was never read to, never forced to read, never actively taught to read and write. It just all comes so naturally to me, as easy and instinctual as breathing; and every day I learn a little more, get a little better. I get so infuriated with people who don't notice patterns, don't pick things up, don't teach themselves things, don't read things, notice little nuances, and save them for later. 

Another thing is that I love English. I love the language, how it sounds, how it is constructed. It is a beautiful way to communicate. I can manipulate the language to say anything, to articulate my deepest, darkest thoughts, and write them with a flourish. English is my passion. I'm a bit of an Anglophile, and I love England. But it's the language that is my first love.

I talk a lot. I write a lot, too. I love communicating; I really cannot keep secrets. I love telling people things and I love being told things. I love the social interaction of talking, and my opinion of people is based largely on what comes out of their mouths (light travels faster than sound, which is why some people look smart until they start talking). I can only really do this in English; I feel intensely uncomfortable trying to talk to people who don't have a sound grasp of English, and I cannot express myself in any other language. English is my only outlet.

I used to be very (ridiculously) proud of being monolingual. I just didn't feel the need to learn another language. I had little opportunity and no motivation. I got so angry with people being so shocked that English is my only language; it's not exactly like I was born fluent in Cantonese, you know, and most of the people who pick on me are monolingual themselves, and I have a better grasp of English than they do. I wanted people to respect me for my talents in English; I am a damn good English student, but it's only very recently that I've gotten the kind of respect I've constantly strived for; finally, I am an English student, not an Asian try-hard. For far too long my Asian heritage has clouded people's opinion of me, so I became a bit resentful of that. I also grew up in an area where Asians were not exactly the richest or most socially-elite, and so I spent far too much of my childhood wishing that I was some rich white private-school girl. No second language necessary.

Last summer I went back to Korea and spent a lot of time with family. I lived for three months in Korea when I was little and didn't really like it; I was very homesick, and I didn't pick up the language and so I really struggled to communicate, or relate to people who are "family" but I didn't know them at all. I've been back twice since then, and every time I go back I get more and more familiar with my family and with the country, and I've picked up quite a bit of Korean. I can read Korean, and I know the alphabet - if you're really nice I can write down your name in the Korean alphabet for you - and I can speak a little. But for the first time in my life I really feel the urgency to learn Korean. I want to be able to speak to them, get to know them, understand them. I want to be able to go to Korea - incognito, for once - and know the ropes. I look forward to the nerve-racking but exciting trip when I take someone special to Korea and introduce him to a very important part of my cultural heritage and identity.   

Learning another language was one of the many expectations forced upon me as an Asian second-generation immigrant. I'm tired of people taking one look at me and making all sorts of assumptions. I can speak English. I can probably speak English better than you can. I can't speak another language, but then, neither can you, probably. I want to learn another language, and not because people expect it of me or because it's some sort of mandatory obligation of being slitty-eyed, but because I want to, and it's something very personal.